The Works of

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

(1749-1832)

Contents

The Novels

THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER

WILHELM MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP

ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

WILHELM MEISTER’S JOURNEYMAN YEARS

The Short Stories

A TALE

THE GOOD WOMEN

The Plays

THE WAYWARD LOVER

THE FELLOW CULPRITS

GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN

CLAVIGO

EGMONT

THE BROTHER AND SISTER

STELLA

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

TORQUATO TASSO

FAUST: PART ONE

THE NATURAL DAUGHTER

FAUST: PART TWO

The Poetry

THE POEMS OF GOETHE

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Non-Fiction

THEORY OF COLOURS

MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

The Criticism

GOETHE – THE WRITER by Ralph Waldo Emerson

GOETHE by C. E. Vaughan

GOETHE by John Cowper Powys

GOETHE’S FAUST by George Santayana

SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE by David Masson

GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS by John Tyndall

EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE by Sir Walter Scott

The Autobiography

TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE

The Biography

THE LIFE OF GOETHE by Calvin Thomas

© Delphi Classics 2013

Version 1

The Works of

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

By Delphi Classics, 2013

The Novels

Goethe’s birthplace, Frankfurt

Goethe’s birthplace today

Goethe’s parents

THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER

Translated by R.D. Boylan

Published in 1774 when only twenty-five years old, Goethe’s first novel is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical work, which he revised in 1787. It is now recognised as an important novel of the Sturm und Drang period in German literature, which greatly influenced the later Romantic literary movement. The “Storm and Stress” period was a proto-Romantic movement taking place from the late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and extreme emotions were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment.  The novel made the young Goethe one of the true first international literary celebrities.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is depicted as a collection of letters written by a young artist of highly sensitive and passionate temperament, sent to his friend Wilhelm. In the letters, Werther gives an intimate account of his stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim, which is in fact based on the town of Garbenheim, near Wetzlar.  Werther is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there and the artist meets Charlotte, a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Despite knowing beforehand that Charlotte is already engaged to Albert, eleven years her senior, Werther falls desperately  in love with her.

Goethe, close to the time of his first novel’s publication

CONTENTS

PREFACE

BOOK I

BOOK II.

The first edition

Garbenheim, Wetzlar–the town that inspired the setting of the novel

PREFACE

I have carefully collected whatever I have been able to learn of the story of poor Werther, and here present it to you, knowing that you will thank me for it. To his spirit and character you cannot refuse your admiration and love: to his fate you will not deny your tears.

And thou, good soul, who sufferest the same distress as he endured once, draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion.

BOOK I

MAY 4.

How happy I am that I am gone! My dear friend, what a thing is the heart of man! To leave you, from whom I have been inseparable, whom I love so dearly, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me. Have not other attachments been specially appointed by fate to torment a head like mine? Poor Leonora! and yet I was not to blame. Was it my fault, that, whilst the peculiar charms of her sister afforded me an agreeable entertainment, a passion for me was engendered in her feeble heart? And yet am I wholly blameless? Did I not encourage her emotions? Did I not feel charmed at those truly genuine expressions of nature, which, though but little mirthful in reality, so often amused us? Did I not — but oh! what is man, that he dares so to accuse himself? My dear friend I promise you I will improve; I will no longer, as has ever been my habit, continue to ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense; I will enjoy the present, and the past shall be for me the past. No doubt you are right, my best of friends, there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men — and God knows why they are so fashioned — did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity. Be kind enough to inform my mother that I shall attend to her business to the best of my ability, and shall give her the earliest information about it. I have seen my aunt, and find that she is very far from being the disagreeable person our friends allege her to be. She is a lively, cheerful woman, with the best of hearts. I explained to her my mother’s wrongs with regard to that part of her portion which has been withheld from her. She told me the motives and reasons of her own conduct, and the terms on which she is willing to give up the whole, and to do more than we have asked. In short, I cannot write further upon this subject at present; only assure my mother that all will go on well. And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.

In other respects I am very well off here. Solitude in this terrestrial paradise is a genial balm to my mind, and the young spring cheers with its bounteous promises my oftentimes misgiving heart. Every tree, every bush, is full of flowers; and one might wish himself transformed into a butterfly, to float about in this ocean of perfume, and find his whole existence in it.

The town itself is disagreeable; but then, all around, you find an inexpressible beauty of nature. This induced the late Count M to lay out a garden on one of the sloping hills which here intersect each other with the most charming variety, and form the most lovely valleys. The garden is simple; and it is easy to perceive, even upon your first entrance, that the plan was not designed by a scientific gardener, but by a man who wished to give himself up here to the enjoyment of his own sensitive heart. Many a tear have I already shed to the memory of its departed master in a summer-house which is now reduced to ruins, but was his favourite resort, and now is mine. I shall soon be master of the place. The gardener has become attached to me within the last few days, and he will lose nothing thereby.

MAY 10.

A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so happy, my dear friend, so absorbed in the exquisite sense of mere tranquil existence, that I neglect my talents. I should be incapable of drawing a single stroke at the present moment; and yet I feel that I never was a greater artist than now. When, while the lovely valley teems with vapour around me, and the meridian sun strikes the upper surface of the impenetrable foliage of my trees, and but a few stray gleams steal into the inner sanctuary, I throw myself down among the tall grass by the trickling stream; and, as I lie close to the earth, a thousand unknown plants are noticed by me: when I hear the buzz of the little world among the stalks, and grow familiar with the countless indescribable forms of the insects and flies, then I feel the presence of the Almighty, who formed us in his own image, and the breath of that universal love which bears and sustains us, as it floats around us in an eternity of bliss; and then, my friend, when darkness overspreads my eyes, and heaven and earth seem to dwell in my soul and absorb its power, like the form of a beloved mistress, then I often think with longing, Oh, would I could describe these conceptions, could impress upon paper all that is living so full and warm within me, that it might be the mirror of my soul, as my soul is the mirror of the infinite God! O my friend — but it is too much for my strength — I sink under the weight of the splendour of these visions!

MAY 12.

I know not whether some deceitful spirits haunt this spot, or whether it be the warm, celestial fancy in my own heart which makes everything around me seem like paradise. In front of the house is a fountain, — a fountain to which I am bound by a charm like Melusina and her sisters. Descending a gentle slope, you come to an arch, where, some twenty steps lower down, water of the clearest crystal gushes from the marble rock. The narrow wall which encloses it above, the tall trees which encircle the spot, and the coolness of the place itself, — everything imparts a pleasant but sublime impression. Not a day passes on which I do not spend an hour there. The young maidens come from the town to fetch water, — innocent and necessary employment, and formerly the occupation of the daughters of kings. As I take my rest there, the idea of the old patriarchal life is awakened around me. I see them, our old ancestors, how they formed their friendships and contracted alliances at the fountain-side; and I feel how fountains and streams were guarded by beneficent spirits. He who is a stranger to these sensations has never really enjoyed cool repose at the side of a fountain after the fatigue of a weary summer day.

MAY 13.

You ask if you shall send me books. My dear friend, I beseech you, for the love of God, relieve me from such a yoke! I need no more to be guided, agitated, heated. My heart ferments sufficiently of itself. I want strains to lull me, and I find them to perfection in my Homer. Often do I strive to allay the burning fever of my blood; and you have never witnessed anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as my heart. But need I confess this to you, my dear friend, who have so often endured the anguish of witnessing my sudden transitions from sorrow to immoderate joy, and from sweet melancholy to violent passions? I treat my poor heart like a sick child, and gratify its every fancy. Do not mention this again: there are people who would censure me for it.

MAY 15.

The common people of the place know me already, and love me, particularly the children. When at first I associated with them, and inquired in a friendly tone about their various trifles, some fancied that I wished to ridicule them, and turned from me in exceeding ill-humour. I did not allow that circumstance to grieve me: I only felt most keenly what I have often before observed. Persons who can claim a certain rank keep themselves coldly aloof from the common people, as though they feared to lose their importance by the contact; whilst wanton idlers, and such as are prone to bad joking, affect to descend to their level, only to make the poor people feel their impertinence all the more keenly.

I know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who avoids the common people, in order not to lose their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat.

The other day I went to the fountain, and found a young servant-girl, who had set her pitcher on the lowest step, and looked around to see if one of her companions was approaching to place it on her head. I ran down, and looked at her. “Shall I help you, pretty lass?” said I. She blushed deeply. “Oh, sir!” she exclaimed. “No ceremony!” I replied. She adjusted her head-gear, and I helped her. She thanked me, and ascended the steps.

MAY 17.

I have made all sorts of acquaintances, but have as yet found no society. I know not what attraction I possess for the people, so many of them like me, and attach themselves to me; and then I feel sorry when the road we pursue together goes only a short distance. If you inquire what the people are like here, I must answer, “The same as everywhere.” The human race is but a monotonous affair. Most of them labour the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it. Oh, the destiny of man!

But they are a right good sort of people. If I occasionally forget myself, and take part in the innocent pleasures which are not yet forbidden to the peasantry, and enjoy myself, for instance, with genuine freedom and sincerity, round a well-covered table, or arrange an excursion or a dance opportunely, and so forth, all this produces a good effect upon my disposition; only I must forget that there lie dormant within me so many other qualities which moulder uselessly, and which I am obliged to keep carefully concealed. Ah! this thought affects my spirits fearfully. And yet to be misunderstood is the fate of the like of us.

Alas, that the friend of my youth is gone! Alas, that I ever knew her! I might say to myself, “You are a dreamer to seek what is not to be found here below.” But she has been mine. I have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence I seemed to be more than I really was, because I was all that I could be. Good heavens! did then a single power of my soul remain unexercised? In her presence could I not display, to its full extent, that mysterious feeling with which my heart embraces nature? Was not our intercourse a perpetual web of the finest emotions, of the keenest wit, the varieties of which, even in their very eccentricity, bore the stamp of genius? Alas! the few years by which she was my senior brought her to the grave before me. Never can I forget her firm mind or her heavenly patience.

A few days ago I met a certain young V  —  , a frank, open fellow, with a most pleasing countenance. He has just left the university, does not deem himself overwise, but believes he knows more than other people. He has worked hard, as I can perceive from many circumstances, and, in short, possesses a large stock of information. When he heard that I am drawing a good deal, and that I know Greek (two wonderful things for this part of the country), he came to see me, and displayed his whole store of learning, from Batteaux to Wood, from De Piles to Winkelmann: he assured me he had read through the first part of Sultzer’s theory, and also possessed a manuscript of Heyne’s work on the study of the antique. I allowed it all to pass.

I have become acquainted, also, with a very worthy person, the district judge, a frank and open-hearted man. I am told it is a most delightful thing to see him in the midst of his children, of whom he has nine. His eldest daughter especially is highly spoken of. He has invited me to go and see him, and I intend to do so on the first opportunity. He lives at one of the royal hunting-lodges, which can be reached from here in an hour and a half by walking, and which he obtained leave to inhabit after the loss of his wife, as it is so painful to him to reside in town and at the court.

There have also come in my way a few other originals of a questionable sort, who are in all respects undesirable, and most intolerable in their demonstration of friendship. Good-bye. This letter will please you: it is quite historical.

MAY 22.

That the life of man is but a dream, many a man has surmised heretofore; and I, too, am everywhere pursued by this feeling. When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation, whilst we amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes,  —  when I consider all this, Wilhelm, I am silent. I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

All learned professors and doctors are agreed that children do not comprehend the cause of their desires; but that the grown-up should wander about this earth like children, without knowing whence they come, or whither they go, influenced as little by fixed motives, but guided like them by biscuits, sugar-plums, and the rod,  —  this is what nobody is willing to acknowledge; and yet I think it is palpable.

I know what you will say in reply; for I am ready to admit that they are happiest, who, like children, amuse themselves with their playthings, dress and undress their dolls, and attentively watch the cupboard, where mamma has locked up her sweet things, and, when at last they get a delicious morsel, eat it greedily, and exclaim, “More!” These are certainly happy beings; but others also are objects of envy, who dignify their paltry employments, and sometimes even their passions, with pompous titles, representing them to mankind as gigantic achievements performed for their welfare and glory. But the man who humbly acknowledges the vanity of all this, who observes with what pleasure the thriving citizen converts his little garden into a paradise, and how patiently even the poor man pursues his weary way under his burden, and how all wish equally to behold the light of the sun a little longer,  —  yes, such a man is at peace, and creates his own world within himself; and he is also happy, because he is a man. And then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes.

MAY 26.

You know of old my ways of settling anywhere, of selecting a little cottage in some cosy spot, and of putting up in it with every inconvenience. Here, too, I have discovered such a snug, comfortable place, which possesses peculiar charms for me.

About a league from the town is a place called Walheim. (The reader need not take the trouble to look for the place thus designated. We have found it necessary to change the names given in the original.) It is delightfully situated on the side of a hill; and, by proceeding along one of the footpaths which lead out of the village, you can have a view of the whole valley. A good old woman lives there, who keeps a small inn. She sells wine, beer, and coffee, and is cheerful and pleasant notwithstanding her age. The chief charm of this spot consists in two linden-trees, spreading their enormous branches over the little green before the church, which is entirely surrounded by peasants’ cottages, barns, and homesteads. I have seldom seen a place so retired and peaceable; and there often have my table and chair brought out from the little inn, and drink my coffee there, and read my Homer. Accident brought me to the spot one fine afternoon, and I found it perfectly deserted. Everybody was in the fields except a little boy about four years of age, who was sitting on the ground, and held between his knees a child about six months old: he pressed it to his bosom with both arms, which thus formed a sort of arm-chair; and, notwithstanding the liveliness which sparkled in its black eyes, it remained perfectly still. The sight charmed me. I sat down upon a plough opposite, and sketched with great delight this little picture of brotherly tenderness. I added the neighbouring hedge, the barn-door, and some broken cart-wheels, just as they happened to lie; and I found in about an hour that I had made a very correct and interesting drawing, without putting in the slightest thing of my own. This confirmed me in my resolution of adhering, for the future, entirely to nature. She alone is inexhaustible, and capable of forming the greatest masters. Much may be alleged in favour of rules, as much may be likewise advanced in favour of the laws of society: an artist formed upon them will never produce anything absolutely bad or disgusting; as a man who observes the laws, and obeys decorum, can never be an absolutely intolerable neighbour, nor a decided villain: but yet, say what you will of rules, they destroy the genuine feeling of nature, as well as its true expression. Do not tell me “that this is too hard, that they only restrain and prune superfluous branches, etc.” My good friend, I will illustrate this by an analogy. These things resemble love. A warmhearted youth becomes strongly attached to a maiden: he spends every hour of the day in her company, wears out his health, and lavishes his fortune, to afford continual proof that he is wholly devoted to her. Then comes a man of the world, a man of place and respectability, and addresses him thus: “My good young friend, love is natural; but you must love within bounds. Divide your time: devote a portion to business, and give the hours of recreation to your mistress. Calculate your fortune; and out of the superfluity you may make her a present, only not too often,  —  on her birthday, and such occasions.” Pursuing this advice, he may become a useful member of society, and I should advise every prince to give him an appointment; but it is all up with his love, and with his genius if he be an artist. O my friend! why is it that the torrent of genius so seldom bursts forth, so seldom rolls in full-flowing stream, overwhelming your astounded soul? Because, on either side of this stream, cold and respectable persons have taken up their abodes, and, forsooth, their summer-houses and tulip-beds would suffer from the torrent; wherefore they dig trenches, and raise embankments betimes, in order to avert the impending danger.

MAY 27.

I find I have fallen into raptures, declamation, and similes, and have forgotten, in consequence, to tell you what became of the children. Absorbed in my artistic contemplations, which I briefly described in my letter of yesterday, I continued sitting on the plough for two hours. Toward evening a young woman, with a basket on her arm, came running toward the children, who had not moved all that time. She exclaimed from a distance, “You are a good boy, Philip!” She gave me greeting: I returned it, rose, and approached her. I inquired if she were the mother of those pretty children. “Yes,” she said; and, giving the eldest a piece of bread, she took the little one in her arms and kissed it with a mother’s tenderness. “I left my child in Philip’s care,” she said, “whilst I went into the town with my eldest boy to buy some wheaten bread, some sugar, and an earthen pot.” I saw the various articles in the basket, from which the cover had fallen. “I shall make some broth to-night for my little Hans (which was the name of the youngest): that wild fellow, the big one, broke my pot yesterday, whilst he was scrambling with Philip for what remained of the contents.” I inquired for the eldest; and she had scarcely time to tell me that he was driving a couple of geese home from the meadow, when he ran up, and handed Philip an osier-twig. I talked a little longer with the woman, and found that she was the daughter of the schoolmaster, and that her husband was gone on a journey into Switzerland for some money a relation had left him. “They wanted to cheat him,” she said, “and would not answer his letters; so he is gone there himself. I hope he has met with no accident, as I have heard nothing of him since his departure.” I left the woman, with regret, giving each of the children a kreutzer, with an additional one for the youngest, to buy some wheaten bread for his broth when she went to town next; and so we parted. I assure you, my dear friend, when my thoughts are all in tumult, the sight of such a creature as this tranquillises my disturbed mind. She moves in a happy thoughtlessness within the confined circle of her existence; she supplies her wants from day to day; and, when she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching. Since that time I have gone out there frequently. The children have become quite familiar with me; and each gets a lump of sugar when I drink my coffee, and they share my milk and bread and butter in the evening. They always receive their kreutzer on Sundays, for the good woman has orders to give it to them when I do not go there after evening service. They are quite at home with me, tell me everything; and I am particularly amused with observing their tempers, and the simplicity of their behaviour, when some of the other village children are assembled with them.

It has given me a deal of trouble to satisfy the anxiety of the mother, lest (as she says) “they should inconvenience the gentleman.”

MAY 30.

What I have lately said of painting is equally true with respect to poetry. It is only necessary for us to know what is really excellent, and venture to give it expression; and that is saying much in few words. To-day I have had a scene, which, if literally related, would, make the most beautiful idyl in the world. But why should I talk of poetry and scenes and idyls? Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?

If you expect anything grand or magnificent from this introduction, you will be sadly mistaken. It relates merely to a peasant-lad, who has excited in me the warmest interest. As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant. It is Walheim once more  —  always Walheim  —  which produces these wonderful phenomena.

A party had assembled outside the house under the linden-trees, to drink coffee. The company did not exactly please me; and, under one pretext or another, I lingered behind.

A peasant came from an adjoining house, and set to work arranging some part of the same plough which I had lately sketched. His appearance pleased me; and I spoke to him, inquired about his circumstances, made his acquaintance, and, as is my wont with persons of that class, was soon admitted into his confidence. He said he was in the service of a young widow, who set great store by him. He spoke so much of his mistress, and praised her so extravagantly, that I could soon see he was desperately in love with her. “She is no longer young,” he said: “and she was treated so badly by her former husband that she does not mean to marry again.” From his account it was so evident what incomparable charms she possessed for him, and how ardently he wished she would select him to extinguish the recollection of her first husband’s misconduct, that I should have to repeat his own words in order to describe the depth of the poor fellow’s attachment, truth, and devotion. It would, in fact, require the gifts of a great poet to convey the expression of his features, the harmony of his voice, and the heavenly fire of his eye. No words can portray the tenderness of his every movement and of every feature: no effort of mine could do justice to the scene. His alarm lest I should misconceive his position with regard to his mistress, or question the propriety of her conduct, touched me particularly. The charming manner with which he described her form and person, which, without possessing the graces of youth, won and attached him to her, is inexpressible, and must be left to the imagination. I have never in my life witnessed or fancied or conceived the possibility of such intense devotion, such ardent affections, united with so much purity. Do not blame me if I say that the recollection of this innocence and truth is deeply impressed upon my very soul; that this picture of fidelity and tenderness haunts me everywhere; and that my own heart, as though enkindled by the flame, glows and burns within me.

I mean now to try and see her as soon as I can: or perhaps, on second thoughts, I had better not; it is better I should behold her through the eyes of her lover. To my sight, perhaps, she would not appear as she now stands before me; and why should I destroy so sweet a picture?

JUNE 16.

“Why do I not write to you?” You lay claim to learning, and ask such a question. You should have guessed that I am well  —  that is to say  —  in a word, I have made an acquaintance who has won my heart: I have  —  I know not.

To give you a regular account of the manner in which I have become acquainted with the most amiable of women would be a difficult task. I am a happy and contented mortal, but a poor historian.

An angel! Nonsense! Everybody so describes his mistress; and yet I find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses.

So much simplicity with so much understanding  —  so mild, and yet so resolute  —  a mind so placid, and a life so active.

But all this is ugly balderdash, which expresses not a single character nor feature. Some other time  —  but no, not some other time, now, this very instant, will I tell you all about it. Now or never. Well, between ourselves, since I commenced my letter, I have been three times on the point of throwing down my pen, of ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet I vowed this morning that I would not ride to-day, and yet every moment I am rushing to the window to see how high the sun is.

I could not restrain myself  —  go to her I must. I have just returned, Wilhelm; and whilst I am taking supper I will write to you. What a delight it was for my soul to see her in the midst of her dear, beautiful children,  —  eight brothers and sisters!

But, if I proceed thus, you will be no wiser at the end of my letter than you were at the beginning. Attend, then, and I will compel myself to give you the details.

I mentioned to you the other day that I had become acquainted with S  —  , the district judge, and that he had invited me to go and visit him in his retirement, or rather in his little kingdom. But I neglected going, and perhaps should never have gone, if chance had not discovered to me the treasure which lay concealed in that retired spot. Some of our young people had proposed giving a ball in the country, at which I consented to be present. I offered my hand for the evening to a pretty and agreeable, but rather commonplace, sort of girl from the immediate neighbourhood; and it was agreed that I should engage a carriage, and call upon Charlotte, with my partner and her aunt, to convey them to the ball. My companion informed me, as we drove along through the park to the hunting-lodge, that I should make the acquaintance of a very charming young lady. “Take care,” added the aunt, “that you do not lose your heart.” “Why?” said I. “Because she is already engaged to a very worthy man,” she replied, “who is gone to settle his affairs upon the death of his father, and will succeed to a very considerable inheritance.” This information possessed no interest for me. When we arrived at the gate, the sun was setting behind the tops of the mountains. The atmosphere was heavy; and the ladies expressed their fears of an approaching storm, as masses of low black clouds were gathering in the horizon. I relieved their anxieties by pretending to be weather-wise, although I myself had some apprehensions lest our pleasure should be interrupted.

I alighted; and a maid came to the door, and requested us to wait a moment for her mistress. I walked across the court to a well-built house, and, ascending the flight of steps in front, opened the door, and saw before me the most charming spectacle I had ever witnessed. Six children, from eleven to two years old, were running about the hall, and surrounding a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She was holding a rye loaf in her hand, and was cutting slices for the little ones all around, in proportion to their age and appetite. She performed her task in a graceful and affectionate manner; each claimant awaiting his turn with outstretched hands, and boisterously shouting his thanks. Some of them ran away at once, to enjoy their evening meal; whilst others, of a gentler disposition, retired to the courtyard to see the strangers, and to survey the carriage in which their Charlotte was to drive away. “Pray forgive me for giving you the trouble to come for me, and for keeping the ladies waiting: but dressing, and arranging some household duties before I leave, had made me forget my children’s supper; and they do not like to take it from any one but me.” I uttered some indifferent compliment: but my whole soul was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner; and I had scarcely recovered myself when she ran into her room to fetch her gloves and fan. The young ones threw inquiring glances at me from a distance; whilst I approached the youngest, a most delicious little creature. He drew back; and Charlotte, entering at the very moment, said, “Louis, shake hands with your cousin.” The little fellow obeyed willingly; and I could not resist giving him a hearty kiss, notwithstanding his rather dirty face. “Cousin,” said I to Charlotte, as I handed her down, “do you think I deserve the happiness of being related to you?” She replied, with a ready smile, “Oh! I have such a number of cousins, that I should be sorry if you were the most undeserving of them.” In taking leave, she desired her next sister, Sophy, a girl about eleven years old, to take great care of the children, and to say good-bye to papa for her when he came home from his ride. She enjoined to the little ones to obey their sister Sophy as they would herself, upon which some promised that they would; but a little fair-haired girl, about six years old, looked discontented, and said, “But Sophy is not you, Charlotte; and we like you best.” The two eldest boys had clambered up the carriage; and, at my request, she permitted them to accompany us a little way through the forest, upon their promising to sit very still, and hold fast.

We were hardly seated, and the ladies had scarcely exchanged compliments, making the usual remarks upon each other’s dress, and upon the company they expected to meet, when Charlotte stopped the carriage, and made her brothers get down. They insisted upon kissing her hands once more; which the eldest did with all the tenderness of a youth of fifteen, but the other in a lighter and more careless manner. She desired them again to give her love to the children, and we drove off.

The aunt inquired of Charlotte whether she had finished the book she had last sent her. “No,” said Charlotte; “I did not like it: you can have it again. And the one before was not much better.” I was surprised, upon asking the title, to hear that it was . (We feel obliged to suppress the passage in the letter, to prevent any one from feeling aggrieved; although no author need pay much attention to the opinion of a mere girl, or that of an unsteady young man.)

I found penetration and character in everything she said: every expression seemed to brighten her features with new charms,  —  with new rays of genius,  —  which unfolded by degrees, as she felt herself understood.

“When I was younger,” she observed, “I loved nothing so much as romances. Nothing could equal my delight when, on some holiday, I could settle down quietly in a corner, and enter with my whole heart and soul into the joys or sorrows of some fictitious Leonora. I do not deny that they even possess some charms for me yet. But I read so seldom, that I prefer books suited exactly to my taste. And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life,  —  and the friends who are about me, whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence,  —  which, without being absolutely paradise, is, on the whole, a source of indescribable happiness.”

I endeavoured to conceal the emotion which these words occasioned, but it was of slight avail; for, when she had expressed so truly her opinion of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and of other works, the names of which I omit (Though the names are omitted, yet the authors mentioned deserve Charlotte’s approbation, and will feel it in their hearts when they read this passage. It concerns no other person.), I could no longer contain myself, but gave full utterance to what I thought of it: and it was not until Charlotte had addressed herself to the two other ladies, that I remembered their presence, and observed them sitting mute with astonishment. The aunt looked at me several times with an air of raillery, which, however, I did not at all mind.

We talked of the pleasures of dancing. “If it is a fault to love it,” said Charlotte, “I am ready to confess that I prize it above all other amusements. If anything disturbs me, I go to the piano, play an air to which I have danced, and all goes right again directly.”

You, who know me, can fancy how steadfastly I gazed upon her rich dark eyes during these remarks, how my very soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh, glowing cheeks, how I became quite lost in the delightful meaning of her words, so much so, that I scarcely heard the actual expressions. In short, I alighted from the carriage like a person in a dream, and was so lost to the dim world around me, that I scarcely heard the music which resounded from the illuminated ballroom.

The two Messrs. Andran and a certain N. N. (I cannot trouble myself with the names), who were the aunt’s and Charlotte’s partners, received us at the carriage-door, and took possession of their ladies, whilst I followed with mine.

We commenced with a minuet. I led out one lady after another, and precisely those who were the most disagreeable could not bring themselves to leave off. Charlotte and her partner began an English country dance, and you must imagine my delight when it was their turn to dance the figure with us. You should see Charlotte dance. She dances with her whole heart and soul: her figure is all harmony, elegance, and grace, as if she were conscious of nothing else, and had no other thought or feeling; and, doubtless, for the moment, every other sensation is extinct.

She was engaged for the second country dance, but promised me the third, and assured me, with the most agreeable freedom, that she was very fond of waltzing. “It is the custom here,” she said, “for the previous partners to waltz together; but my partner is an indifferent waltzer, and will feel delighted if I save him the trouble. Your partner is not allowed to waltz, and, indeed, is equally incapable: but I observed during the country dance that you waltz well; so, if you will waltz with me, I beg you would propose it to my partner, and I will propose it to yours.” We agreed, and it was arranged that our partners should mutually entertain each other.

We set off, and, at first, delighted ourselves with the usual graceful motions of the arms. With what grace, with what ease, she moved! When the waltz commenced, and the dancers whirled around each other in the giddy maze, there was some confusion, owing to the incapacity of some of the dancers. We judiciously remained still, allowing the others to weary themselves; and, when the awkward dancers had withdrawn, we joined in, and kept it up famously together with one other couple,  —  Andran and his partner. Never did I dance more lightly. I felt myself more than mortal, holding this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying, with her as rapidly as the wind, till I lost sight of every other object; and O Wilhelm, I vowed at that moment, that a maiden whom I loved, or for whom I felt the slightest attachment, never, never should waltz with any one else but with me, if I went to perdition for it!  —  you will understand this.

We took a few turns in the room to recover our breath. Charlotte sat down, and felt refreshed by partaking of some oranges which I had had secured,  —  the only ones that had been left; but at every slice which, from politeness, she offered to her neighbours, I felt as though a dagger went through my heart.

We were the second couple in the third country dance. As we were going down (and Heaven knows with what ecstasy I gazed at her arms and eyes, beaming with the sweetest feeling of pure and genuine enjoyment), we passed a lady whom I had noticed for her charming expression of countenance; although she was no longer young. She looked at Charlotte with a smile, then, holding up her finger in a threatening attitude, repeated twice in a very significant tone of voice the name of “Albert.”

“Who is Albert,” said I to Charlotte, “if it is not impertinent to ask?” She was about to answer, when we were obliged to separate, in order to execute a figure in the dance; and, as we crossed over again in front of each other, I perceived she looked somewhat pensive. “Why need I conceal it from you?” she said, as she gave me her hand for the promenade. “Albert is a worthy man, to whom I am engaged.” Now, there was nothing new to me in this (for the girls had told me of it on the way); but it was so far new that I had not thought of it in connection with her whom, in so short a time, I had learned to prize so highly. Enough, I became confused, got out in the figure, and occasioned general confusion; so that it required all Charlotte’s presence of mind to set me right by pulling and pushing me into my proper place.

The dance was not yet finished when the lightning which had for some time been seen in the horizon, and which I had asserted to proceed entirely from heat, grew more violent; and the thunder was heard above the music. When any distress or terror surprises us in the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. To this cause I must ascribe the fright and shrieks of the ladies. One sagaciously sat down in a corner with her back to the window, and held her fingers to her ears; a second knelt down before her, and hid her face in her lap; a third threw herself between them, and embraced her sister with a thousand tears; some insisted on going home; others, unconscious of their actions, wanted sufficient presence of mind to repress the impertinence of their young partners, who sought to direct to themselves those sighs which the lips of our agitated beauties intended for heaven. Some of the gentlemen had gone down-stairs to smoke a quiet cigar, and the rest of the company gladly embraced a happy suggestion of the hostess to retire into another room which was provided with shutters and curtains. We had hardly got there, when Charlotte placed the chairs in a circle; and, when the company had sat down in compliance with her request, she forthwith proposed a round game.

I noticed some of the company prepare their mouths and draw themselves up at the prospect of some agreeable forfeit. “Let us play at counting,” said Charlotte. “Now, pay attention: I shall go round the circle from right to left; and each person is to count, one after the other, the number that comes to him, and must count fast; whoever stops or mistakes is to have a box on the ear, and so on, till we have counted a thousand.” It was delightful to see the fun. She went round the circle with upraised arm. “One,” said the first; “two,” the second; “three,” the third; and so on, till Charlotte went faster and faster. One made a mistake, instantly a box on the ear; and, amid the laughter that ensued, came another box; and so on, faster and faster. I myself came in for two. I fancied they were harder than the rest, and felt quite delighted. A general laughter and confusion put an end to the game long before we had counted as far as a thousand. The party broke up into little separate knots: the storm had ceased, and I followed Charlotte into the ballroom. On the way she said, “The game banished their fears of the storm.” I could make no reply. “I myself,” she continued, “was as much frightened as any of them; but by affecting courage, to keep up the spirits of the others, I forgot my apprehensions.” We went to the window. It was still thundering at a distance: a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with delicious odours. Charlotte leaned forward on her arm; her eyes wandered over the scene; she raised them to the sky, and then turned them upon me; they were moistened with tears; she placed her hand on mine and said, “Klopstock!” at once I remembered the magnificent ode which was in her thoughts: I felt oppressed with the weight of my sensations, and sank under them. It was more than I could bear. I bent over her hand, kissed it in a stream of delicious tears, and again looked up to her eyes. Divine Klopstock! why didst thou not see thy apotheosis in those eyes? And thy name so often profaned, would that I never heard it repeated!

JUNE 19.

I no longer remember where I stopped in my narrative: I only know it was two in the morning when I went to bed; and if you had been with me, that I might have talked instead of writing to you, I should, in all probability, have kept you up till daylight.

I think I have not yet related what happened as we rode home from the ball, nor have I time to tell you now. It was a most magnificent sunrise: the whole country was refreshed, and the rain fell drop by drop from the trees in the forest. Our companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep also, and begged of me not to make any ceremony on her account. Looking steadfastly at her, I answered, “As long as I see those eyes open, there is no fear of my falling asleep.” We both continued awake till we reached her door. The maid opened it softly, and assured her, in answer to her inquiries, that her father and the children were well, and still sleeping. I left her asking permission to visit her in the course of the day. She consented, and I went, and, since that time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: I know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.

JUNE 21.

My days are as happy as those reserved by God for his elect; and, whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy,  —  the purest joy of life. You know Walheim. I am now completely settled there. In that spot I am only half a league from Charlotte; and there I enjoy myself, and taste all the pleasure which can fall to the lot of man.

Little did I imagine, when I selected Walheim for my pedestrian excursions, that all heaven lay so near it. How often in my wanderings from the hillside or from the meadows across the river, have I beheld this hunting-lodge, which now contains within it all the joy of my heart!

I have often, my dear Wilhelm, reflected on the eagerness men feel to wander and make new discoveries, and upon that secret impulse which afterward inclines them to return to their narrow circle, conform to the laws of custom, and embarrass themselves no longer with what passes around them.

It is so strange how, when I came here first, and gazed upon that lovely valley from the hillside, I felt charmed with the entire scene surrounding me. The little wood opposite  —  how delightful to sit under its shade! How fine the view from that point of rock! Then, that delightful chain of hills, and the exquisite valleys at their feet! Could I but wander and lose myself amongst them! I went, and returned without finding what I wished. Distance, my friend, is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls: the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision; and we desire earnestly to surrender up our whole being, that it may be filled with the complete and perfect bliss of one glorious emotion. But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant there becomes the present here, all is changed: we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

So does the restless traveller pant for his native soil, and find in his own cottage, in the arms of his wife, in the affections of his children, and in the labour necessary for their support, that happiness which he had sought in vain through the wide world.

When, in the morning at sunrise, I go out to Walheim, and with my own hands gather in the garden the pease which are to serve for my dinner, when I sit down to shell them, and read my Homer during the intervals, and then, selecting a saucepan from the kitchen, fetch my own butter, put my mess on the fire, cover it up, and sit down to stir it as occasion requires, I figure to myself the illustrious suitors of Penelope, killing, dressing, and preparing their own oxen and swine. Nothing fills me with a more pure and genuine sense of happiness than those traits of patriarchal life which, thank Heaven! I can imitate without affectation. Happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth.

JUNE 29.

The day before yesterday, the physician came from the town to pay a visit to the judge. He found me on the floor playing with Charlotte’s children. Some of them were scrambling over me, and others romped with me; and, as I caught and tickled them, they made a great noise. The doctor is a formal sort of personage: he adjusts the plaits of his ruffles, and continually settles his frill whilst he is talking to you; and he thought my conduct beneath the dignity of a sensible man. I could perceive this by his countenance. But I did not suffer myself to be disturbed. I allowed him to continue his wise conversation, whilst I rebuilt the children’s card houses for them as fast as they threw them down. He went about the town afterward, complaining that the judge’s children were spoiled enough before, but that now Werther was completely ruining them.

Yes, my dear Wilhelm, nothing on this earth affects my heart so much as children. When I look on at their doings; when I mark in the little creatures the seeds of all those virtues and qualities which they will one day find so indispensable; when I behold in the obstinate all the future firmness and constancy of a noble character; in the capricious, that levity and gaiety of temper which will carry them lightly over the dangers and troubles of life, their whole nature simple and unpolluted,  —  then I call to mind the golden words of the Great Teacher of mankind, “Unless ye become like one of these!” And now, my friend, these children, who are our equals, whom we ought to consider as our models, we treat them as though they were our subjects. They are allowed no will of their own. And have we, then, none ourselves? Whence comes our exclusive right? Is it because we are older and more experienced? Great God! from the height of thy heaven thou beholdest great children and little children, and no others; and thy Son has long since declared which afford thee greatest pleasure. But they believe in him, and hear him not,  —  that, too, is an old story; and they train their children after their own image, etc.

Adieu, Wilhelm: I will not further bewilder myself with this subject.

JULY 1.

The consolation Charlotte can bring to an invalid I experience from my own heart, which suffers more from her absence than many a poor creature lingering on a bed of sickness. She is gone to spend a few days in the town with a very worthy woman, who is given over by the physicians, and wishes to have Charlotte near her in her last moments. I accompanied her last week on a visit to the Vicar of S  —  , a small village in the mountains, about a league hence. We arrived about four o’clock: Charlotte had taken her little sister with her. When we entered the vicarage court, we found the good old man sitting on a bench before the door, under the shade of two large walnut-trees. At the sight of Charlotte he seemed to gain new life, rose, forgot his stick, and ventured to walk toward her. She ran to him, and made him sit down again; then, placing herself by his side, she gave him a number of messages from her father, and then caught up his youngest child, a dirty, ugly little thing, the joy of his old age, and kissed it. I wish you could have witnessed her attention to this old man,  —  how she raised her voice on account of his deafness; how she told him of healthy young people, who had been carried off when it was least expected; praised the virtues of Carlsbad, and commended his determination to spend the ensuing summer there; and assured him that he looked better and stronger than he did when she saw him last. I, in the meantime, paid attention to his good lady. The old man seemed quite in spirits; and as I could not help admiring the beauty of the walnut-trees, which formed such an agreeable shade over our heads, he began, though with some little difficulty, to tell us their history. “As to the oldest,” said he, “we do not know who planted it,  —  some say one clergyman, and some another: but the younger one, there behind us, is exactly the age of my wife, fifty years old next October; her father planted it in the morning, and in the evening she came into the world. My wife’s father was my predecessor here, and I cannot tell you how fond he was of that tree; and it is fully as dear to me. Under the shade of that very tree, upon a log of wood, my wife was seated knitting, when I, a poor student, came into this court for the first time, just seven and twenty years ago.” Charlotte inquired for his daughter. He said she was gone with Herr Schmidt to the meadows, and was with the haymakers. The old man then resumed his story, and told us how his predecessor had taken a fancy to him, as had his daughter likewise; and how he had become first his curate, and subsequently his successor. He had scarcely finished his story when his daughter returned through the garden, accompanied by the above-mentioned Herr Schmidt. She welcomed Charlotte affectionately, and I confess I was much taken with her appearance. She was a lively-looking, good-humoured brunette, quite competent to amuse one for a short time in the country. Her lover (for such Herr Schmidt evidently appeared to be) was a polite, reserved personage, and would not join our conversation, notwithstanding all Charlotte’s endeavours to draw him out. I was much annoyed at observing, by his countenance, that his silence did not arise from want of talent, but from caprice and ill-humour. This subsequently became very evident, when we set out to take a walk, and Frederica joining Charlotte, with whom I was talking, the worthy gentleman’s face, which was naturally rather sombre, became so dark and angry that Charlotte was obliged to touch my arm, and remind me that I was talking too much to Frederica. Nothing distresses me more than to see men torment each other; particularly when in the flower of their age, in the very season of pleasure, they waste their few short days of sunshine in quarrels and disputes, and only perceive their error when it is too late to repair it. This thought dwelt upon my mind; and in the evening, when we returned to the vicar’s, and were sitting round the table with our bread end milk, the conversation turned on the joys and sorrows of the world, I could not resist the temptation to inveigh bitterly against ill-humour. “We are apt,” said I, “to complain, but  —  with very little cause, that our happy days are few, and our evil days many. If our hearts were always disposed to receive the benefits Heaven sends us, we should acquire strength to support evil when it comes.” “But,” observed the vicar’s wife, “we cannot always command our tempers, so much depends upon the constitution: when the body suffers, the mind is ill at ease.” “I acknowledge that,” I continued; “but we must consider such a disposition in the light of a disease, and inquire whether there is no remedy for it.”

“I should be glad to hear one,” said Charlotte: “at least, I think very much depends upon ourselves; I know it is so with me. When anything annoys me, and disturbs my temper, I hasten into the garden, hum a couple of country dances, and it is all right with me directly.” “That is what I meant,” I replied; “ill-humour resembles indolence: it is natural to us; but if once we have courage to exert ourselves, we find our work run fresh from our hands, and we experience in the activity from which we shrank a real enjoyment.” Frederica listened very attentively: and the young man objected, that we were not masters of ourselves, and still less so of our feelings. “The question is about a disagreeable feeling,” I added, “from which every one would willingly escape, but none know their own power without trial. Invalids are glad to consult physicians, and submit to the most scrupulous regimen, the most nauseous medicines, in order to recover their health.” I observed that the good old man inclined his head, and exerted himself to hear our discourse; so I raised my voice, and addressed myself directly to him. “We preach against a great many crimes,” I observed, “but I never remember a sermon delivered against ill-humour.” “That may do very well for your town clergymen,” said he: “country people are never ill-humoured; though, indeed, it might be useful, occasionally, to my wife for instance, and the judge.” We all laughed, as did he likewise very cordially, till he fell into a fit of coughing, which interrupted our conversation for a time. Herr Schmidt resumed the subject. “You call ill humour a crime,” he remarked, “but I think you use too strong a term.” “Not at all,” I replied, “if that deserves the name which is so pernicious to ourselves and our neighbours. Is it not enough that we want the power to make one another happy, must we deprive each other of the pleasure which we can all make for ourselves? Show me the man who has the courage to hide his ill-humour, who bears the whole burden himself, without disturbing the peace of those around him. No: ill-humour arises from an inward consciousness of our own want of merit, from a discontent which ever accompanies that envy which foolish vanity engenders. We see people happy, whom we have not made so, and cannot endure the sight.” Charlotte looked at me with a smile; she observed the emotion with which I spoke: and a tear in the eyes of Frederica stimulated me to proceed. “Woe unto those,” I said, “who use their power over a human heart to destroy the simple pleasures it would naturally enjoy! All the favours, all the attentions, in the world cannot compensate for the loss of that happiness which a cruel tyranny has destroyed.” My heart was full as I spoke. A recollection of many things which had happened pressed upon my mind, and filled my eyes with tears. “We should daily repeat to ourselves,” I exclaimed, “that we should not interfere with our friends, unless to leave them in possession of their own joys, and increase their happiness by sharing it with them! But when their souls are tormented by a violent passion, or their hearts rent with grief, is it in your power to afford them the slightest consolation?

“And when the last fatal malady seizes the being whose untimely grave you have prepared, when she lies languid and exhausted before you, her dim eyes raised to heaven, and the damp of death upon her pallid brow, there you stand at her bedside like a condemned criminal, with the bitter feeling that your whole fortune could not save her; and the agonising thought wrings you, that all your efforts are powerless to impart even a moment’s strength to the departing soul, or quicken her with a transitory consolation.”

At these words the remembrance of a similar scene at which I had been once present fell with full force upon my heart. I buried my face in my handkerchief, and hastened from the room, and was only recalled to my recollection by Charlotte’s voice, who reminded me that it was time to return home. With what tenderness she chid me on the way for the too eager interest I took in everything! She declared it would do me injury, and that I ought to spare myself. Yes, my angel! I will do so for your sake.

JULY 6.

She is still with her dying friend, and is still the same bright, beautiful creature whose presence softens pain, and sheds happiness around whichever way she turns. She went out yesterday with her little sisters: I knew it, and went to meet them; and we walked together. In about an hour and a half we returned to the town. We stopped at the spring I am so fond of, and which is now a thousand times dearer to me than ever. Charlotte seated herself upon the low wall, and we gathered about her. I looked around, and recalled the time when my heart was unoccupied and free. “Dear fountain!” I said, “since that time I have no more come to enjoy cool repose by thy fresh stream: I have passed thee with careless steps, and scarcely bestowed a glance upon thee.” I looked down, and observed Charlotte’s little sister, Jane, coming up the steps with a glass of water. I turned toward Charlotte, and I felt her influence over me. Jane at the moment approached with the glass. Her sister, Marianne, wished to take it from her. “No!” cried the child, with the sweetest expression of face, “Charlotte must drink first.”

The affection and simplicity with which this was uttered so charmed me, that I sought to express my feelings by catching up the child and kissing her heartily. She was frightened, and began to cry. “You should not do that,” said Charlotte: I felt perplexed. “Come, Jane,” she continued, taking her hand, and leading her down the steps again, “it is no matter: wash yourself quickly in the fresh water.” I stood and watched them; and when I saw the little dear rubbing her cheeks with her wet hands, in full belief that all the impurities contracted from my ugly beard would be washed off by the miraculous water, and how, though Charlotte said it would do, she continued still to wash with all her might, as though she thought too much were better than too little, I assure you, Wilhelm, I never attended a baptism with greater reverence; and, when Charlotte came up from the well, I could have prostrated myself as before the prophet of an Eastern nation.

In the evening I would not resist telling the story to a person who, I thought, possessed some natural feeling, because he was a man of understanding. But what a mistake I made. He maintained it was very wrong of Charlotte, that we should not deceive children, that such things occasioned countless mistakes and superstitions, from which we were bound to protect the young. It occurred to me then, that this very man had been baptised only a week before; so I said nothing further, but maintained the justice of my own convictions. We should deal with children as God deals with us, we are happiest under the influence of innocent delusions.

JULY 8.

What a child is man that he should be so solicitous about a look! What a child is man! We had been to Walheim: the ladies went in a carriage; but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte’s dark eyes  —  I am a fool  —  but forgive me! you should see them,  —  those eyes.  —  However, to be brief (for my own eyes are weighed down with sleep), you must know, when the ladies stepped into their carriage again, young W. Seldstadt, Andran, and I were standing about the door. They are a merry set of fellows, and they were all laughing and joking together. I watched Charlotte’s eyes. They wandered from one to the other; but they did not light on me, on me, who stood there motionless, and who saw nothing but her! My heart bade her a thousand times adieu, but she noticed me not. The carriage drove off; and my eyes filled with tears. I looked after her: suddenly I saw Charlotte’s bonnet leaning out of the window, and she turned to look back, was it at me? My dear friend, I know not; and in this uncertainty I find consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me. Perhaps! Good-night  —  what a child I am!

JULY 10.

You should see how foolish I look in company when her name is mentioned, particularly when I am asked plainly how I like her. How I like her! I detest the phrase. What sort of creature must he be who merely liked Charlotte, whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by her. Like her! Some one asked me lately how I liked Ossian.

JULY 11.

Madame M  —  is very ill. I pray for her recovery, because Charlotte shares my sufferings. I see her occasionally at my friend’s house, and to-day she has told me the strangest circumstance. Old M  —  is a covetous, miserly fellow, who has long worried and annoyed the poor lady sadly; but she has borne her afflictions patiently. A few days ago, when the physician informed us that her recovery was hopeless, she sent for her husband (Charlotte was present), and addressed him thus: “I have something to confess, which, after my decease, may occasion trouble and confusion. I have hitherto conducted your household as frugally and economically as possible, but you must pardon me for having defrauded you for thirty years. At the commencement of our married life, you allowed a small sum for the wants of the kitchen, and the other household expenses. When our establishment increased and our property grew larger, I could not persuade you to increase the weekly allowance in proportion: in short, you know, that, when our wants were greatest, you required me to supply everything with seven florins a week. I took the money from you without an observation, but made up the weekly deficiency from the money-chest; as nobody would suspect your wife of robbing the household bank. But I have wasted nothing, and should have been content to meet my eternal Judge without this confession, if she, upon whom the management of your establishment will devolve after my decease, would be free from embarrassment upon your insisting that the allowance made to me, your former wife, was sufficient.”

I talked with Charlotte of the inconceivable manner in which men allow themselves to be blinded; how any one could avoid suspecting some deception, when seven florins only were allowed to defray expenses twice as great. But I have myself known people who believed, without any visible astonishment, that their house possessed the prophet’s never-failing cruse of oil.

JULY 13.

No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes. Yes, I feel it; and I may believe my own heart which tells me  —  dare I say it?  —  dare I pronounce the divine words?  —  that she loves me!

That she loves me! How the idea exalts me in my own eyes! And, as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour myself since she loves me!

Is this presumption, or is it a consciousness of the truth? I do not know a man able to supplant me in the heart of Charlotte; and yet when she speaks of her betrothed with so much warmth and affection, I feel like the soldier who has been stripped of his honours and titles, and deprived of his sword.

JULY 16.

How my heart beats when by accident I touch her finger, or my feet meet hers under the table! I draw back as if from a furnace; but a secret force impels me forward again, and my senses become disordered. Her innocent, unconscious heart never knows what agony these little familiarities inflict upon me. Sometimes when we are talking she lays her hand upon mine, and in the eagerness of conversation comes closer to me, and her balmy breath reaches my lips,  —  when I feel as if lightning had struck me, and that I could sink into the earth. And yet, Wilhelm, with all this heavenly confidence,  —  if I know myself, and should ever dare  —  you understand me. No, no! my heart is not so corrupt, it is weak, weak enough but is not that a degree of corruption?

She is to me a sacred being. All passion is still in her presence: I cannot express my sensations when I am near her. I feel as if my soul beat in every nerve of my body. There is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill,  —  so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! It is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care, and sorrow disappear from me in a moment.

I believe every word that is said of the magic of ancient music. How her simple song enchants me! Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings that air; and instantly the gloom and madness which hung over me are dispersed, and I breathe freely again.

JULY 18.

Wilhelm, what is the world to our hearts without love? What is a magic-lantern without light? You have but to kindle the flame within, and the brightest figures shine on the white wall; and, if love only show us fleeting shadows, we are yet happy, when, like mere children, we behold them, and are transported with the splendid phantoms. I have not been able to see Charlotte to-day. I was prevented by company from which I could not disengage myself. What was to be done? I sent my servant to her house, that I might at least see somebody to-day who had been near her. Oh, the impatience with which I waited for his return! the joy with which I welcomed him! I should certainly have caught him in my arms, and kissed him, if I had not been ashamed.

It is said that the Bonona stone, when placed in the sun, attracts the rays, and for a time appears luminous in the dark. So was it with me and this servant. The idea that Charlotte’s eyes had dwelt on his countenance, his cheek, his very apparel, endeared them all inestimably to me, so that at the moment I would not have parted from him for a thousand crowns. His presence made me so happy! Beware of laughing at me, Wilhelm. Can that be a delusion which makes us happy?

JULY 19.

“I shall see her today!” I exclaim with delight, when I rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun. “I shall see her today!” And then I have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought.

JULY 20.

I cannot assent to your proposal that I should accompany the ambassador to  —    —    —  . I do not love subordination; and we all know that he is a rough, disagreeable person to be connected with. You say my mother wishes me to be employed. I could not help laughing at that. Am I not sufficiently employed? And is it not in reality the same, whether I shell peas or count lentils? The world runs on from one folly to another; and the man who, solely from regard to the opinion of others, and without any wish or necessity of his own, toils after gold, honour, or any other phantom, is no better than a fool.

JULY 24.

You insist so much on my not neglecting my drawing, that it would be as well for me to say nothing as to confess how little I have lately done.

I never felt happier, I never understood nature better, even down to the veriest stem or smallest blade of grass; and yet I am unable to express myself: my powers of execution are so weak, everything seems to swim and float before me, so that I cannot make a clear, bold outline. But I fancy I should succeed better if I had some clay or wax to model. I shall try, if this state of mind continues much longer, and will take to modelling, if I only knead dough.

I have commenced Charlotte’s portrait three times, and have as often disgraced myself. This is the more annoying, as I was formerly very happy in taking likenesses. I have since sketched her profile, and must content myself with that.

JULY 25.

Yes, dear Charlotte! I will order and arrange everything. Only give me more commissions, the more the better. One thing, however, I must request: use no more writing-sand with the dear notes you send me. Today I raised your letter hastily to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.

JULY 26.

I have often determined not to see her so frequently. But who could keep such a resolution? Every day I am exposed to the temptation, and promise faithfully that to-morrow I will really stay away: but, when tomorrow comes, I find some irresistible reason for seeing her; and, before I can account for it, I am with her again. Either she has said on the previous evening “You will be sure to call to-morrow,”  —  and who could stay away then?  —  or she gives me some commission, and I find it essential to take her the answer in person; or the day is fine, and I walk to Walheim; and, when I am there, it is only half a league farther to her. I am within the charmed atmosphere, and soon find myself at her side. My grandmother used to tell us a story of a mountain of loadstone. When any vessels came near it, they were instantly deprived of their ironwork: the nails flew to the mountain, and the unhappy crew perished amidst the disjointed planks.

JULY 30.

Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the best and noblest of men, and I in every respect his inferior, I could not endure to see him in possession of such a perfect being. Possession!  —  enough, Wilhelm: her betrothed is here,  —  a fine, worthy fellow, whom one cannot help liking. Fortunately I was not present at their meeting. It would have broken my heart! And he is so considerate: he has not given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it! I must love him for the respect with which he treats her. He shows a regard for me, but for this I suspect I am more indebted to Charlotte than to his own fancy for me. Women have a delicate tact in such matters, and it should be so. They cannot always succeed in keeping two rivals on terms with each other; but, when they do, they are the only gainers.

I cannot help esteeming Albert. The coolness of his temper contrasts strongly with the impetuosity of mine, which I cannot conceal. He has a great deal of feeling, and is fully sensible of the treasure he possesses in Charlotte. He is free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most.

He regards me as a man of sense; and my attachment to Charlotte, and the interest I take in all that concerns her, augment his triumph and his love. I shall not inquire whether he may not at times tease her with some little jealousies; as I know, that, were I in his place, I should not be entirely free from such sensations.

But, be that as it may, my pleasure with Charlotte is over. Call it folly or infatuation, what signifies a name? The thing speaks for itself. Before Albert came, I knew all that I know now. I knew I could make no pretensions to her, nor did I offer any, that is, as far as it was possible, in the presence of so much loveliness, not to pant for its enjoyment. And now, behold me like a silly fellow, staring with astonishment when another comes in, and deprives me of my love.

I bite my lips, and feel infinite scorn for those who tell me to be resigned, because there is no help for it. Let me escape from the yoke of such silly subterfuges! I ramble through the woods; and when I return to Charlotte, and find Albert sitting by her side in the summer-house in the garden, I am unable to bear it, behave like a fool, and commit a thousand extravagances. “For Heaven’s sake,” said Charlotte today, “let us have no more scenes like those of last night! You terrify me when you are so violent.” Between ourselves, I am always away now when he visits her: and I feel delighted when I find her alone.

AUGUST 8.

Believe me, dear Wilhelm, I did not allude to you when I spoke so severely of those who advise resignation to inevitable fate. I did not think it possible for you to indulge such a sentiment. But in fact you are right. I only suggest one objection. In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one.

You will, therefore, permit me to concede your entire argument, and yet contrive means to escape your dilemma.

Your position is this, I hear you say: “Either you have hopes of obtaining Charlotte, or you have none. Well, in the first case, pursue your course, and press on to the fulfilment of your wishes. In the second, be a man, and shake off a miserable passion, which will enervate and destroy you.” My dear friend, this is well and easily said.

But would you require a wretched being, whose life is slowly wasting under a lingering disease, to despatch himself at once by the stroke of a dagger? Does not the very disorder which consumes his strength deprive him of the courage to effect his deliverance?

You may answer me, if you please, with a similar analogy, “Who would not prefer the amputation of an arm to the periling of life by doubt and procrastination!” But I know not if I am right, and let us leave these comparisons.

Enough! There are moments, Wilhelm, when I could rise up and shake it all off, and when, if I only knew where to go, I could fly from this place.

THE SAME EVENING.

My diary, which I have for some time neglected, came before me today; and I am amazed to see how deliberately I have entangled myself step by step. To have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child! Even still I behold the result plainly, and yet have no thought of acting with greater prudence.

AUGUST 10.

If I were not a fool, I could spend the happiest and most delightful life here. So many agreeable circumstances, and of a kind to ensure a worthy man’s happiness, are seldom united. Alas! I feel it too sensibly,  —  the heart alone makes our happiness! To be admitted into this most charming family, to be loved by the father as a son, by the children as a father, and by Charlotte! then the noble Albert, who never disturbs my happiness by any appearance of ill-humour, receiving me with the heartiest affection, and loving me, next to Charlotte, better than all the world! Wilhelm, you would be delighted to hear us in our rambles, and conversations about Charlotte. Nothing in the world can be more absurd than our connection, and yet the thought of it often moves me to tears.

He tells me sometimes of her excellent mother; how, upon her death-bed, she had committed her house and children to Charlotte, and had given Charlotte herself in charge to him; how, since that time, a new spirit had taken possession of her; how, in care and anxiety for their welfare, she became a real mother to them; how every moment of her time was devoted to some labour of love in their behalf,  —  and yet her mirth and cheerfulness had never forsaken her. I walk by his side, pluck flowers by the way, arrange them carefully into a nosegay, then fling them into the first stream I pass, and watch them as they float gently away. I forget whether I told you that Albert is to remain here. He has received a government appointment, with a very good salary; and I understand he is in high favour at court. I have met few persons so punctual and methodical in business.

AUGUST 12.

Certainly Albert is the best fellow in the world. I had a strange scene with him yesterday. I went to take leave of him; for I took it into my head to spend a few days in these mountains, from where I now write to you. As I was walking up and down his room, my eye fell upon his pistols. “Lend me those pistols,” said I, “for my journey.” “By all means,” he replied, “if you will take the trouble to load them; for they only hang there for form.” I took down one of them; and he continued, “Ever since I was near suffering for my extreme caution, I will have nothing to do with such things.” I was curious to hear the story. “I was staying,” said he, “some three months ago, at a friend’s house in the country. I had a brace of pistols with me, unloaded; and I slept without any anxiety. One rainy afternoon I was sitting by myself, doing nothing, when it occurred to me I do not know how that the house might be attacked, that we might require the pistols, that we might in short, you know how we go on fancying, when we have nothing better to do. I gave the pistols to the servant, to clean and load. He was playing with the maid, and trying to frighten her, when the pistol went off  —  God knows how!  —  the ramrod was in the barrel; and it went straight through her right hand, and shattered the thumb. I had to endure all the lamentation, and to pay the surgeon’s bill; so, since that time, I have kept all my weapons unloaded. But, my dear friend, what is the use of prudence? We can never be on our guard against all possible dangers. However,”  —  now, you must know I can tolerate all men till they come to “however;”  —  for it is self-evident that every universal rule must have its exceptions. But he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all. Upon this occasion, Albert was deeply immersed in his subject: I ceased to listen to him, and became lost in reverie. With a sudden motion, I pointed the mouth of the pistol to my forehead, over the right eye. “What do you mean?” cried Albert, turning back the pistol. “It is not loaded,” said I. “And even if not,” he answered with impatience, “what can you mean? I cannot comprehend how a man can be so mad as to shoot himself, and the bare idea of it shocks me.”

“But why should any one,” said I, “in speaking of an action, venture to pronounce it mad or wise, or good or bad? What is the meaning of all this? Have you carefully studied the secret motives of our actions? Do you understand  —  can you explain the causes which occasion them, and make them inevitable? If you can, you will be less hasty with your decision.”

“But you will allow,” said Albert; “that some actions are criminal, let them spring from whatever motives they may.” I granted it, and shrugged my shoulders.

“But still, my good friend,” I continued, “there are some exceptions here too. Theft is a crime; but the man who commits it from extreme poverty, with no design but to save his family from perishing, is he an object of pity, or of punishment? Who shall throw the first stone at a husband, who, in the heat of just resentment, sacrifices his faithless wife and her perfidious seducer? or at the young maiden, who, in her weak hour of rapture, forgets herself in the impetuous joys of love? Even our laws, cold and cruel as they are, relent in such cases, and withhold their punishment.”

“That is quite another thing,” said Albert; “because a man under the influence of violent passion loses all power of reflection, and is regarded as intoxicated or insane.”

“Oh! you people of sound understandings,” I replied, smiling, “are ever ready to exclaim ‘Extravagance, and madness, and intoxication!’ You moral men are so calm and so subdued! You abhor the drunken man, and detest the extravagant; you pass by, like the Levite, and thank God, like the Pharisee, that you are not like one of them. I have been more than once intoxicated, my passions have always bordered on extravagance: I am not ashamed to confess it; for I have learned, by my own experience, that all extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane. And in private life, too, is it not intolerable that no one can undertake the execution of a noble or generous deed, without giving rise to the exclamation that the doer is intoxicated or mad? Shame upon you, ye sages!”

“This is another of your extravagant humours,” said Albert: “you always exaggerate a case, and in this matter you are undoubtedly wrong; for we were speaking of suicide, which you compare with great actions, when it is impossible to regard it as anything but a weakness. It is much easier to die than to bear a life of misery with fortitude.”

I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart. However, I composed myself, for I had often heard the same observation with sufficient vexation; and I answered him, therefore, with a little warmth, “You call this a weakness  —  beware of being led astray by appearances. When a nation, which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant, rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease, which, in the absence of excitement, he could scarcely move; he who, under the rage of an insult, attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies, are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?”

Albert looked steadfastly at me, and said, “Pray forgive me, but I do not see that the examples you have adduced bear any relation to the question.” “Very likely,” I answered; “for I have often been told that my style of illustration borders a little on the absurd. But let us see if we cannot place the matter in another point of view, by inquiring what can be a man’s state of mind who resolves to free himself from the burden of life,  —  a burden often so pleasant to bear,  —  for we cannot otherwise reason fairly upon the subject.

“Human nature,” I continued, “has its limits. It is able to endure a certain degree of joy, sorrow, and pain, but becomes annihilated as soon as this measure is exceeded. The question, therefore, is, not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings. The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.”

“Paradox, all paradox!” exclaimed Albert. “Not so paradoxical as you imagine,” I replied. “You allow that we designate a disease as mortal when nature is so severely attacked, and her strength so far exhausted, that she cannot possibly recover her former condition under any change that may take place.

“Now, my good friend, apply this to the mind; observe a man in his natural, isolated condition; consider how ideas work, and how impressions fasten on him, till at length a violent passion seizes him, destroying all his powers of calm reflection, and utterly ruining him.

“It is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being, in vain he counsels him. He can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid, by whose bedside he is seated.”

Albert thought this too general. I reminded him of a girl who had drowned herself a short time previously, and I related her history.

She was a good creature, who had grown up in the narrow sphere of household industry and weekly appointed labour; one who knew no pleasure beyond indulging in a walk on Sundays, arrayed in her best attire, accompanied by her friends, or perhaps joining in the dance now and then at some festival, and chatting away her spare hours with a neighbour, discussing the scandal or the quarrels of the village, trifles sufficient to occupy her heart. At length the warmth of her nature is influenced by certain new and unknown wishes. Inflamed by the flatteries of men, her former pleasures become by degrees insipid, till at length she meets with a youth to whom she is attracted by an indescribable feeling; upon him she now rests all her hopes; she forgets the world around her; she sees, hears, desires nothing but him, and him only. He alone occupies all her thoughts. Uncorrupted by the idle indulgence of an enervating vanity, her affection moving steadily toward its object, she hopes to become his, and to realise, in an everlasting union with him, all that happiness which she sought, all that bliss for which she longed. His repeated promises confirm her hopes: embraces and endearments, which increase the ardour of her desires, overmaster her soul. She floats in a dim, delusive anticipation of her happiness; and her feelings become excited to their utmost tension. She stretches out her arms finally to embrace the object of all her wishes and her lover forsakes her. Stunned and bewildered, she stands upon a precipice. All is darkness around her. No prospect, no hope, no consolation  —  forsaken by him in whom her existence was centred! She sees nothing of the wide world before her, thinks nothing of the many individuals who might supply the void in her heart; she feels herself deserted, forsaken by the world; and, blinded and impelled by the agony which wrings her soul, she plunges into the deep, to end her sufferings in the broad embrace of death. See here, Albert, the history of thousands; and tell me, is not this a case of physical infirmity? Nature has no way to escape from the labyrinth: her powers are exhausted: she can contend no longer, and the poor soul must die.

“Shame upon him who can look on calmly, and exclaim, ‘The foolish girl! she should have waited; she should have allowed time to wear off the impression; her despair would have been softened, and she would have found another lover to comfort her.’ One might as well say, ‘The fool, to die of a fever! why did he not wait till his strength was restored, till his blood became calm? all would then have gone well, and he would have been alive now.’”

Albert, who could not see the justice of the comparison, offered some further objections, and, amongst others, urged that I had taken the case of a mere ignorant girl. But how any man of sense, of more enlarged views and experience, could be excused, he was unable to comprehend. “My friend!” I exclaimed, “man is but man; and, whatever be the extent of his reasoning powers, they are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature. It were better, then  —  but we will talk of this some other time,” I said, and caught up my hat. Alas! my heart was full; and we parted without conviction on either side. How rarely in this world do men understand each other!

AUGUST 15.

There can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as love. I observe that Charlotte could not lose me without a pang, and the very children have but one wish; that is, that I should visit them again to-morrow. I went this afternoon to tune Charlotte’s piano. But I could not do it, for the little ones insisted on my telling them a story; and Charlotte herself urged me to satisfy them. I waited upon them at tea, and they are now as fully contented with me as with Charlotte; and I told them my very best tale of the princess who was waited upon by dwarfs. I improve myself by this exercise, and am quite surprised at the impression my stories create. If I sometimes invent an incident which I forget upon the next narration, they remind one directly that the story was different before; so that I now endeavour to relate with exactness the same anecdote in the same monotonous tone, which never changes. I find by this, how much an author injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical point of view. The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.

AUGUST 18.

Must it ever be thus,  —  that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harasses me. When in bygone days I gazed from these rocks upon yonder mountains across the river, and upon the green, flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and bursting around; the hills clothed from foot to peak with tall, thick forest trees; the valleys in all their varied windings, shaded with the loveliest woods; and the soft river gliding along amongst the lisping reeds, mirroring the beautiful clouds which the soft evening breeze wafted across the sky,  —  when I heard the groves about me melodious with the music of birds, and saw the million swarms of insects dancing in the last golden beams of the sun, whose setting rays awoke the humming beetles from their grassy beds, whilst the subdued tumult around directed my attention to the ground, and I there observed the arid rock compelled to yield nutriment to the dry moss, whilst the heath flourished upon the barren sands below me, all this displayed to me the inner warmth which animates all nature, and filled and glowed within my heart. I felt myself exalted by this overflowing fulness to the perception of the Godhead, and the glorious forms of an infinite universe became visible to my soul! Stupendous mountains encompassed me, abysses yawned at my feet, and cataracts fell headlong down before me; impetuous rivers rolled through the plain, and rocks and mountains resounded from afar. In the depths of the earth I saw innumerable powers in motion, and multiplying to infinity; whilst upon its surface, and beneath the heavens, there teemed ten thousand varieties of living creatures. Everything around is alive with an infinite number of forms; while mankind fly for security to their petty houses, from the shelter of which they rule in their imaginations over the wide-extended universe. Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little. From the inaccessible mountains, across the desert which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confines of the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal Creator; and every atom to which he has given existence finds favour in his sight. Ah, how often at that time has the flight of a bird, soaring above my head, inspired me with the desire of being transported to the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff the pleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the Infinite, and to partake, if but for a moment even, with the confined powers of my soul, the beatitude of that Creator who accomplishes all things in himself, and through himself!

My dear friend, the bare recollection of those hours still consoles me. Even this effort to recall those ineffable sensations, and give them utterance, exalts my soul above itself, and makes me doubly feel the intensity of my present anguish.

It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes, and, instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever open grave yawned before me. Can we say of anything that it exists when all passes away, when time, with the speed of a storm, carries all things onward,  —  and our transitory existence, hurried along by the torrent, is either swallowed up by the waves or dashed against the rocks? There is not a moment but preys upon you,  —  and upon all around you, not a moment in which you do not yourself become a destroyer. The most innocent walk deprives of life thousands of poor insects: one step destroys the fabric of the industrious ant, and converts a little world into chaos. No: it is not the great and rare calamities of the world, the floods which sweep away whole villages, the earthquakes which swallow up our towns, that affect me. My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature. Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart; and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring.

AUGUST 21.

In vain do I stretch out my arms toward her when I awaken in the morning from my weary slumbers. In vain do I seek for her at night in my bed, when some innocent dream has happily deceived me, and placed her near me in the fields, when I have seized her hand and covered it with countless kisses. And when I feel for her in the half confusion of sleep, with the happy sense that she is near, tears flow from my oppressed heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.

AUGUST 22.

What a misfortune, Wilhelm! My active spirits have degenerated into contented indolence. I cannot be idle, and yet I am unable to set to work. I cannot think: I have no longer any feeling for the beauties of nature, and books are distasteful to me. Once we give ourselves up, we are totally lost. Many a time and oft I wish I were a common labourer; that, awakening in the morning, I might have but one prospect, one pursuit, one hope, for the day which has dawned. I often envy Albert when I see him buried in a heap of papers and parchments, and I fancy I should be happy were I in his place. Often impressed with this feeling I have been on the point of writing to you and to the minister, for the appointment at the embassy, which you think I might obtain. I believe I might procure it. The minister has long shown a regard for me, and has frequently urged me to seek employment. It is the business of an hour only. Now and then the fable of the horse recurs to me. Weary of liberty, he suffered himself to be saddled and bridled, and was ridden to death for his pains. I know not what to determine upon. For is not this anxiety for change the consequence of that restless spirit which would pursue me equally in every situation of life?

AUGUST 28.

If my ills would admit of any cure, they would certainly be cured here. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a packet from Albert. Upon opening it, I found one of the pink ribbons which Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had several times asked her to give me. With it were two volumes in duodecimo of Wetstein’s “Homer,” a book I had often wished for, to save me the inconvenience of carrying the large Ernestine edition with me upon my walks. You see how they anticipate my wishes, how well they understand all those little attentions of friendship, so superior to the costly presents of the great, which are humiliating. I kissed the ribbon a thousand times, and in every breath inhaled the remembrance of those happy and irrevocable days which filled me with the keenest joy. Such, Wilhelm, is our fate. I do not murmur at it: the flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away, and leave no trace behind  —  how few yield any fruit  —  and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough! and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen, to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed? Farewell! This is a glorious summer. I often climb into the trees in Charlotte’s orchard, and shake down the pears that hang on the highest branches. She stands below, and catches them as they fall.

AUGUST 30.

Unhappy being that I am! Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to come of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her. My imagination sees nothing but her: all surrounding objects are of no account, except as they relate to her. In this dreamy state I enjoy many happy hours, till at length I feel compelled to tear myself away from her. Ah, Wilhelm, to what does not my heart often compel me! When I have spent several hours in her company, till I feel completely absorbed by her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim, my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching senses. I am sometimes unconscious whether I really exist. If in such moments I find no sympathy, and Charlotte does not allow me to enjoy the melancholy consolation of bathing her hand with my tears, I feel compelled to tear myself from her, when I either wander through the country, climb some precipitous cliff, or force a path through the trackless thicket, where I am lacerated and torn by thorns and briers; and thence I find relief. Sometimes I lie stretched on the ground, overcome with fatigue and dying with thirst; sometimes, late in the night, when the moon shines above me, I recline against an aged tree in some sequestered forest, to rest my weary limbs, when, exhausted and worn, I sleep till break of day. O Wilhelm! the hermit’s cell, his sackcloth, and girdle of thorns would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I suffer. Adieu! I see no end to this wretchedness except the grave.

SEPTEMBER 3.

I must away. Thank you, Wilhelm, for determining my wavering purpose. For a whole fortnight I have thought of leaving her. I must away. She has returned to town, and is at the house of a friend. And then, Albert  —  yes, I must go.

SEPTEMBER 10.

Oh, what a night, Wilhelm! I can henceforth bear anything. I shall never see her again. Oh, why cannot I fall on your neck, and, with floods of tears and raptures, give utterance to all the passions which distract my heart! Here I sit gasping for breath, and struggling to compose myself. I wait for day, and at sunrise the horses are to be at the door.

And she is sleeping calmly, little suspecting that she has seen me for the last time. I am free. I have had the courage, in an interview of two hours’ duration, not to betray my intention. And O Wilhelm, what a conversation it was!

Albert had promised to come to Charlotte in the garden immediately after supper. I was upon the terrace under the tall chestnut trees, and watched the setting sun. I saw him sink for the last time beneath this delightful valley and silent stream. I had often visited the same spot with Charlotte, and witnessed that glorious sight; and now  —  I was walking up and down the very avenue which was so dear to me. A secret sympathy had frequently drawn me thither before I knew Charlotte; and we were delighted when, in our early acquaintance, we discovered that we each loved the same spot, which is indeed as romantic as any that ever captivated the fancy of an artist.

From beneath the chestnut trees, there is an extensive view. But I remember that I have mentioned all this in a former letter, and have described the tall mass of beech trees at the end, and how the avenue grows darker and darker as it winds its way among them, till it ends in a gloomy recess, which has all the charm of a mysterious solitude. I still remember the strange feeling of melancholy which came over me the first time I entered that dark retreat, at bright midday. I felt some secret foreboding that it would, one day, be to me the scene of some happiness or misery.

I had spent half an hour struggling between the contending thoughts of going and returning, when I heard them coming up the terrace. I ran to meet them. I trembled as I took her hand, and kissed it. As we reached the top of the terrace, the moon rose from behind the wooded hill. We conversed on many subjects, and, without perceiving it, approached the gloomy recess. Charlotte entered, and sat down. Albert seated himself beside her. I did the same, but my agitation did not suffer me to remain long seated. I got up, and stood before her, then walked backward and forward, and sat down again. I was restless and miserable. Charlotte drew our attention to the beautiful effect of the moonlight, which threw a silver hue over the terrace in front of us, beyond the beech trees. It was a glorious sight, and was rendered more striking by the darkness which surrounded the spot where we were. We remained for some time silent, when Charlotte observed, “Whenever I walk by moonlight, it brings to my remembrance all my beloved and departed friends, and I am filled with thoughts of death and futurity. We shall live again, Werther!” she continued, with a firm but feeling voice; “but shall we know one another again what do you think? what do you say?”

“Charlotte,” I said, as I took her hand in mine, and my eyes filled with tears, “we shall see each other again  —  here and hereafter we shall meet again.” I could say no more. Why, Wilhelm, should she put this question to me, just at the moment when the fear of our cruel separation filled my heart?

“And oh! do those departed ones know how we are employed here? do they know when we are well and happy? do they know when we recall their memories with the fondest love? In the silent hour of evening the shade of my mother hovers around me; when seated in the midst of my children, I see them assembled near me, as they used to assemble near her; and then I raise my anxious eyes to heaven, and wish she could look down upon us, and witness how I fulfil the promise I made to her in her last moments, to be a mother to her children. With what emotion do I then exclaim, ‘Pardon, dearest of mothers, pardon me, if I do not adequately supply your place! Alas! I do my utmost. They are clothed and fed; and, still better, they are loved and educated. Could you but see, sweet saint! the peace and harmony that dwells amongst us, you would glorify God with the warmest feelings of gratitude, to whom, in your last hour, you addressed such fervent prayers for our happiness.’” Thus did she express herself; but O Wilhelm! who can do justice to her language? how can cold and passionless words convey the heavenly expressions of the spirit? Albert interrupted her gently. “This affects you too deeply, my dear Charlotte. I know your soul dwells on such recollections with intense delight; but I implore  —  “ “O Albert!” she continued, “I am sure you do not forget the evenings when we three used to sit at the little round table, when papa was absent, and the little ones had retired. You often had a good book with you, but seldom read it; the conversation of that noble being was preferable to everything,  —  that beautiful, bright, gentle, and yet ever-toiling woman. God alone knows how I have supplicated with tears on my nightly couch, that I might be like her.”

I threw myself at her feet, and, seizing her hand, bedewed it with a thousand tears. “Charlotte!” I exclaimed, “God’s blessing and your mother’s spirit are upon you.” “Oh! that you had known her,” she said, with a warm pressure of the hand. “She was worthy of being known to you.” I thought I should have fainted: never had I received praise so flattering. She continued, “And yet she was doomed to die in the flower of her youth, when her youngest child was scarcely six months old. Her illness was but short, but she was calm and resigned; and it was only for her children, especially the youngest, that she felt unhappy. When her end drew nigh, she bade me bring them to her. I obeyed. The younger ones knew nothing of their approaching loss, while the elder ones were quite overcome with grief. They stood around the bed; and she raised her feeble hands to heaven, and prayed over them; then, kissing them in turn, she dismissed them, and said to me, ‘Be you a mother to them.’ I gave her my hand. ‘You are promising much, my child,’ she said: ‘a mother’s fondness and a mother’s care! I have often witnessed, by your tears of gratitude, that you know what is a mother’s tenderness: show it to your brothers and sisters, and be dutiful and faithful to your father as a wife; you will be his comfort.’ She inquired for him. He had retired to conceal his intolerable anguish,  —  he was heartbroken, ‘Albert, you were in the room.’ She heard some one moving: she inquired who it was, and desired you to approach. She surveyed us both with a look of composure and satisfaction, expressive of her conviction that we should be happy,  —  happy with one another.” Albert fell upon her neck, and kissed her, and exclaimed, “We are so, and we shall be so!” Even Albert, generally so tranquil, had quite lost his composure; and I was excited beyond expression.

“And such a being,” She continued, “was to leave us, Werther! Great God, must we thus part with everything we hold dear in this world? Nobody felt this more acutely than the children: they cried and lamented for a long time afterward, complaining that men had carried away their dear mamma.”

Charlotte rose. It aroused me; but I continued sitting, and held her hand. “Let us go,” she said: “it grows late.” She attempted to withdraw her hand: I held it still. “We shall see each other again,” I exclaimed: “we shall recognise each other under every possible change! I am going,” I continued, “going willingly; but, should I say for ever, perhaps I may not keep my word. Adieu, Charlotte; adieu, Albert. We shall meet again.” “Yes: tomorrow, I think,” she answered with a smile. Tomorrow! how I felt the word! Ah! she little thought, when she drew her hand away from mine. They walked down the avenue. I stood gazing after them in the moonlight. I threw myself upon the ground, and wept: I then sprang up, and ran out upon the terrace, and saw, under the shade of the linden-trees, her white dress disappearing near the garden-gate. I stretched out my arms, and she vanished.

BOOK II.

OCTOBER 20.

We arrived here yesterday. The ambassador is indisposed, and will not go out for some days. If he were less peevish and morose, all would be well. I see but too plainly that Heaven has destined me to severe trials; but courage! a light heart may bear anything. A light heart! I smile to find such a word proceeding from my pen. A little more lightheartedness would render me the happiest being under the sun. But must I despair of my talents and faculties, whilst others of far inferior abilities parade before me with the utmost self-satisfaction? Gracious Providence, to whom I owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings I possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment?

But patience! all will yet be well; for I assure you, my dear friend, you were right: since I have been obliged to associate continually with other people, and observe what they do, and how they employ themselves, I have become far better satisfied with myself. For we are so constituted by nature, that we are ever prone to compare ourselves with others; and our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us. On this account, nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior. All things appear greater than they really are, and all seem superior to us. This operation of the mind is quite natural: we so continually feel our own imperfections, and fancy we perceive in others the qualities we do not possess, attributing to them also all that we enjoy ourselves, that by this process we form the idea of a perfect, happy man,  —  a man, however, who only exists in our own imagination.

But when, in spite of weakness and disappointments, we set to work in earnest, and persevere steadily, we often find, that, though obliged continually to tack, we make more way than others who have the assistance of wind and tide; and, in truth, there can be no greater satisfaction than to keep pace with others or outstrip them in the race.

November 26.

I begin to find my situation here more tolerable, considering all circumstances. I find a great advantage in being much occupied; and the number of persons I meet, and their different pursuits, create a varied entertainment for me. I have formed the acquaintance of the Count C  —  and I esteem him more and more every day. He is a man of strong understanding and great discernment; but, though he sees farther than other people, he is not on that account cold in his manner, but capable of inspiring and returning the warmest affection. He appeared interested in me on one occasion, when I had to transact some business with him. He perceived, at the first word, that we understood each other, and that he could converse with me in a different tone from what he used with others. I cannot sufficiently esteem his frank and open kindness to me. It is the greatest and most genuine of pleasures to observe a great mind in sympathy with our own.

DECEMBER 24.

As I anticipated, the ambassador occasions me infinite annoyance. He is the most punctilious blockhead under heaven. He does everything step by step, with the trifling minuteness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself. I like to do business regularly and cheerfully, and, when it is finished, to leave it. But he constantly returns my papers to me, saying, “They will do,” but recommending me to look over them again, as “one may always improve by using a better word or a more appropriate particle.” I then lose all patience, and wish myself at the devil’s. Not a conjunction, not an adverb, must be omitted: he has a deadly antipathy to all those transpositions of which I am so fond; and, if the music of our periods is not tuned to the established, official key, he cannot comprehend our meaning. It is deplorable to be connected with such a fellow.

My acquaintance with the Count C  —  is the only compensation for such an evil. He told me frankly, the other day, that he was much displeased with the difficulties and delays of the ambassador; that people like him are obstacles, both to themselves and to others. “But,” added he, “one must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it.”

The old man perceives the count’s partiality for me: this annoys him, and, he seizes every opportunity to depreciate the count in my hearing. I naturally defend him, and that only makes matters worse. Yesterday he made me indignant, for he also alluded to me. “The count,” he said, “is a man of the world, and a good man of business: his style is good, and he writes with facility; but, like other geniuses, he has no solid learning.” He looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask if I felt the blow. But it did not produce the desired effect: I despise a man who can think and act in such a manner. However, I made a stand, and answered with not a little warmth. The count, I said, was a man entitled to respect, alike for his character and his acquirements. I had never met a person whose mind was stored with more useful and extensive knowledge,  —  who had, in fact, mastered such an infinite variety of subjects, and who yet retained all his activity for the details of ordinary business. This was altogether beyond his comprehension; and I took my leave, lest my anger should be too highly excited by some new absurdity of his.

And you are to blame for all this, you who persuaded me to bend my neck to this yoke by preaching a life of activity to me. If the man who plants vegetables, and carries his corn to town on market-days, is not more usefully employed than I am, then let me work ten years longer at the galleys to which I am now chained.

Oh, the brilliant wretchedness, the weariness, that one is doomed to witness among the silly people whom we meet in society here! The ambition of rank! How they watch, how they toil, to gain precedence! What poor and contemptible passions are displayed in their utter nakedness! We have a woman here, for example, who never ceases to entertain the company with accounts of her family and her estates. Any stranger would consider her a silly being, whose head was turned by her pretensions to rank and property; but she is in reality even more ridiculous, the daughter of a mere magistrate’s clerk from this neighbourhood. I cannot understand how human beings can so debase themselves.

Every day I observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and I have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that I am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege.

What provokes me most is the unhappy extent to which distinctions of rank are carried. I know perfectly well how necessary are inequalities of condition, and I am sensible of the advantages I myself derive therefrom; but I would not have these institutions prove a barrier to the small chance of happiness which I may enjoy on this earth.

I have lately become acquainted with a Miss B  —  , a very agreeable girl, who has retained her natural manners in the midst of artificial life. Our first conversation pleased us both equally; and, at taking leave, I requested permission to visit her. She consented in so obliging a manner, that I waited with impatience for the arrival of the happy moment. She is not a native of this place, but resides here with her aunt. The countenance of the old lady is not prepossessing. I paid her much attention, addressing the greater part of my conversation to her; and, in less than half an hour, I discovered what her niece subsequently acknowledged to me, that her aged aunt, having but a small fortune, and a still smaller share of understanding, enjoys no satisfaction except in the pedigree of her ancestors, no protection save in her noble birth, and no enjoyment but in looking from her castle over the heads of the humble citizens. She was, no doubt, handsome in her youth, and in her early years probably trifled away her time in rendering many a poor youth the sport of her caprice: in her riper years she has submitted to the yoke of a veteran officer, who, in return for her person and her small independence, has spent with her what we may designate her age of brass. He is dead; and she is now a widow, and deserted. She spends her iron age alone, and would not be approached, except for the loveliness of her niece.

JANUARY 8, 1772.

What beings are men, whose whole thoughts are occupied with form and ceremony, who for years together devote their mental and physical exertions to the task of advancing themselves but one step, and endeavouring to occupy a higher place at the table. Not that such persons would otherwise want employment: on the contrary, they give themselves much trouble by neglecting important business for such petty trifles. Last week a question of precedence arose at a sledging-party, and all our amusement was spoiled.

The silly creatures cannot see that it is not place which constitutes real greatness, since the man who occupies the first place but seldom plays the principal part. How many kings are governed by their ministers  —  how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief? He, as it seems to me, who can see through the others, and possesses strength or skill enough to make their power or passions subservient to the execution of his own designs.

JANUARY 20.

I must write to you from this place, my dear Charlotte, from a small room in a country inn, where I have taken shelter from a severe storm. During my whole residence in that wretched place D  —  , where I lived amongst strangers,  —  strangers, indeed, to this heart,  —  I never at any time felt the smallest inclination to correspond with you; but in this cottage, in this retirement, in this solitude, with the snow and hail beating against my lattice-pane, you are my first thought. The instant I entered, your figure rose up before me, and the remembrance! O my Charlotte, the sacred, tender remembrance! Gracious Heaven! restore to me the happy moment of our first acquaintance.

Could you but see me, my dear Charlotte, in the whirl of dissipation,  —  how my senses are dried up, but my heart is at no time full. I enjoy no single moment of happiness: all is vain  —  nothing touches me. I stand, as it were, before the raree-show: I see the little puppets move, and I ask whether it is not an optical illusion. I am amused with these puppets, or, rather, I am myself one of them: but, when I sometimes grasp my neighbour’s hand, I feel that it is not natural; and I withdraw mine with a shudder. In the evening I say I will enjoy the next morning’s sunrise, and yet I remain in bed: in the day I promise to ramble by moonlight; and I, nevertheless, remain at home. I know not why I rise, nor why I go to sleep.

The leaven which animated my existence is gone: the charm which cheered me in the gloom of night, and aroused me from my morning slumbers, is for ever fled.

I have found but one being here to interest me, a Miss B  —  . She resembles you, my dear Charlotte, if any one can possibly resemble you. “Ah!” you will say, “he has learned how to pay fine compliments.” And this is partly true. I have been very agreeable lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. I have, moreover, a deal of wit: and the ladies say that no one understands flattery better, or falsehoods you will add; since the one accomplishment invariably accompanies the other. But I must tell you of Miss B  —  . She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no one desire of her heart. She would gladly retire from this whirl of fashion, and we often picture to ourselves a life of undisturbed happiness in distant scenes of rural retirement: and then we speak of you, my dear Charlotte; for she knows you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not exacted, but voluntary, she loves you, and delights to hear you made the subject of conversation.

Oh, that I were sitting at your feet in your favourite little room, with the dear children playing around us! If they became troublesome to you, I would tell them some appalling goblin story; and they would crowd round me with silent attention. The sun is setting in glory; his last rays are shining on the snow, which covers the face of the country: the storm is over, and I must return to my dungeon. Adieu!  —  Is Albert with you? and what is he to you? God forgive the question.

FEBRUARY 8.

For a week past we have had the most wretched weather: but this to me is a blessing; for, during my residence here, not a single fine day has beamed from the heavens, but has been lost to me by the intrusion of somebody. During the severity of rain, sleet, frost, and storm, I congratulate myself that it cannot be worse indoors than abroad, nor worse abroad than it is within doors; and so I become reconciled. When the sun rises bright in the morning, and promises a glorious day, I never omit to exclaim, “There, now, they have another blessing from Heaven, which they will be sure to destroy: they spoil everything,  —  health, fame, happiness, amusement; and they do this generally through folly, ignorance, or imbecility, and always, according to their own account, with the best intentions!” I could often beseech them, on my bended knees, to be less resolved upon their own destruction.

FEBRUARY 17.

I fear that my ambassador and I shall not continue much longer together. He is really growing past endurance. He transacts his business in so ridiculous a manner, that I am often compelled to contradict him, and do things my own way; and then, of course, he thinks them very ill done. He complained of me lately on this account at court; and the minister gave me a reprimand,  —  a gentle one it is true, but still a reprimand. In consequence of this, I was about to tender my resignation, when I received a letter, to which I submitted with great respect, on account of the high, noble, and generous spirit which dictated it. He endeavoured to soothe my excessive sensibility, paid a tribute to my extreme ideas of duty, of good example, and of perseverance in business, as the fruit of my youthful ardour, an impulse which he did not seek to destroy, but only to moderate, that it might have proper play and be productive of good. So now I am at rest for another week, and no longer at variance with myself. Content and peace of mind are valuable things: I could wish, my dear friend, that these precious jewels were less transitory.

FEBRUARY 20.

God bless you, my dear friends, and may he grant you that happiness which he denies to me!

I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed; and I intended on that day, with solemnity, to take down Charlotte’s profile from the wall, and to bury it with some other papers I possess. You are now united, and her picture still remains here. Well, let it remain! Why should it not? I know that I am still one of your society, that I still occupy a place uninjured in Charlotte’s heart, that I hold the second place therein; and I intend to keep it. Oh, I should become mad if she could forget! Albert, that thought is hell! Farewell, Albert farewell, angel of heaven farewell, Charlotte!

MARCH 15.

I have just had a sad adventure, which will drive me away from here. I lose all patience!  —  Death!  —  It is not to be remedied; and you alone are to blame, for you urged and impelled me to fill a post for which I was by no means suited. I have now reason to be satisfied, and so have you! But, that you may not again attribute this fatality to my impetuous temper, I send you, my dear sir, a plain and simple narration of the affair, as a mere chronicler of facts would describe it.

The Count of O  —  likes and distinguishes me. It is well known, and I have mentioned this to you a hundred times. Yesterday I dined with him. It is the day on which the nobility are accustomed to assemble at his house in the evening. I never once thought of the assembly, nor that we subalterns did not belong to such society. Well, I dined with the count; and, after dinner, we adjourned to the large hall. We walked up and down together: and I conversed with him, and with Colonel B  —  , who joined us; and in this manner the hour for the assembly approached. God knows, I was thinking of nothing, when who should enter but the honourable Lady accompanied by her noble husband and their silly, scheming daughter, with her small waist and flat neck; and, with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. As I heartily detest the whole race, I determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable Miss B  —  came in. As I never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, I stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, till after some time, that she seemed a little confused, and ceased to answer me with her usual ease of manner. I was struck with it. “Heavens!” I said to myself, “can she, too, be like the rest?” I felt annoyed, and was about to withdraw; but I remained, notwithstanding, forming excuses for her conduct, fancying she did not mean it, and still hoping to receive some friendly recognition. The rest of the company now arrived. There was the Baron F  —  , in an entire suit that dated from the coronation of Francis I.; the Chancellor N  —  , with his deaf wife; the shabbily-dressed I  —  , whose old-fashioned coat bore evidence of modern repairs: this crowned the whole. I conversed with some of my acquaintances, but they answered me laconically. I was engaged in observing Miss B  —  , and did not notice that the women were whispering at the end of the room, that the murmur extended by degrees to the men, that Madame S  —  addressed the count with much warmth (this was all related to me subsequently by Miss B  — ); till at length the count came up to me, and took me to the window. “You know our ridiculous customs,” he said. “I perceive the company is rather displeased at your being here. I would not on any account  —  “ “I beg your excellency’s pardon!” I exclaimed. “I ought to have thought of this before, but I know you will forgive this little inattention. I was going,” I added, “some time ago, but my evil genius detained me.” And I smiled and bowed, to take my leave. He shook me by the hand, in a manner which expressed everything. I hastened at once from the illustrious assembly, sprang into a carriage, and drove to M  —  . I contemplated the setting sun from the top of the hill, and read that beautiful passage in Homer, where Ulysses is entertained by the hospitable herdsmen. This was indeed delightful.

I returned home to supper in the evening. But few persons were assembled in the room. They had turned up a corner of the table-cloth, and were playing at dice. The good-natured A  —  came in. He laid down his hat when he saw me, approached me, and said in a low tone, “You have met with a disagreeable adventure.” “I!” I exclaimed. “The count obliged you to withdraw from the assembly!” “Deuce take the assembly!” said I. “I was very glad to be gone.” “I am delighted,” he added, “that you take it so lightly. I am only sorry that it is already so much spoken of.” The circumstance then began to pain me. I fancied that every one who sat down, and even looked at me, was thinking of this incident; and my heart became embittered.

And now I could plunge a dagger into my bosom, when I hear myself everywhere pitied, and observe the triumph of my enemies, who say that this is always the case with vain persons, whose heads are turned with conceit, who affect to despise forms and such petty, idle nonsense.

Say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools, when they have obtained an advantage over him. ’Tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint.

March 16.

Everything conspires against me. I met Miss B  —  walking to-day. I could not help joining her; and, when we were at a little distance from her companions, I expressed my sense of her altered manner toward me. “O Werther!” she said, in a tone of emotion, “you, who know my heart, how could you so ill interpret my distress? What did I not suffer for you, from the moment you entered the room! I foresaw it all, a hundred times was I on the point of mentioning it to you. I knew that the S  —    —  s and T  —    —  s, with their husbands, would quit the room, rather than remain in your company. I knew that the count would not break with them: and now so much is said about it.” “How!” I exclaimed, and endeavoured to conceal my emotion; for all that Adelin had mentioned to me yesterday recurred to me painfully at that moment. “Oh, how much it has already cost me!” said this amiable girl, while her eyes filled with tears. I could scarcely contain myself, and was ready to throw myself at her feet. “Explain yourself!” I cried. Tears flowed down her cheeks. I became quite frantic. She wiped them away, without attempting to conceal them. “You know my aunt,” she continued; “she was present: and in what light does she consider the affair! Last night, and this morning, Werther, I was compelled to listen to a lecture upon my acquaintance with you. I have been obliged to hear you condemned and depreciated; and I could not  —  I dared not  —  say much in your defence.”

Every word she uttered was a dagger to my heart. She did not feel what a mercy it would have been to conceal everything from me. She told me, in addition, all the impertinence that would be further circulated, and how the malicious would triumph; how they would rejoice over the punishment of my pride, over my humiliation for that want of esteem for others with which I had often been reproached. To hear all this, Wilhelm, uttered by her in a voice of the most sincere sympathy, awakened all my passions; and I am still in a state of extreme excitement. I wish I could find a man to jeer me about this event. I would sacrifice him to my resentment. The sight of his blood might possibly be a relief to my fury. A hundred times have I seized a dagger, to give ease to this oppressed heart. Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.

MARCH 24.

I have tendered my resignation to the court. I hope it will be accepted, and you will forgive me for not having previously consulted you. It is necessary I should leave this place. I know all you will urge me to stay, and therefore I beg you will soften this news to my mother. I am unable to do anything for myself: how, then, should I be competent to assist others? It will afflict her that I should have interrupted that career which would have made me first a privy councillor, and then minister, and that I should look behind me, in place of advancing. Argue as you will, combine all the reasons which should have induced me to remain, I am going: that is sufficient. But, that you may not be ignorant of my destination, I may mention that the Prince of  —  is here. He is much pleased with my company; and, having heard of my intention to resign, he has invited me to his country house, to pass the spring months with him. I shall be left completely my own master; and, as we agree on all subjects but one, I shall try my fortune, and accompany him.

APRIL 19.

Thanks for both your letters. I delayed my reply, and withheld this letter, till I should obtain an answer from the court. I feared my mother might apply to the minister to defeat my purpose. But my request is granted, my resignation is accepted. I shall not recount with what reluctance it was accorded, nor relate what the minister has written: you would only renew your lamentations. The crown prince has sent me a present of five and twenty ducats; and, indeed, such goodness has affected me to tears. For this reason I shall not require from my mother the money for which I lately applied.

MAY 5.

I leave this place to-morrow; and, as my native place is only six miles from the high road, I intend to visit it once more, and recall the happy dreams of my childhood. I shall enter at the same gate through which I came with my mother, when, after my father’s death, she left that delightful retreat to immure herself in your melancholy town. Adieu, my dear friend: you shall hear of my future career.

MAY 9.

I have paid my visit to my native place with all the devotion of a pilgrim, and have experienced many unexpected emotions. Near the great elm tree, which is a quarter of a league from the village, I got out of the carriage, and sent it on before, that alone, and on foot, I might enjoy vividly and heartily all the pleasure of my recollections. I stood there under that same elm which was formerly the term and object of my walks. How things have since changed! Then, in happy ignorance, I sighed for a world I did not know, where I hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world, O my friend, how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have I brought back!

As I contemplated the mountains which lay stretched out before me, I thought how often they had been the object of my dearest desires. Here used I to sit for hours together with my eyes bent upon them, ardently longing to wander in the shade of those woods, to lose myself in those valleys, which form so delightful an object in the distance. With what reluctance did I leave this charming spot; when my hour of recreation was over, and my leave of absence expired! I drew near to the village: all the well-known old summerhouses and gardens were recognised again; I disliked the new ones, and all other alterations which had taken place. I entered the village, and all my former feelings returned. I cannot, my dear friend, enter into details, charming as were my sensations: they would be dull in the narration. I had intended to lodge in the market-place, near our old house. As soon as I entered, I perceived that the schoolroom, where our childhood had been taught by that good old woman, was converted into a shop. I called to mind the sorrow, the heaviness, the tears, and oppression of heart, which I experienced in that confinement. Every step produced some particular impression. A pilgrim in the Holy Land does not meet so many spots pregnant with tender recollections, and his soul is hardly moved with greater devotion. One incident will serve for illustration. I followed the course of a stream to a farm, formerly a delightful walk of mine, and paused at the spot, where, when boys, we used to amuse ourselves making ducks and drakes upon the water. I recollected so well how I used formerly to watch the course of that same stream, following it with inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it was to pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the water continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became bewildered by the contemplation of an invisible distance. Exactly such, my dear friend, so happy and so confined, were the thoughts of our good ancestors. Their feelings and their poetry were fresh as childhood. And, when Ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth, his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt, and mysterious. Of what importance is it that I have learned, with every schoolboy, that the world is round? Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less for his final repose.

I am at present with the prince at his hunting lodge. He is a man with whom one can live happily. He is honest and unaffected. There are, however, some strange characters about him, whom I cannot at all understand. They do not seem vicious, and yet they do not carry the appearance of thoroughly honest men. Sometimes I am disposed to believe them honest, and yet I cannot persuade myself to confide in them. It grieves me to hear the prince occasionally talk of things which he has only read or heard of, and always with the same view in which they have been represented by others.

He values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but I am proud of the latter only. It is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. All the knowledge I possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own.

MAY 25.

I have had a plan in my head of which I did not intend to speak to you until it was accomplished: now that it has failed, I may as well mention it. I wished to enter the army, and had long been desirous of taking the step. This, indeed, was the chief reason for my coming here with the prince, as he is a general in the service. I communicated my design to him during one of our walks together. He disapproved of it, and it would have been actual madness not to have listened to his reasons.

JUNE 11.

Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I remain? Time hangs heavy upon my hands. The prince is as gracious to me as any one could be, and yet I am not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us. He is a man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation affords me no more amusement than I should derive from the perusal of a well-written book. I shall remain here a week longer, and then start again on my travels. My drawings are the best things I have done since I came here. The prince has a taste for the arts, and would improve if his mind were not fettered by cold rules and mere technical ideas. I often lose patience, when, with a glowing imagination, I am giving expression to art and nature, he interferes with learned suggestions, and uses at random the technical phraseology of artists.

JULY 16.

Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you!

JULY 18.

Whither am I going? I will tell you in confidence. I am obliged to continue a fortnight longer here, and then I think it would be better for me to visit the mines in  —  . But I am only deluding myself thus. The fact is, I wish to be near Charlotte again, that is all. I smile at the suggestions of my heart, and obey its dictates.

JULY 29.

No, no! it is yet well all is well! I her husband! O God, who gave me being, if thou hadst destined this happiness for me, my whole life would have been one continual thanksgiving! But I will not murmur  —  forgive these tears, forgive these fruitless wishes. She  —  my wife! Oh, the very thought of folding that dearest of Heaven’s creatures in my arms! Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see Albert put his arms around her slender waist!

And shall I avow it? Why should I not, Wilhelm? She would have been happier with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants  —  in short, their hearts do not beat in unison. How often, my dear friend, I’m reading a passage from some interesting book, when my heart and Charlotte’s seemed to meet, and in a hundred other instances when our sentiments were unfolded by the story of some fictitious character, have I felt that we were made for each other! But, dear Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole soul; and what does not such a love deserve?

I have been interrupted by an insufferable visit. I have dried my tears, and composed my thoughts. Adieu, my best friend!

AUGUST 4.

I am not alone unfortunate. All men are disappointed in their hopes, and deceived in their expectations. I have paid a visit to my good old woman under the lime-trees. The eldest boy ran out to meet me: his exclamation of joy brought out his mother, but she had a very melancholy look. Her first word was, “Alas! dear sir, my little John is dead.” He was the youngest of her children. I was silent. “And my husband has returned from Switzerland without any money; and, if some kind people had not assisted him, he must have begged his way home. He was taken ill with fever on his journey.” I could answer nothing, but made the little one a present. She invited me to take some fruit: I complied, and left the place with a sorrowful heart.

AUGUST 21.

My sensations are constantly changing. Sometimes a happy prospect opens before me; but alas! it is only for a moment; and then, when I am lost in reverie, I cannot help saying to myself, “If Albert were to die?  —  Yes, she would become  —  and I should be”  —  and so I pursue a chimera, till it leads me to the edge of a precipice at which I shudder.

When I pass through the same gate, and walk along the same road which first conducted me to Charlotte, my heart sinks within me at the change that has since taken place. All, all, is altered! No sentiment, no pulsation of my heart, is the same. My sensations are such as would occur to some departed prince whose spirit should return to visit the superb palace which he had built in happy times, adorned with costly magnificence, and left to a beloved son, but whose glory he should find departed, and its halls deserted and in ruins.

SEPTEMBER 3.

I sometimes cannot understand how she can love another, how she dares love another, when I love nothing in this world so completely, so devotedly, as I love her, when I know only her, and have no other possession.

SEPTEMBER 4.

It is even so! As nature puts on her autumn tints it becomes autumn with me and around me. My leaves are sere and yellow, and the neighbouring trees are divested of their foliage. Do you remember my writing to you about a peasant boy shortly after my arrival here? I have just made inquiries about him in Walheim. They say he has been dismissed from his service, and is now avoided by every one. I met him yesterday on the road, going to a neighbouring village. I spoke to him, and he told me his story. It interested me exceedingly, as you will easily understand when I repeat it to you. But why should I trouble you? Why should I not reserve all my sorrow for myself? Why should I continue to give you occasion to pity and blame me? But no matter: this also is part of my destiny.

At first the peasant lad answered my inquiries with a sort of subdued melancholy, which seemed to me the mark of a timid disposition; but, as we grew to understand each other, he spoke with less reserve, and openly confessed his faults, and lamented his misfortune. I wish, my dear friend, I could give proper expression to his language. He told me with a sort of pleasurable recollection, that, after my departure, his passion for his mistress increased daily, until at last he neither knew what he did nor what he said, nor what was to become of him. He could neither eat nor drink nor sleep: he felt a sense of suffocation; he disobeyed all orders, and forgot all commands involuntarily; he seemed as if pursued by an evil spirit, till one day, knowing that his mistress had gone to an upper chamber, he had followed, or, rather, been drawn after her. As she proved deaf to his entreaties, he had recourse to violence. He knows not what happened; but he called God to witness that his intentions to her were honourable, and that he desired nothing more sincerely than that they should marry, and pass their lives together. When he had come to this point, he began to hesitate, as if there was something which he had not courage to utter, till at length he acknowledged with some confusion certain little confidences she had encouraged, and liberties she had allowed. He broke off two or three times in his narration, and assured me most earnestly that he had no wish to make her bad, as he termed it, for he loved her still as sincerely as ever; that the tale had never before escaped his lips, and was only now told to convince me that he was not utterly lost and abandoned. And here, my dear friend, I must commence the old song which you know I utter eternally. If I could only represent the man as he stood, and stands now before me, could I only give his true expressions, you would feel compelled to sympathise in his fate. But enough: you, who know my misfortune and my disposition, can easily comprehend the attraction which draws me toward every unfortunate being, but particularly toward him whose story I have recounted.

On perusing this letter a second time, I find I have omitted the conclusion of my tale; but it is easily supplied. She became reserved toward him, at the instigation of her brother who had long hated him, and desired his expulsion from the house, fearing that his sister’s second marriage might deprive his children of the handsome fortune they expected from her; as she is childless. He was dismissed at length; and the whole affair occasioned so much scandal, that the mistress dared not take him back, even if she had wished it. She has since hired another servant, with whom, they say, her brother is equally displeased, and whom she is likely to marry; but my informant assures me that he himself is determined not to survive such a catastrophe.

This story is neither exaggerated nor embellished: indeed, I have weakened and impaired it in the narration, by the necessity of using the more refined expressions of society.

This love, then, this constancy, this passion, is no poetical fiction. It is actual, and dwells in its greatest purity amongst that class of mankind whom we term rude, uneducated. We are the educated, not the perverted. But read this story with attention, I implore you. I am tranquil to-day, for I have been employed upon this narration: you see by my writing that I am not so agitated as usual. I read and re-read this tale, Wilhelm: it is the history of your friend! My fortune has been and will be similar; and I am neither half so brave nor half so determined as the poor wretch with whom I hesitate to compare myself.

SEPTEMBER 5.

Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the country, where he was detained by business. It commenced, “My dearest love, return as soon as possible: I await you with a thousand raptures.” A friend who arrived, brought word, that, for certain reasons, he could not return immediately. Charlotte’s letter was not forwarded, and the same evening it fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the reason. “What a heavenly treasure is imagination:” I exclaimed; “I fancied for a moment that this was written to me.” She paused, and seemed displeased. I was silent.

SEPTEMBER 6.

It cost me much to part with the blue coat which I wore the first time I danced with Charlotte. But I could not possibly wear it any longer. But I have ordered a new one, precisely similar, even to the collar and sleeves, as well as a new waistcoat and pantaloons.

But it does not produce the same effect upon me. I know not how it is, but I hope in time I shall like it better.

SEPTEMBER 12.

She has been absent for some days. She went to meet Albert. To-day I visited her: she rose to receive me, and I kissed her hand most tenderly.

A canary at the moment flew from a mirror, and settled upon her shoulder. “Here is a new friend,” she observed, while she made him perch upon her hand: “he is a present for the children. What a dear he is! Look at him! When I feed him, he flutters with his wings, and pecks so nicely. He kisses me, too, only look!”

She held the bird to her mouth; and he pressed her sweet lips with so much fervour that he seemed to feel the excess of bliss which he enjoyed.

“He shall kiss you too,” she added; and then she held the bird toward me. His little beak moved from her mouth to mine, and the delightful sensation seemed like the forerunner of the sweetest bliss.

“A kiss,” I observed, “does not seem to satisfy him: he wishes for food, and seems disappointed by these unsatisfactory endearments.”

“But he eats out of my mouth,” she continued, and extended her lips to him containing seed; and she smiled with all the charm of a being who has allowed an innocent participation of her love.

I turned my face away. She should not act thus. She ought not to excite my imagination with such displays of heavenly innocence and happiness, nor awaken my heart from its slumbers, in which it dreams of the worthlessness of life! And why not? Because she knows how much I love her.

SEPTEMBER 15.

It makes me wretched, Wilhelm, to think that there should be men incapable of appreciating the few things which possess a real value in life. You remember the walnut trees at S  —  , under which I used to sit with Charlotte, during my visits to the worthy old vicar. Those glorious trees, the very sight of which has so often filled my heart with joy, how they adorned and refreshed the parsonage yard, with their wide-extended branches! and how pleasing was our remembrance of the good old pastor, by whose hands they were planted so many years ago: The schoolmaster has frequently mentioned his name. He had it from his grandfather. He must have been a most excellent man; and, under the shade of those old trees, his memory was ever venerated by me. The schoolmaster informed us yesterday, with tears in his eyes, that those trees had been felled. Yes, cut to the ground! I could, in my wrath, have slain the monster who struck the first stroke. And I must endure this!  —  I, who, if I had had two such trees in my own court, and one had died from old age, should have wept with real affliction. But there is some comfort left, such a thing is sentiment, the whole village murmurs at the misfortune; and I hope the vicar’s wife will soon find, by the cessation of the villagers’ presents, how much she has wounded the feelings of the neighborhhood. It was she who did it, the wife of the present incumbent (our good old man is dead), a tall, sickly creature who is so far right to disregard the world, as the world totally disregards her. The silly being affects to be learned, pretends to examine the canonical books, lends her aid toward the new-fashioned reformation of Christendom, moral and critical, and shrugs up her shoulders at the mention of Lavater’s enthusiasm. Her health is destroyed, on account of which she is prevented from having any enjoyment here below. Only such a creature could have cut down my walnut trees! I can never pardon it. Hear her reasons. The falling leaves made the court wet and dirty; the branches obstructed the light; boys threw stones at the nuts when they were ripe, and the noise affected her nerves; and disturbed her profound meditations, when she was weighing the difficulties of Kennicot, Semler, and Michaelis. Finding that all the parish, particularly the old people, were displeased, I asked “why they allowed it?” “Ah, sir!” they replied, “when the steward orders, what can we poor peasants do?” But one thing has happened well. The steward and the vicar (who, for once, thought to reap some advantage from the caprices of his wife) intended to divide the trees between them. The revenue-office, being informed of it, revived an old claim to the ground where the trees had stood, and sold them to the best bidder. There they still lie on the ground. If I were the sovereign, I should know how to deal with them all, vicar, steward, and revenue-office. Sovereign, did I say? I should, in that case, care little about the trees that grew in the country.

OCTOBER 10.

Only to gaze upon her dark eyes is to me a source of happiness! And what grieves me, is, that Albert does not seem so happy as he  —  hoped to be  —  as I should have been  —  if  —  I am no friend to these pauses, but here I cannot express it otherwise; and probably I am explicit enough.

OCTOBER 12.

Ossian has superseded Homer in my heart. To what a world does the illustrious bard carry me! To wander over pathless wilds, surrounded by impetuous whirlwinds, where, by the feeble light of the moon, we see the spirits of our ancestors; to hear from the mountain-tops, mid the roar of torrents, their plaintive sounds issuing from deep caverns, and the sorrowful lamentations of a maiden who sighs and expires on the mossy tomb of the warrior by whom she was adored. I meet this bard with silver hair; he wanders in the valley; he seeks the footsteps of his fathers, and, alas! he finds only their tombs. Then, contemplating the pale moon, as she sinks beneath the waves of the rolling sea, the memory of bygone days strikes the mind of the hero, days when approaching danger invigorated the brave, and the moon shone upon his bark laden with spoils, and returning in triumph. When I read in his countenance deep sorrow, when I see his dying glory sink exhausted into the grave, as he inhales new and heart-thrilling delight from his approaching union with his beloved, and he casts a look on the cold earth and the tall grass which is so soon to cover him, and then exclaims, “The traveller will come,  —  he will come who has seen my beauty, and he will ask, ‘Where is the bard, where is the illustrious son of Fingal?’ He will walk over my tomb, and will seek me in vain!” Then, O my friend, I could instantly, like a true and noble knight, draw my sword, and deliver my prince from the long and painful languor of a living death, and dismiss my own soul to follow the demigod whom my hand had set free!

OCTOBER 19.

Alas! the void the fearful void, which I feel in my bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once but once, press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled.

OCTOBER 26.

Yes, I feel certain, Wilhelm, and every day I become more certain, that the existence of any being whatever is of very little consequence. A friend of Charlotte’s called to see her just now. I withdrew into a neighbouring apartment, and took up a book; but, finding I could not read, I sat down to write. I heard them converse in an undertone: they spoke upon indifferent topics, and retailed the news of the town. One was going to be married; another was ill, very ill, she had a dry cough, her face was growing thinner daily, and she had occasional fits. “N  —  is very unwell too,” said Charlotte. “His limbs begin to swell already,” answered the other; and my lively imagination carried me at once to the beds of the infirm. There I see them struggling against death, with all the agonies of pain and horror; and these women, Wilhelm, talk of all this with as much indifference as one would mention the death of a stranger. And when I look around the apartment where I now am  —  when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,  —  when I think what I am to this family  —  everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet  —  -if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel  —  or how long would they feel the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart, of his beloved, there also he must perish,  —  vanish,  —  and that quickly.

OCTOBER 27.

I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and, though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.

OCTOBER 27: Evening.

I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.

OCTOBER 30.

One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I!

NOVEMBER 3.

Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again. And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly. I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my sorrow, as it previously contained the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who, at every step, saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded toward the whole world? And this heart is now dead, no sentiment can revive it; my eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,  —  it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart, I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.

But I feel that God does not grant sunshine or rain to our importunate entreaties. And oh, those bygone days, whose memory now torments me! why were they so fortunate? Because I then waited with patience for the blessings of the Eternal, and received his gifts with the grateful feelings of a thankful heart.

NOVEMBER 8.

Charlotte has reproved me for my excesses, with so much tenderness and goodness! I have lately been in the habit of drinking more wine than heretofore. “Don’t do it,” she said. “Think of Charlotte!” “Think of you!” I answered; “need you bid me do so? Think of you  —  I do not think of you: you are ever before my soul! This very morning I sat on the spot where, a few days ago, you descended from the carriage, and  —  “ She immediately changed the subject to prevent me from pursuing it farther. My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated: she can do with me what she pleases.

NOVEMBER 15.

I thank you, Wilhelm, for your cordial sympathy, for your excellent advice; and I implore you to be quiet. Leave me to my sufferings. In spite of my wretchedness, I have still strength enough for endurance. I revere religion  —  you know I do. I feel that it can impart strength to the feeble and comfort to the afflicted, but does it affect all men equally? Consider this vast universe: you will see thousands for whom it has never existed, thousands for whom it will never exist, whether it be preached to them, or not; and must it, then, necessarily exist for me? Does not the Son of God himself say that they are his whom the Father has given to him? Have I been given to him? What if the Father will retain me for himself, as my heart sometimes suggests? I pray you, do not misinterpret this. Do not extract derision from my harmless words. I pour out my whole soul before you. Silence were otherwise preferable to me, but I need not shrink from a subject of which few know more than I do myself. What is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness? And if that same cup proved bitter to the God of heaven, under a human form, why should I affect a foolish pride, and call it sweet? Why should I be ashamed of shrinking at that fearful moment, when my whole being will tremble between existence and annihilation, when a remembrance of the past, like a flash of lightning, will illuminate the dark gulf of futurity, when everything shall dissolve around me, and the whole world vanish away? Is not this the voice of a creature oppressed beyond all resource, self-deficient, about to plunge into inevitable destruction, and groaning deeply at its inadequate strength, “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” And should I feel ashamed to utter the same expression? Should I not shudder at a prospect which had its fears, even for him who folds up the heavens like a garment?

NOVEMBER 21.

She does not feel, she does not know, that she is preparing a poison which will destroy us both; and I drink deeply of the draught which is to prove my destruction. What mean those looks of kindness with which she often  —  often? no, not often, but sometimes, regards me, that complacency with which she hears the involuntary sentiments which frequently escape me, and the tender pity for my sufferings which appears in her countenance?

Yesterday, when I took leave she seized me by the hand, and said, “Adieu, dear Werther.” Dear Werther! It was the first time she ever called me dear: the sound sunk deep into my heart. I have repeated it a hundred times; and last night, on going to bed, and talking to myself of various things, I suddenly said, “Good night, dear Werther!” and then could not but laugh at myself.

NOVEMBER 22

I cannot pray, “Leave her to me!” and yet she often seems to belong to me. I cannot pray, “Give her to me!” for she is another’s. In this way I affect mirth over my troubles; and, if I had time, I could compose a whole litany of antitheses.

NOVEMBER 24.

She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look pierced my very soul. I found her alone, and she was silent: she steadfastly surveyed me. I no longer saw in her face the charms of beauty or the fire of genius: these had disappeared. But I was affected by an expression much more touching, a look of the deepest sympathy and of the softest pity. Why was I afraid to throw myself at her feet? Why did I not dare to take her in my arms, and answer her by a thousand kisses? She had recourse to her piano for relief, and in a low and sweet voice accompanied the music with delicious sounds. Her lips never appeared so lovely: they seemed but just to open, that they might imbibe the sweet tones which issued from the instrument, and return the heavenly vibration from her lovely mouth. Oh! who can express my sensations? I was quite overcome, and, bending down, pronounced this vow: “Beautiful lips, which the angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with a kiss.” And yet, my friend, oh, I wish  —  but my heart is darkened by doubt and indecision  —  could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the sin! What sin?

NOVEMBER 26.

Oftentimes I say to myself, “Thou alone art wretched: all other mortals are happy, none are distressed like thee!” Then I read a passage in an ancient poet, and I seem to understand my own heart. I have so much to endure! Have men before me ever been so wretched?

NOVEMBER 30.

I shall never be myself again! Wherever I go, some fatality occurs to distract me. Even to-day alas  —  for our destiny! alas for human nature!

About dinner-time I went to walk by the river-side, for I had no appetite. Everything around seemed gloomy: a cold and damp easterly wind blew from the mountains, and black, heavy clouds spread over the plain. I observed at a distance a man in a tattered coat: he was wandering among the rocks, and seemed to be looking for plants. When I approached, he turned round at the noise; and I saw that he had an interesting countenance in which a settled melancholy, strongly marked by benevolence, formed the principal feature. His long black hair was divided, and flowed over his shoulders. As his garb betokened a person of the lower order, I thought he would not take it ill if I inquired about his business; and I therefore asked what he was seeking. He replied, with a deep sigh, that he was looking for flowers, and could find none. “But it is not the season,” I observed, with a smile. “Oh, there are so many flowers!” he answered, as he came nearer to me. “In my garden there are roses and honeysuckles of two sorts: one sort was given to me by my father! they grow as plentifully as weeds; I have been looking for them these two days, and cannot find them. There are flowers out there, yellow, blue, and red; and that centaury has a very pretty blossom: but I can find none of them.” I observed his peculiarity, and therefore asked him, with an air of indifference, what he intended to do with his flowers. A strange smile overspread his countenance. Holding his finger to his mouth, he expressed a hope that I would not betray him; and he then informed me that he had promised to gather a nosegay for his mistress. “That is right,” said I. “Oh!” he replied, “she possesses many other things as well: she is very rich.” “And yet,” I continued, “she likes your nosegays.” “Oh, she has jewels and crowns!” he exclaimed. I asked who she was. “If the states-general would but pay me,” he added, “I should be quite another man. Alas! there was a time when I was so happy; but that is past, and I am now  —  “ He raised his swimming eyes to heaven. “And you were happy once?” I observed. “Ah, would I were so still!” was his reply. “I was then as gay and contented as a man can be.” An old woman, who was coming toward us, now called out, “Henry, Henry! where are you? We have been looking for you everywhere: come to dinner.” “Is he your son?” I inquired, as I went toward her. “Yes,” she said: “he is my poor, unfortunate son. The Lord has sent me a heavy affliction.” I asked whether he had been long in this state. She answered, “He has been as calm as he is at present for about six months. I thank Heaven that he has so far recovered: he was for one whole year quite raving, and chained down in a madhouse. Now he injures no one, but talks of nothing else than kings and queens. He used to be a very good, quiet youth, and helped to maintain me; he wrote a very fine hand; but all at once he became melancholy, was seized with a violent fever, grew distracted, and is now as you see. If I were only to tell you, sir  —  “ I interrupted her by asking what period it was in which he boasted of having been so happy. “Poor boy!” she exclaimed, with a smile of compassion, “he means the time when he was completely deranged, a time he never ceases to regret, when he was in the madhouse, and unconscious of everything.” I was thunderstruck: I placed a piece of money in her hand, and hastened away.

“You were happy!” I exclaimed, as I returned quickly to the town, “‘as gay and contented as a man can be!’” God of heaven! and is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason, or after he has lost it? Unfortunate being! And yet I envy your fate: I envy the delusion to which you are a victim. You go forth with joy to gather flowers for your princess,  —  in winter,  —  and grieve when you can find none, and cannot understand why they do not grow. But I wander forth without joy, without hope, without design; and I return as I came. You fancy what a man you would be if the states general paid you. Happy mortal, who can ascribe your wretchedness to an earthly cause! You do not know, you do not feel, that in your own distracted heart and disordered brain dwells the source of that unhappiness which all the potentates on earth cannot relieve.

Let that man die unconsoled who can deride the invalid for undertaking a journey to distant, healthful springs, where he often finds only a heavier disease and a more painful death, or who can exult over the despairing mind of a sinner, who, to obtain peace of conscience and an alleviation of misery, makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Each laborious step which galls his wounded feet in rough and untrodden paths pours a drop of balm into his troubled soul, and the journey of many a weary day brings a nightly relief to his anguished heart. Will you dare call this enthusiasm, ye crowd of pompous declaimers? Enthusiasm! O God! thou seest my tears. Thou hast allotted us our portion of misery: must we also have brethren to persecute us, to deprive us of our consolation, of our trust in thee, and in thy love and mercy? For our trust in the virtue of the healing root, or in the strength of the vine, what is it else than a belief in thee from whom all that surrounds us derives its healing and restoring powers? Father, whom I know not,  —  who wert once wont to fill my soul, but who now hidest thy face from me,  —  call me back to thee; be silent no longer; thy silence shall not delay a soul which thirsts after thee. What man, what father, could be angry with a son for returning to him suddenly, for falling on his neck, and exclaiming, “I am here again, my father! forgive me if I have anticipated my journey, and returned before the appointed time! The world is everywhere the same,  —  a scene of labour and pain, of pleasure and reward; but what does it all avail? I am happy only where thou art, and in thy presence am I content to suffer or enjoy.” And wouldst thou, heavenly Father, banish such a child from thy presence?

DECEMBER 1.

Wilhelm, the man about whom I wrote to you  —  that man so enviable in his misfortunes  —  was secretary to Charlotte’s father; and an unhappy passion for her which he cherished, concealed, and at length discovered, caused him to be dismissed from his situation. This made him mad. Think, whilst you peruse this plain narration, what an impression the circumstance has made upon me! But it was related to me by Albert with as much calmness as you will probably peruse it.

DECEMBER 4.

I implore your attention. It is all over with me. I can support this state no longer. To-day I was sitting by Charlotte. She was playing upon her piano a succession of delightful melodies, with such intense expression! Her little sister was dressing her doll upon my lap. The tears came into my eyes. I leaned down, and looked intently at her wedding-ring: my tears fell  —  immediately she began to play that favourite, that divine, air which has so often enchanted me. I felt comfort from a recollection of the past, of those bygone days when that air was familiar to me; and then I recalled all the sorrows and the disappointments which I had since endured. I paced with hasty strides through the room, my heart became convulsed with painful emotions. At length I went up to her, and exclaimed With eagerness, “For Heaven’s sake, play that air no longer!” She stopped, and looked steadfastly at me. She then said, with a smile which sunk deep into my heart, “Werther, you are ill: your dearest food is distasteful to you. But go, I entreat you, and endeavour to compose yourself.” I tore myself away. God, thou seest my torments, and wilt end them!

DECEMBER 6.

How her image haunts me! Waking or asleep, she fills my entire soul! Soon as I close my eyes, here, in my brain, where all the nerves of vision are concentrated, her dark eyes are imprinted. Here  —  I do not know how to describe it; but, if I shut my eyes, hers are immediately before me: dark as an abyss they open upon me, and absorb my senses.

And what is man  —  that boasted demigod? Do not his powers fail when he most requires their use? And whether he soar in joy, or sink in sorrow, is not his career in both inevitably arrested? And, whilst he fondly dreams that he is grasping at infinity, does he not feel compelled to return to a consciousness of his cold, monotonous existence?

THE EDITOR TO THE READER.

It is a matter of extreme regret that we want original evidence of the last remarkable days of our friend; and we are, therefore, obliged to interrupt the progress of his correspondence, and to supply the deficiency by a connected narration.

I have felt it my duty to collect accurate information from the mouths of persons well acquainted with his history. The story is simple; and all the accounts agree, except in some unimportant particulars. It is true, that, with respect to the characters of the persons spoken of, opinions and judgments vary.

We have only, then, to relate conscientiously the facts which our diligent labour has enabled us to collect, to give the letters of the deceased, and to pay particular attention to the slightest fragment from his pen, more especially as it is so difficult to discover the real and correct motives of men who are not of the common order.

Sorrow and discontent had taken deep root in Werther’s soul, and gradually imparted their character to his whole being. The harmony of his mind became completely disturbed; a perpetual excitement and mental irritation, which weakened his natural powers, produced the saddest effects upon him, and rendered him at length the victim of an exhaustion against which he struggled with still more painful efforts than he had displayed, even in contending with his other misfortunes. His mental anxiety weakened his various good qualities; and he was soon converted into a gloomy companion, always unhappy and unjust in his ideas, the more wretched he became. This was, at least, the opinion of Albert’s friends. They assert, moreover, that the character of Albert himself had undergone no change in the meantime: he was still the same being whom Werther had loved, honoured, and respected from the commencement. His love for Charlotte was unbounded: he was proud of her, and desired that she should be recognised by every one as the noblest of created beings. Was he, however, to blame for wishing to avert from her every appearance of suspicion? or for his unwillingness to share his rich prize with another, even for a moment, and in the most innocent manner? It is asserted that Albert frequently retired from his wife’s apartment during Werther’s visits; but this did not arise from hatred or aversion to his friend, but only from a feeling that his presence was oppressive to Werther.

Charlotte’s father, who was confined to the house by indisposition, was accustomed to send his carriage for her, that she might make excursions in the neighbourhood. One day the weather had been unusually severe, and the whole country was covered with snow.

Werther went for Charlotte the following morning, in order that, if Albert were absent, he might conduct her home.

The beautiful weather produced but little impression on his troubled spirit. A heavy weight lay upon his soul, deep melancholy had taken possession of him, and his mind knew no change save from one painful thought to another.

As he now never enjoyed internal peace, the condition of his fellow creatures was to him a perpetual source of trouble and distress. He believed he had disturbed the happiness of Albert and his wife; and, whilst he censured himself strongly for this, he began to entertain a secret dislike to Albert.

His thoughts were occasionally directed to this point. “Yes,” he would repeat to himself, with ill-concealed dissatisfaction, “yes, this is, after all, the extent of that confiding, dear, tender, and sympathetic love, that calm and eternal fidelity! What do I behold but satiety and indifference? Does not every frivolous engagement attract him more than his charming and lovely wife? Does he know how to prize his happiness? Can he value her as she deserves? He possesses her, it is true, I know that, as I know much more, and I have become accustomed to the thought that he will drive me mad, or, perhaps, murder me. Is his friendship toward me unimpaired? Does he not view my attachment to Charlotte as an infringement upon his rights, and consider my attention to her as a silent rebuke to himself? I know, and indeed feel, that he dislikes me, that he wishes for my absence, that my presence is hateful to him.”

He would often pause when on his way to visit Charlotte, stand still, as though in doubt, and seem desirous of returning, but would nevertheless proceed; and, engaged in such thoughts and soliloquies as we have described, he finally reached the hunting-lodge, with a sort of involuntary consent.

Upon one occasion he entered the house; and, inquiring for Charlotte, he observed that the inmates were in a state of unusual confusion. The eldest boy informed him that a dreadful misfortune had occurred at Walheim,  —  that a peasant had been murdered! But this made little impression upon him. Entering the apartment, he found Charlotte engaged reasoning with her father, who, in spite of his infirmity, insisted on going to the scene of the crime, in order to institute an inquiry. The criminal was unknown; the victim had been found dead at his own door that morning. Suspicions were excited: the murdered man had been in the service of a widow, and the person who had previously filled the situation had been dismissed from her employment.

As soon as Werther heard this, he exclaimed with great excitement, “Is it possible! I must go to the spot  —  I cannot delay a moment!” He hastened to Walheim. Every incident returned vividly to his remembrance; and he entertained not the slightest doubt that that man was the murderer to whom he had so often spoken, and for whom he entertained so much regard. His way took him past the well-known lime trees, to the house where the body had been carried; and his feelings were greatly excited at the sight of the fondly recollected spot. That threshold where the neighbours’ children had so often played together was stained with blood; love and attachment, the noblest feelings of human nature, had been converted into violence and murder. The huge trees stood there leafless and covered with hoarfrost; the beautiful hedgerows which surrounded the old churchyard wall were withered; and the gravestones, half covered with snow, were visible through the openings.

As he approached the inn, in front of which the whole village was assembled, screams were suddenly heard. A troop of armed peasants was seen approaching, and every one exclaimed that the criminal had been apprehended. Werther looked, and was not long in doubt. The prisoner was no other than the servant, who had been formerly so attached to the widow, and whom he had met prowling about, with that suppressed anger and ill-concealed despair, which we have before described.

“What have you done, unfortunate man?” inquired Werther, as he advanced toward the prisoner. The latter turned his eyes upon him in silence, and then replied with perfect composure; “No one will now marry her, and she will marry no one.” The prisoner was taken into the inn, and Werther left the place. The mind of Werther was fearfully excited by this shocking occurrence. He ceased, however, to be oppressed by his usual feeling of melancholy, moroseness, and indifference to everything that passed around him. He entertained a strong degree of pity for the prisoner, and was seized with an indescribable anxiety to save him from his impending fate. He considered him so unfortunate, he deemed his crime so excusable, and thought his own condition so nearly similar, that he felt convinced he could make every one else view the matter in the light in which he saw it himself. He now became anxious to undertake his defence, and commenced composing an eloquent speech for the occasion; and, on his way to the hunting-lodge, he could not refrain from speaking aloud the statement which he resolved to make to the judge.

Upon his arrival, he found Albert had been before him: and he was a little perplexed by this meeting; but he soon recovered himself, and expressed his opinion with much warmth to the judge. The latter shook, his head doubtingly; and although Werther urged his case with the utmost zeal, feeling, and determination in defence of his client, yet, as we may easily suppose, the judge was not much influenced by his appeal. On the contrary, he interrupted him in his address, reasoned with him seriously, and even administered a rebuke to him for becoming the advocate of a murderer. He demonstrated, that, according to this precedent, every law might be violated, and the public security utterly destroyed. He added, moreover, that in such a case he could himself do nothing, without incurring the greatest responsibility; that everything must follow in the usual course, and pursue the ordinary channel.

Werther, however, did not abandon his enterprise, and even besought the judge to connive at the flight of the prisoner. But this proposal was peremptorily rejected. Albert, who had taken some part in the discussion, coincided in opinion with the judge. At this Werther became enraged, and took his leave in great anger, after the judge had more than once assured him that the prisoner could not be saved.

The excess of his grief at this assurance may be inferred from a note we have found amongst his papers, and which was doubtless written upon this very occasion.

“You cannot be saved, unfortunate man! I see clearly that we cannot be saved!”

Werther was highly incensed at the observations which Albert had made to the judge in this matter of the prisoner. He thought he could detect therein a little bitterness toward himself personally; and although, upon reflection, it could not escape his sound judgment that their view of the matter was correct, he felt the greatest possible reluctance to make such an admission.

A memorandum of Werther’s upon this point, expressive of his general feelings toward Albert, has been found amongst his papers.

“What is the use of my continually repeating that he is a good and estimable man? He is an inward torment to me, and I am incapable of being just toward him.”

One fine evening in winter, when the weather seemed inclined to thaw, Charlotte and Albert were returning home together. The former looked from time to time about her, as if she missed Werther’s company. Albert began to speak of him, and censured him for his prejudices. He alluded to his unfortunate attachment, and wished it were possible to discontinue his acquaintance. “I desire it on our own account,” he added; “and I request you will compel him to alter his deportment toward you, and to visit you less frequently. The world is censorious, and I know that here and there we are spoken of.” Charlotte made no reply, and Albert seemed to feel her silence. At least, from that time he never again spoke of Werther; and, when she introduced the subject, he allowed the conversation to die away, or else he directed the discourse into another channel.

The vain attempt Werther had made to save the unhappy murderer was the last feeble glimmering of a flame about to be extinguished. He sank almost immediately afterward into a state of gloom and inactivity, until he was at length brought to perfect distraction by learning that he was to be summoned as a witness against the prisoner, who asserted his complete innocence.

His mind now became oppressed by the recollection of every misfortune of his past life. The mortification he had suffered at the ambassador’s, and his subsequent troubles, were revived in his memory. He became utterly inactive. Destitute of energy, he was cut off from every pursuit and occupation which compose the business of common life; and he became a victim to his own susceptibility, and to his restless passion for the most amiable and beloved of women, whose peace he destroyed. In this unvarying monotony of existence his days were consumed; and his powers became exhausted without aim or design, until they brought him to a sorrowful end.

A few letters which he left behind, and which we here subjoin, afford the best proofs of his anxiety of mind and of the depth of his passion, as well as of his doubts and struggles, and of his weariness of life.

DECEMBER 12.

Dear Wilhelm, I am reduced to the condition of those unfortunate wretches who believe they are pursued by an evil spirit. Sometimes I am oppressed, not by apprehension or fear, but by an inexpressible internal sensation, which weighs upon my heart, and impedes my breath! Then I wander forth at night, even in this tempestuous season, and feel pleasure in surveying the dreadful scenes around me.

Yesterday evening I went forth. A rapid thaw had suddenly set in: I had been informed that the river had risen, that the brooks had all overflowed their banks, and that the whole vale of Walheim was under water! Upon the stroke of twelve I hastened forth. I beheld a fearful sight. The foaming torrents rolled from the mountains in the moonlight,  —  fields and meadows, trees and hedges, were confounded together; and the entire valley was converted into a deep lake, which was agitated by the roaring wind! And when the moon shone forth, and tinged the black clouds with silver, and the impetuous torrent at my feet foamed and resounded with awful and grand impetuosity, I was overcome by a mingled sensation of apprehension and delight. With extended arms I looked down into the yawning abyss, and cried, “Plunge!’” For a moment my senses forsook me, in the intense delight of ending my sorrows and my sufferings by a plunge into that gulf! And then I felt as if I were rooted to the earth, and incapable of seeking an end to my woes! But my hour is not yet come: I feel it is not. O Wilhelm, how willingly could I abandon my existence to ride the whirlwind, or to embrace the torrent! and then might not rapture perchance be the portion of this liberated soul?

I turned my sorrowful eyes toward a favourite spot, where I was accustomed to sit with Charlotte beneath a willow after a fatiguing walk. Alas! it was covered with water, and with difficulty I found even the meadow. And the fields around the hunting-lodge, thought I. Has our dear bower been destroyed by this unpitying storm? And a beam of past happiness streamed upon me, as the mind of a captive is illumined by dreams of flocks and herds and bygone joys of home! But I am free from blame. I have courage to die! Perhaps I have,  —  but I still sit here, like a wretched pauper, who collects fagots, and begs her bread from door to door, that she may prolong for a few days a miserable existence which she is unwilling to resign.

DECEMBER 15.

What is the matter with me, dear Wilhelm? I am afraid of myself! Is not my love for her of the purest, most holy, and most brotherly nature? Has my soul ever been sullied by a single sensual desire? but I will make no protestations. And now, ye nightly visions, how truly have those mortals understood you, who ascribe your various contradictory effects to some invincible power! This night I tremble at the avowal  —  I held her in my arms, locked in a close embrace: I pressed her to my bosom, and covered with countless kisses those dear lips which murmured in reply soft protestations of love. My sight became confused by the delicious intoxication of her eyes. Heavens! is it sinful to revel again in such happiness, to recall once more those rapturous moments with intense delight? Charlotte! Charlotte! I am lost! My senses are bewildered, my recollection is confused, mine eyes are bathed in tears  —  I am ill; and yet I am well  —  I wish for nothing  —  I have no desires  —  it were better I were gone.

Under the circumstances narrated above, a determination to quit this world had now taken fixed possession of Werther’s soul. Since Charlotte’s return, this thought had been the final object of all his hopes and wishes; but he had resolved that such a step should not be taken with precipitation, but with calmness and tranquillity, and with the most perfect deliberation.

His troubles and internal struggles may be understood from the following fragment, which was found, without any date, amongst his papers, and appears to have formed the beginning of a letter to Wilhelm.

“Her presence, her fate, her sympathy for me, have power still to extract tears from my withered brain.

“One lifts up the curtain, and passes to the other side,  —  that is all! And why all these doubts and delays? Because we know not what is behind  —  because there is no returning  —  and because our mind infers that all is darkness and confusion, where we have nothing but uncertainty.”

His appearance at length became quite altered by the effect of his melancholy thoughts; and his resolution was now finally and irrevocably taken, of which the following ambiguous letter, which he addressed to his friend, may appear to afford some proof.

DECEMBER 20.

I am grateful to your love, Wilhelm, for having repeated your advice so seasonably. Yes, you are right: it is undoubtedly better that I should depart. But I do not entirely approve your scheme of returning at once to your neighbourhood; at least, I should like to make a little excursion on the way, particularly as we may now expect a continued frost, and consequently good roads. I am much pleased with your intention of coming to fetch me; only delay your journey for a fortnight, and wait for another letter from me. One should gather nothing before it is ripe, and a fortnight sooner or later makes a great difference. Entreat my mother to pray for her son, and tell her I beg her pardon for all the unhappiness I have occasioned her. It has ever been my fate to give pain to those whose happiness I should have promoted. Adieu, my dearest friend. May every blessing of Heaven attend you! Farewell.

We find it difficult to express the emotions with which Charlotte’s soul was agitated during the whole of this time, whether in relation to her husband or to her unfortunate friend; although we are enabled, by our knowledge of her character, to understand their nature.

It is certain that she had formed a determination, by every means in her power to keep Werther at a distance; and, if she hesitated in her decision, it was from a sincere feeling of friendly pity, knowing how much it would cost him, indeed, that he would find it almost impossible to comply with her wishes. But various causes now urged her to be firm. Her husband preserved a strict silence about the whole matter; and she never made it a subject of conversation, feeling bound to prove to him by her conduct that her sentiments agreed with his.

The same day, which was the Sunday before Christmas, after Werther had written the last-mentioned letter to his friend, he came in the evening to Charlotte’s house, and found her alone. She was busy preparing some little gifts for her brothers and sisters, which were to be distributed to them on Christmas Day. He began talking of the delight of the children, and of that age when the sudden appearance of the Christmas-tree, decorated with fruit and sweetmeats, and lighted up with wax candles, causes such transports of joy. “You shall have a gift too, if you behave well,” said Charlotte, hiding her embarrassment under sweet smile. “And what do you call behaving well? What should I do, what can I do, my dear Charlotte?” said he. “Thursday night,” she answered, “is Christmas Eve. The children are all to be here, and my father too: there is a present for each; do you come likewise, but do not come before that time.” Werther started. “I desire you will not: it must be so,” she continued. “I ask it of you as a favour, for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any longer.” He turned away his face walked hastily up and down the room, muttering indistinctly, “We cannot go on in this manner any longer!” Charlotte, seeing the violent agitation into which these words had thrown him, endeavoured to divert his thoughts by different questions, but in vain. “No, Charlotte!” he exclaimed; “I will never see you any more!” “And why so?” she answered. “We may  —  we must see each other again; only let it be with more discretion. Oh! why were you born with that excessive, that ungovernable passion for everything that is dear to you?” Then, taking his hand, she said, “I entreat of you to be more calm: your talents, your understanding, your genius, will furnish you with a thousand resources. Be a man, and conquer an unhappy attachment toward a creature who can do nothing but pity you.” He bit his lips, and looked at her with a gloomy countenance. She continued to hold his hand. “Grant me but a moment’s patience, Werther,” she said. “Do you not see that you are deceiving yourself, that you are seeking your own destruction? Why must you love me, me only, who belong to another? I fear, I much fear, that it is only the impossibility of possessing me which makes your desire for me so strong.” He drew back his hand, whilst he surveyed her with a wild and angry look. “’Tis well!” he exclaimed, “’tis very well! Did not Albert furnish you with this reflection? It is profound, a very profound remark.” “A reflection that any one might easily make,” she answered; “and is there not a woman in the whole world who is at liberty, and has the power to make you happy? Conquer yourself: look for such a being, and believe me when I say that you will certainly find her. I have long felt for you, and for us all: you have confined yourself too long within the limits of too narrow a circle. Conquer yourself; make an effort: a short journey will be of service to you. Seek and find an object worthy of your love; then return hither, and let us enjoy together all the happiness of the most perfect friendship.”

“This speech,” replied Werther with a cold smile, “this speech should be printed, for the benefit of all teachers. My dear Charlotte, allow me but a short time longer, and all will be well.” “But however, Werther,” she added, “do not come again before Christmas.” He was about to make some answer, when Albert came in. They saluted each other coldly, and with mutual embarrassment paced up and down the room. Werther made some common remarks; Albert did the same, and their conversation soon dropped. Albert asked his wife about some household matters; and, finding that his commissions were not executed, he used some expressions which, to Werther’s ear, savoured of extreme harshness. He wished to go, but had not power to move; and in this situation he remained till eight o’clock, his uneasiness and discontent continually increasing. At length the cloth was laid for supper, and he took up his hat and stick. Albert invited him to remain; but Werther, fancying that he was merely paying a formal compliment, thanked him coldly, and left the house.

Werther returned home, took the candle from his servant, and retired to his room alone. He talked for some time with great earnestness to himself, wept aloud, walked in a state of great excitement through his chamber; till at length, without undressing, he threw himself on the bed, where he was found by his servant at eleven o’clock, when the latter ventured to enter the room, and take off his boots. Werther did not prevent him, but forbade him to come in the morning till he should ring.

On Monday morning, the 21st of December, he wrote to Charlotte the following letter, which was found, sealed, on his bureau after his death, and was given to her. I shall insert it in fragments; as it appears, from several circumstances, to have been written in that manner.

“It is all over, Charlotte: I am resolved to die! I make this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion, on this morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the moment you read these lines, O best of women, the cold grave will hold the inanimate remains of that restless and unhappy being who, in the last moments of his existence, knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you! I have passed a dreadful night or rather, let me say, a propitious one; for it has given me resolution, it has fixed my purpose. I am resolved to die. When I tore myself from you yesterday, my senses were in tumult and disorder; my heart was oppressed, hope and pleasure had fled from me for ever, and a petrifying cold had seized my wretched being. I could scarcely reach my room. I threw myself on my knees; and Heaven, for the last time, granted me the consolation of shedding tears. A thousand ideas, a thousand schemes, arose within my soul; till at length one last, fixed, final thought took possession of my heart. It was to die. I lay down to rest; and in the morning, in the quiet hour of awakening, the same determination was upon me. To die! It is not despair: it is conviction that I have filled up the measure of my sufferings, that I have reached my appointed term, and must sacrifice myself for thee. Yes, Charlotte, why should I not avow it? One of us three must die: it shall be Werther. O beloved Charlotte! this heart, excited by rage and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your husband  —  you  —  myself! The lot is cast at length. And in the bright, quiet evenings of summer, when you sometimes wander toward the mountains, let your thoughts then turn to me: recollect how often you have watched me coming to meet you from the valley; then bend your eyes upon the churchyard which contains my grave, and, by the light of the setting sun, mark how the evening breeze waves the tall grass which grows above my tomb. I was calm when I began this letter, but the recollection of these scenes makes me weep like a child.”

About ten in the morning, Werther called his servant, and, whilst he was dressing, told him that in a few days he intended to set out upon a journey, and bade him therefore lay his clothes in order, and prepare them for packing up, call in all his accounts, fetch home the books he had lent, and give two months’ pay to the poor dependants who were accustomed to receive from him a weekly allowance.

He breakfasted in his room, and then mounted his horse, and went to visit the steward, who, however, was not at home. He walked pensively in the garden, and seemed anxious to renew all the ideas that were most painful to him.

The children did not suffer him to remain alone long. They followed him, skipping and dancing before him, and told him, that after to-morrow and tomorrow and one day more, they were to receive their Christmas gift from Charlotte; and they then recounted all the wonders of which they had formed ideas in their child imaginations. “Tomorrow and tomorrow,” said he, “and one day more!” And he kissed them tenderly. He was going; but the younger boy stopped him, to whisper something in his ear. He told him that his elder brothers had written splendid New-Year’s wishes so large! one for papa, and another for Albert and Charlotte, and one for Werther; and they were to be presented early in the morning, on New Year’s Day. This quite overcame him. He made each of the children a present, mounted his horse, left his compliments for papa and mamma, and, with tears in his eyes, rode away from the place.

He returned home about five o’clock, ordered his servant to keep up his fire, desired him to pack his books and linen at the bottom of the trunk, and to place his coats at the top. He then appears to have made the following addition to the letter addressed to Charlotte:

“You do not expect me. You think I will obey you, and not visit you again till Christmas Eve. O Charlotte, today or never! On Christmas Eve you will hold this paper in your hand; you will tremble, and moisten it with your tears. I will  —  I must! Oh, how happy I feel to be determined!”

In the meantime, Charlotte was in a pitiable state of mind. After her last conversation with Werther, she found how painful to herself it would be to decline his visits, and knew how severely he would suffer from their separation.

She had, in conversation with Albert, mentioned casually that Werther would not return before Christmas Eve; and soon afterward Albert went on horseback to see a person in the neighbourhood, with whom he had to transact some business which would detain him all night.

Charlotte was sitting alone. None of her family were near, and she gave herself up to the reflections that silently took possession of her mind. She was for ever united to a husband whose love and fidelity she had proved, to whom she was heartily devoted, and who seemed to be a special gift from Heaven to ensure her happiness. On the other hand, Werther had become dear to her. There was a cordial unanimity of sentiment between them from the very first hour of their acquaintance, and their long association and repeated interviews had made an indelible impression upon her heart. She had been accustomed to communicate to him every thought and feeling which interested her, and his absence threatened to open a void in her existence which it might be impossible to fill. How heartily she wished that she might change him into her brother,  —  that she could induce him to marry one of her own friends, or could reestablish his intimacy with Albert.

She passed all her intimate friends in review before her mind, but found something objectionable in each, and could decide upon none to whom she would consent to give him.

Amid all these considerations she felt deeply but indistinctly that her own real but unexpressed wish was to retain him for herself, and her pure and amiable heart felt from this thought a sense of oppression which seemed to forbid a prospect of happiness. She was wretched: a dark cloud obscured her mental vision.

It was now half-past six o’clock, and she heard Werther’s step on the stairs. She at once recognised his voice, as he inquired if she were at home. Her heart beat audibly  —  we could almost say for the first time  —  at his arrival. It was too late to deny herself; and, as he entered, she exclaimed, with a sort of ill concealed confusion, “You have not kept your word!” “I promised nothing,” he answered. “But you should have complied, at least for my sake,” she continued. “I implore you, for both our sakes.”

She scarcely knew what she said or did; and sent for some friends, who, by their presence, might prevent her being left alone with Werther. He put down some books he had brought with him, then made inquiries about some others, until she began to hope that her friends might arrive shortly, entertaining at the same time a desire that they might stay away.

At one moment she felt anxious that the servant should remain in the adjoining room, then she changed her mind. Werther, meanwhile, walked impatiently up and down. She went to the piano, and determined not to retire. She then collected her thoughts, and sat down quietly at Werther’s side, who had taken his usual place on the sofa.

“Have you brought nothing to read?” she inquired. He had nothing. “There in my drawer,” she continued, “you will find your own translation of some of the songs of Ossian. I have not yet read them, as I have still hoped to hear you recite them; but, for some time past, I have not been able to accomplish such a wish.” He smiled, and went for the manuscript, which he took with a shudder. He sat down; and, with eyes full of tears, he began to read.

“Star of descending night! fair is thy light in the west! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud; thy steps are stately on thy hill. What dost thou behold in the plain? The stormy winds are laid. The murmur of the torrent comes from afar. Roaring waves climb the distant rock. The flies of evening are on their feeble wings: the hum of their course is on the field. What dost thou behold, fair light? But thou dost smile and depart. The waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. Farewell, thou silent beam! Let the light of Ossian’s soul arise!

“And it does arise in its strength! I behold my departed friends. Their gathering is on Lora, as in the days of other years. Fingal comes like a watery column of mist! his heroes are around: and see the bards of song, gray-haired Ullin! stately Ryno! Alpin with the tuneful voice: the soft complaint of Minona! How are ye changed, my friends, since the days of Selma’s feast! when we contended, like gales of spring as they fly along the hill, and bend by turns the feebly whistling grass.

“Minona came forth in her beauty, with downcast look and tearful eye. Her hair was flying slowly with the blast that rushed unfrequent from the hill. The souls of the heroes were sad when she raised the tuneful voice. Oft had they seen the grave of Salgar, the dark dwelling of white-bosomed Colma. Colma left alone on the hill with all her voice of song! Salgar promised to come! but the night descended around. Hear the voice of Colma, when she sat alone on the hill!

“Colma. It is night: I am alone, forlorn on the hill of storms. The wind is heard on the mountain. The torrent is howling down the rock. No hut receives me from the rain: forlorn on the hill of winds!

“Rise moon! from behind thy clouds. Stars of the night, arise! Lead me, some light, to the place where my love rests from the chase alone! His bow near him unstrung, his dogs panting around him! But here I must sit alone by the rock of the mossy stream. The stream and the wind roar aloud. I hear not the voice of my love! Why delays my Salgar; why the chief of the hill his promise? Here is the rock and here the tree! here is the roaring stream! Thou didst promise with night to be here. Ah! whither is my Salgar gone? With thee I would fly from my father, with thee from my brother of pride. Our race have long been foes: we are not foes, O Salgar!

“Cease a little while, O wind! stream, be thou silent awhile! let my voice be heard around! let my wanderer hear me! Salgar! it is Colma who calls. Here is the tree and the rock. Salgar, my love, I am here! Why delayest thou thy coming? Lo! the calm moon comes forth. The flood is bright in the vale. The rocks are gray on the steep. I see him not on the brow. His dogs come not before him with tidings of his near approach. Here I must sit alone!

“Who lie on the heath beside me? Are they my love and my brother? Speak to me, O my friends! To Colma they give no reply. Speak to me: I am alone! My soul is tormented with fears. Ah, they are dead! Their swords are red from the fight. O my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain my Salgar! Why, O Salgar, hast thou slain my brother! Dear were ye both to me! what shall I say in your praise? Thou wert fair on the hill among thousands! he was terrible in fight! Speak to me! hear my voice! hear me, sons of my love! They are silent! silent for ever! Cold, cold, are their breasts of clay! Oh, from the rock on the hill, from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! Speak, I will not be afraid! Whither are ye gone to rest? In what cave of the hill shall I find the departed? No feeble voice is on the gale: no answer half drowned in the storm!

“I sit in my grief: I wait for morning in my tears! Rear the tomb, ye friends of the dead. Close it not till Colma come. My life flies away like a dream. Why should I stay behind? Here shall I rest with my friends, by the stream of the sounding rock. When night comes on the hill when the loud winds arise my ghost shall stand in the blast, and mourn the death of my friends. The hunter shall hear from his booth; he shall fear, but love my voice! For sweet shall my voice be for my friends: pleasant were her friends to Colma.

“Such was thy song, Minona, softly blushing daughter of Torman. Our tears descended for Colma, and our souls were sad! Ullin came with his harp; he gave the song of Alpin. The voice of Alpin was pleasant, the soul of Ryno was a beam of fire! But they had rested in the narrow house: their voice had ceased in Selma! Ullin had returned one day from the chase before the heroes fell. He heard their strife on the hill: their song was soft, but sad! They mourned the fall of Morar, first of mortal men! His soul was like the soul of Fingal: his sword like the sword of Oscar. But he fell, and his father mourned: his sister’s eyes were full of tears. Minona’s eyes were full of tears, the sister of car-borne Morar. She retired from the song of Ullin, like the moon in the west, when she foresees the shower, and hides her fair head in a cloud. I touched the harp with Ullin: the song of morning rose!

“Ryno. The wind and the rain are past, calm is the noon of day. The clouds are divided in heaven. Over the green hills flies the inconstant sun. Red through the stony vale comes down the stream of the hill. Sweet are thy murmurs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead! Bent is his head of age: red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? why complainest thou, as a blast in the wood as a wave on the lonely shore?

“Alpin. My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar: the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more: thy bow shall lie in thy hall unstrung!

“Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert: terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle as lightning in the field. Thy voice was as a stream after rain, like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm: they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow. Thy face was like the sun after rain: like the moon in the silence of night: calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid.

“Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter’s eye the grave of the mighty Morar. Morar! thou art low indeed. Thou hast no mother to mourn thee, no maid with her tears of love. Dead is she that brought thee forth. Fallen is the daughter of Morglan.

“Who on his staff is this? Who is this whose head is white with age, whose eyes are red with tears, who quakes at every step? It is thy father, O Morar! the father of no son but thee. He heard of thy fame in war, he heard of foes dispersed. He heard of Morar’s renown, why did he not hear of his wound? Weep, thou father of Morar! Weep, but thy son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead, low their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice, no more awake at thy call. When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake? Farewell, thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in the field! but the field shall see thee no more, nor the dark wood be lightened with the splendour of thy steel. Thou has left no son. The song shall preserve thy name. Future times shall hear of thee they shall hear of the fallen Morar!

“The grief of all arose, but most the bursting sigh of Armin. He remembers the death of his son, who fell in the days of his youth. Carmor was near the hero, the chief of the echoing Galmal. Why burst the sigh of Armin? he said. Is there a cause to mourn? The song comes with its music to melt and please the soul. It is like soft mist that, rising from a lake, pours on the silent vale; the green flowers are filled with dew, but the sun returns in his strength, and the mist is gone. Why art thou sad, O Armin, chief of sea-surrounded Gorma?

“Sad I am! nor small is my cause of woe! Carmor, thou hast lost no son; thou hast lost no daughter of beauty. Colgar the valiant lives, and Annira, fairest maid. The boughs of thy house ascend, O Carmor! but Armin is the last of his race. Dark is thy bed, O Daura! deep thy sleep in the tomb! When shalt thou wake with thy songs? with all thy voice of music?

“Arise, winds of autumn, arise: blow along the heath. Streams of the mountains, roar; roar, tempests in the groves of my oaks! Walk through broken clouds, O moon! show thy pale face at intervals; bring to my mind the night when all my children fell, when Arindal the mighty fell  —  when Daura the lovely failed. Daura, my daughter, thou wert fair, fair as the moon on Fura, white as the driven snow, sweet as the breathing gale. Arindal, thy bow was strong, thy spear was swift on the field, thy look was like mist on the wave, thy shield a red cloud in a storm! Armar, renowned in war, came and sought Daura’s love. He was not long refused: fair was the hope of their friends.

“Erath, son of Odgal, repined: his brother had been slain by Armar. He came disguised like a son of the sea: fair was his cliff on the wave, white his locks of age, calm his serious brow. Fairest of women, he said, lovely daughter of Armin! a rock not distant in the sea bears a tree on its side; red shines the fruit afar. There Armar waits for Daura. I come to carry his love! she went she called on Armar. Nought answered, but the son of the rock. Armar, my love, my love! why tormentest thou me with fear? Hear, son of Arnart, hear! it is Daura who calleth thee. Erath, the traitor, fled laughing to the land. She lifted up her voice  —  she called for her brother and her father. Arindal! Armin! none to relieve you, Daura.

“Her voice came over the sea. Arindal, my son, descended from the hill, rough in the spoils of the chase. His arrows rattled by his side; his bow was in his hand, five dark-gray dogs attended his steps. He saw fierce Erath on the shore; he seized and bound him to an oak. Thick wind the thongs of the hide around his limbs; he loads the winds with his groans. Arindal ascends the deep in his boat to bring Daura to land. Armar came in his wrath, and let fly the gray-feathered shaft. It sung, it sunk in thy heart, O Arindal, my son! for Erath the traitor thou diest. The oar is stopped at once: he panted on the rock, and expired. What is thy grief, O Daura, when round thy feet is poured thy brother’s blood. The boat is broken in twain. Armar plunges into the sea to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden a blast from a hill came over the waves; he sank, and he rose no more.

“Alone, on the sea-beat rock, my daughter was heard to complain; frequent and loud were her cries. What could her father do? All night I stood on the shore: I saw her by the faint beam of the moon. All night I heard her cries. Loud was the wind; the rain beat hard on the hill. Before morning appeared, her voice was weak; it died away like the evening breeze among the grass of the rocks. Spent with grief, she expired, and left thee, Armin, alone. Gone is my strength in war, fallen my pride among women. When the storms aloft arise, when the north lifts the wave on high, I sit by the sounding shore, and look on the fatal rock.

“Often by the setting moon I see the ghosts of my children; half viewless they walk in mournful conference together.”

A torrent of tears which streamed from Charlotte’s eyes and gave relief to her bursting heart, stopped Werther’s recitation. He threw down the book, seized her hand, and wept bitterly. Charlotte leaned upon her hand, and buried her face in her handkerchief: the agitation of both was excessive. They felt that their own fate was pictured in the misfortunes of Ossian’s heroes, they felt this together, and their tears redoubled. Werther supported his forehead on Charlotte’s arm: she trembled, she wished to be gone; but sorrow and sympathy lay like a leaden weight upon her soul. She recovered herself shortly, and begged Werther, with broken sobs, to leave her, implored him with the utmost earnestness to comply with her request. He trembled; his heart was ready to burst: then, taking up the book again, he recommenced reading, in a voice broken by sobs.

“Why dost thou waken me, O spring? Thy voice woos me, exclaiming, I refresh thee with heavenly dews; but the time of my decay is approaching, the storm is nigh that shall whither my leaves. Tomorrow the traveller shall come, he shall come, who beheld me in beauty: his eye shall seek me in the field around, but he shall not find me.”

The whole force of these words fell upon the unfortunate Werther. Full of despair, he threw himself at Charlotte’s feet, seized her hands, and pressed them to his eyes and to his forehead. An apprehension of his fatal project now struck her for the first time. Her senses were bewildered: she held his hands, pressed them to her bosom; and, leaning toward him with emotions of the tenderest pity, her warm cheek touched his. They lost sight of everything. The world disappeared from their eyes. He clasped her in his arms, strained her to his bosom, and covered her trembling lips with passionate kisses. “Werther!” she cried with a faint voice, turning herself away; “Werther!” and, with a feeble hand, she pushed him from her. At length, with the firm voice of virtue, she exclaimed, “Werther!” He resisted not, but, tearing himself from her arms, fell on his knees before her. Charlotte rose, and, with disordered grief, in mingled tones of love and resentment, she exclaimed, “It is the last time, Werther! You shall never see me any more!” Then, casting one last, tender look upon her unfortunate lover, she rushed into the adjoining room, and locked the door. Werther held out his arms, but did not dare to detain her. He continued on the ground, with his head resting on the sofa, for half an hour, till he heard a noise which brought him to his senses. The servant entered. He then walked up and down the room; and, when he was again left alone, he went to Charlotte’s door, and, in a low voice, said, “Charlotte, Charlotte! but one word more, one last adieu!” She returned no answer. He stopped, and listened and entreated; but all was silent. At length he tore himself from the place, crying, “Adieu, Charlotte, adieu for ever!”

Werther ran to the gate of the town. The guards, who knew him, let him pass in silence. The night was dark and stormy,  —  it rained and snowed. He reached his own door about eleven. His servant, although seeing him enter the house without his hat, did not venture to say anything; and; as he undressed his master, he found that his clothes were wet. His hat was afterward found on the point of a rock overhanging the valley; and it is inconceivable how he could have climbed to the summit on such a dark, tempestuous night without losing his life.

He retired to bed, and slept to a late hour. The next morning his servant, upon being called to bring his coffee, found him writing. He was adding, to Charlotte, what we here annex.

“For the last, last time I open these eyes. Alas! they will behold the sun no more. It is covered by a thick, impenetrable cloud. Yes, Nature! put on mourning: your child, your friend, your lover, draws near his end! This thought, Charlotte, is without parallel; and yet it seems like a mysterious dream when I repeat  —  this is my last day! The last! Charlotte, no word can adequately express this thought. The last! To-day I stand erect in all my strength to-morrow, cold and stark, I shall lie extended upon the ground. To die! what is death? We do but dream in our discourse upon it. I have seen many human beings die; but, so straitened is our feeble nature, we have no clear conception of the beginning or the end of our existence. At this moment I am my own  —  or rather I am thine, thine, my adored! and the next we are parted, severed  —  perhaps for ever! No, Charlotte, no! How can I, how can you, be annihilated? We exist. What is annihilation? A mere word, an unmeaning sound that fixes no impression on the mind. Dead, Charlotte! laid in the cold earth, in the dark and narrow grave! I had a friend once who was everything to me in early youth. She died. I followed her hearse; I stood by her grave when the coffin was lowered; and when I heard the creaking of the cords as they were loosened and drawn up, when the first shovelful of earth was thrown in, and the coffin returned a hollow sound, which grew fainter and fainter till all was completely covered over, I threw myself on the ground; my heart was smitten, grieved, shattered, rent  —  but I neither knew what had happened, nor what was to happen to me. Death! the grave! I understand not the words.  —  Forgive, oh, forgive me! Yesterday  —  ah, that day should have been the last of my life! Thou angel! for the first time in my existence, I felt rapture glow within my inmost soul. She loves, she loves me! Still burns upon my lips the sacred fire they received from thine. New torrents of delight overwhelm my soul. Forgive me, oh, forgive!

“I knew that I was dear to you; I saw it in your first entrancing look, knew it by the first pressure of your hand; but when I was absent from you, when I saw Albert at your side, my doubts and fears returned.

“Do you remember the flowers you sent me, when, at that crowded assembly, you could neither speak nor extend your hand to me? Half the night I was on my knees before those flowers, and I regarded them as the pledges of your love; but those impressions grew fainter, and were at length effaced.

“Everything passes away; but a whole eternity could not extinguish the living flame which was yesterday kindled by your lips, and which now burns within me. She loves me! These arms have encircled her waist, these lips have trembled upon hers. She is mine! Yes, Charlotte, you are mine for ever!

“And what do they mean by saying Albert is your husband? He may be so for this world; and in this world it is a sin to love you, to wish to tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime; and I suffer the punishment, but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have inhaled a balm that has revived my soul. From this hour you are mine; yes, Charlotte, you are mine! I go before you. I go to my Father and to your Father. I will pour out my sorrows before him, and he will give me comfort till you arrive. Then will I fly to meet you. I will claim you, and remain your eternal embrace, in the presence of the Almighty.

“I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we shall see each other again; we shall behold your mother; I shall behold her, and expose to her my inmost heart. Your mother  —  your image!”

About eleven o’clock Werther asked his servant if Albert had returned. He answered, “Yes;” for he had seen him pass on horseback: upon which Werther sent him the following note, unsealed:

“Be so good as to lend me your pistols for a journey. Adieu.”

Charlotte had slept little during the past night. All her apprehensions were realised in a way that she could neither foresee nor avoid. Her blood was boiling in her veins, and a thousand painful sensations rent her pure heart. Was it the ardour of Werther’s passionate embraces that she felt within her bosom? Was it anger at his daring? Was it the sad comparison of her present condition with former days of innocence, tranquillity, and self-confidence? How could she approach her husband, and confess a scene which she had no reason to conceal, and which she yet felt, nevertheless, unwilling to avow? They had preserved so long a silence toward each other and should she be the first to break it by so unexpected a discovery? She feared that the mere statement of Werther’s visit would trouble him, and his distress would be heightened by her perfect candour. She wished that he could see her in her true light, and judge her without prejudice; but was she anxious that he should read her inmost soul? On the other hand, could she deceive a being to whom all her thoughts had ever been exposed as clearly as crystal, and from whom no sentiment had ever been concealed? These reflections made her anxious and thoughtful. Her mind still dwelt on Werther, who was now lost to her, but whom she could not bring herself to resign, and for whom she knew nothing was left but despair if she should be lost to him for ever.

A recollection of that mysterious estrangement which had lately subsisted between herself and Albert, and which she could never thoroughly understand, was now beyond measure painful to her. Even the prudent and the good have before now hesitated to explain their mutual differences, and have dwelt in silence upon their imaginary grievances, until circumstances have become so entangled, that in that critical juncture, when a calm explanation would have saved all parties, an understanding was impossible. And thus if domestic confidence had been earlier established between them, if love and kind forbearance had mutually animated and expanded their hearts, it might not, perhaps, even yet have been too late to save our friend.

But we must not forget one remarkable circumstance. We may observe from the character of Werther’s correspondence, that he had never affected to conceal his anxious desire to quit this world. He had often discussed the subject with Albert; and, between the latter and Charlotte, it had not unfrequently formed a topic of conversation. Albert was so opposed to the very idea of such an action, that, with a degree of irritation unusual in him, he had more than once given Werther to understand that he doubted the seriousness of his threats, and not only turned them into ridicule, but caused Charlotte to share his feelings of incredulity. Her heart was thus tranquillised when she felt disposed to view the melancholy subject in a serious point of view, though she never communicated to her husband the apprehensions she sometimes experienced.

Albert, upon his return, was received by Charlotte with ill-concealed embarrassment. He was himself out of humour; his business was unfinished; and he had just discovered that the neighbouring official with whom he had to deal, was an obstinate and narrow-minded personage. Many things had occurred to irritate him.

He inquired whether anything had happened during his absence, and Charlotte hastily answered that Werther had been there on the evening previously. He then inquired for his letters, and was answered that several packages had been left in his study. He thereon retired, leaving Charlotte alone.

The presence of the being she loved and honoured produced a new impression on her heart. The recollection of his generosity, kindness, and affection had calmed her agitation: a secret impulse prompted her to follow him; she took her work and went to his study, as was often her custom. He was busily employed opening and reading his letters. It seemed as if the contents of some were disagreeable. She asked some questions: he gave short answers, and sat down to write.

Several hours passed in this manner, and Charlotte’s feelings became more and more melancholy. She felt the extreme difficulty of explaining to her husband, under any circumstances, the weight that lay upon her heart; and her depression became every moment greater, in proportion as she endeavoured to hide her grief, and to conceal her tears.

The arrival of Werther’s servant occasioned her the greatest embarrassment. He gave Albert a note, which the latter coldly handed to his wife, saying, at the same time, “Give him the pistols. I wish him a pleasant journey,” he added, turning to the servant. These words fell upon Charlotte like a thunderstroke: she rose from her seat half-fainting, and unconscious of what she did. She walked mechanically toward the wall, took down the pistols with a trembling hand, slowly wiped the dust from them, and would have delayed longer, had not Albert hastened her movements by an impatient look. She then delivered the fatal weapons to the servant, without being able to utter a word. As soon as he had departed, she folded up her work, and retired at once to her room, her heart overcome with the most fearful forebodings. She anticipated some dreadful calamity. She was at one moment on the point of going to her husband, throwing herself at his feet, and acquainting him with all that had happened on the previous evening, that she might acknowledge her fault, and explain her apprehensions; then she saw that such a step would be useless, as she would certainly be unable to induce Albert to visit Werther. Dinner was served; and a kind friend whom she had persuaded to remain assisted to sustain the conversation, which was carried on by a sort of compulsion, till the events of the morning were forgotten.

When the servant brought the pistols to Werther, the latter received them with transports of delight upon hearing that Charlotte had given them to him with her own hand. He ate some bread, drank some wine, sent his servant to dinner, and then sat down to write as follows:

“They have been in your hands you wiped the dust from them. I kiss them a thousand times  —  you have touched them. Yes, Heaven favours my design, and you, Charlotte, provide me with the fatal instruments. It was my desire to receive my death from your hands, and my wish is gratified. I have made inquiries of my servant. You trembled when you gave him the pistols, but you bade me no adieu. Wretched, wretched that I am  —  not one farewell! How could you shut your heart against me in that hour which makes you mine for ever? Charlotte, ages cannot efface the impression  —  I feel you cannot hate the man who so passionately loves you!”

After dinner he called his servant, desired him to finish the packing up, destroyed many papers, and then went out to pay some trifling debts. He soon returned home, then went out again, notwithstanding the rain, walked for some time in the count’s garden, and afterward proceeded farther into the country. Toward evening he came back once more, and resumed his writing.

“Wilhelm, I have for the last time beheld the mountains, the forests, and the sky. Farewell! And you, my dearest mother, forgive me! Console her, Wilhelm. God bless you! I have settled all my affairs! Farewell! We shall meet again, and be happier than ever.”

“I have requited you badly, Albert; but you will forgive me. I have disturbed the peace of your home. I have sowed distrust between you. Farewell! I will end all this wretchedness. And oh, that my death may render you happy! Albert, Albert! make that angel happy, and the blessing of Heaven be upon you!”

He spent the rest of the evening in arranging his papers: he tore and burned a great many; others he sealed up, and directed to Wilhelm. They contained some detached thoughts and maxims, some of which I have perused. At ten o’clock he ordered his fire to be made up, and a bottle of wine to be brought to him. He then dismissed his servant, whose room, as well as the apartments of the rest of the family, was situated in another part of the house. The servant lay down without undressing, that he might be the sooner ready for his journey in the morning, his master having informed him that the post-horses would be at the door before six o’clock.

“Past eleven o’clock! All is silent around me, and my soul is calm. I thank thee, O God, that thou bestowest strength and courage upon me in these last moments! I approach the window, my dearest of friends; and through the clouds, which are at this moment driven rapidly along by the impetuous winds, I behold the stars which illumine the eternal heavens. No, you will not fall, celestial bodies: the hand of the Almighty supports both you and me! I have looked for the last time upon the constellation of the Greater Bear: it is my favourite star; for when I bade you farewell at night, Charlotte, and turned my steps from your door, it always shone upon me. With what rapture have I at times beheld it! How often have I implored it with uplifted hands to witness my felicity! and even still  —  But what object is there, Charlotte, which fails to summon up your image before me? Do you not surround me on all sides? and have I not, like a child, treasured up every trifle which you have consecrated by your touch?

“Your profile, which was so dear to me, I return to you; and I pray you to preserve it. Thousands of kisses have I imprinted upon it, and a thousand times has it gladdened my heart on departing from and returning to my home.

“I have implored your father to protect my remains. At the corner of the churchyard, looking toward the fields, there are two lime-trees  —  there I wish to lie. Your father can, and doubtless will, do this much for his friend. Implore it of him. But perhaps pious Christians will not choose that their bodies should be buried near the corpse of a poor, unhappy wretch like me. Then let me be laid in some remote valley, or near the highway, where the priest and Levite may bless themselves as they pass by my tomb, whilst the Samaritan will shed a tear for my fate.

“See, Charlotte, I do not shudder to take the cold and fatal cup, from which I shall drink the draught of death. Your hand presents it to me, and I do not tremble. All, all is now concluded: the wishes and the hopes of my existence are fulfilled. With cold, unflinching hand I knock at the brazen portals of Death. Oh, that I had enjoyed the bliss of dying for you! how gladly would I have sacrificed myself for you; Charlotte! And could I but restore peace and joy to your bosom, with what resolution, with what joy, would I not meet my fate! But it is the lot of only a chosen few to shed their blood for their friends, and by their death to augment, a thousand times, the happiness of those by whom they are beloved.

“I wish, Charlotte, to be buried in the dress I wear at present: it has been rendered sacred by your touch. I have begged this favour of your father. My spirit soars above my sepulchre. I do not wish my pockets to be searched. The knot of pink ribbon which you wore on your bosom the first time I saw you, surrounded by the children  —  Oh, kiss them a thousand times for me, and tell them the fate of their unhappy friend! I think I see them playing around me. The dear children! How warmly have I been attached to you, Charlotte! Since the first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This ribbon must be buried with me: it was a present from you on my birthday. How confused it all appears! Little did I then think that I should journey this road. But peace! I pray you, peace!

“They are loaded  —  the clock strikes twelve. I say amen. Charlotte, Charlotte! farewell, farewell!”

A neighbour saw the flash, and heard the report of the pistol; but, as everything remained quiet, he thought no more of it.

In the morning, at six o’clock, the servant went into Werther’s room with a candle. He found his master stretched upon the floor, weltering in his blood, and the pistols at his side. He called, he took him in his arms, but received no answer. Life was not yet quite extinct. The servant ran for a surgeon, and then went to fetch Albert. Charlotte heard the ringing of the bell: a cold shudder seized her. She wakened her husband, and they both rose. The servant, bathed in tears faltered forth the dreadful news. Charlotte fell senseless at Albert’s feet.

When the surgeon came to the unfortunate Werther, he was still lying on the floor; and his pulse beat, but his limbs were cold. The bullet, entering the forehead, over the right eye, had penetrated the skull. A vein was opened in his right arm: the blood came, and he still continued to breathe.

From the blood which flowed from the chair, it could be inferred that he had committed the rash act sitting at his bureau, and that he afterward fell upon the floor. He was found lying on his back near the window. He was in full-dress costume.

The house, the neighbourhood, and the whole town were immediately in commotion. Albert arrived. They had laid Werther on the bed: his head was bound up, and the paleness of death was upon his face. His limbs were motionless; but he still breathed, at one time strongly, then weaker  —  his death was momently expected.

He had drunk only one glass of the wine. “Emilia Galotti” lay open upon his bureau.

I shall say nothing of Albert’s distress, or of Charlotte’s grief.

The old steward hastened to the house immediately upon hearing the news: he embraced his dying friend amid a flood of tears. His eldest boys soon followed him on foot. In speechless sorrow they threw themselves on their knees by the bedside, and kissed his hands and face. The eldest, who was his favourite, hung over him till he expired; and even then he was removed by force. At twelve o’clock Werther breathed his last. The presence of the steward, and the precautions he had adopted, prevented a disturbance; and that night, at the hour of eleven, he caused the body to be interred in the place which Werther had selected for himself.

The steward and his sons followed the corpse to the grave. Albert was unable to accompany them. Charlotte’s life was despaired of. The body was carried by labourers. No priest attended.

THE END

WILHELM MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP

Translated by Thomas Carlyle

Goethe’s second novel was published in 1795 and concerns the eponymous Wilhelm’s attempts to escape living the empty life of a bourgeois businessman, embarking on a journey of self-realisation. The novel had a significant impact on European literature. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship represents one of the important moments in the eighteenth-century and it is one of the first works to popularise the plays of Shakespeare in Germany.  In the narrative, Wilhelm and his theatre group give a production of Hamlet, in which Wilhelm plays the lead role. Shakespeare’s works had attained tremendous popularity and influence in Germany by the end of the century.

Goethe began working on the novel in the 1770s, but it was not completed until the mid-1790s. Goethe’s close friend and collaborator Friedrich Schiller had a large hand in the novel’s final form.  The novel is now considered as being the archetype Bildungsroman; a literary genre of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood.

The first edition

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

BOOK VI.

CONFESSIONS OF A FAIR SAINT.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

INDENTURE.

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

Mignon, an opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas, which was inspired by Goethe’s second novel

Goethe, close to the time of publication

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

Whether it be that the quantity of genius among ourselves and the French, and the number of works more lasting than brass produced by it, have of late been so considerable as to make us independent of additional supplies; or that, in our ancient aristocracy of intellect, we disdain to be assisted by the Germans, whom, by a species of second sight, we have discovered, before knowing any thing about them, to be a tumid, dreaming, extravagant, insane race of mortals,  —  certain it is, that hitherto our literary intercourse with that nation has been very slight and precarious. After a brief period of not too judicious cordiality, the acquaintance on our part was altogether dropped: nor, in the few years since we partially resumed it, have our feelings of affection or esteem been materially increased. Our translators are unfortunate in their selection or execution, or the public is tasteless and absurd in its demands; for, with scarcely more than one or two exceptions, the best works of Germany have lain neglected, or worse than neglected: and the Germans are yet utterly unknown to us. Kotzebue still lives in our minds as the representative of a nation that despises him; Schiller is chiefly known to us by the monstrous production of his boyhood; and Klopstock by a hacked and mangled image of his “Messiah,” in which a beautiful poem is distorted into a theosophic rhapsody, and the brother of Virgil and Racine ranks little higher than the author of “Meditations among the Tombs.”

But of all these people there is none that has been more unjustly dealt with than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. For half a century the admiration  —  we might almost say the idol  —  of his countrymen, to us he is still a stranger. His name, long echoed and re-echoed through reviews and magazines, has become familiar to our ears; but it is a sound and nothing more: it excites no definite idea in almost any mind. To such as know him by the faint and garbled version of his “Werther,” Goethe figures as a sort of poetic Heraclitus; some woe-begone hypochondriac, whose eyes are overflowing with perpetual tears, whose long life has been spent in melting into ecstasy at the sight of waterfalls and clouds, and the moral sublime, or dissolving into hysterical wailings over hapless love-stories, and the miseries of human life. They are not aware that Goethe smiles at this performance of his youth, or that the German Werther, with all his faults, is a very different person from his English namesake; that his Sorrows are in the original recorded in a tone of strength and sarcastic emphasis, of which the other offers no vestige, and intermingled with touches of powerful thought, glimpses of a philosophy deep as it is bitter, which our sagacious translator has seen proper wholly to omit. Others, again, who have fallen in with Retsch’s “Outlines” and the extracts from “Faust,” consider Goethe as a wild mystic, a dealer in demonology and osteology, who draws attention by the aid of skeletons and evil spirits, whose excellence it is to be extravagant, whose chief aim it is to do what no one but himself has tried. The tyro in German may tell us that the charm of “Faust” is altogether unconnected with its preternatural import; that the work delineates the fate of human enthusiasm struggling against doubts and errors from within, against scepticism, contempt, and selfishness from without; and that the witch-craft and magic, intended merely as a shadowy frame for so complex and mysterious a picture of the moral world and the human soul, are introduced for the purpose, not so much of being trembled at as laughed at. The voice of the tyro is not listened to; our indolence takes part with our ignorance; “Faust” continues to be called a monster; and Goethe is regarded as a man of “some genius,” which he has perverted to produce all manner of misfashioned prodigies,  —  things false, abortive, formless, Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire.

Now, it must no doubt be granted, that, so long as our invaluable constitution is preserved in its pristine purity, the British nation may exist in a state of comparative prosperity with very inadequate ideas of Goethe; but, at the same time, the present arrangement is an evil in its kind,  —  slight, it is true, and easy to be borne, yet still more easy to be remedied, and which, therefore, ought to have been remedied ere now. Minds like Goethe’s are the common property of all nations; and, for many reasons, all should have correct impressions of them.

It is partly with the view of doing something to supply this want, that “Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre” is now presented to the English public. Written in its author’s forty-fifth year, embracing hints or disquisitions on almost every leading point in life and literature, it affords us a more distinct view of his matured genius, his manner of thought, and favorite subjects, than any of his other works. Nor is it Goethe alone whom it portrays: the prevailing taste of Germany is likewise indicated by it. Since the year 1795, when it first appeared at Berlin, numerous editions of “Meister” have been printed: critics of all ranks, and some of them dissenting widely from its doctrines, have loaded it with encomiums; its songs and poems are familiar to every German ear; the people read it, and speak of it, with an admiration approaching in many cases to enthusiasm.

That it will be equally successful in England, I am far indeed from anticipating. Apart from the above considerations,  —  from the curiosity, intelligent or idle, which it may awaken,  —  the number of admiring, or even approving, judges it will find can scarcely fail of being very limited. To the great mass of readers, who read to drive away the tedium of mental vacancy, employing the crude phantasmagoria of a modern novel, as their grandfathers employed tobacco and diluted brandy, “Wilhelm Meister” will appear beyond endurance weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable. Those, in particular, who take delight in “King Cambyses’ vein,” and open “Meister” with the thought of “Werther” in their minds, will soon pause in utter dismay; and their paroxysm of dismay will pass by degrees into unspeakable contempt. Of romance interest there is next to none in “Meister;” the characters are samples to judge of, rather than persons to love or hate; the incidents are contrived for other objects than moving or affrighting us; the hero is a milksop, whom, with all his gifts, it takes an effort to avoid despising. The author himself, far from “doing it in a passion,” wears a face of the most still indifference throughout the whole affair; often it is even wrinkled by a slight sardonic grin. For the friends of the sublime, then,  —  for those who cannot do without heroical sentiments, and “moving accidents by flood and field,”  —  there is nothing here that can be of any service.

Nor among readers of a far higher character, can it be expected that many will take the praiseworthy pains of Germans, reverential of their favorite author, and anxious to hunt out his most elusive charms. Few among us will disturb themselves about the allegories and typical allusions of the work; will stop to inquire whether it includes a remote emblem of human culture, or includes no such matter; whether this is a light, airy sketch of the development of man in all his endowments and faculties, gradually proceeding from the first rude exhibitions of puppets and mountebanks, through the perfection of poetic and dramatic art, up to the unfolding of the principle of religion, and the greatest of all arts,  —  the art of life,  —  or is nothing more than a bungled piece of patchwork, presenting in the shape of a novel much that should have been suppressed entirely, or at least given out by way of lecture. Whether the characters do or do not represent distinct classes of men, including various stages of human nature, from the gay, material vivacity of Philina to the severe moral grandeur of the uncle and the splendid accomplishment of Lothario, will to most of us be of small importance; and the everlasting disquisitions about plays and players, and politeness and activity, and art and nature, will weary many a mind that knows not and heeds not whether they are true or false. Yet every man’s judgment is, in this free country, a lamp to himself: whoever is displeased will censure; and many, it is to be feared, will insist on judging “Meister” by the common rule, and, what is worse, condemning it, let Schlegel bawl as loudly as he pleases. “To judge,” says he, “of this book,  —  new and peculiar as it is, and only to be understood and learned from itself, by our common notion of the novel, a notion pieced together and produced out of custom and belief, out of accidental and arbitrary requisitions,  —  is as if a child should grasp at the moon and stars, and insist on packing them into its toy-box.”http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36483/36483-h/36483-h.htm - Footnote_1_1 Unhappily the most of us have boxes, and some of them are very small.

Yet, independently of these its more recondite and dubious qualities, there are beauties in “Meister” which cannot but secure it some degree of favor at the hands of many. The philosophical discussions it contains; its keen glances into life and art; the minute and skilful delineation of men; the lively, genuine exhibition of the scenes they move in; the occasional touches of eloquence and tenderness, and even of poetry, the very essence of poetry; the quantity of thought and knowledge embodied in a style so rich in general felicities, of which, at least, the new and sometimes exquisitely happy metaphors have been preserved,  —  cannot wholly escape an observing reader, even on the most cursory perusal. To those who have formed for themselves a picture of the world, who have drawn out, from the thousand variable circumstances of their being, a philosophy of life, it will be interesting and instructive to see how man and his concerns are represented in the first of European minds: to those who have penetrated to the limits of their own conceptions, and wrestled with thoughts and feelings too high for them, it will be pleasing and profitable to see the horizon of their certainties widened, or at least separated with a firmer line from the impalpable obscure which surrounds it on every side. Such persons I can fearlessly invite to study “Meister.” Across the disfigurement of a translation, they will not fail to discern indubitable traces of the greatest genius in our times. And the longer they study, they are likely to discern them the more distinctly. New charms will successively arise to view; and of the many apparent blemishes, while a few superficial ones may be confirmed, the greater and more important part will vanish, or even change from dark to bright. For, if I mistake not, it is with “Meister” as with every work of real and abiding excellence,  —  the first glance is the least favorable. A picture of Raphael, a Greek statue, a play of Sophocles or Shakspeare, appears insignificant to the unpractised eye; and not till after long and patient and intense examination, do we begin to descry the earnest features of that beauty, which has its foundation in the deepest nature of man, and will continue to be pleasing through all ages.

If this appear excessive praise, as applied in any sense to “Meister,” the curious sceptic is desired to read and weigh the whole performance, with all its references, relations, purposes, and to pronounce his verdict after he has clearly seized and appreciated them all. Or, if a more faint conviction will suffice, let him turn to the picture of Wilhelm’s states of mind in the end of the first book, and the beginning of the second; the eulogies of commerce and poesy, which follow; the description of Hamlet; the character of histrionic life in Serlo and Aurelia; that of sedate and lofty manhood in the uncle and Lothario. But, above all, let him turn to the history of Mignon. This mysterious child, at first neglected by the reader, gradually forced on his attention, at length overpowers him with an emotion more deep and thrilling than any poet since the days of Shakspeare has succeeded in producing. The daughter of enthusiasm, rapture, passion, and despair, she is of the earth, but not earthly. When she glides before us through the light mazes of her fairy dance, or twangs her cithern to the notes of her homesick verses, or whirls her tambourine and hurries round us like an antique Mænad, we could almost fancy her a spirit; so pure is she, so full of fervor, so disengaged from the clay of this world. And when all the fearful particulars of her story are at length laid together, and we behold in connected order the image of her hapless existence, there is, in those dim recollections,  —  those feelings so simple, so impassioned and unspeakable, consuming the closely shrouded, woe-struck, yet ethereal spirit of the poor creature,  —  something which searches into the inmost recesses of the soul. It is not tears which her fate calls forth, but a feeling far too deep for tears. The very fire of heaven seems miserably quenched among the obstructions of this earth. Her little heart, so noble and so helpless, perishes before the smallest of its many beauties is unfolded; and all its loves and thoughts and longings do but add another pang to death, and sink to silence utter and eternal. It is as if the gloomy porch of Dis, and his pale kingdoms, were realized and set before us, and we heard the ineffectual wail of infants reverberating from within their prison-walls forever.

“Continuò auditæ voces, vagitus et ingens, Infantumque animæ flentes in limine primo: Quos dulcis vitæ exsortes, et ab ubere raptos, Abstulit atra dies, et funere mersit acerbo.”

The history of Mignon runs like a thread of gold through the tissue of the narrative, connecting with the heart much that were else addressed only to the head. Philosophy and eloquence might have done the rest, but this is poetry in the highest meaning of the word. It must be for the power of producing such creations and emotions, that Goethe is by many of his countrymen ranked at the side of Homer and Shakspeare, as one of the only three men of genius, that have ever lived.

But my business here is not to judge of “Meister” or its author, it is only to prepare others for judging it; and for this purpose the most that I had room to say is said. All I ask in the name of this illustrious foreigner is, that the court which tries him be pure, and the jury instructed in the cause; that the work be not condemned for wanting what it was not meant to have, and by persons nowise called to pass sentence on it.

Respecting my own humble share in the adventure, it is scarcely necessary to say any thing. Fidelity is all the merit I have aimed at: to convey the author’s sentiments, as he himself expressed them; to follow the original, in all the variations of its style,  —  has been my constant endeavor. In many points, both literary and moral, I could have wished devoutly that he had not written as he has done; but to alter any thing was not in my commission. The literary and moral persuasions of a man like Goethe are objects of a rational curiosity, and the duty of a translator is simple and distinct. Accordingly, except a few phrases and sentences, not in all amounting to a page, which I have dropped as evidently unfit for the English taste, I have studied to present the work exactly as it stands in German. That my success has been indifferent, I already know too well. In rendering the ideas of Goethe, often so subtle, so capriciously expressive, the meaning was not always easy to seize, or to convey with adequate effect. There were thin tints of style, shades of ridicule or tenderness or solemnity, resting over large spaces, and so slight as almost to be evanescent: some of these I may have failed to see; to many of them I could do no justice. Nor, even in plainer matters, can I pride myself in having always imitated his colloquial familiarity without falling into sentences bald and rugged, into idioms harsh or foreign; or in having copied the flowing oratory of other passages, without at times exaggerating or defacing the swelling cadences and phrases of my original. But what work, from the translating of a German novel to the writing of an epic, was ever as the workman wished and meant it? This version of “Meister,” with whatever faults it may have, I honestly present to my countrymen: if, while it makes any portion of them more familiar with the richest, most gifted of living minds, it increase their knowledge, or even afford them a transient amusement, they will excuse its errors, and I shall be far more than paid for all my labor.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

The play was late in breaking up: old Barbara went more than once to the window, and listened for the sound of carriages. She was waiting for Mariana, her pretty mistress, who had that night, in the afterpiece, been acting the part of a young officer, to the no small delight of the public. Barbara’s impatience was greater than it used to be, when she had nothing but a frugal supper to present: on this occasion Mariana was to be surprised with a packet, which Norberg, a young and wealthy merchant, had sent by the post, to show that in absence he still thought of his love.

As an old servant, as confidant, counsellor, manager, and housekeeper, Barbara assumed the privilege of opening seals; and this evening she had the less been able to restrain her curiosity, as the favor of the open-handed gallant was more a matter of anxiety with herself than with her mistress. On breaking up the packet, she had found, with unfeigned satisfaction, that it held a piece of fine muslin and some ribbons of the newest fashion, for Mariana; with a quantity of calico, two or three neckerchiefs, and a moderate rouleau of money, for herself. Her esteem for the absent Norberg was of course unbounded: she meditated only how she might best present him to the mind of Mariana, best bring to her recollection what she owed him, and what he had a right to expect from her fidelity and thankfulness.

The muslin, with the ribbons half unrolled, to set it off by their colors, lay like a Christmas present on the small table; the position of the lights increased the glitter of the gilt; all was in order, when the old woman heard Mariana’s step on the stairs, and hastened to meet her. But what was her disappointment, when the little female officer, without deigning to regard her caresses, rushed past her with unusual speed and agitation, threw her hat and sword upon the table, and walked hastily up and down, bestowing not a look on the lights, or any portion of the apparatus.

“What ails thee, my darling?” exclaimed the astonished Barbara. “For Heaven’s sake, what is the matter? Look here, my pretty child! See what a present! And who could have sent it but thy kindest of friends? Norberg has given thee the muslin to make a night-gown of; he will soon be here himself; he seems to be fonder and more generous than ever.”

Barbara went to the table, that she might exhibit the memorials with which Norberg had likewise honored her, when Mariana, turning away from the presents, exclaimed with vehemence, “Off! off! Not a word of all this to-night. I have yielded to thee; thou hast willed it; be it so! When Norberg comes, I am his, am thine, am any one’s; make of me what thou pleasest; but till then I will be my own; and, if thou hadst a thousand tongues, thou shouldst never talk me from my purpose. All, all that is my own will I give up to him who loves me, whom I love. No sour faces! I will abandon myself to this affection, as if it were to last forever.”

The old damsel had abundance of objections and serious considerations to allege: in the progress of the dialogue, she was growing bitter and keen, when Mariana sprang at her, and seized her by the breast. The old damsel laughed aloud. “I must have a care,” she cried, “that you don’t get into pantaloons again, if I mean to be sure of my life. Come, doff you! The girl will beg my pardon for the foolish things the boy is doing to me. Off with the frock. Off with them all. The dress beseems you not; it is dangerous for you, I observe; the epaulets make you too bold.”

Thus speaking, she laid hands upon her mistress: Mariana pushed her off, exclaiming, “Not so fast! I expect a visit to-night.”

“Visit!” rejoined Barbara: “you surely do not look for Meister, the young, soft-hearted, callow merchant’s son?”

“Just for him,” replied Mariana.

“Generosity appears to be growing your ruling passion,” said the old woman with a grin: “you connect yourself with minors and moneyless people, as if they were the chosen of the earth. Doubtless it is charming to be worshipped as a benefactress.”

“Jeer as thou pleasest. I love him! I love him! With what rapture do I now, for the first time, speak the word! This is the passion I have mimicked so often, when I knew not what it meant. Yes! I will throw myself about his neck: I will clasp him as if I could hold him forever. I will show him all my love, will enjoy all his in its whole extent.”

“Moderate yourself,” said the old dame coolly, “moderate yourself. A single word will interrupt your rapture: Norberg is coming! Coming in a fortnight! Here is the letter that arrived with the packet.”

“And, though the morrow were to rob me of my friend, I would conceal it from myself and him. A fortnight! An age! Within a fortnight, what may not happen, what may not alter?”

Here Wilhelm entered. We need not say how fast she flew to meet him, with what rapture he clasped the red uniform, and pressed the beautiful wearer of it to his bosom. It is not for us to describe the blessedness of two lovers. Old Barbara went grumbling away: we shall retire with her, and leave the happy two alone.

CHAPTER II.

When Wilhelm saluted his mother next morning, she informed him that his father was very greatly discontented with him, and meant to forbid him these daily visits to the playhouse. “Though I myself often go with pleasure to the theatre,” she continued, “I could almost detest it entirely, when I think that our fireside-peace is broken by your excessive passion for that amusement. Your father is ever repeating, ‘What is the use of it? How can any one waste his time so?’“

“He has told me this already,” said Wilhelm, “and perhaps I answered him too hastily; but, for Heaven’s sake, mother, is nothing, then, of use but what immediately puts money in our purse? but what procures us some property that we can lay our hands on? Had we not, for instance, room enough in the old house? and was it indispensable to build a new one? Does not my father every year expend a large part of his profit in ornamenting his chambers? Are these silk carpets, this English furniture, likewise of no use? Might we not content ourselves with worse? For my own part, I confess, these striped walls, these hundred times repeated flowers and knots and baskets and figures, produce a really disagreeable effect upon me. At best, they but remind me of the front curtain of our theatre. But what a different thing it is to sit and look at that! There, if you must wait for a while, you are always sure that it will rise at last, and disclose to you a thousand curious objects to entertain, to instruct, and to exalt you.”

“But you go to excess with it,” said the mother. “Your father wishes to be entertained in the evenings as well as you: besides, he thinks it diverts your attention; and, when he grows ill-humored on the subject, it is I that must bear the blame. How often have I been upbraided with that miserable puppet-show, which I was unlucky enough to provide for you at Christmas, twelve years ago! It was the first thing that put these plays into your head.”

“Oh, do not blame the poor puppets! do not repent of your love and motherly care! It was the only happy hour I had enjoyed in the new empty house. I never can forget that hour; I see it still before me; I recollect how surprised I was, when, after we had got our customary presents, you made us seat ourselves before the door that leads to the other room. The door opened, but not, as formerly, to let us pass and repass: the entrance was occupied by an unexpected show. Within it rose a porch, concealed by a mysterious curtain. All of us were standing at a distance: our eagerness to see what glittering or jingling article lay hid behind the half-transparent veil was mounting higher and higher, when you bade us each sit down upon his stool, and wait with patience.

“At length all of us were seated and silent: a whistle gave the signal; the curtain rolled aloft, and showed us the interior of the temple, painted in deep-red colors. The high-priest Samuel appeared with Jonathan, and their strange alternating voices seemed to me the most striking thing on earth. Shortly after entered Saul, overwhelmed with confusion at the impertinence of that heavy-limbed warrior, who had defied him and all his people. But how glad was I when the little dapper son of Jesse, with his crook and shepherd’s pouch and sling, came hopping forth, and said, ‘Dread king and sovereign lord, let no one’s heart sink down because of this: if your Majesty will grant me leave, I will go out to battle with this blustering giant!’ Here ended the first act, leaving the spectators more curious than ever to see what further would happen; each praying that the music might soon be done. At last the curtain rose again. David devoted the flesh of the monster to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the field: the Philistine scorned and bullied him, stamped mightily with both his feet, and at length fell like a mass of clay, affording a splendid termination to the piece. And then the virgins sang, ‘Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands!’ The giant’s head was borne before his little victor, who received the king’s beautiful daughter to wife. Yet withal, I remember, I was vexed at the dwarfish stature of this lucky prince; for the great Goliath and the small David had both been formed, according to the common notion, with a due regard to their figures and proportions. I pray you, mother, tell me what has now become of those puppets? I promised to show them to a friend, whom I was lately entertaining with a history of all this child’s work.”

“I can easily conceive,” said the mother, “how these things should stick so firmly in your mind: I well remember what an interest you took in them,  —  how you stole the little book from me, and learned the whole piece by heart. I first noticed it one evening when you had made a Goliath and a David of wax: you set them both to declaim against each other, and at length gave a deadly stab to the giant, fixing his shapeless head, stuck upon a large pin with a wax handle, in little David’s hand. I then felt such a motherly contentment at your fine recitation and good memory, that I resolved to give you up the whole wooden troop to your own disposal. I did not then foresee that it would cause me so many heavy hours.”

“Do not repent of it,” said Wilhelm: “this little sport has often made us happy.” So saying, he got the keys, made haste to find the puppets, and, for a moment, was transported back into those times when they almost seemed to him alive, when he felt as if he himself could give them life by the cunning of his voice and the movements of his hands. He took them to his room, and locked them up with care.

CHAPTER III.

If the first love is indeed, as I hear it everywhere maintained to be, the most delicious feeling which the heart of man, before it or after, can experience, then our hero must be reckoned doubly happy, as permitted to enjoy the pleasure of this chosen period in all its fulness. Few men are so peculiarly favored: by far the greater part are led by the feelings of their youth into nothing but a school of hardship, where, after a stinted and checkered season of enjoyment, they are at length constrained to renounce their dearest wishes, and to learn forever to dispense with what once hovered before them as the highest happiness of existence.

Wilhelm’s passion for that charming girl now soared aloft on the wings of imagination. After a short acquaintance, he had gained her affections: he found himself in possession of a being, whom, with all his heart, he not only loved, but honored; for she had first appeared before him in the flattering light of theatric pomp, and his passion for the stage combined itself with his earliest love for woman. His youth allowed him to enjoy rich pleasures, which the activity of his fancy exalted and maintained. The situation of his mistress, too, gave a turn to her conduct which greatly enlivened his emotions. The fear lest her lover might, before the time, detect the real state in which she stood, diffused over all her conduct an interesting tinge of anxiety and bashfulness; her attachment to the youth was deep; her very inquietude appeared but to augment her tenderness; she was the loveliest of creatures while beside him.

When the first tumult of joy had passed, and our friend began to look back upon his life and its concerns, every thing appeared new to him: his duties seemed holier, his inclinations keener, his knowledge clearer, his talents stronger, his purposes more decided. Accordingly, he soon fell upon a plan to avoid the reproaches of his father, to still the cares of his mother, and, at the same time, to enjoy Mariana’s love without disturbance. Through the day he punctually transacted his business, commonly forbore attending the theatre, strove to be entertaining at table in the evening; and, when all were asleep, he glided softly out into the garden, and hastened, wrapped up in his mantle, with all the feelings of Leander in his bosom, to meet his mistress without delay.

“What is this you bring?” inquired Mariana, as he entered one evening, with a bundle, which Barbara, in hopes it might turn out to be some valuable present, fixed her eyes upon with great attention. “You will never guess,” said Wilhelm.

Great was the surprise of Mariana, great the scorn of Barbara, when the napkin, being loosened, gave to view a perplexed multitude of span-long puppets. Mariana laughed aloud, as Wilhelm set himself to disentangle the confusion of the wires, and show her each figure by itself. Barbara glided sulkily out of the room.

A very little thing will entertain two lovers; and accordingly our friends, this evening, were as happy as they wished to be. The little troop was mustered: each figure was minutely examined, and laughed at, in its turn. King Saul, with his golden crown and his black velvet robe, Mariana did not like: he looked, she said, too stiff and pedantic. She was far better pleased with Jonathan, his sleek chin, his turban, his cloak of red and yellow. She soon got the art of turning him deftly on his wire: she made him bow, and repeat declarations of love. On the other hand, she refused to give the least attention to the prophet Samuel; though Wilhelm commended the pontifical breastplate, and told her that the taffeta of the cassock had been taken from a gown of his own grandmother’s. David she thought too small; Goliath was too big; she held by Jonathan. She grew to manage him so featly, and at last to extend her caresses from the puppet to its owner, that, on this occasion, as on others, a silly sport became the introduction to happy hours.

Their soft, sweet dreams were broken in upon by a noise which arose on the street. Mariana called for the old dame, who, as usual, was occupied in furbishing the changeful materials of the playhouse wardrobe for the service of the play next to be acted. Barbara said the disturbance arose from a set of jolly companions, who were just then sallying out of the Italian tavern hard by, where they had been busy discussing fresh oysters, a cargo of which had just arrived, and by no means sparing their champagne.

“Pity,” Mariana said, “that we did not think of it in time: we might have had some entertainment to ourselves.”

“It is not yet too late,” said Wilhelm, giving Barbara a louis-d’or: “get us what we want, then come and take a share with us.”

The old dame made speedy work: erelong a trimly covered table, with a neat collation, stood before the lovers. They made Barbara sit with them: they ate and drank, and enjoyed themselves.

On such occasions, there is never want of enough to say. Mariana soon took up little Jonathan again, and the old dame turned the conversation upon Wilhelm’s favorite topic. “You were once telling us,” she said, “about the first exhibition of a puppet-show on Christmas Eve: I remember you were interrupted just as the ballet was going to begin. We have now the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with the honorable company by whom those wonderful effects were brought about.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Mariana: “do tell us how it all went on, and how you felt then.”

“It is a fine emotion, Mariana,” said the youth, “when we bethink ourselves of old times, and old, harmless errors, especially if this is at a period when we have happily gained some elevation, from which we can look around us, and survey the path we have left behind. It is so pleasant to think, with composure and satisfaction, of many obstacles, which often with painful feelings we may have regarded as invincible,  —  pleasant to compare what we now are with what we then were struggling to become. But I am happy above others in this matter, that I speak to you about the past, at a moment when I can also look forth into the blooming country, which we are yet to wander through together, hand in hand.”

“But how was it with the ballet?” said Barbara. “I fear it did not quite go off as it should have done.”

“I assure you,” said Wilhelm, “it went off quite well. And certainly the strange caperings of these Moors and Mooresses, these shepherds and shepherdesses, these dwarfs and dwarfesses, will never altogether leave my recollection while I live. When the curtain dropped, and the door closed, our little party skipped away, frolicking as if they had been tipsy, to their beds. For myself, however, I remember that I could not go to sleep: still wanting to have something told me on the subject, I continued putting questions to every one, and would hardly let the maid away who had brought me up to bed.

“Next morning, alas! the magic apparatus had altogether vanished; the mysterious veil was carried off; the door permitted us again to go and come through it without obstruction; the manifold adventures of the evening had passed away, and left no trace behind. My brothers and sisters were running up and down with their playthings; I alone kept gliding to and fro: it seemed to me impossible that two bare door-posts could be all that now remained, where the night before so much enchantment had been displayed. Alas! the man that seeks a lost love can hardly be unhappier than I then thought myself.”

A rapturous look, which he cast on Mariana, convinced her that he was not afraid of such ever being his case.

CHAPTER IV.

“My sole wish now,” continued Wilhelm, “was to witness a second exhibition of the play. For this purpose I had recourse, by constant entreaties, to my mother; and she attempted in a favorable hour to persuade my father. Her labor, however, was in vain. My father’s principle was, that none but enjoyments of rare occurrence were adequately prized; that neither young nor old could set a proper value on pleasures which they tasted every day.

“We might have waited long, perhaps till Christmas returned, had not the contriver and secret director of the spectacle himself felt a pleasure in repeating the display of it, partly incited, I suppose, by the wish to produce a brand-new harlequin expressly prepared for the afterpiece.

“A young officer of the artillery, a person of great gifts in all sorts of mechanical contrivance, had served my father in many essential particulars during the building of the house; for which, having been handsomely rewarded, he felt desirous of expressing his thankfulness to the family of his patron, and so made us young ones a present of this complete theatre, which, in hours of leisure, he had already carved and painted, and strung together. It was this young man, who, with the help of a servant, had himself managed the puppets, disguising his voice to pronounce their various speeches. He had no great difficulty in persuading my father, who granted, out of complaisance to a friend, what he had denied from conviction to his children. In short, our theatre was again set up, some little ones of the neighborhood were invited, and the play was again represented.

“If I had formerly experienced the delights of surprise and astonishment, I enjoyed on this second occasion the pleasure of examining and scrutinizing. How all this happened was my present concern. That the puppets themselves did not speak, I had already decided; that of themselves they did not move, I also conjectured; but, then, how came it all to be so pretty, and to look just as if they both spoke and moved of themselves? and where were the lights, and the people that managed the deception? These enigmas perplexed me the more, as I wished to be at the same time among the enchanters and the enchanted, at the same time to have a secret hand in the play, and to enjoy, as a looker-on, the pleasure of illusion.

“The play being finished, preparations were making for the farce: the spectators had risen, and were all busy talking together. I squeezed myself closer to the door, and heard, by the rattling within, that the people were packing up some articles. I lifted the lowest screen, and poked in my head between the posts. As our mother noticed it, she drew me back: but I had seen well enough that here friends and foes, Saul and Goliath, and whatever else their names might be, were lying quietly down together in a drawer; and thus my half-contented curiosity received a fresh excitement. To my great surprise, moreover, I had noticed the lieutenant very diligently occupied in the interior of the shrine. Henceforth, Jack-pudding, however he might clatter with his heels, could not any longer entertain me. I sank into deep meditation: my discovery made me both more satisfied, and less so, than before. After a little, it first struck me that I yet comprehended nothing: and here I was right; for the connection of the parts with each other was entirely unknown to me, and every thing depends on that.”

CHAPTER V.

“In well adjusted and regulated houses,” continued Wilhelm, “children have a feeling not unlike what I conceive rats and mice to have: they keep a sharp eye on all crevices and holes, where they may come at any forbidden dainty; they enjoy it also with a fearful, stolen satisfaction, which forms no small part of the happiness of childhood.

“More than any other of the young ones, I was in the habit of looking out attentively, to see if I could notice any cupboard left open, or key standing in its lock. The more reverence I bore in my heart for those closed doors, on the outside of which I had to pass by for weeks and months, catching only a furtive glance when our mother now and then opened the consecrated place to take something from it, the quicker was I to make use of any opportunities which the forgetfulness of our housekeepers at times afforded me.

“Among all the doors, that of the storeroom was, of course, the one I watched most narrowly. Few of the joyful anticipations in life can equal the feeling which I used to have when my mother happened to call me, that I might help her to carry out something, whereupon I might pick up a few dried plums, either with her kind permission, or by help of my own dexterity. The accumulated treasures of this chamber took hold of my imagination by their magnitude: the very fragrance exhaled by so multifarious a collection of sweet-smelling spices produced such a craving effect on me, that I never failed, when passing near, to linger for a little, and regale myself at least on the unbolted atmosphere. At length, one Sunday morning, my mother, being hurried by the ringing of the church-bells, forgot to take this precious key with her on shutting the door, and went away, leaving all the house in a deep Sabbath stillness. No sooner had I marked this oversight than, gliding softly once or twice to and from the place, I at last approached very gingerly, opened the door, and felt myself, after a single step, in immediate contact with these manifold and long-wished-for means of happiness. I glanced over glasses, chests, and bags, and drawers and boxes, with a quick and doubtful eye, considering what I ought to choose and take; turned finally to my dear withered plums, provided myself also with a few dried apples, and completed the forage with an orange-chip. I was quietly retreating with my plunder, when some little chests, lying piled over one another, caught my attention,  —  the more so as I noticed a wire, with hooks at the end of it, sticking through the joint of the lid in one of them. Full of eager hopes, I opened this singular package; and judge of my emotions, when I found my glad world of heroes all sleeping safe within! I meant to pick out the topmost, and, having examined them, to pull up those below; but in this attempt the wires got very soon entangled: and I fell into a fright and flutter, more particularly as the cook just then began making some stir in the kitchen, which was close by; so that I had nothing for it but to squeeze the whole together the best way I could, and to shut the chest, having stolen from it nothing but a little written book, which happened to be lying above, and contained the whole drama of Goliath and David. With this booty I made good my retreat into the garret.

“Henceforth all my stolen hours of solitude were devoted to perusing the play, to learning it by heart, and picturing in thought how glorious it would be, could I but get the figures, to make them move along with it. In idea I myself became David and Goliath by turns. In every corner of the court-yard, of the stables, of the garden, under all kinds of circumstances, I labored to stamp the whole piece upon my mind; laid hold of all the characters, and learned their speeches by heart, most commonly, however, taking up the parts of the chief personages, and allowing all the rest to move along with them, but as satellites, across my memory. Thus day and night the heroic words of David, wherewith he challenged the braggart giant, Goliath of Gath, kept their place in my thoughts. I often muttered them to myself; while no one gave heed to me, except my father, who, frequently observing some such detached exclamation, would in secret praise the excellent memory of his boy, that had retained so much from only two recitations.

“By this means growing bolder and bolder, I one evening repeated almost the entire piece before my mother, whilst I was busied in fashioning some bits of wax into players. She observed it, questioned me hard; and I confessed.

“By good fortune, this detection happened at a time when the lieutenant had himself been expressing a wish to initiate me in the mysteries of the art. My mother forthwith gave him notice of these unexpected talents; and he now contrived to make my parents offer him a couple of chambers in the top story, which commonly stood empty, that he might accommodate the spectators in the one, while the other held his actors, the proscenium again filling up the opening of the door: my father had allowed his friend to arrange all this; himself, in the mean time, seeming only to look at the transaction, as it were, through his fingers; for his maxim was, that children should not be allowed to see the kindness which is felt towards them, lest their pretensions come to extend too far. He was of opinion, that, in the enjoyments of the young, one should assume a serious air; often interrupting the course of their festivities, to prevent their satisfaction from degenerating into excess and presumption.”

CHAPTER VI.

“The lieutenant now set up his theatre, and managed all the rest. During the week I readily observed that he often came into the house at unusual hours, and I soon guessed the cause. My eagerness increased immensely; for I well understood, that, till Sunday evening, I could have no share in what was going on. At last the wished-for day arrived. At five in the evening my conductor came, and took me up with him. Quivering with joy, I entered, and descried, on both sides of the framework, the puppets all hanging in order as they were to advance to view. I considered them narrowly, and mounted on the steps, which raised them above the scene, and allowed me to hover aloft over all that little world. Not without reverence did I look down between the pieces of board, and recollect what a glorious effect the whole would produce, and feel into what mighty secrets I was now admitted. We made a trial, which succeeded well.

“Next day a party of children were invited: we performed rarely; except that once, in the fire of action, I let poor Jonathan fall, and was obliged to reach down with my hand, and pick him up,  —  an accident which sadly marred the illusion, produced a peal of laughter, and vexed me unspeakably. My father, however, seemed to relish this misfortune not a little. Prudently shrouding up the contentment he felt at the expertness of his little boy, after the play was finished, he dwelt on the mistakes we had committed, saying it would all have been very pretty had not this or that gone wrong with us.

“I was vexed to the heart at these things, and sad for all the evening. By next morning, however, I had quite slept off my sorrow, and was blessed in the persuasion, that, but for this one fault, I had acted delightfully. The spectators also flattered me with their unanimous approval: they all maintained, that though the lieutenant, in regard to the coarse and the fine voices, had done great things, yet his declamation was in general too stiff and affected; whereas the new aspirant spoke his Jonathan and David with exquisite grace. My mother in particular commended the gallant tone in which I had challenged Goliath, and acted the modest victor before the king.

“From this time, to my extreme delight, the theatre continued open; and as the spring advanced, so that fires could be dispensed with, I passed all my hours of recreation lying in the garret, and making the puppets caper and play together. Often I invited up my comrades, or my brothers and sisters; but, when they would not come, I staid by myself not the less. My imagination brooded over that tiny world, which soon afterwards acquired another form.

“Scarcely had I once or twice exhibited the first play, for which my scenery and actors had been formed and decorated, when it ceased to give me any pleasure. On the other hand, among some of my grandfather’s books, I had happened to fall in with ‘The German Theatre,’ and a few translations of Italian operas; in which works I soon got very deeply immersed, on each occasion first reckoning up the characters, and then, without further ceremony, proceeding to exhibit the play. King Saul, with his black velvet cloak, was therefore now obliged to personate Darius or Cato, or some other pagan hero; in which cases, it may be observed, the plays were never wholly represented,  —  for most part, only the fifth acts, where the cutting and stabbing lay.

“It was natural that the operas, with their manifold adventures and vicissitudes, should attract me more than any thing beside. In these compositions I found stormy seas, gods descending in chariots of cloud, and, what most of all delighted me, abundance of thunder and lightning. I did my best with pasteboard, paint, and paper: I could make night very prettily; my lightning was fearful to behold; only my thunder did not always prosper, which, however, was of less importance. In operas, moreover, I found frequent opportunities of introducing my David and Goliath,  —  persons whom the regular drama would hardly admit. Daily I felt more attachment for the hampered spot where I enjoyed so many pleasures; and, I must confess, the fragrance which the puppets had acquired from the storeroom added not a little to my satisfaction.

“The decorations of my theatre were now in a tolerable state of completeness. I had always had the knack of drawing with compasses, and clipping pasteboard, and coloring figures; and here it served me in good stead. But the more sorry was I, on the other hand, when, as frequently happened, my stock of actors would not suffice for representing great affairs.

“My sisters, dressing and undressing their dolls, awoke in me the project of furnishing my heroes by and by with garments which might also be put off and on. Accordingly, I slit the scraps of cloth from off their bodies, tacked the fragments together as well as possible, saved a particle of money to buy new ribbons and lace, begged many a rag of taffeta, and so formed, by degrees, a full theatrical wardrobe, in which hoop-petticoats for the ladies were especially remembered.

“My troop was now fairly provided with dresses for the most important play, and you might have expected that henceforth one exhibition would follow close upon the heels of another; but it happened with me, as it often happens with children,  —  they embrace wide plans, make mighty preparations, then a few trials, and the whole undertaking is abandoned. I was guilty of this fault. My greatest pleasure lay in the inventive part, and the employment of my fancy. This or that piece inspired me with interest for a few scenes of it, and immediately I set about providing new apparel suitable for the occasion. In such fluctuating operations, many parts of the primary dresses of my heroes had fallen into disorder, or totally gone out of sight; so that now the first great play could no longer be exhibited. I surrendered myself to my imagination; I rehearsed and prepared forever; built a thousand castles in the air, and failed to see that I was at the same time undermining the foundations of these little edifices.”

During this recital, Mariana had called up and put in action all her courtesy for Wilhelm, that she might conceal her sleepiness. Diverting as the matter seemed on one side, it was too simple for her taste, and her lover’s view of it too serious. She softly pressed her foot on his, however, and gave him all visible signs of attention and approval. She drank out of his glass: Wilhelm was convinced that no word of his history had fallen to the ground. After a short pause, he said, “It is now your turn, Mariana, to tell me what were your first childish joys. Till now we have always been too busy with the present to trouble ourselves, on either side, about our previous way of life. Let me hear, Mariana, under what circumstances you were reared: what are the first lively impressions which you still remember?”

These questions would have very much embarrassed Mariana, had not Barbara made haste to help her. “Think you,” said the cunning old woman, “we have been so mindful of what happened to us long ago, that we have merry things like these to talk about, and, though we had, that we could give them such an air in talking of them?”

“As if they needed it!” cried Wilhelm. “I love this soft, good, amiable creature so much, that I regret every instant of my life which has not been spent beside her. Allow me, at least in fancy, to have a share in thy by-gone life; tell me every thing; I will tell every thing to thee! If possible, we will deceive ourselves, and win back those days that have been lost to love.”

“If you require it so eagerly,” replied the old dame, “we can easily content you. Only, in the first place, let us hear how your taste for the theatre gradually reached a head; how you practised, how you improved so happily, that now you can pass for a superior actor. No doubt you must have met with droll adventures in your progress. It is not worth while to go to bed now: I have still one flask in reserve; and who knows whether we shall soon all sit together so quiet and cheery again?”

Mariana cast upon her a mournful look, not noticed by Wilhelm, who proceeded with his narrative.

CHAPTER VII.

“The recreations of youth, as my companions began to increase in number, interfered with this solitary, still enjoyment. I was by turns a hunter, a soldier, a knight, as our games required; and constantly I had this small advantage above the rest, that I was qualified to furnish them suitably with the necessary equipments. The swords, for example, were generally of my manufacture; I gilded and decorated the scabbards; and a secret instinct allowed me not to stop till our militia was accoutred according to the antique model. Helmets, with plumes of paper, were got ready; shields, even coats of mail, were provided; undertakings in which such of the servants as had aught of the tailor in them, and the seamstresses of the house, broke many a needle.

“A part of my comrades I had now got well equipped; by degrees, the rest were likewise furbished up, though on a thriftier plan; and so a very seemly corps at length was mustered. We marched about the court-yards and gardens, smote fearfully upon each other’s shields and heads: many flaws of discord rose among us, but none that lasted.

“This diversion greatly entertained my fellows; but scarcely had it been twice or thrice repeated, when it ceased to content me. The aspect of so many harnessed figures naturally stimulated in my mind those ideas of chivalry, which for some time, since I had commenced the reading of old romances, were filling my imagination.

“Koppen’s translation of ‘Jerusalem Delivered’ at length fell into my hands, and gave these wandering thoughts a settled direction. The whole poem, it is true, I could not read; but there were passages which I learned by heart, and the images expressed in these hovered round me. Particularly was I captivated with Clorinda, and all her deeds and bearing. The masculine womanhood, the peaceful completeness of her being, had a greater influence upon my mind, just beginning to unfold itself, than the factitious charms of Armida; though the garden of that enchantress was by no means an object of my contempt.

“But a hundred and a hundred times, while walking in the evenings on the balcony which stretches along the front of the house, and looking over the neighborhood, as the quivering splendor streamed up at the horizon from the departed sun, and the stars came forth, and night pressed forward from every cleft and hollow, and the small, shrill tone of the cricket tinkled through the solemn stillness,  —  a hundred and a hundred times have I repeated to myself the history of the mournful duel between Tancred and Clorinda.

“However strongly I inclined by nature to the party of the Christians, I could not help declaring for the Paynim heroine with all my heart when she engaged to set on fire the great tower of the besiegers. And when Tancred in the darkness met the supposed knight, and the strife began between them under that veil of gloom, and the two battled fiercely, I could never pronounce the words,  — 

“‘But now the sure and fated hour is nigh: Clorinda’s course is ended,  —  she must die;’  — 

without tears rushing into my eyes, which flowed plentifully when the hapless lover, plunging his sword into her breast, opened the departing warrior’s helmet, recognized the lady of his heart, and, shuddering, brought water to baptize her.

“How my heart ran over when Tancred struck with his sword that tree in the enchanted wood; when blood flowed from the gash, and a voice sounded in his ears, that now again he was wounding Clorinda; that Destiny had marked him out ever unwittingly to injure what he loved beyond all else.

“The recital took such hold of my imagination, that what I had read of the poem began dimly, in my mind, to conglomerate into a whole; wherewith I was so taken that I could not but propose to have it some way represented. I meant to have Tancred and Rinaldo acted; and, for this purpose, two coats of mail, which I had before manufactured, seemed expressly suitable. The one, formed of dark-gray paper with scales, was to serve for the solemn Tancred; the other, of silver and gilt paper, for the magnificent Rinaldo. In the vivacity of my anticipations, I told the whole project to my comrades, who felt quite charmed with it, except that they could not well comprehend how so glorious a thing could be exhibited, and, above all, exhibited by them.

“Such scruples I easily set aside. Without hesitation, I took upon me, in idea, the management of two rooms in the house of a neighboring playmate; not calculating that his venerable aunt would never give them up, or considering how a theatre could be made of them, whereof I had no settled notion, except that it was to be fixed on beams, to have side-scenes made of parted folding-screens, and on the floor a large piece of cloth. From what quarter these materials and furnishings were to come, I had not determined.

“So far as concerned the forest, we fell upon a good expedient. We betook ourselves to an old servant of one of our families, who had now become a woodman, with many entreaties that he would get us a few young firs and birches; which actually arrived more speedily than we had reason to expect. But, in the next place, great was our embarrassment as to how the piece should be got up before the trees were withered. Now was the time for prudent counsel. We had no house, no scenery, no curtain: the folding-screens were all we had.

“In this forlorn condition we again applied to the lieutenant, giving him a copious description of all the glorious things we meant to do. Little as he understood us, he was very helpful: he piled all the tables he could get in the house or neighborhood, one above the other, in a little room: to these he fixed our folding-screens, and made a back-view with green curtains, sticking up our trees along with it.

“At length the appointed evening came: the candles were lit, the maids and children were sitting in their places, the piece was to go forward, the whole corps of heroes was equipped and dressed,  —  when each for the first time discovered that he knew not what he was to say. In the heat of invention, being quite immersed in present difficulties, I had forgotten the necessity of each understanding what and where he was to speak; nor, in the midst of our bustling preparations, had it once occurred to the rest; each believing he could easily enact a hero, easily so speak and bear himself, as became the personage into whose world I had transplanted him. They all stood wonder-struck, asking, What was to come first? I alone, having previously got ready Tancred’s part, entered solus on the scene, and began reciting some verses of the epic. But as the passage soon changed into narrative, and I, while speaking, was at once transformed into a third party, and the bold Godfredo, when his turn came, would not venture forth, I was at last obliged to take leave of my spectators under peals of laughter,  —  a disaster which cut me to the heart. Thus had our undertaking proved abortive; but the company still kept their places, still wishing to see something. All of us were dressed: I screwed my courage up, and determined, foul or fair, to give them David and Goliath. Some of my companions had before this helped me to exhibit the puppet-play; all of them had often seen it; we shared the characters among us; each promised to do his best; and one small, grinning urchin painted a black beard upon his chin, and undertook, if any lacuna should occur, to fill it with drollery as harlequin,  —  an arrangement to which, as contradicting the solemnity of the piece, I did not consent without extreme reluctance; and I vowed within myself, that, if once delivered out of this perplexity, I would think long and well before risking the exhibition of another play.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Mariana, overpowered with sleep, leaned upon her lover, who clasped her close to him, and proceeded in his narrative; while the old damsel prudently sipped up the remainder of the wine.

“The embarrassment,” he said, “into which, along with my companions, I had fallen, by attempting to act a play that did not anywhere exist, was soon forgotten. My passion for representing each romance I read, each story that was told me, would not yield before the most unmanageable materials. I felt convinced that whatever gave delight in narrative must produce a far deeper impression when exhibited: I wanted to have every thing before my eyes, every thing brought forth upon the stage. At school, when the elements of general history were related to us, I carefully marked the passages where any person had been slain or poisoned in a singular way; and my imagination, glancing rapidly along the exposition and intrigue, hastened to the interesting fifth act. Indeed, I actually began to write some plays from the end backwards, without, however, in any of them reaching the beginning.

“At the same time, partly by inclination, partly by the counsel of my good friends, who had caught the fancy of acting plays, I read a whole wilderness of theatrical productions, as chance put them into my hands. I was still in those happy years when all things please us, when number and variety yield us abundant satisfaction. Unfortunately, too, my taste was corrupted by another circumstance. Any piece delighted me especially, in which I could hope to give delight; there were few which I did not peruse in this agreeable delusion: and my lively conceptive power enabling me to transfer myself into all the characters, seduced me to believe that I might likewise represent them all. Hence, in the distribution of the parts, I commonly selected such as did not fit me, and always more than one part, if I could by any means accomplish more.

“In their games, children can make all things out of any: a staff becomes a musket, a splinter of wood a sword, any bunch of cloth a puppet, any crevice a chamber. Upon this principle was our private theatre got up. Totally unacquainted with the measure of our strength, we undertook all: we stuck at no quid pro quo, and felt convinced that every one would take us for what we gave ourselves out to be. Now, however, our affairs went on so soberly and smoothly, that I have not even a curious insipidity to tell you of. We first acted all the few plays in which only males are requisite, next we travestied some of ourselves, and at last took our sisters into the concern along with us. In one or two houses, our amusement was looked upon as profitable; and company was invited to see it. Nor did our lieutenant of artillery now turn his back upon us. He showed us how we ought to make our exits and our entrances; how we should declaim, and with what attitudes and gestures. Yet generally he earned small thanks for his toil, we conceiving ourselves to be much deeper in the secrets of theatrical art than he himself was.

“We very soon began to grow tired of tragedy; for all of us believed, as we had often heard, that it was easier to write or represent a tragedy than to attain proficiency in comedy. In our first attempts, accordingly, we had felt as if exactly in our element: dignity of rank, elevation of character, we studied to approach by stiffness and affectation, and imagined that we succeeded rarely; but our happiness was not complete, except we might rave outright, might stamp with our feet, and, full of fury and despair, cast ourselves upon the ground.

“Boys and girls had not long carried on these amusements in concert, till Nature began to take her course; and our society branched itself off into sundry little love-associations, as generally more than one sort of comedy is acted in the playhouse. Behind the scenes, each happy pair pressed hands in the most tender style; they floated in blessedness, appearing to one another quite ideal persons, when so transformed and decorated; whilst, on the other hand, unlucky rivals consumed themselves with envy, and out of malice and spite worked every species of mischief.

“Our amusements, though undertaken without judgment, and carried on without instruction, were not without their use to us. We trained our memories and persons, and acquired more dexterity in speech and gesture than is usually met with at so early an age. But, for me in particular, this time was in truth an epoch: my mind turned all its faculties exclusively to the theatre; and my highest happiness was in reading, in writing, or in acting, plays.

“Meanwhile the labors of my regular teachers continued: I had been set apart for the mercantile life, and placed under the guidance of our neighbor in the counting-house; yet my spirit at this very time recoiled more forcibly than ever from all that was to bind me to a low profession. It was to the stage that I aimed at consecrating all my powers,  —  on the stage that I meant to seek all my happiness and satisfaction.

“I recollect a poem, which must be among my papers, where the Muse of tragic art and another female form, by which I personified Commerce, were made to strive very bravely for my most important self. The idea is common, nor do I recollect that the verses were of any worth; but you shall see it, for the sake of the fear, the abhorrence, the love and passion, which are prominent in it. How repulsively did I paint the old housewife, with the distaff in her girdle, the bunch of keys by her side, the spectacles on her nose, ever toiling, ever restless, quarrelsome, and penurious, pitiful and dissatisfied! How feelingly did I describe the condition of that poor man who has to cringe beneath her rod, and earn his slavish day’s wages by the sweat of his brow!

“And how differently advanced the other! What an apparition for the overclouded mind! Formed as a queen, in her thoughts and looks she announced herself the child of freedom. The feeling of her own worth gave her dignity without pride: her apparel became her, it veiled her form without constraining it; and the rich folds repeated, like a thousand-voiced echo, the graceful movements of the goddess. What a contrast! How easy for me to decide! Nor had I forgotten the more peculiar characteristics of my Muse. Crowns and daggers, chains and masks, as my predecessors had delivered them, were here produced once more. The contention was keen: the speeches of both were palpably enough contrasted, for at fourteen years of age one usually paints the black lines and the white pretty near each other. The old lady spoke as beseemed a person that would pick up a pin from her path; the other, like one that could give away kingdoms. The warning threats of the housewife were disregarded; I turned my back upon her promised riches: disinherited and naked, I gave myself up to the Muse; she threw her golden veil over me, and called me hers.

“Could I have thought, my dearest,” he exclaimed, pressing Mariana close to him, “that another, a more lovely goddess would come to encourage me in my purpose, to travel with me on my journey, the poem might have had a finer turn, a far more interesting end. Yet it is no poetry, it is truth and life that I feel in thy arms: let us prize the sweet happiness, and consciously enjoy it.”

The pressure of his arms, the emotion of his elevated voice, awoke Mariana, who hastened by caresses to conceal her embarrassment; for no word of the last part of his story had reached her. It is to be wished, that in future, our hero, when recounting his favorite histories, may find more attentive hearers.

CHAPTER IX.

Thus Wilhelm passed his nights in the enjoyment of confiding love, his days in the expectation of new happy hours. When desire and hope had first attracted him to Mariana, he already felt as if inspired with new life; felt as if he were beginning to be another man: he was now united to her; the contentment of his wishes had become a delicious habitude. His heart strove to ennoble the object of his passion; his spirit, to exalt with it the young creature whom he loved. In the shortest absence, thoughts of her arose within him. If she had once been necessary to him, she was now grown indispensable, now that he was bound to her by all the ties of nature. His pure soul felt that she was the half, more than the half, of himself. He was grateful and devoted without limit.

Mariana, too, succeeded in deceiving herself for a season: she shared with him the feeling of his liveliest blessedness. Alas! if but the cold hand of self-reproach had not often come across her heart! She was not secure from it, even in Wilhelm’s bosom, even under the wings of his love. And when she was again left alone, again left to sink from the clouds, to which passion had exalted her, into the consciousness of her real condition, then she was indeed to be pitied. So long as she had lived among degrading perplexities, disguising from herself her real situation, or rather never thinking of it, frivolity had helped her through; the incidents she was exposed to had come upon her each by itself; satisfaction and vexation had cancelled one another; humiliation had been compensated by vanity; want by frequent, though momentary, superfluity; she could plead necessity and custom as a law or an excuse; and hitherto all painful emotions from hour to hour, and from day to day, had by these means been shaken off. But now, for some instants, the poor girl had felt herself transported to a better world; aloft, as it were, in the midst of light and joy, she had looked down upon the abject desert of her life, had felt what a miserable creature is the woman, who, inspiring desire, does not also inspire reverence and love: she regretted and repented, but found herself outwardly or inwardly no better for regret. She had nothing that she could accomplish or resolve upon. When she looked into and searched herself, all was waste and void within her soul: her heart had no place of strength or refuge. But the more sorrowful her state was, the more vehemently did her feelings cling to the man she loved: her passion for him even waxed stronger daily, as the danger of losing him came daily nearer.

Wilhelm, on the other hand, soared serenely happy in higher regions: to him also a new world had been disclosed, but a world rich in the most glorious prospects. Scarcely had the first excess of joy subsided, when all that had long been gliding dimly through his soul stood up in bright distinctness before it. She is mine! She has given herself up to me! She, the loved, the wished for, the adored, has given herself up to me in trust and faith: she shall not find me ungrateful for the gift. Standing or walking, he talked to himself; his heart constantly overflowed; with a copiousness of splendid words, he uttered to himself the loftiest emotions. He imagined that he understood the visible beckoning of Fate, reaching out its hand by Mariana to save him from the stagnant, weary, drudging life, out of which he had so often wished for deliverance. To leave his father’s house and people, now appeared a light matter. He was young, and had not tried the world: his eagerness to range over its expanses, seeking fortune and contentment, was stimulated by his love. His vocation for the theatre was now clear to him: the high goal, which he saw raised before him, seemed nearer whilst he was advancing to it with Mariana’s hand in his; and, in his comfortable prudence, he beheld in himself the embryo of a great actor,  —  the future founder of that national theatre, for which he heard so much and various sighing on every side. All that till now had slumbered in the innermost corners of his soul, at length awoke. He painted for himself a picture of his manifold ideas, in the colors of love, upon a canvas of cloud: the figures of it, indeed, ran sadly into one another; yet the whole had an air but the more brilliant on that account.

CHAPTER X.

He was now in his chamber at home, ransacking his papers, making ready for departure. Whatever savored of his previous employment he threw aside, meaning at his entrance upon life to be free, even from recollections that could pain him. Works of taste alone, poets and critics, were, as acknowledged friends, placed among the chosen few. Heretofore he had given little heed to the critical authors: his desire for instruction now revived, when, again looking through his books, he found the theoretical part of them lying generally still uncut. In the full persuasion that such works were absolutely necessary, he had bought a number of them; but, with the best disposition in the world, he had not reached midway in any.

The more steadfastly, on the other hand, he had dwelt upon examples, and, in every kind that was known to him, had made attempts himself.

Werner entered the room; and, seeing his friend busied with the well-known sheets, he exclaimed, “Again among your papers? And without intending, I dare swear, to finish any one of them! You look them through and through once or twice, then throw them by, and begin something new.”

“To finish is not the scholar’s care: it is enough if he improves himself by practice.”

“But also completes according to his best ability.”

“And still the question might be asked, ‘Is there not good hope of a youth, who, on commencing some unsuitable affair, soon discovers its unsuitableness, and discontinues his exertions, not choosing to spend toil and time on what never can be of any value?’“

“I know well enough it was never your concern to bring aught to a conclusion: you have always sickened on it before it came half way. When you were the director of our puppet-show, for instance, how many times were fresh clothes got ready for the dwarfish troop, fresh decorations furbished up? Now this tragedy was to be acted, now that; and at the very best you gave us some fifth act, where all was going topsy-turvy, and people cutting one another’s throats.”

“If you talk of those times, whose blame really was it that we ripped off from our puppets the clothes that fitted them, and were fast stitched to their bodies, and laid out money for a large and useless wardrobe? Was it not yours, my good friend, who had always some fragment of ribbon to traffic with; and skill, at the same time, to stimulate my taste, and turn it to your profit?”

Werner laughed, and continued, “I still recollect, with pleasure, how I used to extract gain from your theatrical campaigns, as army contractors do from war. When you mustered for the ‘Deliverance of Jerusalem,’ I, for my part, made a pretty thing of profit, like the Venetians in the corresponding case. I know of nothing in the world more rational than to turn the folly of others to our own advantage.”

“Perhaps it were a nobler satisfaction to cure men of their follies.”

“From the little I know of men, this might seem a vain endeavor. But something towards it is always done, when any individual man grows wise and rich; and generally this happens at the cost of others.”

“Well, here is ‘The Youth at the Parting of the Ways;’ it has just come into my hand,” said Wilhelm, drawing out a bunch of papers from the rest; “this at least is finished, whatever else it may be.”

“Away with it! to the fire with it!” cried Werner. “The invention does not deserve the smallest praise: that affair has plagued me enough already, and drawn upon yourself your father’s wrath. The verses may be altogether beautiful, but the meaning of them is fundamentally false. I still recollect your Commerce personified: a shrivelled, wretched-looking sibyl she was. I suppose you picked up the image of her from some miserable huckster’s shop. At that time you had no true idea at all of trade; whilst I could not think of any man whose spirit was, or needed to be, more enlarged than the spirit of a genuine merchant. What a thing is it to see the order which prevails throughout his business! By means of this he can at any time survey the general whole, without needing to perplex himself in the details. What advantages does he derive from the system of book-keeping by double entry! It is among the finest inventions of the human mind: every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy.”

“Pardon me,” said Wilhelm, smiling; “you begin by the form, as if it were the matter: you traders commonly, in your additions and balancings, forget what is the proper net result of life.”

“My good friend, you do not see how form and matter are in this case one, how neither can exist without the other. Order and arrangement increase the desire to save and get. A man embarrassed in his circumstances, and conducting them imprudently, likes best to continue in the dark: he will not gladly reckon up the debtor entries he is charged with. But, on the other hand, there is nothing to a prudent manager more pleasant than daily to set before himself the sums of his growing fortune. Even a mischance, if it surprise and vex, will not affright, him; for he knows at once what gains he has acquired to cast into the other scale. I am convinced, my friend, that, if you once had a proper taste for our employments, you would grant that many faculties of the mind are called into full and vigorous play by them.”

“Possibly this journey I am thinking of may bring me to other thoughts.”

“Oh, certainly! Believe me, you want but to look upon some great scene of activity to make you ours forever; and, when you come back, you will joyfully enroll yourself among that class of men whose art it is to draw towards themselves a portion of the money, and materials of enjoyment, which circulate in their appointed courses through the world. Cast a look on the natural and artificial productions of all the regions of the earth; consider how they have become, one here, another there, articles of necessity for men. How pleasant and how intellectual a task is it to calculate, at any moment, what is most required, and yet is wanting, or hard to find; to procure for each easily and soon what he demands; to lay in your stock prudently beforehand, and then to enjoy the profit of every pulse in that mighty circulation. This, it appears to me, is what no man that has a head can attend to without pleasure.”

Wilhelm seemed to acquiesce, and Werner continued.

“Do but visit one or two great trading-towns, one or two seaports, and see if you can withstand the impression. When you observe how many men are busied, whence so many things have come, and whither they are going, you will feel as if you, too, could gladly mingle in the business. You will then see the smallest piece of ware in its connection with the whole mercantile concern; and for that very reason you will reckon nothing paltry, because every thing augments the circulation by which you yourself are supported.”

Werner had formed his solid understanding in constant intercourse with Wilhelm; he was thus accustomed to think also of his profession, of his employments, with elevation of soul; and he firmly believed that he did so with more justice than his otherwise more gifted and valued friend, who, as it seemed to him, had placed his dearest hopes, and directed all the force of his mind, upon the most imaginary objects in the world. Many a time he thought his false enthusiasm would infallibly be got the better of, and so excellent a soul be brought back to the right path. So hoping in the present instance, he continued, “The great ones of the world have taken this earth of ours to themselves; they live in the midst of splendor and superfluity. The smallest nook of the land is already a possession which none may touch or meddle with: offices and civil callings bring in little profit. Where, then, will you find more honest acquisitions, juster conquests, than those of trade? If the princes of this world hold the rivers, the highways, the havens, in their power, and take a heavy tribute from every thing that passes through them, may not we embrace with joy the opportunity of levying tax and toll, by our activity, on those commodities which the real or imaginary wants of men have rendered indispensable? I can promise you, if you would rightly apply your poetic view, my goddess might be represented as an invincible, victorious queen, and boldly opposed to yours. It is true, she bears the olive rather than the sword: dagger or chain she knows not. But she, too, gives crowns to her favorites; which, without offence to yours be it said, are of true gold from the furnace and the mine, and glance with genuine pearls, which she brings up from the depths of the ocean by the hands of her unwearied servants.”

This sally somewhat nettled Wilhelm; but he concealed his sentiments, remembering that Werner used to listen with composure to his apostrophes. Besides, he had fairness enough to be pleased at seeing each man think the best of his own peculiar craft, provided only his, of which he was so passionately fond, were likewise left in peace.

“And for you,” exclaimed Werner, “who take so warm an interest in human concerns, what a sight will it be to behold the fortune, which accompanies bold undertakings, distributed to men before your eyes! What is more spirit-stirring than the aspect of a ship arriving from a lucky voyage, or soon returning with a rich capture? Not only the relatives, the acquaintances, and those that share with the adventurers, but every unconcerned spectator also, is excited, when he sees the joy with which the long-imprisoned shipman springs on land before his keel has wholly reached it, feeling that he is free once more, and now can trust what he has rescued from the false sea to the firm and faithful earth. It is not, my friend, in figures of arithmetic alone that gain presents itself before us. Fortune is the goddess of breathing men: to feel her favors truly, we must live and be men who toil with their living minds and bodies, and enjoy with them also.”

CHAPTER XI.

It is now time that we should know something more of Wilhelm’s father and of Werner’s,  —  two men of very different modes of thinking, but whose opinions so far coincided, that both regarded commerce as the noblest calling; and both were peculiarly attentive to every advantage which any kind of speculation might produce to them. Old Meister, when his father died, had turned into money a valuable collection of pictures, drawings, copper-plates, and antiquities: he had entirely rebuilt and furnished his house in the newest style, and turned his other property to profit in all possible ways. A considerable portion of it he had embarked in trade, under the direction of the elder Werner,  —  a man noted as an active merchant, whose speculations were commonly favored by fortune. But nothing was so much desired by Meister as to confer upon his son those qualities of which himself was destitute, and to leave his children advantages which he reckoned it of the highest importance to possess. Withal, he felt a peculiar inclination for magnificence,  —  for whatever catches the eye, and possesses at the same time real worth and durability. In his house he would have all things solid and massive; his stores must be copious and rich, all his plate must be heavy, the furniture of his table must be costly. On the other hand, his guests were seldom invited; for every dinner was a festival, which, both for its expense and for its inconvenience, could not often be repeated. The economy of his house went on at a settled, uniform rate; and every thing that moved or had place in it was just what yielded no one any real enjoyment.

The elder Werner, in his dark and hampered house, led quite another sort of life. The business of the day, in his narrow counting-house, at his ancient desk, once done, Werner liked to eat well, and, if possible, to drink better. Nor could he fully enjoy good things in solitude; with his family he must always see at table his friends, and any stranger that had the slightest connection with his house. His chairs were of unknown age and antic fashion, but he daily invited some to sit on them. The dainty victuals arrested the attention of his guests, and none remarked that they were served up in common ware. His cellar held no great stock of wine, but the emptied niches were usually filled by more of a superior sort.

So lived these two fathers, often meeting to take counsel about their common concerns. On the day we are speaking of, it had been determined to send Wilhelm out from home, for the despatch of some commercial affairs.

“Let him look about him in the world,” said old Meister, “and at the same time carry on our business in distant parts. One cannot do a young man any greater kindness than initiate him early in the future business of his life. Your son returned so happily from his first expedition, and transacted his affairs so cleverly, that I am very curious to see how mine will do: his experience, I fear, will cost him dearer.”

Old Meister had a high notion of his son’s faculties and capabilities: he said this in the hope that his friend would contradict him, and hold up to view the admirable gifts of the youth. Here, however, he deceived himself. Old Werner, who, in practical concerns, would trust no man but such as he had proved, answered placidly, “One must try all things. We can send him on the same journey: we shall give him a paper of directions to conduct him. There are sundry debts to be gathered in, old connections are to be renewed, new ones to be made. He may likewise help the speculation I was lately talking of; for, without punctual intelligence gathered on the spot, there is little to be done in it.”

“He must prepare,” said Meister, “and set forth as soon as possible. Where shall we get a horse for him to suit this business?”

“We shall not seek far. The shopkeeper in H  —    —  , who owes us somewhat, but is withal a good man, has offered me a horse instead of payment. My son knows it, and tells me it is a serviceable beast.”

“He may fetch it himself. Let him go with the diligence; the day after to-morrow he is back again betimes; we have his saddle-bags and letters made ready in the mean time; he can set out on Monday morning.”

Wilhelm was sent for, and informed of their determination. Who so glad as he, now seeing the means of executing his purpose put into his hands, the opportunity made ready for him, without co-operation of his own! So intense was his love, so full was his conviction of the perfect rectitude of his intention to escape from the pressure of his actual mode of life, and follow a new and nobler career, that his conscience did not in the least rebel; no anxiety arose within him; he even reckoned the deception he was meditating holy. He felt certain, that, in the long-run, parents and relations would praise and bless him for this resolution: he acknowledged in these concurring circumstances the signal of a guiding fate.

How slowly the time passed with him till night, till the hour when he should again see his Mariana! He sat in his chamber, and revolved the plan of his journey; as a conjurer, or a cunning thief in durance, often draws out his feet from the fast-locked irons, to cherish in himself the conviction that his deliverance is possible, nay, nearer than short-sighted turnkeys believe.

At last the appointed hour struck: he went out, shook off all anxiety, and hastened through the silent streets. In the middle of the great square he raised his hands to the sky, feeling as if all was behind him and below him: he had freed himself from all. One moment he figured himself as in the arms of his beloved, the next as glancing with her in the splendors of the stage: he soared aloft in a world of hopes, only now and then the call of some watchman brought to his recollection that he was still wandering on the vulgar earth.

Mariana came to the stairs to meet him,  —  and how beautiful, how lovely! She received him in the new white negligée: he thought he had never seen her so charming. Thus did she handsel the gift of her absent lover in the arms of a present one; with true passion she lavished on her darling the whole treasure of those caresses which nature suggested, or art had taught: need we ask if he was happy, if he was blessed?

He disclosed to her what had passed, and showed her, in general terms, his plan and his wishes. He would try, he said, to find a residence, then come back for her: he hoped she would not refuse him her hand. The poor girl was silent: she concealed her tears, and pressed her friend against her bosom. Wilhelm, though interpreting her silence in the most favorable manner, could have wished for a distinct reply; and still more, when at last he inquired of her in the tenderest and most delicate terms, if he might not think himself a father. But to this she answered only with a sigh, with a kiss.

CHAPTER XII.

Next morning Mariana awoke only to new despondency; she felt herself very solitary; she wished not to see the light of day, but staid in bed, and wept. Old Barbara sat down by her, and tried to persuade and console her; but it was not in her power so soon to heal the wounded heart. The moment was now at hand to which the poor girl had been looking forward as to the last of her life. Who could be placed in a more painful situation? The man she loved was departing; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come; and the most fearful mischiefs were to be anticipated, if the two, as might easily happen, should meet together.

“Calm yourself, my dear,” said the old woman: “do not spoil your pretty eyes with crying. Is it, then, so terrible a thing to have two lovers? And though you can bestow your love but on the one, yet be thankful to the other, who, caring for you as he does, certainly deserves to be named your friend.”

“My poor Wilhelm,” said the other, all in tears, “had warning that a separation was at hand. A dream discovered to him what we strove so much to hide. He was sleeping calmly at my side; on a sudden I heard him mutter some unintelligible sounds: I grew frightened, and awoke him. Ah! with what love and tenderness and warmth did he clasp me! ‘O Mariana!’ cried he, ‘what a horrid fate have you freed me from! How shall I thank you for deliverance from such torment? I dreamed that I was far from you in an unknown country, but your figure hovered before me; I saw you on a beautiful hill, the sunshine was glancing over it all; how charming you looked! But it had not lasted long, before I observed your image sinking down, sinking, sinking: I stretched out my arms towards you; they could not reach you through the distance. Your image still kept gliding down: it approached a great sea that lay far extended at the foot of the hill,  —  a marsh rather than a sea. All at once a man gave you his hand, and seemed meaning to conduct you upwards; but he led you sidewards, and appeared to draw you after him. I cried out: as I could not reach you, I hoped to warn you. If I tried to walk, the ground seemed to hold me fast; if I could walk, the water hindered me; and even my cries were smothered in my breast.’ So said the poor youth, while recovering from his terror, and reckoning himself happy to see a frightful dream thrust aside by the most delicious reality.”

Barbara made every effort to reduce, by her prose, the poetry of her friend to the domain of common life; employing, in the present case, the ingenious craft which so often succeeds with bird-catchers, when they imitate with a whistle the tones of those luckless creatures they soon hope to see by dozens safely lodged in their nets. She praised Wilhelm: she expatiated on his figure, his eyes, his love. The poor girl heard her with a gratified heart, then arose, let herself be dressed, and appeared calmer. “My child, my darling,” continued the old woman, in a cozening tone, “I will not trouble you or injure you: I cannot think of tearing from you your dearest happiness. Could you mistake my intention? Have you forgotten that on all occasions I have cared for you more than for myself? Tell me only what you wish: we shall soon see how it may be brought about.”

“What can I wish?” said Mariana; “I am miserable, miserable for life: I love him, and he loves me; yet I see that I must part with him, and know not how I shall survive it. Norberg is coming, to whom we owe our whole subsistence, whom we cannot live without. Wilhelm is straitened in his fortune: he can do nothing for me.”

“Yes, unfortunately, he is of those lovers who bring nothing but their hearts; and these people, too, have the highest pretensions of any.”

“No jesting! The unhappy youth thinks of leaving his home, of going upon the stage, of offering me his hand.”

“Of empty hands we have already four.”

“I have no choice,” continued Mariana; “do you decide for me. Cast me away to this side or to that: mark only one thing,  —  I think I carry in my bosom a pledge that ought to unite me with him still more closely. Consider and determine: whom shall I forsake? whom shall I follow?”

After a short silence, Barbara exclaimed. “Strange, that youth should always be for extremes! To my view, nothing would be easier than for us to combine both the profit and the enjoyment. Do you love the one, let the other pay for it: all we have to mind, is being sharp enough to keep the two from meeting.”

“Do as you please: I can imagine nothing, but I will obey.”

“We have this advantage: we can humor the manager’s caprice and pride about the morals of his troop. Both lovers are accustomed already to go secretly and cautiously to work. For hours and opportunity I will take thought: only henceforth you must act the part that I prescribe to you. Who knows what circumstances may arise to help us? If Norberg would arrive even now, when Wilhelm is away! Who can hinder you from thinking of the one in the arms of the other? I wish you a son, and good fortune with him: he will have a rich father.”

These projects lightened Mariana’s despondency only for a very short time. She could not bring her situation into harmony with her feelings, with her convictions: she would fain have forgotten the painful relations in which she stood, and a thousand little circumstances forced them back every moment to her recollection.

CHAPTER XIII.

In the mean time, Wilhelm had completed the short preliminary journey. His merchant being from home, he delivered the letter of introduction to the mistress of the house. But neither did this lady give him much furtherance in his purposes: she was in a violent passion, and her whole economy was in confusion.

He had not waited long when she disclosed to him, what in truth could not be kept a secret, that her step-daughter had run off with a player,  —  a person who had parted lately from a small strolling company, and had staid in the place, and commenced teaching French. The father, distracted with grief and vexation, had run to the Amt to have the fugitives pursued. She blamed her daughter bitterly, and vilified the lover, till she left no tolerable quality with either: she deplored at great length the shame thus brought upon the family; embarrassing our hero not a little, who here felt his own private scheme beforehand judged and punished, in the spirit of prophecy as it were, by this frenzied sibyl. Still stronger and deeper was the interest he took in the sorrows of the father, who now returned from the Amt, and with fixed sorrow, in broken sentences, gave his wife an account of the errand, and strove to hide the embarrassment and distraction of his mind; while, after looking at the letter, he directed that the horse it spoke of should be given to Wilhelm.

Our friend thought it best to mount his steed immediately, and quit a house where, in its present state, he could not possibly be comfortable; but the honest man would not allow the son of one to whom he had so many obligations to depart without tasting of his hospitality, without remaining at least a night beneath his roof.

Wilhelm had partaken of a melancholy supper, worn out a restless night, and hastened, early in the morning, to get rid of these people, who, without knowing it, had, by their narratives and utterances, been constantly wounding him to the quick.

In a musing mood, he was riding slowly along, when all at once he observed a number of armed men coming through the fields. By their long, loose coats, with enormous cuffs; by their shapeless hats, clumsy muskets; by their unpretending gait, and contented bearing of the body,  —  he recognized in these people a detachment of provincial militia. They halted beneath an old oak, set down their fire-arms, and placed themselves at their ease upon the sward, to smoke a pipe of tobacco. Wilhelm lingered near them, and entered into conversation with a young man who came up on horseback. The history of the two runaways, which he knew but too well, was again detailed to him, and that with comments not particularly flattering, either to the young pair themselves, or to the parents. He also learned that the military had come hither to take into custody the loving couple, who had already been seized and detained in a neighboring village. After some time, accordingly, a cart was seen advancing to the place, encircled with a city guard more ludicrous than appalling. An amorphous town-clerk rode forth, and made his compliments to the Actuarius (for such was the young man Wilhelm had been speaking to), on the border of their several districts, with great conscientiousness and queer grimaces; as perhaps the ghost and the conjurer do, when they meet, the one within the circle and the other out of it, in their dismal midnight operations.

But the chief attention of the lookers-on was directed to the cart: they could not behold, without compassion, the poor, misguided creatures, who were sitting upon bundles of straw, looking tenderly at one another, and scarcely seeming to observe the by-standers. Accident had forced their conductors to bring them from the last village in that unseemly style; the old chaise, which had previously transported the lady, having there broken down. On that occurrence she had begged for permission to sit beside her friend; whom, in the conviction that his crime was of a capital sort, the rustic bailiffs had so far brought along in irons. These irons certainly contributed to give the tender group a more interesting appearance, particularly as the young man moved and bore himself with great dignity, while he kissed more than once the hands of his fair companion.

“We are unfortunate,” she cried to the by-standers, “but not so guilty as we seem. It is thus that cruel men reward true love; and parents, who entirely neglect the happiness of their children, tear them with fury from the arms of joy, when it has found them after many weary days.”

The spectators were expressing their sympathy in various ways, when, the officers of law having finished their ceremonial, the cart went on; and Wilhelm, who took a deep interest in the fate of the lovers, hastened forward by a foot path to get some acquaintance with the Amtmann before the procession should arrive. But scarcely had he reached the Amthaus, where all was in motion, and ready to receive the fugitives, when his new friend, the Actuarius, laid hold of him; and giving him a circumstantial detail of the whole proceedings, and then launching out into a comprehensive eulogy of his own horse, which he had got by barter the night before, put a stop to every other sort of conversation.

The luckless pair, in the mean time, had been set down behind, at the garden, which communicated by a little door with the Amthaus, and thus brought in unobserved. The Actuarius, for this mild and handsome treatment, accepted of a just encomium from Wilhelm; though in truth his sole object had been to mortify the crowd collected in front of the Amthaus, by denying them the satisfaction of looking at a neighbor in disgrace.

The Amtmann, who had no particular taste for such extraordinary occurrences, being wont on these occasions to commit frequent errors, and, with the best intentions, to be often paid with sour admonitions from the higher powers, went with heavy steps into his office-room; the Actuarius with Wilhelm and a few respectable citizens following him.

The lady was first produced; she advanced without pertness, calm and self-possessed. The manner of her dress, the way in which she bore herself, showed that she was a person not without value in her own eyes. She accordingly began, without any questions being put, to speak, not unskilfully, about her situation.

The Actuarius bade her be silent, and held his pen over the folded sheet. The Amtmann gathered up his resolution, looked at his assistant, cleared his throat by two or three hems, and asked the poor girl what was her name, and how old she was.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said she, “but it seems very strange to me that you ask my name and age, seeing you know very well what my name is, and that I am just of the age of your oldest son. What you do want to know of me, and need to know, I will tell freely without circumlocution.

“Since my father’s second marriage, my situation in his house has not been of the most enviable sort. Oftener than once I have had it in my power to make a suitable marriage, had not my step-mother, dreading the expense of my portion, taken care to thwart all such proposals. At length I grew acquainted with the young Melina; I felt constrained to love him; and, as we both foresaw the obstacles that stood in the way of our regular union, we determined to go forth together, and seek in the wide world the happiness denied us at home. I took nothing with me that was not my own: we did not run away like thieves and robbers; and my lover does not merit to be hauled about in this way, with chains and handcuffs. The prince is just, and will not sanction such severity. If we are liable to punishment, it is not punishment of this kind.”

The old Amtmann hereupon fell into double and treble confusion. Sounds of the most gracious eulogies were already humming through his brain, and the girl’s voluble speech had entirely confounded the plan of his protocol. The mischief increased, when to repeated official questions she refused giving any answer, but constantly referred to what she had already said.

“I am no criminal,” she said. “They have brought me hither on bundles of straw to put me to shame, but there is a higher court that will bring us back to honor.”

The Actuarius, in the mean time, had kept writing down her words: he whispered the Amtmann, “just to go on,  —  a formal protocol might be made out by and by.”

The senior then again took heart, and began, with his heavy words, in dry prescribed formulas, to seek information about the sweet secrets of love.

The red mounted into Wilhelm’s cheeks, and those of the pretty criminal likewise glowed with the charming tinge of modesty. She was silent, she stammered, till at last her embarrassment itself seemed to exalt her courage.

“Be assured,” she cried, “that I should have strength enough to confess the truth, though it made against myself; and shall I now hesitate and stammer, when it does me honor? Yes: from the moment when I first felt certain of his love and faith, I looked upon him as my husband; I freely gave him all that love requires,  —  that a heart once convinced cannot long refuse. Now do with me what you please. If I hesitated for a moment to confess, it was solely owing to fear lest the admission might prove hurtful to my lover.”

On hearing this confession, Wilhelm formed a high opinion of the young woman’s feelings, while her judges marked her as an impudent strumpet; and the townsfolk present thanked God that in their families no such scandal had occurred, or at least been brought to light.

Wilhelm transported his Mariana into this conjuncture, answering at the bar: he put still finer words in her mouth, making her uprightness yet more affecting, her confession still nobler. The most violent desire to help the two lovers took possession of him. Nor did he conceal this feeling, but signified in private to the wavering Amtmann, that it were better to end the business; all being clear as possible, and requiring no further investigation.

This was so far of service that the young woman was allowed to retire; though, in her stead, the lover was brought in, his fetters having previously been taken off him at the door. This person seemed a little more concerned about his fate. His answers were more careful; and, if he showed less heroic generosity, he recommended himself by the precision and distinctness of his expressions.

When this audience also was finished, and found to agree in all points with the former, except that, from regard for his mistress, Melina stubbornly denied what had already been confessed by herself, the young woman was again brought forward; and a scene took place between the two, which made the heart of our friend entirely their own.

What usually occurs nowhere but in romances and plays, he saw here in a paltry court-room before his eyes,  —  the contest of reciprocal magnanimity, the strength of love in misfortune.

“Is it, then, true,” said he internally, “that timorous affection, which conceals itself from the eye of the sun and of men, not daring to taste of enjoyment save in remote solitude and deep secrecy, yet, if torn rudely by some cruel chance into light, will show itself more courageous, strong, and resolute than any of our loud and ostentatious passions?”

To his comfort, the business now soon came to a conclusion. The lovers were detained in tolerable quarters: had it been possible, he would that very evening have brought back the young lady to her parents. For he firmly determined to act as intercessor in this case, and to forward a happy and lawful union between the lovers.

He begged permission of the Amtmann to speak in private with Melina, a request which was granted without difficulty.

CHAPTER XIV.

The conversation of these new acquaintances very soon grew confidential and lively. When Wilhelm told the downcast youth of his connection with the lady’s parents, and offered to mediate in the affair, showing at the same time the strongest expectation of success, a light was shed across the dreary and anxious mind of the prisoner: he felt himself already free, already reconciled with the parents of his bride, and now began to speak about his future occupation and support.

“On this point,” said our friend, “you cannot long be in difficulty; for you seem to me directed, not more by your circumstances than by nature, to make your fortune in the noble profession you have chosen. A pleasing figure, a sonorous voice, a feeling heart! Could an actor be better furnished? If I can serve you with a few introductions, it will give me the greatest pleasure.”

“I thank you with all my heart,” replied the other, “but I shall hardly be able to make use of them; for it is my purpose, if possible, not to return to the stage.”

“Here you are certainly to blame,” said Wilhelm, after a pause, during which he had partly recovered out of his astonishment; for it had never once entered his head, but that the player, the moment his young wife and he were out of durance, would repair to some theatre. It seemed to him as natural and as necessary as for the frog to seek pools of water. He had not doubted of it for a moment, and he now heard the contrary with boundless surprise.

“Yes,” replied Melina, “I have it in view not to re-appear upon the stage, but rather to take up some civil calling, be it what it will, so that I can but obtain one.”

“This is a strange resolution, which I cannot give my approbation to. Without especial reasons, it can never be advisable to change the mode of life we have begun with; and, besides, I know of no condition that presents so much allurement, so many charming prospects, as the condition of an actor.”

“It is easy to see that you have never been one,” said the other.

“Alas, sir,” answered Wilhelm, “how seldom is any man contented with the station where he happens to be placed! He is ever coveting that of his neighbor, from which the neighbor in his turn is longing to be free.”

“Yet still there is a difference,” said Melina, “between bad and worse. Experience, not impatience, makes me determine as you see. Is there in the world any creature whose morsel of bread is attended with such vexation, uncertainty, and toil? It were almost as good to take the staff and wallet, and beg from door to door. What things to be endured from the envy of rivals, from the partiality of managers, from the ever-altering caprices of the public! In truth, one would need to have a hide like a bear’s, that is led about in a chain along with apes, and dogs of knowledge, and cudgelled into dancing at the sound of a bagpipe before the populace and children.”

Wilhelm thought a thousand things, which he would not vex the worthy man by uttering. He merely, therefore, led the conversation round them at a distance. His friend explained himself the more candidly and circumstantially on that account. “Is not the manager obliged,” said he, “to fall down at the feet of every little Stadtrath, that he may get permission, for a month between the fairs, to cause another groschen or two to circulate in the place? Ours, on the whole, a worthy man, I have often pitied; though at other times he gave me cause enough for discontentment. A good actor drains him by extortion; of the bad he cannot rid himself; and, should he try to make his income at all equal to his outlay, the public immediately takes umbrage, the house stands empty; and, not to go to wreck entirely, he must continue acting in the midst of sorrow and vexation. No, no, sir! Since you are so good as to undertake to help me, have the kindness, I entreat you, to plead with the parents of my bride: let them get me a little post of clerk or collector, and I shall think myself well dealt with.”

After exchanging a few words more, Wilhelm went away with the promise to visit the parents early in the morning, and see what could be done. Scarcely was he by himself, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in these exclamations: “Unhappy Melina! not in thy condition, but in thyself, lies the mean impediment over which thou canst not gain the mastery. What mortal in the world, if without inward calling he take up a trade, an art, or any mode of life, will not feel his situation miserable? But he who is born with capacities for any undertaking, finds in executing this the fairest portion of his being. Nothing upon earth without its difficulties! It is the secret impulse within, it is the love and the delight we feel, that help us to conquer obstacles, to clear out new paths, and to overleap the bounds of that narrow circle in which others poorly toil. For thee the stage is but a few boards: the parts assigned thee are but what a task is to a school-boy. The spectators thou regardest as on work-days they regard each other. For thee, then, it may be well to wish thyself behind a desk, over ruled ledgers, collecting tolls, and picking out reversions. Thou feelest not the co-operating, co-inspiring whole, which the mind alone can invent, comprehend, and complete: thou feelest not that in man there lives a spark of purer fire, which, when it is not fed, when it is not fanned, gets covered by the ashes of indifference and daily wants, yet not till late, perhaps never, can be altogether quenched. Thou feelest in thy soul no strength to fan this spark into a flame, no riches in thy heart to feed it when aroused. Hunger drives thee on, inconveniences withstand thee; and it is hidden from thee, that, in every human condition, foes lie in wait for us, invincible except by cheerfulness and equanimity. Thou dost well to wish thyself within the limits of a common station, for what station that required soul and resolution couldst thou rightly fill? Give a soldier, a statesman, a divine, thy sentiments, and as justly will he fret himself about the miseries of his condition. Nay, have there not been men so totally forsaken by all feeling of existence, that they have held the life and nature of mortals as a nothing, a painful, short, and tarnished gleam of being? Did the forms of active men rise up living in thy soul; were thy breast warmed by a sympathetic fire; did the vocation which proceeds from within diffuse itself over all thy frame; were the tones of thy voice, the words of thy mouth, delightful to hear; didst thou feel thy own being sufficient for thyself,  —  then wouldst thou doubtless seek place and opportunity likewise to feel it in others.”

Amid such words and thoughts, our friend undressed himself, and went to bed, with feelings of the deepest satisfaction. A whole romance of what he now hoped to do, instead of the worthless occupations which should have filled the approaching day, arose within his mind: pleasant fantasies softly conducted him into the kingdom of sleep, and then gave him up to their sisters, sweet dreams, who received him with open arms, and encircled his reposing head with the images of heaven.

Early in the morning he was awake again, and thinking of the business that lay before him. He revisited the house of the forsaken family, where his presence caused no small surprise. He introduced his proposal in the most prudent manner, and soon found both more and fewer difficulties than he had anticipated. For one thing, the evil was already done: and though people of a singularly strict and harsh temper are wont to set themselves forcibly against the past, and thus to increase the evil that cannot now be remedied; yet, on the other hand, what is actually done exerts an irresistible effect upon most minds: an event which lately appeared impossible takes its place, so soon as it has really occurred, with what occurs daily. It was accordingly soon settled, that Herr Melina was to wed the daughter; who, however, in return, because of her misconduct, was to take no marriage-portion with her, and to promise that she would leave her aunt’s legacy, for a few years more, at an easy interest, in her father’s hands. But the second point, touching a civil provision for Melina, was attended with greater difficulties. They liked not to have the luckless pair continually living in their sight: they would not have a present object ever calling to their minds the connection of a mean vagabond with so respectable a family,  —  a family which could number even a superintendent among its relatives; nay, it was not to be looked for, that the government would trust him with a charge. Both parents were alike inflexible in this matter; and Wilhelm, who pleaded very hard, unwilling that a man whom he contemned should return to the stage, and convinced that he deserved not such a happiness, could not, with all his rhetoric, produce the slenderest impression. Had he known the secret springs of the business, he would have spared himself the labor of attempting to persuade. The father would gladly have kept his daughter near him; but he hated the young man, because his wife herself had cast an eye upon him: while the latter could not bear to have, in her step-daughter, a happy rival constantly before her eyes. So Melina with his young wife, who already manifested no dislike to go and see the world, and be seen of it, was obliged, against his will, to set forth in a few days, and seek some place in any acting company where he could find one.

CHAPTER XV.

Happy season of youth! Happy times of the first wish of love! A man is then like a child that can for hours delight itself with an echo, can support alone the charges of conversation, and be well contented with its entertainment if the unseen interlocutor will but repeat the concluding syllables of the words addressed to it.

So was it with Wilhelm in the earlier and still more in the later period of his passion for Mariana; he transferred the whole wealth of his own emotions to her, and looked upon himself as a beggar that lived upon her alms: and as a landscape is more delightful, nay, is delightful only, when it is enlightened by the sun; so likewise in his eyes were all things beautified and glorified which lay round her or related to her.

Often would he stand in the theatre behind the scenes, to which he had obtained the freedom of access from the manager. In such cases, it is true, the perspective magic was away; but the far mightier sorcery of love then first began to act. For hours he could stand by the sooty light-frame, inhaling the vapor of tallow lamps, looking out at his mistress; and when she returned, and cast a kindly glance upon him, he could feel himself lost in ecstasy: and, though close upon laths and bare spars, he seemed transported into paradise. The stuffed bunches of wool denominated lambs, the waterfalls of tin, the paper roses, and the one-sided huts of straw, awoke in him fair poetic visions of an old pastoral world. Nay, the very dancing-girls, ugly as they were when seen at hand, did not always inspire him with disgust: they trod the same floor with Mariana. So true is it, that love, which alone can give their full charm to rose-bowers, myrtle-groves, and moonshine, can also communicate, even to shavings of wood, and paper-clippings, the aspect of animated nature. It is so strong a spice, that tasteless or even nauseous soups are by it rendered palatable.

So potent a spice was certainly required to render tolerable, nay, at last agreeable, the state in which he usually found her chamber, not to say herself.

Brought up in a substantial burgher’s house, cleanliness and order were the elements in which he breathed; and, inheriting as he did a portion of his father’s taste for finery, it had always been his care, in boyhood, to furbish up his chamber, which he regarded as his little kingdom, in the stateliest fashion. His bed-curtains were drawn together in large, massy folds, and fastened with tassels, as they are usually seen in thrones; he had got himself a carpet for the middle of his chamber, and a finer one for his table; his books and apparatus he had, almost instinctively, arranged in such a manner, that a Dutch painter might have imitated them for groups in his still-life scenes. He had a white cap, which he wore straight up like a turban; and the sleeves of his night-gown he had caused to be cut short, in the mode of the Orientals. By way of reason for this, he pretended that long, wide sleeves encumbered him in writing. When, at night, the boy was quite alone, and no longer dreaded any interruption, he usually wore a silk sash tied round his body; and often, it is said, he would fix in his girdle a sword, which he had appropriated from an old armory, and thus repeat and declaim his tragic parts; nay, in the same trim he would kneel down and say his evening prayer.

In those times, how happy did he think the players, whom he saw possessed of so many splendid garments, trappings, and arms; and in the constant practice of a lofty demeanor, the spirit of which seemed to hold up a mirror of whatever, in the opinions, relations, and passions of men, was stateliest and most magnificent. Of a piece with this, thought Wilhelm, is also the player’s domestic life,  —  a series of dignified transactions and employments, whereof their appearance on the stage is but the outmost portion; like as a mass of silver, long simmering about in the purifying furnace, at length gleams with a bright and beautiful tinge in the eye of the refiner, and shows him, at the same time, that the metal now is cleansed of all foreign mixture.

Great, accordingly, was his surprise at first, when he found himself beside his mistress, and looked down, through the cloud that environed him, on tables, stools, and floor. The wrecks of a transient, light, and false decoration lay, like the glittering coat of a skinned fish, dispersed in wild disorder. The implements of personal cleanliness,  —  combs, soap, towels,  —  with the traces of their use, were not concealed. Music, portions of plays and pairs of shoes, washes and Italian flowers, pin-cushions, hair-skewers, rouge-pots, and ribbons, books and straw hats,  —  no article despised the neighborhood of another: all were united by a common element,  —  powder and dust. Yet as Wilhelm scarcely noticed in her presence aught except herself; nay, as all that had belonged to her, that she had touched, was dear to him,  —  he came at last to feel, in this chaotic housekeeping, a charm which the proud pomp of his own habitation never had communicated. When, on this hand, he lifted aside her bodice, to get at the harpsichord; on that, threw her gown upon the bed, that he might find a seat; when she herself, with careless freedom, did not seek to hide from him many a natural office, which, out of respect for the presence of a second person, is usually concealed,  —  he felt as if by all this he was coming nearer to her every moment, as if the communion betwixt them was fastening by invisible ties.

It was not so easy to reconcile with his previous ideas the behavior of the other players, whom, on his first visits, he often met with in her house. Ever busied in being idle, they seemed to think least of all on their employment and object: the poetic worth of a piece they were never heard to speak of, or to judge of, right or wrong; their continual question was simply, How much will it bring? Is it a stock-piece? How long will it run? How often think you it may be played? and other inquiries and observations of the same description. Then commonly they broke out against the manager, that he was stinted with his salaries, and especially unjust to this one or to that; then against the public, how seldom it recompensed the right man with its approval, how the German theatre was daily improving, how the player was ever growing more honored, and never could be honored enough. Then they would descant largely about wine-gardens and coffee-houses; how much debt one of their comrades had contracted, and must suffer a deduction from his wages on account of; about the disproportion of their weekly salaries; about the cabals of some rival company: on which occasions, they would pass again to the great and merited attention which the public now bestowed upon them; not forgetting the importance of the theatre to the improvement of the nation and the world.

All this, which had already given Wilhelm many a restless hour, came again into his memory, as he walked his horse slowly homewards, and contemplated the various occurrences in which he had so lately been engaged. The commotion produced by a girl’s elopement, not only in a decent family, but in a whole town, he had seen with his own eyes; the scenes upon the highway and in the Amthaus, the views entertained by Melina, and whatever else he had witnessed, again arose before him, and brought his keen, forecasting mind into a sort of anxious disquietude; which no longer to endure, he struck the spurs into his horse, and hastened towards home.

By this expedient, however, he but ran to meet new vexations. Werner, his friend and future brother-in-law, was waiting for him, to begin a serious, important, unexpected conversation.

Werner was one of those tried, sedate persons, with fixed principles and habits, whom we usually denominate cold characters, because on emergencies they do not burst forth quickly or very visibly. Accordingly, his intercourse with Wilhelm was a perpetual contest; which, however, only served to knit their mutual affection the more firmly; for, notwithstanding their very opposite modes of thinking, each found his account in communicating with the other. Werner was very well contented with himself, that he could now and then lay a bridle on the exalted but commonly extravagant spirit of his friend; and Wilhelm often felt a glorious triumph, when the staid and thinking Werner could be hurried on with him in warm ebullience. Thus each exercised himself upon the other; they had been accustomed to see each other daily; and you would have said, their eagerness to meet and talk together had even been augmented by the inability of each to understand the other. At bottom, however, being both good-hearted men, they were both travelling together towards one goal; and they could never understand how it was that neither of the two could bring the other over to his own persuasion.

For some time Werner had observed that Wilhelm’s visits had been rarer; that in his favorite discussions he was brief and absent-minded; that he no longer abandoned himself to the vivid depicting of singular conceptions,  —  tokens by which, in truth, a mind getting rest and contentment in the presence of a friend is most clearly indicated. The considerate and punctual Werner first sought for the root of the evil in his own conduct; till some rumors of the neighborhood set him on the proper trace, and some unguarded proceedings on the part of Wilhelm brought him nearer to the certainty. He began his investigation, and erelong discovered, that for some time Wilhelm had been openly visiting an actress, had often spoken with her at the theatre, and accompanied her home. On discovering the nightly visits of his friend, Werner’s anxiety increased to a painful extent: for he heard that Mariana was a most seductive girl, who probably was draining the youth of his money; while, at the same time, she herself was supported by another and a very worthless lover.

Having pushed his suspicions as near certainty as possible, he had resolved to make a sharp attack on Wilhelm: he was now in full readiness with all his preparations, when his friend returned, discontented and unsettled, from his journey.

That very evening Werner laid the whole of what he knew before him, first calmly, then with the emphatic earnestness of a well-meaning friendship. He left no point of the subject undiscussed, and made Wilhelm taste abundance of those bitter things which men at ease are accustomed, with virtuous spite, to dispense so liberally to men in love. Yet, as might have been expected, he accomplished little. Wilhelm answered with interior commotion, though with great confidence, “You know not the girl! Appearances, perhaps, are not to her advantage; but I am certain of her faithfulness and virtue, as of my love.”

Werner maintained his accusations, and offered to bring proofs and witnesses. Wilhelm waived these offers, and parted with his friend out of humor and unhinged, like a man in whose jaw some unskilful dentist has been seizing a diseased, yet fast-rooted, tooth, and tugging at it harshly to no purpose.

It exceedingly dissatisfied Wilhelm to see the fair image of Mariana overclouded and almost deformed in his soul, first by the capricious fancies of his journey, and then by the unfriendliness of Werner. He adopted the surest means of restoring it to complete brilliancy and beauty, by setting out at night, and hastening to his wonted destination. She received him with extreme joy: on entering the town, he had ridden past her window; she had been expecting his company; and it is easy to conceive that all scruples were soon driven from his heart. Nay, her tenderness again opened up the whole stores of his confidence; and he told her how deeply the public, how deeply his friend, had sinned against her.

Much lively talking led them at length to speak about the earliest period of their acquaintance, the recollection of which forms always one of the most delightful topics between two lovers. The first steps that introduce us to the enchanted garden of love are so full of pleasure, the first prospects so charming, that every one is willing to recall them to his memory. Each party seeks a preference above the other; each has loved sooner, more devotedly; and each, in this contest, would rather be conquered than conquer.

Wilhelm repeated to his mistress, what he had so often told her before, how she soon abstracted his attention from the play, and fixed it on herself; how her form, her acting, her voice, inspired him; how at last he went only on the nights when she was to appear; how, in fine, having ventured behind the scenes, he had often stood by her unheeded; and he spoke with rapture of the happy evening when he found an opportunity to do her some civility, and lead her into conversation.

Mariana, on the other hand, would not allow that she had failed so long to notice him: she declared that she had seen him in the public walk, and for proof she described the clothes which he wore on that occasion; she affirmed that even then he pleased her before all others, and made her long for his acquaintance.

How gladly did Wilhelm credit all this! How gladly did he catch at the persuasion, that, when he used to approach her, she had felt herself drawn towards him by some resistless influence; that she had gone with him between the side-scenes on purpose to see him more closely, and get acquainted with him; and that, in fine, when his backwardness and modesty were not to be conquered, she had herself afforded him an opportunity, and, as it were, compelled him to hand her a glass of lemonade.

In this affectionate contest, which they pursued through all the little circumstances of their brief romance, the hours passed rapidly away; and Wilhelm left his mistress with his heart at peace, and firmly determined on proceeding forthwith to the execution of his project.

CHAPTER XVI.

The necessary preparations for his journey his father and mother had attended to: some little matters, that were yet wanting to his equipage, delayed his departure for a few days. Wilhelm took advantage of this opportunity to write to Mariana, meaning thus to bring to a decision the proposal, about which she had hitherto avoided speaking with him. The letter was as follows:  — 

“Under the kind veil of night, which has often over-shadowed us together, I sit and think, and write to thee: all that I meditate and do is solely on thy account. O Mariana! with me, the happiest of men, it is as with a bridegroom who stands in the festive chamber, dreaming of the new universe that is to be unfolded to him, and by means of him, and, while the holy ceremonies are proceeding, transports himself in longing thought before the mysterious curtains, from which the loveliness of love whispers out to him.

“I have constrained myself not to see thee for a few days: the sacrifice was easy, when united with the hope of such a recompense, of being always with thee, of remaining ever thine! Need I repeat what I desire? I must! for it seems as if yet thou hadst never understood me.

“How often, in the low tones of true love, which, though wishing to gain all, dares speak but little, have I sought in thy heart for the desire of a perpetual union. Thou hast understood me, doubtless; for in thy own heart the same wish must have arisen: thou didst comprehend me, in that kiss, in the intoxicating peace of that happy evening. Thy silence testified to me thy modest honor; and how did it increase my love! Another woman would have had recourse to artifice, that she might ripen by superfluous sunshine the purpose of her lover’s heart, might elicit a proposal, and secure a firm promise. Mariana, on the contrary, drew back: she repelled the half-opened confidence of him she loved, and sought to conceal her approving feelings by apparent indifference. But I have understood thee! What a miserable creature must I be, if I did not by these tokens recognize the pure and generous love that cares not for itself, but for its object! Confide in me, and fear nothing. We belong to one another; and neither of us leaves aught or forsakes aught, if we live for one another.

“Take it, then, this hand! Solemnly I offer this unnecessary pledge! All the joys of love we have already felt, but there is a new blessedness in the firm thought of duration. Ask not how,  —  care not. Fate takes care of love, and the more certainly as love is easy to provide for.

“My heart has long ago forsaken my paternal home: it is with thee, as my spirit hovers on the stage. O my darling! to what other man has it been given to unite all his wishes, as it is to me? No sleep falls upon my eyes: like the redness of an everlasting dawn, thy love and thy happiness still glow around me.

“Scarcely can I hold myself from springing up, from rushing forth to thee, and forcing thy consent, and, with the first light of to-morrow, pressing forward into the world for the mark I aim at. But, no! I will restrain myself; I will not act like a thoughtless fool, will do nothing rashly: my plan is laid, and I will execute it calmly.

“I am acquainted with the manager Serlo: my journey leads me directly to the place where he is. For above a year he has frequently been wishing that his people had a touch of my vivacity, and my delight in theatrical affairs: I shall doubtless be very kindly received. Into your company I cannot enter, for more than one reason. Serlo’s theatre, moreover, is at such a distance from this, that I may there begin my undertaking without any apprehension of discovery. With him I shall thus at once find a tolerable maintenance: I shall look about me in the public, get acquainted with the company, and then come back for thee.

“Mariana, thou seest what I can force myself to do, that I may certainly obtain thee. For such a period not to see thee; for such a period to know thee in the wide world! I dare not view it closely. But yet if I recall to memory thy love, which assures me of all; if thou shalt not disdain my prayer, and give me, ere we part, thy hand, before the priest,  —  I may then depart in peace. It is but a form between us, yet a form so touching,  —  the blessing of Heaven to the blessing of the earth. Close by thy house, in the Ritterschaftliche Chapel, the ceremony will be soon and secretly performed.

“For the beginning I have gold enough; we will share it between us; it will suffice for both; and, before that is finished, Heaven will send us more.

“No, my darling, I am not downcast about the issue. What is begun with so much cheerfulness must reach a happy end. I have never doubted that a man may force his way through the world, if he really is in earnest about it; and I feel strength enough within me to provide a liberal support for two, and many more. The world, we are often told, is unthankful: I have never yet discovered that it was unthankful, if one knew how, in the proper way, to do it service. My whole soul burns at the idea, that I shall at length step forth, and speak to the hearts of men something they have long been yearning to hear. How many thousand times has a feeling of disgust passed through me, alive as I am to the nobleness of the stage, when I have seen the poorest creatures fancying they could speak a word of power to the hearts of the people! The tone of a man’s voice singing treble sounds far pleasanter and purer to my ear: it is incredible how these blockheads, in their coarse ineptitude, deform things beautiful and venerable.

“The theatre has often been at variance with the pulpit: they ought not, I think, to quarrel. How much is it to be wished, that in both the celebration of nature and of God were intrusted to none but men of noble minds! These are no dreams, my darling! As I have felt in thy heart that thou couldst love, I seize the dazzling thought, and say,  —  no, I will not say, but I will hope and trust,  —  that we two shall yet appear to men as a pair of chosen spirits, to unlock their hearts, to touch the recesses of their nature, and prepare for them celestial joys, as surely as the joys I have tasted with thee deserved to be named celestial, since they drew us from ourselves, and exalted us above ourselves.

“I cannot end. I have already said too much, and know not whether I have yet said all, all that concerns thy interests; for to express the agitations of the vortex that whirls round within myself, is beyond the power of words.

“Yet take this sheet, my love! I have again read it over: I observe it ought to have begun more cautiously; but it contains in it all that thou hast need to know,  —  enough to prepare thee for the hour when I shall return with the lightness of love to thy bosom. I seem to myself like a prisoner that is secretly filing his irons asunder. I bid good-night to my soundly sleeping parents. Farewell, my beloved, farewell! For this time I conclude; my eyelids have more than once dropped together; it is now deep in the night.”

CHAPTER XVII.

It seemed as if the day would never end, while Wilhelm, with the letter beautifully folded in his pocket, longed to meet with Mariana. The darkness had scarcely come on, when, contrary to custom, he glided forth to her house. His plan was, to announce himself for the night; then to quit his mistress for a short time, leaving the letter with her ere he went away; and, returning at a late hour, to obtain her reply, her consent, or to force it from her by the power of his caresses. He flew into her arms, and pressed her in rapture to his bosom. The vehemence of his emotions prevented him at first from noticing, that, on this occasion, she did not receive him with her wonted heartiness; yet she could not long conceal her painful situation, but imputed it to slight indisposition. She complained of a headache, and would not by any means consent to his proposal of coming back that night. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained it, therefore; and, as several of her movements and observations courteously compelled him to take his leave, in the tumult of unsatiable love he snatched up one of her neckerchiefs, squeezed it into his pocket, and forced himself away from her lips and her door. He returned home, but could not rest there: he again dressed himself, and went out into the open air.

After walking up and down several streets, he was accosted by a stranger inquiring for a certain inn. Wilhelm offered to conduct him to the house. In the way, his new acquaintance asked about the names of the streets, the owners of various extensive edifices, then about some police regulations of the town; so that, by the time they reached the door of the inn, they had fallen into quite an interesting conversation. The stranger politely compelled his guide to enter, and drink a glass of punch with him. Ere long he had told his name and place of abode, as well as the business that had brought him hither; and he seemed to expect a like confidence from Wilhelm. Our friend, without any hesitation, mentioned his name, and the place where he lived.

“Are you not a grandson of the old Meister, who possessed that beautiful collection of pictures and statues?” inquired the stranger.

“Yes, I am. I was ten years old when my grandfather died, and it grieved me very much to see these fine things sold.”

“Your father got a fine sum of money for them.”

“You know of it, then?”

“Yes, indeed: I saw that treasure ere it left your house. Your grandfather was not merely a collector, he had a thorough knowledge of art. In his younger happy years he had been in Italy, and had brought back with him such treasures as could not now be got for any price. He possessed some exquisite pictures by the best masters. When you looked through his drawings, you would scarcely have believed your eyes. Among his marbles were some invaluable fragments; his series of bronzes was instructive and well chosen; he had also collected medals, in considerable quantity, relating to history and art; his few gems deserved the greatest praise. In addition to all which, the whole was tastefully arranged; although the rooms and hall of the old house had not been symmetrically built.”

“You may conceive,” said Wilhelm, “what we young ones lost, when all these articles were taken down and sent away. It was the first mournful period of my life. I cannot tell you how empty the chambers looked when we saw those objects vanish one by one, which had amused us from our earliest years, and which we considered as unalterable as the house, or the town itself.”

“If I mistake not, your father put the capital produced by the sale into some neighbor’s stock, with whom he commenced a sort of partnership in trade.”

“Quite right; and their joint speculations have prospered in their hands. Within the last twelve years, they have greatly increased their fortunes, and are now the more vehemently bent on gaining. Old Werner also has a son, who suits that sort of occupation much better than I.”

“I am sorry the place should have lost such an ornament as your grandfather’s cabinet was to it. I saw it but a short time prior to the sale; and I may say, I was myself the cause of its being then disposed of. A rich nobleman, a great amateur, but one who, in such important transactions, does not trust to his own solitary judgment, had sent me hither, and requested my advice. For six days I examined the collection: on the seventh, I advised my friend to pay down the required sum without delay. You were then a lively boy, often running about me: you explained to me the subjects of the pictures, and in general, I recollect, could give a very good account of the whole cabinet.”

“I remember such a person, but I should not have recognized him in you.”

“It is a good while ago, and we all change more or less. You had, if I mistake not, a favorite piece among them, to which you were ever calling my attention.”

“Oh, yes! it represented the history of that king’s son dying of a secret love for his father’s bride.”

“It was not, certainly, the best picture,  —  badly grouped, of no superiority in coloring, and executed altogether with great mannerism.”

“This I did not understand, and do not yet: it is the subject that charms me in a picture, not the art.”

“Your grandfather seemed to have thought otherwise. The greater part of his collection consisted of excellent pieces; in which, represent what they might, one constantly admired the talent of the master. This picture of yours had accordingly been hung in the outermost room,  —  a proof that he valued it slightly.”

“It was in that room where we young ones used to play, and where the piece you mention made on me a deep impression; which not even your criticism, greatly as I honor it, could obliterate, if we stood before the picture at this moment. What a melancholy object is a youth that must shut up within himself the sweet impulse, the fairest inheritance which nature has given us, and conceal in his own bosom the fire which should warm and animate himself and others, so that his vitals are wasted away by unutterable pains! I feel a pity for the ill-fated man that would consecrate himself to another, when the heart of that other has already found a worthy object of true and pure affection.”

“Such feelings are, however, very foreign to the principles by which a lover of art examines the works of great painters; and most probably you, too, had the cabinet continued in your family, would have by and by acquired a relish for the works themselves, and have learned to see in the performances of art something more than yourself and your individual inclinations.”

“In truth, the sale of that cabinet grieved me very much at the time; and often since I have thought of it with regret: but when I consider that it was a necessary means of awakening a taste in me, of developing a talent, which will operate far more powerfully on my history than ever those lifeless pictures could have done, I easily content myself, and honor destiny, which knows how to bring about what is best for me, and what is best for every one.”

“It gives me pain to hear this word destiny in the mouth of a young person, just at the age when men are commonly accustomed to ascribe their own violent inclinations to the will of higher natures.”

“You, then, do not believe in destiny? No power that rules over us and directs all for our ultimate advantage?”

“The question is not now of my belief, nor is this the place to explain how I may have attempted to form for myself some not impossible conception of things which are incomprehensible to all of us: the question here is, What mode of viewing them will profit us the most? The fabric of our life is formed of necessity and chance: the reason of man takes its station between them, and may rule them both; it treats the necessary as the groundwork of its being; the accidental it can direct and guide, and employ for its own purposes: and only while this principle of reason stands firm and inexpugnable, does man deserve to be named the god of this lower world. But woe to him who, from his youth, has used himself to search in necessity for something of arbitrary will; to ascribe to chance a sort of reason, which it is a matter of religion to obey. Is conduct like this aught else than to renounce one’s understanding, and give unrestricted scope to one’s inclinations? We think it is a kind of piety to move along without consideration; to let accidents that please us determine our conduct; and, finally, to bestow on the result of such a vacillating life the name of providential guidance.”

“Was it never your case that some little circumstance induced you to strike into a certain path, where some accidental occurrence erelong met you, and a series of unexpected incidents at length brought you to some point which you yourself had scarcely once contemplated? Should not lessons of this kind teach us obedience to destiny, confidence in some such guide?”

“With opinions like these, no woman could maintain her virtue, no man keep the money in his purse; for occasions enough are occurring to get rid of both. He alone is worthy of respect, who knows what is of use to himself and others, and who labors to control his self-will. Each man has his own fortune in his hands; as the artist has a piece of rude matter, which he is to fashion to a certain shape. But the art of living rightly is like all arts: the capacity alone is born with us; it must be learned, and practised with incessant care.”

These discussions our two speculators carried on between them to considerable length: at last they parted without seeming to have wrought any special conviction in each other, but engaging to meet at an appointed place next day.

Wilhelm walked up and down the streets for a time: he heard a sound of clarinets, hunting-horns, and bassoons; it swelled his bosom with delightful feelings. It was some travelling showmen that produced this pleasant music. He spoke with them: for a piece of coin they followed him to Mariana’s house. The space in front of the door was adorned with lofty trees; under them he placed his artists; and, himself resting on a bench at some distance, he surrendered his mind without restraint to the hovering tones which floated round him in the cool mellow night. Stretched out beneath the kind stars, he felt his existence like a golden dream. “She, too, hears these flutes,” said he within his heart: “she feels whose remembrance, whose love of her, it is that makes the night full of music. In distance, even, we are united by these melodies, as in every separation, by the ethereal accordance of love. Ah! two hearts that love each other are as two magnetic needles: whatever moves the one must move the other with it; for it is one power that works in both, one principle that pervades them. Can I in her arms conceive the possibility of parting from her? And yet I am soon to be far from her, to seek out a sanctuary for our love, and then to have her ever with me.

“How often, when absent from her, and lost in thoughts about her, happening to touch a book, a piece of dress or aught else, have I thought I felt her hand, so entirely was I invested with her presence! And to recollect those moments which shunned the light of day and the eye of the cold spectator; which, to enjoy, the gods might determine to forsake the painless condition of their pure blessedness! To recollect them! As if by memory we could renew the tumultuous thrilling of that cup of joy, which encircles our senses with celestial bonds, and lifts them beyond all earthly hinderances. And her form”  —  He lost himself in thoughts of her; his rest passed away into longing; he leaned against a tree, and cooled his warm cheek on its bark; and the winds of the night wafted speedily aside the breath, which proceeded in sighs from his pure and impassioned bosom. He groped for the neckerchief he had taken from her; but it was forgotten, it lay in his other clothes. His frame quivered with emotion.

The music ceased, and he felt as if fallen from the element in which his thoughts had hitherto been soaring. His restlessness increased, as his feelings were no longer nourished and assuaged by the melody. He sat down upon her threshold, and felt more peace. He kissed the brass knocker of her door: he kissed the threshold over which her feet went out and in, and warmed it by the fire of his breast. He again sat still for a moment, and figured her behind her curtains in the white night-gown, with the red ribbon round her head, in sweet repose: he almost fancied that he was himself so near her, she must needs be dreaming of him. His thoughts were beautiful, like the spirits of the twilight; rest and desire alternated within him; love ran with a quivering hand, in a thousand moods, over all the chords of his soul; it was as if the spheres stood mute above him, suspending their eternal song to watch the low melodies of his heart.

Had he then had about him the master-key with which he used to open Mariana’s door, he could not have restrained himself from penetrating into the sanctuary of love. Yet he went away slowly; he slanted, half-dreaming, in beneath the trees, set himself for home, and constantly turned round again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once, he imagined that he saw Mariana’s door open, and a dark figure issue from it. He was too distant for seeing clearly; and, before he could exert himself and look sharply, the appearance was already lost in the night; yet afar off he thought he saw it again gliding past a white house. He stood, and strained his eyes; but, ere he could arouse himself and follow the phantom, it had vanished. Whither should he pursue it? What street had the man taken, if it were a man?

A nightly traveller, when at some turn of his path he has seen the country for an instant illuminated by a flash of lightning, will, with dazzled eyes, next moment, seek in vain for the preceding forms and the connection of his road; so was it in the eyes and the heart of Wilhelm. And as a spirit of midnight, which awakens unutterable terror, is, in the succeeding moments of composure, regarded as a child of imagination, and the fearful vision leaves doubts without end behind it in the soul; so likewise was Wilhelm in extreme disquietude, as, leaning on the corner-stone of the street, he heeded not the clear gray of the morning, and the crowing of the cocks; till the early trades began to stir, and drove him home.

On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind by the most sufficient reasons; yet the fine harmonious feelings of the night, on which he now looked back as if they too had been a vision, were also gone. To soothe his heart, and put the last seal on his returning belief, he took the neckerchief from the pocket of the dress he had been last wearing. The rustling of a letter which fell out of it took the kerchief away from his lips: he lifted and read,  — 

“As I love thee, little fool, what ailed thee last night? This evening I will come again. I can easily suppose that thou art sick of staying here so long: but have patience; at the fair I will return for thee. And observe, never more put me on that abominable black-green-brown jacket: thou lookest in it like the witch of Endor. Did I not send the white night-gown, that I might have a snowy little lambkin in my arms? Send thy letters always by the ancient sibyl: the Devil himself has selected her as Iris.”

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

Whoever strives in our sight with vehement force to reach an object, be it one that we praise or that we blame, may count on exciting an interest in our minds; but, when once the matter is decided, we turn our eyes away from him: whatever once lies finished and done, can no longer at all fix our attention, especially if we at first prophesied an evil issue to the undertaking.

Therefore we shall not try to entertain our readers with any circumstantial account of the grief and desperation into which our ill-fated friend was cast, when he saw his hopes so unexpectedly and instantaneously ruined. On the contrary, we shall even pass over several years, and again take up our friend, where we hope to find him in some sort of activity and comfort. First, however, we must shortly set forth a few matters necessary for maintaining the connection of our narrative.

The pestilence, or a malignant fever, rages with more fierceness, and speedier effect, if the frame which it attacks was before healthy and full of vigor; and in like manner, when a luckless, unlooked-for fate overtook the wretched Wilhelm, his whole being in a moment was laid waste. As when by chance, in the preparation of some artificial firework, any part of the composition kindles before its time; and the skilfully bored and loaded barrels, which, arranged, and burning after a settled plan, would have painted in the air a magnificently varying series of flaming images, now hissing and roaring, promiscuously explode with a confused and dangerous crash,  —  so, in our hero’s case, did happiness and hope, pleasure and joys, realities and dreams, clash together with destructive tumult, all at once in his bosom. In such desolate moments, the friend that has hastened to deliverance stands fixed in astonishment; and for him who suffers, it is a benefit that sense forsakes him.

Days of pain, unmixed, ever-returning, and purposely renewed, succeeded next: still, even these are to be regarded as a grace from nature. In such hours Wilhelm had not yet quite lost his mistress: his pains were indefatigable struggles, still to hold fast the happiness that was gliding from his soul; again to luxuriate in thought on the possibility of it; to procure a brief after-life for his joys that had departed forever. Thus one may look upon a body as not utterly dead while the putrefaction lasts; while the forces that in vain seek to work by their old appointment, still labor in dissevering the particles of that frame which they once animated; and not till all is disunited and inert, till we see the whole mouldered down into indifferent dust,  —  not till then does there rise in us the mournful, vacant sentiment of death,  —  death, not to be recalled, save by the breath of Him that lives forever.

In a temper so new, so entire, so full of love, there was much to tear asunder, to desolate, to kill; and even the healing force of youth gave nourishment and violence to the power of sorrow. The stroke had extended to the roots of his whole existence. Werner, by necessity his confidant, attacked the hated passion itself with fire and sword, resolutely zealous to search into the monster’s inmost life. The opportunity was lucky, the evidence at hand, and many were the histories and narratives with which he backed it out. With such unrelenting vehemence did he make his advances, leaving his friend not even the respite of the smallest momentary self-deception, but treading down every lurking-place in which he might have saved himself from desperation, that Nature, not inclined to let her darling perish utterly, visited him with sickness, to make an outlet for him on the other side.

A violent fever, with its train of consequences, medicines, overstraining, and exhaustion, besides the unwearied attentions of his family, the love of his brothers and sisters, which first becomes truly sensible in times of distress and want, were so many fresh occupations to his mind, and thus formed a kind of painful entertainment. It was not till he grew better, in other words, till his strength was exhausted, that Wilhelm first looked down with horror into the gloomy abyss of a barren misery, as one looks down into the hollow crater of an extinguished volcano.

He now bitterly reproached himself, that, after so great a loss, he could yet enjoy one painless, restful, indifferent moment. He despised his own heart, and longed for the balm of tears and lamentation.

To awaken these again within him, he would recall to memory the scenes of his by-gone happiness. He would paint them to his fancy in the liveliest colors, transport himself again into the days when they were real; and when standing on the highest elevation he could reach, when the sunshine of past times again seemed to animate his limbs and heave his bosom, he would look back into the fearful chasm, would feast his eye on its dismembering depth, then plunge down into its horrors, and thus force from nature the bitterest pains. With such repeated cruelty did he tear himself in pieces; for youth, which is so rich in undeveloped force, knows not what it squanders when, to the anguish which a loss occasions, it adds so many sorrows of its own production, as if it meant then first to give the right value to what is gone forever. He likewise felt so convinced that his present loss was the sole, the first, the last, he ever could experience in life, that he turned away from every consolation which aimed at showing that his sorrows might be less than endless.

CHAPTER II.

Accustomed in this way to torment himself, he now also attacked what still remained to him; what next to love, and along with it, had given him the highest joys and hopes,  —  his talent as a poet and actor, with spiteful criticisms on every side. In his labors he could see nothing but a shallow imitation of prescribed forms, without intrinsic worth: he looked on them as stiff school-exercises, destitute of any spark of nature, truth, or inspiration. His poems now appeared nothing more than a monotonous arrangement of syllables, in which the most trite emotions and thoughts were dragged along and kept together by a miserable rhyme. And thus did he also deprive himself of every expectation, every pleasure, which on this quarter at least might have aided the recovery of his peace.

With his theatric talent it fared no better. He blamed himself for not having sooner detected the vanity on which alone this pretension had been founded. His figure, his gait, his movements, his mode of declamation, were severally taxed: he decisively renounced every species of advantage or merit that might have raised him above the common run of men, and so doing he increased his mute despair to the highest pitch. For, if it is hard to give up a woman’s love, no less painful is the task to part from the fellowship of the Muses, to declare ourselves forever undeserving to be of their community, and to forego the fairest and most immediate kind of approbation, what is openly bestowed on our person, our voice, and our demeanor.

Thus, then, our friend had long ago entirely resigned himself, and set about devoting his powers with the greatest zeal to the business of trade. To the surprise of friends, and to the great contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent than Wilhelm, on the exchange or in the counting-house, in the sale-room or the warehouses: correspondence and calculations, all that was intrusted to his charge, he attended to and managed with the greatest diligence and zeal. Not, in truth, with that warm diligence which to the busy man is its own reward, when he follows with constancy and order the employment he was born for, but with the silent diligence of duty, which has the best principle for its foundation; which is nourished by conviction, and rewarded by conscience; yet which oft, even when the clearest testimony of our minds is crowning it with approbation, can scarcely repress a struggling sigh.

In this manner he lived for a time, assiduously busied, and at last persuaded that his former hard trial had been ordained by fate for the best. He felt glad at having thus been timefully, though somewhat harshly, warned about the proper path of life; while many are constrained to expiate more heavily, and at a later age, the misconceptions into which their youthful inexperience has betrayed them. For each man commonly defends himself as long as possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his soul, from acknowledging a master error, and admitting any truth which brings him to despair.

Determined as he was to abandon his dearest projects, some time was still necessary to convince him fully of his misfortune. At last, however, he had so completely succeeded, by irrefragable reasons, in annihilating every hope of love, or poetical performance, or stage representation, that he took courage to obliterate entirely all the traces of his folly,  —  all that could in any way remind him of it. For this purpose he had lit a fire in his chamber, one cool evening, and brought out a little chest of relics, among which were multitudes of small articles, that, in memorable moments, he had begged or stolen from Mariana. Each withered flower brought to his mind the time when it bloomed fresh among her hair; each little note the happy hour to which it had invited him; each ribbon-knot the lovely resting-place of his head,  —  her beautiful bosom. So occupied, was it not to be expected that each emotion which he thought long since quite dead, should again begin to move? Was it not to be expected that the passion over which, when separated from his mistress, he had gained the victory, should, in the presence of these memorials, again gather strength? We first observe how dreary and disagreeable an overclouded day is when a single sunbeam pierces through, and offers to us the exhilarating splendor of a serene hour.

Accordingly, it was not without disturbance that he saw these relics, long preserved as sacred, fade away from before him in smoke and flame. Sometimes he shuddered and hesitated in his task: he had still a pearl necklace and a flowered neckerchief in his hands, when he resolved to quicken the decaying fire with the poetical attempts of his youth.

Till now he had carefully laid up whatever had proceeded from his pen, since the earliest unfolding of his mind. His papers yet lay tied up in a bundle at the bottom of the chest, where he had packed them; purposing to take them with him in his elopement. How altogether different were his feelings now in opening them, and his feelings then in tying them together!

If we happen, under certain circumstances, to have written and sealed and despatched a letter to a friend, which, however, does not find him, but is brought back to us, and we open it at the distance of some considerable time, a singular emotion is produced in us, on breaking up our own seal, and conversing with our altered self as with a third person. A similar and deep feeling seized our friend, as he now opened this packet, and threw the scattered leaves into the fire; which was flaming fiercely with its offerings, when Werner entered, expressed his wonder at the blaze, and asked what was the matter.

“I am now giving proof,” said Wilhelm, “that I am serious in abandoning a trade for which I was not born.” And, with these words, he cast the second packet likewise into the fire. Werner made a motion to prevent him, but the business was already done.

“I cannot see how thou shouldst bring thyself to such extremities,” said Werner. “Why must these labors, because they are not excellent, be annihilated?”

“Because either a poem is excellent, or it should not be allowed to exist. Because each man who has no gift for producing first-rate works, should entirely abstain from the pursuit of art, and seriously guard himself against every deception on that subject. For it must be owned, that in all men there is a certain vague desire to imitate whatever is presented to them; and such desires do not prove at all that we possess within us the force necessary for succeeding in these enterprises. Look at boys, how, whenever any rope-dancers have been visiting the town, they go scrambling up and down, and balancing on all the planks and beams within their reach, till some other charm calls them off to other sports, for which perhaps they are as little suited. Hast thou never marked it in the circle of our friends? No sooner does a dilettante introduce himself to notice, than numbers of them set themselves to learn playing on his instrument. How many wander back and forward on this bootless way! Happy they who soon detect the chasm that lies between their wishes and their powers!”

Werner contradicted this opinion: their discussion became lively, and Wilhelm could not without emotion employ against his friend the arguments with which he had already so frequently tormented himself. Werner maintained that it was not reasonable wholly to relinquish a pursuit for which a man had some propensity and talent, merely because he never could succeed in it to full perfection. There were many vacant hours, he said, which might be filled up by it; and then by and by some result might be produced which would yield a certain satisfaction to himself and others.

Wilhelm, who in this matter was of quite a different opinion, here interrupted him, and said with great vivacity,  — 

“How immensely, dear friend, do you err in believing that a work, the first presentation of which is to fill the whole soul, can be produced in broken hours scraped together from other extraneous employment. No: the poet must live wholly for himself, wholly in the objects that delight him. Heaven has furnished him internally with precious gifts; he carries in his bosom a treasure that is ever of itself increasing; he must also live with this treasure, undisturbed from without, in that still blessedness which the rich seek in vain to purchase with their accumulated stores. Look at men, how they struggle after happiness and satisfaction! Their wishes, their toil, their gold, are ever hunting restlessly,  —  and after what? After that which the poet has received from nature,  —  the right enjoyment of the world, the feeling of himself in others, the harmonious conjunction of many things that will seldom exist together.

“What is it that keeps men in continual discontent and agitation? It is, that they cannot make realities correspond with their conceptions, that enjoyment steals away from among their hands, that the wished-for comes too late, and nothing reached and acquired produces on the heart the effect which their longing for it at a distance led them to anticipate. Now, fate has exalted the poet above all this, as if he were a god. He views the conflicting tumult of the passions; sees families and kingdoms raging in aimless commotion; sees those inexplicable enigmas of misunderstanding, which frequently a single monosyllable would suffice to explain, occasioning convulsions unutterably baleful. He has a fellow-feeling of the mournful and the joyful in the fate of all human beings. When the man of the world is devoting his days to wasting melancholy, for some deep disappointment, or, in the ebullience of joy, is going out to meet his happy destiny, the lightly moved and all-conceiving spirit of the poet steps forth, like the sun from night to day, and with soft transitions tunes his harp to joy or woe. From his heart, its native soil, springs up the lovely flower of wisdom; and if others, while waking, dream, and are pained with fantastic delusions from their every sense, he passes the dream of life like one awake; and the strangest of incidents is to him a part both of the past and of the future. And thus the poet is at once a teacher, a prophet, a friend of gods and men. What! thou wouldst have him descend from his height to some paltry occupation! He who is fashioned like the bird to hover round the world, to nestle on the lofty summits, to feed on buds and fruits, exchanging gayly one bough for another, he ought also to work at the plough like an ox; like a dog to train himself to the harness and draught; or perhaps, tied up in a chain, to guard a farmyard by his barking!”

Werner, it may well be supposed, had listened with the greatest surprise. “All true,” he rejoined, “if men were but made like birds, and, though they neither spun nor weaved, could yet spend peaceful days in perpetual enjoyment; if, at the approach of winter, they could as easily betake themselves to distant regions, could retire before scarcity, and fortify themselves against frost.”

“Poets have lived so,” exclaimed Wilhelm, “in times when true nobleness was better reverenced; and so should they ever live! Sufficiently, provided for within, they had need of little from without: the gift of communicating lofty emotions and glorious images to men, in melodies and words that charmed the ear, and fixed themselves inseparably on whatever objects they referred to, of old enraptured the world, and served the gifted as a rich inheritance. At the courts of kings, at the tables of the great, beneath the windows of the fair, the sound of them was heard; while the ear and the soul were shut for all beside: and men felt as we do when delight comes over us, and we stop with rapture if, among the dingles we are crossing, the voice of the nightingale starts out touching and strong. They found a home in every habitation of the world, and the lowliness of their condition but exalted them the more. The hero listened to their songs, and the conqueror of the earth did reverence to a poet; for he felt, that, without poets, his own wild and vast existence would pass away like a whirlwind, and be forgotten forever. The lover wished that he could feel his longings and his joys so variedly and so harmoniously as the poet’s inspired lips had skill to show them forth; and even the rich man could not of himself discern such costliness in his idol grandeurs, as when they were presented to him shining in the splendor of the poet’s spirit, sensible to all worth, and exalting all. Nay, if thou wilt have it, who but the poet was it that first formed gods for us, that exalted us to them, and brought them down to us?”

“My friend,” said Werner, after some reflection, “it has often grieved me that thou shouldst strive by force to banish from thy soul what thou feelest so vividly. I am greatly mistaken, if it were not better for thee in some degree to yield to these propensities, than to waste thyself by the contradictions of so hard a piece of self-denial, and with the enjoyment of this one guiltless pleasure to renounce the enjoyment of all others.”

“Shall I confess it,” said the other, “and wilt not thou laugh at me if I acknowledge, that these ideas pursue me constantly; that, let me flee from them as I will, when I explore my heart, I find all my early wishes yet rooted there, firmly,  —  nay, more firmly than ever? Yet what now remains for me, wretched as I am? Ah! whoever should have told me that the arms of my spirit, with which I was grasping at infinity, and hoping with certainty to clasp something great and glorious, would so soon be crushed and smote in pieces,  —  whoever should have told me this, would have brought me to despair. And yet now, when judgment has been passed against me; now, when she, that was to be as my divinity to guide me to my wishes, is gone forever,  —  what remains but that I yield up my soul to the bitterest woes? O my brother! I will not deceive you: in my secret purposes, she was as the hook on which the ladder of my hopes was fixed. See! With daring aim the mountain adventurer hovers in the air: the iron breaks, and he lies broken and dismembered on the earth. No, there is no hope, no comfort for me more! I will not,” he cried out, springing to his feet, “leave a single fragment of these wretched papers from the flames.” He then seized one or two packets of them, tore them up, and threw them into the fire. Werner endeavored to restrain him, but in vain. “Let me alone!” cried Wilhelm: “what should these miserable leaves do here? To me they give neither pleasant recollections nor pleasant hopes. Shall they remain behind to vex me to the end of my life? Shall they perhaps one day serve the world for a jest, instead of awakening sympathy and horror? Woe to me! my doom is woe! Now I comprehend the wailings of the poets, of the wretched whom necessity has rendered wise. How long did I look upon myself as invulnerable and invincible; and, alas! I am now made to see that a deep and early sorrow can never heal, can never pass away: I feel that I shall take it with me to my grave. No! not a day of my life shall escape this anguish, which at last must crush me down; and her image too shall stay with me, shall live and die with me, the image of the worthless,  —  O my friend! if I must speak the feeling of my heart,  —  the perhaps not altogether worthless! Her situation, the crookedness of her destiny, have a thousand times excused her in my mind. I have been too cruel; you steeled me in your own cold unrelenting harshness; you held my wavering senses captive, and hindered me from doing for myself and her what I owed to both. Who knows to what a state I may have brought her! my conscience by degrees presents to me, in all its heaviness, in what helplessness, in what despair, I may have left her. Was it not possible that she might clear herself? Was it not possible? How many misconceptions throw the world into perplexity! how many circumstances may extort forgiveness for the greatest fault! Often do I figure her as sitting by herself in silence, leaning on her elbows. ‘This,’ she says, ‘is the faith, the love, he swore to me! With this hard stroke to end the delicious life which made us one!’“ He broke out into a stream of tears; while he threw himself down with his face upon the table, and wetted the remaining papers with his weeping.

Werner stood beside him in the deepest perplexity. He had not anticipated this fierce ebullition of feeling. More than once he had tried to interrupt his friend, more than once to lead the conversation elsewhere, but in vain: the current was too strong for him. It remained that long-suffering friendship should again take up her office. Werner allowed the first shock of sorrow to pass over, while by his silent presence he testified a pure and honest sympathy. And thus they both remained that evening,  —  Wilhelm sunk in the dull feeling of old sorrows; and the other terrified at this new outbreaking of a passion which he thought his prudent councils and keen persuasion had long since mastered and destroyed.

CHAPTER III.

After such relapses, Wilhelm usually applied himself to business and activity with augmented ardor; and he found it the best means to escape the labyrinth into which he had again been tempted to enter. His attractive way of treating strangers, the ease with which he carried on a correspondence in any living language, more and more increased the hopes of his father and his trading-friends, and comforted them in their sorrow for his sickness,  —  the origin of which had not been known,  —  and for the pause which had thus interrupted their plan. They determined a second time on Wilhelm’s setting out to travel; and we now find him on horseback, with his saddle-bags behind him, exhilarated by the motion and the free air, approaching the mountains, where he had some affairs to settle.

He winded slowly on his path, through dales and over hills, with a feeling of the greatest satisfaction. Overhanging cliffs, roaring brooks, moss-grown rocky walls, deep precipices, he here saw for the first time; yet his earliest dreams of youth had wandered among such regions. In these scenes he felt his age renewed; all the sorrows he had undergone were obliterated from his soul; with unbroken cheerfulness he repeated to himself passages of various poems, particularly of the “Pastor Fido,” which, in these solitary places, flocked in crowds into his mind. He also recollected many pieces of his own songs, and recited them with a peculiar contentment. He peopled the world which lay before him with all the forms of the past, and each step into the future was to him full of augury of important operations and remarkable events.

Several men, who came behind him in succession, and saluted him as they passed by to continue their hasty way into the mountains, by steep footpaths, sometimes interrupted his thoughts without attracting his attention to themselves. At last a communicative traveller joined him, and explained the reason of this general pilgrimage.

“At Hochdorf,” he said, “there is a play to be acted to-night; and the whole neighborhood is gathering to see it.”

“What!” cried Wilhelm. “In these solitary hills, among these impenetrable forests, has theatric art sought out a place, and built herself a temple? And I am journeying to her festivities!”

“You will wonder more,” said the other, “when you learn by whom the play is to be acted. There is in the place a large manufactory, which employs many people. The proprietor, who lives, so to speak, remote from all human society, can find no better means of entertaining his workmen during winter, than allowing them to act plays. He suffers no cards among them, and wishes also to withdraw them from all coarse rustic practices. Thus they pass the long evenings; and to-day, being the old gentleman’s birthday, they are giving a particular festival in honor of him.”

Wilhelm came to Hochdorf, where he was to pass the night, and alighted at the manufactory, the proprietor of which stood as a debtor in his list.

When he gave his name, the old man cried in a glad surprise, “Aye, sir, are you the son of that worthy man to whom I owe so many thanks,  —  so long have owed money? Your good father has had so much patience with me, I should be a knave if I did not pay you speedily and cheerfully. You come at the proper time to see that I am fully in earnest about it.”

He then called out his wife, who seemed no less delighted than himself to see the youth: she declared that he was very like his father, and lamented, that, having such a multitude of guests already in the house, she could not lodge him for the night.

The account was clear, and quickly settled: Wilhelm put the roll of gold into his pocket, and wished that all his other business might go on so smoothly. At last the play-hour came: they now waited nothing but the coming of the head forester, who at length also arrived, entered with a few hunters, and was received with the greatest reverence.

The company was then led into the playhouse, formed out of a barn that lay close upon the garden. Without any extraordinary taste, both seats and stage were yet decked out in a cheerful and pretty way. One of the painters employed in the manufactory had formerly worked as an understrapper at the prince’s theatre: he had now represented woods and streets and chambers, somewhat rudely, it is true, yet so as to be recognized for such. The play itself they had borrowed from a strolling company, and shaped it aright, according to their own ideas. As it was, it did not fail to yield some entertainment. The plot of two lovers wishing to carry off a girl from her guardian, and mutually from one another, produced a great variety of interesting situations. Being the first play our friend had witnessed for so long a time, it suggested several reflections to him. It was full of action, but without any true delineation of character. It pleased and delighted. Such are always the beginnings of the scenic art. The rude man is contented if he see but something going on; the man of more refinement must be made to feel; the man entirely refined, desires to reflect.

The players he would willingly have helped here and there, for a very little would have made them greatly better.

His silent meditations were somewhat broken in upon by the tobacco-smoke, which now began to rise in great and greater copiousness. Soon after the commencement of the play, the head forester had lit his pipe: by and by others took the same liberty. The large dogs, too, which followed these gentlemen, introduced themselves in no pleasant style. At first they had been bolted out; but, soon finding the back-door passage, they entered on the stage, ran against the actors, and at last, jumping over the orchestra, joined their masters, who had taken up the front seats in the pit.

For afterpiece an oblation was represented. A portrait of the old gentleman in his bridegroom dress stood upon an altar, hung with garlands. All the players paid their reverence to it in the most submissive postures. The youngest child came forward dressed in white, and made a speech in verse; by which the whole family, and even the head forester himself, whom it brought in mind of his own children, were melted into tears. Thus ended the play; and Wilhelm could not help stepping on the stage, to have a closer view of the actresses, to praise them for their good performance, and give them a little counsel for the future.

The remaining business, which our friend in the following days had to transact in various quarters of the hill-country, was not all so pleasant, or so easy to conclude with satisfaction. Many of his debtors entreated for delay, many were uncourteous, many lied. In conformity with his instructions, he had to sue some of them at law; he was thus obliged to seek out advocates, and give instructions to them, to appear before judges, and go through many other sorry duties of the same sort.

His case was hardly bettered when people chanced to incline showing some attention to him. He found very few that could any way instruct him, few with whom he could hope to establish a useful commercial correspondence. Unhappily, moreover, the weather now grew rainy; and travelling on horseback in this district came to be attended with insufferable difficulties. He therefore thanked his stars on again getting near the level country; and at the foot of the mountains, looking out into a fertile and beautiful plain, intersected by a smooth-flowing river, and seeing a cheerful little town lying on its banks, all glittering in the sunshine, he resolved, though without any special business in the place, to pass a day or two there, that he might refresh both himself and his horse, which the bad roads had considerably injured.

CHAPTER IV.

On alighting at an inn, upon the market-place, he found matters going on very joyously,  —  at least very stirringly. A large company of rope-dancers, leapers, and jugglers, having a strong man along with them, had just arrived with their wives and children, and, while preparing for a grand exhibition, kept up a perpetual racket. They first quarrelled with the landlord, then with one another; and, if their contention was intolerable, the expressions of their satisfaction were infinitely more so. Undetermined whether he should go or stay, he was standing in the door looking at some workmen, who had just begun to erect a stage in the middle of the square.

A girl with roses and other flowers for sale, coming by, held out her basket to him, and he purchased a beautiful nosegay; which, like one that had a taste for these things, he tied up in a different fashion, and was looking at it with a satisfied air, when the window of another inn on the opposite side of the square flew open, and a handsome woman looked out from it. Notwithstanding the distance, he observed that her face was animated by a pleasant cheerfulness; her fair hair fell carelessly streaming about her neck; she seemed to be looking at the stranger. In a short time afterwards, a boy with a white jacket, and a barber’s apron on, came out from the door of her house towards Wilhelm, saluted him, and said, “The lady at the window bids me ask if you will not favor her with a share of your beautiful flowers.”  —  “They are all at her service,” answered Wilhelm, giving the nosegay to this nimble messenger, and making a bow to the fair one, who returned it with a friendly courtesy, and then withdrew from the window.

Amused with this small adventure, he was going up-stairs to his chamber, when a young creature sprang against him, and attracted his attention. A short silk waistcoat with slashed Spanish sleeves, tight trousers with puffs, looked very pretty on the child. Its long black hair was curled, and wound in locks and plaits about the head. He looked at the figure with astonishment, and could not determine whether to take it for a boy or a girl. However, he decided for the latter: and, as the child ran by, he took her up in his arms, bade her good-day, and asked her to whom she belonged; though he easily perceived that she must be a member of the vaulting and dancing company lately arrived. She viewed him with a dark, sharp side-look, as she pushed herself out of his arms, and ran into the kitchen without making any answer.

On coming up-stairs, he found in the large parlor two men practising the small sword, or seeming rather to make trial which was the better fencer. One of them plainly enough belonged to the vaulting company: the other had a somewhat less savage aspect. Wilhelm looked at them, and had reason to admire them both; and as the black-bearded, sturdy contender soon afterwards forsook the place of action, the other with extreme complaisance offered Wilhelm the rapier.

“If you want to take a scholar under your inspection,” said our friend, “I am well content to risk a few passes with you.”

Accordingly they fought together; and, although the stranger greatly overmatched his new competitor, he politely kept declaring that it all depended upon practice; in fact, Wilhelm, inferior as he was, had made it evident that he had got his first instructions from a good, solid, thorough-paced German fencing-master.

Their entertainment was disturbed by the uproar with which the party-colored brotherhood issued from the inn, to make proclamation of the show, and awaken a desire to see their art, throughout the town. Preceded by a drum, the manager advanced on horseback: he was followed by a female dancer mounted on a corresponding hack, and holding a child before her, all bedizened with ribbons and spangles. Next came the remainder of the troop on foot, some of them carrying children on their shoulders in dangerous postures, yet smoothly and lightly: among these the young, dark, black-haired figure again attracted Wilhelm’s notice.

Pickleherring ran gayly up and down the crowded multitude, distributing his handbills with much practical fun,  —  here smacking the lips of a girl, there breeching a boy, and awakening generally among the people an invincible desire to know more of him.

On the painted flags, the manifold science of the company was visibly delineated, particularly of the Monsieur Narciss and the Demoiselle Landrinette: both of whom, being main characters, had prudently kept back from the procession, thereby to acquire a more dignified consideration, and excite a greater curiosity.

During the procession, Wilhelm’s fair neighbor had again appeared at the window; and he did not fail to inquire about her of his new companion. This person, whom for the present we shall call Laertes, offered to take Wilhelm over and introduce him. “I and the lady,” said he laughing, “are two fragments of an acting company that made shipwreck here a short while ago. The pleasantness of the place has induced us to stay in it, and consume our little stock of cash in peace; while one of our friends is out seeking some situation for himself and us.”

Laertes immediately accompanied his new acquaintance to Philina’s door; where he left him for a moment, and ran to a shop hard by for a few sweetmeats. “I am sure you will thank me,” said he, on returning, “for procuring you so pleasant an acquaintance.”

The lady came out from her room, in a pair of tight little slippers with high heels, to give them welcome. She had thrown a black mantle over her, above a white negligée, not indeed superstitiously clean; which, however, for that very reason, gave her a more frank and domestic air. Her short dress did not hide a pair of the prettiest feet and ankles in the world.

“You are welcome,” she cried to Wilhelm, “and I thank you for your charming flowers.” She led him into her chamber with the one hand, pressing the nosegay to her breast with the other. Being all seated, and got into a pleasant train of general talk, to which she had the art of giving a delightful turn, Laertes threw a handful of gingerbread-nuts into her lap; and she immediately began to eat them.

“Look what a child this young gallant is!” she said: “he wants to persuade you that I am fond of such confectionery, and it is himself that cannot live without licking his lips over something of the kind.”

“Let us confess,” replied Laertes, “that in this point, as in others, you and I go hand in hand. For example,” he continued, “the weather is delightful to-day: what if we should take a drive into the country, and eat our dinner at the Mill?”

“With all my heart,” said Philina: “we must give our new acquaintance some diversion.”

Laertes sprang out, for he never walked: and Wilhelm motioned to return for a minute to his lodgings, to have his hair put in order; for at present it was all dishevelled with riding. “You can do it here,” she said, then called her little servant, and constrained Wilhelm in the politest manner to lay off his coat, to throw her powder-mantle over him, and to have his head dressed in her presence. “We must lose no time,” said she: “who knows how short a while we may all be together?”

The boy, out of sulkiness and ill nature more than want of skill, went on but indifferently with his task: he pulled the hair with his implements, and seemed as if he would not soon be done. Philina more than once reproved him for his blunders, and at last sharply packed him off, and chased him to the door. She then undertook the business herself, and frizzled Wilhelm’s locks with great dexterity and grace; though she, too, appeared to be in no exceeding haste, but found always this and that to improve and put to rights; while at the same time she could not help touching his knees with hers, and holding her nosegay and bosom so near his lips, that he was strongly tempted more than once to imprint a kiss on it.

When Wilhelm had cleaned his brow with a little powder-knife, she said to him, “Put it in your pocket, and think of me when you see it.” It was a pretty knife: the haft, of inlaid steel, had these friendly words wrought on it, “Think of me.” Wilhelm put it up, and thanked her, begging permission at the same time to make her a little present in return.

At last they were in readiness. Laertes had brought round the coach, and they commenced a very gay excursion. To every beggar, Philina threw out money from the window; giving along with it a merry and friendly word.

Scarcely had they reached the Mill, and ordered dinner, when a strain of music struck up before the house. It was some miners singing various pretty songs, and accompanying their clear and shrill voices with a cithern and triangle. In a short while the gathering crowd had formed a ring about them, and our company nodded approbation to them from the windows. Observing this attention, they expanded their circle, and seemed making preparation for their grandest piece. After some pause, a miner stepped forward with a mattock in his hand; and, while the others played a serious tune, he set himself to represent the action of digging.

Ere long a peasant came from among the crowd, and, by pantomimic threats, let the former know that he must cease and remove. Our company were greatly surprised at this: they did not discover that the peasant was a miner in disguise, till he opened his mouth, and, in a sort of recitative, rebuked the other for daring to meddle with his field. The latter did not lose his composure of mind, but began to inform the husbandman about his right to break ground there; giving him withal some primary conceptions of mineralogy. The peasant, not being master of his foreign terminology, asked all manner of silly questions; whereat the spectators, as themselves more knowing, set up many a hearty laugh. The miner endeavored to instruct him, and showed him the advantage, which, in the long-run, would reach even him, if the deep-lying treasures of the land were dug out from their secret beds. The peasant, who at first had threatened his instructor with blows, was gradually pacified; and they parted good friends at last, though it was the miner chiefly that got out of this contention with honor.

“In this little dialogue,” said Wilhelm, when seated at the table, “we have a lively proof how useful the theatre might be to all ranks; what advantage even the state might procure from it, if the occupations, trades, and undertakings of men were brought upon the stage, and presented on their praiseworthy side, in that point of view in which the state itself should honor and protect them. As matters stand, we exhibit only the ridiculous side of men: the comic poet is, as it were, but a spiteful tax-gatherer, who keeps a watchful eye over the errors of his fellow-subjects, and seems gratified when he can fix any charge upon them. Might it not be a worthy and pleasing task for a statesman to survey the natural and reciprocal influence of all classes on each other, and to guide some poet, gifted with sufficient humor, in such labors as these? In this way, I am persuaded, many very entertaining, both agreeable and useful, pieces, might be executed.”

“So far,” said Laertes, “as I, in wandering about the world, have been able to observe, statesmen are accustomed merely to forbid, to hinder, to refuse, but very rarely to invite, to further, to reward. They let all things go along, till some mischief happens: then they get into a rage, and lay about them.”

“A truce with state and statesmen!” said Philina: “I cannot form a notion of statesmen except in periwigs; and a periwig, wear it who will, always gives my fingers a spasmodic motion: I could like to pluck it off the venerable gentleman, to skip up and down the room with it, and laugh at the bald head.”

So, with a few lively songs, which she could sing very beautifully, Philina cut short their conversation, and urged them to a quick return homewards, that they might arrive in time for seeing the performance of the rope-dancers in the evening. On the road back she continued her lavish generosity, in a style of gayety reaching to extravagance; for at last, every coin belonging to herself or her companions being spent, she threw her straw hat from the window to a girl, and her neckerchief to an old woman, who asked her for alms.

Philina invited both of her attendants to her own apartments, because, she said, the spectacle could be seen more conveniently from her windows than from theirs.

On arriving, they found the stage set up, and the background decked with suspended carpets. The swing-boards were already fastened, the slack-rope fixed to posts, the tight-rope bound over trestles. The square was moderately filled with people, and the windows with spectators of some quality.

Pickleherring, with a few insipidities, at which the lookers-on are generally kind enough to laugh, first prepared the meeting to attention and good-humor. Some children, whose bodies were made to exhibit the strangest contortions, awakened astonishment or horror; and Wilhelm could not, without the deepest sympathy, see the child he had at the first glance felt an interest in, go through her fantastic positions with considerable difficulty. But the merry tumblers soon changed the feeling into that of lively satisfaction, when they first singly, then in rows, and at last all together, vaulted up into the air, making somersets backwards and forwards. A loud clapping of hands and a strong huzza echoed from the whole assembly.

The general attention was next directed to quite a different object. The children in succession had to mount the rope,  —  the learners first, that by practising they might prolong the spectacle, and show the difficulties of the art more clearly. Some men and full-grown women likewise exhibited their skill to moderate advantage; but still there was no Monsieur Narciss, no Demoiselle Landrinette.

At last this worthy pair came forth: they issued from a kind of tent with red spread curtains, and, by their agreeable forms and glittering decorations, fulfilled the hitherto increasing hopes of the spectators. He, a hearty knave, of middle stature, with black eyes and a strong head of hair; she, formed with not inferior symmetry,  —  exhibited themselves successively upon the rope, with delicate movements, leaping, and singular postures. Her airy lightness, his audacity; the exactitude with which they both performed their feats of art,  —  raised the universal satisfaction higher at every step and spring. The stateliness with which they bore themselves, the seeming attentions of the rest to them, gave them the appearance of king and queen of the whole troop; and all held them worthy of the rank.

The animation of the people spread to the spectators at the windows: the ladies looked incessantly at Narciss, the gentlemen at Landrinette. The populace hurrahed, the more cultivated public could not keep from clapping of the hands: Pickleherring now could scarcely raise a laugh. A few, however, slunk away when some members of the troop began to press through the crowd with their tin plates to collect money.

“They have made their purpose good, I imagine,” said Wilhelm to Philina, who was leaning over the window beside him. “I admire the ingenuity with which they have turned to advantage even the meanest parts of their performance: out of the unskilfulness of their children, and exquisiteness of their chief actors, they have made up a whole which at first excited our attention, and then gave us very fine entertainment.”

The people by degrees dispersed; and the square was again become empty, while Philina and Laertes were disputing about the forms and the skill of Narciss and Landrinette, and rallying each other on the subject at great length. Wilhelm noticed the wonderful child standing on the street near some other children at play: he showed her to Philina, who, in her lively way, immediately called and beckoned to the little one, and, this not succeeding, tripped singing down stairs, and led her up by the hand.

“Here is the enigma,” said she, as she brought her to the door. The child stood upon the threshold, as if she meant again to run off; laid her right hand on her breast, the left on her brow, and bowed deeply. “Fear nothing, my little dear,” said Wilhelm, rising, and going towards her. She viewed him with a doubting look, and came a few steps nearer.

“What is thy name?” he asked. “They call me Mignon.”  —  “How old art thou?”  —  “No one has counted.”  —  “Who was thy father?”  —  “The Great Devil is dead.”

“Well! this is singular enough,” said Philina. They asked her a few more questions: she gave her answers in a kind of broken German, and with a strangely solemn manner; every time laying her hands on her breast and brow, and bowing deeply.

Wilhelm could not satisfy himself with looking at her. His eyes and his heart were irresistibly attracted by the mysterious condition of this being. He reckoned her about twelve or thirteen years of age: her body was well formed, only her limbs gave promise of a stronger growth, or else announced a stunted one. Her countenance was not regular, but striking; her brow full of mystery; her nose extremely beautiful; her mouth, although it seemed too closely shut for one of her age, and though she often threw it to a side, had yet an air of frankness, and was very lovely. Her brownish complexion could scarcely be discerned through the paint. This form stamped itself deeply in Wilhelm’s soul: he kept looking at her earnestly, and forgot the present scene in the multitude of his reflections. Philina waked him from his half-dream, by holding out the remainder of her sweetmeats to the child, and giving her a sign to go away. She made her little bow as formerly, and darted like lightning through the door.

As the time drew on when our new friends had to part for the evening, they planned a fresh excursion for the morrow. They purposed now to have their dinner at a neighboring Jägerhaus. Before taking leave of Laertes, Wilhelm said many things in Philina’s praise, to which the other made only brief and careless answers.

Next morning, having once more exercised themselves in fencing for an hour, they went over to Philina’s lodging, towards which they had seen their expected coach passing by. But how surprised was Wilhelm, when the coach seemed altogether to have vanished; and how much more so, when Philina was not to be found at home! She had placed herself in the carriage, they were told, with a couple of strangers who had come that morning, and was gone with them. Wilhelm had been promising himself some pleasant entertainment from her company, and could not hide his irritation. Laertes, on the other hand, but laughed at it, and cried, “I love her for this: it looks so like herself! Let us, however, go directly to the Jägerhaus: be Philina where she pleases, we will not lose our promenade on her account.”

As Wilhelm, while they walked, continued censuring the inconsistency of such conduct, Laertes said, “I cannot reckon it inconsistent so long as one keeps faithful to his character. If this Philina plans you any thing, or promises you any thing, she does it under the tacit condition that it shall be quite convenient for her to fulfil her plan, to keep her promise. She gives willingly, but you must ever hold yourself in readiness to return her gifts.”

“That seems a singular character,” said Wilhelm.

“Any thing but singular: only she is not a hypocrite. I like her on that account. Yes: I am her friend, because she represents the sex so truly, which I have so much cause to hate. To me she is another genuine Eve, the great mother of womankind: so are they all, only they will not all confess it.”

With abundance of such talk, in which Laertes very vehemently exhibited his spleen against the fair sex, without, however, giving any cause for it, they arrived at the forest; into which Wilhelm entered in no joyful mood, the speeches of Laertes having again revived in him the memory of his relation to Mariana. Not far from a shady well, among some old and noble trees, they found Philina sitting by herself at a stone table. Seeing them, she struck up a merry song; and, when Laertes asked for her companions, she cried out, “I have already cozened them: I have already had my laugh at them, and sent them a-travelling, as they deserved. By the way hither I had put to proof their liberality; and, finding that they were a couple of your close-fisted gentry, I immediately determined to have amends of them. On arriving at the inn, they asked the waiter what was to be had. He, with his customary glibness of tongue, reckoned over all that could be found in the house, and more than could be found. I noticed their perplexity: they looked at one another, stammered, and inquired about the cost. “What is the use of all this studying?” said I. “The table is the lady’s business: allow me to manage it.” I immediately began ordering a most unconscionable dinner, for which many necessary articles would require to be sent for from the neighborhood. The waiter, of whom, by a wry mouth or two, I had made a confidant, at last helped me out; and so, by the image of a sumptuous feast, we tortured them to such a degree that they fairly determined on having a walk in the forest, from which I imagine we shall look with clear eyes if we see them come again. I have laughed a quarter of an hour for my own behoof; I shall laugh forever when I think of the looks they had.” At table, Laertes told of similar adventures: they got into the track of recounting ludicrous stories, mistakes, and dexterous cheats.

A young man of their acquaintance, from the town, came gliding through the wood with a book in his hand: he sat down by them, and began praising the beauty of the place. He directed their attention to the murmuring of the brook, to the waving of the boughs, to the checkered lights and shadows, and the music of the birds. Philina commenced a little song of the cuckoo, which did not seem at all to exhilarate the man of taste: he very soon made his compliments, and went on.

“Oh that I might never hear more of nature, and scenes of nature!” cried Philina, so soon as he was gone: “there is nothing in the world more intolerable than to hear people reckon up the pleasures you enjoy. When the day is bright you go to walk, as to dance when you hear a tune played. But who would think a moment on the music or the weather? It is the dancer that interests us, not the violin; and to look upon a pair of bright black eyes is the life of a pair of blue ones. But what on earth have we to do with wells and brooks, and old rotten lindens?” She was sitting opposite to Wilhelm; and, while speaking so, she looked into his eyes with a glance which he could not hinder from piercing at least to the very door of his heart.

“You are right,” replied he, not without embarrassment: “man is ever the most interesting object to man, and perhaps should be the only one that interests. Whatever else surrounds us is but the element in which we live, or else the instrument which we employ. The more we devote ourselves to such things, the more we attend to and feel concern in them, the weaker will our sense of our own dignity become, the weaker our feelings for society. Men who put a great value on gardens, buildings, clothes, ornaments, or any other sort of property, grow less social and pleasant: they lose sight of their brethren, whom very few can succeed in collecting about them and entertaining. Have you not observed it on the stage? A good actor makes us very soon forget the awkwardness and meanness of paltry decorations, but a splendid theatre is the very thing which first makes us truly feel the want of proper actors.”

After dinner Philina sat down among the long, overshaded grass, and commanded both her friends to fetch her flowers in great quantities. She wreathed a complete garland, and put it round her head: it made her look extremely charming. The flowers were still sufficient for another: this, too, she plaited, while both the young men sat beside her. When, at last, amid infinite mirth and sportfulness, it was completed, she pressed it on Wilhelm’s head with the greatest dignity, and shifted the posture of it more than once, till it seemed to her properly adjusted. “And I, it appears, must go empty,” said Laertes.

“Not by any means: you shall not have reason to complain,” replied Philina, taking off the garland from her own head, and putting it on his.

“If we were rivals,” said Laertes, “we might now dispute very warmly which of us stood higher in thy favor.”

“And the more fools you,” said she, while she bent herself towards him, and offered him her lips to kiss; and then immediately turned round, threw her arm about Wilhelm, and bestowed a kind salute on him also. “Which of them tastes best?” said she archly.

“Surprisingly!” exclaimed Laertes: “it seems as if nothing else had ever such a tang of wormwood in it.”

“As little wormwood,” she replied, “as any gift that a man may enjoy without envy and without conceit. But now,” cried she, “I should like to have an hour’s dancing; and after that we must look to our vaulters.”

Accordingly, they went into the house, and there found music in readiness. Philina was a beautiful dancer: she animated both her companions. Nor was Wilhelm without skill; but he wanted careful practice, a defect which his two friends voluntarily took charge of remedying.

In these amusements the time passed on insensibly. It was already late when they returned. The rope-dancers had commenced their operations. A multitude of people had again assembled in the square; and our friends, on alighting, were struck by the appearance of a tumult in the crowd, occasioned by a throng of men rushing towards the door of the inn, which Wilhelm had now turned his face to. He sprang forward to see what it was; and, pressing through the people, he was struck with horror to observe the master of the rope-dancing company dragging poor Mignon by the hair out of the house, and unmercifully beating her little body with the handle of a whip.

Wilhelm darted on the man like lightning, and seized him by the collar. “Quit the child!” he cried, in a furious tone, “or one of us shall never leave this spot!” and, so speaking, he grasped the fellow by the throat with a force which only rage could have lent him. The showman, on the point of choking, let go the child, and endeavored to defend himself against his new assailant. But some people, who had felt compassion for Mignon, yet had not dared to begin a quarrel for her, now laid hold of the rope-dancer, wrenched his whip away, and threatened him with great fierceness and abuse. Being now reduced to the weapons of his mouth, he began bullying, and cursing horribly. The lazy, worthless urchin, he said, would not do her duty; refused to perform the egg-dance, which he had promised to the public; he would beat her to death, and no one should hinder him. He tried to get loose, and seek the child, who had crept away among the crowd. Wilhelm held him back, and said sternly, “You shall neither see nor touch her, till you have explained before a magistrate where you stole her. I will pursue you to every extremity. You shall not escape me.” These words, which Wilhelm uttered in heat, without thought or purpose, out of some vague feeling, or, if you will, out of inspiration, soon brought the raging showman to composure. “What have I to do with the useless brat?” cried he. “Pay me what her clothes cost, and make of her what you please. We shall settle it to-night.” And, being liberated, he made haste to resume his interrupted operations, and to calm the irritation of the public by some striking displays of his craft.

As soon as all was still again, Wilhelm commenced a search for Mignon, whom, however, he could nowhere find. Some said they had seen her on the street, others on the roofs of the adjoining houses; but, after seeking unsuccessfully in all quarters, he was forced to content himself, and wait to see if she would not again turn up of herself.

In the mean time, Narciss had come into the house; and Wilhelm set to question him about the birthplace and history of the child. Monsieur Narciss knew nothing about these things, for he had not long been in the company; but in return he recited, with much volubility and levity, various particulars of his own fortune. Upon Wilhelm’s wishing him joy of the great approbation he had gained, Narciss expressed himself as if exceedingly indifferent on that point. “People laugh at us,” he said, “and admire our feats of skill; but their admiration does nothing for us. The master has to pay us, and may raise the funds where he pleases.” He then took his leave, and was setting off in great haste.

At the question, whither he was bent so fast, the dog gave a smile, and admitted that his figure and talents had acquired for him a more solid species of favor than the huzzaing of the multitude. He had been invited by some young ladies, who desired much to become acquainted with him; and he was afraid it would be midnight before he could get all his visits over. He proceeded with the greatest candor to detail his adventures. He would have given the names of his patronesses, their streets and houses, had not Wilhelm waived such indiscretion, and politely dismissed him.

Laertes had meanwhile been entertaining Landrinette: he declared that she was fully worthy to be and to remain a woman.

Our friend next proceeded to his bargain with the showman for Mignon. Thirty crowns was the price set upon her; and for this sum the black-bearded, hot Italian entirely surrendered all his claims: but of her history or parentage he would discover nothing, only that she had fallen into his hands at the death of his brother, who, by reason of his admirable skill, had usually been named the “Great Devil.”

Next morning was chiefly spent in searching for the child. It was in vain that they rummaged every hole and corner of the house and neighborhood: the child had vanished; and Wilhelm was afraid she might have leaped into some pool of water, or destroyed herself in some other way.

Philina’s charms could not divert his inquietude. He passed a dreary, thoughtful day. Nor at evening could the utmost efforts of the tumblers and dancers, exerting all their powers to gratify the public, divert the current of his thoughts, or clear away the clouds from his mind.

By the concourse of people flocking from all places round, the numbers had greatly increased on this occasion: the general approbation was like a snowball rolling itself into a monstrous size. The feat of leaping over swords, and through the cask with paper ends, made a great sensation.

The strong man, too, produced a universal feeling of mingled astonishment and horror, when he laid his head and feet on a couple of separate stools, and then allowed some sturdy smiths to place a stithy on the unsupported part of his body, and hammer a horseshoe till it was completely made by means of it.

The Hercules’ Strength, as they called it, was a no less wonderful affair. A row of men stood up; then another row, upon their shoulders; then women and young lads, supported in like manner on the second row; so that finally a living pyramid was formed; the peak being ornamented by a child, placed on its head, and dressed out in the shape of a ball and weather-vane. Such a sight, never witnessed in those parts before, gave a worthy termination to the whole performance. Narciss and Landrinette were then borne in litters, on the shoulders of the rest, along the chief streets of the town, amid the triumphant shouts of the people. Ribbons, nosegays, silks, were thrown upon them: all pressed to get a sight of them. Each thought himself happy if he could behold them, and be honored with a look of theirs.

“What actor, what author, nay, what man of any class, would not regard himself as on the summit of his wishes, could he, by a noble saying or a worthy action, produce so universal an impression? What a precious emotion would it give, if one could disseminate generous, exalted, manly feelings with electric force and speed, and rouse assembled thousands into such rapture, as these people, by their bodily alertness, have done! If one could communicate to thronging multitudes a fellow-feeling in all that belongs to man, by the portraying of happiness and misery, of wisdom and folly, nay, of absurdity and silliness; could kindle and thrill their inmost souls, and set their stagnant nature into movement, free, vehement, and pure!” So said our friend; and, as neither Laertes nor Philina showed any disposition to take part in such a strain, he entertained himself with these darling speculations, walking up and down the streets till late at night, and again pursuing, with all the force and vivacity of a liberated imagination, his old desire to have all that was good and noble and great embodied and shown forth by the theatric art.

CHAPTER V.

Next morning, the rope-dancers, not without much parade and bustle, having gone away, Mignon immediately appeared, and came into the parlor as Wilhelm and Laertes were busy fencing. “Where hast thou been hid?” said Wilhelm, in a friendly tone. “Thou hast given us a great deal of anxiety.” The child looked at him, and answered nothing. “Thou art ours now,” cried Laertes: “we have bought thee.”  —  “For how much?” inquired the child quite coolly. “For a hundred ducats,” said the other: “pay them again, and thou art free.”  —  “Is that very much?” she asked. “Oh, yes! thou must now be a good child.”  —  “I will try,” she said.

From that moment she observed strictly what services the waiter had to do for both her friends; and, after next day, she would not any more let him enter the room. She persisted in doing every thing herself, and accordingly went through her duties, slowly, indeed, and sometimes awkwardly, yet completely, and with the greatest care.

She was frequently observed going to a basin of water, and washing her face with such diligence and violence, that she almost wore the skin from her cheeks; till Laertes, by dint of questions and reproofs, learned that she was striving by all means to get the paint from her skin, and that, in her zealous endeavors towards this object, she had mistaken the redness produced by rubbing for the most obdurate dye. They set her right on this point, and she ceased her efforts; after which, having come again to her natural state, she exhibited a fine brown complexion, beautiful, though sparingly intermingled with red.

The siren charms of Philina, the mysterious presence of the child, produced more impression on our friend than he liked to confess: he passed several days in that strange society, endeavoring to elude self-reproaches by a diligent practice of fencing and dancing,  —  accomplishments which he believed might not again be put within his reach so conveniently.

It was with great surprise, and not without a certain satisfaction, that he one day observed Herr Melina and his wife alight at the inn. After the first glad salutation, they inquired about “the lady-manager and the other actors,” and learned, with astonishment and terror, that the lady-manager had long since gone away, and her actors, to a very few, dispersed themselves about the country.

This couple, subsequently to their marriage, in which, as we know, our friend did his best to serve them, had been travelling about in various quarters, seeking an engagement, without finding any, and had at last been directed to this little town by some persons who met them on their journey, and said there was a good theatre in the place.

Melina by no means pleased the lively Laertes, when introduced to him, any more than his wife did Philina. Both heartily wished to be rid of these new-comers; and Wilhelm could inspire them with no favorable feelings on the subject, though he more than once assured them that the Melinas were very worthy people.

Indeed, the previous merry life of our three adventurers was interfered with by this extension of their society, in more ways than one. Melina had taken up his quarters in the inn where Philina staid, and he very soon began a system of cheapening and higgling. He would have better lodging, more sumptuous diet, and readier attendance, for a smaller charge. In a short while, the landlord and waiter showed very rueful looks; for whereas the others, to get pleasantly along, had expressed no discontent with any thing, and paid instantly, that they might avoid thinking longer of payment, Melina now insisted on regulating every meal, and investigating its contents beforehand,  —  a species of service for which Philina named him, without scruple, a ruminating animal.

Yet more did the merry girl hate Melina’s wife. Frau Melina was a young woman not without culture, but wofully defective in soul and spirit. She could declaim not badly, and kept declaiming constantly; but it was easy to observe that her performances were little more than recitations of words. She labored a few detached passages, but never could express the feeling of the whole. Withal, however, she was seldom disagreeable to any one, especially to men. On the contrary, people who enjoyed her acquaintance commonly ascribed to her a fine understanding; for she was what might be called a kind of spiritual chameleon, or taker-on. Any friend whose favor she had need of she could flatter with peculiar adroitness, could give in to his ideas so long as she could understand them, and, when they went beyond her own horizon, could hail with ecstasy such new and brilliant visions. She understood well when to speak and when to keep silence; and, though her disposition was not spiteful, she could spy out with great expertness where another’s weak side lay.

CHAPTER VI.

Melina, in the mean time, had been making strict inquiry about the wrecks of the late theatrical establishment. The wardrobe, as well as decorations, had been pawned with some traders; and a notary had been empowered, under certain conditions, to dispose of them by sale, should purchasers occur. Melina wished to see this ware, and he took Wilhelm with him. No sooner was the room opened, than our friend felt towards its contents a kind of inclination, which he would not confess to himself. Sad as was the state of the blotched and tarnished decorations; little showy as the Turkish and pagan garments, the old farce-coats for men and women, the cowls for enchanters, priests, and Jews, might be,  —  he was not able to exclude the feeling, that the happiest moments of his life had been spent in a similar magazine of frippery. Could Melina have seen into his heart, he would have urged him more pressingly to lay out a sum of money in liberating these scattered fragments, in furbishing them up, and again combining them into a beautiful whole. “What a happy man could I be,” cried Melina, “had I but two hundred crowns, to get into my hands, for a beginning, these fundamental necessaries of a theatre! How soon should I get up a little playhouse, that would draw contributions from the town and neighborhood, and maintain us all!” Wilhelm was silent. They left these treasures of the stage to be again locked up, and both went away in a reflective mood.

Thenceforth Melina talked of nothing else but projects and plans for setting up a theatre, and gaining profit by it. He tried to interest Philina and Laertes in his schemes; and proposals were made to Wilhelm about advancing money, and taking them as his security. On this occasion, Wilhelm first clearly perceived that he was lingering too long here: he excused himself, and set about making preparations for departure.

In the mean time, Mignon’s form, and manner of existence, were growing more attractive to him every day. In her whole system of proceedings there was something very singular. She never walked up or down the stairs, but jumped. She would spring along by the railing, and before you were aware would be sitting quietly above upon the landing. Wilhelm had observed, also, that she had a different sort of salutation for each individual. For himself, it had of late been with her arms crossed upon her breast. Often for the whole day she was mute. At times she answered various questions more freely, yet always strangely: so that you could not determine whether it was caused by shrewd sense, or ignorance of the language; for she spoke in broken German interlaced with French and Italian. In Wilhelm’s service she was indefatigable, and up before the sun. On the other hand, she vanished early in the evening, went to sleep in a little room upon the bare floor, and could not by any means be induced to take a bed or even a paillasse. He often found her washing herself. Her clothes, too, were kept scrupulously clean; though nearly all about her was quilted two or three plies thick. Wilhelm was moreover told, that she went every morning early to hear mass. He followed her on one occasion, and saw her kneeling down with a rosary in a corner of the church, and praying devoutly. She did not observe him; and he returned home, forming many a conjecture about this appearance, yet unable to arrive at any probable conclusion.

A new application from Melina for a sum of money to redeem the often-mentioned stage apparatus caused Wilhelm to think more seriously than ever about setting off. He proposed writing to his people, who for a long time had heard no tidings of him, by the very earliest post. He accordingly commenced a letter to Werner, and had advanced a considerable way with the history of his adventures, in recounting which he had more than once unintentionally swerved a little from the truth, when, to his vexation and surprise, he observed, upon the back of his sheet, some verses which he had been copying from his album for Madam Melina. Out of humor at this mistake, he tore the paper in pieces, and put off repeating his confession till the next post-day.

CHAPTER VII.

Our party was now again collected; and Philina, who always kept a sharp lookout on every horse or carriage that passed by, exclaimed with great eagerness, “Our Pedant! Here comes our dearest Pedant! Who the deuce is it he has with him?” Speaking thus, she beckoned at the window; and the vehicle drew up.

A woful-looking genius, whom by his shabby coat of grayish brown, and his ill-conditioned lower garments, you must have taken for some unprosperous preceptor, of the sort that moulder in our universities, now descended from the carriage, and, taking off his hat to salute Philina, discovered an ill-powdered, but yet very stiff, periwig; while Philina threw a hundred kisses of the hand towards him.

As Philina’s chief enjoyment lay in loving one class of men, and being loved by them; so there was a second and hardly inferior satisfaction, wherewith she entertained herself as frequently as possible; and this consisted in hoodwinking and passing jokes upon the other class, whom at such moments she happened not to love,  —  all which she could accomplish in a very sprightly style.

Amid the flourish which she made in receiving this old friend, no attention was bestowed upon the rest who followed him. Yet among the party were an oldish man and two young girls, whom Wilhelm thought he knew. Accordingly it turned out, that he had often seen them all, some years ago, in a company then playing in his native town. The daughters had grown since that period: the old man was a little altered. He commonly enacted those good-hearted, boisterous old gentlemen, whom the German theatre is never without, and whom, in common life, one also frequently enough falls in with. For as it is the character of our countrymen to do good, and cause it, without pomp or circumstance; so they seldom consider that there is likewise a mode of doing what is right with grace and dignity: more frequently, indeed, they yield to the spirit of contradiction, and fall into the error of deforming their dearest virtue by a surly mode of putting it in practice.

Such parts our actor could play very well; and he played them so often and exclusively, that he had himself taken up the same turn of proceeding in his ordinary life.

On recognizing him, Wilhelm was seized with a strong commotion; for he recollected how often he had seen this man on the stage with his beloved Mariana: he still heard him scolding, still heard the small, soothing voice, with which in many characters she had to meet his rugged temper.

The first anxious question put to the strangers,  —  Whether they had heard of any situation in their travels?  —  was answered, alas, with No! and, to complete the information, it was further added, that all the companies they had fallen in with were not only supplied with actors, but many of them were afraid lest, on account of the approaching war, they should be forced to separate. Old Boisterous, with his daughters, moved by spleen and love of change, had given up an advantageous engagement: then, meeting with the Pedant by the way, they had hired a carriage to come hither; where, as they found, good counsel was still dear, needful to have, and difficult to get.

The time while the rest were talking very keenly of their circumstances, Wilhelm spent in thought. He longed to speak in private with the old man: he wished and feared to hear of Mariana, and felt the greatest disquietude.

The pretty looks of the stranger damsels could not call him from his dream; but a war of words, which now arose, awakened his attention. It was Friedrich, the fair-haired boy who used to attend Philina, stubbornly refusing, on this occasion, to cover the table and bring up dinner. “I engaged to serve you,” he cried, “but not to wait on everybody.” They fell into a hot contest. Philina insisted that he should do his duty; and, as he obstinately refused, she told him plainly he might go about his business.

“You think, perhaps, I cannot leave you!” cried he sturdily, then went to pack up his bundle, and soon hastily quitted the house.

“Go, Mignon,” said Philina, “and get us what we want; tell the waiter, and help him to attend us.”

Mignon came before Wilhelm, and asked in her laconic way, “Shall I? May I?” To which Wilhelm answered, “Do all the lady bids thee, child.”

She accordingly took charge of every thing, and waited on the guests the whole evening, with the utmost carefulness. After dinner, Wilhelm proposed to have a walk with the old man alone. Succeeding in this, after many questions about his late wanderings, the conversation turned upon the former company; and Wilhelm hazarded a question touching Mariana.

“Do not speak to me of that despicable creature!” cried the old man: “I have sworn to think of her no more.” Terrified at this speech, Wilhelm felt still more embarrassed, as the old man proceeded to vituperate her fickleness and wantonness. Most gladly would our friend have broken off the conversation, but now it was impossible: he was obliged to undergo the whole tumultuous effusions of this strange old gentleman.

“I am ashamed,” continued he, “that I felt such a friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse me. She was so pretty, so natural and good, so pleasing, in every sense so tolerable, I could never have supposed that ingratitude and impudence were to prove the chief features of her character.”

Wilhelm had nerved himself to hear the worst of her; when all at once he observed, with astonishment, that the old man’s tones grew milder, his voice faltered, and he took out his handkerchief to dry the tears, which at last began to trickle down his cheeks.

“What is the matter with you?” cried Wilhelm. “What is it that suddenly so changes the current of your feelings? Conceal it not from me. I take a deeper interest in the fate of this girl than you suppose. Only tell me all.”

“I have not much to say,” replied the old man, again taking up his earnest, angry tone. “I have suffered more from her than I shall ever forgive. She had always a kind of trust in me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, while my wife lived, I had formed a resolution to take the creature to my own house, and save her from the hands of that old crone, from whose guidance I boded no good. But my wife died, and the project went to nothing.

“About the end of our stay in your native town,  —  it is not quite three years ago,  —  I noticed a visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me; and I soon observed, what she herself did not long deny, that she was with child, and suffering the greatest terror lest our manager might turn her off. In fact, in a short while he did make the discovery; immediately threw up her contract, which at any rate was only for six weeks; paid off her arrears; and, in spite of all entreaties, left her behind, in the miserable inn of a little village.

“Devil take all wanton jilts!” cried the old man, with a splenetic tone, “and especially this one, that has spoiled me so many hours of my life! Why should I keep talking how I myself took charge of her, what I did for her, what I spent on her, how in absence I provided for her? I would rather throw my purse into the ditch, and spend my time in nursing mangy whelps, than ever more bestow the smallest care on such a thing. Pshaw! At first I got letters of thanks, notice of places she was staying at; and, finally, no word at all,  —  not even an acknowledgment for the money I had sent to pay the expenses of her lying-in. Oh! the treachery and the fickleness of women are rightly matched, to get a comfortable living for themselves, and to give an honest fellow many heavy hours.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Wilhelm’s feelings, on returning home after this conversation, may be easily conceived. All his old wounds had been torn up afresh, and the sentiment that Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love had again been brought to life. The interest the old man had shown about her fate, the praises he gave her against his will, displayed her again in all her attractiveness. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against her contained nothing that could lower her in Wilhelm’s estimation; for he, as well as she, was guilty in all her aberrations. Nor did even her final silence seem greatly blamable: it rather inspired him with mournful thoughts. He saw her as a frail, ill-succored mother, wandering helplessly about the world,  —  wandering, perhaps, with his own child. What he knew, and what he knew not, awoke in him the painfullest emotions.

Mignon had been waiting for him: she lighted him up stairs. On setting down the light, she begged he would allow her, that evening, to compliment him with a piece of her art. He would rather have declined this, particularly as he knew not what it was; but he had not the heart to refuse any thing this kind creature wished. After a little while she again came in. She carried below her arm a little carpet, which she then spread out upon the floor. Wilhelm said she might proceed. She thereupon brought four candles, and placed one upon each corner of the carpet. A little basket of eggs, which she next carried in, made her purpose clearer. Carefully measuring her steps, she then walked to and fro on the carpet, spreading out the eggs in certain figures and positions; which done, she called in a man that was waiting in the house, and could play on the violin. He retired with his instrument into a corner: she tied a band about her eyes, gave a signal; and, like a piece of wheel-work set a-going, she began moving the same instant as the music, accompanying her beats and the notes of the tune with the strokes of a pair of castanets.

Lightly, nimbly, quickly, and with hair’s-breadth accuracy, she carried on the dance. She skipped so sharply and surely along between the eggs, and trod so closely down beside them, that you would have thought every instant she must trample one of them in pieces, or kick the rest away in her rapid turns. By no means! She touched no one of them, though winding herself through their mazes with all kinds of steps, wide and narrow, nay, even with leaps, and at last half kneeling.

Constant as the movement of a clock, she ran her course; and the strange music, at each repetition of the tune, gave a new impulse to the dance, recommencing and again rushing off as at first. Wilhelm was quite led away by this singular spectacle; he forgot his cares; he followed every movement of the dear little creature, and felt surprised to see how finely her character unfolded itself as she proceeded in the dance.

Rigid, sharp, cold, vehement, and in soft postures, stately rather than attractive,  —  such was the light in which it showed her. At this moment he experienced at once all the emotions he had ever felt for Mignon. He longed to incorporate this forsaken being with his own heart, to take her in his arms, and with a father’s love to awaken in her the joy of existence.

The dance being ended, she rolled the eggs together softly with her foot into a little heap, left none behind, harmed none; then placed herself beside it, taking the bandage from her eyes, and concluding her performance with a little bow.

Wilhelm thanked her for having executed, so prettily and unexpectedly, a dance he had long wished to see. He patted her; was sorry she had tired herself so much. He promised her a new suit of clothes; to which she vehemently replied, “Thy color!” This, too, he promised her, though not well knowing what she meant by it. She then lifted up the eggs, took the carpet under her arm, asked if he wanted any thing further, and skipped out of the room.

The musician, being questioned, said, that for some time she had taken much trouble in often singing over the tune of this dance, the well-known fandango, to him, and training him till he could play it accurately. For his labor she had likewise offered him some money; which, however, he would not accept.

CHAPTER IX.

After a restless night, which our friend spent, sometimes waking, sometimes oppressed with unpleasant dreams, seeing Mariana now in all her beauty, now in woful case, at one time with a child on her arm, then soon bereaved of it, the morning had scarcely dawned, when Mignon entered with a tailor. She brought some gray cloth and blue taffeta; signifying in her own way that she wished to have a new jacket and sailor’s trousers, such as she had seen the boys of the town wear, with blue cuffs and tiers.

Since the loss of Mariana, Wilhelm had laid aside all gay colors. He had used himself to gray,  —  the garment of the shades; and only perhaps a sky-blue lining, or little collar of that dye, in some degree enlivened his sober garb. Mignon, eager to wear his colors, hurried on the tailor, who engaged to have his work soon ready.

The exercise in dancing and fencing, which our friend took this day with Laertes, did not prosper in their hands. Indeed, it was soon interrupted by Melina, who came to show them circumstantially how a little company was now of itself collected, sufficient to exhibit plays in abundance. He renewed the proposal that Wilhelm should advance a little money for setting them in motion; which, however, Wilhelm still declined.

Ere long Philina and the girls came in, racketing and laughing as usual. They had now devised a fresh excursion, for change of place and objects was a pleasure after which they always longed. To eat daily in a different spot was their highest wish. On this occasion they proposed a sail.

The boat in which they were to fall down the pleasant windings of the river had already been engaged by the Pedant. Philina urged them on: the party did not linger, and were soon on board.

“What shall we take to now?” said Philina, when all had placed themselves upon the benches.

“The readiest thing,” replied Laertes, “were for us to extemporize a play. Let each take a part that suits his character, and we shall see how we get along.”

“Excellent!” said Wilhelm. “In a society where there is no dissimulation, but where each without disguise pursues the bent of his own humor, elegance and satisfaction cannot long continue; and, where dissimulation always reigns, they do not enter at all. It will not be amiss, then, that we take up dissimulation to begin with, and then, behind our masks, be as candid as we please.”

“Yes,” said Laertes: “it is on this account that one goes on so pleasantly with women; they never show themselves in their natural form.”

“That is to say,” replied Madam Melina, “they are not so vain as men, who conceive themselves to be always amiable enough, just as nature has produced them.”

In the mean time the river led them between pleasant groves and hills, between gardens and vineyards; and the young women, especially Madam Melina, expressed their rapture at the landscape. The latter even began to recite, in solemn style, a pretty poem of the descriptive sort, upon a similar scene of nature; but Philina interrupted her with the proposal of a law, that no one should presume to speak of any inanimate object. On the other hand, she zealously urged on their project of an extempore play. Old Boisterous was to be a half-pay officer; Laertes a fencing-master, taking his vacation; the Pedant, a Jew; she herself would act a Tyrolese; leaving to the rest to choose characters according to their several pleasures. They would suppose themselves to be a party of total strangers to each other, who had just met on board a merchant-ship.

She immediately began to play her part with the Jew, and a universal cheerfulness diffused itself among them.

They had not sailed far, when the skipper stopped in his course, asking permission of the company to take in a person standing on the shore, who had made a sign to him.

“That is just what we needed,” cried Philina: “a chance passenger was wanting to complete the travelling-party.”

A handsome man came on board; whom, by his dress and his dignified mien, you might have taken for a clergyman. He saluted the party, who thanked him in their own way, and soon made known to him the nature of their game. The stranger immediately engaged to act the part of a country parson; which, in fact, he accomplished in the adroitest manner, to the admiration of all,  —  now admonishing, now telling stories, showing some weak points, yet never losing their respect.

In the mean time, every one who had made a false step in his part, or swerved from his character, had been obliged to forfeit a pledge: Philina had gathered them with the greatest care, and especially threatened the reverend gentleman with many kisses; though he himself had never been at fault. Melina, on the other hand, was completely fleeced: shirt-buttons, buckles, every movable about his person, was in Philina’s hands. He was trying to enact an English traveller, and could not by any means get into the spirit of his part.

Meanwhile the time had passed away very pleasantly. Each had strained his fancy and his wit to the utmost, and each had garnished his part with agreeable and entertaining jests. Thus comfortably occupied, they reached the place where they meant to pass the day; and Wilhelm, going out to walk with the clergyman, as both from his appearance and late character he persisted in naming him, soon fell into an interesting conversation.

“I think this practice,” said the stranger, “very useful among actors, and even in the company of friends and acquaintances. It is the best mode of drawing men out of themselves, and leading them, by a circuitous path, back into themselves again. It should be a custom with every troop of players to practice in this manner: and the public would assuredly be no loser if every month an unwritten piece were brought forward; in which, of course, the players had prepared themselves by several rehearsals.”

“One should not, then,” replied our friend, “consider an extempore piece as, strictly speaking, composed on the spur of the moment, but as a piece, of which the plan, action, and division of the scenes were given; the filling up of all this being left to the player.”

“Quite right,” said the stranger; “and, in regard to this very filling up, such a piece, were the players once trained to these performances, would profit greatly. Not in regard to the mere words, it is true; for, by a careful selection of these, the studious writer may certainly adorn his work; but in regard to the gestures, looks, exclamations, and every thing of that nature; in short, to the mute and half-mute play of the dialogue, which seems by degrees fading away among us altogether. There are indeed some players in Germany whose bodies figure what they think and feel; who by their silence, their delays, their looks, their slight, graceful movements, can prepare the audience for a speech, and, by a pleasant sort of pantomime, combine the pauses of the dialogue with the general whole; but such a practice as this, co-operating with a happy natural turn, and training it to compete with the author, is far from being so habitual as, for the comfort of play-going people, were to be desired.”

“But will not a happy natural turn,” said Wilhelm, “as the first and last requisite, of itself conduct the player, like every other artist,  —  nay, perhaps every other man,  —  to the lofty mark he aims at?”

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“The first and the last, the beginning and the end, it may well be; but, in the middle, many things will still be wanting to an artist, if instruction, and early instruction too, have not previously made that of him which he was meant to be: and perhaps for the man of genius it is worse in this respect than for the man possessed of only common capabilities; the one may much more easily be misinstructed, and be driven far more violently into false courses, than the other.”

“But,” said Wilhelm, “will not genius save itself, not heal the wounds which itself has inflicted?”

“Only to a very small extent, and with great difficulty,” said the other, “or perhaps not at all. Let no one think that he can conquer the first impressions of his youth. If he has grown up in enviable freedom, surrounded with beautiful and noble objects, in constant intercourse with worthy men; if his masters have taught him what he needed first to know, for comprehending more easily what followed; if he has never learned any thing which he requires to unlearn; if his first operations have been so guided, that, without altering any of his habits, he can more easily produce what is excellent in future,  —  then such a one will lead a purer, more perfect and happier, life, than another man who has wasted the force of his youth in opposition and error. A great deal is said and written about education; yet I meet with very few who can comprehend, and transfer to practice, this simple yet vast idea, which includes within itself all others connected with the subject.”

“That may well be true,” said Wilhelm; “for the generality of men are limited enough in their conceptions to suppose that every other should be fashioned by education, according to the pattern of themselves. Happy, then, are those whom Fate takes charge of, and educates according to their several natures!”

“Fate,” said the other, smiling, “is an excellent but most expensive schoolmaster. In all cases, I would rather trust to the reason of a human tutor. Fate, for whose wisdom I entertain all imaginable reverence, often finds in Chance, by which it works, an instrument not over manageable. At least the latter very seldom seems to execute precisely and accurately what the former had determined.”

“You seem to express a very singular opinion,” said Wilhelm.

“Not at all,” replied the other. “Most of what happens in the world confirms my opinion. Do not many incidents at their commencement show some mighty purport, and generally terminate in something paltry?”

“You mean to jest.”

“And as to what concerns the individual man,” pursued the other, “is it not so with this likewise? Suppose Fate had appointed one to be a good player; and why should it not provide us with good players as well as other good things? Chance would perhaps conduct the youth into some puppet-show, where, at such an early age, he could not help taking interest in what was tasteless and despicable, reckoning insipidities endurable or even pleasing, and thus corrupting and misdirecting his primary impressions,  —  impressions which can never be effaced, and whose influence, in spite of all our efforts, cling to us in some degree to the very last.”

“What makes you think of puppet-shows?” said Wilhelm, not without some consternation.

“It was an accidental instance: if it does not please you, we shall take another. Suppose Fate had appointed any one to be a great painter, and it pleased Chance that he should pass his youth in sooty huts, in barns and stables: do you think that such a man would ever be enabled to exalt himself to purity, to nobleness, to freedom of soul? The more keenly he may in his youth have seized on the impure, and tried in his own manner to ennoble it, the more powerfully in the remainder of his life will it be revenged on him; because, while he was endeavoring to conquer it, his whole being has become inseparably combined with it. Whoever spends his early years in mean and pitiful society, though at an after period he may have the choice of better, will yet constantly look back with longing towards that which he enjoyed of old, and which has left its impression blended with the memory of all his young and unreturning pleasures.”

From conversation of this sort, it is easy to imagine, the rest of the company had gradually withdrawn. Philina, in particular, had stepped aside at the very outset. Wilhelm and his comrade now rejoined them by a cross-path. Philina brought out her forfeits, and they had to be redeemed in many different ways. During which business, the stranger, by the most ingenious devices, and by his frank participation in their sports, recommended himself much to all the party, and particularly to the ladies; and thus, amid joking, singing, kissing, and railleries of all sorts, the hours passed away in the most pleasant manner.

CHAPTER X.

When our friends began to think of going home, they looked about them for their clergyman; but he had vanished, and was nowhere to be found.

“It is not polite in the man, who otherwise displayed good breeding,” said Madam Melina, “to desert a company that welcomed him so kindly, without taking leave.”

“I have all the time been thinking,” said Laertes, “where I can have seen this singular man before. I fully intended to ask him about it at parting.”

“I, too, had the same feeling,” said Wilhelm; “and certainly I should not have let him go, till he had told us something more about his circumstances. I am much mistaken if I have not ere now spoken with him somewhere.”

“And you may in truth,” said Philina, “be mistaken there. This person seems to have the air of an acquaintance, because he looks like a man, and not like Jack or Kit.”

“What is this?” said Laertes. “Do not we, too, look like men?”

“I know what I am saying,” cried Philina; “and, if you cannot understand me, never mind. In the end my words will be found to require no commentary.”

Two coaches now drove up. All praised the attention of Laertes, who had ordered them. Philina, with Madam Melina, took her place opposite to Wilhelm: the rest bestowed themselves as they best could. Laertes rode back on Wilhelm’s horse, which had likewise been brought out.

Philina was scarcely seated in the coach, when she began to sing some pretty songs, and gradually led the conversation to some stories, which she said might be successfully treated in the form of dramas. By this cunning turn, she very soon put her young friend into his finest humor: from the wealth of his living imaginative store, he forthwith constructed a complete play, with all its acts, scenes, characters, and plots. It was thought proper to insert a few catches and songs; they composed them; and Philina, who entered into every part of it, immediately fitted them with well-known tunes, and sang them on the spot.

It was one of her beautiful, most beautiful, days: she had skill to enliven our friend with all manner of diverting wiles; he felt in spirits such as he had not for many a month enjoyed.

Since that shocking discovery had torn him from the side of Mariana, he had continued true to his vow to be on his guard against the encircling arms of woman; to avoid the faithless sex; to lock up his inclinations, his sweet wishes, in his own bosom. The conscientiousness with which he had observed this vow gave his whole nature a secret nourishment; and, as his heart could not remain without affection, some loving sympathy had now become a want with him. He went along once more, as if environed by the first cloudy glories of youth; his eye fixed joyfully on every charming object, and never had his judgment of a lovely form been more favorable. How dangerous, in such a situation, this wild girl must have been to him, is but too easy to conceive.

Arrived at home, they found Wilhelm’s chamber all ready to receive them; the chairs set right for a public reading; in midst of them the table, on which the punch-bowl was in due time to take its place.

The German chivalry-plays were new at this period, and had just excited the attention and the inclination of the public. Old Boisterous had brought one of this sort with him: the reading of it had already been determined on. They all sat down; Wilhelm took possession of the pamphlet, and began to read.

The harnessed knights, the ancient keeps, the true-heartedness, honesty, and downrightness, but especially the independence of the acting characters, were received with the greatest approbation. The reader did his utmost, and the audience gradually mounted into rapture. Between the third and fourth acts, the punch arrived in an ample bowl; and, there being much fighting and drinking in the piece itself, nothing was more natural than that, on every such occurrence, the company should transport themselves into the situation of the heroes, should flourish and strike along with them, and drink long life to their favorites among the dramatis personæ.

Each individual of the party was inflamed with the noblest fire of national spirit. How it gratified this German company to be poetically entertained, according to their own character, on stuff of their own manufacture! In particular, the vaults and caverns, the ruined castles, the moss and hollow trees, but above all the nocturnal gypsy scenes, and the Secret Tribunal, produced a quite incredible effect. Every actor now figured to himself how, erelong, in helm and harness, he; every actress how, with a monstrous spreading ruff, she,  —  would present their Germanship before the public. Each would appropriate to himself without delay some name taken from the piece or from German history; and Madam Melina declared that the son or daughter she was then expecting should not be christened otherwise than by the name of Adelbert or of Mathilde.

Towards the fifth act, the approbation became more impetuous and louder; and at last, when the hero actually trampled down his oppressor, and the tyrant met his doom, the ecstasy increased to such a height, that all averred they had never passed such happy moments. Melina, whom the liquor had inspired, was the noisiest: and when the second bowl was emptied, and midnight near, Laertes swore through thick and thin, that no living mortal was worthy ever more to put these glasses to his lips; and, so swearing, he pitched his own right over his head, through a window-pane, out into the street. The rest followed his example; and notwithstanding the protestations of the landlord, who came running in at the noise, the punch-bowl itself, never after this festivity to be polluted by unholy drink, was dashed into a thousand shreds. Philina, whose exhilaration was the least noticed,  —  the other two girls by that time having laid themselves upon the sofa in no very elegant positions,  —  maliciously encouraged her companions in their tumult. Madam Melina recited some spirit-stirring poems; and her husband, not too amiable in the uproar, began to cavil at the insufficient preparation of the punch, declaring that he could arrange an entertainment altogether in a different style, and at last becoming sulkier and louder as Laertes commanded silence, till the latter, without much consideration, threw the fragments of the punch-bowl about his head, and thereby not a little deepened the confusion.

Meanwhile the town-guard had arrived, and were demanding admission to the house. Wilhelm, much heated by his reading, though he had drunk but little, had enough to do, with the landlord’s help, to content these people by money and good words, and afterwards to get the various members of his party sent home in that unseemly case. On coming back, overpowered with sleep and full of chagrin, he threw himself upon his bed without undressing; and nothing could exceed his disgust, when, opening his eyes next morning, he looked out with dull sight upon the devastations of the by-gone day, and saw the uncleanness, and the many bad effects, of which that ingenious, lively, and well-intentioned poetical performance had been the cause.

CHAPTER XI.

After a short consideration, he called the landlord, and bade him mark to his account both the damage and the regular charge. At the same time he learned, not without vexation, that his horse had been so hard ridden by Laertes last night, that, in all probability, it was foundered, as they term it; the farrier having little hope of its recovering.

A salute from Philina, which she threw him from her window, restored him in some degree to a more cheerful humor: he went forthwith into the nearest shop to buy her a little present, which, in return for the powder-knife, he still owed her; and it must be owned, that, in selecting his gift, he did not keep himself within the limits of proportional value. He not only purchased her a pair of earrings, but added likewise a hat and neckerchief, and some other little articles, which he had seen her lavishly throw from her on the first day of their acquaintance.

Madam Melina, happening to observe him as he was delivering his presents, took an opportunity before breakfast to rate him very earnestly about his inclination for this girl; at which he felt the more astonished, the less he thought it merited. He swore solemnly, that he had never once entertained the slightest notion of attaching himself to such a person, whose whole manner of proceeding was well known to him. He excused himself as well as possible for his friendly and polite conduct towards her, yet did not by any means content Madam Melina, whose spite grew ever more determined, as she could not but observe that the flatteries, by which she had acquired for herself a sort of partial regard from our friend, were not sufficient to defend this conquest from the attacks of a livery, younger, and more gifted rival.

As they sat down to table, her husband joined them, likewise in a very fretful humor; which he was beginning to display on many little things, when the landlord entered to announce a player on the harp. “You will certainly,” he said, “find pleasure in the music and the songs of this man: no one who hears him can forbear to admire him, and bestow something on him.”

“Let him go about his business,” said Melina: “I am any thing but in a trim for hearing fiddlers, and we have singers constantly among ourselves disposed to gain a little by their talent.” He accompanied these words with a sarcastic side-look at Philina: she understood his meaning, and immediately prepared to punish him, by taking up the cause of the harper. Turning towards Wilhelm, “Shall we not hear the man?” said she: “shall we do nothing to save ourselves from this miserable ennui?”

Melina was going to reply, and the strife would have grown keener, had not the person it related to at that moment entered. Wilhelm saluted him, and beckoned him to come near.

The figure of this singular guest set the whole party in astonishment: he had found a chair before any one took heart to ask him a question, or make any observation. His bald crown was encircled by a few gray hairs, and a pair of large blue eyes looked out softly from beneath his long white eyebrows. To a nose of beautiful proportions was subjoined a flowing, hoary beard, which did not hide the fine shape and position of his lips; and a long dark-brown garment wrapped his thin body from the neck to the feet. He began to prelude on the harp, which he had placed before him.

The sweet tones which he drew from his instrument very soon inspirited the company.

“You can sing, too, my good old man,” said Philina.

“Give us something that shall entertain the spirit and the heart as well as the senses,” said Wilhelm. “The instrument should but accompany the voice; for tunes and melodies without words and meaning seem to me like butterflies or finely variegated birds, which hover round us in the air, which we could wish to catch and make our own: whereas song is like a blessed genius that exalts us towards heaven, and allures the better self in us to attend him.”

The old man looked at Wilhelm, then aloft, then gave some trills upon his harp, and began his song. It contained a eulogy on minstrelsy,  —  described the happiness of minstrels, and reminded men to honor them. He produced his song with so much life and truth, that it seemed as if he had composed it at the moment, for this special occasion. Wilhelm could scarcely refrain from clasping him in his arms: but the fear of awakening a peal of laughter detained him in his chair; for the rest were already in half-whispers making sundry very shallow observations, and debating if the harper was a Papist or a Jew.

When asked about the author of the song, the man gave no distinct reply; declaring only that he was rich in songs, and anxious that they should please. Most of the party were now merry and joyful; even Melina was grown frank in his way; and, whilst they talked and joked together, the old man began to sing the praise of social life in the most sprightly style. He described the loveliness of unity and courtesy, in soft, soothing tones. Suddenly his music became cold, harsh, and jarring, as he turned to deplore repulsive selfishness, short-sighted enmity, and baleful division; and every heart willingly threw off those galling fetters, while, borne on the wings of a piercing melody, he launched forth in praise of peacemakers, and sang the happiness of souls, that, having parted, meet again in love.

Scarcely had he ended, when Wilhelm cried to him, “Whoever thou art, that as a helping spirit comest to us with a voice which blesses and revives, accept my reverence and my thanks! Feel that we all admire thee, and confide in us if thou wantest any thing.”

The old man spoke not: he threw his fingers softly across the strings, then struck more sharply, and sang,  — 

“‘What notes are those without the wall, Across the portal sounding? Let’s have the music in our hall, Back from its roof rebounding.’ So spoke the king, the henchman flies: His answer heard, the monarch cries, ‘Bring in that ancient minstrel.’

‘Hail, gracious king! each noble knight, Each lovely dame, I greet you! What glittering stars salute my sight! What heart unmoved may meet you! Such lordly pomp is not for me, Far other scenes my eyes must see: Yet deign to list my harping.’

The singer turns him to his art, A thrilling strain he raises: Each warrior hears with glowing heart, And on his loved one gazes. The king, who liked his playing well, Commands, for such a kindly spell, A golden chain be given him.

‘The golden chain give not to me; Thy boldest knight may wear it, Who, ‘cross the battle’s purple sea, On lion breast may bear it: Or let it be thy chancellor’s prize, Amid his heaps to feast his eyes; Its yellow glance will please him.’ 

“I sing but as the linnet sings, That on the green bough dwelleth; A rich reward his music brings, As from his throat it swelleth: Yet might I ask, I’d ask of thine One sparkling draught of purest wine, To drink it here before you.’

He viewed the wine: he quaffed it up. ‘O draught of sweetest savor! O happy house, where such a cup Is thought a little favor! If well you fare, remember me, And thank kind Heaven, from envy free, As now for this I thank you.’“

When the harper, on finishing his song, took up a glass of wine that stood poured out for him, and, turning with a friendly mien to his entertainers, drank it off, a buzz of joyful approbation rose from all the party. They clapped hands, and wished him health from that glass, and strength to his aged limbs. He sang a few other ballads, exciting more and more hilarity among the company.

“Old man,” said Philina, “dost thou know the tune, ‘The shepherd decked him for the dance’?”http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36483/36483-h/36483-h.htm - Footnote_2_2

“Oh, yes!” said he: “if you will sing the words, I shall not fail for my part of it.”

Philina then stood up, and held herself in readiness. The old man commenced the tune; and she sang a song, which we cannot impart to our readers, lest they might think it insipid, or perhaps undignified.

Meanwhile the company were growing merrier and merrier: they had already emptied several flasks of wine, and were now beginning to get very loud. But our friend, having fresh in his remembrance the bad consequences of their late exhilaration, determined to break up the sitting; he slipped into the old man’s hand a liberal remuneration for his trouble, the rest did something likewise; they gave him leave to go and take repose, promising themselves another entertainment from his skill in the evening.

When he had retired, our friend said to Philina, “In this favorite song of yours I certainly find no merit, either moral or poetical; yet if you were to bring forward any proper composition on the stage, with the same arch simplicity, the same propriety and gracefulness, I should engage that strong and universal approbation would be the result.”

“Yes,” said Philina: “it would be a charming thing indeed to warm one’s self at ice.”

“After all,” said Wilhelm, “this old man might put many a player to the blush. Did you notice how correctly the dramatic part of his ballads was expressed? I maintain there was more living true representation in his singing than in many of our starched characters upon the stage. You would take the acting of many plays for a narrative, and you might ascribe to these musical narratives a sensible presence.”

“You are hardly just,” replied Laertes. “I pretend to no great skill, either as a player or as a singer; yet I know well enough, that when music guides the movements of the body, at once affording to them animation and a scale to measure it; when declamation and expression are furnished me by the composer,  —  I feel quite a different man from what I do when, in prose dramas, I have all this to create for myself,  —  have both gesture and declamation to invent, and am, perhaps, disturbed in it, too, by the awkwardness of some partner in the dialogue.”

“Thus much I know,” said Melina: “the man certainly puts us to the blush in one point, and that a main point. The strength of his talent is shown by the profit he derives from it. Even us, who perhaps erelong shall be embarrassed where to get a meal, he persuades to share our pittance with him. He has skill enough to wile the money from our pockets with an old song,  —  the money that we should have used to find ourselves employment. So pleasant an affair is it to squander the means which might procure subsistence to one’s self and others.”

This remark gave the conversation not the most delightful turn. Wilhelm, for whom the reproach was peculiarly intended, replied with some heat; and Melina, at no time over studious of delicacy and politeness, explained his grievances at last in words more plain than courteous. “It is now a fortnight,” said he, “since we looked at the theatrical machinery and wardrobe which is lying pawned here: the whole might be redeemed for a very tolerable sum. You then gave me hopes that you would lend me so much; and hitherto I do not see that you have thought more of the matter, or come any nearer a determination. Had you then consented, we should ere now have been under way. Nor has your intention to leave the place been executed, nor has your money in the mean time been spared: at least there are people who have always skill to create opportunities for scattering it faster and faster away.”

Such upbraidings, not altogether undeserved, touched Wilhelm to the quick. He replied with keenness, nay, with anger; and, as the company rose to part, he took hold of the door, and gave them not obscurely to understand that he would no longer continue with such unfriendly and ungrateful people. He hastened down, in no kindly humor, and seated himself upon the stone bench without the door of his inn; not observing, that, first out of mirth, then out of spleen, he had drunk more wine than usual.

CHAPTER XII.

After a short time, which he passed sitting looking out before him, disquieted by many thoughts, Philina came singing and skipping along through the front door. She sat down by him, nay, we might almost say, on him, so close did she press herself towards him: she leaned upon his shoulders, began playing with his hair, patted him, and gave him the best words in the world. She begged of him to stay with them, and not leave her alone in that company, or she must die of tedium: she could not live any longer in the same house with Melina, and had come over to lodge in the other inn for that reason.

He tried in vain to satisfy her with denials,  —  to make her understand that he neither could nor would remain any longer. She did not cease with her entreaties; nay, suddenly she threw her arm round his neck, and kissed him with the liveliest expression of fondness.

“Are you mad, Philina?” cried Wilhelm, endeavoring to disengage himself; “to make the open street the scene of such caresses, which I nowise merit! Let me go! I can not and I will not stay.”

“And I will hold thee fast,” said she, “and kiss thee here on the open street, and kiss thee till thou promise what I want. I shall die of laughing,” she continued: “by this familiarity the good people here must take me for thy wife of four weeks’ standing; and husbands, who witness this touching scene, will commend me to their wives as a pattern of childlike, simple tenderness.”

Some persons were just then going by: she caressed him in the most graceful way; and he, to avoid giving scandal, was constrained to play the part of the patient husband. Then she made faces at the people, when their backs were turned, and, in the wildest humor, continued to commit all sorts of improprieties, till at last he was obliged to promise that he would not go that day, or the morrow, or the next day.

“You are a true clod!” said she, quitting him; “and I am but a fool to spend so much kindness on you.” She arose with some vexation, and walked a few steps, then turned round laughing, and cried, “I believe it is just that, after all, that makes me so crazy about thee. I will but go and seek my knitting-needles and my stocking, that I may have something to do. Stay there, and let me find the stone man still upon the stone bench when I come back.”

She cast a sparkling glance on him, and went into the house. He had no call to follow her; on the contrary, her conduct had excited fresh aversion in him; yet he rose from the bench to go after her, not well knowing why.

He was just entering the door, when Melina passed by, and spoke to him in a respectful tone, asking his pardon for the somewhat too harsh expressions he had used in their late discussion. “You will not take it ill of me,” continued he, “if I appear perhaps too fretful in my present circumstances. The charge of providing for a wife, perhaps soon for a child, forbids me from day to day to live at peace, or spend my time as you may do, in the enjoyment of pleasant feelings. Consider, I pray you, and, if possible, do put me in possession of that stage machinery that is lying here. I shall not be your debtor long, and I shall be obliged to you while I live.”

Our friend, unwilling to be kept upon the threshold, over which an irresistible impulse was drawing him at that moment to Philina, answered, with an absent mind, eager to be gone, and surprised into a transient feeling of good will, “If I can make you happy and contented by doing this, I will hesitate no longer. Go you and put every thing to rights. I shall be prepared this evening, or to-morrow morning, to pay the money.” He then gave his hand to Melina in confirmation of his promise, and was very glad to see him hastily proceed along the street; but, alas! his entrance, which he now thought sure, was a second time prohibited, and more disagreeably than at first.

A young man, with a bundle on his back, came walking fast along the street, and advanced to Wilhelm, who at once recognized him for Friedrich.

“Here am I again!” cried he, looking with his large blue eyes joyfully up and down, over all the windows of the house. “Where is Mamsell? Devil take me, if I can stroll about the world any longer without seeing her!”

The landlord, joining them at this instant, replied that she was above; Friedrich, with a few bounds, was up stairs; and Wilhelm continued standing, as if rooted to the threshold. At the first instant he was tempted to pluck the younker back, and drag him down by the hair; then all at once the spasm of a sharp jealousy stopped the current of his spirits and ideas; and, as he gradually recovered from this stupefaction, there came over him a splenetic fit of restlessness, a general discomfort, such as he had never felt in his life before.

He went up to his room, and found Mignon busy writing. For some time the creature had been laboring with great diligence in writing every thing she knew by heart, giving always to her master and friend the papers to correct. She was indefatigable, and of good comprehension; but still, her letters were irregular, and her lines crooked. Here, too, the body seemed to contradict the mind. In his usual moods, Wilhelm took no small pleasure in the child’s attention; but, at the present moment, he regarded little what she showed him,  —  a piece of neglect which she felt the more acutely, as on this occasion she conceived her work had been accomplished with peculiar success.

Wilhelm’s unrest drove him up and down the passages of the house, and finally again to the street-door. A rider was just prancing towards it,  —  a man of good appearance, of middle age, and a brisk, contented look. The landlord ran to meet him, holding out his hand as to an old acquaintance. “Ay, Herr Stallmeister,” cried he, “have we the pleasure to see you again?”

“I am only just going to bait with you,” replied the stranger, “and then along to the estate, to get matters put in order as soon as possible. The count is coming over to-morrow with his lady; they mean to stay a while to entertain the Prince von  —    —  in their best style: he intends to fix his headquarters in this neighborhood for some time.”

“It is pity,” said the landlord, “that you cannot stop with us: we have good company in the house.” The hostler came running out, and took the horse from the Stallmeister, who continued talking in the door with the landlord, and now and then giving a look at Wilhelm.

Our friend, observing that he formed the topic of their conversation, went away, and walked up and down the streets.

CHAPTER XIII.

In the restless vexation of his present humor, it came into his head to go and see the old harper; hoping by his music to scare away the evil spirits that tormented him. On asking for the man, he was directed to a mean public house, in a remote corner of the little town; and, having mounted up-stairs there to the very garret, his ear caught the fine twanging of the harp coming from a little room before him. They were heart-moving, mournful tones, accompanied by a sad and dreary singing. Wilhelm glided to the door: and as the good old man was performing a sort of voluntary, the few stanzas of which, sometimes chanted, sometimes in recitative, were repeated more than once, our friend succeeded, after listening for a while, in gathering nearly this:  — 

“Who never ate his bread with tears, Through nights of grief who, weeping, never Sat on his bed, midst pangs and fears, Can, heavenly powers, not know you ever.

Ye lead us forth into this life, Where comfort soon by guilt is banished, Abandon us to tortures, strife; For on this earth all guilt is punished.”  —  Editor’s Version.

The heart-sick, plaintive sound of this lament pierced deep into the soul of the hearer. It seemed to him as if the old man were often stopped from proceeding by his tears: his harp would alone be heard for a time, till his voice again joined it in low, broken tones. Wilhelm stood by the door; he was much moved; the mourning of this stranger had again opened the avenues of his heart; he could not resist the claim of sympathy, or restrain the tears which this woe-begone complaint at last called forth. All the pains that pressed upon his soul seemed now at once to loosen from their hold: he abandoned himself without reserve to the feelings of the moment. Pushing up the door, he stood before the harper. The old man was sitting on a mean bed, the only seat, or article of furniture, which his miserable room afforded.

“What feelings thou hast awakened in me, good old man!” exclaimed he. “All that was lying frozen at my heart thou hast melted, and put in motion. Let me not disturb thee, but continue, in solacing thy own sorrows, to confer happiness upon a friend.” The harper was about to rise, and say something; but Wilhelm hindered him, for he had noticed in the morning that the old man did not like to speak. He sat down by him on the straw bed.

The old man wiped his eyes, and asked, with a friendly smile, “How came you hither? I meant to wait upon you in the evening again.”

“We are more quiet here,” said Wilhelm. “Sing to me what thou pleasest, what accords with thy own mood of mind, only proceed as if I were not by. It seems to me, that to-day thou canst not fail to suit me. I think thee very happy, that, in solitude, thou canst employ and entertain thyself so pleasantly; that, being everywhere a stranger, thou findest in thy own heart the most agreeable society.”

The old man looked upon his strings; and after touching them softly, by way of prelude, he commenced and sang,  — 

“Who longs in solitude to live, Ah! soon his wish will gain: Men hope and love, men get and give, And leave him to his pain. Yes, leave me to my moan! When from my bed You all are fled, I still am not alone.

The lover glides with footstep light: His love, is she not waiting there? So glides to meet me, day and night, In solitude my care, In solitude my woe: True solitude I then shall know When lying in my grave, When lying in my grave, And grief has let me go.”

We might describe with great prolixity, and yet fail to express the charms of, the singular conversation which Wilhelm carried on with this wayfaring stranger. To every observation our friend addressed to him, the old man, with the nicest accordance, answered in some melody, which awakened all the cognate emotions, and opened a wide field to the imagination.

Whoever has happened to be present at a meeting of certain devout people, who conceive, that, in a state of separation from the Church, they can edify each other in a purer, more affecting, and more spiritual manner, may form to himself some conception of the present scene. He will recollect how the leader of the meeting would append to his words some verse of a song, that raised the soul till, as he wished, she took wing; how another of the flock would erelong subjoin, in a different tune, some verse of a different song; and to this again a third would link some verse of a third song,  —  by which means the kindred ideas of the songs to which the verses belonged were indeed suggested, yet each passage by its new combination became new and individualized, as if it had been first composed that moment; and thus from a well-known circle of ideas, from well-known songs and sayings, there was formed for that particular society, in that particular time, an original whole, by means of which their minds were animated, strengthened, and refreshed. So, likewise, did the old man edify his guest: by known and unknown songs and passages, he brought feelings near and distant, emotions sleeping and awake, pleasant and painful, into a circulation, from which, in Wilhelm’s actual state, the best effects might be anticipated.

CHAPTER XIV.

Accordingly, in walking back, he began to think with greater earnestness than ever on his present situation: he had reached home with the firm purpose of altering it, when the landlord disclosed to him, by way of secret, that Mademoiselle Philina had made a conquest of the count’s Stallmeister, who, after executing his commission at his master’s estate, had returned in the greatest haste, and was even now partaking of a good supper with her up in her chamber.

At this very moment Melina came in with a notary: they went into Wilhelm’s chamber together, where the latter, though with some hesitation, made his promise good; gave a draft of three hundred crowns to Melina, who, handing it to the lawyer, received in return a note acknowledging the sale of the whole theatrical apparatus, and engaging to deliver it next morning.

Scarcely had they parted, when Wilhelm heard a cry of horror rising from some quarter of the house. He caught the sound of a young voice, uttering menacing and furious tones, which were ever and anon choked by immoderate weeping and howling. He observed this frantic noise move hastily from above, go past his door, and down to the lower part of the house.

Curiosity enticing our friend to follow it, he found Friedrich in a species of delirium. The boy was weeping, grinding his teeth, stamping with his feet, threatening with clenched fists: he appeared beside himself from fury and vexation. Mignon was standing opposite him, looking on with astonishment. The landlord, in some degree, explained this phenomenon.

The boy, he said, being well received at his return by Philina, seemed quite merry and contented: he had kept singing and jumping about, till the time when Philina grew acquainted with the Stallmeister. Then, however, this half-grown younker had begun to show his indignation, to slam the doors, and run up and down in the highest dudgeon. Philina had ordered him to wait at table that evening, upon which he had grown still sulkier and more indignant; till at last, carrying up a plate with a ragout, instead of setting it upon the table, he had thrown the whole between Mademoiselle and her guest, who were sitting moderately close together at the time: and the Stallmeister, after two or three hearty cuffs, had then kicked him out of the room. He, the landlord, had himself helped to clean both of them; and certainly their clothes had suffered much.

On hearing of the good effect of his revenge, the boy began to laugh aloud, whilst the tears were still running down his cheeks. He heartily rejoiced for a time, till the disgrace which he had suffered from the stronger party once more came into his head, and he began afresh to howl and threaten.

Wilhelm stood meditating, and ashamed at this spectacle. It reflected back to him his own feelings, in coarser and exaggerated features: he, too, was inflamed with a fierce jealousy; and, had not decency restrained him, he would willingly have satisfied his wild humor; with malicious spleen would have abused the object of his passion, and called out his rival; he could have crushed in pieces all the people round him; they seemed as if standing there but to vex him.

Laertes also had come in, and heard the story: he roguishly spurred on the irritated boy, who was now asserting with oaths that he would make the Stallmeister give him satisfaction; that he had never yet let any injury abide with him; that, should the man refuse, there were other ways of taking vengeance.

This was the very business for Laertes. He went up stairs, with a solemn countenance, to call out the Stallmeister in the boy’s name.

“This is a pleasant thing,” said the Stallmeister: “such a joke as this I had scarcely promised myself to-night.” They went down, and Philina followed them. “My son,” said the Stallmeister to Friedrich, “thou art a brave lad, and I do not hesitate to fight thee. Only, as our years and strength are unequal, and the attempt a little dangerous on that account, I propose a pair of foils in preference to other weapons. We can rub the buttons of them with a piece of chalk; and whoever marks upon the other’s coat the first or the most thrusts, shall be held the victor, and be treated by the other with the best wine that can be had in town.”

Laertes decided that the proposition might be listened to: Friedrich obeyed him, as his tutor. The foils were produced: Philina took a seat, went on with her knitting, and looked at the contending parties with the greatest peace of mind.

The Stallmeister, who could fence very prettily, was complaisant enough to spare his adversary, and to let a few chalk scores be marked upon his coat; after which the two embraced, and wine was ordered. The Stallmeister took the liberty of asking Friedrich’s parentage and history; and Friedrich told him a long story, which had often been repeated already, and which, at some other opportunity, we purpose communicating to our readers.

To Wilhelm, in the mean time, this contest completed the representation of his own state of mind. He could not but perceive that he would willingly have taken up a foil against the Stallmeister,  —  a sword still more willingly, though evidently much his inferior in the science of defence. Yet he deigned not to cast one look on Philina; he was on his guard against any word or movement that could possibly betray his feelings: and, after having once or twice done justice to the health of the duellists, he hastened to his own room, where a thousand painful thoughts came pressing round him.

He called to memory the time when his spirit, rich in hope, and full of boundless aims, was raised aloft, and encircled with the liveliest enjoyments of every kind as with its proper element. He now clearly saw, that of late he had fallen into a broken, wandering path, where, if he tasted, it was but in drops what he once quaffed in unrestricted measure. But he could not clearly see what insatiable want it was that nature had made the law of his being, and how this want had been only set on edge, half satisfied, and misdirected by the circumstances of his life.

It will not surprise us, therefore, that, in considering his situation, and laboring to extricate himself, he fell into the greatest perplexity. It was not enough, that by his friendship for Laertes, his attachment to Philina, his concern for Mignon, he had been detained longer than was proper in a place and a society where he could cherish his darling inclination, content his wishes as it were by stealth, and, without proposing any object, again pursue his early dreams. These ties he believed himself possessed of force enough to break asunder: had there been nothing more to hold him, he could have gone at once. But, only a few moments ago, he had entered into money transactions with Melina: he had seen that mysterious old man, the enigma of whose history he longed with unspeakable desire to clear. Yet of this too, after much balancing of reasons, he at length determined, or thought he had determined, that it should not keep him back. “I must go.” He threw himself into a chair: he felt greatly moved. Mignon came in, and asked whether she might help to undress him. Her manner was still and shy: it had grieved her to the quick to be so abruptly dismissed by him before.

Nothing is more touching than the first disclosure of a love which has been nursed in silence, of a faith grown strong in secret, and which at last comes forth in the hour of need, and reveals itself to him who formerly has reckoned it of small account. The bud, which had been closed so long and firmly, was now ripe to burst its swathings; and Wilhelm’s heart could never have been readier to welcome the impressions of affection.

She stood before him, and noticed his disquietude. “Master!” she cried, “if thou art unhappy, what will become of Mignon?”  —  “Dear little creature,” said he, taking her hands, “thou, too, art part of my anxieties. I must go hence.” She looked at his eyes, glistening with restrained tears, and knelt down with vehemence before him. He kept her hands: she laid her head upon his knees, and remained quite still. He played with her hair, patted her, and spoke kindly to her. She continued motionless for a considerable time. At last he felt a sort of palpitating movement in her, which began very softly, and then by degrees, with increasing violence, diffused itself over all her frame. “What ails thee, Mignon?” cried he: “What ails thee?” She raised her little head, looked at him, and all at once laid her hand upon her heart, with the countenance of one repressing the utterance of pain. He raised her up, and she fell upon his breast: he pressed her towards him, and kissed her. She replied not by any pressure of the hand, by any motion whatever. She held firmly against her heart, and all at once gave a cry, which was accompanied by spasmodic movements of the body. She started up, and immediately fell down before him, as if broken in every joint. It was an excruciating moment. “My child!” cried he, raising her up, and clasping her fast, “my child, what ails thee?” The palpitations continued, spreading from the heart over all the lax and powerless limbs: she was merely hanging in his arms. All at once she again became quite stiff, like one enduring the sharpest corporeal agony; and soon with a new vehemence all her frame once more became alive; and she threw herself about his neck, like a bent spring that is closing; while in her soul, as it were, a strong rent took place, and at the same moment a stream of tears flowed from her shut eyes into his bosom. He held her fast. She wept, and no tongue can express the force of these tears. Her long hair had loosened, and was hanging down before her: it seemed as if her whole being was melting incessantly into a brook of tears. Her rigid limbs were again become relaxed; her inmost soul was pouring itself forth; in the wild confusion of the moment Wilhelm was afraid she would dissolve in his arms, and leave nothing there for him to grasp. He held her faster and faster. “My child!” cried he, “my child! thou art indeed mine, if that word can comfort thee. Thou art mine! I will keep thee, I will never forsake thee!” Her tears continued flowing. At last she raised herself: a faint gladness shone upon her face. “My father!” cried she, “thou wilt not forsake me? Wilt be my father? I am thy child!”

Softly, at this moment, the harp began to sound before the door: the old man brought his most affecting songs as an evening offering to our friend, who, holding his child ever faster in his arms, enjoyed the most pure and undescribable felicity.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

“Dost know the land where citrons, lemons, grow, Gold oranges ‘neath dusky foliage glow, From azure sky are blowing breezes soft, The myrtles still, the laurel stands aloft? ’Tis there! ’tis there! I would with thee, O my beloved one, go!

Dost know the house, its roofs do columns bear, The hall with splendor bright, the chambers glare? Therein stand marble forms, and look at me: What is’t, poor child, that they have done to thee? Dost know that house? ’Tis there! ’tis there! I would with thee, O my protector, go!

Dost know the mount, whose path with clouds is fraught, Where by the mule through mist the way is sought, Where dwell in caves the dragon’s ancient brood, Where falls the rock, and over it the flood,  —  Dost know that mount? ’Tis there! ’tis there! Does lead our road: O father, let us go!”  —  Editor’s Version.

Next morning, on looking for Mignon about the house, Wilhelm did not find her, but was informed that she had gone out early with Melina, who had risen betimes to receive the wardrobe and other apparatus of his theatre.

After the space of some hours, Wilhelm heard the sound of music before his door. At first he thought it was the harper come again to visit him; but he soon distinguished the tones of a cithern, and the voice which began to sing was Mignon’s. Wilhelm opened the door: the child came in, and sang him the song we have just given above.

The music and general expression of it pleased our friend extremely, though he could not understand all the words. He made her once more repeat the stanzas, and explain them: he wrote them down, and translated them into his native language. But the originality of its turns he could imitate only from afar: its childlike innocence of expression vanished from it in the process of reducing its broken phraseology to uniformity, and combining its disjointed parts. The charm of the tune, moreover, was entirely incomparable.

She began every verse in a stately and solemn manner, as if she wished to draw attention towards something wonderful, as if she had something weighty to communicate. In the third line, her tones became deeper and gloomier; the words, “Dost know?” were uttered with a show of mystery and eager circumspectness; in “’Tis there! ’tis there!” lay an irresistible longing; and her “Let us go!” she modified at each repetition, so that now it appeared to entreat and implore, now to impel and persuade.

On finishing her song for the second time, she stood silent for a moment, looked keenly at Wilhelm, and asked him, “Know’st thou the land?”  —  “It must mean Italy,” said Wilhelm: “where didst thou get the little song?”  —  “Italy!” said Mignon, with an earnest air. “If thou go to Italy, take me along with thee; for I am too cold here.”  —  “Hast thou been there already, little dear?” said Wilhelm. But the child was silent, and nothing more could be got out of her.

Melina entered now: he looked at the cithern,  —  was glad that she had rigged it up again so prettily. The instrument had been among Melina’s stage-gear: Mignon had begged it of him in the morning, and then gone to the old harper. On this occasion she had shown a talent she was not before suspected of possessing.

Melina had already got possession of his wardrobe, with all that pertained to it: some members of the town magistracy had promised him permission to act, for a time, in the place. He was now returning with a merry heart and a cheerful look. His nature seemed altogether changed: he was soft, courteous to every one,  —  nay, fond of obliging, and almost attractive. He was happy, he said, at now being able to afford employment to his friends, who had hitherto lain idle and embarrassed; sorry, however, that at first he could not have it in his power to remunerate the excellent actors whom fortune had offered him, in a style corresponding to their talents and capacities; being under the necessity, before all other things, of discharging his debt to so generous a friend as Wilhelm had proved himself to be.

“I cannot describe,” said he to Wilhelm, “the friendliness which you have shown, in helping me forward to the management of a theatre. When I found you here, I was in a very curious predicament. You recollect how strongly I displayed to you, on our first acquaintance, my aversion to the stage; and yet, on being married, I was forced to look about for a place in some theatre, out of love to my wife, who promised to herself much joy and great applause if so engaged. I could find none, at least no constant one; but in return I luckily fell in with some commercial men, who, in extraordinary cases, were enabled to employ a person that could handle his pen, that understood French, and was not without a little skill in ciphering. I managed pretty well in this way for a time; I was tolerably paid; got about me many things which I had need of, and did not feel ashamed of my work. But these commissions of my patrons came to an end; they could afford me no permanent establishment: and, ever since, my wife has continued urging me still more to go upon the stage again; though, at present, alas! her own situation is none of the favorablest for exhibiting herself with honor in the eyes of the public. But now, I hope, the establishment which by your kind help I have the means of setting up, will prove a good beginning for me and mine: you I shall thank for all my future happiness, let matters turn out as they will.”

Wilhelm listened to him with contentment: the whole fraternity of players were likewise moderately satisfied with the declarations of the new manager; they secretly rejoiced that an offer of employment had occurred so soon, and were disposed to put up at first with a smaller salary, the rather, that most of them regarded the present one, so unexpectedly placed within their reach, as a kind of supplement, on which a short while ago they could not count. Melina made haste to profit by this favorable temper: he endeavored in a sly way to get a little talk with each in private, and erelong had, by various methods, so cockered them all, that they did not hesitate to strike a bargain with him without loss of time; scarcely thinking of this new engagement, or reckoning themselves secure at worst of getting free again after six-weeks’ warning.

The terms were now to be reduced to proper form; and Melina was considering with what pieces he would first entice the public, when a courier riding up informed the Stallmeister that his lord and lady were at hand; on which the latter ordered out his horses.

In a short time after this, the coach with its masses of luggage rolled in; two servants sprang down from the coach-box before the inn; and Philina, according to her custom, foremost in the way of novelties, placed herself within the door.

“Who are you?” said the countess, entering the house.

“An actress, at your Excellency’s service,” was the answer; while the cheat, with a most innocent air, and looks of great humility, courtesied, and kissed the lady’s gown.

The count, on seeing some other persons standing round, who also signified that they were players, inquired about the strength of their company, their last place of residence, their manager. “Had they but been Frenchmen,” said he to his lady, “we might have treated the prince with an unexpected enjoyment, and entertained him with his favorite pastime at our house.”

“And could we not,” said the countess, “get these people, though unluckily they are but Germans, to exhibit with us at the castle while the prince stays there? Without doubt they have some degree of skill. A large party can never be so well amused with any thing as with a theatre: besides, the baron would assist them.”

So speaking, they went up-stairs; and Melina presented himself above, as manager. “Call your folk together,” said the count, “and place them before me, that I may see what is in them. I must also have the list of pieces you profess to act.”

Melina, with a low bow, hastened from the room, and soon returned with his actors. They advanced in promiscuous succession: some, out of too great anxiety to please, introduced themselves in a rather sorry style; the others, not much better, by assuming an air of unconcern. Philina showed the deepest reverence to the countess, who behaved with extreme graciousness and condescension: the count, in the mean time, was mustering the rest. He questioned each about his special province of acting, and signified to Melina that he must rigorously keep them to their several provinces,  —  a precept which the manager received with the greatest devotion.

The count then stated to each in particular what he ought especially to study, what about his figure or his postures ought to be amended; showed them luminously in what points the Germans always fail; and displayed such extraordinary knowledge, that all stood in the deepest humility, scarcely daring to draw their breath before so enlightened a critic and so right honorable a patron.

“What fellow is that in the corner?” said the count, looking at a subject who had not yet been presented to him, and who now approached,  —  a lean, shambling figure, with a rusty coat, patched at the elbows, and a woful periwig covering his submissive head.

This person, whom, from the last Book, we know already as Philina’s darling, had been want to enact pedants, tutors, and poets,  —  generally undertaking parts in which any cudgelling or ducking was to be endured. He had trained himself to certain crouching, ludicrous, timid bows; and his faltering, stammering speech befitted the characters he played, and created laughter in the audience; so that he was always looked on as a useful member of the company, being moreover very serviceable and obliging. He approached the count in his own peculiar way, bent himself before him, and answered every question with the grimaces and gestures he was used to on the stage. The count looked at him for some time with an air of attentive satisfaction and studious observation; then, turning to the countess, “Child,” said he, “consider this man well: I will engage for it he is a great actor, or may become so.” The creature here, in the fulness of his heart, made an idiotic bow: the count burst into laughing, and exclaimed, “He does it excellently well! I bet this fellow can act any thing he likes: it is pity that he has not been already used to something better.”

So singular a prepossession was extremely galling to the rest: Melina alone felt no vexation, but completely coincided with the count, and answered, with a prostrate look, “Alas! it is too true: both he and others of us have long stood in need of such encouragement, and such a judge, as we now find in your Excellency.”

“Is this the whole company?” inquired the count.

“Some of them are absent,” said the crafty Melina; “and at any rate, if we should meet with support, we could soon collect abundant numbers from the neighborhood.”

Philina in the mean while was saying to the countess, “There is a very pretty young man above, who without doubt would shortly become a first-rate amateur.”

“Why does he not appear?” said the countess.

“I will bring him,” cried Philina, hastening to the door.

She found our friend still occupied with Mignon: she persuaded him to come down. He followed her with some reluctance: yet curiosity impelled him; for, hearing that the family were people of rank, he longed much to know more of them. On entering the room, his eyes met those of the countess, which were directed towards him. Philina led him to the lady, while the count was busied with the rest. Wilhelm made his bow, and replied to several questions from the fair dame, not without confusion of mind. Her beauty and youth, her graceful dignity and refined manner, made the most delightful impression on him; and the more so, as her words and looks were accompanied with a certain bashfulness, one might almost say embarrassment. He was likewise introduced to the count, who, however, took no special notice of him, but went to the window with his lady, and seemed to ask her about something. It was easy to observe that her opinion accorded strongly with his own; that she even tried to persuade him, and strengthen him in his intentions.

In a short while he turned round to the company, and said, “I must not stay at present, but I will send a friend to you; and if you make reasonable proposals, and will take very great pains, I am not disinclined to let you play at the castle.”

All testified their joy at this: Philina in particular kissed the hands of the countess with the greatest vivacity.

“Look you, little thing,” said the lady, patting the cheeks of the light-minded girl, “look you, child, you shall come to me again: I will keep my promise; only you must dress better.” Philina stated in excuse that she had little to lay out upon her wardrobe; and the countess immediately ordered her waiting-maids to bring from the carriage a silk neckerchief and an English hat, the articles easiest to come at, and give them to her new favorite. The countess herself then decked Philina, who continued very neatly to support, by her looks and conduct, that saintlike, guiltless character she had assumed at first.

The count took his lady’s hand, and led her down. She bowed to the whole company with a friendly air, in passing by them: she turned round again towards Wilhelm, and said to him, with the most gracious mien, “We shall soon meet again.”

These happy prospects enlivened the whole party: every one of them gave free course to his hopes, his wishes, his imaginations; spoke of the parts he would play, and the applause he would acquire. Melina was considering how he might still, by a few speedy exhibitions, gain a little money from the people of the town before he left it; while others went into the kitchen, to order a better dinner than of late they had been used to.

CHAPTER II.

After a few days the baron came, and it was not without fear that Melina received him. The count had spoken of him as a critic: and it might be dreaded, he would speedily detect the weakness of the little party, and see that it formed no efficient troop; there being scarcely a play which they could act in a suitable manner. But the manager, as well as all the members, were soon delivered from their cares, on finding that the baron was a man who viewed the German stage with a most patriotic enthusiasm, to whom every player, and every company of players, was welcome and agreeable. He saluted them all with great solemnity; was happy to come upon a German theatre so unexpectedly, to get connected with it, and to introduce their native Muses to the mansion of his relative. He then pulled out from his pocket a bundle of stitched papers, in which Melina hoped to find the terms of their contract specified; but it proved something very different. It was a drama, which the baron himself had composed, and wished to have played by them: he requested their attention while he read it. Willingly they formed a circle round him, charmed at being able with so little trouble to secure the favor of a man so important; though, judging by the thickness of the manuscript, it was clear that a very long rehearsal might be dreaded. Their apprehensions were not groundless: the piece was written in five acts, and that sort of acts which never have an end.

The hero was an excellent, virtuous, magnanimous, and at the same time misunderstood and persecuted, man: this worthy person, after many trials, gained the victory at last over all his enemies; on whom, in consequence, the most rigorous poetic justice would have been exercised, had he not pardoned them on the spot.

While this piece was rehearsing, each of the auditors had leisure enough to think of himself, and to mount up quite softly from the humble prostration of mind, to which, a little while ago, he had felt disposed, into a comfortable state of contentment with his own gifts and advantages, and, from this elevation, to discover the most pleasing prospects in the future. Such of them as found in the play no parts adapted for their own acting, internally pronounced it bad, and viewed the baron as a miserable author; while the others, every time they noticed any passage which they hoped might procure them a little clapping of the hands, exalted it with the greatest praise, to the immeasurable satisfaction of the author.

The commercial part of their affair was soon completed. Melina made an advantageous bargain with the baron, and contrived to keep it secret from the rest.

Of our friend, Melina took occasion to declare in passing, that he seemed to be successfully qualifying himself for becoming a dramatic poet, and even to have some capacities for being an actor. The baron introduced himself to Wilhelm as a colleague; and the latter by and by produced some short pieces, which, with a few other relics, had escaped by chance, on the day when he threw the greater part of his works into the flames. The baron lauded both his pieces and delivery: he spoke of it as a settled thing, that Wilhelm should come over to the castle with the rest. For all, at his departure, he engaged to find the best reception, comfortable quarters, a good table, applauses, and presents; and Melina further gave the promise of a certain modicum of pocket-money to each.

It is easy to conceive how this visit raised the spirits of the party: instead of a low and harassing situation, they now at once saw honors and enjoyment before them. On the score of these great hopes they already made merry, and each thought it needless and stingy to retain a single groschen of money in his purse.

Meanwhile our friend was taking counsel with himself about accompanying the troop to the castle; and he found it, in more than one sense, advisable to do so. Melina was in hopes of paying off his debt, at least in part, by this engagement; and Wilhelm, who had come from home to study men, was unwilling to let slip this opportunity of examining the great world, where he expected to obtain much insight into life, into himself, and the dramatic art. With all this, he durst not confess how greatly he wished again to be near the beautiful countess. He rather sought to persuade himself in general of the mighty advantages which a more intimate acquaintance with the world of rank and wealth would procure for him. He pursued his reflections on the count, the countess, the baron; on the security, the grace, and propriety of their demeanor: he exclaimed with rapture when alone,  — 

“Thrice happy are they to be esteemed, whom their birth of itself exalts above the lower stages of mankind; who do not need to traverse those perplexities, not even to skirt them, in which many worthy men so painfully consume the whole period of life. Far-extending and unerring must their vision be, on that higher station; easy each step of their progress in the world. From their very birth, they are placed, as it were, in a ship, which, in this voyage we have all to make, enables them to profit by the favorable winds, and to ride out the cross ones; while others, bare of help, must wear their strength away in swimming, can derive little profit from the favorable breeze, and in the storm must soon become exhausted, and sink to the bottom. What convenience, what ease of movement, does a fortune we are born to confer upon us! How securely does a traffic flourish, which is founded on a solid capital, where the failure of one or of many enterprises does not of necessity reduce us to inaction! Who can better know the worth and worthlessness of earthly things, than he that has had within his choice the enjoyment of them from youth upwards? and who can earlier guide his mind to the useful, the necessary, the true, than he that may convince himself of so many errors in an age when his strength is yet fresh to begin a new career?”

Thus did our friend cry joy to all inhabitants of the upper regions, and, not to them only, but to all that were permitted to approach their circle, and draw water from their wells. So he thanked his own happy stars, that seemed preparing to grant this mighty blessing to himself.

Melina, in the mean time, was torturing his brains to get the company arranged according to their several provinces, and each of them appointed to produce his own peculiar effect. In compliance with the count’s injunctions and his own persuasions, he made many efforts; but at last, when it came to the point of execution, he was forced to be content, if, in so small a troop, he found his people willing to adjust themselves to this or that part as they best were able. When matters would admit of it, Laertes played the lover; Philina the lady’s maid; the two young girls took up between them the characters of the artless and tender loved ones; the boisterous old gentleman of the piece was sure to be the best acted. Melina himself thought he might come forth as chevalier; Madam Melina, to her no small sorrow, was obliged to satisfy herself with personating young wives, or even affectionate mothers; and as in the newer plays, a poet or pedant is rarely introduced, and still more rarely for the purpose of being laughed at, the well-known favorite of the count was now usually transformed into president or minister,  —  these being commonly set forth as knaves, and severely handled in the fifth act. Melina, too, in the part of chamberlain or the like, introduced, with great satisfaction, the ineptitudes put into his hands by various honest Germans, according to use and wont, in many well-accepted plays: he delighted in these characters, because he had an opportunity of decking himself out in a fashionable style, and was called upon to assume the airs of a courtier, which he conceived himself to possess in great perfection.

It was not long till they were joined by several actors from different quarters; who, being received without very strict examination, were also retained without very burdensome conditions.

Wilhelm had been more than once assailed with persuasions from Melina to undertake an amateur part. This he declined; yet he interested and occupied himself about the general cause with great alacrity, without our new manager’s acknowledging his labors in the smallest. On the contrary, it seemed to be Melina’s opinion, that with his office he had at the same time picked up all the necessary skill for carrying it on. In particular, the task of curtailment formed one of his most pleasing occupations: he would succeed in reducing any given piece down to the regular measure of time, without the slightest respect to proprieties or proportions, or any thing whatever, but his watch. He met with great encouragement; the public was very much delighted; the most knowing inhabitants of the burgh maintained, that the prince’s theatre itself was not so well conducted as theirs.

CHAPTER III.

At last the time arrived when the company had to prepare for travelling, and to expect the coaches and other vehicles that were to carry them to the count’s mansion. Much altercation now took place about the mode of travelling, and who should sit with whom. The ordering and distribution of the whole was at length settled and concluded, with great labor, and, alas! without effect. At the appointed hour, fewer coaches came than were expected: they had to accommodate themselves as the case would admit. The baron, who followed shortly afterwards on horseback, assigned, as the reason, that all was in motion at the castle, not only because the prince was to arrive a few days earlier than had been looked for, but also because an unexpected party of visitors were already come: the place, he said, was in great confusion; on this account perhaps they would not lodge so comfortably as had been intended,  —  a change which grieved him very much.

Our travellers packed themselves into the carriages the best way they could; and the weather being tolerable, and the castle but a few leagues distant, the heartiest of the troop preferred setting out on foot to waiting the return of the coaches. The caravan got under way with great jubilee, for the first time without caring how the landlord’s bill was to be paid. The count’s mansion rose on their souls like a palace of the fairies: they were the happiest and merriest mortals in the world. Each throughout the journey, in his own peculiar mode, kept fastening a continued chain of fortune, honor, and prosperity to that auspicious day.

A heavy rain, which fell unexpectedly, did not banish these delightful contemplations; though, as it incessantly continued with more and more violence, many of the party began to show traces of uneasiness. The night came on; and no sight could be more welcome than the palace of the count, which shone upon them from a hill at some distance, glancing with light in all its stories, so that they could reckon every window.

On approaching nearer, they found all the windows in the wings illuminated also. Each of the party thought within himself what chamber would be his; and most of them prudently determined to be satisfied with a room in the attic, or some of the side buildings.

They were now proceeding through the village, past the inn. Wilhelm stopped the coach, in the mind to alight there; but the landlord protested that it was not in his power to afford the least accommodation: his lordship the count, he said, being visited by some unexpected guests, had immediately engaged the whole inn; every chamber in the house had been marked with chalk last night, specifying who was to lodge there. Our friend was accordingly obliged, against his will, to travel forward to the castle with the rest of the company.

In one of the side buildings, round the kitchen fire, they noticed several cooks running busily about,  —  a sight which refreshed them not a little. Servants came jumping hastily with lights to the staircase of the main door, and the hearts of the worthy pilgrims overflowed at the aspect of such honors. But how great was their surprise, when this cordial reception changed into a storm of curses. The servants scouted the coachman for driving in hither; they must wheel out again, it was bawled, and take their loading round to the old castle; there was no room here for such guests! To this unfriendly and unexpected dismissal, they joined all manner of jeering, and laughed aloud at each other for leaping out in the rain on so false an errand. It was still pouring; no star was visible in the sky; while our company were dragged along a rough, jolting road, between two walls, into the old mansion, which stood behind, inhabited by none since the present count’s father had built the new residence in front of it. The carriages drew up, partly in the court-yard, partly in a long, arched gateway; and the postilions, people hired from the village, unyoked their horses, and rode off.

As nobody came forward to receive the travellers, they alighted from their places, they shouted, and searched. In vain! All continued dark and still. The wind swept through the lofty gate: the court and the old towers were lying gray and dreary, and so dim that their forms could scarcely be distinguished in the gloom. The people were all shuddering and freezing; the women were becoming frightened; the children began to cry; the general impatience was increasing every minute; so quick a revolution of fortune, for which no one of them had been at all prepared, entirely destroyed their equanimity.

Expecting every minute that some person would appear and unbolt the doors, mistaking at one time the pattering of rain, at another the rocking of the wind, for the much-desired footstep of the castle bailiff, they continued downcast and inactive: it occurred to none of them to go into the new mansion, and there solicit help from charitable souls. They could not understand where their friend the baron was lingering: they were in the most disconsolate condition.

At last some people actually arrived: by their voices, they were recognized as the pedestrians who had fallen behind the others on the journey. They intimated that the baron had tumbled with his horse, and hurt his leg severely: and that, on calling at the castle, they, too, had been roughly directed hither.

The whole company were in extreme perplexity: they guessed and speculated as to what should now be done, but they could fix on nothing. At length they noticed from afar a lantern advancing, and took fresh breath at sight of it; but their hopes of quick deliverance again evaporated, when the object approached, and came to be distinctly seen. A groom was lighting the well-known Stallmeister of the castle towards them: this gentleman, on coming nearer, very anxiously inquired for Mademoiselle Philina. No sooner had she stepped forth from the crowd, than he very pressingly offered to conduct her to the new mansion, where a little place had been provided for her with the countess’s maids. She did not hesitate long about accepting his proposal; she caught his arm, and, recommending her trunk to the care of the rest, was going to hasten off with him directly: but the others intercepted them, asking, entreating, conjuring the Stallmeister; till at last, to get away with his fair one, he promised every thing, assuring them, that, in a little while, the castle should be opened, and they lodged in the most comfortable manner. In a few moments they saw the glimmer of his lantern vanish: they long looked in vain for another gleam of light. At last, after much watching, scolding, and reviling, it actually appeared, and revived them with a touch of hope and consolation.

An ancient footman opened the door of the old edifice, into which they rushed with violence. Each of them now strove to have his trunk unfastened, and brought in beside him. Most of this luggage, like the persons of its owners, was thoroughly wetted. Having but a single light, the process of unpacking went on very slowly. In the dark passages they pushed against each other, they stumbled, they fell. They begged to have more lights, they begged to have some fuel. The monosyllabic footman, with much ado, consented to put down his own lantern; then went his way, and came not again.

They now began to investigate the edifice. The doors of all the rooms were open: large stoves, tapestry hangings, inlaid floors, yet bore witness to its former pomp; but of other house-gear there was none to be seen,  —  no table, chair, or mirror, nothing but a few monstrous, empty bedsteads, stripped of every ornament and every necessary. The wet trunks and knapsacks were adopted as seats: a part of the tired wanderers placed themselves upon the floor. Wilhelm had sat down upon some steps: Mignon lay upon his knees. The child was restless; and, when he asked what ailed her, she answered, “I am hungry.” He himself had nothing that could still the craving of the child: the rest of the party had consumed their whole provision, so he was obliged to leave the little traveller without refreshment. Through the whole adventure he had been inactive, silently immersed in thought. He was very sullen, and full of indignant regret that he had not kept by his first determination, and remained at the inn, though he should have slept in the garret.

The rest demeaned themselves in various ways. Some of them had got a heap of old wood collected within a vast, gaping chimney in the hall: they set fire to the pile with great huzzaing. Unhappily, however, their hopes of warming and drying themselves by means of it were mocked in the most frightful manner. The chimney, it appeared, was there for ornament alone, and was walled up above; so the smoke rushed quickly back, and at once filled the whole chamber. The dry wood rose crackling into flames; the flame was also driven back; the draught sweeping through the broken windows gave it a wavering direction. Terrified lest the castle should catch fire, the unhappy guests had to tear the burning sticks asunder, to smother and trample them under their feet; the smoke increased; their case was rendered more intolerable than before; they were driven to the brink of desperation.

Wilhelm had retreated from the smoke into a distant chamber, to which Mignon soon followed him, leading in a well-dressed servant, with a high, clear, double-lighted lantern in his hand. He turned to Wilhelm, and, holding out to him some fruits and confectionery on a beautiful porcelain plate, “The young lady up-stairs,” said he, “sends you this, with the request that you would join her party: she bids me tell you,” added the lackey, with a sort of grin, “that she is very well off yonder, and wishes to divide her enjoyments with her friends.”

Wilhelm had not at all expected such a message; for, ever since the adventure on the stone bench, he had treated Philina with the most decided contempt. He was still so resolute to have no more concern with her that he thought of sending back her dainty gifts untasted, when a supplicating look of Mignon’s induced him to accept them. He returned his thanks in the name of the child. The invitation he entirely rejected. He desired the servant to exert himself a little for the stranger company, and made inquiry for the baron. The latter, he was told, had gone to bed, but had already, as the lackey understood, given orders to some other person to take charge of these unfortunate and ill-lodged gentlemen.

The servant went away, leaving one of his lights, which Wilhelm, in the absence of a candlestick, contrived to fix upon the window-casement; and now, at least in his meditations, he could see the four walls of his chamber. Nor was it long till preparations were commenced for conducting our travellers to rest. Candles arrived by degrees, though without snuffers; then a few chairs; an hour afterwards came bed-clothes; then pillows, all well steeped in rain. It was far past midnight when straw beds and mattresses were produced, which, if sent at first, would have been extremely welcome.

In the interim, also, somewhat to eat and drink had been brought in: it was enjoyed without much criticism; though it looked like a most disorderly collection of remains, and offered no very singular proof of the esteem in which our guests were held.

CHAPTER IV.

The disorders and mischievous tricks of some frolicsome companions still further augmented the disquietudes and distresses of the night: these gay people woke each other; each played a thousand giddy pranks to plague his fellow. The next morning dawned amid loud complaints against their friend the baron, for having so deceived them, for having given so very false a notion of the order and comfort that awaited their arrival. However, to their great surprise and consolation, at an early hour the count himself, attended by a few servants, made his entrance, and inquired about their circumstances. He appeared much vexed on discovering how badly they had fared; and the baron, who came limping along, supported on the arm of a servant, bitterly accused the steward for neglecting his commands on this occasion,  —  showing great anxiety to have that person punished for his disobedience.

The count gave immediate orders that every thing should be arranged, in his presence, to the utmost possible convenience of the guests. While this was going on, some officers arrived, who forthwith scraped acquaintance with the actresses. The count assembled all the company before him, spoke to each by name, introduced a few jokes among his observations; so that every one was charmed at the gracious condescension of his lordship. At last it came to Wilhelm’s turn. He appeared with Mignon holding by his hand. Our friend excused himself, in the best terms he could, for the freedom he had taken. The count, on the other hand, spoke as if the visit had been looked for.

A gentleman, who stood beside the count, and who, although he wore no uniform, appeared to be an officer, conversed with Wilhelm: he was evidently not a common man. His large, keen blue eyes, looking out from beneath a high brow; his light-colored hair, thrown carelessly back; his middle stature; every thing about him,  —  showed an active, firm, and decisive mode of being. His questions were lively. He seemed to be at home in all that he inquired about.

Wilhelm asked the baron what this person was, but found that he had little good to say of him. “He held the rank of major, was the special favorite of the prince; managed his most secret affairs; was, in short, regarded as his right arm,  —  nay, there was reason to believe him the prince’s natural son. He had been on embassies in France, England, Italy. In all those places he had greatly distinguished himself, by which means he was grown conceited; imagining, among other pretensions, that he thoroughly understood the literature of Germany, and allowing himself to vent all kinds of sorry jests upon it. He, the baron, was in the habit of avoiding all intercourse with him; and Wilhelm would do well to imitate that conduct, for it somehow happened that no one could be near him without being punished for it. He was called Jarno, though nobody knew rightly what to make of such a name.”

Wilhelm had nothing to urge against all this: he had felt a sort of inclination for the stranger, though he noticed in him something cold and repulsive.

The company being arranged and distributed throughout the castle, Melina issued the strictest orders that they should behave themselves with decency, the women live in a separate quarter, and each direct his whole attention to the study of dramatic art, and of the characters he had to play. He posted up written ordinances, consisting of many articles, upon all the doors. He settled the amount of fine which should be levied upon each transgressor, and put into a common box.

This edict was but little heeded. Young officers went out and in; they jested, not in the most modest fashion, with the actresses; made game of the actors, and annihilated the whole system of police before it had the smallest time to take root in the community. The people ran chasing one another through the rooms; they changed clothes; they disguised themselves. Melina, attempting to be rigorous with a few at first, was exasperated by every sort of insolence; and, when the count soon after sent for him to come and view the place where his theatre was to be erected, matters grew worse and worse. The young gentry devised a thousand broad jokes: by the help of some actors, they became yet coarser. It seemed as if the old castle had been altogether given up to an infuriate host, and the racket did not end till dinner.

Meanwhile, the count had led Melina over to a large hall, which, though belonging to the old castle, communicated by a gallery with the new one: it seemed very well adapted for being changed into a little theatre. Here the sagacious lord of the mansion pointed out in person how he wanted every thing to be.

The labor now commenced in the greatest haste; the stage apparatus was erected and furbished up; what decorations they had brought along with them and could employ were set in order, and what was wanting was prepared by some skilful workmen of the count’s. Wilhelm likewise put his hand to the business; he assisted in settling the perspective, in laying off the outlines of the scenery: he was very anxious that nothing should be executed clumsily. The count, who frequently came in to inspect their progress, was highly satisfied: he showed particularly how they should proceed in every case, displaying an uncommon knowledge of all the arts they were concerned with.

Next began the business of rehearsing, in good earnest; and there would have been enough of space and leisure for this undertaking, had the actors not continually been interrupted by the presence of visitors. Some new guests were daily arriving, and each insisted on viewing the operations of the company.

CHAPTER V.

The baron had, for several days, been cheering Wilhelm with the hope of being formally presented to the countess. “I have told this excellent lady,” said he, “so much about the talent and fine sentiment displayed in your compositions, that she feels quite impatient to see you, and hear one or two of them read. Be prepared, therefore, to come over at a moment’s notice; for, the first morning she is at leisure, you will certainly be called on.” He then pointed out to him the afterpiece it would be proper to produce on that occasion; adding, that doubtless it would recommend him to no usual degree of favor. The lady, he declared, was extremely sorry that a guest like him had happened to arrive at a time of such confusion, when they could not entertain him in a style more suitable to his merits and their own wishes.

In consequence of this information, Wilhelm, with the most sedulous attention, set about preparing the piece, which was to usher him into the great world. “Hitherto,” said he, “thou hast labored in silence for thyself, applauded only by a small circle of friends. Thou hast for a time despaired of thy abilities, and are yet full of anxious doubts whether even thy present path is the right one, and whether thy talent for the stage at all corresponds with thy inclination for it. In the hearing of such practised judges, in the closet where no illusion can take place, the attempt is far more hazardous than elsewhere; and yet I would not willingly recoil from the experiment: I could wish to add this pleasure to my former enjoyments, and, if it might be, to give extension and stability to my hopes from the future.”

He accordingly went through some pieces; read them with the keenest critical eye; made corrections here and there; recited them aloud, that he might be perfect in his tones and expression: and finally selected the work which he was best acquainted with, and hoped to gain most honor by. He put it in his pocket, one morning, on being summoned to attend the countess.

The baron had assured him that there would be no one present but the lady herself and a worthy female friend of hers. On entering the chamber, the Baroness von C  —    —  advanced with great friendliness to meet him, expressed her happiness at gaining his acquaintance, and introduced him to the countess, who was then under the hands of her hair-dresser. The countess received him with kind words and looks. But it vexed him to see Philina kneeling at her chair, and playing a thousand fooleries. “The poor child,” said the baroness, “has just been singing to us. Finish the song you were in the midst of: we should not like to lose it.”

Wilhelm listened to her quavering with great patience, being anxious for the friseur’s departure before he should begin to read. They offered him a cup of chocolate, the baroness herself handing him the biscuit. Yet, in spite of these civilities, he relished not his breakfast: he was longing too eagerly to lay before the lovely countess some performance that might interest and gratify her. Philina, too, stood somewhat in his way: on former occasions, while listening to him, she had more than once been troublesome. He looked at the friseur with a painful feeling, hoping every moment that the tower of curls would be complete.

Meanwhile the count came in, and began to talk of the fresh visitors he was expecting, of the day’s occupations or amusements, and of various domestic matters that were started. On his retiring, some officers sent to ask permission of the countess to pay their respects to her, as they had to leave the castle before dinner. The footman having come to his post at the door, she permitted him to usher in the gentlemen.

The baroness, amid these interruptions, took pains to entertain our friend, and showed him much consideration; all which he accepted with becoming reverence, though not without a little absence of mind. He often felt for the manuscript in his pocket, and hoped for his deliverance every instant. He was almost losing patience, when a man-milliner was introduced, and immediately began without mercy to open his papers, bags, and bandboxes; pressing all his various wares upon the ladies, with an importunity peculiar to that species of creature.

The company increased. The baroness cast a look at Wilhelm, and then whispered with the countess: he noticed this, but did not understand the purpose of it. The whole, however, became clear enough, when, after an hour of painful and fruitless endurance, he went away. He then found a beautiful pocket-book, of English manufacture, in his pocket. The baroness had dexterously put it there without his notice; and soon afterwards the countess’s little black came out, and handed him an elegantly flowered waistcoat, without very clearly saying whence it came.

CHAPTER VI.

This mingled feeling of vexation and gratitude spoiled the remainder of his day; till, towards evening, he once more found employment. Melina informed him that the count had been speaking of a little prelude, which he wished to have produced in honor of the prince, on the day of his Highness’s arrival. He meant to have the great qualities of this noble hero and philanthropist personified in the piece. These Virtues were to advance together, to recite his praises, and finally to encircle his bust with garlands of flowers and laurels; behind which a transparency might be inserted, representing the princely Hat, and his name illuminated on it. The count, Melina said, had ordered him to take charge of getting ready the verses and other arrangements; and Wilhelm, he hoped, to whom it must be an easy matter, would stand by him on this occasion.

“What!” exclaimed our friend, in a splenetic tone, “have we nothing but portraits, illuminated names, and allegorical figures, to show in honor of a prince, who, in my opinion, merits quite a different eulogy? How can it flatter any reasonable man to see himself set up in effigy, and his name glimmering on oiled paper? I am very much afraid that your allegories, particularly in the present state of the wardrobe, will furnish occasion for many ambiguities and jestings. If you mean, however, to compose the play, or have it composed, I can have nothing to object; only I desire to have no part or lot in the matter.”

Melina excused himself; alleging this to be only a casual hint of his lordship the count, who for the rest had left the arrangement of the piece entirely in their own hands. “With all my heart,” replied our friend, “will I contribute something to the pleasure of this noble family: my Muse has never had so pleasant an employment as to sing, though in broken numbers, the praises of a prince who merits so much veneration. I will think of the matter: perhaps I may be able to contrive some way of bringing out our little troop, so as at least to produce some effect.”

From this moment Wilhelm eagerly reflected on his undertaking. Before going to sleep he had got it all reduced to some degree of order; early next morning his plan was ready, the scenes laid out; a few of the most striking passages and songs were even versified and written down.

As soon as he was dressed, our friend made haste to wait upon the baron, to submit the plan to his inspection, and take his advice upon certain points connected with it. The baron testified his approbation of it, but not without considerable surprise. For, on the previous evening, he had heard his lordship talk of having ordered some quite different piece to be prepared and versified.

“To me it seems improbable,” replied our friend, “that it could be his lordship’s wish to have the piece got ready, exactly as he gave it to Melina. If I am not mistaken, he intended merely to point out to us from a distance the path we were to follow. The amateur and critic shows the artist what is wanted, and then leaves to him the care of producing it by his own means.”

“Not at all,” replied the baron: “his lordship understands that the piece shall be composed according to that and no other plan which he has himself prescribed. Yours has, indeed, a remote similarity with his idea; but if we mean to accomplish our purpose, and get the count diverted from his first thought, we shall need to employ the ladies in the matter. The baroness especially contrives to execute such operations in the most masterly manner: the question is now, whether your plan shall so please her, that she will undertake the business; in that case it will certainly succeed.”

“We need the assistance of the ladies,” said our friend, “at any rate; for neither our company nor our wardrobe would suffice without them. I have counted on some pretty children, that are running up and down the house, and belong to certain of the servants.”

He then desired the baron to communicate his plan to the ladies. The baron soon returned with intelligence that they wished to speak with Wilhelm personally. That same evening, when the gentlemen sat down to play, which, owing to the arrival of a certain general, was expected to be deeper and keener than usual, the countess and her friend, under pretext of some indisposition, would retire to their chamber, where Wilhelm, being introduced by a secret staircase, might submit his project without interruption. This sort of mystery, the baron said, would give the adventure a peculiar charm; in particular the baroness was rejoicing like a child in the prospect of their rendezvous, and the more so, because it was to be accomplished secretly, and against the inclination of the count.

Towards evening, at the appointed time, Wilhelm was sent for, and led in with caution. As the baroness advanced to meet him in a small cabinet, the manner of their interview brought former happy scenes for a moment to his mind. She conducted him along to the countess’s chamber, and they now proceeded earnestly to question and investigate. He exhibited his plan with the utmost warmth and vivacity, so that his fair audience were quite decided in its favor. Our readers also will permit us to present a brief sketch of it here.

The play was to open with a dance of children in some rural scene,  —  their dance representing that particular game wherein each has to wheel round, and gain the other’s place. This was to be followed by several variations of their play; till at last, in performing a dance of the repeating kind, they were all to sing a merry song.

Here the old harper with Mignon was to enter, and, by the curiosity which they excited, gather several country-people round them; the harper would sing various songs in praise of peace, repose, and joy; and Mignon would then dance the egg-dance.

In these innocent delights, they are disturbed by the sound of martial music; and the party are surprised by a troop of soldiers. The men stand on the defensive, and are overcome: the girls flee, and are overtaken. In the tumult all seems going to destruction, when a person (about whose form and qualities the poet was not yet determined) enters, and, by signifying that the general is near, restores composure. Whereupon the hero’s character is painted in the finest colors; security is promised in the midst of arms; violence and lawless disorder are now to be restrained. A universal festival is held in honor of the noble-minded captain.

The countess and her friend expressed great satisfaction with the plan; only they maintained that there must of necessity be something of allegory introduced, to make it palatable to his lordship. The baron proposed that the leader of the soldiers should be represented as the Genius of Dissension and Violence; that Minerva should then advance to bind fetters on him, to give notice of the hero’s approach, and celebrate his praise. The baroness undertook the task of persuading the count that this plan was the one proposed by himself, with a few alterations; at the same time expressly stipulating, that without fail, at the conclusion of the piece, the bust, the illuminated name, and the princely Hat should be exhibited in due order; since otherwise, her attempt was vain.

Wilhelm had already figured in his mind how delicately and how nobly he would have the praises of his hero celebrated in the mouth of Minerva, and it was not without a long struggle that he yielded in this point. Yet he felt himself delightfully constrained to yield. The beautiful eyes of the countess, and her lovely demeanor, would easily have moved him to sin against his conscience as a poet; to abandon the finest and most interesting invention, the keenly wished-for unity of his composition, and all its most suitable details. His conscience as a burgher had a trial no less hard to undergo, when the ladies, in distributing the characters, pointedly insisted that he must undertake one himself.

Laertes had received for his allotment the part of that violent war-god; Wilhelm was to represent the leader of the peasants, who had some very pretty and tender verses to recite. After long resistance he was forced to comply: he could find no excuse, when the baroness protested that their stage was in all respects to be regarded as a private one, and that she herself would very gladly play on it, if they could find her a fit occasion. On receiving his consent, they parted with our friend on the kindest terms. The baroness assured him that he was an incomparable man: she accompanied him to the little stairs, and wished him good-night with a squeeze of the hand.

CHAPTER VII.

The interest in his undertakings, which the countess and her friend expressed and felt so warmly, quickened Wilhelm’s faculties and zeal: the plan of his piece, which the process of describing it had rendered more distinct, was now present in the most brilliant vividness before his mind. He spent the greater part of that night, and the whole of next morning, in the sedulous versification of the dialogue and songs.

He had proceeded a considerable way, when a message came, requiring his attendance in the castle: the noble company, who were then at breakfast, wished to speak with him. As he entered the parlor, the baroness advanced to meet him, and, under pretext of wishing him good-morning, whispered cunningly, “Say nothing of your piece but what you shall be asked.”

“I hear,” cried the count to him, “that you are very busy working at my prelude, which I mean to present in honor of the prince. I consent that you introduce a Minerva into it; and we are just thinking beforehand how the goddess shall be dressed, that we may not blunder in costume. For this purpose I am causing them to fetch from the library all the books that contain any figures of her.”

At the same instant, one or two servants entered the parlor, with a huge basket full of books of every shape and appearance.

Montfaucon, the collections of antique statues, gems, and coins, all sorts of mythological writings, were turned up, and their plates compared. But this was not enough. The count’s faithful memory recalled to him all the Minervas to be found in frontispieces, vignettes, or anywhere else; and book after book was, in consequence, carried from the library, till finally the count was sitting in a chaos of volumes. Unable at last to recollect any other figure of Minerva, he observed with a smile, “I durst bet, that now there is not a single Minerva in all the library; and perhaps it is the first time that a collection of books has been so totally deprived of the presence of its patron goddess.”

The whole company were merry at this thought: Jarno particularly, who had all along been spurring on the count to call for more and more books, laughed quite immoderately.

“Now,” said the count, turning to Wilhelm, “one chief point is,  —  which goddess do you mean? Minerva, or Pallas? The goddess of war, or of the arts?”

“Would it not be best, your Excellency,” said Wilhelm, “if we were not clearly to express ourselves on this head; if, since the goddess plays a double part in the ancient mythology, we also exhibited her here in a double quality? She announces a warrior, but only to calm the tumults of the people; she celebrates a hero by exalting his humanity; she conquers violence, and restores peace and security.”

The baroness, afraid lest Wilhelm might betray himself, hastily pushed forward the countess’s tailor, to give his opinion how such an antique robe could best be got ready. This man, being frequently employed in making masquerade dresses, very easily contrived the business: and as Madam Melina, notwithstanding her advanced state of pregnancy, had undertaken to enact the celestial virgin, the tailor was directed to take her measure; and the countess, though with some reluctance, selected from the wardrobe the clothes he was to cut up for that purpose.

The baroness, in her dexterous way, again contrived to lead Wilhelm aside, and let him know that she had been providing all the other necessaries. Shortly afterwards she sent him the musician, who had charge of the count’s private band; and this professor set about composing what airs were wanted, or choosing from his actual stock such tunes as appeared suitable. From this time all went on according to the wishes of our friend: the count made no more inquiries about the piece; being altogether occupied with the transparent decoration, destined to surprise the spectators at the conclusion of the play. His inventive genius, aided by the skill of his confectioner, produced, in fact, a very pretty article. In the course of his travels, the count had witnessed the most splendid exhibitions of this sort: he had also brought home with him a number of copper-plates and drawings, and could sketch such things with considerable taste.

Meanwhile Wilhelm finished the play, gave every one his part, and began the study of his own. The musician also, having great skill in dancing, prepared the ballet; so that every thing proceeded as it ought.

Yet one unexpected obstacle occurred, which threatened to occasion an unpleasant gap in the performance. He had promised to himself a striking effect from Mignon’s egg-dance, and was much surprised when the child, with her customary dryness of manner, refused to dance; saying she was now his, and would no more go upon the stage. He sought to move her by every sort of persuasion, and did not discontinue his attempt till she began weeping bitterly, fell at his feet, and cried out, “Dearest father! stay thou from the boards thyself!” Little heeding this caution, he studied how to give the scene some other turn that might be equally interesting.

Philina, whose appointment was to act one of the peasant girls, and in the concluding dance to give the single-voice part of the song, and lead the chorus, felt exceedingly delighted that it had been so ordered. In other respects, too, her present life was altogether to her mind: she had her separate chamber; was constantly beside the countess, entertaining her with fooleries, and daily received some present for her pains. Among other things, a dress had been expressly made for her wearing in this prelude. And being of a light, imitative nature, she quickly marked in the procedure of the ladies whatever would befit herself: she had of late grown all politeness and decorum. The attentions of the Stallmeister augmented rather than diminished; and as the officers also paid zealous court to her, living in so genial an element, it came into her head for once in her life to play the prude, and, in a quiet, gradual way, to take upon herself a certain dignity of manner to which she had not before aspired. Cool and sharp-sighted as she was, eight days had not elapsed till she knew the weak side of every person in the house; so that, had she possessed the power of acting from any constant motive, she might very easily have made her fortune. But on this occasion, as on all others, she employed her advantages merely to divert herself,  —  to procure a bright to-day, and be impertinent, wherever she observed that impertinence was not attended with danger.

The parts were now committed to memory: a rehearsal of the piece was ordered; the count purposed to be present at it, and his lady began to feel anxious how he might receive it. The baroness called Wilhelm to her privately. The nearer the hour approached, they all displayed the more perplexity; for the truth was, that, of the count’s original idea, nothing whatever had been introduced. Jarno, who joined them while consulting together, was admitted to the secret. He felt amused at the contrivance, and was heartily disposed to offer the ladies his good services in carrying it through. “It will go hard,” said he, “if you cannot extricate yourselves without help from this affair; but, at all events, I will wait, as a body of reserve.” The baroness then told them how she had on various occasions recited the whole piece to the count, but only in fragments and without order; that consequently he was prepared for each individual passage, yet certainly possessed with the idea that the whole would coincide with his original conception. “I will sit by him,” said she, “to-night at the rehearsal, and study to divert his attention. The confectioner I have engaged already to make the decoration as beautiful as possible, but as yet he has not quite completed it.”

“I know of a court,” said Jarno, “where I wish we had a few such active and prudent friends as you. If your skill to-night will not suffice, give me a signal: I will take out the count, and not let him in again till Minerva enter; and you have speedy aid to expect from the illumination. For a day or two I have had something to report to him about his cousin, which for various reasons I have hitherto postponed. It will give his thoughts another turn, and that none of the pleasantest.”

Business hindered the count from being present when the play began; the baroness amused him after his arrival: Jarno’s help was not required. For as the count had abundance of employment in pointing out improvements, rectifying and arranging the detached parts, he entirely forgot the purport of the whole; and, as at last Madam Melina advanced, and spoke according to his heart, and the transparency did well, he seemed completely satisfied. It was not till the whole was finished, and his guests were sitting down to cards, that the difference appeared to strike him; and he began to think whether after all this piece was actually of his invention. At a signal from the baroness, Jarno then came forward into action; the evening passed away; the intelligence of the prince’s approach was confirmed; the people rode out more than once to see his vanguard encamping in the neighborhood; the house was full of noise and tumult; and our actors, not always served in the handsomest manner by unwilling servants, had to pass their time in practisings and expectations at their quarters in the old mansion, without any one particularly taking thought about them.

CHAPTER VIII.

At length the prince arrived, with all his generals, staff-officers, and suite accompanying him. These, and the multitude of people coming to visit or do business with him, made the castle like a beehive on the point of swarming. All pressed forward to behold a man no less distinguished by his rank than by his great qualities, and all admired his urbanity and condescension: all were astonished at finding the hero and the leader of armies also the most accomplished and attractive courtier.

By the count’s orders, the inmates of the castle were required to be all at their posts when the prince arrived: not a player was allowed to show himself, that his Highness might have no anticipation of the spectacle prepared to welcome him. Accordingly, when at evening he was led into the lofty hall, glowing with light, and adorned with tapestries of the previous century, he seemed not at all prepared to expect a play, and still less a prelude in honor of himself. Every thing went off as it should have done: at the conclusion of the show, the whole troop were called and presented individually to the prince, who contrived, with the most pleasing and friendly air, to put some question, or make some remark, to every one of them. Wilhelm, as author of the piece, was particularly noticed, and had his tribute of applause liberally paid him.

The prelude being fairly over, no one asked another word about it: in a few days, it was as if it never had existed; except that occasionally Jarno spoke of it to Wilhelm, judiciously praised it, adding, however, “It is pity you should play with hollow nuts, for a stake of hollow nuts.” This expression stuck in Wilhelm’s mind for several days: he knew not how to explain it, or what to infer from it.

Meanwhile the company kept acting every night, as well as their capacities permitted; each doing his utmost to attract the attention of spectators. Undeserved applauses cheered them on: in their old castle they fully believed, that the great assemblage was crowding thither solely on their account; that the multitude of strangers was allured by their exhibitions; that they were the centre round which, and by means of which, the whole was moving and revolving.

Wilhelm alone discovered, to his sorrow, that directly the reverse was true. For although the prince had waited out the first exhibitions, sitting on his chair, with the greatest conscientiousness, yet by degrees he grew remiss in his attendance, and seized every plausible occasion of withdrawing. And those very people whom Wilhelm, in conversation, had found to be the best informed and most sensible, with Jarno at their head, were wont to spend but a few transitory moments in the hall of the theatre; sitting for the rest of their time in the ante-chamber, gaming, or seeming to employ themselves in business.

Amid all his persevering efforts, to want the wished and hoped for approbation grieved Wilhelm very deeply. In the choice of plays, in transcribing the parts, in numerous rehearsals, and whatever further could be done, he zealously co-operated with Melina, who, being in secret conscious of his own insufficiency, at length acknowledged and pursued these counsels. His own parts, Wilhelm diligently studied, and executed with vivacity and feeling, and with all the propriety the little training he had yet received would allow.

At the same time, the unwearied interest the baron took in their performances obliterated every doubt from the minds of the rest of the company: he assured them that their exhibitions were producing the deepest effect, especially while one of his own pieces had been representing; only he was grieved to say, the prince showed an exclusive inclination for the French theatre; while a part of his people, among whom Jarno was especially distinguished, gave a passionate preference to the monstrous productions of the English stage.

If in this way the art of our players was not adequately noticed and admired, their persons on the other hand grew not entirely indifferent to all the gentlemen and all the ladies of the audience. We observed above, that, from the very first, our actresses had drawn upon them the attention of the young officers: in the sequel they were luckier, and made more important conquests. But, omitting these, we shall merely observe, that Wilhelm every day appeared more interesting to the countess; while in him, too, a silent inclination towards her was beginning to take root. Whenever he was on the stage, she could not turn her eyes from him; and, erelong, he seemed to play and to recite with his face towards her alone. To look upon each other, was to them the sweetest satisfaction; to which their harmless souls yielded without reserve, without cherishing a bolder wish, or thinking about any consequence.

As two hostile outposts will sometimes peacefully and pleasantly converse together across the river which divides them, not thinking of the war in which both their countries are engaged: so did the countess exchange looks full of meaning with our friend, across the vast chasm of birth and rank; both believing for themselves that they might safely cherish their several emotions.

The baroness, in the mean time, had selected Laertes, who, being a spirited and lively young man, pleased her very much; and who, woman-hater as he was, felt unwilling to refuse a passing adventure. He would actually on this occasion have been fettered, against his will, by the courteous and attractive nature of the baroness, had not the baron done him accidentally a piece of good, or, if you will, of bad, service, by instructing him a little in the habits and temper of this lady.

Laertes, happening once to celebrate her praises, and give her the preference to every other of her sex, the baron, with a grin, replied, “I see how matters stand: our fair friend has got a fresh inmate for her stalls.” This luckless comparison, which pointed too clearly to the dangerous caresses of the Circe, grieved poor Laertes to the heart: he could not listen to the baron without spite and anger, as the latter continued without mercy,  — 

“Every stranger thinks he is the first whom this delightful manner of proceeding has concerned, but he is grievously mistaken; for we have all, at one time or another, been trotted round this course. Man, youth, or boy, be who he like, each must devote himself to her service for a season, must hang about her, and toil and long to gain her favor.”

To the happy man just entering the garden of an enchantress, and welcomed by all the pleasures of an artificial spring, nothing can form a more unpleasant surprise, than if, while his ear is watching and drinking in the music of the nightingales, some transformed predecessor on a sudden grunts at his feet.

After this discovery, Laertes felt heartily ashamed that vanity should have again misled him to think well, even in the smallest degree, of any woman whatsoever. He now entirely forsook the baroness; kept by the Stallmeister, with whom he diligently fenced and hunted; conducting himself at rehearsals and representations as if these were but secondary matters.

The count and his lady would often in the mornings send for some of the company to attend them, and all had continual cause to envy the undeserved good fortune of Philina. The count kept his favorite, the Pedant, frequently for hours together, at his toilet. This genius had been dressed out by degrees: he was now equipped and furnished, even to watch and snuff-box.

Many times, too, particularly after dinner, the whole company were called out before the noble guests,  —  an honor which the artists regarded as the most flattering in the world; not observing, that on these very occasions the servants and huntsmen were ordered to bring in a multitude of hounds, and to lead strings of horses about the court of the castle.

Wilhelm had been counselled to praise Racine, the prince’s favorite, and thereby to attract some portion of his Highness’s favor to himself. On one of these afternoons, being summoned with the rest, he found an opportunity to introduce this topic. The prince asked him if he diligently read the great French dramatic writers, to which Wilhelm answered with a very eager “Yes.” He did not observe that his Highness, without waiting for the answer, was already on the point of turning round to some one else: he fixed upon him, on the contrary, almost stepping in his way, and proceeded to declare that he valued the French theatre very highly, and read the works of their great masters with delight; particularly he had learned with true joy that his Highness did complete justice to the great talents of Racine. “I can easily conceive,” continued he, “how people of high breeding and exalted rank must value a poet who has painted so excellently and so truly the circumstances of their lofty station. Corneille, if I may say so, has delineated great men; Racine, men of eminent rank. In reading his plays, I can always figure to myself the poet as living at a splendid court, with a great king before his eyes, in constant intercourse with the most distinguished persons, and penetrating into the secrets of human nature, as it works concealed behind the gorgeous tapestry of palaces. When I study his “Britannicus,” his “Bérénice,” it seems as if I were transported in person to the court, were initiated into the great and the little, in the habitations of these earthly gods: through the fine and delicate organs of my author, I see kings whom a nation adores, courtiers whom thousands envy, in their natural forms, with their failings and their pains. The anecdote of Racine’s dying of a broken heart, because Louis Fourteenth would no longer attend to him, and had shown him his dissatisfaction, is to me the key to all his works. It was impossible that a poet of his talents, whose life and death depended on the looks of a king, should not write such works as a king and a prince might applaud.”

Jarno had stepped near, and was listening with astonishment. The prince, who had made no answer, and had only shown his approbation by an assenting look, now turned aside; though Wilhelm, who did not know that it was contrary to etiquette to continue a discussion under such circumstances, and exhaust a subject, would gladly have spoken more, and convinced the prince that he had not read his favorite poet without sensibility and profit.

“Have you never,” said Jarno, taking him aside, “read one of Shakspeare’s plays?”

“No,” replied Wilhelm: “since the time when they became more known in Germany, I have myself grown unacquainted with the theatre; and I know not whether I should now rejoice that an old taste, and occupation of my youth, has been by chance renewed. In the mean time, all I have heard of these plays has excited no wish to become acquainted with such extraordinary monsters, which appear to set probability and dignity alike at defiance.”

“I would advise you,” said the other, “to make a trial, notwithstanding: it can do one no harm to look at what is extraordinary with one’s own eyes. I will lend you a volume or two; and you cannot better spend your time, than by casting every thing aside, and retiring to the solitude of your old habitation, to look into the magic-lantern of that unknown world. It is sinful of you to waste your hours in dressing out these apes to look more human, and teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I require,  —  you must not cavil at the form: the rest I can leave to your own good sense and feeling.”

The horses were standing at the door; and Jarno mounted with some other cavaliers, to go and hunt. Wilhelm looked after him with sadness. He would fain have spoken much with this man, who, though in a harsh, unfriendly way, gave him new ideas,  —  ideas he had need of.

Oftentimes a man, when approaching some development of his powers, capacities, and conceptions, gets into a perplexity, from which a prudent friend might easily deliver him. He resembles a traveller who, at but a short distance from the inn he is to rest at, falls into the water: were any one to catch him then, and pull him to the bank, with one good wetting it were over; whereas, though he struggles out himself, it is often at the side where he tumbled in; and he has to make a wide and dreary circuit before reaching his appointed object.

Wilhelm now began to have an inkling that things went forward in the world differently from what he had supposed. He now viewed close at hand the solemn and imposing life of the great and distinguished, and wondered at the easy dignity which they contrived to give it. An army on its march, a princely hero at the head of it, such a multitude of co-operating warriors, such a multitude of crowding worshippers, exalted his imagination. In this mood he received the promised books; and erelong, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid hold of him, and led him down to a shoreless ocean, where he soon completely forgot and lost himself.

CHAPTER IX.

The connection between the baron and the actors had suffered various changes since the arrival of the latter. At the commencement it had been productive of great satisfaction to both parties. As the baron for the first time in his life now saw one of those plays, with which he had already graced a private theatre, put into the hands of real actors, and in the fair way for a decent exhibition, he showed the benignest humor in the world. He was liberal in gifts: he bought little presents for the actresses from every millinery hawker, and contrived to send over many an odd bottle of champagne to the actors. In return for all this, our company took every sort of trouble with his play; and Wilhelm spared no diligence in learning, with extreme correctness, the sublime speeches of that very eminent hero, whose part had fallen to his share.

But, in spite of all these kind reciprocities, some clouds by degrees arose between the players and their patron. The baron’s preference for certain actors became daily more observable: this of necessity chagrined the rest. He exalted his favorites quite exclusively, and thus, of course, introduced disunion and jealousy among the company. Melina, without skill to help himself in dubious junctures, felt his situation very vexing. The persons eulogized accepted of their praise, without being singularly thankful for it; while the neglected gentlemen showed traces of their spleen by a thousand methods, and constantly found means to make it very disagreeable for their once much-honored patron to appear among them. Their spite received no little nourishment from a certain poem, by an unknown author, which made a great sensation in the castle. Previously to this the baron’s intercourse with the company had given rise to many little strokes of merriment; several stories had been raised about him; certain little incidents, adorned with suitable additions, and presented in the proper light, had been talked of, and made the subject of much bantering and laughter. At last it began to be said that a certain rivalry of trade was arising between him and some of the actors, who also looked upon themselves as writers. The poem we spoke of was founded upon this report: it ran as follows:  — 

“Lord Baron, I, poor devil, own With envy, you your rank and state; Your station, too, so near the throne; Of heirs your possessions great; Your father’s seat, with walls and mounds, His game-preserves, and hunting-grounds.

While me, poor devil, it appears, Lord Baron, you with envy view, Since Nature, from my early years, Has held me like a mother true, With heart and head both light, I poor, But no poor wight grew, to be sure.

My dear Lord Baron, now to me It seems, we well alone should let, That you your father’s son still be, And I remain my mother’s pet: Let’s free from envy live, and hate; Nor let’s desire each other’s title: No place you on Parnassus great, No noble rank I in requital.”  —  Editor’s Version.

Upon this poem, which various persons were possessed of, in copies scarcely legible, opinions were exceedingly divided. But who the author was, no one could guess; and, as some began to draw a spiteful mirth from it, our friend expressed himself against it very keenly.

“We Germans,” he exclaimed, “deserve to have our Muses still continue in the low contempt wherein they have languished so long; since we cannot value men of rank who take a share in our literature, no matter how! Birth, rank, and fortune are no wise incompatible with genius and taste; as foreign nations, reckoning among their best minds a great number of noblemen, can fully testify. Hitherto, indeed, it has been rare in Germany for men of high station to devote themselves to science; hitherto few famous names have become more famous by their love of art and learning; while many, on the other hand, have mounted out of darkness to distinction, and risen like unknown stars on the horizon. Yet such will not always be the case; and I greatly err, if the first classes of the nation are not even now in the way of also employing their advantages to earn the fairest laurels of the Muses, at no distant date. Nothing, therefore, grieves me more than to see the burgher jeering at the noble who can value literature; nay, even men of rank themselves, with inconsiderate caprice, maliciously scaring off their equal from a path where honor and contentment wait on all.”

Apparently this latter observation pointed at the count, of whom Wilhelm had heard that he liked the poem very much. In truth, this nobleman, accustomed to rally the baron in his own peculiar way, was extremely glad of such an opportunity to plague his kinsman more effectually. As to who the writer of the squib might be, each formed his own hypothesis; and the count, never willing that another should surpass him in acuteness, fell upon a thought, which, in a short time, he would have sworn to the truth of. The verses could be written, he believed, by no one but his Pedant, who was a very shrewd knave, and in whom, for a long while, he had noticed some touches of poetic genius. By way of proper treat, he therefore caused the Pedant one morning to be sent for, and made him read the poem, in his own manner, in presence of the countess, the baroness, and Jarno,  —  a service he was paid for by applauses, praises, and a present; and, on the count’s inquiring if he had not still some other poems of an earlier time, he cunningly contrived to evade the question. Thus did the Pedant get invested with the reputation of a poet and a wit, and, in the eyes of the baron’s friends, of a pasquinader and a bad-hearted man. From that period, play as he might, the count applauded him with greater zeal than ever; so that the poor wight grew at last inflated till he nearly lost his senses, and began to meditate having a chamber in the castle, like Philina.

Had this project been fulfilled at once, a great mishap might have been spared him. As he was returning late one evening from the castle, groping about in the dark, narrow way, he was suddenly laid hold of, and kept on the spot by some persons, while some others rained a shower of blows upon him, and battered him so stoutly, that in a few seconds he was lying almost dead upon the place, and could not without difficulty crawl in to his companions. These, indignant as they seemed to be at such an outrage, felt their secret joy in the adventure: they could hardly keep from laughing, at seeing him so thoroughly curried, and his new brown coat bedusted through and through, and bedaubed with white, as if he had had to do with millers.

The count, who soon got notice of the business, broke into a boundless rage. He treated this act as the most heinous crime, called it an infringement of the Burgfried, or peace of the castle, and caused his judge to make the strictest inquisition touching it. The whited coat, it was imagined, would afford a leading proof. Every creature that possibly could have the smallest trade with flour or powder in the castle was submitted to investigation, but in vain.

The baron solemnly protested on his honor, that although this sort of jesting had considerably displeased him, and the conduct of his lordship the count had not been the friendliest, yet he had got over the affair; and with respect to the misfortune which had come upon the poet, or pasquinader, or whatsoever his title might be, he knew absolutely nothing, and had not the most remote concern in it.

The operations of the strangers, and the general commotion of the house, soon effaced all recollection of the matter; and so, without redress, the unlucky favorite had to pay dear for the satisfaction of pluming himself, a short while, in feathers not his own.

Our troop, regularly acting every night, and on the whole very decently treated, now began to make more clamorous demands, the better they were dealt with. Erelong their victuals, drink, attendance, lodging, grew inadequate; and they called upon the baron, their protector, to provide more liberally for them, and at last make good those promises of comfortable entertainment, which he had been giving them so long. Their complaints grew louder, and the efforts of our friend to still them more and more abortive.

Meanwhile, excepting in rehearsals and hours of acting, Wilhelm scarcely ever came abroad. Shut up in one of the remotest chambers, to which Mignon and the harper alone had free access, he lived and moved in the Shakspearian world, feeling or knowing nothing but the movements of his own mind.

We have heard of some enchanter summoning, by magic formulas, a vast multitude of spiritual shapes into his cell. The conjurations are so powerful that the whole space of the apartment is quickly full; and the spirits, crowding on to the verge of the little circle which they must not pass, around this, and above the master’s head, keep increasing in number, and ever whirling in perpetual transformation. Every corner is crammed, every crevice is possessed. Embryos expand themselves, and giant-forms contract into the size of nuts. Unhappily the black-artist has forgot the counterword, with which he might command this flood of sprites again to ebb.

So sat Wilhelm in his privacy: with unknown movements, a thousand feelings and capacities awoke in him, of which he formerly had neither notion nor anticipation. Nothing could allure him from this state: he was vexed and restless if any one presumed to come to him, and talk of news or what was passing in the world.

Accordingly, he scarce took notice of the circumstance, when told that a judicial sentence was about being executed in the castle-yard,  —  the flogging of a boy, who had incurred suspicions of nocturnal housebreaking, and who, as he wore a peruke-maker’s coat, had most probably been one of the assaulters of the Pedant. The boy indeed, it seemed, denied most obstinately; so that they could not inflict a formal punishment, but meant to give him a slight memorial as a vagabond, and send him about his business; he having prowled about the neighborhood for several days, lain at night in the mills, and at last clapped a ladder to the garden-wall, and mounted over by it.

Our friend saw nothing very strange in the transaction, and was dismissing it altogether, when Mignon came running in, and assured him that the criminal was Friedrich, who, since the rencounter with the Stallmeister, had vanished from the company, and not again been heard of.

Feeling an interest in the boy, Wilhelm hastily arose: he found, in the court-yard of the castle, the preparations almost finished. The count loved solemnity on these occasions. The boy being now led out, our friend stepped forward, and entreated for delay, as he knew the boy, and had various things to say which might, perhaps, throw light on the affair. He had difficulty in succeeding, notwithstanding all his statements: at length, however, he did get permission to speak with the culprit in private. Friedrich averred, that, concerning the assault in which the Pedant had been used so harshly, he knew nothing whatever. He had merely been lurking about, and had come in at night to see Philina, whose room he had discovered, and would certainly have reached, had he not been taken by the way.

For the credit of the company, Wilhelm felt desirous not to have the truth of his adventure published. He hastened to the Stallmeister: he begged him to show favor, and, with his intimate knowledge of men and things about the castle, to find some means of quashing the affair, and dismissing the boy.

This whimsical gentleman, by Wilhelm’s help, invented a little story,  —  how the boy had belonged to the troop, had run away from it, but soon wished to get back, and be received again into his place; how he had accordingly been trying in the night to come at certain of his well-wishers, and solicit their assistance. It was testified by others that his former behavior had been good: the ladies put their hands to the work, and Friedrich was let go.

Wilhelm took him in,  —  a third person in that strange family, which for some time he had looked on as his own. The old man and little Mignon received the returning wanderer kindly; and all the three combined to serve their friend and guardian with attention, and procure him all the pleasure in their power.

CHAPTER X.

Philina now succeeded in insinuating farther every day into the favor of the ladies. Whenever they were by themselves, she was wont to lead the conversation on the men whom they saw about the castle; and our friend was not the last or least important that engaged them. The cunning girl was well aware that he had made a deep impression on the countess: she therefore talked about him often, telling much that she knew or did not know, only taking care to speak of nothing that might be interpreted against him; eulogizing, on the contrary, his nobleness of mind, his generosity, and, more than all, his modest and respectful conduct to the fair sex. To all inquiries made about him she replied with equal prudence; and the baroness, when she observed the growing inclination of her amiable friend, was likewise very glad at the discovery. Her own intrigues with several men, especially of late with Jarno, had not remained hidden from the countess, whose pure soul could not look upon such levities without disapprobation, and meek, though earnest, censures.

In this way both Philina and the baroness were personally interested in establishing a closer intercourse between the countess and our friend. Philina hoped, moreover, that there would occur some opportunity when she might once more labor for herself, and, if possible, get back the favor of the young man she had lost.

One day his lordship, with his guests, had ridden out to hunt; and their return was not expected till the morrow. On this the baroness devised a frolic, which was altogether in her way, for she loved disguises, and, in order to surprise her friends, would suddenly appear among them as a peasant-girl at one time, at another as a page, at another as a hunter’s boy. By which means she almost gave herself the air of a little fairy, that is present everywhere, and exactly in the place where it is least expected. Nothing could exceed this lady’s joy, if, without being recognized, she could contrive to wait upon the company for some time as a servant, or mix among them anyhow, and then at last in some sportful way disclose herself.

Towards night she sent for Wilhelm to her chamber, and, happening to have something else to do just then, left Philina to receive and prepare him.

He arrived, and found to his surprise, not the honorable lady, but the giddy girl, in the room. She received him with a certain dignified openness of manner, which she had of late been practising, and so constrained him likewise to be courteous.

At first she rallied him in general on the good fortune which pursued him everywhere, and which, as she could not but see, had led him hither in the present case. Then she delicately set before him the treatment with which of late he had afflicted her; she blamed and upbraided herself; confessed that she had but too well deserved such punishment; described with the greatest candor what she called her former situation; adding, that she would despise herself, if she were not capable of altering, and making herself worthy of his friendship.

Wilhelm was struck with this oration. He had too little knowledge of the world to understand that persons quite unstable, and incapable of all improvement, frequently accuse themselves in the bitterest manner, confessing and deploring their faults with extreme ingenuousness, though they possess not the smallest power within them to retire from that course, along which the irresistible tendency of their nature is dragging them forward. Accordingly, he could not find in his heart to behave inexorably to the graceful sinner: he entered into conversation, and learned from her the project of a singular disguisement, wherewith it was intended to surprise the countess.

He found some room for hesitation here, nor did he hide his scruples from Philina: but the baroness, entering at this moment, left him not an instant for reflection; she hurried him away with her, declaring it was just the proper hour.

It was now grown dark. She took him to the count’s wardrobe, made him change his own coat with his lordship’s silk night-gown, and put the cap with red trimmings on his head. She then led him forward to the cabinet; and bidding him sit down upon the large chair, and take a book, she lit the Argand lamp which stood before him, and showed him what he was to do, and what kind of part he had to play.

They would inform the countess, she said, of her husband’s unexpected arrival, and that he was in very bad humor. The countess would come in, walk up and down the room once or twice, then place herself beside the back of his chair, lay her arm upon his shoulder, and speak a few words. He was to play the cross husband as long and as well as possible; and, when obliged to disclose himself, he must behave politely, handsomely, and gallantly.

Wilhelm was left sitting, restlessly enough, in this singular mask. The proposal had come upon him by surprise: the execution of it got the start of the deliberation. The baroness had vanished from the room, before he saw how dangerous the post was which he had engaged to fill. He could not deny that the beauty, the youth, the gracefulness, of the countess had made some impression on him: but his nature was entirely averse to all empty gallantry, and his principles forbade any thought of more serious enterprises; so that his perplexity at this moment was in truth extreme. The fear of displeasing the countess, and that of pleasing her too well, were equally busy in his mind.

Every female charm that had ever acted on him, now showed itself again to his imagination. Mariana rose before him in her white morning-gown, and entreated his remembrance. Philina’s loveliness, her beautiful hair, her insinuating blandishments, had again become attractive by her late presence. Yet all this retired as if behind the veil of distance, when he figured to himself the noble, blooming countess, whose arm in a few minutes he would feel upon his neck, whose innocent caresses he was there to answer.

The strange mode in which he was to be delivered out of this perplexity he certainly did not anticipate. We may judge of his astonishment, nay, his terror, when the door opened behind him; and, at the first stolen look in the mirror, he quite clearly discerned the count coming in with a light in his hand. His doubt what he should do, whether he should sit still or rise, should flee, confess, deny, or beg forgiveness, lasted but a few instants. The count, who had remained motionless standing in the door, retired, and shut it softly. At the same moment, the baroness sprang forward by the side-door, extinguished the lamp, tore Wilhelm from his chair, and hurried him with her into the closet. Instantly he threw off the night-gown, and put it in its former place. The baroness took his coat under her arm, and hastened with him through several rooms, passages, and partitions into her chamber, where Wilhelm, so soon as she recovered breath, was informed, that on her going to the countess, and delivering the fictitious intelligence about her husband’s arrival, the countess had answered, “I know it already: what can have happened? I saw him riding in, at the postern, even now.” On which the baroness, in an excessive panic, had run to the count’s chamber to give warning.

“Unhappily you came too late!” said Wilhelm. “The count was in the room before you, and saw me sitting.”

“And recognized you?”

“That I know not. He was looking at me in the glass, as I at him; and, before I could well determine whether it was he or a spirit, he drew back, and closed the door behind him.”

The anxiety of the baroness increased, when a servant came to call her, signifying that the count was with his lady. She went with no light heart, and found the count silent and thoughtful, indeed, but milder and kinder in his words than usual. She knew not what to think of it. They spoke about the incidents of the chase, and the causes of his quick return. The conversation soon ran out. The count became taciturn; and it struck the baroness particularly, when he asked for Wilhelm, and expressed a wish that he were sent for, to come and read something.

Wilhelm, who had now dressed himself in the baroness’s chamber, and in some degree recovered his composure, obeyed the order, not without anxiety. The count gave him a book, out of which he read an adventurous tale, very little at his ease. His voice had a certain inconstancy and quivering in it, which fortunately corresponded with the import of the story. The count more than once gave kindly tokens of approval, and at last dismissed our friend, with praises of his exquisite manner of reading.

CHAPTER XI.

Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakspeare’s plays, till their effect on him became so strong that he could go no farther. His whole soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno; to whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for such delicious entertainment.

“I clearly enough foresaw,” said Jarno, “that you would not remain insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable of all writers.”

“Yes!” exclaimed our friend: “I cannot recollect that any book, any man, any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on me, as the precious works to which by your kindness I have been directed. They seem as if they were performances of some celestial genius, descending among men, to make them, by the mildest instructions, acquainted with themselves. They are no fictions! You would think, while reading them, you stood before the unclosed awful Books of Fate, while the whirlwind of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves, and tossing them fiercely to and fro. The strength and tenderness, the power and peacefulness, of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that I long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in my power to read farther.”

“Bravo!” said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend’s. “This is as it should be! And the consequences, which I hope for, will likewise surely follow.”

“I wish,” said Wilhelm, “I could but disclose to you all that is going on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards, often unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakspeare’s writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us, though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal, which pointed out, according to their use, the course of the hours and minutes; while, at the same time, you could discern the combination of wheels and springs that turned them. The few glances I have cast over Shakspeare’s world incite me, more than any thing beside, to quicken my footsteps forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that is suspended over it, and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land.”

“I feel delighted with the temper of mind in which I now behold you,” answered Jarno, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the excited youth: “renounce not the purpose of embarking in active life. Make haste to employ with alacrity the years that are granted you. If I can serve you, I will with all my heart. As yet I have not asked you how you came into this troop, for which you certainly were neither born nor bred. So much I hope and see,  —  you long to be out of it. I know nothing of your parentage, of your domestic circumstances: consider what you shall confide to me. Thus much only I can say: the times of war we live in may produce quick turns of fortune; did you incline devoting your strength and talents to our service, not fearing labor, and, if need were, danger, I might even now have an opportunity to put you in a situation, which you would not afterwards be sorry to have filled for a time.” Wilhelm could not sufficiently express his gratitude: he was ready to impart to his friend and patron the whole history of his life.

In the course of this conversation, they had wandered far into the park, and at last came upon the highway that crossed it. Jarno stood silent for a moment, and then said, “Deliberate on my proposal, determine, give me your answer in a few days, and then let me have the narrative you mean to trust me with. I assure you, it has all along to me seemed quite incomprehensible how you ever could have any thing to do with such a class of people. I have often thought with spleen and disgust, how, in order to gain a paltry living, you must fix your heart on a wandering ballad-monger, and a silly mongrel, neither male nor female.”

He had not yet concluded, when an officer on horseback came hastily along; a groom following him with a led horse. Jarno shouted a warm salutation to him. The officer sprang from his horse; Jarno and he embraced and talked together; while Wilhelm, confounded at the last expressions of his warlike friend, stood thoughtfully at a side. Jarno turned over some papers which the stranger had delivered to him; while the latter came to Wilhelm, held out his hand, and said with emphasis, “I find you in worthy company: follow the counsel of your friend, and, by doing so, accomplish likewise the desire of an unknown man, who takes a genuine interest in you.” So saying, he embraced Wilhelm, and pressed him cordially to his breast. At the same instant Jarno advanced, and said to the stranger, “It is best that I ride on with you: by this means you may get the necessary orders, and set out again before night.” Both then leaped into their saddles, and left our astonished friend to his own reflections.

Jarno’s last words were still ringing in his ears. It galled him to see the two human beings that had most innocently won his affections so grievously disparaged by a man whom he honored so much. The strange embracing of the officer, whom he knew not, made but a slight impression on him; it occupied his curiosity and his imagination for a moment: but Jarno’s speech had cut him to the heart; he was deeply hurt by it: and now, in his way homewards, he broke out into reproaches against himself, that he should for a single instant have mistaken or forgotten the unfeeling coldness of Jarno, which looked out from his very eyes, and spoke in all his gestures. “No!” exclaimed he, “thou conceivest, dead-hearted worldling, that thou canst be a friend! All that thou hast power to offer me is not worth the sentiment which binds me to these forlorn beings. How fortunate that I have discovered in time what I had to expect from thee!”

Mignon came to meet him as he entered: he clasped her in his arms, exclaiming, “Nothing, nothing, shall part us, thou good little creature! The seeming prudence of the world shall never cause me to forsake thee, or forget what I owe thee!”

The child, whose warm caresses he had been accustomed to avoid, rejoiced with all her heart at this unlooked-for show of tenderness, and clung so fast to him that he had some difficulty to get loose from her.

From this period he kept a stricter eye on Jarno’s conduct: many parts of it he did not think quite praiseworthy; nay, several things came out which totally displeased him. He had strong suspicions, for example, that the verses on the baron, which the poor Pedant had so dearly paid for, were composed by Jarno. And as the latter, in Wilhelm’s presence, had made sport of the adventure, our friend thought here was certainly a symptom of a most corrupted heart; for what could be more depraved than to treat a guiltless person, whose griefs one’s self had occasioned, with jeering and mockery, instead of trying to satisfy or to indemnify him? In this matter Wilhelm would himself willingly have brought about reparation; and erelong a very curious accident led him to obtain some traces of the persons concerned in that nocturnal outrage.

Hitherto his friends had contrived to keep him unacquainted with the fact, that some of the young officers were in the habit of passing whole nights in merriment and jollity, with certain actors and actresses, in the lower hall of the old castle. One morning, having risen early, according to his custom, he happened to visit this chamber, and found the gallant gentlemen just in the act of performing rather a singular operation. They had mixed a bowl of water with a quantity of chalk, and were plastering this gruel with a brush upon their waistcoats and pantaloons, without stripping; thus very expeditiously restoring the spotlessness of their apparel. On witnessing this piece of ingenuity, our friend was at once struck with the recollection of the poor Pedant’s whited and bedusted coat: his suspicions gathered strength when he learned that some relations of the baron were among the party.

To throw some light on his doubts, he engaged the youths to breakfast with him. They were very lively, and told a multitude of pleasant stories. One of them especially, who for a time had been on the recruiting-service, was loud in praising the craft and activity of his captain; who, it appeared, understood the art of alluring men of all kinds towards him, and overreaching every one by the deception proper for him. He circumstantially described how several young people of good families and careful education had been cozened, by playing off to them a thousand promises of honor and preferment; and he heartily laughed at the simpletons, who felt so gratified, when first enlisted, at the thought of being esteemed and introduced to notice by so reputable, prudent, bold, and munificent an officer.

Wilhelm blessed his better genius for having drawn him back in time from the abyss to whose brink he had approached so near. Jarno he now looked upon as nothing better than a crimp: the embrace of the stranger officer was easily explained. He viewed the feelings and opinions of these men with contempt and disgust; from that moment he carefully avoided coming into contact with any one that wore a uniform; and, when he heard that the army was about to move its quarters, the news would have been extremely welcome to him, if he had not feared, that, immediately on its departure, he himself must be banished from the neighborhood of his lovely friend, perhaps forever.

CHAPTER XII.

Meanwhile the baroness had spent several days disquieted by anxious fears and unsatisfied curiosity. Since the late adventure, the count’s demeanor had been altogether an enigma to her. His manner was changed: none of his customary jokes were to be heard. His demands on the company and the servants had very much abated. Little pedantry or imperiousness was now to be discerned in him; he was silent and thoughtful, yet withal he seemed composed and placid; in short, he was quite another man. In choosing the books, which now and then he caused to be read to him, those of a serious, often a religious, cast, were pitched upon; and the baroness lived in perpetual fright lest, beneath this apparent serenity, a secret rancor might be lurking,  —  a silent purpose to revenge the offence he had so accidentally discovered. She determined, therefore, to make Jarno her confidant; and this the more freely, as that gentleman and she already stood in a relation to each other where it is not usual to be very cautious in keeping secrets. For some time Jarno had been her dearest friend, yet they had been dexterous enough to conceal their attachment and joys from the noisy world in which they moved. To the countess alone this new romance had not remained unknown; and very possibly the baroness might wish to get her fair friend occupied with some similar engagement, and thus to escape the silent reproaches she had often to endure from that noble-minded woman.

Scarcely had the baroness related the occurrence to her lover, when he cried out laughing, “To a certainty the old fool believes that he has seen his ghost! He dreads that the vision may betoken some misfortune, perhaps death, to him; and so he is become quite tame, as all half-men do, in thinking of that consummation which no one has escaped or will escape. Softly a little! As I hope he will live long enough, we may now train him at least, so that he shall not again give disturbance to his wife and household.”

They accordingly, as soon as any opportunity occurred, began talking, in the presence of the count, about warnings, visions, apparitions, and the like. Jarno played the sceptic, the baroness likewise; and they carried it so far, that his lordship at last took Jarno aside, reproved him for his free-thinking, and produced his own experience to prove the possibility, nay, actual occurrence, of such preternatural events. Jarno affected to be struck, to be in doubt, and finally to be convinced; but, in private with his friend, he made himself so much the merrier at the credulous weakling, who had thus been cured of his evil habits by a bugbear, but who, they admitted, still deserved some praise for expecting dire calamity, or death itself, with such composure.

“The natural result which the present apparition might have had, would possibly have ruffled him!” exclaimed the baroness, with her wonted vivacity; to which, when anxiety was taken from her heart, she had instantly returned. Jarno was richly rewarded; and the two contrived fresh projects for frightening the count still further, and still further exciting and confirming the affection of the countess for Wilhelm.

With this intention, the whole story was related to the countess. She, indeed, expressed her displeasure at such conduct; but from that time she became more thoughtful, and in peaceful moments seemed to be considering, pursuing, and painting out that scene which had been prepared for her.

The preparations now going forward on every side left no room for doubt that the armies were soon to move in advance, and the prince at the same time to change his headquarters. It was even said that the count intended leaving his castle, and returning to the city. Our players could therefore, without difficulty, calculate the aspect of their stars; yet none of them, except Melina, took any measures in consequence: the rest strove only to catch as much enjoyment as they could from the moment that was passing over them.

Wilhelm, in the mean time, was engaged with a peculiar task. The countess had required from him a copy of his writings, and he looked on this request as the noblest recompense for his labors.

A young author, who has not yet seen himself in print, will, in such a case, apply no ordinary care to provide a clear and beautiful transcript of his works. It is like the golden age of authorship: he feels transported into those centuries when the press had not inundated the world with so many useless writings, when none but excellent performances were copied, and kept by the noblest men; and he easily admits the illusion, that his own accurately ruled and measured manuscript may itself prove an excellent performance, worthy to be kept and valued by some future critic.

The prince being shortly to depart, a great entertainment had been appointed in honor of him. Many ladies of the neighborhood were invited, and the countess had dressed betimes. On this occasion she had taken a costlier suit than usual. Her head-dress, and the decorations of her hair, were more exquisite and studied: she wore all her jewels. The baroness, too, had done her utmost to appear with becoming taste and splendor.

Philina, observing that both ladies, in expectation of their guests, felt the time rather tedious, proposed to send for Wilhelm, who was wishing to present his manuscript, now completed, and to read them some other little pieces. He came, and on his entrance was astonished at the form and the graces of the countess, which her decorations had but made more visible and striking. Being ordered by the ladies, he began to read; but with so much absence of mind, and so badly, that, had not his audience been excessively indulgent, they would very soon have dismissed him.

Every time he looked at the countess, it seemed to him as if a spark of electric fire were glancing before his eyes. In the end he knew not where to find the breath he wanted for his reading. The countess had always pleased him, but now it appeared as if he never had beheld a being so perfect and so lovely. A thousand thoughts flitted up and down his soul: what follows might be nearly their substance.

“How foolish is it in so many poets, and men of sentiment as they are called, to make war on pomp and decoration; requiring that women of all ranks should wear no dress but what is simple, and conformable to nature! They rail at decoration, without once considering, that, when we see a plain or positively ugly person clothed in a costly and gorgeous fashion, it is not the poor decoration that displeases us. I would assemble all the judges in the world, and ask them here if they wished to see one of these folds, of these ribbons and laces, these braids, ringlets, and glancing stones, removed? Would they not dread disturbing the delightful impression that so naturally and spontaneously meets us here? Yes, naturally I will say! As Minerva sprang in complete armor from the head of Jove; so does this goddess seem to have stepped forth with a light foot, in all her ornaments, from the bosom of some flower.”

While reading, he turned his eyes upon her frequently, as if he wished to stamp this image on his soul forever: he more than once read wrong, yet without falling into confusion of mind; though, at other times, he used to feel the mistaking of a word or a letter as a painful deformity, which spoiled a whole recitation.

A false alarm of the arrival of the guests put an end to the reading; the baroness went out; and the countess, while about to shut her writing-desk, which was standing open, took up her casket, and put some other rings upon her finger. “We are soon to part,” said she, keeping her eyes upon the casket: “accept a memorial of a true friend, who wishes nothing more earnestly than that you may always prosper.” She then took out a ring, which, underneath a crystal, bore a little plait of woven hair beautifully set with diamonds. She held it out to Wilhelm, who, on taking it, knew neither what to say nor do, but stood as if rooted to the ground. The countess shut her desk, and sat down upon the sofa.

“And I must go empty?” said Philina, kneeling down at the countess’s right hand. “Do but look at the man: he carries such a store of words in his mouth, when no one wants to hear them; and now he cannot stammer out the poorest syllable of thanks. Quick, sir! Express your services by way of pantomime at least; and if to-day you can invent nothing, then, for Heaven’s sake, be my imitator.”

Philina seized the right hand of the countess, and kissed it warmly. Wilhelm sank upon his knee, laid hold of the left, and pressed it to his lips. The countess seemed embarrassed, yet without displeasure.

“Ah!” cried Philina, “so much splendor of attire, I may have seen before, but never one so fit to wear it. What bracelets, but also what a hand! What a neckdress, but also what a bosom.”

“Peace, little cozener!” said the countess.

“Is this his lordship, then?” said Philina, pointing to a rich medallion, which the countess wore on her left side, by a particular chain.

“He is painted in his bridegroom-dress,” replied the countess.

“Was he, then, so young?” inquired Philina: “I know it is but a year or two since you were married.”

“His youth must be placed to the artist’s account,” replied the lady.

“He is a handsome man,” observed Philina. “But was there never,” she continued, placing her hand on the countess’s heart, “never any other image that found its way in secret hither?”

“Thou art very bold, Philina,” cried she: “I have spoiled thee. Let me never hear the like again.”

“If you are angry, then am I unhappy,” said Philina, springing up, and hastening from the room.

Wilhelm still held that lovely hand in both of his. His eyes were fixed on the bracelet-clasp: he noticed, with extreme surprise, that his initials were traced on it, in lines of brilliants.

“Have I, then,” he modestly inquired, “your own hair in this precious ring?”

“Yes,” replied she in a faint voice; then, suddenly collecting herself, she said, and pressed his hand, “Arise, and fare you well!”

“Here is my name,” cried he, “by the most curious chance!” He pointed to the bracelet-clasp.

“How?” cried the countess: “it is the cipher of a female friend!”

“They are the initials of my name. Forget me not. Your image is engraven on my heart, and will never be effaced. Farewell! I must be gone.”

He kissed her hand, and meant to rise; but, as in dreams, some strange thing fades and changes into something stranger, and the succeeding wonder takes us by surprise; so, without knowing how it happened, he found the countess in his arms: her lips were resting upon his, and their warm mutual kisses were yielding them that blessedness which mortals sip from the topmost sparkling foam on the freshly poured cup of love.

Her head lay on his shoulder: the disordered ringlets and ruffles were forgotten. She had thrown her arm round him: he clasped her with vivacity, and pressed her again and again to his breast. Oh that such a moment could but last forever! And woe to envious Fate that shortened even this brief moment to our friends!

How terrified was Wilhelm, how astounded did he start from his happy dream, when the countess, with a shriek, on a sudden tore herself away, and hastily pressed her hand against her heart.

He stood confounded before her: she held the other hand upon her eyes, and, after a moment’s pause, exclaimed, “Away! leave me! delay not!”

He continued standing.

“Leave me!” she cried; and, taking off her hand from her eyes, she looked at him with an indescribable expression of countenance, and added, in the most tender and affecting voice, “Flee, if you love me.”

Wilhelm was out of the chamber, and again in his room, before he knew what he was doing.

Unhappy creatures! What singular warning of chance or of destiny tore them asunder?

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

Laertes was standing at the window in a thoughtful mood, resting on his arm, and looking out into the fields. Philina came gliding towards him, across the large hall: she leaned upon him, and began to mock him for his serious looks.

“Do not laugh,” replied he: “it is frightful to think how time goes on, how all things change and have an end. See here! A little while ago there was a stately camp: how pleasantly the tents looked! what restless life and motion was within them! how carefully they watched the whole enclosure! And, behold, it is all vanished in a day! For a short while, that trampled straw, those holes which the cooks have dug, will show a trace of what was here; and soon the whole will be ploughed and reaped as formerly, and the presence of so many thousand gallant fellows in this quarter will but glimmer in the memories of one or two old men.”

Philina began to sing, and dragged forth her friend to dance with her in the hall. “Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is past,” cried she, “let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.”

They had scarcely made a step or two, when Frau Melina came walking through the hall. Philina was wicked enough to invite her to join them in the dance, and thus to bring her in mind of the shape to which her pregnancy had reduced her.

“That I might never more see a woman in an interesting situation!” said Philina, when her back was turned.

“Yet she feels an interest in it,” said Laertes.

“But she manages so shockingly. Didst thou notice that wabbling fold of her shortened petticoat, which always travels out before her when she moves? She has not the smallest knack or skill to trim herself a little, and conceal her state.”

“Let her be,” said Laertes. “Time will soon come to her aid.”

“It were prettier, however,” cried Philina, “if we could shake children from the trees.”

The baron entered, and spoke some kind words to them, adding a few presents, in the name of the count and the countess, who had left the place very early in the morning. He then went to Wilhelm, who was busy in the side-chamber with Mignon. She had been extremely affectionate and taking; had asked minutely about Wilhelm’s parents, brothers, sisters, and relations; and so brought to his mind the duty he owed his people, to send them some tidings of himself.

With the farewell compliments of the family, the baron delivered him an assurance from the count, that his lordship had been exceedingly obliged by his acting, his poetical labors, and theatrical exertions. For proof of this statement, the baron then drew forth a purse, through whose beautiful texture the bright glance of new gold coin was sparkling out. Wilhelm drew back, refusing to accept of it.

“Look upon this gift,” said the baron, “as a compensation for your time, as an acknowledgment of your trouble, not as the reward of your talents. If genius procures us a good name and good will from men, it is fair likewise, that, by our diligence and efforts, we should earn the means to satisfy our wants; since, after all, we are not wholly spirit. Had we been in town, where every thing is to be got, we should have changed this little sum into a watch, a ring, or something of that sort; but, as it is, I must place the magic rod in your own hands; procure a trinket with it, such as may please you best and be of greatest use, and keep it for our sakes. At the same time, you must not forget to hold the purse in honor. It was knit by the fingers of our ladies: they meant that the cover should give to its contents the most pleasing form.”

“Forgive my embarrassment,” said Wilhelm, “and my doubts about accepting this present. It, as it were, annihilates the little I have done, and hinders the free play of happy recollection. Money is a fine thing, when any matter is to be completely settled and abolished: I feel unwilling to be so entirely abolished from the recollection of your house.”

“That is not the case,” replied the baron; “but, feeling so tenderly yourself, you could not wish that the count should be obliged to consider himself wholly your debtor, especially when I assure you that his lordship’s highest ambition has always consisted in being punctual and just. He is not uninformed of the labor you have undergone, or of the zeal with which you have devoted all your time to execute his views; nay, he is aware, that, to quicken certain operations, you have even expended money of your own. With what face shall I appear before him, then, if I cannot say that his acknowledgment has given you satisfaction?”

“If I thought only of myself,” said Wilhelm, “if I might follow merely the dictates of my own feelings, I should certainly, in spite of all these reasons, steadfastly refuse this gift, generous and honorable as it is; but I will not deny, that, at the very moment when it brings me into one perplexity, it frees me from another, into which I have lately fallen with regard to my relations, and which has in secret caused me much uneasiness. My management, not only of the time, but also of the money, for which I have to give account, has not been the best; and now, by the kindness of his lordship, I shall be enabled, with confidence, to give my people news of the good fortune to which this curious by-path has led me. I therefore sacrifice those feelings of delicacy, which, like a tender conscience, admonish us on such occasions, to a higher duty; and, that I may appear courageously before my father, I must consent to stand ashamed before you.”

“It is singular,” replied the baron, “to see what a world of hesitation people feel about accepting money from their friends and patrons, though ready to receive any other gift with joy and thankfulness. Human nature manifests some other such peculiarities, by which many scruples of a similar kind are produced and carefully cherished.”

“Is it not the same with all points of honor?” said our friend.

“It is so,” replied the baron, “and with several other prejudices. We must not root them out, lest in doing so we tear up noble plants along with them. Yet I am always glad when I meet with men that feel superior to such objections, when the case requires it; and I recall with pleasure the story of that ingenious poet who had written several plays for the court-theatre, which met with the monarch’s warmest approbation. ‘I must give him a distinguished recompense,’ said the generous prince: ‘ask him whether he would choose to have some jewel given him, or if he would disdain to accept a sum of money.’ In his humorous way, the poet answered the inquiring courtier, ‘I am thankful, with all my heart, for these gracious purposes; and, as the emperor is daily taking money from us, I see not wherefore I should feel ashamed of taking some from him.’“

Scarcely had the baron left the room, when Wilhelm eagerly began to count the cash, which had come to him so unexpectedly, and, as he thought, so undeservedly. It seemed as if the worth and dignity of gold, not usually felt till later years, had now, by anticipation, twinkled in his eyes for the first time, as the fine, glancing coins rolled out from the beautiful purse. He reckoned up, and found, that, particularly as Melina had engaged immediately to pay the loan, he had now as much or more on the right side of his account as on that day when Philina first asked him for the nosegay. With a little secret satisfaction, he looked upon his talents; with a little pride, upon the fortune which had led and attended him. He now seized the pen, with an assured mind, to write a letter which might free his family from their anxieties, and set his late proceedings in the most favorable light. He abstained from any special narrative, and only by significant and mysterious hints left them room for guessing at what had befallen him. The good condition of his cash-book, the advantage he had earned by his talents, the favor of the great and of the fair, acquaintance with a wider circle, the improvement of his bodily and mental gifts, his hopes from the future, altogether formed such a fair cloud-picture, that Fata Morgana itself could scarcely have thrown together a stranger or a better.

In this happy exaltation, the letter being folded up, he went on to maintain a conversation with himself, recapitulating what he had been writing, and pointing out for himself an active and glorious future. The example of so many gallant warriors had fired him; the poetry of Shakspeare had opened a new world to him; from the lips of the beautiful countess he had inhaled an inexpressible inspiration. All this could not and would not be without effect.

The Stallmeister came to inquire whether they were ready with their packing. Alas! with the single exception of Melina, no one of them had thought of it. Now, however, they were speedily to be in motion. The count had engaged to have the whole party conveyed forward a few days’ journey on their way: the horses were now in readiness, and could not long be wanted. Wilhelm asked for his trunk: Frau Melina had taken it to put her own things in. He asked for money: Herr Melina had stowed it all far down at the bottom of his box. Philina said she had still some room in hers: she took Wilhelm’s clothes, and bade Mignon bring the rest. Wilhelm, not without reluctance, was obliged to let it be so.

While they were loading, and getting all things ready, Melina said, “I am sorry we should travel like mountebanks and rope-dancers. I could wish that Mignon would put on girl’s clothes, and that the harper would let his beard be shorn.” Mignon clung firmly to Wilhelm, and cried, with great vivacity, “I am a boy  —  I will be no girl!” The old man held his peace; and Philina, on this suggestion, made some merry observations on the singularity of their protector, the count. “If the harper should cut off his beard,” said she, “let him sew it carefully upon a ribbon, and keep it by him, that he may put it on again whenever his lordship the count falls in with him in any quarter of the world. It was this beard alone that procured him the favor of his lordship.”

On being pressed to give an explanation of this singular speech, Philina said to them, “The count thinks it contributes very much to the completeness of theatrical illusion if the actor continues to play his part, and to sustain his character, even in common life. It was for this reason that he showed such favor to the Pedant: and he judged it, in like manner, very fitting that the harper not only wore his false beard at nights on the stage, but also constantly by day; and he used to be delighted at the natural appearance of the mask.”

While the rest were laughing at this error, and the other strange opinions of the count, the harper led our friend aside, took leave of him, and begged, with tears, that he would even now let him go. Wilhelm spoke to him, declaring that he would protect him against all the world; that no one should touch a hair of his head, much less send him off against his will.

The old man seemed affected deeply: an unwonted fire was glowing in his eyes. “It is not that,” cried he, “which drives me away. I have long been reproaching myself in secret for staying with you. I ought to linger nowhere; for misfortune flies to overtake me, and injures all that are connected with me. Dread every thing, unless you dismiss me; but ask me no questions. I belong not to myself. I cannot stay.”

“To whom dost thou belong? Who can exert such a power on thee?”

“Leave me my horrid secret, and let me go! The vengeance which pursues me is not of the earthly judge. I belong to an inexorable destiny. I cannot stay, and I dare not.”

“In the situation I see thee in, I shall certainly not let thee go.”

“It were high treason against you, my benefactor, if I should delay. I am secure while with you, but you are in peril. You know not whom you keep beside you. I am guilty, but more wretched than guilty. My presence scares happiness away, and good deeds grow powerless when I become concerned in them. Fugitive, unresting I should be, that my evil genius might not seize me, which pursues but at a distance, and only appears when I have found a place, and am laying down my head to seek repose. More grateful I cannot show myself than by forsaking you.”

“Strange man! Thou canst neither take away the confidence I place in thee, nor the hope I feel to see thee happy. I wish not to penetrate the secrets of thy superstition; but if thou livest in belief of wonderful forebodings, and entanglements of fate, then, to cheer and hearten thee, I say, unite thyself to my good fortune, and let us see which genius is the stronger, thy dark or my bright one.”

Wilhelm seized this opportunity of suggesting to him many other comfortable things; for of late our friend had begun to imagine that this singular attendant of his must be a man, who, by chance or destiny, had been led into some weighty crime, the remembrance of which he was ever bearing on his conscience.

A few days ago Wilhelm, listening to his singing, had observed attentively the following lines:  — 

“For him the light of ruddy morn But paints the horizon red with flame; And voices, from the depths of nature borne, Woe! woe! upon his guilty head proclaim.”

But, let the old man urge what arguments he pleased, our friend had constantly a stronger argument at hand. He turned every thing on its fairest side; spoke so bravely, heartily, and cheerily, that even the old man seemed again to gather spirits, and to throw aside his whims.

CHAPTER II.

Melina was in hopes to get established, with his company, in a small but thriving town at some distance. They had already reached the place where the count’s horses were to turn, and now they looked about for other carriages and cattle to transport them onward. Melina had engaged to provide them a conveyance: he showed himself but niggardly, according to his custom. Wilhelm, on the contrary, had the shining ducats of the countess in his pocket, and thought he had the fullest right to spend them merrily; forgetting very soon how ostentatiously he had produced them in the stately balance transmitted to his father.

His friend Shakspeare, whom with the greatest joy he acknowledged as his godfather, and rejoiced the more that his name was Wilhelm, had introduced him to a prince, who frolicked for a time among mean, nay, vicious companions, and who, notwithstanding his nobleness of nature, found pleasure in the rudeness, indecency, and coarse intemperance of these altogether sensual knaves. This ideal likeness, which he figured as the type and the excuse of his own actual condition, was most welcome to our friend; and the process of self-deception, to which already he displayed an almost invincible tendency, was thereby very much facilitated.

He now began to think about his dress. It struck him that a waistcoat, over which, in case of need, one could throw a little short mantle, was a very fit thing for a traveller. Long knit pantaloons, and a pair of lacing-boots, seemed the true garb of a pedestrian. He next procured a fine silk sash, which he tied about him, under the pretence at first of securing warmth for his person. On the other hand, he freed his neck from the tyranny of stocks, and got a few stripes of muslin sewed upon his shirt; making the pieces of considerable breadth, so that they presented the complete appearance of an ancient ruff. The beautiful silk neckerchief, the memorial of Mariana, which had once been saved from burning, now lay slackly tied beneath this muslin collar. A round hat, with a party-colored band, and a large feather, perfected the mask.

The women all asserted that this garb became him very well. Philina in particular appeared enchanted with it. She solicited his hair for herself,  —  beautiful locks, which, the closer to approach the natural ideal, he had unmercifully clipped. By so doing she recommended herself not amiss to his favor; and our friend, who by his open-handedness had acquired the right of treating his companions somewhat in Prince Harry’s manner, erelong fell into the humor of himself contriving a few wild tricks, and presiding in the execution of them. The people fenced, they danced, they devised all kinds of sports, and, in their gayety of heart, partook of what tolerable wine they could fall in with in copious proportions; while, amid the disorder of this tumultuous life, Philina lay in wait for the coy hero,  —  over whom let his better genius keep watch!

One chief diversion, which yielded the company a frequent and very pleasing entertainment, consisted in producing an extempore play, in which their late benefactors and patrons were mimicked, and turned into ridicule. Some of our actors had seized very neatly whatever was peculiar in the outward manner of several distinguished people in the count’s establishment; their imitation of these was received by the rest of the party with the greatest approbation: and when Philina produced, from the secret archives of her experience, certain peculiar declarations of love that had been made to her, the audience were like to die with laughing and malicious joy.

Wilhelm censured their ingratitude; but they told him in reply that these gentry well deserved what they were getting, their general conduct toward such deserving people, a sour friends believed themselves, not having been by any means the best imaginable. The little consideration, the neglect they had experienced, were now described with many aggravations. The jesting, bantering, and mimicry proceeded as before: our party were growing bitterer and more unjust every minute.

“I wish,” observed Wilhelm, “there were no envy or selfishness lurking under what you say, but that you would regard those persons and their station in the proper point of view. It is a peculiar thing to be placed, by one’s very birth, in an elevated situation in society. The man for whom inherited wealth has secured a perfect freedom of existence; who finds himself from his youth upwards abundantly encompassed with all the secondary essentials, so to speak, of human life,  —  will generally become accustomed to consider these qualifications as the first and greatest of all; while the worth of that mode of human life, which nature from her own stores equips and furnishes, will strike him much more faintly. The behavior of noblemen to their inferiors, and likewise to each other, is regulated by external preferences. They give each credit for his title, his rank, his clothes, and equipage; but his individual merits come not into play.”

This speech was honored with the company’s unbounded applause. They declared it to be shameful, that men of merit should constantly be pushed into the background; and that, in the great world, there should not be a trace of natural and hearty intercourse. On this latter point particularly they overshot all bounds.

“Blame them not for it,” said Wilhelm, “rather pity them! They have seldom an exalted feeling of that happiness which we admit to be the highest that can flow from the inward abundance of nature. Only to us poor creatures is it granted to enjoy the happiness of friendship in its richest fulness. Those dear to us we cannot elevate by our countenance, or advance by our favor, or make happy by our presents. We have nothing but ourselves. This whole self we must give away; and, if it is to be of any value, we must make our friend secure of it forever. What an enjoyment, what a happiness, for giver and receiver! With what blessedness does truth of affection invest our situation! It gives to the transitory life of man a heavenly certainty: it forms the crown and capital of all that we possess.”

While he spoke thus, Mignon had come near him: she threw her little arms round him, and stood with her cheek resting on his breast. He laid his hand on the child’s head, and proceeded, “It is easy for a great man to win our minds to him, easy to make our hearts his own. A mild and pleasant manner, a manner only not inhuman, will of itself do wonders,  —  and how many means does he possess of holding fast the affections he has once conquered? To us, all this occurs less frequently; to us it is all more difficult; and we naturally, therefore, put a greater value on whatever, in the way of mutual kindness, we acquire and accomplish. What touching examples of faithful servants giving themselves up to danger and death for their masters? How finely has Shakspeare painted out such things to us! Fidelity, in this case, is the effort of a noble soul, struggling to become equal with one exalted above it. By steadfast attachment and love, the servant is made equal to his lord, who, but for this, is justified in looking on him as a hired slave. Yes, these virtues belong to the lower class of men alone: that class cannot do without them, and with them it has a beauty of its own. Whoever is enabled to requite all favors easily will likewise easily be tempted to raise himself above the habit of acknowledgment. Nay, in this sense, I am of opinion it might almost be maintained, that a great man may possess friends, but cannot be one.”

Mignon clung more and more closely to him.

“It may be so,” replied one of the party: “we do not need their friendship, and do not ask it. But it were well if they understood a little more about the arts, which they affect to patronize. When we played in the best style, there was none to mind us: it was all sheer partiality. Any one they chose to favor, pleased; and they did not choose to favor those that merited to please. It was intolerable to observe how often silliness and mere stupidity attracted notice and applause.”

“When I abate from this,” said Wilhelm, “what seemed to spring from irony and malice, I think we may nearly say, that one fares in art as he does in love. And, after all, how shall a fashionable man of the world, with his dissipated habits, attain that intimate presence with a special object, which an artist must long continue in, if he would produce any thing approaching to perfection,  —  a state of feeling without which it is impossible for any one to take such an interest, as the artist hopes and wishes, in his work?

“Believe me, my friends, it is with talents as with virtue; one must love them for their own sake, or entirely renounce them. And neither of them is acknowledged and rewarded, except when their possessor can practise them unseen, like a dangerous secret.”

“Meanwhile, until some proper judge discovers us, we may all die of hunger,” cried a fellow in the corner.

“Not quite inevitably,” answered Wilhelm. “I have observed, that, so long as one stirs and lives, one always finds food and raiment, though they be not of the richest sort. And why should we repine? Were we not, altogether unexpectedly, and when our prospects were the very worst, taken kindly by the hand, and substantially entertained? And now, when we are in want of nothing, does it once occur to us to attempt any thing for our improvement, or to strive, though never so faintly, towards advancement in our art? We are busied about indifferent matters; and, like school-boys, we are casting all aside that might bring our lesson to our thoughts.”

“In sad truth,” said Philina, “it is even so! Let us choose a play: we will go through it on the spot. Each of us must do his best, as if he stood before the largest audience.”

They did not long deliberate: a play was fixed on. It was one of those which at that time were meeting great applause in Germany, and have now passed away. Some of the party whistled a symphony; each speedily bethought him of his part; they commenced, and acted the entire play with the greatest attention, and really well beyond expectation. Mutual applauses circulated: our friends had seldom been so pleasantly diverted.

On finishing, they all felt exceedingly contented, partly on account of their time being spent so well, partly because each of them experienced some degree of satisfaction with his own performance. Wilhelm expressed himself copiously in their praise: the conversation grew cheerful and merry.

“You would see,” cried our friend, “what advances we should make, if we continued this sort of training, and ceased to confine our attention to mere learning by heart, rehearsing and playing mechanically, as if it were a barren duty, or some handicraft employment. How different a character do our musical professors merit! What interest they take in their art! how correct are they in the practisings they undertake in common! What pains they are at in tuning their instruments; how exactly they observe time; how delicately they express the strength and the weakness of their tones! No one there thinks of gaining credit to himself by a loud accompaniment of the solo of another. Each tries to play in the spirit of the composer, each to express well whatever is committed to him, be it much or little.

“Should not we, too, go as strictly and as ingeniously to work, seeing we practise an art far more delicate than that of music,  —  seeing we are called on to express the commonest and the strangest emotions of human nature, with elegance, and so as to delight? Can any thing be more shocking than to slur over our rehearsal, and in our acting to depend on good luck, or the capricious choice of the moment? We ought to place our highest happiness and satisfaction in mutually desiring to gain each other’s approbation: we should even value the applauses of the public only in so far as we have previously sanctioned them among ourselves. Why is the master of the band more secure about his music than the manager about his play? Because, in the orchestra, each individual would feel ashamed of his mistakes, which offend the outward ear; but how seldom have I found an actor disposed to acknowledge or feel ashamed of mistakes, pardonable or the contrary, by which the inward ear is so outrageously offended! I could wish, for my part, that our theatre were as narrow as the wire of a rope-dancer, that so no inept fellow might dare to venture on it, instead of being, as it is, a place where every one discovers in himself capacity enough to flourish and parade.”

The company gave this apostrophe a kind reception; each being convinced that the censure conveyed in it could not apply to him, after acting a little while ago so excellently with the rest. On the other hand, it was agreed, that during this journey, and for the future if they remained together, they would regularly proceed with their training in the manner just adopted. Only it was thought, that, as this was a thing of good humor and free will, no formal manager must be allowed to have a hand in it. Taking it for an established fact, that, among good men, the republican form of government is the best, they declared that the post of manager should go round among them: he must be chosen by universal suffrage, and every time have a sort of little senate joined in authority along with him. So delighted did they feel with this idea, that they longed to put it instantly in practice.

“I have no objection,” said Melina, “if you incline making such an experiment while we are travelling: I shall willingly suspend my own directorship until we reach some settled place.” He was in hopes of saving cash by this arrangement, and of casting many small expenses on the shoulders of the little senate or of the interim manager. This fixed, they went very earnestly to counsel how the form of the new commonwealth might best be adjusted.

“’Tis an itinerating kingdom,” said Laertes: “we shall at least have no quarrels about frontiers.”

They directly proceeded to the business, and elected Wilhelm as their first manager. The senate also was appointed, the women having seat and vote in it: laws were propounded, were rejected, were agreed to. In such playing, the time passed on unnoticed; and, as our friends had spent it pleasantly, they also conceived that they had really been effecting something useful, and, by their new constitution, had been opening a new prospect for the stage of their native country.

CHAPTER III.

Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit of the plays which might come before them. “It is not enough,” said he next day, when they were all again assembled, “for the actor merely to glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression, and thus, without investigation, to declare his satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator, whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to criticise. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give a reason for his praise or censure; and how shall he do this, if he have not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, and feelings of his author? A common error is, to form a judgment of a drama from a single part in it, and to look upon this part itself in an isolated point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed this within a few days, so clearly in my own conduct, that I will give you the account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.

“You all know Shakspeare’s incomparable ‘Hamlet:’ our public reading of it at the castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On that occasion we proposed to act the play; and I, not knowing what I undertook, engaged to play the prince’s part. This I conceived that I was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages, the soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence and elevation of feeling, have the freest scope; where the agitated heart is allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.

“I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the character, while I endeavored, as it were, to take upon myself the load of deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his singularities. Thus learning, thus practising, I doubted not but I should by and by become one person with my hero.

“But, the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if impossible. I next went through the entire piece, without interruption; but here, too, I found much that I could not away with. At one time the characters, at another time the manner of displaying them, seemed inconsistent; and I almost despaired of finding any general tint, in which I might present my whole part with all its shadings and variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered long in vain; till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in quite a new way.

“I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet’s character, as it had shown itself before his father’s death: I endeavored to distinguish what in it was independent of this mournful event, independent of the terrible events that followed; and what most probably the young man would have been, had no such thing occurred.

“Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the immediate influences of majesty: the idea of moral rectitude with that of princely elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the consciousness of high birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously. He was a prince, by birth a prince; and he wished to reign, only that good men might be good without obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished by nature, courteous from the heart, he was meant to be the pattern of youth and the joy of the world.

“Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still presentiment of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was not entirely his own: it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise bestowed on others for excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew the honorable-minded, and could prize the rest which an upright spirit tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain degree, he had learned to discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences; the mean, the vulgar, was offensive to him; and, if hatred could take root in his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly despise the false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them in easy scorn. He was calm in his temper, artless in his conduct, neither pleased with idleness, nor too violently eager for employment. The routine of a university he seemed to continue when at court. He possessed more mirth of humor than of heart: he was a good companion, pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an injury, yet never able to unite himself with those who overstepped the limits of the right, the good, and the becoming.

“When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall support my opinion in its main points.”

This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined they foresaw that Hamlet’s manner of proceeding might now be very satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating into the spirit of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take up some piece, and study it on these principles, and so unfold the author’s meaning.

CHAPTER IV.

Our friends had to continue in the place for a day or two, and it was not long ere sundry of them got engaged in adventures of a rather pleasant kind. Laertes in particular was challenged by a lady of the neighborhood, a person of some property; but he received her blandishments with extreme, nay, unhandsome, coldness, and had in consequence to undergo a multitude of jibes from Philina. She took this opportunity of detailing to our friend the hapless love-story which had made the youth so bitter a foe to womankind. “Who can take it ill of him,” she cried, “that he hates a sex which has played him so foul, and given him to swallow, in one stoutly concentrated potion, all the miseries that man can fear from woman? Do but conceive it: within four and twenty hours, he was lover, bridegroom, husband, cuckold, patient, and widower! I wot not how you could use a man worse.”

Laertes hastened from the room half vexed, half laughing; and Philina in her sprightliest style began to relate the story: how Laertes, a young man of eighteen, on joining a company of actors, found in it a girl of fourteen on the point of departing with her father, who had quarrelled with the manager. How, on the instant, he had fallen mortally in love; had conjured the father by all possible considerations to remain, promising at length to marry the young woman. How, after a few pleasing hours of groomship, he had accordingly been wedded, and been happy as he ought; whereupon, next day, while he was occupied at the rehearsal, his wife, according to professional rule, had honored him with a pair of horns; and how as he, out of excessive tenderness, hastening home far too soon, had, alas! found a former lover in his place, he had struck into the affair with thoughtless indignation, had called out both father and lover, and sustained a grievous wound in the duel. How father and daughter had thereupon set off by night, leaving him behind to labor with a double hurt. How the leech he applied to was unhappily the worst in nature, and the poor fellow had got out of the adventure with blackened teeth and watering eyes. That he was greatly to be pitied, being otherwise the bravest young man on the surface of the earth. “Especially,” said she, “it grieves me that the poor soul now hates women; for, hating women, how can one keep living?”

Melina interrupted them with news, that, all things being now ready for the journey, they would set out to-morrow morning. He handed them a plan, arranging how they were to travel.

“If any good friend take me on his lap,” said Philina, “I shall be content, though we sit crammed together never so close and sorrily: ’tis all one to me.”

“It does not signify,” observed Laertes, who now entered.

“It is pitiful,” said Wilhelm, hastening away. By the aid of money, he secured another very comfortable coach; though Melina had pretended that there were no more. A new distribution then took place; and our friends were rejoicing in the thought that they should now travel pleasantly, when intelligence arrived that a party of military volunteers had been seen upon the road, from whom little good could be expected.

In the town these tidings were received with great attention, though they were but variable and ambiguous. As the contending armies were at that time placed, it seemed impossible that any hostile corps could have advanced, or any friendly one hung a-rear, so far. Yet every man was eager to exhibit to our travellers the danger that awaited them as truly dangerous: every man was eager to suggest that some other route might be adopted.

By these means, most of our friends had been seized with anxiety and fear; and when, according to the new republican constitution, the whole members of the state had been called together to take counsel on this extraordinary case, they were almost unanimously of opinion that it would be proper either to keep back the mischief by abiding where they were, or to evade it by choosing another road.

Wilhelm alone, not participating in the panic, regarded it as mean to abandon, for the sake of mere rumors, a plan they had not entered on without much thought. He endeavored to put heart into them: his reasons were manly and convincing.

“It is but a rumor,” he observed; “and how many such arise in time of war! Well-informed people say that the occurrence is exceedingly improbable, nay, almost impossible. Shall we, in so important a matter, allow a vague report to determine our proceedings? The route pointed out to us by the count, and to which our passport was adapted, is the shortest and in the best condition. It leads us to the town, where you see acquaintances, friends, before you, and may hope for a good reception. The other way will also bring us thither; but by what a circuit, and along what miserable roads! Have we any right to hope, that, in this late season of the year, we shall get on at all? and what time and money shall we squander in the mean while!” He added many more considerations, presenting the matter on so many advantageous sides, that their fear began to dissipate, and their courage to increase. He talked to them so much about the discipline of regular troops, he painted the marauders and wandering rabble so contemptuously, and represented the danger itself as so pleasant and inspiring, that the spirits of the party were altogether cheered.

Laertes from the first had been of his opinion: he now declared that he would not flinch or fail. Old Boisterous found a consenting phrase or two to utter, in his own vein; Philina laughed at them all; and Madam Melina, who, notwithstanding her advanced state of pregnancy, had lost nothing of her natural stout-heartedness, regarded the proposal as heroic. Herr Melina, moved by this harmonious feeling, hoping also to save somewhat by travelling the short road which had been first contemplated, did not withstand the general consent; and the project was agreed to with universal alacrity.

They next began to make some preparations for defence at all hazards. They bought large hangers, and slung them in well-quilted straps over their shoulders. Wilhelm further stuck a pair of pistols in his girdle. Laertes, independently of this occurrence, had a good gun. They all took the road in the highest glee.

On the second day of their journey, the drivers, who knew the country well, proposed to take their noon’s rest in a certain woody spot of the hills; since the town was far off, and in good weather the hill-road was generally preferred.

The day being beautiful, all easily agreed to the proposal. Wilhelm, on foot, went on before them through the hills; making every one that met him stare with astonishment at his singular figure. He hastened with quick and contented steps across the forest; Laertes walked whistling after him; none but the women continued to be dragged along in the carriages. Mignon, too, ran forward by his side, proud of the hanger, which, when the party were all arming, she would not go without. Around her hat she had bound the pearl necklace, one of Mariana’s relics, which Wilhelm still possessed. Friedrich, the fair-haired boy, carried Laertes’s gun. The harper had the most pacific look; his long cloak was tucked up within his girdle, to let him walk more freely; he leaned upon a knotty staff; his harp had been left behind him in the carriage.

Immediately on reaching the summit of the height, a task not without its difficulties, our party recognized the appointed spot, by the fine beech-trees which encircled and screened it. A spacious green, sloping softly in the middle of the forest, invited one to tarry; a trimly bordered well offered the most grateful refreshment; and on the farther side, through chasms in the mountains, and over the tops of the woods, appeared a landscape distant, lovely, full of hope. Hamlets and mills were lying in the bottoms, villages upon the plain: and a new chain of mountains, visible in the distance, made the prospect still more significant of hope; for they entered only like a soft limitation.

The first comers took possession of the place, rested a while in the shade, lighted a fire, and so awaited, singing as they worked, the remainder of the party, who by degrees arrived, and with one accord saluted the place, the lovely weather, and still lovelier scene.

CHAPTER V.

If our friends had frequently enjoyed a good and merry hour together while within four walls, they were naturally much gayer here, where the freedom of the sky and the beauty of the place seemed, as it were, to purify the feelings of every one. All felt nearer to each other: all wished that they might pass their whole lives in so pleasant an abode. They envied hunters, charcoal-men, and wood-cutters,  —  people whom their calling constantly retains in such happy places,  —  but prized, above all, the delicious economy of a band of gypsies. They envied these wonderful companions, entitled to enjoy in blissful idleness all the adventurous charms of nature: they rejoiced at being in some degree like them.

Meanwhile the women had begun to boil potatoes, and to unwrap and get ready the victuals brought along with them. Some pots were standing by the fire. The party had placed themselves in groups, under the trees and bushes. Their singular apparel, their various weapons, gave them a foreign aspect. The horses were eating their provender at a side. Could one have concealed the coaches, the look of this little horde would have been romantic, even to complete illusion.

Wilhelm enjoyed a pleasure he had never felt before. He could now imagine his present company to be a wandering colony, and himself the leader of it. In this character he talked with those around him, and figured out the fantasy of the moment as poetically as he could. The feelings of the party rose in cheerfulness: they ate and drank and made merry, and repeatedly declared that they had never passed more pleasant moments.

Their contentment had not long gone on increasing, till activity awoke among the younger part of them. Wilhelm and Laertes seized their rapiers, and began to practise on this occasion with theatrical intentions. They undertook to represent the duel in which Hamlet and his adversary find so tragical an end. Both were persuaded, that, in this powerful scene, it was not enough merely to keep pushing awkwardly hither and thither, as it is generally exhibited in theatres: they were in hopes to show by example how, in presenting it, a worthy spectacle might also be afforded to the critic in the art of fencing. The rest made a circle round them. Both fought with skill and ardor. The interest of the spectators rose higher every pass.

But all at once, in the nearest bush, a shot went off, and immediately another; and the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to be seen pressing forward to the spot where the horses were eating their fodder, not far from the coaches that were packed with luggage.

A universal scream proceeded from the women: our heroes threw away their rapiers, seized their pistols, and ran towards the robbers; demanding, with violent threats, the meaning of such conduct.

This question being answered laconically, with a couple of musket-shots, Wilhelm fired his pistol at a crisp-headed knave, who had got upon the top of the coach, and was cutting the cords of the package. Rightly hit, this artist instantly came tumbling down; nor had Laertes missed. Both, encouraged by success, drew their side-arms; when a number of the plundering party rushed out upon them, with curses and loud bellowing, fired a few shots at them, and fronted their impetuosity with glittering sabres. Our young heroes made a bold resistance. They called upon their other comrades, and endeavored to excite them to a general resistance. But, erelong, Wilhelm lost the sight of day, and the consciousness of what was passing. Stupefied by a shot that wounded him between the breast and the left arm, by a stroke that split his hat in two, and almost penetrated to his brain, he sank down, and only by the narratives of others came afterwards to understand the luckless end of this adventure.

On again opening his eyes, he found himself in the strangest posture. The first thing that pierced the dimness, which yet swam before his vision, was Philina’s face bent down over his. He felt weak, and, making a movement to rise, discovered that he was in Philina’s lap; into which, indeed, he again sank down. She was sitting on the sward. She had softly pressed towards her the head of the fallen young man, and made for him an easy couch, as far as in her power. Mignon was kneeling with dishevelled and bloody hair at his feet, which she embraced with many tears.

On noticing his bloody clothes, Wilhelm asked, in a broken voice, where he was, and what had happened to him and the rest. Philina begged him to be quiet: the others, she said, were all in safety, and none but he and Laertes wounded. Further she would tell him nothing, but earnestly entreated him to keep still, as his wounds had been but slightly and hastily bound. He stretched out his hand to Mignon, and inquired about the bloody locks of the child, who he supposed was also wounded.

For the sake of quietness, Philina let him know that this true-hearted creature, seeing her friend wounded, and in the hurry of the instant being able to think of nothing which would stanch the blood, had taken her own hair, that was flowing round her head, and tried to stop the wounds with it, but had soon been obliged to give up the vain attempt; that afterwards they had bound him with moss and dry mushrooms, Philina giving up her neckerchief for that purpose.

Wilhelm noticed that Philina was sitting with her back against her own trunk, which still looked firmly locked and quite uninjured. He inquired if the rest also had been so lucky as to save their goods. She answered with a shrug of the shoulders, and a look over the green, where broken chests, and coffers beaten into fragments, and knapsacks ripped up, and a multitude of little wares, lay scattered all round. No person was to be seen in the place, this strange group thus being alone in the solitude.

Inquiring further, our friend learned more and more particulars. The rest of the men, it appeared, who, at all events, might still have made resistance, were struck with terror, and soon overpowered. Some fled, some looked with horror at the accident. The drivers, for the sake of their cattle, had held out more obstinately; but they, too, were at last thrown down and tied; after which, in a few minutes, every thing was thoroughly ransacked, and the booty carried off. The hapless travellers, their fear of death being over, had begun to mourn their loss; had hastened with the greatest speed to the neighboring village, taking with them Laertes, whose wounds were slight, and carrying off but a very few fragments of their property. The harper, having placed his damaged instrument against a tree, had proceeded in their company to the place, to seek a surgeon, and return with his utmost rapidity to help his benefactor, whom he had left apparently upon the brink of death.

CHAPTER VI.

Meanwhile our three adventurers continued yet a space in their strange position, no one returning to their aid. Evening was advancing: the darkness threatened to come on. Philina’s indifference was changing to anxiety; Mignon ran to and fro, her impatience increasing every moment; and at last, when their prayer was granted, and human creatures did approach, a new alarm fell upon them. They distinctly heard a troop of horses coming up the road they had lately travelled: they dreaded lest a second time some company of unbidden guests might be purposing to visit this scene of battle, and gather up the gleanings.

The more agreeable was their surprise, when, after a few moments, a lady issued from the thickets, riding on a gray courser, and accompanied by an elderly gentleman and some cavaliers, followed by grooms, servants, and a troop of hussars.

Philina started at this phenomenon, and was about to call, and entreat the fair Amazon for help, when the latter turned her astonished eyes on the group, instantly checked her horse, rode up to them, and halted. She inquired eagerly about the wounded man, whose posture in the lap of this light-minded Samaritan seemed to strike her as peculiarly strange.

“Is he your husband?” she inquired of Philina. “Only a friend,” replied the other, with a tone Wilhelm liked not at all. He had fixed his eyes upon the soft, elevated, calm, sympathizing features of the stranger: he thought he had never seen aught nobler or more lovely. Her shape he could not see: it was hid by a man’s white great-coat, which she seemed to have borrowed from some of her attendants, to screen her from the chill evening air.

By this the horsemen also had come near. Some of them dismounted: the lady did so likewise. She asked, with humane sympathy, concerning every circumstance of the mishap which had befallen the travellers, but especially concerning the wounds of the poor youth who lay before her. Thereupon she turned quickly round, and went aside with the old gentleman to some carriages, which were slowly coming up the hill, and which at length stopped upon the scene of action.

The young lady having stood with her conductor a short time at the door of one of the coaches, and talked with the people in it, a man of a squat figure stepped out, and came along with them to our wounded hero. By the little box which he held in his hand, and the leathern pouch with instruments in it, you soon recognized him for a surgeon. His manners were rude rather than attractive; but his hand was light, and his help welcome.

Having examined strictly, he declared that none of the wounds were dangerous. He would dress them, he said, on the spot; after which the patient might be carried to the nearest village.

The young lady’s anxiety seemed to augment. “Do but look,” she said, after going to and fro once or twice, and again bringing the old gentleman to the place: “look how they have treated him! And is it not on our account that he is suffering?” Wilhelm heard these words, but did not understand them. She went restlessly up and down: it seemed as if she could not tear herself away from the presence of the wounded man; while at the same time she feared to violate decorum by remaining, when they had begun, though not without difficulty, to remove some part of his apparel. The surgeon was just cutting off the left sleeve of his patient’s coat, when the old gentleman came near, and represented to the lady, in a serious tone, the necessity of proceeding on their journey. Wilhelm kept his eyes bent on her, and was so enchanted with her looks, that he scarcely felt what he was suffering or doing.

Philina, in the mean time, had risen to kiss the lady’s hand. While they stood beside each other, Wilhelm thought he had never seen such a contrast. Philina had never till now appeared in so unfavorable a light. She had no right, as it seemed to him, to come near that noble creature, still less to touch her.

The lady asked Philina various things, but in an under-tone. At length she turned to the old gentleman, and said, “Dear uncle, may I be generous at your expense?” She took off the great-coat, with the visible intention to give it to the stripped and wounded youth.

Wilhelm, whom the healing look of her eyes had hitherto held fixed, was now, as the surtout fell away, astonished at her lovely figure. She came near, and softly laid the coat above him. At this moment, as he tried to open his mouth and stammer out some words of gratitude, the lively impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses, already caught and bewildered, that all at once it appeared to him as if her head were encircled with rays; and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself over all her form. At this moment the surgeon, making preparations to extract the ball from his wound, gave him a sharper twinge; the angel faded away from the eyes of the fainting patient; he lost all consciousness; and, on returning to himself, the horsemen and coaches, the fair one with her attendants, had vanished like a dream.

CHAPTER VII.

Wilhelm’s wounds once dressed, and his clothes put on, the surgeon hastened off, just as the harper with a number of peasants arrived. Out of some cut boughs, which they speedily wattled with twigs, a kind of litter was constructed, upon which they placed the wounded youth, and under the conduct of a mounted huntsman, whom the noble company had left behind them, carried him softly down the mountain. The harper, silent, and shrouded in his own thoughts, bore with him his broken instrument. Some men brought on Philina’s box, herself following with a bundle. Mignon skipped along through copse and thicket, now before the party, now beside them, and looked up with longing eyes at her hurt protector.

He, meanwhile, wrapped in his warm surtout, was lying peacefully upon the litter. An electric warmth seemed to flow from the fine wool into his body: in short, he felt in the most delightful frame of mind. The lovely being, whom this garment lately covered, had affected him to the very heart. He still saw the coat falling down from her shoulders; saw that noble form, begirt with radiance, stand beside him; and his soul hied over rocks and forests on the footsteps of his vanished benefactress.

It was nightfall when the party reached the village, and halted at the door of the inn where the rest of the company, in the gloom of despondency, were bewailing their irreparable loss. The one little chamber of the house was crammed with people. Some of them were lying upon straw, some were occupying benches, some had squeezed themselves behind the stove. Frau Melina, in a neighboring room, was painfully expecting her delivery. Fright had accelerated this event. With the sole assistance of the landlady, a young, inexperienced woman, nothing good could be expected.

As the party just arrived required admission, there arose a universal murmur. All now maintained, that by Wilhelm’s advice alone, and under his especial guidance, they had entered on this dangerous road, and exposed themselves to such misfortunes. They threw the blame of the disaster wholly on him: they stuck themselves in the door, to oppose his entrance; declaring that he must go elsewhere and seek quarters. Philina they received with still greater indignation, nor did Mignon and the harper escape their share.

The huntsman, to whom the care of the forsaken party had been earnestly and strictly recommended by his beautiful mistress, soon grew tired of this discussion: he rushed upon the company with oaths and menaces; commanding them to fall to the right and left, and make way for this new arrival. They now began to pacify themselves. He made a place for Wilhelm on a table, which he shoved into a corner: Philina had her box put there, and then sat down upon it. All packed themselves as they best could, and the huntsman went away to see if he could not find for “the young couple” a more convenient lodging.

Scarcely was he gone, when spite again grew noisy, and one reproach began to follow close upon another. Each described and magnified his loss, censuring the foolhardiness they had so keenly smarted for. They did not even hide the malicious satisfaction they felt at Wilhelm’s wounds: they jeered Philina, and imputed to her as a crime the means by which she had saved her trunk. From a multitude of jibes and bitter innuendoes, you were required to conclude, that, during the plundering and discomfiture, she had endeavored to work herself into favor with the captain of the band, and had persuaded him, Heaven knew by what arts and complaisance, to give her back the chest unhurt. To all this she answered nothing, only clanked with the large padlocks of her box, to impress her censurers completely with its presence, and by her own good fortune to augment their desperation.

CHAPTER VIII.

Though our friend was weak from loss of blood, and though, ever since the appearance of that helpful angel, his feelings had been soft and mild, yet at last he could not help getting vexed at the harsh and unjust speeches which, as he continued silent, the discontented company went on uttering against him. Feeling himself strong enough to sit up, and expostulate on the annoyance they were causing to their friend and leader, he raised his bandaged head, and propping himself with some difficulty, and leaning against the wall, he began to speak as follows:  — 

“Considering the pain your losses occasion, I forgive you for assailing me with injuries at a moment when you should condole with me; for opposing and casting me from you the first time I have needed to look to you for help. The services I did you, the complaisance I showed you, I regarded as sufficiently repaid by your thanks, by your friendly conduct: do not warp my thoughts, do not force my heart to go back and calculate what I have done for you; the calculation would be painful to me. Chance brought me near you, circumstances and a secret inclination kept me with you. I participated in your labors and your pleasures: my slender abilities were ever at your service. If you now blame me with bitterness for the mishap that has befallen us, you do not recollect that the first project of taking this road came to us from stranger people, was weighed by all of you, and sanctioned by every one as well as by me.

“Had our journey ended happily, each would have taken credit to himself for the happy thought of suggesting this plan, and preferring it to others; each would joyfully have put us in mind of our deliberations, and of the vote he gave: but now you make me alone responsible; you force a piece of blame upon me, which I would willingly submit to, if my conscience, with a clear voice, did not pronounce me innocent, nay, if I might not appeal with safety even to yourselves. If you have aught to say against me, bring it forward in order, and I shall defend myself; if you have nothing reasonable to allege, then be silent, and do not torment me now, when I have such pressing need of rest.”

By way of answer, the girls once more began whimpering and whining, and describing their losses circumstantially. Melina was quite beside himself; for he had suffered more in purse than any of them,  —  more, indeed, than we can rightly estimate. He stamped like a madman up and down the little room, he knocked his head against the wall, he swore and scolded in the most unseemly manner; and the landlady entering at this very time with news that his wife had been delivered of a dead child, he yielded to the most furious ebullitions; while, in accordance with him, all howled and shrieked, and bellowed and uproared, with double vigor.

Wilhelm, touched to the heart at the same time with sympathy for their sorrows and with vexation at their mean way of thinking, felt all the vigor of his soul awakened, notwithstanding the weakness of his body. “Deplorable as your case may be,” exclaimed he, “I shall almost be compelled to despise you! No misfortune gives us right to load an innocent man with reproaches. If I had share in this false step, am not I suffering my share? I lie wounded here; and, if the company has come to loss, I myself have come to most. The wardrobe of which we have been robbed, the decorations that are gone, were mine; for you, Herr Melina, have not yet paid me; and I here fully acquit you of all obligation in that matter.”

“It is well to give what none of us will ever see again,” replied Melina. “Your money was lying in my wife’s coffer, and it is your own blame that you have lost it. But, ah! if that were all!” And thereupon he began anew to stamp and scold and squeal. Every one recalled to memory the superb clothes from the count’s wardrobe; the buckles, watches, snuff-boxes, hats, for which Melina had so happily transacted with the head valet. Each, then, thought also of his own, though far inferior, treasures. They looked with spleen at Philina’s box, and gave Wilhelm to understand that he had indeed done wisely to connect himself with that fair personage, and to save his own goods also, under the shadow of her fortune.

“Do you think,” he exclaimed at last, “that I shall keep any thing apart while you are starving? And is this the first time I have honestly shared with you in a season of need? Open the trunk: all that is mine shall go to supply the common wants.”

“It is my trunk,” observed Philina, “and I will not open it till I please. Your rag or two of clothes, which I have saved for you, could amount to little, though they were sold to the most conscientious of Jews. Think of yourself,  —  what your cure will cost, what may befall you in a strange country.”

“You, Philina,” answered Wilhelm, “will keep back from me nothing that is mine; and that little will help us out of the first perplexity. But a man possesses many things besides coined money to assist his friends with. All that is in me shall be devoted to these hapless persons, who, doubtless, on returning to their senses, will repent their present conduct. Yes,” continued he, “I feel that you have need of help; and, what is mine to do, I will perform. Give me your confidence again; compose yourselves for a moment, and accept of what I promise. Who will receive the engagement of me in the name of all?”

Here he stretched out his hand, and cried, “I promise not to flinch from you, never to forsake you till each shall see his losses doubly and trebly repaired; till the situation you are fallen into, by whose blame soever, shall be totally forgotten by all of you, and changed with a better.”

He kept his hand still stretched out, but no one would take hold of it. “I promise it again,” cried he, sinking back upon his pillow. All continued silent: they felt ashamed, but nothing comforted: and Philina, sitting on her chest, kept cracking nuts, a stock of which she had discovered in her pocket.

CHAPTER IX.

The huntsman now came back with several people, and made preparations for carrying away the wounded youth. He had persuaded the parson of the place to receive the “young couple” into his house; Philina’s trunk was taken out; she followed with a natural air of dignity. Mignon ran before; and, when the patient reached the parsonage, a wide couch, which had long been standing ready as guest’s bed and bed of honor, was assigned him. Here it was first discovered that his wound had opened, and bled profusely. A new bandage was required for it. He fell into a feverish state: Philina waited on him faithfully; and, when fatigue overpowered her, she was relieved by the harper. Mignon, with the firmest purpose to watch, had fallen asleep in a corner.

Next morning Wilhelm, who felt himself in some degree refreshed, learned, by inquiring of the huntsman, that the honorable persons who last night assisted him so nobly, had shortly before left their estates, in order to avoid the movements of the contending armies, and remain, till the time of peace, in some more quiet district. He named the elderly nobleman, as well as his niece, mentioned the place they were first going to, and told how the young lady had charged him to take care of Wilhelm.

The entrance of the surgeon interrupted the warm expressions of gratitude our friend was giving vent to. He made a circumstantial description of the wounds, and certified that they would soon heal, if the patient took care of them, and kept himself at peace.

When the huntsman was gone, Philina signified that he had left with her a purse of twenty louis-d’or; that he had given the parson a remuneration for their lodging, and left with him money to defray the surgeon’s bill when the cure should be completed. She added, that she herself passed everywhere for Wilhelm’s wife; that she now begged leave to introduce herself once for all to him in this capacity, and would not allow him to look out for any other sick-nurse.

“Philina,” said Wilhelm, “in this disaster that has overtaken us, I am already deeply in your debt, for kindness shown me; and I should not wish to see my obligations increased. I am uneasy so long as you are about me, for I know of nothing by which I can repay your labor. Give me what things of mine you have saved in your trunk; join the rest of the company; seek another lodging; take my thanks, and the gold watch as a small acknowledgment: only leave me; your presence disturbs me more than you can fancy.”

She laughed in his face when he had ended. “Thou art a fool,” she said: “thou wilt not gather wisdom. I know better what is good for thee: I will stay, I will not budge from the spot. I have never counted on the gratitude of men, and therefore not on thine; and, if I have a touch of kindness for thee, what hast thou to do with it?”

She staid accordingly, and soon wormed herself into favor with the parson and his household; being always cheerful, having the knack of giving little presents, and of talking to each in his own vein; at the same time always contriving to do exactly what she pleased. Wilhelm’s state was not uncomfortable: the surgeon, an ignorant but not unskilful man, let nature have sway; and the patient was soon on the road to recovery. For such a consummation he vehemently longed, being eager to pursue his plans and wishes.

Incessantly he kept recalling that event, which had made an ineffaceable impression on his heart. He saw the beautiful Amazon again come riding out of the thickets: she approached him, dismounted, went to and fro, and strove to serve him. He saw the garment she was wrapped in fall down from her shoulders: he saw her countenance, her figure, vanish in their radiance. All the dreams of his youth now fastened on this image. Here he conceived he had at length beheld the noble, the heroic, Clorinda with his own eyes; and again he bethought him of that royal youth, to whose sick-bed the lovely, sympathizing princess came in her modest meekness.

“May it not be,” said he often to himself in secret, “that, in youth as in sleep, the images of coming things hover round us, and mysteriously become visible to our unobstructed eyes? May not the seeds of what is to betide us be already scattered by the hand of Fate? may not a foretaste of the fruits we yet hope to gather possibly be given us?”

His sick-bed gave him leisure to repeat those scenes in every mood. A thousand times he called back the tone of that sweet voice: a thousand times he envied Philina, who had kissed that helpful hand. Often the whole incident appeared before him as a dream; and he would have reckoned it a fiction, if the white surtout had not been left behind to convince him that the vision had a real existence.

With the greatest care for this piece of apparel, he combined the most ardent wish to wear it. The first time he arose, he put it on, and was kept in fear all day lest it might be hurt by some stain or other injury.

CHAPTER X.

Laertes visited his friend. He had not been present during that lively scene at the inn, being then confined to bed in an upper chamber. For his loss he was already in a great degree consoled: he helped himself with his customary, “What does it signify?” He detailed various laughable particulars about the company; particularly charging Frau Melina with lamenting the loss of her stillborn daughter, solely because she herself could not on that account enjoy the Old-German satisfaction of having a Mechthilde christened. As for her husband, it now appeared that he had been possessed of abundant cash, and even at first had by no means needed the advances which he had cajoled from Wilhelm. Melina’s present plan was, to set off by the next post-wagon, and he meant to require of Wilhelm an introductory letter to his friend, Manager Serlo, in whose company, the present undertaking having gone to wreck, he now wished to establish himself.

For some days Mignon had been singularly quiet: when pressed with questions, she at length admitted that her right arm was out of joint. “Thou hast thy own folly to thank for that,” observed Philina, and then told how the child had drawn her sword in the battle, and, seeing her friend in peril, had struck fiercely at the freebooters, one of whom had at length seized her by the arm, and pitched her to a side. They chid her for not sooner speaking of her ailment; but they easily saw that she was apprehensive of the surgeon, who had hitherto looked on her as a boy. With a view to remove the mischief, she was made to keep her arm in a sling, which arrangement, too, displeased her; for now she was obliged to surrender most part of her share in the management and nursing of our friend to Philina. That pleasing sinner but showed herself the more active and attentive on this account.

One morning, on awakening, Wilhelm found himself strangely near to her. In the movements of sleep, he had hitched himself quite to the back of the spacious bed. Philina was lying across from the front part of it: she seemed to have fallen asleep on the bed while sitting there and reading. A book had dropped from her hand: she had sunk back; and her head was lying near his breast, over which her fair and now loosened hair was spread in streams. The disorder of sleep enlivened her charms more than art or purpose could have done: a childlike smiling rest hovered on her countenance. He looked at her for a time, and seemed to blame himself for the pleasure this gave him. He had viewed her attentively for some moments, when she began to awake. He softly closed his eyes, but could not help glimmering at her through his eyelashes, as she trimmed herself again, and went away to see about breakfast.

All the actors had at length successively announced themselves to Wilhelm; asking introductory letters, requiring money for their journey with more or less impatience and ill-breeding, and constantly receiving it, against Philina’s will. It was in vain for her to tell our friend that the huntsman had already left a handsome sum with these people, and that accordingly they did but cozen him. To these remonstrances he gave no heed: on the contrary, the two had a sharp quarrel about it; which ended by Wilhelm signifying, once for all, that Philina must now join the rest of the company, and seek her fortune with Serlo.

For an instant or two she lost temper; but, speedily recovering her composure, she cried, “If I had but my fair-haired boy again, I should not care a fig for any of you.” She meant Friedrich, who had vanished from the scene of battle, and never since appeared.

Next morning Mignon brought news to the bedside, that Philina had gone off by night; leaving all that belonged to Wilhelm very neatly laid out in the next room. He felt her absence; he had lost in her a faithful nurse, a cheerful companion; he was no longer used to be alone. But Mignon soon filled up the blank.

Ever since that light-minded beauty had been near the patient with her friendly cares, the little creature had by degrees drawn back, and remained silent and secluded in herself; but, the field being clear once more, she again came forth with her attentions and her love, again was eager in serving, and lively in entertaining, him.

CHAPTER XI.

Wilhelm was rapidly approaching complete recovery: he now hoped to be upon his journey in a few days. He proposed no more to lead an aimless routine of existence: the steps of his career were henceforth to be calculated for an end. In the first place, he purposed to seek out that beneficent lady, and express the gratitude he felt to her; then to proceed without delay to his friend the manager, that he might do his utmost to assist the luckless company; intending, at the same time, to visit the commercial friends whom he had letters for, and to transact the business which had been intrusted to him. He was not without hope that fortune, as formerly, would favor him, and give him opportunity, by some lucky speculation, to repair his losses, and fill up the vacuity of his coffer.

The desire of again beholding his beautiful deliverer augmented every day. To settle his route, he took counsel with the clergyman,  —  a person well skilled in statistics and geography, and possessing a fine collection of charts and books. They two searched for the place which this noble family had chosen as their residence while the war continued: they searched for information respecting the family itself. But their place was to be found in no geography or map, and the heraldic manuals made no mention of their name.

Wilhelm grew uneasy; and, having mentioned the cause of his anxiety, the harper told him he had reason to believe that the huntsman, from whatever motive, had concealed the real designations.

Conceiving himself now to be in the immediate neighborhood of his lovely benefactress, Wilhelm hoped he might obtain some tidings of her if he sent out the harper; but in this, too, he was deceived. Diligently as the old man kept inquiring, he could find no trace of her. Of late days a number of quick movements and unforeseen marches had taken place in that quarter; no one had particularly noticed the travelling party; and the ancient messenger, to avoid being taken for a Jewish spy, was obliged to return, and appear without any olive-leaf before his master and friend. He gave a strict account of his conduct in this commission, striving to keep far from him all suspicions of remissness. He endeavored by every means to mitigate the trouble of our friend; bethought him of every thing that he had learned from the huntsman, and advanced a number of conjectures; out of all which, one circumstance at length came to light, whereby Wilhelm could explain some enigmatic words of his vanished benefactress.

The freebooters, it appeared, had lain in wait, not for the wandering troop, but for that noble company, whom they rightly guessed to be provided with store of gold and valuables, and of whose movements they must have had precise intelligence. Whether the attack should be imputed to some free corps, to marauders, or to robbers, was uncertain. It was clear, however, that, by good fortune for the high and rich company, the poor and low had first arrived upon the place, and undergone the fate which was provided for the others. It was to this that the lady’s words referred, which Wilhelm yet well recollected. If he might now be happy and contented, that a prescient Genius had selected him for the sacrifice, which saved a perfect mortal, he was, on the other hand, nigh desperate, when he thought that all hope of finding her and seeing her again was, at least for the present, completely gone.

What increased this singular emotion still further, was the likeness which he thought he had observed between the countess and the beautiful unknown. They resembled one another as two sisters may, of whom neither can be called the younger or the elder, for they seem to be twins.

The recollection of the amiable countess was to Wilhelm infinitely sweet. He recalled her image but too willingly into his memory. But anon the figure of the noble Amazon would step between: one vision melted and changed into the other, and the form of neither would abide with him.

A new resemblance  —  the similarity of their handwritings  —  naturally struck him with still greater wonder. He had a charming song in the countess’s hand laid up in his portfolio; and in the surtout he had found a little note, inquiring with much tender care about the health of an uncle.

Wilhelm was convinced that his benefactress must have penned this billet; that it must have been sent from one chamber to another, at some inn during their journey, and put into the coat-pocket by the uncle. He held both papers together; and, if the regular and graceful letters of the countess had already pleased him much, he found in the similar but freer lines of the stranger a flowing harmony which could not be described. The note contained nothing; yet the strokes of it seemed to affect him, as the presence of their fancied writer once had done.

He fell into a dreamy longing; and well accordant with his feelings was the song which at that instant Mignon and the harper began to sing, with a touching expression, in the form of an irregular duet.

“’Tis but who longing knows, My grief can measure. Alone, reft of repose, All joy, all pleasure, I thither look to those Soft lines of azure. Ah! far is he who knows Me, and doth treasure. I faint, my bosom glows ‘Neath pain’s sore pressure. ’Tis but who longing knows, My grief can measure.”  —  Editor’s Version. 

CHAPTER XII.

The soft allurements of his dear presiding angel, far from leading our friend to any one determined path, did but nourish and increase the unrest he had previously experienced. A secret fire was gliding through his veins: objects distinct and indistinct alternated within his soul, and awoke unspeakable desire. At one time he wished for a horse, at another for wings; and not till it seemed impossible that he could stay, did he look round him to discover whither he was wanting to go.

The threads of his destiny had become so strangely entangled, he wished to see its curious knots unravelled, or cut in two. Often when he heard the tramp of a horse, or the rolling of a carriage, he would run to the window, and look out, in hopes it might be some one seeking him,  —  some one, even though it were by chance, bringing him intelligence and certainty and joy. He told stories to himself, how his friend Werner might visit these parts, and come upon him; how, perhaps, Mariana might appear. The sound of every post’s horn threw him into agitation. It would be Melina sending news to him of his adventures: above all, it would be the huntsman coming back to carry him to the beauty he worshipped.

Of all these possibilities, unhappily no one occurred: he was forced at last to return to the company of himself; and, in again looking through the past, there was one circumstance which, the more he viewed and weighed it, grew the more offensive and intolerable to him. It was his unprosperous generalship, of which he never thought without vexation. For although, on the evening of that luckless day, he had produced a pretty fair defence of his conduct when accused by the company, yet he could not hide from himself that he was guilty. On the contrary, in hypochondriac moments, he took the blame of the whole misfortune.

Self-love exaggerates our faults as well as our virtues. Wilhelm though the had awakened confidence in himself, had guided the will of the rest; that, led by inexperience and rashness, they had ventured on, till a danger seized them, for which they were no match. Loud as well as silent reproaches had then assailed him; and if, in their sorrowful condition, he had promised the company, misguided by him, never to forsake them till their loss had been repaid with usury, this was but another folly for which he had to blame himself,  —  the folly of presuming to take upon his single shoulders a misfortune that was spread over many. One instant he accused himself of uttering this promise, under the excitement and the pressure of the moment; the next, he again felt that this generous presentation of his hand, which no one deigned to accept, was but a light formality compared with the vow his heart had taken. He meditated means of being kind and useful to them: he found every cause conspire to quicken his visit to Serlo. Accordingly he packed his things together; and without waiting his complete recovery, without listening to the counsel of the parson or of the surgeon, he hastened, in the strange society of Mignon and the harper, to escape the inactivity in which his fate had once more too long detained him.

CHAPTER XIII.

Serlo received him with open arms, crying as he met him, “Is it you? Do I see you again? You have scarcely changed at all. Is your love for that noblest of arts still as lively and strong? So glad am I at your arrival, that I even feel no longer the mistrust your last letters had excited in me.”

Wilhelm asked with surprise for a clearer explanation.

“You have treated me,” said Serlo, “not like an old friend, but as if I were a great lord, to whom with a safe conscience you might recommend useless people. Our destiny depends on the opinion of the public; and I fear Herr Melina and his suite can hardly be received among us.”

Wilhelm tried to say something in their favor; but Serlo began to draw so merciless a picture of them, that our friend was happy when a lady came into the room, and put a stop to the discussion. She was introduced to him as Aurelia, the sister of his friend; she received him with extreme kindness; and her conversation was so pleasing, that he did not even remark a shade of sorrow visible on her expressive countenance, to which it lent peculiar interest.

For the first time during many months, Wilhelm felt once more in his proper element. Of late in talking, he had merely found submissive listeners, and even these not always; but now he had the happiness to speak with critics and artists, who not only fully understood him, but repaid his observations by others equally instructive. With wonderful vivacity they travelled through the latest plays, with wonderful correctness judged them. The decisions of the public they could try and estimate: they speedily threw light on each other’s thoughts.

Loving Shakspeare as our friend did, he failed not to lead round the conversation to the merits of that dramatist. Expressing, as he entertained, the liveliest hopes of the new epoch which these exquisite productions must form in Germany, he erelong introduced his “Hamlet,” which play had busied him so much of late.

Serlo declared that he would long ago have represented the play, had it at all been possible, and that he himself would willingly engage to act Polonius. He added, with a smile, “An Ophelia, too, will certainly turn up, if we had but a Prince.”

Wilhelm did not notice that Aurelia seemed a little hurt at her brother’s sarcasm. Our friend was in his proper vein, becoming copious and didactic, expounding how he would have “Hamlet” played. He circumstantially delivered to his hearers the opinions we before saw him busied with; taking all the trouble possible to make his notion of the matter acceptable, sceptical as Serlo showed himself regarding it. “Well, then,” said the latter finally, “suppose we grant you all this, what will you explain by it?”

“Much, every thing,” said Wilhelm. “Conceive a prince such as I have painted him, and that his father suddenly dies. Ambition and the love of rule are not the passions that inspire him. As a king’s son, he would have been contented; but now he is first constrained to consider the difference which separates a sovereign from a subject. The crown was not hereditary; yet his father’s longer possession of it would have strengthened the pretensions of an only son, and secured his hopes of succession. In place of this, he now beholds himself excluded by his uncle, in spite of specious promises, most probably forever. He is now poor in goods and favor, and a stranger in the scene which from youth he had looked upon as his inheritance. His temper here assumes its first mournful tinge. He feels that now he is not more, that he is less, than a private nobleman; he offers himself as the servant of every one; he is not courteous and condescending, he is needy and degraded.

“His past condition he remembers as a vanished dream. It is in vain that his uncle strives to cheer him, to present his situation in another point of view. The feeling of his nothingness will not leave him.

“The second stroke that came upon him wounded deeper, bowed still more. It was the marriage of his mother. The faithful, tender son had yet a mother, when his father passed away. He hoped, in the company of his surviving noble-minded parent, to reverence the heroic form of the departed: but his mother, too, he loses; and it is something worse than death that robs him of her. The trustful image, which a good child loves to form of its parents, is gone. With the dead there is no help, on the living no hold. Moreover, she is a woman; and her name is Frailty, like that of all her sex.

“Now only does he feel completely bowed down, now only orphaned; and no happiness of life can repay what he has lost. Not reflective or sorrowful by nature, reflection and sorrow have become for him a heavy obligation. It is thus that we see him first enter on the scene. I do not think that I have mixed aught foreign with the play, or overcharged a single feature of it.”

Serlo looked at his sister, and said, “Did I give thee a false picture of our friend? He begins well: he has still many things to tell us, many to persuade us of.” Wilhelm asseverated loudly, that he meant not to persuade, but to convince: he begged for another moment’s patience.

“Figure to yourselves this youth,” cried he, “this son of princes; conceive him vividly, bring his state before your eyes, and then observe him when he learns that his father’s spirit walks; stand by him in the terrors of the night, when even the venerable ghost appears before him. He is seized with boundless horror; he speaks to the mysterious form; he sees it beckon him; he follows and hears. The fearful accusation of his uncle rings in his ears, the summons to revenge, and the piercing, oft-repeated prayer, Remember me!

“And, when the ghost has vanished, who is it that stands before us? A young hero panting for vengeance? A prince by birth, rejoicing to be called to punish the usurper of his crown? No! trouble and astonishment take hold of the solitary young man: he grows bitter against smiling villains, swears that he will not forget the spirit, and concludes with the significant ejaculation,  — 

“‘The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!’

“In these words, I imagine, will be found the key to Hamlet’s whole procedure. To me it is clear that Shakspeare meant, in the present case, to represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for the performance of it. In this view the whole play seems to me to be composed. There is an oak-tree planted in a costly jar, which should have borne only pleasant flowers in its bosom: the roots expand, the jar is shivered.

“A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden it cannot bear and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him: the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him,  —  not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils; is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts, yet still without recovering his peace of mind.”

CHAPTER XIV.

Several people entering interrupted the discussion. They were musical dilettanti, who commonly assembled at Serlo’s once a week, and formed a little concert. Serlo himself loved music much: he used to maintain, that a player without taste for it never could attain a distinct conception and feeling of the scenic art. “As a man performs,” he would observe, “with far more ease and dignity when his gestures are accompanied and guided by a tune; so the player ought, in idea as it were, to set to music even his prose parts, that he may not monotonously slight them over in his individual style, but treat them in suitable alternation by time and measure.”

Aurelia seemed to give but little heed to what was passing: at last she conducted Wilhelm to another room; and going to the window, and looking out at the starry sky, she said to him, “You have more to tell us about Hamlet: I will not hurry you,  —  my brother must hear it as well as I; but let me beg to know your thoughts about Ophelia.”

“Of her there cannot much be said,” he answered; “for a few master-strokes complete her character. The whole being of Ophelia floats in sweet and ripe sensation. Kindness for the prince, to whose hand she may aspire, flows so spontaneously, her tender heart obeys its impulses so unresistingly, that both father and brother are afraid: both give her warning harshly and directly. Decorum, like the thin lawn upon her bosom, cannot hide the soft, still movements of her heart: it, on the contrary, betrays them. Her fancy is smit; her silent modesty breathes amiable desire; and, if the friendly goddess Opportunity should shake the tree, its fruit would fall.”

“And then,” said Aurelia, “when she beholds herself forsaken, cast away, despised; when all is inverted in the soul of her crazed lover, and the highest changes to the lowest, and, instead of the sweet cup of love, he offers her the bitter cup of woe”  — 

“Her heart breaks,” cried Wilhelm; “the whole structure of her being is loosened from its joinings; her father’s death strikes fiercely against it, and the fair edifice altogether crumbles into fragments.”

Our friend had not observed with what expressiveness Aurelia pronounced those words. Looking only at this work of art, at its connection and completeness, he dreamed not that his auditress was feeling quite a different influence; that a deep sorrow of her own was vividly awakened in her breast by these dramatic shadows.

Aurelia’s head was still resting on her arms; and her eyes, now full of tears, were turned to the sky. At last, no longer able to conceal her secret grief, she seized both hands of her friend, and exclaimed, while he stood surprised before her, “Forgive, forgive a heavy heart! I am girt and pressed together by these people; from my hard-hearted brother I must seek to hide myself; your presence has untied these bonds. My friend!” continued she, “it is but a few minutes since we saw each other first, and already you are going to become my confidant.” She could scarcely end the words, and sank upon his shoulder. “Think not worse of me,” she said, with sobs, “that I disclose myself to you so hastily, that I am so weak before you. Be my friend, remain my friend: I shall deserve it.” He spoke to her in his kindest manner, but in vain: her tears still flowed, and choked her words.

At this moment Serlo entered, most unwelcomely, and, most unexpectedly, Philina, with her hand in his. “Here is your friend,” said he to her: “he will be glad to welcome you.”

“What!” cried Wilhelm in astonishment: “are you here?” With a modest, settled mien, she went up to him; bade him welcome; praised Serlo’s goodness, who, she said, without merit on her part, but purely in the hope of her improvement, had agreed to admit her into his accomplished troop. She behaved, all the while, in a friendly manner towards Wilhelm, yet with a dignified distance.

But this dissimulation lasted only till the other two were gone. Aurelia having left them, that she might conceal her trouble, and Serlo being called away, Philina first looked very sharply at the doors, to see that both were really out; then began skipping to and fro about the room, as if she had been mad; at last dropped down upon the floor, like to die of giggling and laughing. She then sprang up, patted and flattered our friend; rejoicing above measure that she had been clever enough to go before, and spy the land, and get herself nestled in.

“Pretty things are going on here,” she said; “just of the sort I like. Aurelia has had a hapless love-affair with some nobleman, who seems to be a very stately person, one whom I myself could like to see some day. He has left her a memorial, or I much mistake. There is a boy running about the house, of three years old or so: the papa must be a very pretty fellow. Commonly I cannot suffer children, but this brat quite delights me. I have calculated Aurelia’s business. The death of her husband, the new acquaintance, the child’s age,  —  all things agree.

“But now her spark has gone his ways: for a year she has not seen a glimpse of him. She is beside herself and inconsolable on this account. The more fool she! Her brother has a dancing-girl in his troop, with whom he stands on pretty terms; an actress with whom he is intimate; in the town, some other women whom he courts; I, too, am on his list. The more fool he! Of the rest thou shalt hear to-morrow. And now one word about Philina, whom thou knowest: the arch-fool is fallen in love with thee.” She swore it was true and prime sport. She earnestly requested Wilhelm to fall in love with Aurelia, for then the chase would be worth beholding. “She pursues her faithless swain, thou her, I thee, her brother me. If that will not divert us for a quarter of a year, I engage to die at the first episode which occurs in this four times complicated tale.” She begged of him not to spoil her trade, and to show her such respect as her external conduct should deserve.

CHAPTER XV.

Next morning Wilhelm went to visit Frau Melina, but found her not at home. On inquiring here for the other members of the wandering community, he learned that Philina had invited them to breakfast. Out of curiosity, he hastened thither, and found them all in very good spirits and of good comfort. The cunning creature had collected them, was treating them with chocolate, and giving them to understand that some prospects still remained for them; that, by her influence, she hoped to convince the manager how advantageous it would be for him to introduce so many clever hands among his company. They listened to her with attention; swallowed cup after cup of her chocolate; thought the girl was not so bad, after all, and went away proposing to themselves to speak whatever good of her they could.

“Do you think, then,” said our friend, who staid behind, “that Serlo will determine to retain our comrades?”  —  “Not at all,” replied Philina; “nor do I care a fig for it. The sooner they are gone, the better! Laertes alone I could wish to keep: the rest we shall by and by pack off.”

Next she signified to Wilhelm her firm persuasion that he should no longer hide his talent, but, under the direction of a Serlo, go upon the boards. She was lavish in her praises of the order, the taste, the spirit, which prevailed in this establishment: she spoke so flatteringly to Wilhelm, with such admiration of his gifts, that his heart and his imagination were advancing towards this proposal as fast as his understanding and his reason were retreating from it. He concealed his inclination from himself and from Philina, and passed a restless day, unable to resolve on visiting his trading correspondents, to receive the letters which might there be lying for him. The anxieties of his people during all this time he easily conceived; yet he shrank from the precise account of them, particularly at the present time, as he promised to himself a great and pure enjoyment from the exhibition of a new play that evening.

Serlo had refused to let him witness the rehearsal. “You must see us on the best side,” he observed, “before we can allow you to look into our cards.”

The performance, however, where our friend did not fail to be present, yielded him a high satisfaction. It was the first time he had ever seen a theatre in such perfection. The actors were evidently all possessed of excellent gifts, superior capacities, and a high, clear notion of their art; they were not equal, but they mutually restrained and supported one another; each breathed ardor into those around him; throughout all their acting, they showed themselves decided and correct. You soon felt that Serlo was the soul of the whole: as an individual, he appeared to much advantage. A merry humor, a measured vivacity, a settled feeling of propriety, combined with a great gift of imitation, were to be observed in him the moment he appeared upon the stage. The inward contentment of his being seemed to spread itself over all that looked on him; and the intellectual style in which he could so easily and gracefully express the finest shadings of his part, excited more delight, as he could conceal the art which, by long-continued practice, he had made his own.

Aurelia, his sister, was not inferior: she obtained still greater approbation; for she touched the souls of the audience, which he had it in his power to exhilarate and amuse.

After a few days had passed pleasantly enough, Aurelia sent to inquire for our friend. He hastened to her: she was lying on a sofa; she seemed to be suffering from headache; her whole frame had visibly a feverish movement. Her eye lighted up as she noticed Wilhelm. “Pardon me!” she cried, as he entered: “the trust you have inspired me with has made me weak. Till now I have contrived to bear up against my woes in secret; nay, they gave me strength and consolation: but now, I know not how it is, you have loosened the bands of silence. You will now, even against your will, take part in the battle I am fighting with myself!”

Wilhelm answered her in kind and obliging terms. He declared that her image and her sorrows had not ceased to hover in his thoughts; that he longed for her confidence, and devoted himself to be her friend.

While he spoke, his eyes were attracted to the boy, who sat before her on the floor, and was busy rattling a multitude of playthings. This child, as Philina had observed, might be about three years of age; and Wilhelm now conceived how that giddy creature, seldom elevated in her phraseology, had likened it to the sun. For its cheerful eyes and full countenance were shaded by the finest golden locks, which flowed round in copious curls; dark, slender, softly bending eyebrows showed themselves upon a brow of dazzling whiteness; and the living tinge of health was glancing on its cheeks. “Sit by me,” said Aurelia: “you are looking at the happy child with admiration; in truth, I took it into my arms with joy; I keep it carefully; yet, by it, too, I can measure the extent of my sufferings; for they seldom let me feel the worth of such a gift.

“Allow me,” she continued, “to speak to you about myself and my destiny; for I have it much at heart that you should not misunderstand me. I thought I should have a few calm instants; and, accordingly, I sent for you. You are now here, and the thread of my narrative is lost.

“‘One more forsaken woman in the world!’ you will say. You are a man. You are thinking, ‘What a noise she makes, the fool, about a necessary evil; which, certainly as death, awaits a woman, when such is the fidelity of men!’ O my friend! if my fate were common, I would gladly undergo a common evil; but it is so singular! why cannot I present it to you in a mirror,  —  why not command some one to tell it you? Oh! had I, had I been seduced, surprised, and afterwards forsaken, there would then still be comfort in despair; but I am far more miserable. I have been my own deceiver; I have wittingly betrayed myself; and this, this, is what shall never be forgiven me.”

“With noble feelings, such as yours,” said Wilhelm, “you cannot be entirely unhappy.”

“And do you know to what I am indebted for my feelings?” asked Aurelia. “To the worst education that ever threatened to contaminate a girl; to the vilest examples for misleading the senses and inclinations.

“My mother dying early, the fairest years of my youth were spent with an aunt, whose principle it was to despise the laws of decency. She resigned herself headlong to every impulse, careless whether the object of it proved her tyrant or her slave, so she might forget herself in wild enjoyment.

“By children, with the pure, clear vision of innocence, what ideas of men were necessarily formed in such a scene! How stolid, brutally bold, importunate, unmannerly, was every one she allured! How sated, empty, insolent, and insipid, as soon as he had had his wishes gratified! I have seen this woman live, for years, humbled under the control of the meanest creatures. What incidents she had to undergo! With what a front she contrived to accommodate herself to her destiny; nay, with how much skill, to wear these shameful fetters!

“It was thus, my friend, that I became acquainted with your sex; and deeply did I hate it, when, as I imagined, I observed that even tolerable men, in their conduct to ours, appeared to renounce every honest feeling, of which nature might otherwise have made them capable.

“Unhappily, moreover, on such occasions, a multitude of painful discoveries about my own sex were forced upon me; and, in truth, I was then wiser, as a girl of sixteen, than I now am, now that I scarcely understand myself. Why are we so wise when young,  —  so wise, and ever growing less so?”

The boy began to make a noise: Aurelia became impatient, and rang. An old woman came to take him out. “Hast thou toothache still?” said Aurelia to the crone, whose face was wrapped in cloth. “Unsufferable,” said the other, with a muffled voice, then lifted the boy, who seemed to like going with her, and carried him away.

Scarcely was he gone, when Aurelia began bitterly to weep. “I am good for nothing,” cried she, “but lamenting and complaining; and I feel ashamed to lie before you like a miserable worm. My recollection is already fled: I can relate no more.” She faltered, and was silent. Her friend, unwilling to reply with a commonplace, and unable to reply with any thing particularly applicable, pressed her hand, and looked at her for some time without speaking. Thus embarrassed, he at length took up a book, which he noticed lying on the table before him: it was Shakspeare’s works, and open at “Hamlet.”

Serlo, at this moment entering, inquired about his sister, and, looking in the book which our friend had hold of, cried, “So you are again at ‘Hamlet’? Very good! Many doubts have arisen in me, which seem not a little to impair the canonical aspect of the play as you would have it viewed. The English themselves have admitted that its chief interest concludes with the third act; the last two lagging sorrily on, and scarcely uniting with the rest: and certainly about the end it seems to stand stock-still.”

“It is very possible,” said Wilhelm, “that some individuals of a nation, which has so many masterpieces to feel proud of, may be led by prejudice and narrowness of mind to form false judgments; but this cannot hinder us from looking with our own eyes, and doing justice where we see it due. I am very far from censuring the plan of ‘Hamlet’: on the other hand, I believe there never was a grander one invented; nay, it is not invented, it is real.”

“How do you demonstrate that?” inquired Serlo.

“I will not demonstrate any thing,” said Wilhelm: “I will merely show you what my own conceptions of it are.”

Aurelia raised herself from her cushion, leaned upon her hand, and looked at Wilhelm, who, with the firmest assurance that he was in the right, went on as follows: “It pleases us, it flatters us, to see a hero acting on his own strength, loving and hating at the bidding of his heart, undertaking and completing, casting every obstacle aside, and attaining some great end. Poets and historians would willingly persuade us that so proud a lot may fall to man. In ‘Hamlet’ we are taught another lesson: the hero is without a plan, but the play is full of plan. Here we have no villain punished on some self-conceived and rigidly accomplished scheme of vengeance: a horrid deed is done; it rolls along with all its consequences, dragging with it even the guiltless: the guilty perpetrator would, as it seems, evade the abyss made ready for him; yet he plunges in, at the very point by which he thinks he shall escape, and happily complete his course.

“For it is the property of crime to extend its mischief over innocence, as it is of virtue to extend its blessings over many that deserve them not; while frequently the author of the one or of the other is not punished or rewarded at all. Here in this play of ours, how strange! The Pit of darkness sends its spirit and demands revenge: in vain! All circumstances tend one way, and hurry to revenge: in vain! Neither earthly nor infernal thing may bring about what is reserved for Fate alone. The hour of judgment comes; the wicked falls with the good; one race is mowed away, that another may spring up.”

After a pause, in which they looked at one another, Serlo said, “You pay no great compliment to Providence, in thus exalting Shakspeare; and besides, it appears to me, that for the honor of your poet, as others for the honor of Providence, you ascribe to him an object and a plan such as he himself had never thought of.”

CHAPTER XVI.

“Let me also put a question,” said Aurelia. “I have looked at Ophelia’s part again: I am contented with it, and confident, that, under certain circumstances, I could play it. But tell me, should not the poet have furnished the insane maiden with another sort of songs? Could not some fragments out of melancholy ballads be selected for this purpose? Why put double meanings and lascivious insipidities in the mouth of this noble-minded girl?”

“Dear friend,” said Wilhelm, “even here I cannot yield you one iota. In these singularities, in this apparent impropriety, a deep sense is hid. Do we not understand from the very first what the mind of the good, soft-hearted girl was busied with? Silently she lived within herself, yet she scarce concealed her wishes, her longing: the tones of desire were in secret ringing through her soul; and how often may she have attempted, like an unskilful nurse, to lull her senses to repose with songs which only kept them more awake? But at last, when her self-command is altogether gone, when the secrets of her heart are hovering on her tongue, that tongue betrays her; and in the innocence of insanity she solaces herself, unmindful of king or queen, with the echo of her loose and well-beloved songs,  —  ‘To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s Day,’ and ‘By Gis and by Saint Charity.’“

He had not finished speaking, when all at once an extraordinary scene took place before him, which he could not in any way explain.

Serlo had walked once or twice up and down the room, without evincing any special object. On a sudden, he stepped forward to Aurelia’s dressing-table, caught hastily at something that was lying there, and hastened to the door with his booty. No sooner did Aurelia notice this, than, springing up, she threw herself in his way, laid hold of him with boundless vehemence, and had dexterity enough to clutch an end of the article he was carrying off. They struggled and wrestled with great obstinacy, twisted and threw each other sharply round; he laughed; she exerted all her strength; and as Wilhelm hastened towards them, to separate and soothe them, Aurelia sprang aside with a naked dagger in her hand; while Serlo cast the scabbard, which had staid with him, angrily upon the floor. Wilhelm started back astonished; and his dumb wonder seemed to ask the cause why so violent a strife, about so strange an implement, had taken place between them.

“You shall judge betwixt us,” said the brother. “What business she with sharp steel? Do but look at it. That dagger is unfit for any actress,  —  point like a needle’s, edge like a razor’s! What good’s the farce? Passionate as she is, she will one day chance to do herself a mischief. I have a heart’s hatred at such singularities: a serious thought of that sort is insane, and so dangerous a plaything is not in taste.”

“I have it back!” exclaimed Aurelia, and held the polished blade aloft: “I will now keep my faithful friend more carefully. Pardon me,” she cried, and kissed the steel, “that I have so neglected thee.”

Serlo was like to grow seriously angry. “Take it as thou wilt, brother,” she continued: “how knowest thou but, under this form, a precious talisman may have been given me, so that, in extreme need, I may find help and counsel in it? Must all be hurtful that looks dangerous?”

“Such talk without a meaning might drive one mad,” said Serlo, and left the room with suppressed indignation. Aurelia put the dagger carefully into its sheath, and placed it in her bosom. “Let us now resume the conversation which our foolish brother has disturbed,” said she, as Wilhelm was beginning to put questions on the subject of this quarrel.

“I must admit your picture of Ophelia to be just,” continued she; “I cannot now misunderstand the object of the poet: I must pity; though, as you paint her, I shall rather pity her than sympathize with her. But allow me here to offer a remark, which in these few days you have frequently suggested to me. I observe with admiration the correct, keen, penetrating glance with which you judge of poetry, especially dramatic poetry: the deepest abysses of invention are not hidden from you, the finest touches of representation cannot escape you. Without ever having viewed the objects in nature, you recognize the truth of their images: there seems, as it were, a presentiment of all the universe to lie in you, which by the harmonious touch of poetry is awakened and unfolded. For in truth,” continued she, “from without, you receive not much: I have scarcely seen a person that so little knew, so totally misknew, the people he lived with, as you do. Allow me to say it: in hearing you expound the mysteries of Shakspeare, one would think you had just descended from a synod of the gods, and had listened there while they were taking counsel how to form men; in seeing you transact with your fellows, I could imagine you to be the first large-born child of the Creation, standing agape, and gazing with strange wonderment and edifying good nature at lions and apes and sheep and elephants, and true-heartedly addressing them as your equals, simply because they were there, and in motion like yourself.”

“The feeling of my ignorance in this respect,” said Wilhelm, “often gives me pain; and I should thank you, worthy friend, if you would help me to get a little better insight into life. From youth, I have been accustomed to direct the eyes of my spirit inwards rather than outwards; and hence it is very natural, that, to a certain extent, I should be acquainted with man, while of men I have not the smallest knowledge.”

“In truth,” said Aurelia, “I at first suspected, that, in giving such accounts of the people whom you sent to my brother, you meant to make sport of us: when I compared your letters with the merits of these persons, it seemed very strange.”

Aurelia’s remarks, well founded as they might be, and willing as our friend was to confess himself deficient in this matter, carried with them something painful, nay, offensive, to him; so that he grew silent, and retired within himself, partly to avoid showing any irritated feeling, partly to search his mind for the truth or error of the charge.

“Let not this alarm you,” said Aurelia: “the light of the understanding it is always in our power to reach, but this fulness of the heart no one can give us. If you are destined for an artist, you cannot long enough retain the dim-sightedness and innocence of which I speak; it is the beautiful hull upon the young bud; woe to us if we are forced too soon to burst it! Surely it were well, if we never knew what the people are for whom we work and study.

“Oh! I, too, was in that happy case, when I first betrod the stage, with the loftiest opinion of myself and of my nation. What a people, in my fancy, were the Germans! what a people might they yet become! I addressed this people, raised above them by a little joinery, separated from them by a row of lamps, whose glancing and vapor threw an indistinctness over every thing before me. How welcome was the tumult of applause which sounded to me from the crowd! how gratefully did I accept the present offered me unanimously by so many hands! For a time I rocked myself in these ideas: I affected the multitude, and was again affected by them. With my public I was on the fairest footing: I imagined that I felt a perfect harmony betwixt us, and that on each occasion I beheld before me the best and noblest of the land.

“Unhappily it was not the actress alone that inspired these friends of the stage with interest: they likewise made pretensions to the young and lively girl. They gave me to understand, in terms distinct enough, that my duty was, not only to excite emotion in them, but to share it with them personally. This, unluckily, was not my business: I wished to elevate their minds; but, to what they called their hearts, I had not the slightest claim. Yet now men of all ranks, ages, and characters, by turns afflicted me with their addresses; and it did seem hard that I could not, like an honest young woman, shut my door, and spare myself such a quantity of labor.

“The men appeared, for most part, much the same as I had been accustomed to about my aunt; and here again I should have felt disgusted with them, had not their peculiarities and insipidities amused me. As I was compelled to see them, in the theatre, in open places, in my house, I formed the project of spying out their follies; and my brother helped me with alacrity to execute it. And if you reflect, that up from the whisking shopman and the conceited merchant’s son, to the polished, calculating man of the world, the bold soldier, and the impetuous prince, all in succession passed in review before me, each in his way endeavoring to found his small romance, you will pardon me if I conceived that I had gained some acquaintance with my nation.

“The fantastically dizened student; the awkward, humbly proud man of letters; the sleek-fed, gouty canon; the solemn, heedful man of office; the heavy country-baron; the smirking, vapid courtier; the young, erring parson; the cool as well as the quick and sharply speculating merchant,  —  all these I have seen in motion; and I swear to you, that there were few among them fitted to inspire me even with a sentiment of toleration: on the contrary, I felt it altogether irksome to collect, with tedium and annoyance, the suffrages of fools; to pocket those applauses in detail, which in their accumulated state had so delighted me, which in the gross I had appropriated with such pleasure.

“If I expected a rational compliment upon my acting, if I hoped that they would praise an author whom I valued, they were sure to make one empty observation on the back of another, and to name some vapid play in which they wished to see me act. If I listened in their company, to hear if some noble, brilliant, witty thought had met with a response among them, and would re-appear from some of them in proper season, it was rare that I could catch an echo of it. An error that had happened, a mispronunciation, a provincialism of some actor, such were the weighty points by which they held fast, beyond which they could not pass. I knew not, in the end, to what hand I should turn: themselves they thought too clever to be entertained; and me they imagined they were well entertaining, if they romped and made noise enough about me. I began very cordially to despise them all: I felt as if the whole nation had, on purpose, deputed these people to debase it in my eyes. They appeared to me so clownish, so ill-bred, so wretchedly instructed, so void of pleasing qualities, so tasteless, I frequently exclaimed, “No German can buckle his shoes, till he has learned to do it of some foreign nation!”

“You perceive how blind, how unjust and splenetic, I was; and, the longer it lasted, my spleen increased. I might have killed myself with these things, but I fell into the contrary extreme: I married, or, rather, let myself be married. My brother, who had undertaken to conduct the theatre, wished much to have a helper. His choice lighted on a young man, who was not offensive to me, who wanted all that my brother had,  —  genius, vivacity, spirit, and impetuosity of mind; but who also in return had all that my brother wanted,  —  love of order, diligence, and precious gifts in housekeeping, and the management of money.

“He became my husband, I know not how: we lived together, I do not well know why. Suffice it to say, our affairs went prosperously forward. We drew a large income: of this my brother’s activity was the cause. We lived with a moderate expenditure, and that was the merit of my husband. I thought no more about world or nation. With the world I had nothing to participate: my idea of the nation had faded away. When I entered on the scene, I did so that I might subsist: I opened my lips because I durst not continue silent, because I had come out to speak.

“Yet let me do the matter justice. I had altogether given myself up to the disposal of my brother. His objects were, applause and money; for, between ourselves, he has no dislike to hear his own praises; and his outlay is always great. I no longer played according to my own feeling, to my own conviction, but as he directed me; and, if I did it to his satisfaction, I was content. He steered entirely by the caprices of the public. Money flowed upon us: he could live according to his humor, and so we had good times with him.

“Thus had I fallen into a dull, handicraft routine. I spun out my days without joy or sympathy. My marriage was childless, and not of long continuance. My husband grew sick; his strength was visibly decaying; anxiety for him interrupted my general indifference. It was at this time that I formed an acquaintance which opened a new life for me,  —  a new and quicker one, for it will soon be done.”

She kept silence for a time, and then continued, “All at once my prattling humor falters: I have not the courage to go on. Let me rest a little. You shall not go, till you have learned the whole extent of my misfortune. Meanwhile, call in Mignon, and ask her what she wants.”

The child had more than once been in the room, while Aurelia and our friend were talking. As they spoke lower on her entrance, she had glided out again, and was now sitting quietly in the hall, and waiting. Being bid return, she brought a book with her, which its form and binding showed to be a small geographical atlas. She had seen some maps, for the first time, at the parson’s house, with great astonishment; had asked him many questions, and informed herself so far as possible about them. Her desire to learn seemed much excited by this new branch of knowledge. She now earnestly requested Wilhelm to purchase her the book; saying she had pawned her large silver buckle with the print-seller for it, and wished to have back the pledge to-morrow morning, as this evening it was late. Her request was granted; and she then began repeating several things she had already learned; at the same time, in her own way, making many very strange inquiries. Here again one might observe, that, with a mighty effort, she could comprehend but little and laboriously. So likewise was it with her writing, at which she still kept busied. She yet spoke very broken German: it was only when she opened her mouth to sing, when she touched her cithern, that she seemed to be employing an organ by which, in some degree, the workings of her mind could be disclosed and communicated.

Since we are at present on the subject, we may also mention the perplexity which Wilhelm had of late experienced from certain parts of her procedure, When she came or went, wished him good-morning or good-night, she clasped him so firmly in her arms, and kissed him with such ardor, that often the violence of this expanding nature gave him serious fears. The spasmodic vivacity of her demeanor seemed daily to increase: her whole being moved in a restless stillness. She would never be without some piece of packthread to twist in her hands, some napkin to tie in knots, some paper or wood to chew. All her sports seemed but the channels which drained off some inward violent commotion. The only thing that seemed to cause her any cheerfulness was being near the boy Felix, with whom she could go on in a very dainty manner.

Aurelia, after a little rest, being now ready to explain to her friend a matter which lay very near her heart, grew impatient at the little girl’s delay, and signified that she must go,  —  a hint, however, which the latter did not take; and at last, when nothing else would do, they sent her off expressly and against her will.

“Now or never,” said Aurelia, “must I tell you the remainder of my story. Were my tenderly beloved and unjust friend but a few miles distant, I would say to you, ‘Mount on horseback, seek by some means to get acquainted with him: on returning, you will certainly forgive me, and pity me with all your heart.’ As it is, I can only tell you with words how amiable he was, and how much I loved him.

“It was at the critical season, when care for the illness of my husband had depressed my spirits, that I first became acquainted with this stranger. He had just returned from America, where, in company with some Frenchmen, he had served with much distinction under the colors of the United States.

“He addressed me with an easy dignity, a frank kindliness: he spoke about myself, my state, my acting, like an old acquaintance, so affectionately and distinctly, that now for the first time I enjoyed the pleasure of perceiving my existence reflected in the being of another. His judgments were just, though not severe; penetrating, yet not void of love. He showed no harshness: his pleasantry was courteous, with all his humor. He seemed accustomed to success with women; this excited my attention: he was never in the least importunate or flattering; this put me off my guard.

“In the town, he had intercourse with few: he was often on horseback, visiting his many friends in the neighborhood, and managing the business of his house. On returning, he would frequently alight at my apartments; he treated my ever-ailing husband with warm attention; he procured him mitigation of his sickness by a good physician. And, taking part in all that interested me, he allowed me to take part in all that interested him. He told me the history of his campaigns: he spoke of his invincible attachment to military life, of his family relations, of his present business. He kept no secret from me; he displayed to me his inmost thoughts, allowed me to behold the most secret corners of his soul: I became acquainted with his passions and his capabilities. It was the first time in my life that I enjoyed a cordial, intellectual intercourse with any living creature. I was attracted by him, borne along by him, before I thought about inquiring how it stood with me.

“Meanwhile I lost my husband, nearly just as I had taken him. The burden of theatrical affairs now fell entirely on me. My brother, not to be surpassed upon the stage, was never good for any thing in economical concerns: I took the charge of all, at the same time studying my parts with greater diligence than ever. I again played as of old,  —  nay, with new life, with quite another force. It was by reason of my friend, it was on his account, that I did so; yet my success was not always best when I knew him to be present. Once or twice he listened to me unobserved, and how pleasantly his unexpected applauses surprised me you may conceive.

“Certainly I am a strange creature. In every part I played, it seemed as if I had been speaking it in praise of him; for that was the temper of my heart, the words might be any thing they pleased. Did I understand him to be present in the audience, I durst not venture to speak out with all my force; just as I would not press my love or praise on him to his face: was he absent, I had then free scope; I did my best, with a certain peacefulness, with a contentment not to be described. Applause once more delighted me; and, when I charmed the people, I longed to call down among them, ‘This you owe to him!’

“Yes: my relation to the public, to the nation, had been altered by a wonder. On a sudden they again appeared to me in the most favorable light: I felt astonished at my former blindness.

“‘How foolish,’ said I often to myself, ‘was it to revile a nation,  —  foolish, simply because it was a nation. Is it necessary, is it possible, that individual men should generally interest us much? Not at all! The only question is, whether in the great mass there exists a sufficient quantity of talent, force, and capability, which lucky circumstances may develop, which men of lofty minds may direct upon a common object.’ I now rejoiced in discovering so little prominent originality among my countrymen; I rejoiced that they disdained not to accept of guidance from without; I rejoiced that they had found a leader.

“Lothario,  —  allow me to designate my friend by this, his first name, which I loved,  —  Lothario had always presented the Germans to my mind on the side of valor, and shown me, that, when well commanded, there was no braver nation on the face of the earth; and I felt ashamed that I had never thought of this, the first quality of a people. History was known to him: he was in connection and correspondence with the most distinguished persons of the age. Young as he was, his eye was open to the budding youthhood of his native country, to the silent labors of active and busy men in so many provinces of art. He afforded me a glimpse of Germany,  —  what it was and what it might be; and I blushed at having formed my judgment of a nation from the motley crowd that squeeze into the wardrobe of a theatre. He made me look upon it as a duty that I too, in my own department, should be true, spirited, enlivening. I now felt as if inspired every time I stepped upon the boards. Mediocre passages grew golden in my mouth: had any poet been at hand to support me adequately, I might have produced the most astonishing effects.

“So lived the young widow for a series of months. He could not do without me, and I felt exceedingly unhappy when he staid away. He showed me the letters he received from his relations, from his amiable sister. He took an interest in the smallest circumstance that concerned me: more complete, more intimate, no union ever was than ours. The name of love was not mentioned. He went and came, came and went. And now, my friend, it is high time that you, too, should go.”

CHAPTER XVII.

Wilhelm could put off no longer the visiting of his commercial friends. He proceeded to their place with some anxiety, knowing he should there find letters from his people. He dreaded the reproofs which these would of course contain: it seemed likely also that notice had been given to his trading correspondents, concerning the perplexities and fears which his late silence had occasioned. After such a series of knightly adventures, he recoiled from the school-boy aspect in which he must appear: he proposed within his mind to act with an air of sternness and defiance, and thus hide his embarrassment.

To his great wonder and contentment, however, all went off very easily and well. In the vast, stirring, busy counting-room, the men had scarcely time to seek him out his packet: his delay was but alluded to in passing. And on opening the letters of his father, and his friend Werner, he found them all of very innocent contents. His father, in hopes of an extensive journal, the keeping of which he had strongly recommended to his son at parting, giving him also a tabulary scheme for that purpose, seemed pretty well pacified about the silence of the first period; complaining only of a certain enigmatical obscurity in the last and only letter despatched, as we have seen, from the castle of the count. Werner joked in his way; told merry anecdotes, facetious burgh-news; and requested intelligence of friends and acquaintances, whom Wilhelm, in the large trading-city, would now meet with in great numbers. Our friend, extremely pleased at getting off so well, answered without loss of a moment, in some very cheerful letters; promising his father a copious journal of his travels, with all the required geographical, statistical, and mercantile remarks. He had seen much on his journey, he said, and hoped to make a tolerably large manuscript out of these materials. He did not observe that he was almost in the same case as he had once experienced before, when he assembled an audience and lit his lamps to represent a play which was not written, still less got by heart. Accordingly, so soon as he commenced the actual work of composition, he became aware that he had much to say about emotions and thoughts, and many experiences of the heart and spirit, but not a word concerning outward objects, on which, as he now discovered, he had not bestowed the least attention.

In this embarrassment, the acquisitions of his friend Laertes came very seasonably to his aid. Custom had united these young people, unlike one another as they were; and Laertes, with all his failings and singularities, was actually an interesting man. Endowed with warm and pleasurable senses, he might have reached old age without reflecting for a moment on his situation. But his ill-fortune and his sickness had robbed him of the pure feelings of youth, and opened for him instead of it a view into the transitoriness, the discontinuity, of man’s existence. Hence had arisen a humorous, flighty, rhapsodical way of thinking about all things, or, rather, of uttering the immediate impressions they produced on him. He did not like to be alone; he strolled about all the coffee-houses and tables-d’hôte; and, when he did stay at home, books of travels were his favorite, nay, his only, kind of reading. Having lately found a large circulating library, he had been enabled to content his taste in this respect to the full; and erelong half the world was figuring in his faithful memory.

It was easy for him, therefore, to speak comfort to his friend, when the latter had disclosed his utter lack of matter for the narrative so solemnly promised by him. “Now is the time for a stroke of art,” said Laertes, “that shall have no fellow!

“Has not Germany been travelled over, cruised over, walked, crept, and flown over, repeatedly from end to end? And has not every German traveller the royal privilege of drawing from the public a repayment of the great or small expenses he may have incurred while travelling? Give me your route previous to our meeting: the rest I know already. I will find you helps and sources of information: of miles that were never measured, populations that were never counted, we shall give them plenty. The revenues of provinces we will take from almanacs and tables, which, as all men know, are the most authentic documents. On these we will ground our political discussions: we shall not fail in side-glances at the ruling powers. One or two princes we will paint as true fathers of their country, that we may gain more ready credence in our allegations against others. If we do not travel through the residence of any noted man, we shall take care to meet such persons at the inn, and make them utter the most foolish stuff to us. Particularly, let us not forget to insert, with all its graces and sentiments, some love-story with a pastoral bar-maid. I tell you, it shall be a composition which will not only fill father and mother with delight, but which booksellers themselves shall gladly pay you current money for.”

They went accordingly to work, and both of them found pleasure in their labor. Wilhelm, in the mean time, frequenting the play at night, and conversing with Serlo and Aurelia by day, experienced the greatest satisfaction, and was daily more and more expanding his ideas, which had been too long revolving in the same narrow circle.

CHAPTER XVIII.

It was not without deep interest that he became acquainted with the history of Serlo’s career. Piecemeal he learned it; for it was not the fashion of that extraordinary man to be confidential, or to speak of any thing connectively. He had been, one may say, born and suckled in the theatre. While yet literally an infant, he had been produced upon the stage to move spectators, merely by his presence; for authors even then were acquainted with this natural and very guiltless mode of doing so. Thus his first “Father!” or “Mother!” in favorite pieces, procured him approbation, before he understood what was meant by that clapping of the hands. In the character of Cupid, he more than once descended, with terror, in his flying-gear; as harlequin, he used to issue from the egg; and, as a little chimney-sweep, to play the sharpest tricks.

Unhappily, the plaudits of these glancing nights were too bitterly repaid by sufferings in the intervening seasons. His father was persuaded that the minds of children could be kept awake and steadfast by no other means than blows: hence, in the studying of any part, he used to thrash him at stated periods, not because the boy was awkward, but that he might become more certainly and constantly expert. It was thus that in former times, while putting down a landmark, people were accustomed to bestow a hearty drubbing on the children who had followed them: and these, it was supposed, would recollect the place exactly to the latest day of their lives. Serlo waxed in stature, and showed the finest capabilities of spirit and of body,  —  in particular, an admirable pliancy at once in his thoughts, looks, movements, and gestures. His gift of imitation was beyond belief. When still a boy, he could mimic persons, so that you would think you saw them; though in form, age, and disposition, they might be entirely unlike him, and unlike each other. Nor with all this, did he want the knack of suiting himself to his circumstances, and picking out his way in life. Accordingly, so soon as he had grown in some degree acquainted with his strength, he very naturally eloped from his father, who, as the boy’s understanding and dexterity increased, still thought it needful to forward their perfection by the harshest treatment.

Happy was the wild boy, now roaming free about the world, where his feats of waggery never failed to secure him a good reception. His lucky star first led him in the Christmas season to a cloister, where the friar, whose business it had been to arrange processions, and to entertain the Christian community by spiritual masquerades, having just died, Serlo was welcomed as a helping angel. On the instant he took up the part of Gabriel in the Annunciation, and did not by any means displease the pretty girl, who, acting the Virgin, very gracefully received his most obliging kiss, with external humility and inward pride. In their Mysteries, he continued to perform the most important parts, and thought himself no slender personage, when at last, in the character of Martyr, he was mocked of the world, and beaten, and fixed upon the cross.

Some pagan soldiers had, on this occasion, played their parts a little too naturally. To be avenged on these heathen in the proper style, he took care at the Day of Judgment to have them decked out in gaudy clothes as emperors and kings; and at that moment when they, exceedingly contented with their situation, were about to take precedence of the rest in heaven, as they had done on earth, he, on a sudden, rushed upon them in the shape of the Devil; and to the cordial edification of all the beggars and spectators, having thoroughly curried them with his oven-fork, he pushed them without mercy back into the chasm, where, in the midst of waving flame, they met with the sorriest welcome.

He was acute enough, however, to perceive that these crowned heads might feel offended at such bold procedure, and perhaps forget the reverence due to his privileged office of Accuser and Turnkey. So in all silence, before the Millennium commenced, he withdrew, and betook him to a neighboring town. Here a society of persons, denominated Children of Joy, received him with open arms. They were a set of clever, strong-headed, lively geniuses, who saw well enough that the sum of our existence, divided by reason, never gives an integer number, but that a surprising fraction is always left behind. At stated times, to get rid of this fraction, which impedes, and, if it is diffused over all the mass of our conduct, endangers us, was the object of the Children of Joy. For one day a week each of them in succession was a fool on purpose; and, during this, he in his turn exhibited to ridicule, in allegorical representations, whatever folly he had noticed in himself, or the rest, throughout the other six. This practice might be somewhat ruder than that constant training, in the course of which a man of ordinary morals is accustomed to observe, to warn, to punish, himself daily; but it was also merrier and surer. For as no Child of Joy concealed his bosom-folly, so he and those about him held it for simply what it was; whereas, on the other plan, by the help of self-deception, this same bosom-folly often gains the head authority within, and binds down reason to a secret servitude, at the very time when reason fondly hopes that she has long since chased it out of doors. The mask of folly circulated round in this society; and each member was allowed, in his particular day, to decorate and characterize it with his own attributes or those of others. At the time of Carnival, they assumed the greatest freedom, vying with the clergy in attempts to instruct and entertain the multitude. Their solemn figurative processions of Virtues and Vices, Arts and Sciences, Quarters of the World, and Seasons of the Year, bodied forth a number of conceptions, and gave images of many distant objects to the people, and hence were not without their use; while, on the other hand, the mummeries of the priesthood tended but to strengthen a tasteless superstition, already strong enough.

Here again young Serlo was altogether in his element. Invention in its strictest sense, it is true, he had not; but, on the other hand, he had the most consummate skill in employing what he found before him, in ordering it, and shadowing it forth. His roguish turns, his gift of mimicry; his biting wit, which at least one day weekly he might use with entire freedom, even against his benefactors,  —  made him precious, or rather indispensable, to the whole society.

Yet his restless mind soon drove him from this favorable scene to other quarters of his country, where other means of instruction awaited him. He came into the polished, but also barren, part of Germany, where, in worshipping the good and the beautiful, there is indeed no want of truth, but frequently a grievous want of spirit. His masks would here do nothing for him: he had now to aim at working on the heart and mind. For short periods, he attached himself to small or to extensive companies of actors, and marked, on these occasions, what were the distinctive properties, both of the pieces and the players. The monotony which then reigned on the German theatre, the mawkish sound and cadence of their Alexandrines, the flat and yet distorted dialogue, the shallowness and commonness of these undisguised preachers of morality, he was not long in comprehending, or in seizing, at the same time, what little there was that moved and pleased.

Not only single parts in the current pieces, but the pieces themselves, remained easily and wholly in his memory, and, along with them, the special tone of any player who had represented them with approbation. At length, in the course of his rambles, his money being altogether done, the project struck him of acting entire pieces by himself, especially in villages and noblemen’s houses, and thus in all places making sure at least of entertainment and lodging. In any tavern, any room, or any garden, he would accordingly at once set up his theatre: with a roguish seriousness and a show of enthusiasm, he would contrive to gain the imaginations of his audience, to deceive their senses, and before their eyes to make an old press into a tower, or a fan into a dagger. His youthful warmth supplied the place of deep feeling: his vehemence seemed strength, and his flattery tenderness. Such of the spectators as already knew a theatre, he put in mind of all that they had seen and heard: in the rest he awakened a presentiment of something wonderful, and a wish to be more acquainted with it. What produced an effect in one place he did not fail to repeat in others; and his mind overflowed with a wicked pleasure when, by the same means, on the spur of the moment, he could make gulls of all the world.

His spirit was lively, brisk, and unimpeded: by frequently repeating parts and pieces, he improved very fast. Erelong he could recite and play with more conformity to the sense than the models whom he had at first imitated. Proceeding thus, he arrived by degrees at playing naturally; though he did not cease to feign. He seemed transported, yet he lay in wait for the effect; and his greatest pride was in moving, by successive touches, the passions of men. The mad trade he drove did itself soon force him to proceed with a certain moderation; and thus, partly by constraint, partly by instinct, he learned the art of which so few players seemed to have a notion,  —  the art of being frugal in the use of voice and gestures.

Thus did he contrive to tame, and to inspire with interest for him, even rude and unfriendly men. Being always contented with food and shelter; thankfully accepting presents of any kind as readily as money, which latter, when he reckoned that he had enough of it, he frequently declined,  —  he became a general favorite, was sent about from one to another with recommendatory letters; and thus he wandered many a day from castle to castle, exciting much festivity, enjoying much, and meeting in his travels with the most agreeable and curious adventures.

With such inward coldness of temper, he could not properly be said to love any one; with such clearness of vision, he could respect no one; in fact, he never looked beyond the external peculiarities of men; and he merely carried their characters in his mimical collection. Yet withal, his selfishness was keenly wounded if he did not please every one and call forth universal applause. How this might be attained, he had studied in the course of time so accurately, and so sharpened his sense of the matter, that not only on the stage, but also in common life, he no longer could do otherwise than flatter and deceive. And thus did his disposition, his talent, and his way of life, work reciprocally on each other, till by this means he had imperceptibly been formed into a perfect actor. Nay, by a mode of action and re-action, which is quite natural, though it seems paradoxical, his recitation, declamation, and gesture improved, by critical discernment and practice, to a high degree of truth, ease, and frankness; while, in his life and intercourse with men, he seemed to grow continually more secret, artful, or even hypocritical and constrained.

Of his fortunes and adventures we perhaps shall speak in another place: it is enough to remark at present, that in later times, when he had become a man of circumstance, in possession of a distinct reputation, and of a very good, though not entirely secure, employment and rank, he was wont, in conversation, partly in the way of irony, partly of mockery, in a delicate style, to act the sophist, and thus to destroy almost all serious discussion. This kind of speech he seemed peculiarly fond of using towards Wilhelm, particularly when the latter took a fancy, as often happened, for introducing any of his general and theoretical disquisitions. Yet still they liked well to be together: with such different modes of thinking, the conversation could not fail to be lively. Wilhelm always wished to deduce every thing from abstract ideas which he had arrived at: he wanted to have art viewed in all its connections as a whole. He wanted to promulgate and fix down universal laws; to settle what was right, beautiful, and good: in short, he treated all things in a serious manner. Serlo, on the other hand, took up the matter very lightly: never answering directly to any question, he would contrive, by some anecdote or laughable turn, to give the finest and most satisfactory illustrations, and thus to instruct his audience while he made them merry.

CHAPTER XIX.

While our friend was in this way living very happily, Melina and the rest were in quite a different case. Wilhelm they haunted like evil spirits; and not only by their presence, but frequently by rueful faces and bitter words, they caused him many a sorry moment. Serlo had not admitted them to the most trifling part, far less held out to them any hope of a permanent engagement; and yet he had contrived, by degrees, to get acquainted with the capabilities of every one of them. Whenever any actors were assembled in leisure hours about him, he was wont to make them read, and frequently to read along with them. On such occasions he took plays which were by and by to be acted, which for a long time had remained unacted; and generally by portions. In like manner, after any first representation, he caused such passages to be repeated as he had any thing to say upon: by which means he sharpened the discernment of his actors, and strengthened their certainty of hitting the proper point. And as a person of slender but correct understanding may produce more agreeable effect on others than a perplexed and unpurified genius, he would frequently exalt men of mediocre talents, by the clear views which he imperceptibly afforded them, to a wonderful extent of power. Nor was it an unimportant item in his scheme, that he likewise had poems read before him in their meetings; for by these he nourished in his people the feeling of that charm which a well-pronounced rhythm is calculated to awaken in the soul: whereas, in other companies, those prose compositions were already getting introduced for which any tyro was adequate.

On occasions such as these, he had contrived to make himself acquainted with the new-come players: he had decided what they were, and what they might be, and silently made up his mind to take advantage of their talents, in a revolution which was now threatening his own company. For a while he let the matter rest; declined every one of Wilhelm’s intercessions for his comrades, with a shrug of the shoulders; till at last he saw his time, and altogether unexpectedly made the proposal to our friend, “that he himself should come upon the stage; that, on this condition, the others, too, might be admitted.”

“These people must not be so useless as you formerly described them,” answered Wilhelm, “if they can now be all received at once; and I suppose their talents would remain the same without me as with me.”

Under seal of secrecy, Serlo hereupon explained his situation,  —  how his first actor was giving hints about a rise of salary at the renewal of their contract; how he himself did not incline conceding this, the rather as the individual in question was no longer in such favor with the public; how, if he dismissed him, a whole train would follow; whereby, it was true, his company would lose some good, but likewise some indifferent, actors. He then showed Wilhelm what he hoped to gain in him, in Laertes, Old Boisterous, and even Frau Melina. Nay, he promised to procure for the silly Pedant himself, in the character of Jew, minister, but chiefly of villain, a decided approbation.

Wilhelm faltered; the proposal fluttered him; he knew not what to say. That he might say something, he rejoined, with a deep-drawn breath, “You speak very graciously about the good you find and hope to find in us; but how is it with our weak points, which certainly have not escaped your penetration?”

“These,” said Serlo, “by diligence, practice, and reflection, we shall soon make strong points. Though you are yet but freshmen and bunglers, there is not one among you that does not warrant expectation more or less: for, so far as I can judge, no stick, properly so called, is to be met with in the company; and your stick is the only person that can never be improved, never bent or guided, whether it be self-conceit, stupidity, or hypochondria, that renders him unpliant.”

The manager next stated, in a few words, the terms he meant to offer; requested Wilhelm to determine soon, and left him in no small perplexity.

In the marvellous composition of those travels, which he had at first engaged with, as it were, in jest, and was now carrying on in conjunction with Laertes, his mind had by degrees grown more attentive to the circumstances and the every-day life of the actual world than it was wont. He now first understood the object of his father in so earnestly recommending him to keep a journal. He now, for the first time, felt how pleasant and how useful it might be to become participator in so many trades and requisitions, and to take a hand in diffusing activity and life into the deepest nooks of the mountains and forests of Europe. The busy trading-town in which he was; the unrest of Laertes, who dragged him about to examine every thing,  —  afforded him the most impressive image of a mighty centre, from which every thing was flowing out, to which every thing was coming back; and it was the first time that his spirit, in contemplating this species of activity, had really felt delight. At such a juncture Serlo’s offer had been made him; had again awakened his desires, his tendencies, his faith in a natural talent, and again brought into mind his solemn obligation to his helpless comrades.

“Here standest thou once more,” said he within himself, “at the Parting of the Ways, between the two women who appeared before thee in thy youth. The one no longer looks so pitiful as then, nor does the other look so glorious. To obey the one, or to obey the other, thou art not without a kind of inward calling: outward reasons are on both sides strong enough, and to decide appears to thee impossible. Thou wishest some preponderancy from without would fix thy choice; and yet, if thou consider well, it is external circumstances only that inspire thee with a wish to trade, to gather, to possess; whilst it is thy inmost want that has created, that has nourished, the desire still further to unfold and perfect what endowments soever for the beautiful and good, be they mental or bodily, may lie within thee. And ought I not to honor Fate, which, without furtherance of mine, has led me hither to the goal of all my wishes? Has not all that I, in old times, meditated and forecast, now happened accidentally, and without my co-operation? Singular enough! We seem to be so intimate with nothing as we are with our own wishes and hopes, which have long been kept and cherished in our hearts; yet when they meet us, when they, as it were, press forward to us, then we know them not, then we recoil from them. All that, since the hapless night which severed me from Mariana, I have but allowed myself to dream, now stands before me, entreating my acceptance. Hither I intended to escape by flight; hither I am softly guided: with Serlo I meant to seek a place; he now seeks me, and offers me conditions, which, as a beginner, I could not have looked for. Was it, then, mere love to Mariana that bound me to the stage? Or love to art that bound me to her? Was that prospect, that outlet, which the theatre presented me, nothing but the project of a restless, disorderly, and disobedient boy, wishing to lead a life which the customs of the civic world would not admit of? Or was all this different, worthier, purer? If so, what moved thee to alter the persuasions of that period? Hast thou not hitherto, even without knowing it, pursued thy plan? Is not the concluding step still further to be justified, now that no side-purposes combine with it; now that in making it thou mayest fulfil a solemn promise, and nobly free thyself from a heavy debt?”

All that could affect his heart and his imagination was now moving, and conflicting in the liveliest strife within him. The thought that he might retain Mignon, that he should not need to put away the harper, was not an inconsiderable item in the balance, which, however, had not ceased to waver to the one and to the other side, when he went, as he was wont, to see his friend Aurelia.

CHAPTER XX.

She was lying on the sofa: she seemed quiet. “Do you think you will be fit to act to-morrow?” he inquired. “Oh, yes!” cried she with vivacity: “you know there is nothing to prevent me. If I but knew a way,” continued she, “to rid myself of those applauses! The people mean it well, but they will kill me. Last night I thought my very heart would break! Once, when I used to please myself, I could endure this gladly: when I had studied long, and well prepared myself, it gave me joy to hear the sound, ‘It has succeeded!’ pealing back to me from every corner. But now I speak not what I like, nor as I like; I am swept along, I get confused, I scarce know what I do; and the impression I make is far deeper. The applause grows louder; and I think, Did you but know what charms you! These dark, vague, vehement tones of passion move you, force you to admire; and you feel not that they are the cries of agony, wrung from the miserable being whom you praise.

“I learned my part this morning: just now I have been repeating it and trying it. I am tired, broken down; and to-morrow I must do the same. To-morrow evening is the play. Thus do I drag myself to and fro: it is wearisome to rise, it is wearisome to go to bed. All moves within me in an everlasting circle. Then come their dreary consolations, and present themselves before me; and I cast them out, and execrate them. I will not surrender, not surrender to necessity: why should that be necessary which crushes me to the dust? Might it not be otherwise? I am paying the penalty of being born a German: it is the nature of the Germans, that they bear heavily on every thing, that every thing bears heavily on them.”

“O my friend!” cried Wilhelm, “could you cease to whet the dagger wherewith you are ever wounding me! Does nothing, then, remain for you? Are your youth, your form, your health, your talents, nothing? Having lost one blessing, without blame of yours, must you throw all the others after it? Is that also necessary?”

She was silent for a few moments, and then burst forth, “I know well, it is a waste of time, nothing but a waste of time, this love! What might not, should not, I have done! And now it is all vanished into air. I am a poor, wretched, lovelorn creature,  —  lovelorn, that is all! Oh, have compassion on me! God knows I am poor and wretched!”

She sank in thought: then, after a brief pause, she exclaimed with violence, “You are accustomed to have all things fly into your arms. No: you cannot feel, no man is qualified to feel, the worth of a woman that can reverence herself. By all the holy angels, by all the images of blessedness, which a pure and kindly heart creates, there is not any thing more heavenly than the soul of a woman giving herself to the man she loves!

“We are cold, proud, high, clear-sighted, wise, while we deserve the name of women; and all these qualities we lay down at your feet, the instant that we love, that we hope to excite a return of love. Oh, how have I cast away my whole existence wittingly and willingly! But now will I despair, purposely despair. There is no drop of blood within me but shall suffer, no fibre that I will not punish. Smile, I pray you; laugh at this theatrical display of passion.”

Wilhelm was far enough from any tendency to laugh. This horrible, half-natural, half-factitious condition of his friend afflicted him but too deeply. He sympathized in the tortures of that racking misery: his thoughts were wandering in painful perplexities, his blood was in a feverish tumult.

She had risen, and was walking up and down the room. “I see before me,” she exclaimed, “all manner of reasons why I should not love him. I know he is not worthy of it; I turn my mind aside, this way and that; I seize upon whatever business I can find. At one time I take up a part, though I have not to play it; at another, I begin to practise old ones, though I know them through and through; I practise them more diligently, more minutely,  —  I toil and toil at them. My friend, my confidant, what a horrid task is it to tear away one’s thoughts from one’s self! My reason suffers, my brain is racked and strained: to save myself from madness, I again admit the feeling that I love him. Yes, I love him, I love him!” cried she, with a shower of tears: “I love him, I shall die loving him!”

He took her by the hand, and entreated her in the most earnest manner not to waste herself in such self-torments. “Oh! it seems hard,” said he, “that not only so much that is impossible should be denied us, but so much also that is possible! It was not your lot to meet with a faithful heart that would have formed your perfect happiness. It was mine to fix the welfare of my life upon a hapless creature, whom, by the weight of my fidelity, I drew to the bottom like a reed, perhaps even broke in pieces!”

He had told Aurelia of his intercourse with Mariana, and could therefore now refer to it. She looked him intently in the face, and asked, “Can you say that you never yet betrayed a woman, that you never tried with thoughtless gallantry, with false asseverations, with cajoling oaths, to wheedle favor from her?”

“I can,” said Wilhelm, “and indeed without much vanity: my life has been so simple and sequestered, I have had but few enticements to attempt such things. And what a warning, my beautiful, my noble, friend, is this melancholy state in which I see you! Accept of me a vow, which is suited to my heart; which, under the emotion you have caused me, has settled into words and shape, and will be hallowed by the hour in which I utter it. Each transitory inclination I will study to withstand, and even the most earnest I will keep within my bosom: no woman shall receive an acknowledgment of love from my lips to whom I cannot consecrate my life!”

She looked at him with a wild indifference, and drew back some steps as he offered her his hand. “’Tis of no moment!” cried she: “so many women’s tears, more or fewer; the ocean will not swell by reason of them. And yet,” continued she, “among thousands, one woman saved; that still is something: among thousands, one honest man discovered; this is not to be refused. Do you know, then, what you promise?”

“I know it,” answered Wilhelm, with a smile, and holding out his hand.

“I accept it, then,” said she, and made a movement with her right hand, as if meaning to take hold of his; but instantly she darted it into her pocket, pulled out her dagger quick as lightning, and scored with the edge and point of it across his hand. He hastily drew it back, but the blood was already running down.

“One must mark you men rather sharply, if one would have you take heed,” cried she, with a wild mirth, which soon passed into a quick assiduity. She took her handkerchief, and bound his hand with it to stanch the fast-flowing blood. “Forgive a half-crazed being,” cried she, “and regret not these few drops of blood. I am appeased. I am again myself. On my knees will I crave your pardon: leave me the comfort of healing you.”

She ran to her drawer, brought lint, with other apparatus, stanched the blood, and viewed the wound attentively. It went across the palm, close under the thumb, dividing the life-line, and running towards the little finger. She bound it up in silence, with a significant, reflective look. He asked, once or twice, “Aurelia, how could you hurt your friend?”

“Hush!” replied she, laying her finger on her mouth: “Hush!”

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

Thus Wilhelm, to his pair of former wounds, which were yet scarcely healed, had now got the accession of a third, which was fresh and not a little disagreeable. Aurelia would not suffer him to call a surgeon: she dressed the hand with all manner of strange speeches, saws, and ceremonies, and so placed him in a very painful situation. Yet not he alone, but all persons who came near her, suffered by her restlessness and singularity, and no one more than little Felix. This stirring child was exceedingly impatient under such oppression, and showed himself still naughtier the more she censured and instructed him.

He delighted in some practices which commonly are thought bad habits, and in which she would not by any means indulge him. He would drink, for example, rather from the bottle than the glass; and his food seemed visibly to have a better relish when eaten from the bowl than from the plate. Such ill-breeding was not overlooked: if he left the door standing open, or slammed it to; if, when bid do any thing, he stood stock-still, or ran off violently,  —  he was sure to have a long lecture inflicted on him for the fault. Yet he showed no symptoms of improvement from this training: on the other hand, his affection for Aurelia seemed daily to diminish; there was nothing tender in his tone when he called her mother; whereas he passionately clung to the old nurse, who let him have his will in every thing.

But she likewise had of late become so sick, that they had at last been obliged to take her from the house into a quiet lodging; and Felix would have been entirely alone if Mignon had not, like a kindly guardian spirit, come to help him. The two children talked together, and amused each other in the prettiest style. She taught him little songs; and he, having an excellent memory, frequently recited them, to the surprise of those about him. She attempted also to explain her maps to him. With these she was still very busy, though she did not seem to take the fittest method. For, in studying countries, she appeared to care little about any other point than whether they were cold or warm. Of the north and south poles, of the horrid ice which reigns there, and of the increasing heat the farther one retires from them, she could give a very clear account. When any one was travelling, she merely asked whether he was going northward or southward, and strove to find his route in her little charts. Especially when Wilhelm spoke of travelling, she was all attention, and seemed vexed when any thing occurred to change the subject. Though she could not be prevailed upon to undertake a part, or even to enter the theatre when any play was acting, yet she willingly and zealously committed many odes and songs to memory; and by unexpectedly, and, as it were, on the spur of the moment, reciting some such poem, generally of the earnest and solemn kind, she would often cause astonishment in every one.

Serlo, accustomed to regard with favor every trace of opening talent, encouraged her in such performances; but what pleased him most in Mignon was her sprightly, various, and often even mirthful, singing. By means of a similar gift, the harper likewise had acquired his favor.

Without himself possessing genius for music, or playing on any instrument, Serlo could rightly prize the value of the art: he failed not, as often as he could, to enjoy this pleasure, which cannot be compared with any other. He held a concert once a week; and now, with Mignon, the harper, and Laertes, who was not unskilful on the violin, he had formed a very curious domestic band.

He was wont to say, “Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect,  —  that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments: it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new. For this reason,” he would add, “one ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” With such a turn of thought in Serlo, which in some degree was natural to him, the persons who frequented his society could scarcely be in want of pleasant conversation.

It was in the midst of these instructive entertainments, that Wilhelm one day received a letter sealed in black. Werner’s hand betokened mournful news; and our friend was not a little shocked when, opening the sheet, he found it to contain the tidings of his father’s death, conveyed in a very few words. After a short and sudden illness, he had parted from the world, leaving his domestic affairs in the best possible order.

This unlooked-for intelligence struck Wilhelm to the heart. He deeply felt how careless and negligent we often are of friends and relations while they inhabit with us this terrestrial sojourn; and how we first repent of our insensibility when the fair union, at least for this side of time, is finally cut asunder. His grief for the early death of this honest parent was mitigated only by the feeling that he had loved but little in the world, and the conviction that he had enjoyed but little.

Wilhelm’s thoughts soon turned to his own predicament, and he felt himself extremely discomposed. A person can scarcely be put into a more dangerous position, than when external circumstances have produced some striking change in his condition, without his manner of feeling and of thinking having undergone any preparation for it. There is, then, an epoch without epoch; and the contradiction which arises is the greater the less the person feels that he is not trained for this new manner of existence.

Wilhelm saw himself in freedom, at a moment when he could not yet be at one with himself. His thoughts were noble, his motives pure, his purposes were not to be despised. All this he could, with some degree of confidence, acknowledge to himself: but he had of late been frequently enough compelled to notice, that experience was sadly wanting to him; and hence, on the experience of others, and on the results which they deduced from it, he put a value far beyond its real one, and thus led himself still deeper into error. What he wanted, he conceived he might most readily acquire if he undertook to collect and retain whatever memorable thought he should meet with in reading or in conversation. He accordingly recorded his own or other men’s opinions, nay, wrote whole dialogues, when they chanced to interest him. But unhappily by this means he held fast the false no less firmly than the true; he dwelt far too long on one idea, particularly when it was of an aphoristic shape; and thus he left his natural mode of thought and action, and frequently took foreign lights for his loadstars. Aurelia’s bitterness, and Laertes’s cold contempt for men, warped his judgment oftener than they should have done: but no one, in his present case, would have been so dangerous as Jarno, a man whose clear intellect could form a just and rigorous decision about present things, but who erred, withal, in enunciating these particular decisions with a kind of universal application; whereas, in truth, the judgments of the understanding are properly of force but once, and that in the strictest cases, and become inaccurate in some degree when applied to any other.

Thus Wilhelm, striving to become consistent with himself, was deviating farther and farther from wholesome consistency; and this confusion made it easier for his passions to employ their whole artillery against him, and thus still farther to perplex his views of duty.

Serlo did not fail to take advantage of the late tidings; and in truth he daily had more reason to be anxious about some fresh arrangement of his people. Either he must soon renew his old contracts,  —  a measure he was not specially fond of; for several of his actors, who reckoned themselves indispensable, were growing more and more arrogant,  —  or else he must entirely new-model and re-form his company; which plan he looked upon as preferable.

Though he did not personally importune our friend, he set Aurelia and Philina on him; and the other wanderers, longing for some kind of settlement, on their side, gave Wilhelm not a moment’s rest; so that he stood hesitating in his choice, in no slight embarrassment till he should decide. Who would have thought that a letter of Werner’s, written with quite different views, should have forced him on resolving? We shall omit the introduction, and give the rest of it with little alteration.

CHAPTER II.

“It was, therefore, and it always must be, right for every one, on any opportunity, to follow his vocation and exhibit his activity. Scarcely had the good old man been gone a quarter of an hour, when every thing in the house began moving by a different plan than his. Friends, acquaintances, relations, crowded forward, especially all sorts of people who on such occasions use to gain any thing. They fetched and carried, they counted, wrote, and reckoned; some brought wine and meat, others ate and drank; and none seemed busier than the women getting out the mournings.

“Such being the case, thou wilt not blame me, that, in this emergency, I likewise thought of my advantage. I made myself as active, and as helpful to thy sister, as I could, and, so soon as it was any way decorous, signified to her that it had now become our business to accelerate a union which our parents, in their too great circumspection, had hitherto postponed.

“Do not suppose, however, that it came into our heads to take possession of that monstrous empty house. We are more modest and more rational. Thou shalt hear our plan: thy sister, so soon as we are married, comes to our house; and thy mother comes along with her. ‘How can that be?’ thou wilt say: ‘you have scarcely room for yourselves in that hampered nest.’ There lies the art of it, my friend. Good packing renders all things possible: thou wouldst not believe what space one finds when one desires to occupy but little. The large house we shall sell,  —  an opportunity occurs for this; and the money we shall draw for it will produce a hundred-fold.

“I hope this meets thy views: I hope also thou hast not inherited the smallest particle of those unprofitable tastes for which thy father and thy grandfather were noted. The latter placed his greatest happiness in having about him a multitude of dull-looking works of art, which no one, I may well say no one, could enjoy with him: the former lived in a stately pomp, which he suffered no one to enjoy with him. We mean to manage otherwise, and we expect thy approbation.

“It is true, I myself in all the house have no place whatever but the stool before my writing-desk; and I see not clearly where they will be able to put a cradle down: but, in return, the room we shall have out of doors will be the more abundant. Coffee-houses and clubs for the husband, walks and drives for the wife, and pleasant country jaunts for both. But the chief advantage in our plan is, that, the round table being now completely filled, our father cannot ask his friends to dinner, who, the more he strove to entertain them, used to laugh at him the more.

“Now no superfluity for us! Not too much furniture and apparatus; no coach, no horses! Nothing but money, and the liberty, day after day, to do what you like in reason. No wardrobe; still the best and newest on your back: the man may wear his coat till it is done; the wife may truck her gown, the moment it is going out of fashion. There is nothing so unsufferable to me as an old huckster’s shop of property. If you would offer me a jewel, on condition of my wearing it daily on my finger, I would not accept it; for how can one conceive any pleasure in a dead capital? This, then, is my confession of faith: To transact your business, to make money, to be merry with your household; and about the rest of the earth to trouble yourself no farther than where you can be of service to it.

“But ere now thou art saying, ‘And, pray, what is to be done with me in this sage plan of yours? Where shall I find shelter when you have sold my own house, and not the smallest room remains in yours?’

“This is, in truth, the main point, brother; and in this, too, I shall have it in my power to serve thee. But first I must present the just tribute of my praise for time so spent as thine has been.

“Tell me, how hast thou within a few weeks become so skilled in every useful, interesting object? Highly as I thought of thy powers, I did not reckon such attention and such diligence among the number. Thy journal shows us with what profit thou art travelling. The description of the iron and the copper forges is exquisite: it evinces a complete knowledge of the subject. I myself was once there; but my relation, compared with this, has but a very bungled look. The whole letter on the linen-trade is full of information: the remarks on commercial competition are at once just and striking. In one or two places, there are errors in addition, which indeed are very pardonable.

“But what most delights my father and myself, is thy thorough knowledge of husbandry, and the improvement of landed property. We have thoughts of purchasing a large estate, at present under sequestration, in a very fruitful district. For paying it, we mean to use the money realized by the sale of the house; another portion we shall borrow; a portion may remain unpaid. And we count on thee for going thither, and superintending the improvement of it; by which means, before many years are passed, the land, to speak in moderation, will have risen above a third in value. We shall then bring it to the market again, seek out a larger piece, improve and trade as formerly. For all this thou art the man. Our pens, meanwhile, will not lie idle here; and so by and by we shall rise to be enviable people.

“For the present, fare thee well! Enjoy life on thy journey, and turn thy face wherever thou canst find contentment and advantage. For the next half-year we shall not need thee; thou canst look about thee in the world as thou pleasest: a judicious person finds his best instruction in his travels. Farewell! I rejoice at being connected with thee so closely by relation, and now united with thee in the spirit of activity.”

Well as this letter might be penned, and full of economical truths as it was, Wilhelm felt displeased with it for more than one reason. The praise bestowed on him for his pretended statistical, technological, and rural knowledge was a silent reprimand. The ideal of the happiness of civic life, which his worthy brother sketched, by no means charmed him: on the contrary, a secret spirit of contradiction dragged him forcibly the other way. He convinced himself, that, except on the stage, he could nowhere find that mental culture which he longed to give himself: he seemed to grow the more decided in his resolution, the more strongly Werner, without knowing it, opposed him. Thus assailed, he collected all his arguments together, and buttressed his opinions in his mind the more carefully, the more desirable he reckoned it to show them in a favorable light to Werner; and in this manner he produced an answer, which also we insert.

CHAPTER III.

“Thy letter is so well written, and so prudently and wisely conceived, that no objection can be made to it. Only thou must pardon me, when I declare that one may think, maintain, and do directly the reverse, and yet be in the right as well as thou. Thy mode of being and imagining appears to turn on boundless acquisition, and a light, mirthful manner of enjoyment: I need scarcely tell thee, that in all this I find little that can charm me.

“First, however, I am sorry to admit, that my journal is none of mine. Under the pressure of necessity, and to satisfy my father, it was patched together by a friend’s help, out of many books: and though in words I know the objects it relates to, and more of the like sort, I by no means understand them, or can occupy myself about them. What good were it for me to manufacture perfect iron while my own breast is full of dross? What would it stead me to put properties of land in order, while I am at variance with myself?

“To speak it in a word, the cultivation of my individual self, here as I am, has from my youth upwards been constantly though dimly my wish and my purpose. The same intention I still cherish, but the means of realizing it are now grown somewhat clearer. I have seen more of life than thou believest, and profited more by it also. Give some attention, then, to what I say, though it should not altogether tally with thy own opinions.

“Had I been a nobleman, our dispute would soon have been decided; but, being a simple burgher, I must take a path of my own: and I fear it may be difficult to make thee understand me. I know not how it is in foreign countries, but in Germany, a universal, and, if I may say so, personal, cultivation is beyond the reach of any one except a nobleman. A burgher may acquire merit; by excessive efforts he may even educate his mind; but his personal qualities are lost, or worse than lost, let him struggle as he will. Since the nobleman, frequenting the society of the most polished, is compelled to give himself a polished manner; since this manner, neither door nor gate being shut against him, grows at last an unconstrained one; since, in court or camp, his figure, his person, are a part of his possessions, and, it may be, the most necessary part,  —  he has reason enough to put some value on them, and to show that he puts some. A certain stately grace in common things, a sort of gay elegance in earnest and important ones, becomes him well; for it shows him to be everywhere in equilibrium. He is a public person; and the more cultivated his movements, the more sonorous his voice, the more staid and measured his whole being is, the more perfect is he. If to high and low, to friends and relations, he continues still the same, then nothing can be said against him, none may wish him otherwise. His coldness must be reckoned clearness of head, his dissimulation prudence. If he can rule himself externally at every moment of his life, no man has aught more to demand of him; and, whatever else there may be in him or about him, capacities, talents, wealth, all seem gifts of supererogation.

“Now, imagine any burgher offering ever to pretend to these advantages, he will utterly fail, and the more completely, the greater inclination and the more endowments nature may have given him for that mode of being.

“Since, in common life, the nobleman is hampered by no limits; since kings, or kinglike figures, do not differ from him,  —  he can everywhere advance with a silent consciousness, as if before his equals: everywhere he is entitled to press forward, whereas nothing more beseems the burgher than the quiet feeling of the limits that are drawn round him. The burgher may not ask himself, ‘What art thou?’ He can only ask, ‘What hast thou? What discernment, knowledge, talent, wealth?’ If the nobleman, merely by his personal carriage, offers all that can be asked of him, the burgher by his personal carriage offers nothing, and can offer nothing. The former has a right to seem: the latter is compelled to be, and what he aims at seeming becomes ludicrous and tasteless. The former does and makes, the latter but effects and procures; he must cultivate some single gifts in order to be useful; and it is beforehand settled, that, in his manner of existence, there is no harmony, and can be none, since he is bound to make himself of use in one department, and so has to relinquish all the others.

“Perhaps the reason of this difference is not the usurpation of the nobles, and the submission of the burghers, but the constitution of society itself. Whether it will ever alter, and how, is to me of small importance: my present business is to meet my own case, as matters actually stand; to consider by what means I may save myself, and reach the object which I cannot live in peace without.

“Now, this harmonious cultivation of my nature, which has been denied me by birth, is exactly what I most long for. Since leaving thee, I have gained much by voluntary practice: I have laid aside much of my wonted embarrassment, and can bear myself in very tolerable style. My speech and voice I have likewise been attending to; and I may say, without much vanity, that in society I do not cause displeasure. But I will not conceal from thee, that my inclination to become a public person, and to please and influence in a larger circle, is daily growing more insuperable. With this, there is combined my love for poetry and all that is related to it; and the necessity I feel to cultivate my mental faculties and tastes, that so, in this enjoyment henceforth indispensable, I may esteem as good the good alone, as beautiful the beautiful alone. Thou seest well, that for me all this is nowhere to be met with except upon the stage; that in this element alone can I effect and cultivate myself according to my wishes. On the boards a polished man appears in his splendor with personal accomplishments, just as he does so in the upper classes of society; body and spirit must advance with equal steps in all his studies; and there I shall have it in my power at once to be and seem as well as anywhere. If I further long for solid occupations, we have there mechanical vexations in abundance: I may give my patience daily exercise.

“Dispute not with me on this subject; for, ere thou writest, the step is taken. In compliance with the ruling prejudices, I will change my name; as, indeed, that of Meister, or Master, does not suit me. Farewell! Our fortune is in good hands: on that subject I shall not disturb myself. What I need I will, as occasion calls, require from thee: it will not be much, for I hope my art will be sufficient to maintain me.”

Scarcely was the letter sent away, when our friend made good his words. To the great surprise of Serlo and the rest, he at once declared that he was ready to become an actor, and bind himself by a contract on reasonable terms. With regard to these they were soon agreed; for Serlo had before made offers, with which Wilhelm and his comrades had good reason to be satisfied. The whole of that unlucky company, wherewith we have had so long to occupy ourselves, was now at once received; and, except perhaps Laertes, not a member of it showed the smallest thankfulness to Wilhelm. As they had entreated without confidence, so they accepted without gratitude. Most of them preferred ascribing their appointment to the influence of Philina, and directed their thanks to her. Meanwhile the contracts had been written out, and were now a-signing. At the moment when our friend was subscribing his assumed designation, by some inexplicable concatenation of ideas, there arose before his mind’s eye the image of that green in the forest where he lay wounded in Philina’s lap. The lovely Amazon came riding on her gray palfrey from the bushes of the wood: she approached him and dismounted. Her humane anxiety made her come and go: at length she stood before him. The white surtout fell down from her shoulders: her countenance, her form, began to glance in radiance: and she vanished from his sight. He wrote his name mechanically only, not knowing what he did, and felt not, till after he had signed, that Mignon was standing at his side, was holding by his arm, and had softly tried to stop him, and pull back his hand.

CHAPTER IV.

One of the conditions under which our friend had gone upon the stage was not acceded to by Serlo without some limitations. Wilhelm had required that “Hamlet” should be played entire and unmutilated: the other had agreed to this strange stipulation, in so far as it was possible. On this point they had many a contest; for as to what was possible or not possible, and what parts of the piece could be omitted without mutilating it, the two were of very different opinions.

Wilhelm was still in that happy season when one cannot understand how, in the woman one loves, in the writer one honors, there should be any thing defective. The feeling they excite in us is so entire, so accordant with itself, that we cannot help attributing the same perfect harmony to the objects themselves. Serlo again was willing to discriminate, perhaps too willing: his acute understanding could usually discern in any work of art nothing but a more or less imperfect whole. He thought, that as pieces usually stood, there was little reason to be chary about meddling with them; that of course Shakspeare, and particularly “Hamlet,” would need to suffer much curtailment.

But, when Serlo talked of separating the wheat from the chaff, Wilhelm would not hear of it. “It is not chaff and wheat together,” said he: “it is a trunk with boughs, twigs, leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruit. Is not the one there with the others, and by means of them?” To which Serlo would reply, that people did not bring a whole tree upon the table; that the artist was required to present his guests with silver apples in platters of silver. They exhausted their invention in similitudes, and their opinions seemed still farther to diverge.

Our friend was on the borders of despair, when on one occasion, after much debating, Serlo counselled him to take the simple plan,  —  to make a brief resolution, to grasp his pen, to peruse the tragedy; dashing out whatever would not answer, compressing several personages into one: and if he was not skilled in such proceedings, or had not heart enough for going through with them, he might leave the task to him, the manager, who would engage to make short work with it.

“That is not our bargain,” answered Wilhelm. “How can you, with all your taste, show so much levity?”

“My friend,” cried Serlo, “you yourself will erelong feel it and show it. I know too well how shocking such a mode of treating works is: perhaps it never was allowed on any theatre till now. But where, indeed, was ever one so slighted as ours? Authors force us on this wretched clipping system, and the public tolerates it. How many pieces have we, pray, which do not overstep the measure of our numbers, of our decorations and theatrical machinery, of the proper time, of the fit alternation of dialogue, and the physical strength of the actor? And yet we are to play, and play, and constantly give novelties. Ought we not to profit by our privilege, then, since we accomplish just as much by mutilated works as by entire ones? It is the public itself that grants the privilege. Few Germans, perhaps few men of any modern nation, have a proper sense of an æsthetic whole:  —  they praise and blame by passages; they are charmed by passages; and who has greater reason to rejoice at this than actors, since the stage is ever but a patched and piece-work matter?”

“Is!” cried Wilhelm; “but must it ever be so? Must every thing that is continue? Convince me not that you are right, for no power on earth should force me to abide by any contract which I had concluded with the grossest misconceptions.”

Serlo gave a merry turn to the business, and persuaded Wilhelm to review once more the many conversations they had had together about “Hamlet,” and himself to invent some means of properly re-forming the piece.

After a few days, which he had spent alone, our friend returned with a cheerful look. “I am much mistaken,” cried he, “if I have not now discovered how the whole is to be managed: nay, I am convinced that Shakspeare himself would have arranged it so, had not his mind been too exclusively directed to the ruling interest, and perhaps misled by the novels which furnished him with his materials.”

“Let us hear,” said Serlo, placing himself with an air of solemnity upon the sofa: “I will listen calmly, but judge with rigor.”

“I am not afraid of you,” said Wilhelm: “only hear me. In the composition of this play, after the most accurate investigation and the most mature reflection, I distinguish two classes of objects. The first are the grand internal relations of the persons and events, the powerful effects which arise from the characters and proceedings of the main figures: these, I hold, are individually excellent; and the order in which they are presented cannot be improved. No kind of interference must be suffered to destroy them, or even essentially to change their form. These are the things which stamp themselves deep into the soul, which all men long to see, which no one dares to meddle with. Accordingly, I understand, they have almost wholly been retained in all our German theatres. But our countrymen have erred, in my opinion, with regard to the second class of objects, which may be observed in this tragedy: I allude to the external relations of the persons, whereby they are brought from place to place, or combined in various ways, by certain accidental incidents. These they have looked upon as very unimportant; have spoken of them only in passing, or left them out altogether. Now, indeed, it must be owned, these threads are slack and slender; yet they run through the entire piece, and bind together much that would otherwise fall asunder, and does actually fall asunder, when you cut them off, and imagine you have done enough and more, if you have left the ends hanging.

“Among these external relations I include the disturbances in Norway, the war with young Fortinbras, the embassy to his uncle, the settling of that feud, the march of young Fortinbras to Poland, and his coming back at the end; of the same sort are Horatio’s return from Wittenberg, Hamlet’s wish to go thither, the journey of Laertes to France, his return, the despatch of Hamlet into England, his capture by pirates, the death of the two courtiers by the letter which they carried. All these circumstances and events would be very fit for expanding and lengthening a novel; but here they injure exceedingly the unity of the piece, particularly as the hero has no plan, and are, in consequence, entirely out of place.”

“For once in the right!” cried Serlo.

“Do not interrupt me,” answered Wilhelm: “perhaps you will not always think me right. These errors are like temporary props of an edifice: they must not be removed till we have built a firm wall in their stead. My project, therefore, is, not at all to change those first-mentioned grand situations, or at least as much as possible to spare them, both collectively and individually; but with respect to these external, single, dissipated, and dissipating motives, to cast them all at once away, and substitute a solitary one instead of them.”

“And this?” inquired Serlo, springing up from his recumbent posture.

“It lies in the piece itself,” answered Wilhelm, “only I employ it rightly. There are disturbances in Norway. You shall hear my plan, and try it.”

“After the death of Hamlet the father, the Norwegians, lately conquered, grow unruly. The viceroy of that country sends his son, Horatio, an old school-friend of Hamlet’s, and distinguished above every other for his bravery and prudence, to Denmark, to press forward the equipment of the fleet, which, under the new luxurious king, proceeds but slowly. Horatio has known the former king, having fought in his battles, having even stood in favor with him,  —  a circumstance by which the first ghost-scene will be nothing injured. The new sovereign gives Horatio audience, and sends Laertes into Norway with intelligence that the fleet will soon arrive; whilst Horatio is commissioned to accelerate the preparation of it: and the Queen, on the other hand, will not consent that Hamlet, as he wishes, should go to sea along with him.”

“Heaven be praised!” cried Serlo: “we shall now get rid of Wittenberg and the university, which was always a sorry piece of business. I think your idea extremely good; for, except these two distant objects, Norway and the fleet, the spectator will not be required to fancy any thing: the rest he will see; the rest takes place before him; whereas, his imagination, on the other plan, was hunted over all the world.”

“You easily perceive,” said Wilhelm, “how I shall contrive to keep the other parts together. When Hamlet tells Horatio of his uncle’s crime, Horatio counsels him to go to Norway in his company, to secure the affections of the army, and return in warlike force. Hamlet also is becoming dangerous to the King and Queen; they find no readier method of deliverance, than to send him in the fleet, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be spies upon him; and, as Laertes in the mean time comes from France, they determine that this youth, exasperated even to murder, shall go after him. Unfavorable winds detain the fleet: Hamlet returns; for his wandering through the churchyard, perhaps some lucky motive may be thought of; his meeting with Laertes in Ophelia’s grave is a grand moment, which we must not part with. After this, the King resolves that it is better to get quit of Hamlet on the spot: the festival of his departure, the pretended reconcilement with Laertes, are now solemnized; on which occasion knightly sports are held, and Laertes fights with Hamlet. Without the four corpses, I cannot end the play: no one must survive. The right of popular election now again comes in force; and Hamlet, while dying, gives his vote to Horatio.”

“Quick! quick!” said Serlo, “sit down and work the play: your plan has my entire approbation; only let not your zeal evaporate.”

CHAPTER V.

Wilhelm had already been for some time busied with translating “Hamlet;” making use, as he labored, of Wieland’s spirited performance, through which he had first become acquainted with Shakspeare. What had been omitted in Wieland’s work he replaced, and had secured a complete version, at the very time when Serlo and he were pretty well agreed about the way of treating it. He now began, according to his plan, to cut out and insert, to separate and unite, to alter, and often to restore; for, satisfied as he was with his own conception, it still appeared to him as if, in executing it, he were but spoiling the original.

When all was finished, he read his work to Serlo and the rest. They declared themselves exceedingly contented with it: Serlo, in particular, made many flattering observations.

“You have felt very justly,” said he, among other things, “that some external circumstances must accompany this play, but that they must be simpler than those which the great poet has employed. What takes place without the theatre, what the spectator does not see, but must imagine, is like a background, in front of which the acting figures move. Your large and simple prospect of the fleet and Norway will do much to improve the play; if this were altogether taken from it, we should have but a family scene remaining; and the great idea, that here a kingly house, by internal crimes and incongruities, goes down to ruin, would not be presented with its proper dignity. But if the former background were left standing, so manifold, so fluctuating and confused, it would hurt the impression of the figures.”

Wilhelm again took Shakspeare’s part; alleging that he wrote for islanders, for Englishmen, who generally, in the distance, were accustomed to see little else than ships and voyages, the coast of France and privateers; and thus what perplexed and distracted others was to them quite natural.

Serlo assented; and both were of opinion, that, as the play was now to be produced upon the German stage, this more serious and simple background was the best adapted for the German mind.

The parts had been distributed before: Serlo undertook Polonius; Aurelia, Ophelia; Laertes was already designated by his name; a young, thick-set, jolly new-comer was to be Horatio; the King and Ghost alone occasioned some perplexity, for both of these no one but Old Boisterous remaining. Serlo proposed to make the Pedant, King; but against this our friend protested in the strongest terms. They could resolve on nothing.

Wilhelm had also allowed both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to continue in his play. “Why not compress them into one?” said Serlo. “This abbreviation will not cost you much.”

“Heaven keep me from all such curtailments!” answered Wilhelm: “they destroy at once the sense and the effect. What these two persons are and do it is impossible to represent by one. In such small matters we discover Shakspeare’s greatness. These soft approaches, this smirking and bowing, this assenting, wheedling, flattering, this whisking agility, this wagging of the tail, this allness and emptiness, this legal knavery, this ineptitude and insipidity,  —  how can they be expressed by a single man? There ought to be at least a dozen of these people, if they could be had; for it is only in society that they are any thing; they are society itself; and Shakspeare showed no little wisdom and discernment in bringing in a pair of them. Besides, I need them as a couple that may be contrasted with the single, noble, excellent Horatio.”

“I understand you,” answered Serlo, “and we can arrange it. One of them we shall hand over to Elmira, Old Boisterous’s eldest daughter: it will all be right, if they look well enough; and I will deck and trim the puppets so that it shall be first-rate fun to behold them.”

Philina was rejoicing not a little, that she had to act the Duchess in the small subordinate play. “I will show it so natural,” cried she, “how you wed a second husband, without loss of time, when you have loved the first immensely. I mean to win the loudest plaudits, and every man shall wish to be the third.”

Aurelia gave a frown: her spleen against Philina was increasing every day.

“’Tis a pity, I declare,” said Serlo, “that we have no ballet; else you should dance me a pas de deux with your first, and then another with your second husband,  —  and the first might dance himself to sleep by the measure; and your bits of feet and ankles would look so pretty, tripping to and fro upon the side stage.”

“Of my ankles you do not know much,” replied she pertly; “and as to my bits of feet,” cried she, hastily reaching below the table, pulling off her slippers, and holding them together out to Serlo, “here are the cases of them; and I challenge you to find me more dainty ones.”

“I was in earnest,” said he, looking at the elegant half-shoes. “In truth, one does not often meet with any thing so dainty.”

They were of Parisian workmanship: Philina had received them as a present from the countess, a lady whose foot was celebrated for its beauty.

“A charming thing!” cried Serlo: “my heart leaps at the sight of them.”

“What gallant throbs!” replied Philina.

“There is nothing in the world beyond a pair of slippers,” said he, “of such pretty manufacture, in their proper time and place, when”  — 

Philina took her slippers from his hands, crying, “You have squeezed them all! They are far too wide for me!” She played with them, and rubbed the soles of them together. “How hot it is!” cried she, clapping the sole upon her cheek, then again rubbing, and holding it to Serlo. He was innocent enough to stretch out his hand to feel the warmth. “Clip! clap!” cried she, giving him a smart rap over the knuckles with the heel; so that he screamed, and drew back his hand. “That’s for indulging in thoughts of your own at the sight of my slippers.”

“And that’s for using old folk like children,” cried the other; then sprang up, seized her, and plundered many a kiss, every one of which she artfully contested with a show of serious reluctance. In this romping, her long hair got loose, and floated round the group; the chair overset; and Aurelia, inwardly indignant at such rioting, arose in great vexation.

CHAPTER VI.

Though in this remoulding of “Hamlet” many characters had been cut off, a sufficient number of them still remained,  —  a number which the company was scarcely adequate to meet.

“If this is the way of it,” said Serlo, “our prompter himself must issue from his den, and mount the stage, and become a personage like one of us.”

“In his own station,” answered Wilhelm, “I have frequently admired him.”

“I do not think,” said Serlo, “that there is in the world a more perfect artist of his kind. No spectator ever hears him: we upon the stage catch every syllable. He has formed in himself, as it were, a peculiar set of vocal organs for this purpose: he is like a Genius that whispers intelligibly to us in the hour of need. He feels, as if by instinct, what portion of his task an actor is completely master of, and anticipates from afar where his memory will fail him. I have known cases in which I myself had scarcely read my part: he said it over to me word for word, and I played happily. Yet he has some peculiarities which would make another in his place quite useless. For example, he takes such an interest in the plays, that, in giving any moving passage, he does not indeed declaim it, but he reads it with all pomp and pathos. By this ill habit he has nonplussed me on more than one occasion.”

“As with another of his singularities,” observed Aurelia, “he once left me sticking fast in a very dangerous passage.”

“How could this happen, with the man’s attentiveness?” said Wilhelm.

“He is so affected,” said Aurelia, “by certain passages, that he weeps warm tears, and for a few moments loses all reflection; and it is not properly passages such as we should call affecting that produce this impression on him; but, if I express myself clearly, the beautiful passages, those out of which the pure spirit of the poet looks forth, as it were, through open, sparkling eyes,  —  passages which others at most rejoice over, and which many thousands altogether overlook.”

“And with a soul so tender, why does he never venture on the stage?”

“A hoarse voice,” said Serlo, “and a stiff carriage, exclude him from it; as his melancholic temper excludes him from society. What trouble have I taken, and in vain, to make him take to me! But he is a charming reader; such another I have never heard; no one can observe like him the narrow limit between declamation and graceful recital.”

“The very man!” exclaimed our friend, “the very man! What a fortunate discovery! We have now the proper hand for delivering the passage of ‘The rugged Pyrrhus.’“

“One requires your eagerness,” said Serlo, “before he can employ every object in the use it was meant for.”

“In truth,” said Wilhelm, “I was very much afraid we should be obliged to leave this passage out: the omission would have lamed the whole play.”

“Well! That is what I cannot understand,” observed Aurelia.

“I hope you will erelong be of my opinion,” answered Wilhelm. “Shakspeare has introduced these travelling players with a double purpose. The person who recites the death of Priam with such feeling, in the first place, makes a deep impression on the prince himself; he sharpens the conscience of the wavering youth: and, accordingly, this scene becomes a prelude to that other, where, in the second place, the little play produces such effect upon the King. Hamlet sees himself reproved and put to shame by the player, who feels so deep a sympathy in foreign and fictitious woes; and the thought of making an experiment upon the conscience of his stepfather is in consequence suggested to him. What a royal monologue is that, which ends the second act! How charming it will be to speak it!

“‘Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann’d; Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing! For Hecuba! What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?’“

“If we can but persuade our man to come upon the stage,” observed Aurelia.

“We must lead him to it by degrees,” said Serlo. “At the rehearsal he may read the passage: we shall tell him that an actor whom we are expecting is to play it; and so, by and by, we shall lead him nearer to the point.”

Having agreed on this affair, the conversation next turned upon the Ghost. Wilhelm could not bring himself to give the part of the living King to the Pedant, that so Old Boisterous might play the Ghost: he was of opinion that they ought to wait a while; because some other actors had announced themselves, and among these it was probable they would find a fitter man.

We can easily conceive, then, how astonished Wilhelm must have been when, returning home that evening, he found a billet lying on his table, sealed with singular figures, and containing what follows:  — 

“Strange youth! we know thou art in great perplexity. For thy Hamlet thou canst hardly find men enough, not to speak of ghosts. Thy zeal deserves a miracle: miracles we cannot work, but somewhat marvellous shall happen. If thou have faith, the Ghost shall arise at the proper hour! Be of courage and keep firm! This needs no answer: thy determination will be known to us.”

With this curious sheet he hastened back to Serlo, who read and re-read it, and at last declared, with a thoughtful look, that it seemed a matter of some moment; that they must consider well and seriously whether they could risk it. They talked the subject over at some length; Aurelia was silent, only smiling now and then; and a few days after, when speaking of the incident again, she gave our friend, not obscurely, to understand that she held it all a joke of Serlo’s. She desired him to cast away anxiety, and to expect the Ghost with patience.

Serlo, for most part, was in excellent humor: the actors that were going to leave him took all possible pains to play well, that their absence might be much regretted; and this, combined with the new-fangled zeal of the others, gave promise of the best results.

His intercourse with Wilhelm had not failed to exert some influence on him. He began to speak more about art: for, after all, he was a German; and Germans like to give themselves account of what they do. Wilhelm wrote down many of their conversations; which, as our narrative must not be so often interrupted here, we shall communicate to such of our readers as feel an interest in dramaturgic matters, by some other opportunity.

In particular, one evening, the manager was very merry in speaking of the part of Polonius, and how he meant to take it up. “I engage,” said he, “on this occasion, to present a very meritorious person in his best aspect. The repose and security of this old gentleman, his emptiness and his significance, his exterior gracefulness and interior meanness, his frankness and sycophancy, his sincere roguery and deceitful truth, I will introduce with all due elegance in their fit proportions. This respectable, gray-haired, enduring, time-serving half-knave, I will represent in the most courtly style: the occasional roughness and coarseness of our author’s strokes will further me here. I will speak like a book when I am prepared beforehand, and like an ass when I utter the overflowings of my heart. I will be insipid and absurd enough to chime in with every one, and acute enough never to observe when people make a mock of me. I have seldom taken up a part with so much zeal and roguishness.”

“Could I but hope as much from mine!” exclaimed Aurelia. “I have neither youth nor softness enough to be at home in this character. One thing alone I am too sure of,  —  the feeling that turns Ophelia’s brain, I shall not want.”

“We must not take the matter up so strictly,” said our friend. “For my share, I am certain, that the wish to act the character of Hamlet has led me exceedingly astray, throughout my study of the play. And now, the more I look into the part, the more clearly do I see, that, in my whole form and physiognomy, there is not one feature such as Shakspeare meant for Hamlet. When I consider with what nicety the various circumstances are adapted to each other, I can scarcely hope to produce even a tolerable effect.”

“You are entering on your new career with becoming conscientiousness,” said Serlo. “The actor fits himself to his part as he can, and the part to him as it must. But how has Shakspeare drawn his Hamlet? Is he so utterly unlike you?”

“In the first place,” answered Wilhelm, “he is fair-haired.”

“That I call far-fetched,” observed Aurelia. “How do you infer that?”

“As a Dane, as a Northman, he is fair-haired and blue-eyed by descent.”

“And you think Shakspeare had this in view?”

“I do not find it specially expressed; but, by comparison of passages, I think it incontestable. The fencing tires him; the sweat is running from his brow; and the Queen remarks, ‘He’s fat, and scant of breath.’ Can you conceive him to be otherwise than plump and fair-haired? Brown-complexioned people, in their youth, are seldom plump. And does not his wavering melancholy, his soft lamenting, his irresolute activity, accord with such a figure? From a dark-haired young man, you would look for more decision and impetuosity.”

“You are spoiling my imagination,” cried Aurelia: “away with your fat Hamlets! Do not set your well-fed prince before us! Give us rather any succedaneum that will move us, will delight us. The intention of the author is of less importance to us than our own enjoyment, and we need a charm that is adapted for us.”

CHAPTER VII.

One evening a dispute arose among our friends about the novel and the drama, and which of them deserved the preference. Serlo said it was a fruitless and misunderstood debate: both might be superior in their kinds, only each must keep within the limits proper to it.

“About their limits and their kinds,” said Wilhelm, “I confess myself not altogether clear.”

“Who is so?” said the other; “and yet perhaps it were worth while to come a little closer to the business.”

They conversed together long upon the matter; and, in fine, the following was nearly the result of their discussion:  — 

“In the novel as well as in the drama, it is human nature and human action that we see. The difference between these sorts of fiction lies not merely in their outward form,  —  not merely in the circumstance that the personages of the one are made to speak, while those of the other have commonly their history narrated. Unfortunately many dramas are but novels, which proceed by dialogue; and it would not be impossible to write a drama in the shape of letters.

“But, in the novel, it is chiefly sentiments and events that are exhibited; in the drama, it is characters and deeds. The novel must go slowly forward; and the sentiments of the hero, by some means or another, must restrain the tendency of the whole to unfold itself and to conclude. The drama, on the other hand, must hasten: and the character of the hero must press forward to the end: it does not restrain, but is restrained. The novel-hero must be suffering,  —  at least he must not in a high degree be active: in the dramatic one, we look for activity and deeds. Grandison, Clarissa, Pamela, the Vicar of Wakefield, Tom Jones himself, are, if not suffering, at least retarding, personages; and the incidents are all in some sort modelled by their sentiments. In the drama the hero models nothing by himself; all things withstand him; and he clears and casts away the hinderances from off his path, or else sinks under them.”

Our friends were also of opinion, that, in the novel, some degree of scope may be allowed to Chance, but that it must always be led and guided by the sentiments of the personages: on the other hand, that Fate, which, by means of outward, unconnected circumstances, carries forward men, without their own concurrence, to an unforeseen catastrophe, can have place only in the drama; that Chance may produce pathetic situations, but never tragic ones; Fate, on the other hand, ought always to be terrible,  —  and is, in the highest sense, tragic, when it brings into a ruinous concatenation the guilty man, and the guiltless that was unconcerned with him.

These considerations led them back to the play of “Hamlet,” and the peculiarities of its composition. The hero in this case, it was observed, is endowed more properly with sentiments than with a character: it is events alone that push him on, and accordingly the play has in some measure the expansion of a novel. But as it is Fate that draws the plan, as the story issues from a deed of terror, and the hero is continually driven forward to a deed of terror, the work is tragic in the highest sense, and admits of no other than a tragic end.

The book-rehearsal was now to take place, to which Wilhelm had looked forward as to a festival. Having previously collated all the parts, no obstacle on this side could oppose him. The whole of the actors were acquainted with the piece: he endeavored to impress their minds with the importance of these book-rehearsals. “As you require,” said he, “of every musical performer, that he shall, in some degree, be able to play from the book: so every actor, every educated man, should train himself to recite from the book, to catch immediately the character of any drama, any poem, any tale he may be reading, and exhibit it with grace and readiness. No committing to memory will be of service, if the actor have not, in the first place, penetrated into the sense and spirit of his author: the mere letter will avail him nothing.”

Serlo declared that he would overlook all subsequent rehearsals,  —  the last rehearsal itself,  —  if justice were but done to these rehearsals from the book. “For, commonly,” said he, “there is nothing more amusing than to hear an actor speak of study: it is as if freemasons were to talk of building.”

The rehearsal passed according to their wishes; and we may assert, that the fame and favor which our company acquired afterwards had their foundation in these few but well-spent hours.

“You did right, my friend,” said Serlo, when they were alone, “in speaking to our fellow-laborers so earnestly; and yet I am afraid they will scarcely fulfil your wishes.”

“How so?” asked Wilhelm.

“I have noticed,” answered Serlo, “that, as easily as you may set in motion the imaginations of men, gladly as they listen to your tales and fictions, it is yet very seldom that you find among them any touch of an imagination you can call productive. In actors this remark is strikingly exemplified. Any one of them is well content to undertake a beautiful, praiseworthy, brilliant part; and seldom will any one of them do more than self-complacently transport himself into his hero’s place, without in the smallest troubling his head whether other people view him so or not. But to seize with vivacity what the author’s feeling was in writing; what portion of your individual qualities you must cast off, in order to do justice to a part; how, by your own conviction that you are become another man, you may carry with you the convictions of the audience; how, by the inward truth of your conceptive power, you can change these boards into a temple, this pasteboard into woods,  —  to seize and execute all this, is given to very few. That internal strength of soul, by which alone deception can be brought about; that lying truth, without which nothing will affect us rightly,  —  have, by most men, never even been imagined.

“Let us not, then, press too hard for spirit and feeling in our friends. The surest way is first coolly to instruct them in the sense and letter of the play,  —  if possible, to open their understandings. Whoever has the talent will then, of his own accord, eagerly adopt the spirited feeling and manner of expression; and those who have it not will at least be prevented from acting or reciting altogether falsely. And among actors, as indeed in all cases, there is no worse arrangement than for any one to make pretensions to the spirit of a thing, while the sense and letter of it are not ready and clear to him.”

CHAPTER VIII.

Coming to the first stage-rehearsal very early, Wilhelm found himself alone upon the boards. The appearance of the place surprised him, and awoke the strangest recollections. A forest and village scene stood exactly represented as he once had seen it in the theatre of his native town. On that occasion also, a rehearsal was proceeding; and it was the morning when Mariana first confessed her love to him, and promised him a happy interview. The peasants’ cottages resembled one another on the two stages, as they did in nature: the true morning sun, beaming through a half-closed window-shutter, fell upon a part of a bench ill joined to a cottage door; but unhappily it did not now enlighten Mariana’s waist and bosom. He sat down, reflecting on this strange coincidence: he almost thought that perhaps on this very spot he would soon see her again. And, alas! the truth was nothing more, than that an afterpiece, to which this scene belonged, was at that time very often played upon the German stage.

Out of these meditations he was roused by the other actors, along with whom two amateurs, frequenters of the wardrobe and the stage, came in, and saluted Wilhelm with a show of great enthusiasm. One of these was in some degree attached to Frau Melina, but the other was entirely a lover of the art, and both were of the kind which a good company should always wish to have about it. It was difficult to say whether their love for the stage, or their knowledge of it, was the greater. They loved it too much to know it perfectly: they knew it well enough to prize the good and to discard the bad. But, their inclination being so powerful, they could tolerate the mediocre; and the glorious joy which they experienced from the foretaste and the aftertaste of excellence surpassed expression. The mechanical department gave them pleasure, the intellectual charmed them; and so strong was their susceptibility, that even a discontinuous rehearsal afforded them a species of illusion. Deficiencies appeared in their eyes to fade away in distance: the successful touched them like an object near at hand. In a word, they were judges such as every artist wishes in his own department. Their favorite movement was from the side-scenes to the pit, and from the pit to the side-scenes; their happiest place was in the wardrobe; their busiest employment was in trying to improve the dress, position, recitation, gesture, of the actor; their liveliest conversation was on the effect produced by him; their most constant effort was to keep him accurate, active, and attentive, to do him service or kindness, and, without squandering, to procure for the company a series of enjoyments. The two had obtained the exclusive privilege of being present on the stage at rehearsals as well as exhibitions. In regard to “Hamlet,” they had not in all points agreed with Wilhelm: here and there he had yielded; but, for most part, he had stood by his opinion: and, upon the whole, these discussions had been very useful in the forming of his taste. He showed both gentlemen how much he valued them; and they again predicted nothing less, from these combined endeavors, than a new epoch for the German theatre.

The presence of these persons was of great service during the rehearsals. In particular they labored to convince our players, that, throughout the whole of their preparations, the posture and action, as they were intended ultimately to appear, should always be combined with the words, and thus the whole be mechanically united by habit. In rehearsing a tragedy especially, they said, no common movement with the hands should be allowed: a tragic actor that took snuff in the rehearsal always frightened them; for, in all probability, on coming to the same passage in the exhibition, he would miss his pinch. Nay, on the same principles, they maintained that no one should rehearse in boots, if his part were to be played in shoes. But nothing, they declared, afflicted them so much as when the women, in rehearsing, stuck their hands into the folds of their gowns.

By the persuasion of our friends, another very good effect was brought about: the actors all began to learn the use of arms. Since military parts occur so frequently, said they, can any thing look more absurd than men, without the smallest particle of discipline, trolling about the stage in captains’ and majors’ uniforms?

Wilhelm and Laertes were the first that took lessons of a subaltern: they continued their practising of fence with the greatest zeal.

Such pains did these two men take for perfecting a company which had so fortunately come together. They were thus providing for the future satisfaction of the public, while the public was usually laughing at their taste. People did not know what gratitude they owed our friends, particularly for performing one service,  —  the service of frequently impressing on the actor the fundamental point, that it was his duty to speak so loud as to be heard. In this simple matter, they experienced more opposition and repugnance than could have been expected. Most part maintained that they were heard well enough already; some laid the blame upon the building; others said, one could not yell and bellow, when one had to speak naturally, secretly, or tenderly.

Our two friends, having an immeasurable stock of patience, tried every means of undoing this delusion, of getting round this obstinate self-will. They spared neither arguments nor flatteries; and at last they reached their object, being aided not a little by the good example of Wilhelm. By him they were requested to sit down in the remotest corners of the house, and, every time they did not hear him perfectly, to rap on the bench with a key. He articulated well, spoke out in a measured manner, raised his tones gradually, and did not overcry himself in the most vehement passages. The rapping of the key was heard less and less every new rehearsal: by and by the rest submitted to the same operation, and at last it seemed rational to hope that the piece would be heard by every one in all the nooks of the house.

From this example we may see how desirous people are to reach their object in their own way; what need there often is of enforcing on them truths which are self-evident; and how difficult it may be to reduce the man who aims at effecting something to admit the primary conditions under which alone his enterprise is possible.

CHAPTER IX.

The necessary preparations for scenery and dresses, and whatever else was requisite, were now proceeding. In regard to certain scenes and passages, our friend had whims of his own, which Serlo humored, partly in consideration of their bargain, partly from conviction, and because he hoped by these civilities to gain Wilhelm, and to lead him according to his own purposes the more implicitly in time to come.

Thus, for example, the King and Queen were, at the first audience, to appear sitting on the throne, with the courtiers at the sides, and Hamlet standing undistinguished in the crowd. “Hamlet,” said he, “must keep himself quiet: his sable dress will sufficiently point him out. He should rather shun remark than seek it. Not till the audience is ended, and the King speaks with him as with a son, should he advance, and allow the scene to take its course.”

A formidable obstacle still remained, in regard to the two pictures which Hamlet so passionately refers to in the scene with his mother. “We ought,” said Wilhelm, “to have both of them visible, at full length, in the bottom of the chamber, near the main door; and the former king must be clad in armor, like the Ghost, and hang at the side where it enters. I could wish that the figure held its right hand in a commanding attitude, were somewhat turned away, and, as it were, looked over its shoulder, that so it might perfectly resemble the Ghost at the moment when he issues from the door. It will produce a great effect, when at this instant Hamlet looks upon the Ghost, and the Queen upon the picture. The stepfather may be painted in royal ornaments, but not so striking.”

There were several other points of this sort, about which we shall, perhaps, elsewhere have opportunity to speak.

“Are you, then, inexorably bent on Hamlet’s dying at the end?” inquired Serlo.

“How can I keep him alive,” said Wilhelm, “when the whole play is pressing him to death? We have already talked at large on that matter.”

“But the public wishes him to live.”

“I will show the public any other complaisance; but, as to this, I cannot. We often wish that some gallant, useful man, who is dying of a chronical disease, might yet live longer. The family weep, and conjure the physician; but he cannot stay him: and no more than this physician can withstand the necessity of nature, can we give law to an acknowledged necessity of art. It is a false compliance with the multitude, to raise in them emotions which they wish, when these are not emotions which they ought, to feel.”

“Whoever pays the cash,” said Serlo, “may require the ware according to his liking.”

“Doubtless, in some degree,” replied our friend; “but a great public should be reverenced, not used as children are, when pedlers wish to hook the money from them. By presenting excellence to the people, you should gradually excite in them a taste and feeling for the excellent; and they will pay their money with double satisfaction when reason itself has nothing to object against this outlay. The public you may flatter, as you do a well-beloved child, to better, to enlighten, it; not as you do a pampered child of quality, to perpetuate the error you profit from.”

In this manner various other topics were discussed relating to the question, What might still be changed in the play, and what must of necessity remain untouched? We shall not enter farther on those points at present; but, perhaps, at some future time we may submit this altered “Hamlet” itself to such of our readers as feel any interest in the subject.

CHAPTER X.

The main rehearsal was at length concluded: it had lasted very long. Serlo and Wilhelm still found much to care for: notwithstanding all the time which had already been consumed in preparation, some highly necessary matters had been left to the very last moment.

Thus, the pictures of the kings, for instance, were not ready: and the scene between Hamlet and his mother, from which so powerful an effect was looked for, had a very helpless aspect, as the business stood; for neither Ghost nor painted image of him was at present forthcoming. Serlo made a jest of this perplexity: “We should be in a pretty scrape,” said he, “if the Ghost were to decline appearing, and the guard had nothing to fight with but the air, and our prompter were obliged to speak the spirit’s part from the side-scenes.”

“We will not scare away our strange friend by unbelief,” said Wilhelm: “doubtless at the proper season he will come, and astonish us as much as the spectators.”

“Well, certainly,” said Serlo, “I shall be a happy man to-morrow night, when once the play will have been acted. It costs us more arrangement than I dreamed of.”

“But none of you,” exclaimed Philina, “will be happier than I, little as my part disturbs me. Really, to hear a single subject talked of forever and forever, when, after all, there is nothing to come of it beyond an exhibition, which will be forgotten like so many hundred others, this is what I have not patience for. In Heaven’s name, not so many pros and cons! The guests you entertain have always something to object against the dinner; nay, if you could hear them talk of it at home, they cannot understand how it was possible to undergo so sad a business.”

“Let me turn your illustration, pretty one, to my own advantage,” answered Wilhelm. “Consider how much must be done by art and nature, by traffickers and tradesmen, before an entertainment can be given. How many years the stag must wander in the forest, the fish in the river or the sea, before they can deserve to grace our table! And what cares and consultations with her cooks and servants has the lady of the house submitted to! Observe with what indifference the people swallow the production of the distant vintager, the seaman, and the vintner, as if it were a thing of course. And ought these men to cease from laboring, providing, and preparing; ought the master of the house to cease from purchasing and laying up the fruit of their exertions,  —  because at last the enjoyment it affords is transitory? But no enjoyment can be transitory; the impression which it leaves is permanent: and what is done with diligence and effort communicates to the spectator a hidden force, of which we cannot say how far its influence may reach.”

“’Tis all one to me,” replied Philina: “only here again I must observe, that you men are constantly at variance with yourselves. With all this conscientious horror at curtailing Shakspeare, you have missed the finest thought there was in ‘Hamlet’!”

“The finest?” cried our friend.

“Certainly the finest,” said Philina: “the prince himself takes pleasure in it.”

“And it is?” inquired Serlo.

“If you wore a wig,” replied Philina, “I would pluck it very coolly off you; for I think you need to have your understanding opened.”

The rest began to think what she could mean: the conversation paused. The party arose; it was now grown late; they seemed about to separate. While they were standing in this undetermined mood, Philina all at once struck up a song, with a very graceful, pleasing tune:  — 

“Sing me not with such emotion, How the night so lonesome is: Pretty maids, I’ve got a notion It is the reverse of this.

For as wife and man are plighted, And the better half the wife; So is night to day united: Night’s the better half of life.

Can you joy in bustling daytime, Day when none can get his will? It is good for work, for haytime; For much other it is ill.

But when, in the nightly glooming, Social lamp on table glows, Face for faces dear illuming, And such jest and joyance goes;

When the fiery, pert young fellow, Wont by day to run or ride, Whispering now some tale would tell O, All so gentle by your side;

 When the nightingale to lovers Lovingly her songlet sings, Which for exiles and sad rovers Like mere woe and wailing rings,  — 

With a heart how lightsome feeling, Do ye count the kindly clock, Which twelve times deliberate pealing, Tells you none to-night shall knock!

Therefore, on all fit occasions, Mark it, maidens, what I sing: Every day its own vexations, And the night its joys, will bring.”

She made a slight courtesy on concluding, and Serlo gave a loud “Bravo!” She scuttled off, and left the room with a teehee of laughter. They heard her singing and skipping as she went down-stairs.

Serlo passed into another room: Wilhelm bade Aurelia good-night; but she continued looking at him for a few moments, and said,  — 

“How I dislike that woman! Dislike her from my heart, and to her very slightest qualities! Those brown eyelashes, with her fair hair, which our brother thinks so charming, I cannot bear to look at; and that scar upon her brow has something in it so repulsive, so low and base, that I could recoil ten paces every time I meet her. She was lately telling as a joke, that her father, when she was a child, threw a plate at her head, of which this is the mark. It is well that she is marked in the eyes and brow, that those about her may be on their guard.”

Wilhelm made no answer; and Aurelia went on, apparently with greater spleen,  — 

“It is next to impossible for me to speak a kind, civil word to her, so deeply do I hate her, with all her wheedling. Would that we were rid of her! And you, too, my friend, have a certain complaisance for the creature, a way of acting towards her, that grieves me to the soul,  —  an attention which borders on respect; which, by Heaven! she does not merit.”

“Whatever she may be,” replied our friend, “I owe her thanks. Her upbringing is to blame: to her natural character I would do justice.”

“Character!” exclaimed Aurelia; “and do you think such a creature has a character? O you men! It is so like you! These are the women you deserve!”

“My friend, can you suspect me?” answered Wilhelm. “I will give account of every minute I have spent beside her.”

“Come, come,” replied Aurelia: “it is late, we will not quarrel. All like each, and each like all! Good-night, my friend! Good-night, my sparkling bird-of-paradise!”

Wilhelm asked how he had earned this title.

“Another time,” cried she; “another time. They say it has no feet, but hovers in the air, and lives on ether. That, however, is a story, a poetic fiction. Good-night! Dream sweetly, if you are in luck!”

She proceeded to her room; and he, being left alone, made haste to his.

Half angrily he walked along his chamber to and fro. The jesting but decided tone of Aurelia had hurt him: he felt deeply how unjust she was. Could he treat Philina with unkindness or ill-nature? She had done no evil to him; but, for any love to her, he could proudly and confidently take his conscience to witness that it was not so.

On the point of beginning to undress, he was going forward to his bed to draw aside the curtains, when, not without extreme astonishment, he saw a pair of women’s slippers lying on the floor before it. One of them was resting on its sole, the other on its edge. They were Philina’s slippers: he recognized them but too well. He thought he noticed some disorder in the curtains; nay, it seemed as if they moved. He stood, and looked with unaverted eyes.

A new impulse, which he took for anger, cut his breath: after a short pause, he recovered, and cried in a firm tone,  — 

“Come out, Philina! What do you mean by this? Where is your sense, your modesty? Are we to be the speech of the house to-morrow?”

Nothing stirred.

“I do not jest,” continued he: “these pranks are little to my taste.”

No sound! No motion!

Irritated and determined, he at last went forward to the bed, and tore the curtains asunder. “Arise,” said he, “if I am not to give you up my room to-night.”

With great surprise, he found his bed unoccupied; the sheets and pillows in the sleekest rest. He looked around: he searched and searched, but found no traces of the rouge. Behind the bed, the stove, the drawers, there was nothing to be seen: he sought with great and greater diligence; a spiteful looker-on might have believed that he was seeking in the hope of finding.

All thought of sleep was gone. He put the slippers on his table; went past it, up and down; often paused before it; and a wicked sprite that watched him has asserted that our friend employed himself for several hours about these dainty little shoes; that he viewed them with a certain interest; that he handled them and played with them; and it was not till towards morning that he threw himself on the bed, without undressing, where he fell asleep amidst a world of curious fantasies.

He was still slumbering, when Serlo entered hastily. “Where are you?” cried he: “still in bed? Impossible! I want you in the theatre: we have a thousand things to do.”

CHAPTER XI.

The forenoon and the afternoon fled rapidly away. The playhouse was already full: our friend hastened to dress. It was not with the joy which it had given him when he first essayed it, that he now put on the garb of Hamlet: he only dressed that he might be in readiness. On his joining the women in the stage-room, they unanimously cried that nothing sat upon him right; the fine feather stood awry; the buckle of his belt did not fit: they began to slit, to sew, and piece together. The music started: Philina still objected somewhat to his ruff; Aurelia had much to say against his mantle. “Leave me alone, good people,” cried he: “this negligence will make me liker Hamlet.” The women would not let him go, but continued trimming him. The music ceased: the acting was begun. He looked at himself in the glass, pressed his hat closer down upon his face, and retouched the painting of his cheeks.

At this instant somebody came rushing in, and cried, “The Ghost! the Ghost!”

Wilhelm had not once had time all day to think of the Ghost, and whether it would come or not. His anxiety on that head was at length removed, and now some strange assistant was to be expected. The stage-manager came in, inquiring after various matters: Wilhelm had not time to ask about the Ghost; he hastened to present himself before the throne, where King and Queen, surrounded with their court, were already glancing in all the splendors of royalty, and waiting till the scene in front of them should be concluded. He caught the last words of Horatio, who was speaking of the Ghost, in extreme confusion, and seemed to have almost forgotten his part.

The intermediate curtain went aloft, and Hamlet saw the crowded house before him. Horatio, having spoken his address, and been dismissed by the King, pressed through to Hamlet; and, as if presenting himself to the Prince, he said, “The Devil is in harness: he has put us all in fright.”

In the mean while, two men of large stature, in white cloaks and capouches, were observed standing in the side-scenes. Our friend, in the distraction, embarrassment, and hurry of the moment, had failed in the first soliloquy; at least, such was his own opinion, though loud plaudits had attended his exit. Accordingly, he made his next entrance in no pleasant mood, with the dreary wintry feeling of dramatic condemnation. Yet he girded up his mind, and spoke that appropriate passage on the “rouse and wassail,” the “heavy-headed revel” of the Danes, with suitable indifference; he had, like the audience, in thinking of it, quite forgotten the Ghost; and he started, in real terror, when Horatio cried out, “Look, my lord! it comes!” He whirled violently round; and the tall, noble figure, the low, inaudible tread, the light movement in the heavy-looking armor, made such an impression on him, that he stood as if transformed to stone, and could utter only in a half-voice his “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” He glared at the form, drew a deep breathing once or twice, and pronounced his address to the Ghost in a manner so confused, so broken, so constrained, that the highest art could not have hit the mark so well.

His translation of this passage now stood him in good stead. He had kept very close to the original, in which the arrangement of the words appeared to him expressive of a mind confounded, terrified, and seized with horror:  — 

“‘Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, Thou com’st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane: oh, answer me!’“

A deep effect was visible in the audience. The Ghost beckoned, the Prince followed him amid the loudest plaudits.

The scene changed: and, when the two had re-appeared, the Ghost, on a sudden, stopped, and turned round; by which means Hamlet came to be a little too close upon it. With a longing curiosity, he looked in at the lowered visor; but except two deep-lying eyes, and a well-formed nose, he could discern nothing. Gazing timidly, he stood before the Ghost; but when the first tones issued from the helmet, and a somewhat hoarse, yet deep and penetrating, voice, pronounced the words, “I am thy father’s spirit,” Wilhelm, shuddering, started back some paces; and the audience shuddered with him. Each imagined that he knew the voice: Wilhelm thought he noticed in it some resemblance to his father’s. These strange emotions and remembrances, the curiosity he felt about discovering his secret friend, the anxiety about offending him, even the theatric impropriety of coming too near him in the present situation, all this affected Wilhelm with powerful and conflicting impulses. During the long speech of the Ghost, he changed his place so frequently, he seemed so unsettled and perplexed, so attentive and so absent-minded, that his acting caused a universal admiration, as the Spirit caused a universal horror. The latter spoke with a feeling of melancholy anger, rather than of sorrow; but of an anger spiritual, slow, and inexhaustible. It was the mistemper of a noble soul, that is severed from all earthly things, and yet devoted to unbounded woe. At last he vanished, but in a curious manner; for a thin, gray, transparent gauze arose from the place of descent, like a vapor, spread itself over him, and sank along with him.

Hamlet’s friends now entered, and swore upon the sword. Old Truepenny, in the mean time, was so busy under ground, that, wherever they might take their station, he was sure to call out right beneath them, “Swear!” and they started, as if the soil had taken fire below them, and hastened to another spot. On each of these occasions, too, a little flame pierced through at the place where they were standing. The whole produced on the spectators a profound impression.

After this, the play proceeded calmly on its course: nothing failed; all prospered; the audience manifested their contentment, and the actors seemed to rise in heart and spirits every scene.

CHAPTER XII.

The curtain fell, and rapturous applauses sounded out of every corner of the house. The four princely corpses sprang aloft, and embraced each other. Polonius and Ophelia likewise issued from their graves, and listened with extreme satisfaction, as Horatio, who had stepped before the curtain to announce the following play, was welcomed with the most thundering plaudits. The people would not hear of any other play, but violently required the repetition of the present.

“We have won,” cried Serlo, “and so not another reasonable word this night! Every thing depends on the first impression: we should never take it ill of any actor, that, on occasion of his first appearance, he is provident, and even self-willed.”

The box-keeper came, and delivered him a heavy sum. “We have made a good beginning,” cried the manager, “and prejudice itself will now be on our side. But where is the supper you promised us? To-night we may be allowed to relish it a little.”

It had been agreed that all the party were to stay together in their stage-dresses, and enjoy a little feast among themselves. Wilhelm had engaged to have the place in readiness, and Frau Melina to provide the victuals.

A room, which commonly was occupied by scene-painters, had accordingly been polished up as well as possible: our friends had hung it round with little decorations, and so decked and trimmed it, that it looked half like a garden, half like a colonnade. On entering it, the company were dazzled with the glitter of a multitude of lights, which, across the vapors of the sweetest and most copious perfumes, spread a stately splendor over a well-decorated and well-furnished table. These preparations were hailed with joyful interjections by the party; all took their places with a certain genuine dignity; it seemed as if some royal family had met together in the Kingdom of the Shades. Wilhelm sat between Aurelia and the Frau Melina; Serlo between Philina and Elmira; nobody was discontented with himself or with his place.

Our two theatric amateurs, who had from the first been present, now increased the pleasure of the meeting. While the exhibition was proceeding, they had several times stepped round, and come upon the stage, expressing, in the warmest terms, the delight which they and the audience felt. They now descended to particulars, and each was richly rewarded for his efforts.

With boundless animation, the company extolled man after man, and passage after passage. To the prompter, who had modestly sat down at the bottom of the table, they gave a liberal commendation for his “rugged Pyrrhus;” the fencing of Hamlet and Laertes was beyond all praise; Ophelia’s mourning had been inexpressibly exalted and affecting; of Polonius they would not trust themselves to speak.

Every individual present heard himself commended through the rest and by them, nor was the absent Ghost defrauded of his share of praise and admiration. He had played the part, it was asserted, with a very happy voice, and in a lofty style; but what surprised them most, was the information which he seemed to have about their own affairs. He entirely resembled the painted figure, as if he had sat to the painter of it; and the two amateurs described, in glowing language, how awful it had looked when the spirit entered near the picture, and stepped across before his own image. Truth and error, they declared, had been commingled in the strangest manner: they had felt as if the Queen really did not see the Ghost. And Frau Melina was especially commended, because on this occasion she had gazed upwards at the picture, while Hamlet was pointing downwards at the Spectre.

Inquiry was now made how the apparition could have entered. The stage-manager reported that a back-door, usually blocked up by decorations, had that evening, as the Gothic hall was occupied, been opened; that two large figures in white cloaks and hoods, one of whom was not to be distinguished from the other, had entered by this passage; and by the same, it was likely, they had issued when the third act was over.

Serlo praised the Ghost for one merit,  —  that he had not whined and lamented like a tailor; nay, to animate his son, had even introduced a passage at the end, which more beseemed such a hero. Wilhelm had kept it in memory: he promised to insert it in his manuscript.

Amid the pleasures of the entertainment, it had not been noticed that the children and the harper were absent. Erelong they made their entrance, and were blithely welcomed by the company. They came in together, very strangely decked: Felix was beating a triangle, Mignon a tambourine; the old man had his large harp hung round his neck, and was playing on it whilst he carried it before him. They marched round and round the table, and sang a multitude of songs. Eatables were handed them; and the guests seemed to think they could not do a greater kindness to the children, than by giving them as much sweet wine as they chose to have. For the company themselves had not by any means neglected a stock of savory flasks, presented by the two amateurs, which had arrived that evening in baskets. The children tripped about, and sang: Mignon, in particular, was frolicsome beyond all wont. She beat the tambourine with the greatest liveliness and grace: now, with her finger pressed against the parchment, she hummed across it swiftly to and fro; now rattled on it with her knuckles, now with the back of her hand; nay, sometimes, with alternating rhythm, she struck it first against her knee and then against her head; and anon twirling it in her hand, she made the shells jingle by themselves; and thus, from the simplest instrument, elicited a great variety of tones. After she and Felix had long rioted about, they sat down upon an elbow-chair which was standing empty at the table, exactly opposite to Wilhelm.

“Keep out of the chair!” cried Serlo: “it is waiting for the Ghost, I think; and, when he comes, it will be worse for you.”

“I do not fear him,” answered Mignon: “if he come, we can rise. He is my uncle, and will not harm me.” To those who did not know that her reputed father had been named the Great Devil, this speech was unintelligible.

The party looked at one another: they were more and more confirmed in their suspicion that the manager was in the secret of the Ghost. They talked and tippled, and the girls from time to time cast timid glances towards the door.

The children, who, sitting in the big chair, looked from over the table but like puppets in their box, did actually at length start a little drama in the style of Punch. The screeching tone of these people Mignon imitated very well; and Felix and she began to knock their heads together, and against the edges of the table, in such a way as only wooden puppets could endure. Mignon, in particular, grew frantic with gayety: the company, much as they had laughed at her at first, were in fine obliged to curb her. But persuasion was of small avail; for she now sprang up, and raved, and shook her tambourine, and capered round the table. With her hair flying out behind her, with her head thrown back, and her limbs, as it were, cast into the air, she seemed like one of those antique Mænads, whose wild and all but impossible positions still, on classic monuments, often strike us with amazement.

Incited by the talents and the uproar of the children, each endeavored to contribute something to the entertainment of the night. The girls sung several canons; Laertes whistled in the manner of a nightingale; and the Pedant gave a symphony pianissimo upon the Jew’s-harp. Meanwhile the youths and damsels, who sat near each other, had begun a great variety of games; in which, as the hands often crossed and met, some pairs were favored with a transient squeeze, the emblem of a hopeful kindness. Madam Melina in particular seemed scarcely to conceal a decided tenderness for Wilhelm. It was late; and Aurelia, perhaps the only one retaining self-possession in the party, now stood up, and signified that it was time to go.

By way of termination, Serlo gave a firework, or what resembled one; for he could imitate the sound of crackers, rockets, and fire wheels, with his mouth, in a style of nearly inconceivable correctness. You had only to shut your eyes, and the deception was complete. In the mean time, they had all risen: the men gave their arms to the women to escort them home. Wilhelm was walking last with Aurelia. The stage-manager met him on the stairs, and said to him, “Here is the veil our Ghost vanished in; it was hanging fixed to the place where he sank; we found it this moment.”  —  “A curious relic!” said our friend, and took it with him.

At this instant his left arm was laid hold of, and he felt a smart twinge of pain in it. Mignon had hid herself in the place: she had seized him, and bit his arm. She rushed past him, down stairs, and disappeared.

On reaching the open air, almost all of them discovered that they had drunk too liberally. They glided asunder without taking leave.

The instant Wilhelm gained his room, he stripped, and, extinguishing his candle, hastened into bed. Sleep was overpowering him without delay, when a noise, that seemed to issue from behind the stove, aroused him. In the eye of his heated fancy, the image of the harnessed King was hovering there: he sat up that he might address the Spectre; but he felt himself encircled with soft arms, and his mouth was shut with kisses, which he had not force to push away.

CHAPTER XIII.

Next morning Wilhelm started up with an unpleasant feeling, and found himself alone. His head was still dim with the tumult, which he had not yet entirely slept off; and the recollection of his nightly visitant disquieted his mind. His first suspicion lighted on Philina; but, on second thoughts, he conceived that it could not have been she. He sprang out of bed: and, while putting on his clothes, he noticed that the door, which commonly he used to bolt, was now ajar; though whether he had shut it on the previous night, or not, he could not recollect.

But what surprised him most was the Spirit’s veil, which he found lying on his bed. Having brought it up with him, he had most probably thrown it there himself. It was a gray gauze: on the hem of it he noticed an inscription broidered in dark letters. He unfolded it, and read the words, “For the first and the last time! Flee, Youth! Flee!” He was struck with it, and knew not what to think or say.

At this moment Mignon entered with his breakfast. The aspect of the child astonished Wilhelm, we may almost say frightened him. She appeared to have grown taller over night: she entered with a stately, noble air, and looked him in the face so earnestly, that he could not endure her glances. She did not touch him, as at other times, when, for morning salutation, she would press his hand, or kiss his cheek, his lips, his arm, or shoulder; but, having put his things in order, she retired in silence.

The appointed time of a first rehearsal now arrived: our friends assembled, all of them entirely out of tune from yesternight’s debauch. Wilhelm roused himself as much as possible, that he might not at the very outset violate the principles he had preached so lately with such emphasis. His practice in the matter helped him through; for practice and habit must, in every art, fill up the voids which genius and temper in their fluctuations will so often leave.

But, in the present case, our friends had especial reason to admit the truth of the remark, that no one should begin with a festivity any situation that is meant to last, particularly that is meant to be a trade, a mode of living. Festivities are fit for what is happily concluded: at the commencement, they but waste the force and zeal which should inspire us in the struggle, and support us through a long-continued labor. Of all festivities, the marriage festival appears the most unsuitable: calmness, humility, and silent hope befit no ceremony more than this.

So passed the day, which to Wilhelm seemed the most insipid he had ever spent. Instead of their accustomed conversation in the evening, the company began to yawn: the interest of Hamlet was exhausted; they rather felt it disagreeable than otherwise that the play was to be repeated next night. Wilhelm showed the veil which the royal Dane had left: it was to be inferred from this, that he would not come again. Serlo was of that opinion; he appeared to be deep in the secrets of the Ghost: but, on the other hand, the inscription, “Flee, youth! Flee!” seemed inconsistent with the rest. How could Serlo be in league with any one whose aim it was to take away the finest actor of his troop?

It had now become a matter of necessity to confer on Boisterous the Ghost’s part, and on the Pedant that of the King. Both declared that they had studied these sufficiently: nor was it wonderful; for in such a number of rehearsals, and so copious a treatment of the subject, all of them had grown familiar with it: each could have exchanged his part with any other. Yet they rehearsed a little here and there, and prepared the new adventurers, as fully as the hurry would admit. When the company was breaking up at a pretty late hour, Philina softly whispered Wilhelm as she passed, “I must have my slippers back: thou wilt not bolt the door?” These words excited some perplexity in Wilhelm, when he reached his chamber; they strengthened the suspicion that Philina was the secret visitant: and we ourselves are forced to coincide with this idea; particularly as the causes, which awakened in our friend another and a stranger supposition, cannot be disclosed. He kept walking up and down his chamber in no quiet frame: his door was actually not yet bolted.

On a sudden Mignon rushed into the room, laid hold of him, and cried, “Master! save the house! It is on fire!” Wilhelm sprang through the door, and a strong smoke came rushing down upon him from the upper story. On the street he heard the cry of fire; and the harper, with his instrument in his hand, came down-stairs breathless through the smoke. Aurelia hurried out of her chamber, and threw little Felix into Wilhelm’s arms.

“Save the child!” cried she, “and we will mind the rest.”

Wilhelm did not look upon the danger as so great: his first thought was, to penetrate to the source of the fire, and try to stifle it before it reached a head. He gave Felix to the harper; commanding him to hasten down the stone stairs, which led across a little garden-vault out into the garden, and to wait with the children in the open air. Mignon took a light to show the way. He begged Aurelia to secure her things there also. He himself pierced upwards through the smoke, but it was in vain that he exposed himself to such danger. The flame appeared to issue from a neighboring house; it had already caught the wooden floor and staircase: some others, who had hastened to his help, were suffering like himself from fire and vapor. Yet he kept inciting them; he called for water; he conjured them to dispute every inch with the flame, and promised to abide by them to the last. At this instant, Mignon came springing up, and cried. “Master! save thy Felix! The old man is mad! He is killing him.” Scarcely knowing what he did, Wilhelm darted down stairs; and Mignon followed close behind him.

On the last steps, which led into the garden-vault, he paused with horror. Some heaps of fire-wood branches, and large masses of straw, which had been stowed in the place, were burning with a clear flame; Felix was lying on the ground, and screaming; the harper stood aside, holding down his head, and leaned against the wall. “Unhappy creature! what is this?” said Wilhelm. The old man spoke not; Mignon lifted Felix, and carried him with difficulty to the garden; while Wilhelm strove to pull the fire asunder and extinguish it, but only by his efforts made the flame more violent. At last he, too, was forced to flee into the garden, with his hair and his eyelashes burned; tearing the harper with him through the conflagration, who, with singed beard, unwillingly accompanied him.

Wilhelm hastened instantly to seek the children. He found them on the threshold of a summer-house at some distance: Mignon was trying every effort to pacify her comrade. Wilhelm took him on his knee: he questioned him, felt him, but could obtain no satisfactory account from either him or Mignon.

Meanwhile, the fire had fiercely seized on several houses: it was now enlightening all the neighborhood. Wilhelm looked at the child in the red glare of the flames: he could find no wound, no blood, no hurt of any kind. He groped over all the little creature’s body, but the boy gave no sign of pain: on the contrary, he by degrees grew calm, and began to wonder at the blazing houses, and express his pleasure at the spectacle of beams and rafters burning all in order, like a grand illumination, so beautifully there.

Wilhelm thought not of the clothes or goods he might have lost: he felt deeply how inestimable to him was this pair of human beings, who had just escaped so great a danger. He pressed little Felix to his heart with a new emotion: Mignon, too, he was about to clasp with joyful tenderness; but she softly avoided this: she took him by the hand, and held it fast.

“Master,” said she (till the present evening she had hardly ever named him master; at first she used to name him sir, and afterwards to call him father),  —  “Master! we have escaped an awful danger: thy Felix was on the point of death.”

By many inquiries, Wilhelm learned from her at last, that, when they came into the vault, the harper tore the light from her hand, and set on fire the straw. That he then put Felix down, laid his hands with strange gestures on the head of the child, and drew a knife as if he meant to sacrifice him. That she sprang forward, and snatched it from him; that she screamed; and some one from the house, who was carrying something down into the garden, came to her help, but must have gone away again in the confusion, and left the old man and the child alone.

Two or even three houses were now flaming in a general blaze. Owing to the conflagration in the vault, no person had been able to take shelter in the garden. Wilhelm was distressed about his friends, and in a less degree about his property. Not venturing to quit the children, he was forced to sit, and see the mischief spreading more and more.

In this anxious state he passed some hours. Felix had fallen asleep on his bosom: Mignon was lying at his side, and holding fast his hand. The efforts of the people finally subdued the fire. The burned houses sank, with successive crashes, into heaps; the morning was advancing; the children awoke, and complained of bitter cold; even Wilhelm, in his light dress, could scarcely brook the chillness of the falling dew. He took the young ones to the rubbish of the prostrate building, where, among the ashes and the embers, they found a very grateful warmth.

The opening day collected, by degrees, the various individuals of the party. All of them had got away unhurt: no one had lost much. Wilhelm’s trunk was saved among the rest.

Towards ten o’clock Serlo called them to rehearse their “Hamlet,” at least some scenes, in which fresh players were to act. He had some debates to manage, on this point, with the municipal authorities. The clergy required, that, after such a visitation of Providence, the playhouse should be shut for some time; and Serlo, on the other hand, maintained, that both for the purpose of repairing the damage he had suffered, and of exhilarating the depressed and terrified spirits of the people, nothing could be more in place than the exhibition of some interesting play. His opinion in the end prevailed, and the house was full. The actors played with singular fire, with more of a passionate freedom than at first. The feelings of the audience had been heightened by the horrors of the previous night, and their appetite for entertainment had been sharpened by the tedium of a wasted and dissipated day: every one had more than usual susceptibility for what was strange and moving. Most of them were new spectators, invited by the fame of the play: they could not compare the present with the preceding evening. Boisterous played altogether in the style of the unknown Ghost: the Pedant, too, had accurately seized the manner of his predecessor; nor was his own woful aspect without its use to him; for it seemed as if, in spite of his purple cloak and his ermine collar, Hamlet were fully justified in calling him a “king of shreds and patches.”

Few have ever reached the throne by a path more singular than his had been. But although the rest, and especially Philina, made sport of his preferment, he himself signified that the count, a consummate judge, had at the first glance predicted this and much more of him. Philina, on the other hand, recommended lowliness of mind to him; saying, she would now and then powder the sleeves of his coat, that he might remember that unhappy night in the castle, and wear his crown with meekness.

CHAPTER XIV.

Our friends had sought out other lodgings, on the spur of the moment, and were by this means much dispersed. Wilhelm had conceived a liking for the garden-house, where he had spent the night of the conflagration: he easily obtained the key, and settled himself there. But Aurelia being greatly hampered in her new abode, he was obliged to retain little Felix with him. Mignon, indeed, would not part with the boy.

He had placed the children in a neat chamber on the upper floor: he himself was in the lower parlor. The young ones were asleep at this time: Wilhelm could not sleep.

Adjoining the lovely garden, which the full moon had just risen to illuminate, the black ruins of the fire were visible; and here and there a streak of vapor was still mounting from them. The air was soft, the night extremely beautiful. Philina, in issuing from the theatre, had jogged him with her elbow, and whispered something to him, which he did not understand. He felt perplexed and out of humor: he knew not what he should expect or do. For a day or two Philina had avoided him: it was not till to-night that she had given him any second signal. Unhappily the doors, that he was not to bolt, were now consumed: the slippers had evaporated into smoke. How the girl would gain admission to the garden, if her aim was such, he knew not. He wished she might not come, and yet he longed to have some explanation with her.

But what lay heavier at his heart than this, was the fate of the harper, whom, since the fire, no one had seen. Wilhelm was afraid, that, in clearing off the rubbish, they would find him buried under it. Our friend had carefully concealed the suspicion which he entertained, that it was the harper who had fired the house. The old man had been first seen, as he rushed from the burning and smoking floor, and his desperation in the vault appeared a natural consequence of such a deed. Yet, from the inquiry which the magistrates had instituted touching the affair, it seemed likely that the fire had not originated in the house where Wilhelm lived, but had accidentally been kindled in the third from that, and had crept along beneath the roofs before it burst into activity.

Seated in a grove, our friend was meditating all these things, when he heard a low footfall in a neighboring walk. By the melancholy song which arose along with it, he recognized the harper. He caught the words of the song without difficulty: it turned on the consolations of a miserable man, conscious of being on the borders of insanity. Unhappily our friend forgot the whole of it except the last verse:  — 

“Wheresoe’er my steps may lead me, Meekly at the door I’ll stay: Pious hands will come to feed me, And I’ll wander on my way. Each will feel a touch of gladness When my aged form appears: Each will shed a tear of sadness, Though I reck not of his tears.”

So singing, he had reached the garden-door, which led into an unfrequented street. Finding it bolted, he was making an attempt to climb the railing, when Wilhelm held him back, and addressed some kindly words to him. The old man begged to have the door unlocked, declaring that he would and must escape. Wilhelm represented to him that he might indeed escape from the garden, but could not from the town; showing, at the same time, what suspicions he must needs incur by such a step. But it was in vain: the old man held by his opinion. Our friend, however, would not yield; and at last he brought him, half by force, into the garden-house, in which he locked himself along with him. The two carried on a strange conversation; which, however, not to afflict our readers with repeating unconnected thoughts and dolorous emotions, we had rather pass in silence than detail at large.

CHAPTER XV.

Undetermined what to do with this unhappy man, who displayed such indubitable symptoms of madness, Wilhelm would have been in great perplexity, had not Laertes come that very morning, and delivered him from his uncertainty. Laertes, as usual, rambling everywhere about the town, had happened, in some coffee-house, to meet with a man, who, a short time ago, had suffered under violent attacks of melancholy. This person, it appeared, had been intrusted to the care of some country clergyman, who made it his peculiar business to attend to people in such situations. In the present instance, as in many others, his treatment had succeeded: he was still in town, and the friends of the patient were showing him the greatest honor.

Wilhelm hastened to find out this person: he disclosed the case to him, and agreed with him about the terms. The harper was to be brought over to him, under certain pretexts. The separation deeply pained our friend; so used was he to see the man beside him, and to hear his spirited and touching strains. The hope of soon beholding him recovered, served, in some degree, to moderate this feeling. The old man’s harp had been destroyed in the burning of the house: they purchased him another, and gave it him when he departed.

Mignon’s little wardrobe had in like manner been consumed. As Wilhelm was about providing her with new apparel, Aurelia proposed that now at last they should dress her as a girl.

“No! no! not at all!” cried Mignon, and insisted on it with such earnestness, that they let her have her way.

The company had not much leisure for reflection: the exhibitions followed close on one another.

Wilhelm often mingled with the audience, to ascertain their feelings; but he seldom heard a criticism of the kind he wished: more frequently the observations he listened to distressed or angered him. Thus, for instance, shortly after “Hamlet” had been acted for the first time, a youth was telling, with considerable animation, how happy he had been that evening in the playhouse. Wilhelm hearkened, and was scandalized to learn that his neighbor had, on that occasion, in contempt of those behind him, kept his hat on, stubbornly refusing to remove it till the play was done; to which heroical transaction he still looked back with great contentment.

Another gentleman declared that Wilhelm played Laertes very well, but that the actor who had undertaken Hamlet did not seem too happy in his part. This permutation was not quite unnatural; for Wilhelm and Laertes did resemble one another, though in a very distant manner.

A third critic warmly praised his acting, particularly in the scene with his mother; only he regretted much, that, in this fiery moment, a white strap had peered out from below the Prince’s waistcoat, whereby the illusion had been greatly marred.

Meanwhile, in the interior of the company, a multitude of alterations were occurring. Philina, since the evening subsequent to that of the fire, had never given our friend the smallest sign of closer intimacy. She had, as it seemed on purpose, hired a remote lodging: she associated with Elmira, and came seldomer to Serlo,  —  an arrangement very gratifying to Aurelia. Serlo continued still to like her, and often visited her quarters, particularly when he hoped to find Elmira there. One evening he took Wilhelm with him. At their entrance, both of them were much surprised to see Philina, in the inner room, sitting in close contact with a young officer. He wore a red uniform with white pantaloons; but, his face being turned away, they could not see it. Philina came into the outer room to meet her visitors, and shut the door behind her. “You surprise me in the middle of a very strange adventure,” cried she.

“It does not appear so strange,” said Serlo; “but let us see this handsome, young, enviable gallant. You have us in such training, that we dare not show any jealousy, however it may be.”

“I must leave you to suspicion for a time,” replied Philina in a jesting tone; “yet I can assure you, the gallant is a lady of my friends, who wishes to remain a few days undiscovered. You shall know her history in due season; nay, perhaps you shall even behold the beautiful spinster in person; and then most probably I shall have need of all my prudence and discretion, for it seems too likely that your new acquaintance will drive your old friend out of favor.”

Wilhelm stood as if transformed to stone. At the first glance, the red uniform had reminded him of Mariana: the figure, too, was hers; the fair hair was hers; only the present individual seemed to be a little taller.

“For Heaven’s sake,” cried he, “let us know something more about your friend! let us see this lady in disguise! We are now partakers of your secret: we will promise, we will swear; only let us see the lady!”

“What a fire he is in!” cried Philina: “but be cool, be calm; for to-day there will nothing come of it.”

“Let us only know her name!” cried Wilhelm.

“It were a fine secret, then,” replied Philina.

“At least her first name!”

“If you can guess it, be it so. Three guesses I will give you,  —  not a fourth. You might lead me through the whole calendar.”

“Well!” said Wilhelm: “Cecilia, then?”

“None of your Cecilias!”

“Henrietta?”

“Not at all! Have a care, I pray you: guess better, or your curiosity will have to sleep unsatisfied.”

Wilhelm paused and shivered: he tried to speak, but the sound died away within him. “Mariana?” stammered he at last, “Mariana?”

“Bravo!” cried Philina. “Hit to a hair’s-breadth!” said she, whirling round upon her heel, as she was wont on such occasions.

Wilhelm could not utter a word; and Serlo, not observing his emotion, urged Philina more and more to let them in.

Conceive the astonishment of both, when Wilhelm, suddenly and vehemently interrupting their raillery, threw himself at Philina’s feet, and, with an air and tone of the deepest passion, begged and conjured her, “Let me see the stranger,” cried he: “she is mine; she is my Mariana! She for whom I have longed all the days of my life, she who is still more to me than all the women in this world! Go in to her at least, and tell her that I am here,  —  that the man is here who linked to her his earliest love, and all the happiness of his youth. Say that he will justify himself, though he left her so unkindly; he will pray for pardon of her; and will grant her pardon, whatsoever she may have done to him; he will even make no pretensions further, if he may but see her, if he may but see that she is living and in happiness.”

Philina shook her head, and said, “Speak low! Do not betray us! If the lady is indeed your friend, her feelings must be spared; for she does not in the least suspect that you are here. Quite a different sort of business brings her hither; and you know well enough, one had rather see a spectre than a former lover at an inconvenient time. I will ask her, and prepare her: we will then consider what is further to be done. To-morrow I shall write you a note, saying when you are to come, or whether you may come at all. Obey me punctually; for I protest, that, without her own and my consent, no eye shall see this lovely creature. I shall keep my doors better bolted; and, with axe and crow, you surely will not visit me.”

Our friend conjured her, Serlo begged of her; but all in vain: they were obliged to yield, and leave the chamber and the house.

With what feelings Wilhelm passed the night is easy to conceive. How slowly the hours of the day flowed on, while he sat expecting a message from Philina, may also be imagined. Unhappily he had to play that evening: such mental pain he had never endured. The moment his part was done, he hastened to Philina’s house, without inquiring whether he had got her leave or not. He found her doors bolted: and the people of the house informed him that mademoiselle had set out early in the morning, in company with a young officer; that she had talked about returning shortly; but they had not believed her, she having paid her debts, and taken every thing along with her.

This intelligence drove Wilhelm almost frantic. He hastened to Laertes, that he might take measures for pursuing her, and, cost what it would, for attaining certainty regarding her attendant. Laertes, however, represented to him the imprudence of such passion and credulity. “I dare wager, after all,” said he, “that it is no one else but Friedrich. The boy is of a high family, I know; he is madly in love with Philina; it is likely he has cozened from his friends a fresh supply of money, so that he can once more live with her in peace for a while.”

These considerations, though they did not quite convince our friend, sufficed to make him waver. Laertes showed him how improbable the story was with which Philina had amused them; reminded him how well the stranger’s hair and figure answered Friedrich; that with the start of him by twelve hours, they could not easily be overtaken; and, what was more than all, that Serlo could not do without him at the theatre.

By so many reasons, Wilhelm was at last persuaded to postpone the execution of his project. That night Laertes got an active man, to whom they gave the charge of following the runaways. It was a steady person, who had often officiated as courier and guide to travelling-parties, and was at present without employment. They gave him money, they informed him of the whole affair; instructing him to seek and overtake the fugitives, to keep them in his eye, and instantly to send intelligence to Wilhelm where and how he found them. That very hour he mounted horse, pursuing this ambiguous pair; by which exertions, Wilhelm was in some degree at least, composed.

CHAPTER XVI.

The departure of Philina did not make a deep sensation, either in the theatre or in the public. She never was in earnest with any thing: the women universally detested her; the men rather wished to see her selves-two than on the boards. Thus her fine, and, for the stage, even happy, talents were of no avail to her. The other members of the company took greater labor on them to supply her place: the Frau Melina, in particular, was much distinguished by her diligence and zeal. She noted down, as formerly, the principles of Wilhelm; she guided herself according to his theory and his example; there was of late a something in her nature that rendered her more interesting. She soon acquired an accurate mode of acting: she attained the natural tone of conversation altogether, that of keen emotion she attained in some degree. She contrived, moreover, to adapt herself to Serlo’s humors: she took pains in singing for his pleasure, and succeeded in that matter moderately well.

By the accession of some other players, the company was rendered more complete: and while Wilhelm and Serlo were busied each in his degree, the former insisting on the general tone and spirit of the whole, the latter faithfully elaborating the separate passages, a laudable ardor likewise inspired the actors; and the public took a lively interest in their concerns.

“We are on the right path,” said Serlo once: “if we can continue thus, the public, too, will soon be on it. Men are easily astonished and misled by wild and barbarous exhibitions; yet lay before them any thing rational and polished, in an interesting manner, and doubt not they will catch at it.”

“What forms the chief defect of our German theatre, what prevents both actor and spectator from obtaining proper views, is the vague and variegated nature of the objects it contains. You nowhere find a barrier on which to prop your judgment. In my opinion, it is far from an advantage to us that we have expanded our stage into, as it were, a boundless arena for the whole of nature; yet neither manager nor actor need attempt contracting it, until the taste of the nation shall itself mark out the proper circle. Every good society submits to certain conditions and restrictions; so also must every good theatre. Certain manners, certain modes of speech, certain objects, and fashions of proceeding, must altogether be excluded. You do not grow poorer by limiting your household expenditure.”

On these points our friends were more or less accordant or at variance. The majority, with Wilhelm at their head, were for the English theatre; Serlo and a few others for the French.

It was also settled, that in vacant hours, of which unhappily an actor has too many, they should in company peruse the finest plays in both these languages; examining what parts of them seemed best and worthiest of imitation. They accordingly commenced with some French pieces. On these occasions, it was soon observed, Aurelia went away whenever they began to read. At first they supposed she had been sick: Wilhelm once questioned her about it.

“I would not assist at such a reading,” said she, “for how could I hear and judge, when my heart was torn in pieces? I hate the French language from the bottom of my soul.”

“How can you be hostile to a language,” cried our friend, “to which we Germans are indebted for the greater part of our accomplishments; to which we must become indebted still more, if our natural qualities are ever to assume their proper form?”

“It is no prejudice!” replied Aurelia, “a painful impression, a hated recollection of my faithless friend, has robbed me of all enjoyment in that beautiful and cultivated tongue. How I hate it now with my whole strength and heart! During the period of our kindliest connection, he wrote in German; and what genuine, powerful, cordial German! It was not till he wanted to get quit of me that he began seriously to write in French. I marked, I felt, what he meant. What he would have blushed to utter in his mother tongue, he could by this means write with a quiet conscience. It is the language of reservations, equivocations, and lies: it is a perfidious language. Heaven be praised! I cannot find another word to express this perfide of theirs in all its compass. Our poor treulos, the faithless of the English, are innocent as babes beside it. Perfide means faithless with pleasure, with insolence and malice. How enviable is the culture of a nation that can figure out so many shades of meaning by a single word! French is exactly the language of the world,  —  worthy to become the universal language, that all may have it in their power to cheat and cozen and betray each other! His French letters were always smooth and pleasant, while you read them. If you chose to believe it, they sounded warmly, even passionately; but, if you examined narrowly, they were but phrases,  —  accursed phrases! He has spoiled my feeling to the whole language, to French literature, even to the beautiful, delicious expressions of noble souls which may be found in it. I shudder when a French word is spoken in my hearing.”

In such terms she could for hours continue to give utterance to her chagrin, interrupting or disturbing every other kind of conversation. Sooner or later, Serlo used to put an end to such peevish lamentations by some bitter sally; but by this means, commonly, the talk for the evening was destroyed.

In all provinces of life, it is unhappily the case, that whatever is to be accomplished by a number of co-operating men and circumstances cannot long continue perfect. Of an acting company as well as of a kingdom, of a circle of friends as well as of an army, you may commonly select the moment when it may be said that all was standing on the highest pinnacle of harmony, perfection, contentment, and activity. But alterations will ere long occur; the individuals that compose the body often change; new members are added; the persons are no longer suited to the circumstances, or the circumstances to the persons; what was formerly united quickly falls asunder. Thus it was with Serlo’s company. For a time you might have called it as complete as any German company could ever boast of being. Most of the actors were occupying their proper places: all had enough to do, and all did it willingly. Their private personal condition was not bad; and each appeared to promise great things in his art, for each commenced with animation and alacrity. But it soon became apparent that a part of them were mere automatons, who could not reach beyond what was attainable without the aid of feeling. Nor was it long till grudgings and envyings arose among them, such as commonly obstruct every good arrangement, and easily distort and tear in pieces every thing that reasonable and thinking men would wish to keep united.

The departure of Philina was not quite so insignificant as it had at first appeared. She had always skilfully contrived to entertain the manager, and keep the others in good humor. She had endured Aurelia’s violence with amazing patience, and her dearest task had been to flatter Wilhelm. Thus she was, in some respects, a bond of union for the whole: the loss of her was quickly felt.

Serlo could not live without some little passion of the love sort. Elmira was of late grown up, we might almost say grown beautiful; for some time she had been attracting his attention: and Philina, with her usual dexterity, had favored this attachment so soon as she observed it. “We should train ourselves in time,” she would say, “to the business of procuress: nothing else remains for us when we are old.” Serlo and Elmira had by this means so approximated to each other, that, shortly after the departure of Philina, both were of a mind: and their small romance was rendered doubly interesting, as they had to hide it sedulously from the father; Old Boisterous not understanding jokes of that description. Elmira’s sister had been admitted to the secret; and Serlo was, in consequence, obliged to overlook a multitude of things in both of them. One of their worst habits was an excessive love of junketing,  —  nay, if you will, an intolerable gluttony. In this respect they altogether differed from Philina, to whom it gave a new tint of loveliness, that she seemed, as it were, to live on air, eating very little; and, for drink, merely skimming off, with all imaginable grace, the foam from a glass of champagne.

Now, however, Serlo, if he meant to please his doxies, was obliged to join breakfast with dinner; and with this, by a substantial bever, to connect the supper. But, amid gormandizing, Serlo entertained another plan, which he longed to have fulfilled. He imagined that he saw a kind of attachment between Wilhelm and Aurelia, and he anxiously wished that it might assume a serious shape. He hoped to cast the whole mechanical department of his theatrical economy on Wilhelm’s shoulders; to find in him, as in the former brother, a faithful and industrious tool. Already he had, by degrees, shifted over to him most of the cares of management; Aurelia kept the strong-box; and Serlo once more lived as he had done of old, entirely according to his humor. Yet there was a circumstance which vexed him in secret, as it did his sister likewise.

The world has a particular way of acting towards public persons of acknowledged merit: it gradually begins to be indifferent to them, and to favor talents which are new, though far inferior; it makes excessive requisitions of the former, and accepts of any thing with approbation from the latter.

Serlo and Aurelia had opportunity enough to meditate on this peculiarity. The strangers, especially the young and handsome ones, had drawn the whole attention and applause upon themselves; and Serlo and his sister, in spite of the most zealous efforts, had in general to make their exits without the welcome sound of clapping hands. It is true, some special causes were at work on this occasion. Aurelia’s pride was palpable, and her contempt for the public was known to many. Serlo, indeed, flattered every individual; but his cutting jibes against the whole were often circulated and repeated. The new members, again, were not only strangers, unknown, and wanting help, but some of them were likewise young and amiable: thus all of them found patrons.

Erelong, too, there arose internal discontents, and many bickerings, among the actors. Scarcely had they noticed that our friend was acting as director, when most of them began to grow the more remiss, the more he strove to introduce a better order, greater accuracy, and chiefly to insist that every thing mechanical should be performed in the most strict and regular manner.

Thus, by and by, the whole concern, which actually for a time had nearly looked ideal, grew as vulgar in its attributes as any mere itinerating theatre. And, unhappily, just as Wilhelm, by his labor, diligence, and vigorous efforts, had made himself acquainted with the requisitions of the art, and trained completely both his person and his habits to comply with them, he began to feel, in melancholy hours, that this craft deserved the necessary outlay of time and talents less than any other. The task was burdensome, the recompense was small. He would rather have engaged with any occupation in which, when the period of exertion is passed, one can enjoy repose of mind, than with this, wherein, after undergoing much mechanical drudgery, the aim of one’s activity cannot still be attained but by the strongest effort of thought and emotion. Besides, he had to listen to Aurelia’s complaints about her brother’s wastefulness: he had to misconceive the winks and nods of Serlo, trying from afar to lead him to a marriage with Aurelia. He had, withal, to hide his own secret sorrow, which pressed heavy on his heart, because of that ambiguous officer whom he had sent in quest of. The messenger returned not, sent no tidings; and Wilhelm feared that his Mariana was lost to him a second time.

About this period, there occurred a public mourning, which obliged our friends to shut their theatre for several weeks. Wilhelm seized this opportunity to pay a visit to the clergyman with whom the harper had been placed to board. He found him in a pleasant district; and the first thing that he noticed in the parsonage was the old man teaching a boy to play upon his instrument. The harper showed great joy at sight of Wilhelm: he rose, held out his hand, and said, “You see, I am still good for something in the world; permit me to continue; for my hours are all distributed, and full of business.”

The clergyman saluted Wilhelm very kindly, and told him that the harper promised well, already giving hopes of a complete recovery.

Their conversation naturally turned upon the various modes of treating the insane.

“Except physical derangements,” observed the clergyman, “which often place insuperable difficulties in the way, and in regard to which I follow the prescriptions of a wise physician, the means of curing madness seem to me extremely simple. They are the very means by which you hinder sane persons from becoming mad. Awaken their activity; accustom them to order; bring them to perceive that they hold their being and their fate in common with many millions; that extraordinary talents, the highest happiness, the deepest misery, are but slight variations from the general lot: in this way, no insanity will enter, or, if it has entered, will gradually disappear. I have portioned out the old man’s hours: he gives lessons to some children on the harp; he works in the garden; he is already much more cheerful. He wishes to enjoy the cabbages he plants: my son, to whom in case of death he has bequeathed his harp, he is ardent to instruct, that the boy may be able to make use of his inheritance. I have said but little to him, as a clergyman, about his wild, mysterious scruples; but a busy life brings on so many incidents, that erelong he must feel how true it is, that doubt of any kind can be removed by nothing but activity. I go softly to work: yet, if I could get his beard and hood removed, I should reckon it a weighty point; for nothing more exposes us to madness than distinguishing ourselves from others, and nothing more contributes to maintain our common sense than living in the universal way with multitudes of men. Alas! how much there is in education, in our social institutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity!”

Wilhelm staid some days with this intelligent divine; heard from him many curious narratives, not of the insane alone, but of persons such as commonly are reckoned wise and rational, though they may have peculiarities which border on insanity.

The conversation became doubly animated, on the entrance of the doctor, with whom it was a custom to pay frequent visits to his friend the clergyman, and to assist him in his labors of humanity. The physician was an oldish man, who, though in weak health, had spent many years in the practice of the noblest virtues. He was a strong advocate for country life, being himself scarcely able to exist except in the open air. Withal, he was extremely active and companionable. For several years he had shown a special inclination to make friends with all the country clergymen within his reach. Such of these as were employed in any useful occupation he strove by every means to help; into others, who were still unsettled in their aims, he endeavored to infuse a taste for some profitable species of exertion. Being at the same time in connection with a multitude of noblemen, magistrates, judges, he had in the space of twenty years, in secret, accomplished much towards the advancement of many branches of husbandry: he had done his best to put in motion every project that seemed capable of benefiting agriculture, animals, or men, and had thus forwarded improvement in its truest sense. “For man,” he used to say, “there is but one misfortune,  —  when some idea lays hold of him, which exerts no influence upon active life, or, still more, which withdraws him from it. At the present time,” continued he, on this occasion, “I have such a case before me: it concerns a rich and noble couple, and hitherto has baffled all my skill. The affair belongs in part to your department, worthy pastor; and your friend here will forbear to mention it again.

“In the absence of a certain nobleman, some persons of the house, in a frolic not entirely commendable, disguised a young man in the master’s clothes. The lady was to be imposed upon by this deception; and, although it was described to me as nothing but a joke, I am much afraid the purpose of it was to lead this noble and most amiable lady from the path of honor. Her husband, however, unexpectedly returns; enters his chamber; thinks he sees his spirit; and from that time falls into a melancholy temper, firmly believing that his death is near.

“He has now abandoned himself to men who pamper him with religious ideas; and I see not how he is to be prevented from going among the Hernhuters with his lady, and, as he has no children, from depriving his relations of the chief part of his fortune.”

“With his lady?” cried our friend in great agitation; for this story had frightened him extremely.

“And, alas!” replied the doctor, who regarded Wilhelm’s exclamation only as the voice of common sympathy, “this lady is herself possessed with a deeper sorrow, which renders a removal from the world desirable to her also. The same young man was taking leave of her: she was not circumspect enough to hide a nascent inclination towards him: the youth grew bolder, clasped her in his arms, and pressed a large portrait of her husband, which was set with diamonds, forcibly against her breast. She felt a sharp pain, which gradually went off, leaving first a little redness, then no trace at all. As a man, I am convinced that she has nothing further to reproach herself with, in this affair; as a physician, I am certain that this pressure could not have the smallest ill effect. Yet she will not be persuaded that an induration is not taking place in the part; and, if you try to overcome her notion by the evidence of feeling, she maintains, that, though the evil is away this moment, it will return the next. She conceives that the disease will end in cancer, and thus her youth and loveliness be altogether lost to others and herself.”

“Wretch that I am!” cried Wilhelm, striking his brow, and rushing from the company into the fields. He had never felt himself in such a miserable case.

The clergyman and the physician were of course exceedingly astonished at this singular discovery. In the evening all their skill was called for, when our friend returned, and, with a circumstantial disclosure of the whole occurrence, uttered the most violent accusations of himself. Both took interest in him: both felt a real concern about his general condition, particularly as he painted it in the gloomy colors which arose from the humor of the moment.

Next day the physician, without much entreaty, was prevailed upon to accompany him in his return; both that he might bear him company, and that he might, if possible, do something for Aurelia, whom our friend had left in rather dangerous circumstances.

In fact, they found her worse than they expected. She was afflicted with a sort of intermittent fever, which could the less be mastered, as she purposely maintained and aggravated the attacks of it. The stranger was not introduced as a physician: he behaved with great courteousness and prudence. They conversed about her situation, bodily and mental: her new friend related many anecdotes of persons who, in spite of lingering disorders, had attained a good old age; adding, that, in such cases, nothing could be more injurious than the intentional recalling of passionate and disagreeable emotions. In particular he stated, that, for persons laboring under chronical and partly incurable distempers, he had always found it a very happy circumstance when they chanced to entertain, and cherish in their minds, true feelings of religion. This he signified in the most unobtrusive manner, as it were historically; promising Aurelia at the same time the reading of a very interesting manuscript, which he said he had received from the hands of an excellent lady of his friends, who was now deceased. “To me,” he said, “it is of uncommon value; and I shall trust you even with the original. Nothing but the title is in my hand-writing: I have called it, ‘Confessions of a Fair Saint.’“

Touching the medical and dietetic treatment of the racked and hapless patient, he also left his best advice with Wilhelm. He then departed; promising to write, and, if possible, to come again in person.

Meanwhile, in Wilhelm’s absence, there had changes been preparing such as he was not aware of. During his directorship, our friend had managed all things with a certain liberality and freedom; looking chiefly at the main result. Whatever was required for dresses, decorations, and the like, he had usually provided in a plentiful and handsome style; and, for securing the co-operation of his people, he had flattered their self-interest, since he could not reach them by nobler motives. In this he felt his conduct justified the more; as Serlo for his own part never aimed at being a strict economist, but liked to hear the beauty of his theatre commended, and was contented if Aurelia, who conducted the domestic matters, on defraying all expenses, signified that she was free from debt, and could besides afford the necessary sums for clearing off such scores as Serlo in the interim, by lavish kindness to his mistresses or otherwise, might have incurred.

Melina, who was charged with managing the wardrobe, had all the while been silently considering these things, with the cold, spiteful temper peculiar to him. On occasion of our friend’s departure, and Aurelia’s increasing sickness, he contrived to signify to Serlo, that more money might be raised and less expended, and, consequently, something be laid up, or at least a merrier life be led. Serlo hearkened gladly to such allegations, and Melina risked the exhibition of his plan.

“I will not say,” continued he, “that any of your actors has at present too much salary: they are meritorious people, they would find a welcome anywhere; but, for the income which they bring us in, they have too much. My project would be, to set up an opera; and, as to what concerns the playhouse, I may be allowed to say it, you are the person for maintaining that establishment upon your single strength. Observe how at present your merits are neglected; and justice is refused you, not because your fellow-actors are excellent, but merely good.

“Come out alone, as used to be the case; endeavor to attract around you middling, I will even say inferior people, for a slender salary; regale the public with mechanical displays, as you can so cleverly do; apply your remaining means to the opera, which I am talking of; and you will quickly see, that, with the same labor and expense, you will give greater satisfaction, while you draw incomparably more money than at present.”

These observations were so flattering to Serlo, that they could not fail of making some impression on him. He readily admitted, that, loving music as he did, he had long wished for some arrangement such as this; though he could not but perceive that the public taste would thus be still more widely led astray, and that with such a mongrel theatre, not properly an opera, not properly a playhouse, any residue of true feeling for regular and perfect works of art must shortly disappear.

Melina ridiculed, in terms more plain than delicate, our friend’s pedantic notions in this matter, and his vain attempts to form the public mind, instead of being formed by it: Serlo and he at last agreed, with full conviction, that the sole concern was, how to gather money, and grow rich, or live a joyous life; and they scarcely concealed their wish to be delivered from those persons who at present hindered them. Melina took occasion to lament Aurelia’s weak health, and the speedy end which it threatened; thinking all the while directly the reverse. Serlo affected to regret that Wilhelm could not sing, thus signifying that his presence was by no means indispensable. Melina then came forward with a whole catalogue of savings, which, he said, might be effected; and Serlo saw in him his brother-in-law replaced threefold. They both felt that secrecy was necessary in the matter, but this mutual obligation only joined them closer in their interests. They failed not to converse together privately on every thing that happened; to blame whatever Wilhelm or Aurelia undertook; and to elaborate their own project, and prepare it more and more for execution.

Silent as they both might be about their plan, little as their words betrayed them, in their conduct they were not so politic as constantly to hide their purposes. Melina now opposed our friend in many points that lay within the province of the latter; and Serlo, who had never acted smoothly to his sister, seemed to grow more bitter the more her sickness deepened, the more her passionate and variable humors would have needed toleration.

About this period they took up the “Emilie Galotti” of Lessing. The parts were very happily distributed and filled: within the narrow circle of this tragedy, the company found room for showing all the complex riches of their acting. Serlo, in the character of Marinelli, was altogether in his place; Odoardo was very well exhibited; Madam Melina played the Mother with considerable skill; Elmira gained distinction as Emilie; Laertes made a stately Appiani; and Wilhelm had bestowed the study of some months upon the Prince’s part. On this occasion, both internally and with Aurelia and Serlo, he had often come upon this question: What is the distinction between a noble and a well-bred manner? and how far must the former be included in the latter, though the latter is not in the former?

Serlo, who himself in Marinelli had to act the courtier accurately, without caricature, afforded him some valuable thoughts on this. “A well-bred carriage,” he would say, is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training. You are not required to exhibit in your manner any thing that specially betokens dignity; for, by this means, you are like to run into formality and haughtiness: you are rather to avoid whatever is undignified and vulgar. You are never to forget yourself; are to keep a constant watch upon yourself and others; to forgive nothing that is faulty in your own conduct, in that of others neither to forgive too little nor too much. Nothing must appear to touch you, nothing to agitate: you must never overhaste yourself, must ever keep yourself composed, retaining still an outward calmness, whatever storms may rage within. The noble character at certain moments may resign himself to his emotions; the well-bred never. The latter is like a man dressed out in fair and spotless clothes: he will not lean on any thing; every person will beware of rubbing on him. He distinguishes himself from others, yet he may not stand apart; for as in all arts, so in this, the hardest must at length be done with ease: the well-bred man of rank, in spite of every separation, always seems united with the people round him; he is never to be stiff or uncomplying; he is always to appear the first, and never to insist on so appearing.

“It is clear, then, that, to seem well-bred, a man must actually be so. It is also clear why women generally are more expert at taking up the air of breeding than the other sex; why courtiers and soldiers catch it more easily than other men.”

Wilhelm now despaired of doing justice to his part; but Serlo aided and encouraged him, communicated the acutest observations on detached points, and furnished him so well, that, on the exhibition of the piece, the public reckoned him a very proper Prince.

Serlo had engaged to give him, when the play was over, such remarks as might occur upon his acting: a disagreeable contention with Aurelia prevented any conversation of that kind. Aurelia had acted the character of Orsina, in such a style as few have ever done. She was well acquainted with the part, and during the rehearsals she had treated it indifferently: but, in the exhibition of the piece, she had opened, as it were, all the sluices of her personal sorrow; and the character was represented so as never poet in the first glow of invention could have figured it. A boundless applause rewarded her painful efforts; but her friends, on visiting her when the play was finished, found her half fainting in her chair.

Serlo had already signified his anger at her overcharged acting, as he called it; at this disclosure of her inmost heart before the public, to many individuals of which the history of her fatal passion was more or less completely known. He had spoken bitterly and fiercely; grinding with his teeth and stamping with his feet, as was his custom when enraged. “Never mind her,” cried he, when he saw her in the chair, surrounded by the rest: “she will go upon the stage stark-naked one of these days, and then the approbation will be perfect.”

“Ungrateful, inhuman man!” exclaimed she: “soon shall I be carried naked to the place where approbation or disapprobation can no longer reach our ears!” With these words she started up, and hastened to the door. The maid had not yet brought her mantle; the sedan was not in waiting; it had been raining lately; a cold, raw wind was blowing through the streets. They endeavored to persuade her to remain, for she was very warm. But in vain: she purposely walked slow; she praised the coolness, seemed to inhale it with peculiar eagerness. No sooner was she home, than she became so hoarse that she could hardly speak a word: she did not mention that there was a total stiffness in her neck and along her back. Shortly afterwards a sort of palsy in the tongue came on, so that she pronounced one word instead of another. They put her to bed: by numerous and copious remedies, the evil changed its form, but was not mastered. The fever gathered strength: her case was dangerous.

Next morning she enjoyed a quiet hour. She sent for Wilhelm, and delivered him a letter. “This sheet,” said she, “has long been waiting for the present moment. I feel that my end is drawing nigh: promise me that you yourself will take this paper; that, by a word or two, you will avenge my sorrows on the faithless man. He is not void of feeling: my death will pain him for a moment.”

Wilhelm took the letter; still endeavoring to console her, and to drive away the thought of death.

“No,” said she: “do not deprive me of my nearest hope. I have waited for him long: I will joyfully clasp him when he comes.”

Shortly after this the manuscript arrived which the physician had engaged to send her. She called for Wilhelm,  —  made him read it to her. The effect which it produced upon her, the reader will be better able to appreciate after looking at the following Book. The violent and stubborn temper of our poor Aurelia was mollified by hearing it. She took back the letter, and wrote another, as it seemed, in a meeker tone; charging Wilhelm at the same time to console her friend, if he should be distressed about her death; to assure him that she had forgiven him, and wished him every kind of happiness.

From this time she was very quiet, and appeared to occupy herself with but a few ideas, which she endeavored to extract and appropriate from the manuscript, out of which she frequently made Wilhelm read to her. The decay of her strength was not perceptible: nor had Wilhelm been anticipating the event, when one morning, as he went to visit her, he found that she was dead.

Entertaining such respect for her as he had done, and accustomed as he was to live in her society, the loss of her affected him with no common sorrow. She was the only person that had truly wished him well: the coldness of Serlo he had felt of late but too keenly. He hastened, therefore, to perform the service she had intrusted to him: he wished to be absent for a time.

On the other hand, this journey was exceedingly convenient for Melina: in the course of his extensive correspondence, he had lately entered upon terms with a male and a female singer, who, it was intended, should, by their performances in interludes, prepare the public for his future opera. The loss of Aurelia, and Wilhelm’s absence, were to be supplied in this manner; and our friend was satisfied with any thing that could facilitate his setting out.

He had formed, within himself, a singular idea of the importance of his errand. The death of his unhappy friend had moved him deeply; and, having seen her pass so early from the scene, he could not but be hostilely inclined against the man who had abridged her life, and made that shortened term so full of woe.

Notwithstanding the last mild words of the dying woman, he resolved, that, on delivering his letter, he would pass a strict sentence on her faithless friend; and, not wishing to depend upon the temper of the moment, he studied an address, which, in the course of preparation, became more pathetic than just. Having fully convinced himself of the good composition of his essay, he began committing it to memory, and at the same time making ready for departure. Mignon was present as he packed his articles: she asked him whether he intended travelling south or north; and, learning that it was the latter, she replied, “Then, I will wait here for thee.” She begged of him the pearl necklace which had once been Mariana’s. He could not refuse to gratify the dear little creature, and he gave it her: the neckerchief she had already. On the other hand, she put the veil of Hamlet’s Ghost into his travelling-bag; though he told her it could not be of any service to him.

Melina took upon him the directorship: his wife engaged to keep a mother’s eye upon the children, whom Wilhelm parted with unwillingly. Felix was very merry at the setting out; and, when asked what pretty thing he wished to have brought back for him, he said, “Hark you! bring me a papa!” Mignon seized the traveller’s hand; then, standing on her tiptoes, she pressed a warm and cordial, though not a tender, kiss, upon his lips, and cried, “Master! forget us not, and come soon back.”

And so we leave our friend, entering on his journey, amid a thousand different thoughts and feelings; and here subjoin, by way of close, a little poem, which Mignon had recited once or twice with great expressiveness, and which the hurry of so many singular occurrences prevented us from inserting sooner:  — 

“Not speech, bid silence, I implore thee; For secrecy’s my duty still: My heart entire I’d fain lay bare before thee, But such is not of fate the will.

In season due the sun’s course backward throws Dark night; ensue must light; the mountain’s Hard rock, at length, its bosom doth unclose, Now grudging earth no more the hidden fountains.

Each seeks repose upon a friend’s true breast, Where by laments he frees his bosom lonely; Whereas an oath my lips hold closely pressed, The which to speech a God can open only.”  —  Editor’s Version.

BOOK VI.

CONFESSIONS OF A FAIR SAINT.

Till my eighth year I was always a healthy child, but of that period I can recollect no more than of the day when I was born. About the beginning of my eighth year, I was seized with a hemorrhage; and from that moment my soul became all feeling, all memory. The smallest circumstances of that accident are yet before my eyes as if they had occurred but yesterday.

During the nine months which I then spent patiently upon a sick-bed, it appears to me the groundwork of my whole turn of thought was laid; as the first means were then afforded my mind of developing itself in its own manner.

I suffered and I loved: this was the peculiar form of my heart. In the most violent fits of coughing, in the depressing pains of fever, I lay quiet, like a snail drawn back within its house: the moment I obtained a respite, I wanted to enjoy something pleasant; and, as every other pleasure was denied me, I endeavored to amuse myself with the innocent delights of eye and ear. The people brought me dolls and picture-books, and whoever would sit by my bed was obliged to tell me something.

From my mother I rejoiced to hear the Bible histories, and my father entertained me with natural curiosities. He had a very pretty cabinet, from which he brought me first one drawer and then another, as occasion served; showing me the articles, and pointing out their properties. Dried plants and insects, with many kinds of anatomical preparations, such as human skin, bones, mummies, and the like, were in succession laid upon the sick-bed of the little one; the birds and animals he killed in hunting were shown to me, before they passed into the kitchen; and, that the Prince of the World might also have a voice in this assembly, my aunt related to me love-adventures out of fairy-tales. All was accepted, all took root. There were hours in which I vividly conversed with the Invisible Power. I can still repeat some verses which I then dictated, and my mother wrote down.

Often I would tell my father back again what I had learned from him. Rarely did I take any physic without asking where the simples it was made of grew, what look they had, what names they bore. Nor had the stories of my aunt lighted on stony ground. I figured myself out in pretty clothes, and met the most delightful princes, who could find no peace or rest till they discovered who the unknown beauty was. One adventure of this kind, with a charming little angel dressed in white, with golden wings, who warmly courted me, I dwelt upon so long, that my imagination painted out his form almost to visibility.

After a year I was pretty well restored to health, but nothing of the giddiness of childhood remained with me. I could not play with dolls: I longed for beings able to return my love. Dogs, cats, and birds, of which my father kept a great variety, afforded me delight; but what would I have given for such a creature as my aunt once told me of! It was a lamb which a peasant-girl took up and nourished in a wood; but, in the guise of this pretty beast, an enchanted prince was hid, who at length appeared in his native shape, a lovely youth, and rewarded his benefactress by his hand. Such a lamb I would have given the world for.

But there was none to be had; and, as every thing about me went on in such a quite natural manner, I by degrees all but abandoned nearly all hopes of such a treasure. Meanwhile I comforted myself by reading books in which the strangest incidents were set forth. Among them all, my favorite was the “Christian German Hercules:” that devout love-history was altogether in my way. Whenever any thing befell his dear Valiska, and cruel things befell her, he always prayed before hastening to her aid; and the prayers stood there verbatim. My longing after the Invisible, which I had always dimly felt, was strengthened by such means; for, in short, it was ordained that God should also be my confidant.

As I grew older I continued reading, Heaven knows what, in chaotic order. The “Roman Octavia” was the book I liked beyond all others. The persecutions of the first Christians, decorated with the charms of a romance, awoke the deepest interest in me.

But my mother now began to murmur at my constant reading; and, to humor her, my father took away my books to-day, but gave them back to-morrow. She was wise enough to see that nothing could be done in this way: she next insisted merely that my Bible should be read with equal diligence. To this I was not disinclined, and I accordingly perused the sacred volume with a lively interest. Withal my mother was extremely careful that no books of a corruptive tendency should come into my hands: immodest writings I would, of my own accord, have cast away; for my princes and my princesses were all extremely virtuous.

To my mother, and my zeal for knowledge, it was owing, that, with all my love of books, I also learned to cook; for much was to be seen in cookery. To cut up a hen, a pig, was quite a feast for me. I used to bring the entrails to my father, and he talked with me about them as if I had been a student of anatomy. With suppressed joy he would often call me his misfashioned son.

I had passed my twelfth year. I learned French, dancing, and drawing: I received the usual instructions in religion. In the latter, many thoughts and feelings were awakened, but nothing properly relating to my own condition. I liked to hear the people speak of God: I was proud that I could speak on these points better than my equals. I zealously read many books which put me in a condition to talk about religion; but it never once struck me to think how matters stood with me, whether my soul was formed according to these holy precepts, whether it was like a glass from which the everlasting sun could be reflected in its glancing. From the first I had presupposed all this.

My French I learned with eagerness. My teacher was a clever man. He was not a vain empiric, not a dry grammarian: he had learning, he had seen the world. Instructing me in language, he satisfied my zeal for knowledge in a thousand ways. I loved him so much, that I used to wait his coming with a palpitating heart. Drawing was not hard for me: I should have made greater progress had my teacher possessed head and science; he had only hands and practice.

Dancing was at first one of my smallest amusements; my body was too sensitive for it; I learned it only in the company of my sisters. But our dancing-master took a thought of gathering all his scholars, male and female, and giving them a ball. This event gave dancing quite another charm for me.

Amid a throng of boys and girls, the most remarkable were two sons of the marshal of the court. The youngest was of my age; the other, two years older: they were children of such beauty, that, according to the universal voice, no one had seen their like. For my part, scarcely had I noticed them when I lost sight of all the other crowd. From that moment I began to dance with care, and to wish that I could dance with grace. How came it, on the other hand, that these two boys distinguished me from all the rest? No matter: before an hour had passed we had become the warmest friends, and our little entertainment did not end till we had fixed upon the time and place where we were next to meet. What a joy for me! And how charmed was I next morning when both of them inquired for my health, each in a gallant note, accompanied with a nosegay! I have never since felt as I then did. Compliment was met by compliment: letter answered letter. The church and the public-walks were grown a rendezvous; our young acquaintances, in all their little parties, now invited us together; while, at the same time, we were sly enough to veil the business from our parents, so that they saw no more of it than we thought good.

Thus had I at once got a pair of lovers. I had yet decided upon neither: they both pleased me, and we did extremely well together. All at once the eldest of the two fell very sick. I myself had often been sick; and thus I was enabled, by rendering him many little dainties and delicacies suited for a sick person, to afford some solace to the sufferer. His parents thankfully acknowledged my attention: in compliance with the prayer of their beloved son, they invited me, with all my sisters, to their house so soon as he had arisen from his sick-bed. The tenderness which he displayed on meeting me was not the feeling of a child: from that day I gave the preference to him. He warned me to keep our secret from his brother; but the flame could no longer be concealed, and the jealousy of the younger completed our romance. He played us a thousand tricks: eager to annihilate our joys, he but increased the passion he was seeking to destroy.

At last I had actually found the wished-for lamb, and this attachment acted on me like my sickness: it made me calm, and drew me back from noisy pleasures. I was solitary, I was moved; and thoughts of God again occurred to me. He was again my confidant; and I well remember with what tears I often prayed for this poor boy, who still continued sickly.

The more childishness there was in this adventure, the more did it contribute to the forming of my heart. Our French teacher had now turned us from translating into daily writing him some letter of our own invention. I brought my little history to market, shrouded in the names of Phyllis and Damon. The old man soon saw through it, and, to render me communicative, praised my labor very much. I still waxed bolder; came openly out with the affair, adhering, even in the minute details, to truth. I do not now remember what the passage was at which he took occasion to remark, “How pretty, how natural, it is! But the good Phyllis had better have a care: the thing may soon grow serious.”

I felt vexed that he did not look upon the matter as already serious; and I asked him, with an air of pique, what he meant by serious. I had not to repeat the question: he explained himself so clearly, that I could scarcely hide my terror. Yet as anger came along with it, as I took it ill that he should entertain such thoughts, I kept myself composed: I tried to justify my nymph, and said, with glowing cheeks, “But, sir, Phyllis is an honorable girl.”

He was rogue enough to banter me about my honorable heroine. While we were speaking French, he played upon the word honnête, and hunted the honorableness of Phyllis over all its meanings. I felt the ridicule of this, and extremely puzzled. He, not to frighten me, broke off, but afterwards often led the conversation to such topics. Plays, and little histories, such as I was reading and translating with him, gave him frequent opportunity to show how feeble a security against the calls of inclination our boasted virtue was. I no longer contradicted him, but I was in secret scandalized; and his remarks became a burden to me.

With my worthy Damon, too, I by degrees fell out of all connection. The chicanery of the younger boy destroyed our intercourse. Soon after, both these blooming creatures died. I lamented sore: however, in a short time, I forgot.

But Phyllis rapidly increased in stature, was altogether healthy, and began to see the world. The hereditary prince now married, and a short time after, on his father’s death, began his rule. Court and town were in the liveliest motion: my curiosity had copious nourishment. There were plays and balls, with all their usual accompaniments; and, though my parents kept retired as much as possible, they were obliged to show themselves at court, where I was of course introduced. Strangers were pouring in from every side; high company was in every house; even to us some cavaliers were recommended, others introduced; and, at my uncle’s, men of every nation might be met with.

My honest mentor still continued, in a modest and yet striking way, to warn me, and I in secret to take it ill of him. With regard to his assertion, that women under every circumstance were weak, I did not feel at all convinced; and here, perhaps, I was in the right, and my mentor in the wrong: but he spoke so earnestly that once I grew afraid he might be right, and said to him, with much vivacity, “Since the danger is so great, and the human heart so weak, I will pray to God that he may keep me.”

This simple answer seemed to please him, for he praised my purpose; but, on my side, it was any thing but seriously meant. It was, in truth, but an empty word; for my feelings towards the Invisible were almost totally extinguished. The hurry and the crowd I lived in dissipated my attention, and carried me along as in a rapid stream. These were the emptiest years of my life. All day long to speak of nothing, to have no solid thought, never to do any thing but revel,  —  such was my employment. On my beloved books I never once bestowed a thought. The people I lived among had not the slightest tinge of literature or science: they were German courtiers, a class of men at that time altogether destitute of culture.

Such society, it may be thought, must naturally have led me to the brink of ruin. I lived away in mere corporeal cheerfulness: I never took myself to task, I never prayed, I never thought about myself or God. Yet I look upon it as a providential guidance, that none of these many handsome, rich, and well-dressed men could take my fancy. They were rakes, and did not conceal it; this scared me back: they adorned their speech with double meanings; this offended me, made me act with coldness towards them. Many times their improprieties exceeded belief, and I did not restrain myself from being rude.

Besides, my ancient counsellor had once in confidence contrived to tell me, that, with the greater part of these lewd fellows, health, as well as virtue, was in danger. I now shuddered at the sight of them: I was afraid if one of them in any way approached too near me. I would not touch their cups or glasses,  —  even the chairs they had been sitting on. Thus, morally and physically, I remained apart from them: all the compliments they paid me I haughtily accepted, as incense that was due.

Among the strangers then resident among us was one young man peculiarly distinguished, whom we used in sport to call Narciss. He had gained a reputation in the diplomatic line; and, among the various changes now occurring at court, he was in hopes of meeting with some advantageous place. He soon became acquainted with my father: his acquirements and manners opened for him the way to a select society of most accomplished men. My father often spoke in praise of him: his figure, which was very handsome, would have made a still better impression, had it not been for something of self-complacency which breathed from the whole carriage of the man. I had seen him. I thought well of him; but we had never spoken.

At a great ball, where we chanced to be in company, I danced a minuet with him; but this, too, passed without results. The more violent dances, in compliance with my father, who felt anxious about my health, I was accustomed to avoid: in the present case, when these came on, I retired to an adjoining room, and began to talk with certain of my friends, elderly ladies, who had set themselves to cards.

Narciss, who had jigged it for a while, at last came into the room where I was; and having got the better of a bleeding at the nose, which had overtaken him in dancing, he began speaking with me about a multitude of things. In half an hour the talk had grown so interesting, that neither of us could think of dancing any more. We were rallied by our friends, but we did not let their bantering disturb us. Next evening we recommenced our conversation, and were very careful not to hurt our health.

The acquaintance then was made. Narciss was often with my sisters and myself; and I now once more began to reckon over and consider what I knew, what I thought of, what I had felt, and what I could express myself about in conversation. My new friend had mingled in the best society; besides the department of history and politics, with every part of which he was familiar, he had gained extensive literary knowledge; there was nothing new that issued from the press, especially in France, that he was unacquainted with. He brought or sent me many a pleasant book, but this we had to keep as secret as forbidden love. Learned women had been made ridiculous, nor were well-informed women tolerated,  —  apparently because it would have been uncivil to put so many ill-informed men to shame. Even my father, much as he delighted in this new opportunity of cultivating my mind, expressly stipulated that our literary commerce should remain secret.

Thus our intercourse continued for almost year and day; and still I could not say, that, in any wise, Narciss had ever shown me aught of love or tenderness. He was always complaisant and kind, but manifested nothing like attachment: on the contrary, he even seemed to be in some degree affected by the charms of my youngest sister, who was then extremely beautiful. In sport, he gave her many little friendly names out of foreign tongues; for he could speak two or three of these extremely well, and loved to mix their idiomatic phrases with his German. Such compliments she did not answer very liberally; she was entangled in a different noose: and being very sharp, while he was very sensitive, the two were often quarrelling about trifles. With my mother and my aunt he kept on very pleasant terms; and thus, by gradual advances, he was grown to be a member of the family.

Who knows how long we might have lived in this way, had not a curious accident altered our relations all at once? My sisters and I were invited to a certain house, to which we did not like to go. The company was too mixed; and persons of the stupidest, if not the rudest, stamp were often to be met there. Narciss, on this occasion, was invited also; and on his account I felt inclined to go, for I was sure of finding one, at least, whom I could converse with as I desired. Even at table we had many things to suffer, for several of the gentlemen had drunk too much: then, in the drawing-room, they insisted on a game at forfeits. It went on with great vivacity and tumult. Narciss had lost a forfeit: they ordered him, by way of penalty, to whisper something pleasant in the ear of every member of the company. It seems he staid too long beside my next neighbor, the lady of a captain. The latter on a sudden struck him such a box with his fist, that the powder flew about me, into my eyes. When I had got my eyes cleared, and in some degree recovered from my terror, I saw that both gentlemen had drawn their swords. Narciss was bleeding; and the other, mad with wine and rage and jealousy, could scarcely be held back by all the company. I seized Narciss, led him by the arm up-stairs; and, as I did not think my friend safe even here from his frantic enemy, I shut the door and bolted it.

Neither of us considered the wound serious, for a slight cut across the hand was all we saw. Soon, however, I discovered that there was a stream of blood running down his back, that there was a deep wound on the head. I now began to be afraid. I hastened to the lobby, to get help: but I could see no person; every one had staid below to calm the raving captain. At last a daughter of the family came skipping up: her mirth annoyed me; she was like to die with laughing at the bedlam spectacle. I conjured her, for the sake of Heaven, to get a surgeon; and she, in her wild way, sprang down-stairs to fetch me one herself.

Returning to my wounded friend, I bound my handkerchief about his hand, and a neckerchief, that was hanging on the door, about his head. He was still bleeding copiously: he now grew pale, and seemed as if he were about to faint. There was none at hand to aid me: I very freely put my arm round him, patted his cheek, and tried to cheer him by little flatteries. It seemed to act on him like a spiritual remedy: he kept his senses, but sat as pale as death.

At last the active housewife arrived: it is easy to conceive her terror when she saw my friend in this predicament, lying in my arms, and both of us bestreamed with blood. No one had supposed he was wounded: all imagined I had carried him away in safety.

Now smelling-bottles, wine, and every thing that could support and stimulate, were copiously produced. The surgeon also came, and I might easily have been dispensed with. Narciss, however, held me firmly by the hand: I would have staid without holding. During the dressing of his wounds, I continued wetting his lips with wine: I minded not, though all the company were now about us. The surgeon having finished, his patient took a mute but tender leave of me, and was conducted home.

The mistress of the house now led me to her bedroom: she had to strip me altogether; and I must confess, while they washed the blood from me, I saw with pleasure, for the first time, in a mirror, that I might be reckoned beautiful without help of dress. No portion of my clothes could be put on again; and, as the people of the house were all either less or larger than myself, I was taken home in a strange disguise. My parents were, of course, astonished. They felt exceedingly indignant at my fright, at the wounds of their friend, at the captain’s madness, at the whole occurrence. A very little would have made my father send the captain a challenge, that he might avenge his friend without delay. He blamed the gentlemen that had been there, because they had not punished on the spot such a murderous attempt; for it was but too clear, that the captain, instantly on striking, had drawn his sword, and wounded the other from behind. The cut across the hand had been given just when Narciss himself was grasping at his sword. I felt unspeakably affected, altered; or how shall I express it? The passion which was sleeping at the deepest bottom of my heart had at once broken loose, like a flame getting air. And if joy and pleasure are well suited for the first producing and the silent nourishing of love, yet this passion, bold by nature, is most easily impelled by terror to decide and to declare itself. My mother gave her little flurried daughter some medicine, and made her go to bed. With the earliest morrow my father hastened to Narciss, whom he found lying very sick of a wound-fever.

He told me little of what passed between them, but tried to quiet me about the probable results of this event. They were now considering whether an apology should be accepted, whether the affair should go before a court of justice, and many other points of that description. I knew my father too well to doubt that he would be averse to see the matter end without a duel: but I held my peace; for I had learned from him before, that women should not meddle in such things. For the rest, it did not strike me as if any thing had passed between the friends, in which my interests were specially concerned; but my father soon communicated to my mother the purport of their further conversation. Narciss, he said, appeared to be exceedingly affected at the help afforded by me; had embraced him, declared himself my debtor forever, signified that he desired no happiness except what he could share with me, and concluded by entreating that he might presume to ask my hand. All this mamma repeated to me, but subjoined the safe reflection, that, “as for what was said in the first agitation of mind in such a case, there was little trust to be placed in it.”  —  “Of course, none,” I answered with affected coldness; though all the while I was feeling, Heaven knows what.

Narciss continued sick for two months; owing to the wound in his right hand, he could not even write. Yet, in the mean time, he showed me his regard by the most obliging courtesies. All these unusual attentions I combined with what my mother had disclosed to me, and constantly my head was full of fancies. The whole city talked of the occurrence. With me they spoke of it in a peculiar tone: they drew inferences, which, greatly as I struggled to avoid them, touched me very close. What had formerly been habitude and trifling, was now grown seriousness and inclination. The anxiety in which I lived was the more violent, the more carefully I studied to conceal it from every one. The idea of losing him frightened me: the possibility of any closer union made me tremble. For a half-prudent girl, there is really something awful in the thought of marriage.

By such incessant agitations I was once more led to recollect myself. The gaudy imagery of a thoughtless life, which used to hover day and night before my eyes, was at once blown away. My soul again began to awaken, but the greatly interrupted intimacy with my invisible friend was not so easy to renew. We still continued at a frigid distance: it was again something, but little to the times of old.

A duel had been fought, and the captain severely wounded, before I ever heard of it. The public feeling was, in all senses, strong on the side of my lover, who at length again appeared upon the scene. But, first of all, he came, with his head tied up and his arm in a sling, to visit us. How my heart beat while he was there! The whole family was present: general thanks and compliments were all that passed on either side. Narciss, however, found an opportunity to show some secret tokens of his love to me; by which means my inquietude was but increased. After his recovery he visited us throughout the winter on the former footing; and in spite of all the soft, private marks of tenderness which he contrived to give me, the whole affair remained unsettled, undiscussed.

In this manner was I kept in constant practice. I could trust my thoughts to no mortal, and from God I was too far removed. Him I had quite forgotten those four wild years: I now again began to think of him occasionally, but our acquaintance had grown cool; they were visits of mere ceremony these; and as, moreover, in waiting on him, I used to dress in fine apparel, to set before him self-complacently my virtue, honor, and superiorities to others, he did not seem to notice me, or know me in that finery.

A courtier would have been exceedingly distressed, if the prince who held his fortune in his hands had treated him in this way; but, for me, I did not sorrow at it. I had what I required,  —  health and conveniences: if God should please to think of me, well; if not, I reckoned I had done my duty.

This, in truth, I did not think at that period; yet it was the true figure of my soul. But, to change and purify my feelings, preparations were already made.

The spring came on: Narciss once visited me unannounced, and at a time when I happened to be quite alone. He now appeared in the character of lover, and asked me if I could bestow on him my heart, and, so soon as he should obtain some lucrative and honorable place, my hand along with it.

He had been received into our service; but at first they kept him back, and would not rapidly promote him, because they dreaded his ambition. Having some little fortune of his own, he was left with a slender salary.

Notwithstanding my regard for him, I knew that he was not a man to treat with altogether frankly. I drew up, therefore, and referred him to my father. About my father he did not seem to doubt, but wished first to be at one with me, now and here. I at last said, Yes; but stipulated, as an indispensable condition, that my parents should concur. He then spoke formally with both of them; they signified their satisfaction: mutual promises were given, on the faith of his advancement, which it was expected would be speedy. Sisters and aunts were informed of this arrangement, and the strictest secrecy enjoined on them.

Thus had my lover become my bridegroom, and great was the difference between the two. If one could change the lovers of all honorable maidens into bridegrooms, it would be a kindness to our sex, even though marriage should not follow the connection. The love between two persons does not lessen by the change, but it becomes more reasonable. Innumerable little follies, all coquetries and caprices, disappear. If the bridegroom tells us that we please him better in a morning-cap than in the finest head-dress, no discreet young woman will disturb herself about her hair-dressing; and nothing is more natural than that he, too, should think solidly, and rather wish to form a housewife for himself than a gaudy doll for others. And thus it is in every province of the business.

Should a young woman of this kind be fortunate enough to have a bridegroom who possesses understanding and acquirements, she learns from him more than universities and foreign lands can teach. She not only willingly receives instruction when he offers it, but she endeavors to elicit more and more from him. Love makes much that was impossible possible. By degrees, too, that subjection, so necessary and so graceful for the female sex, begins: the bridegroom does not govern like the husband; he only asks: but his mistress seeks to discover what he wants, and to offer it before he asks it.

So did experience teach me what I would not for much have missed. I was happy, truly happy as woman could be in the world,  —  that is to say, for a while.

Amid these quiet joys, a summer passed away. Narciss gave not the slightest reason to complain of him: he daily became more dear to me; my whole soul was his. This he well knew, and knew also how to prize it. Meanwhile, from seeming trifles, something rose, which by and by grew hurtful to our union.

Narciss behaved to me as to a bride, and never dared to ask of me such favors as were yet forbidden us. But, about the boundaries of virtue and decorum, we were of very different opinions. I meant to walk securely, and so never granted him the smallest freedom which the whole world might not have witnessed. He, used to dainties, thought this diet very strict. On this point there was continual variance: he praised my modesty, and sought to undermine my resolution.

The serious of my old French teacher now occurred to me, as well as the defence which I had once suggested in regard to it.

With God I had again become a little more acquainted. He had given me a bridegroom whom I loved, and for this I felt some thankfulness. Earthly love itself concentrated my soul, and put its powers in motion: nor did it contradict my intercourse with God. I naturally complained to him of what alarmed me, but I did not perceive that I myself was wishing and desiring it. In my own eyes I was strong: I did not pray, “Lead us not into temptation!” My thoughts were far beyond temptation. In this flimsy tinsel-work of virtue I came to God. He did not drive me back. On the smallest movement towards him, he left a soft impression in my soul; and this impression caused me always to return.

Except Narciss, the world was altogether dead to me: excepting him, there was nothing in it that had any charm. Even my love for dress was but the wish to please him: if I knew that he was not to see me, I could spend no care upon it. I liked to dance; but, if he was not beside me, it seemed as if I could not bear the motion. At a brilliant festival, if he was not invited, I could neither take the trouble of providing new things, nor of putting on the old according to the mode. To me they were alike agreeable, or rather, I might say, alike burdensome. I used to reckon such an evening very fairly spent when I could join myself to any ancient card-party, though formerly I had not the smallest taste for such things; and, if some old acquaintance came and rallied me about it, I would smile, perhaps for the first time all that night. So, likewise, it was with promenades, and every social entertainment that can be imagined:  — 

“Him had I chosen from all others; His would I be, and not another’s: To me his love was all in all.”

Thus was I often solitary in the midst of company, and real solitude was generally acceptable to me. But my busy soul could neither sleep nor dream: I felt and thought, and acquired by degrees some faculty to speak about my feelings and my thoughts with God. Then were feelings of another sort unfolded, but these did not contradict the former feelings: my affection to Narciss accorded with the universal scheme of nature; it nowhere hindered the performance of a duty. They did not contradict each other, yet they were immensely different. Narciss was the only living form which hovered in my mind, and to which my love was all directed; but the other feeling was not directed towards any form, and yet it was unspeakably agreeable. I no longer have it: I no longer can impart it.

My lover, whom I used to trust with all my secrets, did not know of this. I soon discovered that he thought far otherwise: he often gave me writings which opposed, with light and heavy weapons, all that can be called connection with the Invisible. I used to read the books because they came from him; but, at the end, I knew no word of all that had been argued in them.

Nor, in regard to sciences and knowledge, was there want of contradiction in our conduct. He did as all men do,  —  he mocked at learned women; and yet he kept continually instructing me. He used to speak with me on all subjects, law excepted; and, while constantly procuring books of every kind for me, he frequently repeated the uncertain precept, “That a lady ought to keep the knowledge she might have more secret than the Calvinist his creed in Catholic countries.” And while I, by natural consequence, endeavored not to show myself more wise or learned than formerly before the world, Narciss himself was commonly the first who yielded to the vanity of speaking about me and my superiorities.

A nobleman of high repute, and at that time valued for his influence, his talents, and accomplishments, was living at our court with great applause. He bestowed especial notice on Narciss, whom he kept continually about him. They once had an argument about the virtue of women. Narciss repeated to me what had passed between them: I was not wanting with my observations, and my friend required of me a written essay on the subject. I could write French fluently enough: I had laid a good foundation with my teacher. My correspondence with Narciss was likewise carried on in French: except in French books, there was then no elegant instruction to be had. My essay pleased the count: I was obliged to let him have some little songs, which I had lately been composing. In short, Narciss appeared to revel without stint in the renown of his beloved: and the story, to his great contentment, ended with a French epistle in heroic verse, which the count transmitted to him on departing; in which their argument was mentioned, and my friend reminded of his happiness in being destined, after all his doubts and errors, to learn most certainly what virtue was, in the arms of a virtuous and charming wife.

He showed this poem first of all to me, and then to almost every one; each thinking of the matter what he pleased. Thus did he act in several cases: every stranger, whom he valued, must be made acquainted in our house.

A noble family was staying for a season in the place, to profit by the skill of our physician. In this house, too, Narciss was looked on as a son; he introduced me there; we found among these worthy persons the most pleasant entertainment for mind and heart. Even the common pastimes of society appeared less empty here than elsewhere. All knew how matters stood with us: they treated us as circumstances would allow, and left the main relation unalluded to. I mention this one family; because, in the after-period of my life, it had a powerful influence upon me.

Almost a year of our connection had elapsed; and, along with it, our spring was over. The summer came, and all grew drier and more earnest.

By several unexpected deaths, some offices fell vacant, which Narciss might make pretensions to. The instant was at hand when my whole destiny must be decided; and while Narciss, and all our friends, were making every effort to efface some impressions which obstructed him at court, and to obtain for him the wished-for situation, I turned with my request to my Invisible Friend. I was received so kindly, that I gladly came again. I confessed, without disguise, my wish that Narciss might obtain the place; but my prayer was not importunate, and I did not require that it should happen for the sake of my petition.

The place was obtained by a far inferior competitor. I was dreadfully troubled at this news: I hastened to my room, the door of which I locked behind me. The first fit of grief went off in a shower of tears: the next thought was, “Yet it was not by chance that it happened;” and instantly I formed the resolution to be well content with it, seeing even this apparent evil would be for my true advantage. The softest emotions then pressed in upon me, and divided all the clouds of sorrow. I felt, that, with help like this, there was nothing one might not endure. At dinner I appeared quite cheerful, to the great astonishment of all the house.

Narciss had less internal force than I, and I was called upon to comfort him. In his family, too, he had many crosses to encounter, some of which afflicted him considerably; and, such true confidence subsisting between us, he intrusted me with all. His negotiations for entering on foreign service were not more fortunate; all this I felt deeply on his account and mine; all this, too, I ultimately carried to the place where my petitions had already been so well received.

The softer these experiences were, the oftener did I endeavor to renew them: I hoped continually to meet with comfort where I had so often met with it. Yet I did not always meet with it: I was as one that goes to warm him in the sunshine, while there is something standing in the way that makes a shadow. “What is this?” I asked myself. I traced the matter zealously, and soon perceived that it all depended on the situation of my soul: if this was not turned in the straightest direction towards God, I still continued cold; I did not feel his counter-influence; I could obtain no answer. The second question was, “What hinders this direction?” Here I was in a wide field: I perplexed myself in an inquiry which lasted nearly all the second year of my attachment to Narciss. I might have ended the investigation sooner, for it was not long till I had got upon the proper trace; but I would not confess it, and I sought a thousand outlets.

I very soon discovered that the straight direction of my soul was marred by foolish dissipations, and employment with unworthy things. The how and the where were clear enough to me. Yet by what means could I help myself, or extricate my mind from the calls of a world where every thing was either cold indifference or hot insanity? Gladly would I have left things standing as they were, and lived from day to day, floating down with the stream, like other people whom I saw quite happy: but I durst not: my inmost feelings contradicted me too often. Yet if I determined to renounce society, and alter my relations to others, it was not in my power. I was hemmed in as by a ring drawn round me; certain connections I could not dissolve; and, in the matter which lay nearest to my heart, fatalities accumulated and oppressed me more and more. I often went to bed with tears, and, after a sleepless night, arose again with tears: I required some strong support: and God would not vouchsafe it me while I was running with the cap and bells.

I proceeded now to estimate my doings, all and each: dancing and play were first put upon their trial. Never was there any thing spoken, thought, or written, for or against these practices, which I did not examine, talk of, read, weigh, reject, aggravate, and plague myself about. If I gave up these habits, I was certain that Narciss would be offended; for he dreaded exceedingly the ridicule which any look of straitlaced conscientiousness gives one in the eyes of the world. And doing what I now looked upon as folly, noxious folly, out of no taste of my own, but merely to gratify him, it all grew wofully irksome to me.

Without disagreeable prolixities and repetitions, it is not in my power to represent what pains I took, in trying so to counteract those occupations which distracted my attention and disturbed my peace of mind, that my heart, in spite of them, might still be open to the influences of the Invisible Being. But at last, with pain, I was compelled to admit, that in this way the quarrel could not be composed. For no sooner had I clothed myself in the garment of folly, than it came to be something more than a mask, than the foolishness pierced and penetrated me through and through.

May I here overstep the province of a mere historical detail, and offer one or two remarks on what was then taking place within me? What could it be which so changed my tastes and feelings, that, in my twenty-second year, nay, earlier, I lost all relish for the recreations with which people of that age are harmlessly delighted? Why were they not harmless for me? I may answer, “Just because they were not harmless; because I was not, like others of my years, unacquainted with my soul.” No! I knew, from experiences which had reached me unsought, that there are loftier emotions, which afford us a contentment such as it is vain to seek in the amusements of the world; and that, in these higher joys, there is also kept a secret treasure for strengthening the spirit in misfortune.

But the pleasures of society, the dissipations of youth, must needs have had a powerful charm for me; since it was not in my power to engage in them without participation, to act among them as if they were not there. How many things could I now do, if I liked, with entire coldness, which then dazzled and confounded me, nay, threatened to obtain the mastery over me! Here there could no medium be observed: either those delicious amusements, or my nourishing and quickening internal emotions, must be given up.

But, in my soul, the strife had, without my own consciousness, already been decided. Even if there still was any thing within me that longed for earthly pleasures, I had now become unfitted for enjoying them. Much as a man might hanker after wine, all desire of drinking would forsake him, if he should be placed among full barrels in a cellar, where the foul air was like to suffocate him. Free air is more than wine; this I felt but too keenly: and, from the first, it would have cost me little studying to prefer the good to the delightful, if the fear of losing the affection of Narciss had not restrained me. But at last, when after many thousand struggles, and thoughts continually renewed, I began to cast a steady eye upon the bond which held me to him, I discovered that it was but weak, that it might be torn asunder. I at once perceived it to be only as a glass bell, which shut me up in the exhausted, airless space: one bold stroke to break the bell in pieces, and thou art delivered!

No sooner thought than tried. I drew off the mask, and on all occasions acted as my heart directed. Narciss I still cordially loved: but the thermometer, which formerly had stood in hot water, was now hanging in the natural air; it could rise no higher than the warmth of the atmosphere directed.

Unhappily it cooled very much. Narciss drew back, and began to assume a distant air: this was at his option, but my thermometer descended as he drew back. Our family observed this, questioned me, and seemed to be surprised. I explained to them, with stout defiance, that heretofore I had made abundant sacrifices; that I was ready, still farther and to the end of my life, to share all crosses that befell him; but that I required full freedom in my conduct, that my doings and avoidings must depend upon my own conviction; that, indeed, I would never bigotedly cleave to my own opinion, but, on the other hand, would willingly be reasoned with; yet, as it concerned my own happiness, the decision must proceed from myself, and be liable to no manner of constraint. The greatest physician could not move me, by his reasonings, to take an article of food, which perhaps was altogether wholesome and agreeable to many, so soon as my experience had shown, that on all occasions it was noxious to me; as I might produce coffee for an instance: and just as little, nay, still less, would I have any sort of conduct which misled me, preached up and demonstrated upon me as morally profitable.

Having so long prepared myself in silence, these debates were rather pleasant than vexatious to me. I gave vent to my soul: I felt the whole worth of my determination. I yielded not a hair’s-breadth, and those to whom I owed no filial respect were sharply handled and despatched. In the family I soon prevailed. My mother from her youth had entertained these sentiments, though in her they had never reached maturity; for no necessity had pressed upon her, and exalted her courage to achieve her purpose. She rejoiced in beholding her silent wishes fulfilled through me. My younger sisters seemed to join themselves with me: the second was attentive and quiet. Our aunt had the most to object. The arguments which she employed appeared to her irrefragable; and they were irrefragable, being altogether commonplace. At last I was obliged to show her, that she had no voice in the affair in any sense; and, after this, she seldom signified that she persisted in her views. She was, indeed, the only person that observed this transaction close at hand, without in some degree experiencing its influence. I do not calumniate her, when I say that she had no character, and the most limited ideas.

My father had acted altogether in his own way. He spoke not much, but often, with me on the matter: his arguments were rational; and, being his arguments, they could not be impugned. It was only the deep feeling of my right that gave me strength to dispute against him. But the scenes soon changed: I was forced to make appeal to his heart. Straitened by his understanding, I came out with the most pathetic pleadings. I gave free course to my tongue and to my tears. I showed him how much I loved Narciss; how much constraint I had for two years been enduring; how certain I was of being in the right; that I was ready to testify that certainty, by the loss of my beloved bridegroom and prospective happiness,  —  nay, if it were necessary, by the loss of all that I possessed on earth; that I would rather leave my native country, my parents, and my friends, and beg my bread in foreign lands, than act against these dictates of my conscience. He concealed his emotion: he said nothing on the subject for a while, and at last he openly declared in my favor.

During all this time Narciss forbore to visit us; and my father now gave up the weekly club, where he was used to meet him. The business made a noise at court, and in the town. People talked about it, as is common in such cases, which the public takes a vehement interest in, because its sentence has usurped an influence on the resolutions of weak minds. I knew enough about the world to understand that one’s conduct is often censured by the very persons who would have advised it, had one consulted them; and independently of this, with my internal composure, I should have looked on all such transitory speculations just as if they had not been.

On the other hand, I hindered not myself from yielding to my inclination for Narciss. To me he had become invisible, and to him my feelings had not altered. I loved him tenderly; as it were anew, and much more steadfastly than before. If he chose to leave my conscience undisturbed, then I was his: wanting this condition, I would have refused a kingdom with him. For several months I bore these feelings and these thoughts about with me; and, finding at last that I was calm and strong enough to go peacefully and firmly to work, I wrote him a polite but not a tender note, inquiring why he never came to see me.

As I knew his manner of avoiding to explain himself in little matters, but of silently doing what seemed good to him, I purposely urged him in the present instance. I got a long, and, as it seemed to me, pitiful, reply, in vague style and unmeaning phrases, stating, that, without a better place, he could not fix himself, and offer me his hand; that I best knew how hard it had fared with him hitherto; that as he was afraid lest a fruitless intercourse, so long continued, might prove hurtful to my reputation, I would give him leave to continue at his present distance; so soon as it was in his power to make me happy, he would look upon the word which he had given me as sacred.

I answered him on the spot, that, as our intercourse was known to all the world, it might, perhaps, be rather late to spare my reputation: for which, at any rate, my conscience and my innocence were the surest pledges; however, that I hereby freely gave him back his word, and hoped the change would prove a happy one for him. The same hour I received a short reply, which was, in all essential particulars, entirely synonymous with the first. He adhered to his former statement, that, so soon as he obtained a situation, he would ask me, if I pleased, to share his fortune with him.

This I interpreted as meaning simply nothing. I signified to my relations and acquaintances, that the affair was altogether settled; and it was so in fact. Having, nine months afterwards, obtained the much-desired preferment, he offered me his hand, but under the condition, that, as the wife of a man who must keep house like other people, I should alter my opinions. I returned him many thanks, and hastened with my heart and mind away from this transaction, as one hastens from the playhouse when the curtain falls. And as he, a short time afterwards, had found a rich and advantageous match, a thing now easy for him; and as I now knew him to be happy in the way he liked,  —  my own tranquillity was quite complete.

I must not pass in silence the fact, that several times before he got a place, and after it, there were respectable proposals made to me; which, however, I declined without the smallest hesitation, much as my father and my mother could have wished for more compliance on my part.

At length, after a stormy March and April, the loveliest May weather seemed to be allotted me. With good health, I enjoyed an indescribable composure of mind: look around me as I pleased, my loss appeared a gain to me. Young and full of sensibility, I thought the universe a thousand times more beautiful than formerly, when I required to have society and play, that in the fair garden tedium might not overtake me. And now, as I did not conceal my piety, I likewise took heart to own my love for the sciences and arts. I drew, painted, read, and found enough of people to support me: instead of the great world, which I had left, or, rather, which had left me, a smaller one formed itself about me, which was infinitely richer and more entertaining. I had a turn for social life; and I do not deny, that, on giving up my old acquaintances, I trembled at the thought of solitude. I now found myself abundantly, perhaps excessively, indemnified. My acquaintances erelong were very numerous, not at home only, but likewise among people at a distance. My story had been noised abroad, and many persons felt a curiosity to see the woman who had valued God above her bridegroom. There was a certain pious tone to be observed, at that time, generally over Germany. In the families of several counts and princes, a care for the welfare of the soul had been awakened. Nor were there wanting noblemen who showed a like attention; while, in the inferior classes, sentiments of this kind were diffused on every side.

The noble family, whom I mentioned above, now drew me nearer to them. They had, in the mean while, gathered strength; several of their relations having settled in the town. These estimable persons courted my familiarity, as I did theirs. They had high connections: I became acquainted, in their house, with a great part of the princes, counts, and lords of the empire. My sentiments were not concealed from any one: they might be honored or be tolerated; I obtained my object,  —  none attacked me.

There was yet another way by which I was again led back into the world. About this period a step-brother of my father, who till now had never visited the house except in passing, staid with us for a considerable time. He had left the service of his court, where he enjoyed great influence and honor, simply because all matters were not managed quite according to his mind. His intellect was just, his character was rigid. In these points he was very like my father: only the latter had withal a certain touch of softness, which enabled him with greater ease to yield a little in affairs, and though not to do, yet to permit, some things against his own conviction; and then to evaporate his anger at them, either in silence by himself, or in confidence amid his family. My uncle was a great deal younger, and his independence of spirit had been favored by his outward circumstances. His mother had been very rich, and he still had large possessions to expect from her near and distant relatives; so he needed no foreign increase: whereas my father, with his moderate fortune, was bound to his place by the consideration of his salary.

My uncle had become still more unbending from domestic sufferings. He had early lost an amiable wife and a hopeful son; and, from that time, he appeared to wish to push away from him every thing that did not hang upon his individual will.

In our family it was whispered now and then with some complacency, that probably he would not wed again, and so we children might anticipate inheriting his fortune. I paid small regard to this, but the demeanor of the rest was not a little modified by their hopes. In his own imperturbable firmness of character, my uncle had grown into the habit of never contradicting any one in conversation. On the other hand, he listened with a friendly air to every one’s opinion, and would himself elucidate and strengthen it by instances and reasons of his own. All who did not know him fancied that he thought as they did: for he was possessed of a preponderating intellect, and could transport himself into the mental state of any man, and imitate his manner of conceiving. With me he did not prosper quite so well; for here the question was about emotions, of which he had not any glimpse: and, with whatever tolerance and sympathy and rationality he spoke about my sentiments, it was palpable to me, that he had not the slightest notion of what formed the ground of all my conduct.

With all his secrecy, we by and by found out the aim of his unusual stay with us. He had, as we at length discovered, cast his eyes upon our youngest sister, with the view of giving her in marriage, and rendering her happy as he pleased; and certainly, considering her personal and mental attractions, particularly when a handsome fortune was laid into the scale along with them, she might pretend to the first matches. His feelings towards me he likewise showed us pantomimically, by procuring me a post of canoness, the income of which I very soon began to draw.

My sister was not so contented with his care as I. She now disclosed to me a tender secret, which hitherto she had very wisely kept back; fearing, as in truth it happened, that I would by all means counsel her against connection with a man who was not suited to her. I did my utmost, and succeeded. The purpose of my uncle was too serious and too distinct: the prospect for my sister, with her worldly views, was too delightful to be thwarted by a passion which her own understanding disapproved; she mustered force to give it up.

On her ceasing to resist the gentle guidance of my uncle, the foundation of his plan was quickly laid. She was appointed maid of honor at a neighboring court, where he could commit her to the oversight and the instructions of a lady, his friend, who presided there as governess with great applause. I accompanied her to the place of her new abode. Both of us had reason to be satisfied with the reception we met with; and frequently I could not help, in secret, smiling at the character, which now as canoness, as young and pious canoness, I was enacting in the world.

In earlier times a situation such as this would have confused me dreadfully, perhaps have turned my head; but now, in the midst of all the splendors that surrounded me, I felt extremely cool. With great quietness I let them frizzle me, and deck me out for hours, and thought no more of it than that my place required me to wear that gala livery. In the thronged saloons I spoke with all and each, though no shape or character among them made any impression on me. On returning to my house, nearly all the feeling I brought back with me was that of tired limbs. Yet my understanding drew advantage from the multitude of persons whom I saw: and I became acquainted with some ladies, patterns of every virtue, of a noble and good demeanor; particularly with the governess, under whom my sister was to have the happiness of being formed.

At my return, however, the consequences of this journey, in regard to health, were found to be less favorable. With the greatest temperance, the strictest diet, I had not been, as I used to be, completely mistress of my time and strength. Food, motion, rising, and going to sleep, dressing and visiting, had not depended, as at home, on my own conveniency and will. In the circle of social life you cannot stop without a breach of courtesy: all that was needful I had willingly performed; because I looked upon it as my duty, because I knew that it would soon be over, and because I felt myself completely healthy. Yet this unusual, restless life must have had more effect upon me than I was aware of. Scarcely had I reached home, and cheered my parents with a comfortable narrative, when I was attacked by a hemorrhage, which, although it did not prove dangerous or lasting, yet left a weakness after it, perceptible for many a day.

Here, then, I had another lesson to repeat. I did it joyfully. Nothing bound me to the world, and I was convinced that here the true good was never to be found; so I waited in the cheerfullest and meekest state: and, after having abdicated life, I was retained in it.

A new trial was awaiting me: my mother took a painful and oppressive ailment, which she had to bear five years, before she paid the debt of nature. All this time we were sharply proved. Often, when her terror grew too strong, she would have us all summoned, in the night, to her bed, that so at least she might be busied, if not bettered, by our presence. The load grew heavier, nay, scarcely to be borne, when my father, too, became unwell. From his youth he had frequently had violent headaches, which, however, at longest never used to last beyond six and thirty hours. But now they were continual; and, when they mounted to a high degree of pain, his moanings tore my very heart. It was in these tempestuous seasons that I chiefly felt my bodily weakness; because it kept me from my holiest and dearest duties, or rendered the performance of them hard to an extreme degree.

It was now that I could try whether the path which I had chosen was the path of fantasy or truth; whether I had merely thought as others showed me, or the object of my trust had a reality. To my unspeakable support, I always found the latter. The straight direction of my heart to God, the fellowship of the “Beloved Ones.”http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36483/36483-h/36483-h.htm - Footnote_3_3 I had sought and found; and this was what made all things light to me. As a traveller in the dark, my soul, when all was pressing on me from without, hastened to the place of refuge; and never did it return empty.

In later times some champions of religion, who seem to be animated more by zeal than feeling for it, have required of their brethren to produce examples of prayers actually heard; apparently as wishing to have seal and signature, that so they might proceed juridically in the matter. How unknown must the true feeling be to these persons! how few real experiences can they themselves have made!

I can say that I never returned empty, when in straits and oppression I called on God. This is saying infinitely much: more I must not and can not say. Important as each experience was at the critical moment for myself, the recital of them would be flat, improbable, and insignificant, were I to specify the separate cases. Happy was I, that a thousand little incidents in combination proved, as clearly as the drawing of my breath proved me to be living, that I was not without God in the world. He was near to me: I was before him. This is what, with a diligent avoidance of all theological systematic terms, I can with the greatest truth declare.

Much do I wish, that, in those times too, I had been entirely without system. But which of us arrives early at the happiness of being conscious of his individual self, in its own pure combination, without extraneous forms? I was in earnest with religion. I timidly trusted in the judgments of others: I entirely gave in to the Hallean system of conversion, but my nature would by no means tally with it.

According to this scheme of doctrine, the alteration of the heart must begin with a deep terror on account of sin: the heart in this agony must recognize, in a less or greater degree, the punishment which it has merited, must get a foretaste of hell, and so embitter the delight of sin. At last it feels a very palpable assurance of grace; which, however, in its progress often fades away, and must again be sought with earnest prayer.

Of all this no jot or tittle happened with me. When I sought God sincerely, he let himself be found of me, and did not reproach me about by-gone things. On looking back, I saw well enough where I had been unworthy, where I still was so; but the confession of my faults was altogether without terror. Not for a moment did the fear of hell occur to me; nay, the very notion of a wicked spirit, and a place of punishment and torment after death, could nowise gain admission into the circle of my thoughts. I considered the men who lived without God, whose hearts were shut against the trust in and the love of the Invisible, as already so unhappy, that a hell and external pains appeared to promise rather an alleviation than an increase of their misery. I had but to look upon the persons, in this world, who in their breasts gave scope to hateful feelings; who hardened their hearts against the good of whatever kind, and strove to force the evil on themselves and others; who shut their eyes by day, that so they might deny the shining of the sun. How unutterably wretched did these persons seem to me! Who could have formed a hell to make their situation worse?

This mood of mind continued in me, without change, for half a score of years. It maintained itself through many trials, even at the moving death-bed of my beloved mother. I was frank enough, on this occasion, not to hide my comfortable frame of mind from certain pious but rigorously orthodox people; and I had to suffer many a friendly admonition on that score. They reckoned they were just in season, for explaining with what earnestness one should be diligent to lay a right foundation in the days of health and youth.

In earnestness I, too, determined not to fail. For the moment I allowed myself to be convinced; and fain would I have grown, for life, distressed and full of fears. But what was my surprise on finding that I absolutely could not. When I thought of God, I was cheerful and contented: even at the painful end of my dear mother, I did not shudder at the thought of death. Yet I learned many and far other things than my uncalled teachers thought of, in these solemn hours.

By degrees I grew to doubt the dictates of so many famous people, and retained my own sentiments in silence. A certain lady of my friends, to whom I had at first disclosed too much, insisted always on interfering with my business. Of her, too, I was obliged to rid myself: I at last firmly told her, that she might spare herself this labor, as I did not need her counsel; that I knew my God, and would have no guide but him. She was greatly offended: I believe she never quite forgave me.

Such determination to withdraw from the advices and the influence of my friends, in spiritual matters, produced the consequence, that also in my temporal affairs I gained sufficient courage to obey my own persuasions. But for the assistance of my faithful, invisible Leader, I could not have prospered here. I am still gratefully astonished at his wise and happy guidance. No one knew how matters stood with me: even I myself did not know.

The thing, the wicked and inexplicable thing, which separates us from the Being to whom we owe our life, and in whom all that deserves the name of life must find its nourishment,  —  the thing which we call sin I yet knew nothing of.

In my intercourse with my invisible Friend, I felt the sweetest enjoyment of all my powers. My desire of constantly enjoying this felicity was so predominant, that I abandoned without hesitation whatever marred our intercourse; and here experience was my best teacher. But it was with me as with sick persons who have no medicine, and try to help themselves by diet: something is accomplished, but far from enough.

I could not always live in solitude, though in it I found the best preservative against the dissipation of my thoughts. On returning to the tumult, the impression it produced upon me was the deeper for my previous loneliness. My most peculiar advantage lay in this, that love for quiet was my ruling passion, and that in the end I still drew back to it. I perceived, as in a kind of twilight, my weakness and my misery, and tried to save myself by avoiding danger and exposure.

For seven years I had used my dietetic scheme. I held myself not wicked, and I thought my state desirable. But for some peculiar circumstances and occurrences I had remained in this position: it was by a curious path that I got farther. Contrary to the advice of all my friends, I entered on a new connection. Their objections, at first, made me pause. I turned to my invisible Leader; and, as he permitted me, I went forward without fear.

A man of spirit, heart, and talents had bought a property beside us. Among the strangers whom I grew acquainted with, were this person and his family. In our manners, domestic economy, and habits we accorded well; and thus we soon approximated to each other.

Philo, as I propose to call him, was already middle-aged: in certain matters he was highly serviceable to my father, whose strength was now decaying. He soon became the friend of the family: and finding in me, as he was pleased to say, a person free alike from the extravagance and emptiness of the great world, and from the narrowness and aridness of the still world in the country, he courted intimacy with me; and erelong we were in one another’s confidence. To me he was very pleasing and useful.

Though I did not feel the smallest inclination or capacity for mingling in public business, or seeking any influence on it, yet I liked to hear about such matters,  —  liked to know whatever happened far and near. Of worldly things, I loved to get a clear though unconcerned perception: feeling, sympathy, affection, I reserved for God, for my people, and my friends.

The latter were, if I may say so, jealous of Philo, in my new connection with him. In more than one sense, they were right in warning me about it. I suffered much in secret, for even I could not consider their remonstrances as altogether empty or selfish. I had been accustomed, from of old, to give a reason for my views and conduct; but in this case my conviction would not follow. I prayed to God, that here, as elsewhere, he would warn, restrain, and guide me; and, as my heart on this did not dissuade me, I went forward on my way with comfort.

Philo, on the whole, had a remote resemblance to Narciss: only a pious education had more enlivened and concentrated his feelings. He had less vanity, more character; and in business, if Narciss was delicate, exact, persevering, indefatigable, the other was clear, sharp, quick, and capable of working with incredible ease. By means of him I learned the secret history of almost every noble personage with whose exterior I had got acquainted in society. It was pleasant for me to behold the tumult, off my watch-tower from afar. Philo could now hide nothing from me: he confided to me, by degrees, his own concerns, both inward and outward. I was in fear because of him, for I foresaw certain circumstances and entanglements; and the mischief came more speedily than I had looked for. There were some confessions he had still kept back, and even at last he told me only what enabled me to guess the worst.

What an effect had this upon my heart! I attained experiences which to me were altogether new. With infinite sorrow I beheld an Agathon, who, educated in the groves of Delphi, still owed his school-fees, which he was now obliged to pay with their accumulated interest; and this Agathon was my especial friend. My sympathy was lively and complete; I suffered with him; both of us were in the strangest state.

After having long occupied myself with the temper of his mind, I at last turned round to contemplate my own. The thought, “Thou art no better than he,” rose like a little cloud before me, and gradually expanded till it darkened all my soul.

I now not only thought myself no better than he: I felt this, and felt it as I should not wish to do again. Nor was it any transitory mood. For more than a year, I was compelled to feel, that, had not an unseen hand restrained me, I might have become a Girard, a Cartouche, a Damiens, or any wretch you can imagine. The tendencies to this I traced too clearly in my heart. Heavens, what a discovery!

If hitherto I had never been able, in the faintest degree, to recognize in myself the reality of sin by experience, its possibility was now become apparent to me by anticipation, in the frightfullest manner. And yet I knew not evil; I but feared it: I felt that I might be guilty, and could not accuse myself of being so.

Deeply as I was convinced that such a temperament of soul, as I now saw mine to be, could never be adapted for that union with the invisible Being which I hoped for after death, I did not, in the smallest, fear that I should finally be separated from him. With all the wickedness which I discovered in my heart, I still loved Him: I hated what I felt, nay, wished to hate it still more earnestly; my whole desire was, to be delivered from this sickness, and this tendency to sickness; and I was persuaded that the great Physician would at length vouchsafe his help.

The sole question was, What medicine will cure this malady? The practice of virtue? This I could not for a moment think. For ten years I had already practised more than mere virtue; and the horrors now first discovered had, all the while, lain hidden at the bottom of my soul. Might they not have broken out with me, as they did with David when he looked on Bathsheba? Yet was not he a friend of God! and was not I assured, in my inmost heart, that God was my friend?

Was it, then, an unavoidable infirmity of human nature? Must we just content ourselves in feeling and acknowledging the sovereignty of inclination? And, with the best will, is there nothing left for us but to abhor the fault we have committed, and on the like occasion to commit it again?

From systems of morality I could obtain no comfort. Neither their severity, by which they try to bend our inclinations, nor their attractiveness, by which they try to place our inclinations on the side of virtue, gave me any satisfaction. The fundamental notions, which I had imbibed from intercourse with my invisible Friend, were of far higher value to me.

Once, while I was studying the songs composed by David after that tremendous fall, it struck me very much that he traced his indwelling corruption even in the substance out of which he had been shaped; yet that he wished to be freed from sin, and that he earnestly entreated for a pure heart.

But how was this to be attained? The answer from Scripture I was well aware of: “that the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin,” was a Bible truth which I had long known. But now, for the first time, I observed that as yet I had never understood this oft-repeated saying. The questions, What does it mean? How is it to be? were day and night working out their answers in me. At last I thought I saw, as by a gleam of light, that what I sought was to be found in the incarnation of the everlasting Word, by whom all things, even we ourselves, were made. That the Eternal descended as an inhabitant to the depths in which we dwell, which he surveys and comprehends; that he passed through our lot from stage to stage, from conception and birth to the grave; that by this marvellous circuit he again mounted to those shining heights, whither we too must rise in order to be happy: all this was revealed to me, as in a dawning remoteness.

Oh! why must we, in speaking of such things, make use of figures which can only indicate external situations? Where is there in his eyes aught high or deep, aught dark or clear? It is we only that have an Under and Upper, a night and day. And even for this did he become like us, since otherwise we could have had no part in him.

But how shall we obtain a share in this priceless benefit? “By faith,” the Scripture says. And what is faith? To consider the account of an event as true, what help can this afford me? I must be enabled to appropriate its effects, its consequences. This appropriating faith must be a state of mind peculiar, and, to the natural man, unknown.

“Now, gracious Father, grant me faith!” so prayed I once, in the deepest heaviness of heart. I was leaning on a little table, where I sat: my tear-stained countenance was hidden in my hands. I was now in the condition in which we seldom are, but in which we are required to be, if God is to regard our prayers.

Oh, that I could but paint what I felt then! A sudden force drew my soul to the cross where Jesus once expired: it was a sudden force, a pull, I cannot name it otherwise, such as leads our soul to an absent loved one; an approximation, which, perhaps, is far more real and true than we imagine. So did my soul approach the Son of man, who died upon the cross; and that instant did I know what faith was.

“This is faith!” said I, and started up as if half frightened. I now endeavored to get certain of my feeling, of my view; and shortly I became convinced that my soul had acquired a power of soaring upwards which was altogether new to it.

Words fail us in describing such emotions. I could most distinctly separate them from all fantasy: they were entirely without fantasy, without image; yet they gave us just such certainty of their referring to some object as our imagination gives us when it paints the features of an absent lover.

When the first rapture was over, I observed that my present condition of mind had formerly been known to me; only I had never felt it in such strength; I had never held it fast, never made it mine. I believe, indeed, every human soul at intervals feels something of it. Doubtless it is this which teaches every mortal that there is a God.

With such faculty, wont from of old to visit me now and then, I had hitherto been well content: and had not, by a singular arrangement of events, that unexpected sorrow weighed upon me for a twelvemonth; had not my own ability and strength, on that occasion, altogether lost credit with me,  —  I perhaps might have remained content with such a state of matters all my days.

But now, since that great moment, I had, as it were, got wings. I could mount aloft above what used to threaten me; as the bird can fly singing and with ease across the fiercest stream, while the little dog stands anxiously baying on the bank.

My joy was indescribable; and, though I did not mention it to any one, my people soon observed an unaccustomed cheerfulness in me, and could not understand the reason of my joy. Had I but forever held my peace, and tried to nourish this serene temper in my soul; had I not allowed myself to be misled by circumstances, so as to reveal my secret,  —  I might then have been saved once more a long and tedious circuit.

As in the previous ten years of my Christian course, this necessary force had not existed in my soul, I had just been in the case of other worthy people,  —  had helped myself by keeping my fancy always full of images, which had some reference to God,  —  a practice so far truly useful; for noxious images and their baneful consequences are by that means kept away. Often, too, our spirit seizes one or other of these spiritual images, and mounts with it a little way upwards, like a young bird fluttering from twig to twig.

Images and impressions pointing towards God are presented to us by the institutions of the Church, by organs, bells, singing, and particularly by the preaching of our pastors. Of these I used to be unspeakably desirous; no weather, no bodily weakness, could keep me from church; the sound of the Sunday bells was the only thing that rendered me impatient on a sick-bed. Our head court-chaplain, a gifted man, I heard with great pleasure; his colleagues, too, I liked: and I could pick the golden apple of the Word from the common fruit, with which on earthen platters it was mingled. With public ordinances, all sorts of private exercises were combined; and these, too, only nourished fancy and a finer kind of sense. I was so accustomed to this track, I reverenced it so much, that even now no higher one occurred to me. For my soul has only feelers, and not eyes: it gropes, but does not see. Ah! that it could get eyes, and look!

Now again, therefore, I went with a longing mind to sermon; but, alas! what happened? I no longer found what I was wont to find. These preachers were blunting their teeth on the shell, while I enjoyed the kernel. I soon grew weary of them; and I had already been so spoiled, that I could not be content with the little they afforded me. I required images, I wanted impressions from without, and reckoned it a pure spiritual desire that I felt.

Philo’s parents had been in connection with the Herrnhuter Community: in his library were many writings of Count Zinzendorf’s. He had spoken with me, more than once, very candidly and clearly on the subject; inviting me to turn over one or two of these treatises, if it were but for the sake of studying a psychological phenomenon. I looked upon the count, and those that followed him, as very heterodox; and so the Ebersdorf Hymn-book, which my friend had pressed upon me, lay unread.

However, in this total destitution of external excitements for my soul, I opened the hymn-book, as it were, by chance, and found in it, to my astonishment, some songs which actually, though under a fantastic form, appeared to shadow what I felt. The originality and simplicity of their expression drew me on. It seemed to be peculiar emotions expressed in a peculiar way: no school technology suggested any notion of formality or commonplace. I was persuaded that these people felt as I did: I was very happy to lay hold of here and there a stanza in their songs, to fix it in my memory, and carry it about with me for days.

Since the moment when the truth had been revealed to me, some three months had in this way passed on. At last I came to the resolution of disclosing every thing to Philo, and asking him to let me have those writings, about which I had now become immoderately curious. Accordingly I did so, notwithstanding there was something in my heart which earnestly dissuaded me.

I circumstantially related to him all the story; and as he was himself a leading person in it, and my narrative conveyed the sharpest reprimand on him, he felt surprised and moved to an extreme degree. He melted into tears. I rejoiced; believing that, in his mind also, a full and fundamental change had taken place.

He provided me with all the writings I could require, and now I had excess of nourishment for my imagination. I made rapid progress in the Zinzendorfic mode of thought and speech. And be it not supposed that I am yet incapable of prizing the peculiar turn and manner of the count. I willingly do him justice: he is no empty fantast; he speaks of mighty truths, and mostly in a bold, figurative style; the people who despise him know not either how to value or discriminate his qualities.

At that time I became exceedingly attached to him. Had I been mistress of myself, I would certainly have left my friends and country, and gone to join him. We should infallibly have understood each other, and should hardly have agreed together long.

Thanks to my better genius, that now kept me so confined by my domestic duties! I reckoned it a distant journey if I visited the garden. The charge of my aged, weakly father afforded me employment enough; and in hours of recreation, I had Fancy to procure me pastime. The only mortal whom I saw was Philo; he was highly valued by my father; but, with me, his intimacy had been cooled a little by the late explanation. Its influence on him had not penetrated deep: and, as some attempts to talk in my dialect had not succeeded with him, he avoided touching on this subject; and the rather, as his extensive knowledge put it always in his power to introduce new topics in his conversation.

I was thus a Herrnhut sister on my own footing. I had especially to hide this new turn of my temper and my inclinations from the head court-chaplain, whom, as my father confessor, I had much cause to honor, and whose high merits his extreme aversion to the Herrnhut Community did not diminish, in my eyes, even then. Unhappily this worthy person had to suffer many troubles on account of me and others.

Several years ago he had become acquainted with an upright, pious gentleman, residing in a distant quarter, and had long continued in unbroken correspondence with him, as with one who truly sought God. How painful was it to the spiritual leader, when this gentleman subsequently joined himself to the Community of Herrnhut, where he lived for a long while! How delightful, on the other hand, when at length he quarrelled with the brethren, determined to settle in our neighborhood, and seemed once more to yield himself completely to the guidance of his ancient friend!

The stranger was presented, as in triumph, by the upper pastor, to all the chosen lambs of his fold. To our house alone he was not introduced, because my father did not now see company. The gentleman obtained no little approbation: he combined the polish of the court with the winning manner of the brethren; and, having also many fine qualities by nature, he soon became the favorite saint with all who knew him,  —  a result at which the chaplain was exceedingly contented. But, alas! it was merely in externals that the gentleman had split with the Community: in his heart he was yet entirely a Herrnhuter. He was, in truth, concerned for the reality of the matter; but yet the gimcracks, which the count had stuck round it, were, at the same time, quite adapted to his taste. Besides, he had now become accustomed to this mode of speaking and conceiving: and, if he had to hide it carefully from his old friend, the gladder was he, in any knot of trusty persons, to come forth with his couplets, litanies, and little figures; in which, as might have been supposed, he met with great applause.

I knew nothing of the whole affair, and wandered quietly along in my separate path. For a good while we continued mutually unknown.

Once, in a leisure hour, I happened to visit a lady who was sick. I found several acquaintances with her, and soon perceived that my appearance had cut short their conversation. I affected not to notice any thing, but saw erelong, with great surprise, some Herrnhut figures stuck upon the wall in elegant frames. Quickly comprehending what had passed before my entrance, I expressed my pleasure at the sight, in a few suitable verses.

Conceive the wonder of my friends! We explained ourselves: instantly we were agreed, and in each other’s confidence.

I often henceforth sought opportunities of going out. Unhappily I found such only once in the three or four weeks; yet I grew acquainted with our gentleman apostle, and by degrees with all the body. I visited their meetings when I could: with my social disposition, it was quite delightful for me to communicate to others, and to hear from them, the feelings which, till now, I had conceived and harbored by myself.

But I was not so completely taken with my friends, as not to see that few of them could really feel the sense of those affecting words and emblems; and that from these they drew as little benefit as formerly they did from the symbolic language of the Church. Yet, notwithstanding, I went on with them, not letting this disturb me. I thought I was not called to search and try the hearts of others. Had not I, too, by long-continued innocent exercisings of that sort, been prepared for something better? I had my share of profit from our meetings: in speaking, I insisted on attending to the sense and spirit, which, in things so delicate, is rather apt to be disguised by words than indicated by them; and for the rest, I left, with silent tolerance, each to act according to his own conviction.

These quiet times of secret social joy were shortly followed by storms of open bickering and contradiction,  —  contentions which excited great commotion, I might almost say occasioned not a little scandal, in court and town. The period was now arrived when our chaplain, that stout gain-sayer of the Herrnhut Brethren, must discover to his deep, but, I trust, sanctified humiliation, that his best and once most zealous hearers were now all leaning to the side of that community. He was excessively provoked: in the first moments he forgot all moderation, and could not, even if he had inclined it, retract afterwards. Violent debates took place, in which happily I was not mentioned, both as being an accidental member of those hated meetings, and then because, in respect of certain civic matters, our zealous preacher could not safely disoblige either my father or my friend. With silent satisfaction I continued neutral. It was irksome to me to converse about such feelings and objects, even with well-affected people, when they could not penetrate the deepest sense, and lingered merely on the surface. But to strive with adversaries, about things on which even friends could scarcely understand each other, seemed to me unprofitable, nay, pernicious. For I soon perceived, that many amiable noblemen, who on this occurrence could not shut their hearts to enmity and hatred, had rapidly passed over to injustice, and, in order to defend an outward form, had almost sacrificed their most substantial duties.

Far as the worthy clergyman might, in the present case, be wrong; much as others tried to irritate me at him,  —  I could never hesitate to give him my sincere respect. I knew him well: I could candidly transport myself into his way of looking at these matters. I have never seen a man without his weaknesses: only in distinguished men they strike us more. We wish, and will at all rates have it, that persons privileged as they are should at the same time pay no tribute, no tax whatever. I honored him as a superior man, and hoped to use the influence of my calm neutrality to bring about, if not a peace, at least a truce. I know not what my efforts might have done; but God concluded the affair more briefly, and took the chaplain to himself. On his coffin all wept, who had lately been striving with him about words. His uprightness, his fear of God, no one had ever doubted.

I, too, was erelong forced to lay aside this Herrnhut doll-work, which, by means of these contentions, now appeared before me in a rather different light. Our uncle had, in silence, executed his intentions with my sister. He offered her a young man of rank and fortune as a bridegroom, and showed, by a rich dowry, what might be expected of himself. My father joyfully consented: my sister was free and forewarned; she did not hesitate to change her state. The bridal was appointed at my uncle’s castle: family and friends were all invited, and we came together in the cheerfullest mood.

For the first time in my life, the aspect of a house excited admiration in me. I had often heard of my uncle’s taste, of his Italian architect, of his collections and his library; but, comparing this with what I had already seen, I had formed a very vague and fluctuating picture of it in my thoughts. Great, accordingly, was my surprise at the earnest and harmonious impression which I felt on entering the house, and which every hall and chamber deepened. If elsewhere pomp and decoration had but dissipated my attention, I felt here concentrated and drawn back upon myself. In like manner the preparatives for these solemnities and festivals produced a silent pleasure, by their air of dignity and splendor; and to me it seemed as inconceivable that one man could have invented and arranged all this, as that more than one could have worked together in so high a spirit. Yet, withal, the landlord and his people were entirely natural: not a trace of stiffness or of empty form was to be seen.

The wedding itself was managed in a striking way: an exquisite strain of vocal music came upon us by surprise, and the clergyman went through the ceremony with a singular solemnity. I was standing by Philo at the time; and, instead of a congratulation, he whispered in my ear, “When I saw your sister give away her hand, I felt as if a stream of boiling water had been poured over me.”  —  “Why so?” I inquired. “It is always the way with me,” said he, “when I see two people joined.” I laughed at him, but I have often since had cause to recollect his words.

The revel of the party, among whom were many young people, looked particularly glittering and airy; as every thing around us was dignified and serious. The furniture, plate, table-ware, and table-ornaments accorded with the general whole; and if in other houses you would say the architect was of the school of the confectioner, it here appeared as if even our confectioner and butler had taken lessons from the architect.

We staid together several days, and our intelligent and gifted landlord had variedly provided for the entertainment of his guests. I did not in the present case repeat the melancholy proof, which has so often in my life been forced upon me, how unhappily a large mixed company are situated, when, altogether left to themselves, they have to select the most general and vapid pastimes, that the fools of the party may not want amusement, however it may fare with those that are not such.

My uncle had arranged it altogether differently. Two or three marshals, if I may call them so, had been appointed by him: one of them had charge of providing entertainment for the young. Dances, excursions, little games, were of his invention and under his direction: and as young people take delight in being out-of-doors, and do not fear the influences of the air, the garden and garden-hall had been assigned to them; while some additional pavilions and galleries had been erected and appended to the latter, formed of boards and canvas merely, but in such proportions, so elegant and noble, they reminded one of nothing but stone and marble.

How rare is a festivity in which the person who invites the guests feels also that it is his duty to provide for their conveniences and wants of every kind!

Hunting and card parties, short promenades, opportunities for trustful private conversations, were afforded the elder persons; and whoever wished to go earliest to bed was sure to be lodged the farthest from noise.

By this happy order, the space we lived in appeared to be a little world: and yet, considered narrowly, the castle was not large; without an accurate knowledge of it, and without the spirit of its owner, it would have been impossible to entertain so many people here, and quarter each according to his humor.

As the aspect of a well-formed person pleases us, so also does a fair establishment, by means of which the presence of a rational, intelligent mind is manifested. We feel a joy in entering even a cleanly house, though it may be tasteless in its structure and its decorations, because it shows us the presence of a person cultivated in at least one sense. Doubly pleasing is it, therefore, when, from a human dwelling, the spirit of a higher though merely sensual culture speaks to us.

All this was vividly impressed on my observation at my uncle’s castle. I had heard and read much of art; Philo, too, was a lover of pictures, and had a fine collection: I myself had often practised drawing; but I had been too deeply occupied with my emotions, striving exclusively after the one thing needful, which alone I was bent on carrying to perfection; and then, such objects of art as I had hitherto seen, appeared, like all other worldly objects, to distract my thoughts. But now, for the first time, outward things had led me back upon myself: I now first perceived the difference between the natural charm of the nightingale’s song, and that of a four-voiced anthem pealed from the expressive organs of men.

My joy over this discovery I did not hide from my uncle, who, when all the rest were settled at their posts, was wont to come and talk with me in private. He spoke with great modesty of what he possessed and had produced here, with great decision of the views in which it had been gathered and arranged: and I could easily observe that he spoke with a forbearance towards me; seeming, in his usual way, to rate the excellence, which he himself possessed below that other excellence, which, in my way of thinking, was the best and properest.

“If we can conceive it possible,” he once observed, “that the Creator of the world himself assumed the form of his creature, and lived in that manner for a time upon earth, this creature must appear to us of infinite perfection, because susceptible of such a combination with its Maker. Hence, in our idea of man, there can be no inconsistency with our idea of God; and if we often feel a certain disagreement with him and remoteness from him, it is but the more on that account our duty, not like advocates of the wicked Spirit, to keep our eyes continually upon the nakedness and weakness of our nature, but rather to seek out every property and beauty by which our pretension to a similarity with the Divinity may be made good.”

I smiled, and answered, “Do not make me blush, dear uncle, by your complaisance in talking in my language! What you have to say is of such importance to me, that I wish to hear it in your own most peculiar style; and then what parts of it I cannot quite appropriate I will endeavor to translate.”

“I may continue,” he replied, “in my own most peculiar way, without any alteration of my tone. Man’s highest merit always is, as much as possible to rule external circumstances, and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them. Life lies before us, as a huge quarry lies before the architect: he deserves not the name of architect, except when, out of this fortuitous mass, he can combine, with the greatest economy and fitness and durability, some form, the pattern of which originated in his spirit. All things without us, nay, I may add, all things on us, are mere elements; but deep within us lies the creative force, which out of these can produce what they were meant to be, and which leaves us neither sleep nor rest, till, in one way or another, without us or on us, that same have been produced. You, my dear niece, have, it may be, chosen the better part; you have striven to bring your moral being, your earnest, lovely nature, into accordance with itself and with the Highest: but neither ought we to be blamed, when we strive to get acquainted with the sentient man in all his comprehensiveness, and to bring about an active harmony among his powers.”

By such discoursing, we in time grew more familiar; and I begged of him to speak with me as with himself, omitting every sort of condescension. “Do not think,” replied my uncle, “that I flatter you when I commend your mode of thinking and acting. I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what it is he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them. How far his object may be great or little, may merit praise or censure, is the next consideration with me. Believe me, love, most part of all the misery and mischief, of all that is denominated evil in the world, arises from the fact, that men are too remiss to get a proper knowledge of their aims, and, when they do know them, to work intensely in attaining them. They seem to me like people who have taken up a notion that they must and will erect a tower, and who yet expend on the foundation not more stones and labor than would be sufficient for a hut. If you, my friend, whose highest want it was to perfect and unfold your moral nature, had, instead of those bold and noble sacrifices, merely trimmed between your duties to yourself and to your family, your bridegroom, or perhaps your husband, you must have lived in constant contradiction with your feelings, and never could have had a peaceful moment.”

“You employ the word sacrifice,” I answered here: “and I have often thought, that to a higher purpose, as to a divinity, we offer up by way of sacrifice a thing of smaller value; feeling like persons who should willingly and gladly bring a favorite lamb to the altar for the health of a beloved father.”

“Whatever it may be,” said he, “reason or feeling, that commands us to give up the one thing for the other, to choose the one before the other, decision and perseverance are, in my opinion, the noblest qualities of man. You cannot have the ware and the money both at the same time; and he who always hankers for the ware without having heart to give the money for it, is no better off than he who repents him of the purchase when the ware is in his hands. But I am far from blaming men on this account: it is not they that are to blame; it is the difficult, entangled situation they are in: they know not how to guide themselves in its perplexities. Thus, for instance, you will on the average find fewer bad economists in the country than in towns, and fewer again in small towns than in great; and why? Man is intended for a limited condition; objects that are simple, near, determinate, he comprehends, and he becomes accustomed to employ such means as are at hand; but, on entering a wider field, he now knows neither what he would nor what he should; and it amounts to quite the same, whether his attention is distracted by the multitude of objects, or is overpowered by their magnitude and dignity. It is always a misfortune for him when he is induced to struggle after any thing with which he cannot connect himself by some regular exertion of his powers.

“Certainly,” pursued he, “without earnestness there is nothing to be done in life; yet, among the people whom we name cultivated men, little earnestness is to be found: in labors and employments, in arts, nay, even in recreations, they proceed, if I may say so, with a sort of self-defence; they live, as they read a heap of newspapers, only to have done with it; they remind one of that young Englishman at Rome, who said, with a contented air one evening in some company, that to-day he had despatched six churches and two galleries. They wish to know and learn a multitude of things, and precisely those they have the least concern with; and they never see that hunger is not stilled by snapping at the air. When I become acquainted with a man, my first inquiry is, With what does he employ himself, and how, and with what degree of perseverance? The answer regulates the interest I shall take in him for life.”

“My dear uncle,” I replied, “you are, perhaps, too rigorous: you perhaps withdraw your helping hand from here and there a worthy man to whom you might be useful.”

“Can it be imputed as a fault,” said he, “to one who has so long and vainly labored on them and about them? How much we have to suffer in our youth from men who think they are inviting us to a delightful pleasure-party, when they undertake to introduce us to the Danaides or Sisyphus! Heaven be praised! I have rid myself of these people: if one of them unfortunately comes within my sphere, I forthwith, in the politest manner, compliment him out again. It is from such persons that you hear the bitterest complaints about the miserable course of things, the aridity of science, the levity of artists, the emptiness of poets, and much more of that sort. They do not recollect that they, and the many like them, are the very persons who would never read a book which had been written just as they require it; that true poetry is alien to them; that even an excellent work of art can never gain their approbation except by means of prejudice. But let us now break off, for this is not the time to rail or to complain.”

He directed my attention to the different pictures hanging on the wall: my eye dwelt on those whose look was beautiful or subject striking. This he permitted for a while: at last he said, “Bestow a little notice on the spirit manifested in these other works. Good minds delight to trace the finger of the Deity in nature: why not likewise pay some small regard to the hand of his imitator?” He then led my observation to some unobtrusive figures; endeavoring to make me understand that it was the history of art alone which could give us an idea of the worth and dignity of any work of art; that we should know the weary steps of mere handicraft and mechanism, over which the man of talents has struggled in the course of centuries, before we can conceive how it is possible for the man of genius to move with airy freedom on the pinnacle whose very aspect makes us giddy.

With this view he had formed a beautiful series of works; and, whilst he explained it, I could not help conceiving that I saw before me a similitude of moral culture. When I expressed my thought to him, he answered, “You are altogether right; and we see from this, that those do not act well, who, in a solitary, exclusive manner, follow moral cultivation by itself. On the contrary, it will be found, that he whose spirit strives for a development of that kind, has likewise every reason, at the same time, to improve his finer sentient powers; that so he may not run the risk of sinking from his moral height by giving way to the enticements of a lawless fancy, and degrading his moral nature by allowing it to take delight in tasteless baubles, if not in something worse.”

I did not suspect him of levelling at me; but I felt myself struck, when I reflected how many insipidities there might be in the songs that used to edify me, and how little favor the figures which had joined themselves to my religious ideas would have found in the eyes of my uncle.

Philo, in the mean time, had frequently been busied in the library: he now took me along with him. We admired the selection, as well as the multitude, of books. They had been collected on my uncle’s general principle: there were none to be found among them but such as either lead to correct knowledge, or teach right arrangement; such as either give us fit materials, or further the concordance of our spirit.

In the course of my life I had read very largely; in certain branches, there was almost no work unknown to me: the more pleasant was it here to speak about the general survey of the whole; to mark deficiencies, and not, as elsewhere, see nothing but a hampered confusion or a boundless expansion.

Here, too, we became acquainted with a very interesting, quiet man. He was a physician and a naturalist: he seemed rather one of the Penates than of the inmates. He showed us the museum, which, like the library, was fixed in glass cases to the walls of the chambers, adorning and ennobling the space, which it did not crowd. On this occasion I recalled with joy the days of my youth, and showed my father many of the things he had been wont to lay upon the sick-bed of his little child, just opening its little eyes to look into the world then. At the same time the physician, in our present and following conversations, did not scruple to avow how near he approximated to me in respect of my religious sentiments: he warmly praised my uncle for his tolerance, and his esteem of all that testified or forwarded the worth and unity of human nature; admitting, also, that he called for a similar return from others, and would shun and condemn nothing else so heartily as individual pretension and narrow exclusiveness.

Since the nuptials of my sister, joy had sparkled in the eyes of our uncle: he often spoke with me of what he meant to do for her and for her children. He had several fine estates: he managed them himself, and hoped to leave them in the best condition to his nephews. Regarding the small estate where we at present were, he appeared to entertain peculiar thoughts. “I will leave it to none,” said he, “but to a person who can understand and value and enjoy what it contains, and who feels how loudly every man of wealth and rank, especially in Germany, is called on to exhibit something like a model to others.”

Most of his guests were now gone: we, too, were making ready for departure, thinking we had seen the final scene of this solemnity, when his attention in affording us some dignified enjoyment produced a new surprise. We had mentioned to him the delight which the chorus of voices, suddenly commencing without accompaniment of any instrument, had given us, at my sister’s marriage. We hinted, at the same time, how pleasant it would be were such a thing repeated; but he seemed to pay no heed to us. The livelier was our surprise, when he said, one evening, “The music of the dance has died away; our transitory, youthful friends have left us; the happy pair themselves have a more serious look than they had some days ago. To part at such a time, when, perhaps, we shall never meet again, certainly never without changes, exalts us to a solemn mood, which I know not how to entertain more nobly than by the music you were lately signifying a desire to have repeated.”

The chorus, which had in the mean while gathered strength, and by secret practice more expertness, was accordingly made to sing to us a series of four and of eight voiced melodies, which, if I may say so, gave a real foretaste of bliss. Till then I had only known the pious mode of singing, as good souls practise it, frequently with hoarse pipes, imagining, like wild birds, that they are praising God, while they procure a pleasant feeling to themselves. Or, perhaps, I had listened to the vain music of concerts, in which you are at best invited to admire the talent of the singer, and very seldom have even a transient enjoyment. Now, however, I was listening to music, which, as it originated in the deepest feeling of the most accomplished human beings, was, by suitable and practised organs in harmonious unity, made again to address the deepest and best feelings of man, and to impress him at that moment with a lively sense of his likeness to the Deity. They were all devotional songs, in the Latin language: they sat like jewels in the golden ring of a polished intellectual conversation; and, without pretending to edify, they elevated me and made me happy in the most spiritual manner.

At our departure he presented all of us with handsome gifts. To me he gave the cross of my order, more beautifully and artfully worked and enamelled than I had ever seen it before. It was hung upon a large brilliant, by which also it was fastened to the chain: this he gave me, he said, “as the noblest stone in the cabinet of a collector.”

My sister, with her husband, went to their estates, the rest of us to our abodes; appearing to ourselves, so far as outward circumstances were concerned, to have returned to quite an every-day existence. We had been, as it were, dropped from a palace of the fairies down upon the common earth, and were again obliged to help ourselves as we best could.

The singular experiences which this new circle had afforded left a fine impression on my mind. This, however, did not long continue in its first vivacity: though my uncle tried to nourish and renew it by sending me certain of his best and most pleasing works of art; changing them, from time to time, with others which I had not seen.

I had been so much accustomed to be busied with myself, in regulating the concerns of my heart and temper, and conversing on these matters with persons of a like mind, that I could not long study any work of art attentively without being turned by it back upon myself. I was used to look at a picture or copper-plate merely as at the letters of a book. Fine printing pleases well, but who would read a book for the beauty of the printing? In like manner I required of each pictorial form that it should tell me something, should instruct, affect, improve me; and, after all my uncle’s letters to expound his works of art, say what he would, I continued in my former humor.

Yet not only my peculiar disposition, but external incidents and changes in our family, still farther drew me back from contemplations of that nature; nay, for some time even from myself. I had to suffer and to do more than my slender strength seemed fit for.

My maiden sister had, till now, been as a right arm to me. Healthy, strong, unspeakably good-natured, she had managed all the housekeeping; I myself being busied with the personal nursing of our aged father. She was seized with a catarrh, which changed to a disorder of the lungs: in three weeks she was lying in her coffin. Her death inflicted wounds on me, the scars of which I am not yet willing to examine.

I was lying sick before they buried her: the old ailment in my breast appeared to be awakening; I coughed with violence, and was so hoarse I could not speak beyond a whisper.

My married sister, out of fright and grief, was brought to bed before her time. Our old father thought he was about to lose at once his children and the hope of their posterity; his natural tears increased my sorrow: I prayed to God that he would give me back a sufferable state of health. I asked him but to spare my life till my father should die. I recovered: I was what I reckoned well, being able to discharge my duties, though with pain.

My sister was again with child. Many cares, which in such cases are committed to the mother, in the present instance fell to me. She was not altogether happy with her husband; this was to be hidden from our father: I was often made judge of their disputes, in which I could decide with the greater safety, as my brother trusted in me; and the two were really worthy persons, only each of them, instead of humoring, endeavored to convince, the other, and, out of eagerness to live in constant harmony, never could agree. I now learned to mingle seriously in worldly matters, and to practise what of old I had but sung.

My sister bore a son: the frailty of my father did not hinder him from travelling to her. The sight of the child exceedingly enlivened and cheered him: at the christening, contrary to his custom, he seemed as if inspired; nay, I might say like a Genius with two faces. With the one, he looked joyfully forward to those regions which he soon hoped to enter; with the other, to the new, hopeful, earthly life which had arisen in the boy descended from him. On our journey home he never wearied talking to me of the child, its form, its health, and his wish that the gifts of this new denizen of earth might be rightly cultivated. His reflections on the subject lasted when we had arrived at home: it was not till some days afterwards that I observed a kind of fever in him, which displayed itself, without shivering, in a sort of languid heat commencing after dinner. He did not yield, however: he went out as usual in the mornings, faithfully attending to the duties of his office, till at last continuous serious symptoms kept him within doors.

I never shall forget with what distinctness, clearness, and repose of mind he settled in the greatest order the concerns of his house, nay, the arrangements of his funeral, as he would have done a business of some other person.

With a cheerfulness which he never used to show, and which now mounted to a lively joy, he said to me, “Where is the fear of death which I once felt? Shall I shrink at departing? I have a gracious God; the grave awakens no terror in me; I have an eternal life.”

To recall the circumstances of his death, which shortly followed, forms one of the most pleasing entertainments of my solitude: the visible workings of a higher Power in that solemn time, no one shall ever argue from me.

The death of my beloved father altogether changed my mode of life. From the strictest obedience, the narrowest confinement, I passed at once into the greatest freedom: I enjoyed it like a sort of food from which one has long abstained. Formerly I very seldom spent two hours from home: now I very seldom lived a day there. My friends, whom I had been allowed to visit only by hurried snatches, wished now to have my company without interruption, as I did to have theirs. I was often asked to dinner: at walks and pleasure-jaunts I never failed. But, when once the circle had been fairly run, I saw that the invaluable happiness of liberty consisted, not in doing what one pleases and what circumstances may invite to, but in being able, without hinderance or restraint, to do in the direct way what one regards as right and proper; and, in this instance, I was old enough to reach a valuable truth, without smarting for my ignorance.

One pleasure I could not deny myself: it was, as soon as might be, to renew and strengthen my connection with the Herrnhut Brethren. I hastened, accordingly, to visit one of their establishments at no great distance; but here I by no means found what I had been anticipating. I was frank enough to signify my disappointment, which they tried to soften by alleging that the present settlement was nothing to a full and fitly organized community. This I did not take upon me to deny; yet, in my thought, the genuine spirit of the matter might have displayed itself in a small body as well as in a great one.

One of their bishops, who was present, a personal disciple of the count, took considerable pains with me. He spoke English perfectly; and as I, too, understood a little of it, he reckoned this a token that we both belonged to one class. I, however, reckoned nothing of the kind: his conversation did not in the least satisfy me. He had been a cutler; was a native of Moravia; his mode of thought still savored of the artisan. With Herr Von L  —    —  , who had been a major in the French service, I got upon a better footing: yet I could never bring myself to the submissiveness he showed to his superiors; nay, I felt as if you had given me a box on the ear, when I saw the major’s wife, and other women more or less like ladies, take the bishop’s hand and kiss it. Meanwhile a journey into Holland was proposed; which, however, doubtless for my good, did not take place.

My sister had been delivered of a daughter; and now it was the turn of us women to exult, and consider how the little creature should be bred like one of us. The husband, on the other hand, was not so satisfied, when in the following year another daughter saw the light: with his large estates, he wanted to have boys about him, who in future might assist him in his management.

My health was feeble: I kept myself in peace, and, by a quiet mode of life, in tolerable equilibrium. I was not afraid of death; nay, I wished to die: yet I secretly perceived that God was granting time for me to prove my soul, and to advance still nearer to himself. In my many sleepless nights, especially, I have at times felt something which I cannot undertake to describe.

It was as if my soul were thinking separately from the body: she looked upon the body as a foreign substance, as we look upon a garment. She pictured with extreme vivacity events and times long past, and felt, by means of this, events that were to follow. Those times are all gone by; what follows likewise will go by; the body, too, will fall to pieces like a vesture; but I, the well-known I, I am.

The thought is great, exalted, and consoling; yet an excellent friend, with whom I every day became more intimate, instructed me to dwell on it as little as I could. This was the physician whom I met in my uncle’s house, and who had since accurately informed himself about the temper of my body and my spirit. He showed me how much these feelings, when we cherish them within us independently of outward objects, tend, as it were, to excavate us, and to undermine the whole foundation of our being. “To be active,” he would say, “is the primary vocation of man: all the intervals in which he is obliged to rest, he should employ in gaining clearer knowledge of external things; for this will in its turn facilitate activity.”

This friend was acquainted with my custom of looking on my body as an outward object: he knew also that I pretty well understood my constitution, my disorder, and the medicines of use for it; nay, that, by continual sufferings of my own or other people’s, I had really grown a kind of half-doctor: he now carried forward my attention from the human body, and the drugs which act upon it, to the kindred objects of creation; he led me up and down as in the paradise of the first man; only, if I may continue my comparison, allowing me to trace, in dim remoteness, the Creator walking in the garden in the cool of the evening.

How gladly did I now see God in nature, when I bore him with such certainty within my heart! How interesting to me was his handiwork! how thankful did I feel that he had pleased to quicken me with the breath of his mouth!

We again had hopes that my sister would present us with a boy: her husband waited anxiously for that event, but did not live to see it. He died in consequence of an unlucky fall from horseback; and my sister followed him, soon after she had brought into the world a lovely boy. The four orphans they had left I could not look at but with sadness. So many healthy people had been called away before poor, sickly me; might I not also have blights to witness among these fair and hopeful blossoms? I knew the world sufficiently to understand what dangers threaten the precarious breeding of a child, especially a child of quality; and it seemed as if, since the period of my youth, these dangers had increased. I felt that, weakly as I was, I could not be of much, perhaps of any, service to the little ones; and I rejoiced the more on finding that my uncle, as indeed might have been looked for, had determined to devote his whole attention to the education of these amiable creatures. And this they doubtless merited in every sense: they were handsome; and, with great diversities, all promised to be well-conditioned, reasonable persons.

Since my worthy doctor had suggested it, I loved to trace out family likenesses among our relatives and children. My father had carefully preserved the portraits of his ancestors, and got his own and those of his descendants drawn by tolerable masters; nor had my mother and her people been forgotten. We accurately knew the characters of all the family; and, as we had frequently compared them with each other, we now endeavored to discover in the children the same peculiarities outward or inward. My sister’s eldest son, we thought, resembled his paternal grandfather, of whom there was a fine youthful picture in my uncle’s collection: he had been a brave soldier; and in this point, too, the boy took after him, liking arms above all things, and busying himself with them whenever he paid me a visit. For my father had left a very pretty armory; and the boy got no rest till I had given him a pair of pistols and a fowling-piece, and he had learned the proper way of using them. At the same time, in his conduct or bearing, there was nothing like rudeness: far from that, he was always meek and sensible.

The eldest daughter had attracted my especial love; of which, perhaps, the reason was, that she resembled me, and of all the four seemed to like me best. But I may well admit, that, the more closely I observed her as she grew, the more she shamed me: I could not look on her without a sentiment of admiration, nay, I may almost say, of reverence. You would scarcely have seen a nobler form, a more peaceful spirit, an activity so equable and universal. No moment of her life was she unoccupied, and every occupation in her hands became dignified. All seemed indifferent to her, so that she could but accomplish what was proper in the place and time; and, in the same manner, she could patiently continue unemployed, when there was nothing to be done. This activity without need of occupation I have never elsewhere met with. In particular, her conduct to the suffering and destitute was, from her earliest youth, inimitable. For my part, I freely confess I never had the gift to make a business of beneficence: I was not niggardly to the poor; nay, I often gave too largely for my means; yet this was little more than buying myself off: and a person needed to be made for me, if I was to bestow attention on him. Directly the reverse was the conduct of my niece. I never saw her give a poor man money: whatever she obtained from me for this purpose, she failed not in the first place to change for some necessary article. Never did she seem more lovely in my eyes, than when rummaging my clothes-presses: she was always sure to light on something which I did not wear and did not need; to sew these old cast-off articles together, and put them on some ragged child, she thought her highest happiness.

Her sister’s turn of mind appeared already different: she had much of her mother; she promised to become very elegant and beautiful, and she now bids fair to keep her promise. She is greatly taken up with her exterior: from her earliest years she could decorate and carry herself in a way that struck you. I still remember with what ecstasy, when quite a little creature, she saw herself in a mirror, decked in certain precious pearls, once my mother’s, which she had by chance discovered, and made me try upon her.

Reflecting on these diverse inclinations, it was pleasant for me to consider how my property would, after my decease, be shared among them, and again called into use. I saw the fowling-pieces of my father once more travelling round the fields on my nephew’s shoulder, and birds once more falling from his hunting-pouch: I saw my whole wardrobe issuing from the church, at Easter Confirmation, on the persons of tidy little girls; while the best pieces of it were employed to decorate some virtuous burgher maiden on her marriage-day. In furnishing such children and poor little girls, Natalia had a singular delight; though, as I must here remark, she showed not the smallest love, or, if I may say it, smallest need, of a dependence upon any visible or invisible Being, such as I had in my youth so strongly manifested.

When I also thought that the younger sister, on that same day, would wear my jewels and pearls at court, I could see with peace my possessions, like my body, given back to the elements.

The children waxed apace: to my comfort, they are healthy, handsome, clever creatures. That my uncle keeps them from me, I endure without repining: when staying in the neighborhood, or even in town, they seldom see me.

A singular personage, regarded as a French clergyman, though no one rightly knows his history, has been intrusted with the oversight of all these children. He has them taught in various places: they are put to board now here, now there.

At first I could perceive no plan whatever in this mode of education; till at last our doctor told me the abbé had convinced my uncle, that, in order to accomplish any thing by education, we must first become acquainted with the pupil’s tendencies and wishes; that, these once ascertained, he ought to be transported to a situation where he may, as speedily as possible, content the former and attain the latter, and so, if he have been mistaken, may still in time perceive his error, and at last, having found what suits him, may hold the faster by it, may the more diligently fashion himself according to it. I wish this strange experiment may prosper: with such excellent natures it is, perhaps, possible.

But there is one peculiarity in these instructors, which I never shall approve of: they study to seclude the children from whatever might awaken them to an acquaintance with themselves and with the invisible, sole, faithful Friend. I often take it ill of my uncle, that, on this account, he considers me dangerous for the little ones. Thus in practice there is no man tolerant! Many assure us that they willingly leave each to take his own way, yet all endeavor to exclude from action every one that does not think as they do.

This removal of the children troubles me the more, the more I am convinced of the reality of my belief. How can it fail to have a heavenly origin, an actual object, when in practice it is so effectual? Is it not by practice alone that we prove our own existence? Why, then, may we not, by a like mode, prove to ourselves the influence of that Power who gives us all good things?

That I am still advancing, never retrograding; that my conduct is approximating more and more to the image I have formed of perfection; that I every day feel more facility in doing what I reckon proper, even while the weakness of my body so obstructs me,  —  can all this be accounted for upon the principles of human nature, whose corruption I have so clearly seen into? For me, at least, it cannot.

I scarcely remember a commandment: to me there is nothing that assumes the aspect of law; it is an impulse that leads me, and guides me always aright. I freely follow my emotions, and know as little of constraint as of repentance. God be praised that I know to whom I am indebted for such happiness, and that I cannot think of it without humility! There is no danger I should ever become proud of what I myself can do or can forbear to do: I have seen too well what a monster might be formed and nursed in every human bosom, did not higher Influence restrain us.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

Spring had come in all its brilliancy; a storm that had been lowering all day went fiercely down upon the hills; the rain drew back into the country; the sun came forth in all its splendor, and upon the dark vapor rose the lordly rainbow. Wilhelm was riding towards it: the sight made him sad. “Ah!” said he within himself, “must it be that the fairest hues of life appear to us only on a ground of black? And must drops fall, if we are to be enraptured? A bright day is like a dull day, if we look at it unmoved; and what can move us but some silent hope that the inborn inclination of our soul shall not always be without an object? The recital of a noble action moves us; the sight of every thing harmonious moves us: we feel then as if we were not altogether in a foreign land; we fancy we are nearer the home towards which our best and inmost wishes impatiently strive.”

Meanwhile a pedestrian overtook him, and, walking with a stout step by the side of the horse, began to keep him company. After a few common words, he looked at the rider, and said, “If I am not mistaken, I must have already seen you somewhere.”

“I, too, remember you,” said Wilhelm: “had we not some time ago a pleasant sail together?”  —  “Right!” replied the other.

Wilhelm looked at him more narrowly, then, after a pause, observed, “I do not know what alteration has occurred in you. Last time we met, I took you for a Lutheran country clergyman: you now seem to me more like a Catholic priest.”

“To-day, at least, you are not wrong,” replied the other, taking off his hat, and showing him the tonsure. “Where is your company gone? Did you stay long with them?”

“Longer than was good: on looking back upon the period which I passed in their society, it seems as if I looked into an endless void; nothing of it has remained with me.”

“Here you are mistaken,” said the stranger: “every thing that happens to us leaves some trace behind it; every thing contributes imperceptibly to form us. Yet often it is dangerous to take a strict account of that. For either we grow proud and negligent, or downcast and dispirited; and both are equally injurious in their consequences. The safe plan is, always simply to do the task that lies nearest us; and this in the present case,” added he, with a smile, “is to hasten to our quarters.”

Wilhelm asked how far Lothario’s house was distant: the stranger answered that it lay behind the hill. “Perhaps I shall meet you there,” continued he: “I have merely a small affair to manage in the neighborhood. Farewell till then!” And, with this, he struck into a steep path that seemed to lead more speedily across the hill.

“Yes, the man is right!” said Wilhelm to himself, as he proceeded: “we should think of what is nearest; and for me, at present, there is nothing nearer than the mournful errand I have come to do. Let me see whether I can still repeat the speech, which is to put that cruel man to shame.”

He then began reciting to himself this piece of oratory: not a syllable was wanting; and the more his recollection served him, the higher grew his passion and his courage. Aurelia’s sorrows and her death were vividly present to his soul.

“Spirit of my friend!” exclaimed he, “hover round me, and, if thou canst, give some sign to me that thou art softened, art appeased!”

Amid such words and meditations, he had reached the summit of the hill; and, near the foot of its declivity, he now beheld a curious building, which he at once took to be Lothario’s dwelling. An old, irregular castle, with several turrets and peaked roofs, appeared to have been the primitive erection; but the new additions to it, placed near the main structure, looked still more irregular. A part of them stood close upon the main edifice: others, at some distance, were combined with it by galleries and covered passages. All external symmetry, every shade of architectural beauty, appeared to have been sacrificed to the convenience of the interior. No trace of wall or trench was to be seen; none of avenues or artificial gardens. A fruit and pot-herb garden reached to the very buildings, and little patches of a like sort showed themselves even in the intermediate spaces. A cheerful village lay at no great distance: the fields and gardens everywhere appeared in the highest state of cultivation.

Sunk in his own impassioned feelings, Wilhelm rode along, not thinking much of what he saw: he put up his horse at an inn, and, not without emotion, hastened to the castle.

An old serving-man received him at the door, and signified, with much good-nature, that to-day it would be difficult to get admission to his lordship, who was occupied in writing letters, and had already refused some people that had business with him. Our friend became more importunate: the old man was at last obliged to yield, and announce him. He returned, and conducted Wilhelm to a spacious, ancient hall; desiring him to be so good as wait, since perhaps it might be some time before his lordship could appear. Our friend walked up and down unrestfully, casting now and then a look at the knights and dames whose ancient figures hung round him on the walls. He repeated the beginning of his speech: it seemed, in presence of these ruffs and coats of mail, to answer even better. Every time there rose any stir, he put himself in posture to receive his man with dignity; meaning first to hand him the letter, then assail him with the weapons of reproach.

More than once mistaken, he was now beginning to be really vexed and out of tune, when at last a handsome man, in boots and light surtout, stepped in from a side-door. “What good news have you for me?” said he to Wilhelm, with a friendly voice: “pardon me, that I have made you wait.”

So speaking, he kept folding a letter which he held in his hand. Wilhelm, not without embarrassment, delivered him Aurelia’s paper, and replied, “I bring you the last words of a friend, which you will not read without emotion.”

Lothario took it, and returned to his chamber with it; where, as Wilhelm through the open door could very easily observe, he addressed and sealed some letters before opening Aurelia’s. He appeared to have perused it once or twice; and Wilhelm, though his feelings signified that the pathetic speech would sort but ill with such a cool reception, girded up his mind, went forward to the threshold, and was just about beginning his address, when a tapestry-door of the cabinet opened, and the clergyman came in.

“I have got the strangest message you can think of,” cried Lothario to him. “Pardon me,” continued he, addressing Wilhelm, “if I am not in a mood for speaking further with you at this moment. You remain with us to-night: you, abbé, see the stranger properly attended to.”

With these words, he made his guest a bow: the clergyman took Wilhelm by the hand, who followed, not without reluctance.

They walked along some curious passages in silence, and at last reached a very pretty chamber. The abbé led him in, then left him, making no excuses. Erelong an active boy appeared: he introduced himself as Wilhelm’s valet, and brought up his supper. In waiting, he had much to say about the order of the house, about their breakfasting and dining, labors and amusements; interspersing many things in commendation of Lothario.

Pleasant as the boy was, Wilhelm endeavored to get rid of him as soon as possible. He wished to be alone, for he felt exceedingly oppressed and straitened in his new position. He reproached himself with having executed his intention so ill, with having done his errand only half. One moment, he proposed to undertake next morning what he had neglected to-night; the next, he saw, that, by Lothario’s presence, he would be attuned to quite a different set of feelings. The house, too, where he was, seemed very strange to him: he could not be at home in his position. Intending to undress, he opened his travelling-bag: with his night-clothes, he took out the Spirit’s veil, which Mignon had packed in along with them. The sight of it increased the sadness of his humor. “Flee, youth! flee!” cried he. “What means this mystic word? What am I to flee, or whither? It were better had the Spirit called to me, Return to thyself!” He cast his eyes on some English copper-plates hung round the room in frames; most of them he looked at with indifference: at last he met with one, in which a ship was represented sinking in a tempest; a father, with his lovely daughters, was awaiting death from the intrusive billows. One of the maidens had a kind of likeness to the Amazon: an indescribable compassion seized our friend; he felt an irresistible necessity to vent his feelings; tears filled his eyes, he wept, and did not recover his composure till slumber overpowered him.

Strange dreams arose upon him towards morning. He was in a garden, which in boyhood he had often visited: he looked with pleasure at the well-known alleys, hedges, flower-beds. Mariana met him: he spoke to her with love and tenderness, recollecting nothing of any by-gone grievance. Erelong his father joined them, in his week-day dress; with a look of frankness that was rare in him, he bade his son fetch two seats from the garden-house; then took Mariana by the hand, and led her into a grove.

Wilhelm hastened to the garden-house, but found it altogether empty: only at a window in the farther side he saw Aurelia standing. He went forward, and addressed her, but she turned not round; and, though he placed himself beside her, he could never see her face. He looked out from the window: in an unknown garden, there were several people, some of whom he recognized. Frau Melina, seated under a tree, was playing with a rose which she had in her hand: Laertes stood beside her, counting money from the one hand to the other. Mignon and Felix were lying on the grass, the former on her back, the latter on his face. Philina came, and clapped her hands above the children: Mignon lay unmoved; Felix started up and fled. At first he laughed while running, as Philina followed; but he screamed in terror when he saw the harper coming after him with large, slow steps. Felix ran directly to a pond. Wilhelm hastened after him: too late; the child was lying in the water! Wilhelm stood as if rooted to the spot. The fair Amazon appeared on the other side of the pond: she stretched her right hand towards the child, and walked along the shore. The child came through the water, by the course her finger pointed to; he followed her as she went round; at last she reached her hand to him, and pulled him out. Wilhelm had come nearer: the child was all in flames; fiery drops were falling from his body. Wilhelm’s agony was greater than ever; but instantly the Amazon took a white veil from her head, and covered up the child with it. The fire was at once quenched. But, when she lifted up the veil, two boys sprang out from under it, and frolicsomely sported to and fro; while Wilhelm and the Amazon proceeded hand in hand across the garden, and noticed in the distance Mariana and his father walking in an alley, which was formed of lofty trees, and seemed to go quite round the garden. He turned his steps to them, and, with his beautiful attendant, was moving through the garden, when suddenly the fair-haired Friedrich came across their path, and kept them back with loud laughter and a thousand tricks. Still, however, they insisted on proceeding; and Friedrich hastened off, running towards Mariana and the father. These seemed to flee before him; he pursued the faster, till Wilhelm saw them hovering down the alley almost as on wings. Nature and inclination called on him to go and help them, but the hand of the Amazon detained him. How gladly did he let himself be held! With this mingled feeling he awoke, and found his chamber shining with the morning beams.

CHAPTER II.

Our friend was called to breakfast by the boy: he found the abbé waiting in the hall; Lothario, it appeared, had ridden out. The abbé was not very talkative, but rather wore a thoughtful look: he inquired about Aurelia’s death, and listened to our friend’s recital of it with apparent sympathy. “Ah!” cried he, “the man that discerns, with lively clearness, what infinite operations art and nature must have joined in before a cultivated human being can be formed; the man that himself as much as possible takes interest in the culture of his fellow-men,  —  is ready to despair when he sees how lightly mortals will destroy themselves, will blamelessly or blamably expose themselves to be destroyed. When I think of these things, life itself appears to me so uncertain a gift, that I could praise the man who does not value it beyond its worth.”

Scarcely had he spoken, when the door flew violently up: a young lady came rushing in; she pushed away the old servant, who attempted to restrain her. She made right to the abbé, and seized him by the arm: her tears and sobs would hardly let her speak these words: “Where is he? Where have you put him? ’Tis a frightful treachery! Confess it now! I know what you are doing: I will after him,  —  will know where you have sent him!”

“Be calm, my child,” replied the abbé, with assumed composure; “come with me to your room: you shall know it all; only you must have the strength to listen, if you ask me to relate.” He offered her his hand, as if he meant to lead her out. “I will not return to my room,” cried she: “I hate the walls where you have kept me prisoner so long. I know it already: the colonel has challenged him; he is gone to meet his enemy: perhaps this very moment he  —  once or twice I thought I heard the sound of shots! I tell you, order out a coach, and come along with me, or I will fill the house and all the village with my screaming.”

Weeping bitterly, she hastened to the window: the abbé held her back, and sought in vain to soothe her.

They heard a sound of wheels: she threw up the window, exclaiming, “He is dead! They are bringing home his body.”  —  “He is coming out,” replied the abbé: “you perceive he lives.”  —  “He is wounded,” said she wildly, “else he would have come on horseback. They are holding him! The wound is dangerous!” She ran to the door, and down the stairs: the abbé hastened after her; and Wilhelm, following, observed the fair one meet her lover, who had now dismounted.

Lothario leaned on his attendant, whom Wilhelm at once knew as his ancient patron, Jarno. The wounded man spoke very tenderly and kindly to the tearful damsel: he rested on her shoulder, and came slowly up the steps, saluted Wilhelm as he passed, and was conducted to his cabinet.

Jarno soon returned, and, going up to Wilhelm, “It appears,” said he, “you are predestined everywhere to find a theatre and actors. We have here commenced a play which is not altogether pleasant.”

“I rejoice to find you,” answered Wilhelm, “in so strange an hour: I am astonished, frightened; and your presence already quiets my mind. Tell me, is there danger? Is the baron badly wounded?”

“I imagine not,” said Jarno.

It was not long till the young surgeon entered from the cabinet. “Now, what say you?” cried Jarno to him. “That it is a dangerous piece of work,” replied the other, putting several instruments into his leathern pouch. Wilhelm looked at the band, which was hanging from the pouch: he fancied he knew it. Bright, contrary colors, a curious pattern, gold and silver wrought in singular figures, marked this band from all the bands in the world. Wilhelm was convinced he beheld the very pouch of the ancient surgeon who had dressed his wounds in the green of the forest; and the hope, so long deferred, of again finding traces of the lovely Amazon, struck like a flame through all his soul.

“Where did you get that pouch?” cried he. “To whom did it belong before you? I beg of you, tell me.”  —  “I bought it at an auction,” said the other: “what is it to me whom it belonged to?” So speaking, he went out; and Jarno said, “If there would come but one word of truth from our young doctor’s mouth!”  —  “Then, he did not buy the pouch?” said Wilhelm. “Just as little as Lothario is in danger,” said the other.

Wilhelm stood, immersed in many reflections: Jarno asked how he had fared of late. Wilhelm sketched an outline of his history; and when he at last came to speak of Aurelia’s death, and his message to the place, his auditor exclaimed, “Well! it is strange! most strange!”

The abbé entered from Lothario’s chamber, beckoned Jarno to go in instead of him, and said to Wilhelm, “The baron bids me ask you to remain with us a day or two, to share his hospitality, and, in the present circumstances, contribute to his solacement. If you need to give any notice to your people, your letter shall be instantly despatched. Meanwhile, to make you understand this curious incident, of which you have been witness, I must tell you something, which, indeed, is no secret. The baron had a small adventure with a lady, which excited more than usual attention; the lady having taken him from a rival, and wishing to enjoy her victory too ostentatiously. After a time he no longer found the same delight in her society; which he, of course, forsook: but, being of a violent temper, she could not bear her fate with patience. Meeting at a ball, they had an open quarrel: she thought herself irreparably injured, and would be revenged. No knight stepped forth to do battle for her; till her husband, whom for years she had not lived with, heard of the affair and took it up. He challenged the baron, and to-day he has wounded him; yet, as I hear, the gallant colonel has himself come still worse off.”

From this hour our friend was treated in the house as if he had belonged to it.

CHAPTER III.

At times they had read a little to the patient: Wilhelm joyfully performed this service. Lydia stirred not from Lothario’s bed: her care for him absorbed her whole attention. But to-day the patient himself seemed occupied with thought: he bade them lay aside their book. “To-day,” said he, “I feel through my whole heart how foolishly we let our time pass on. How many things have I proposed to do, how many have I planned; yet how we loiter in our noblest purposes! I have just read over the scheme of the changes which I mean to make in my estates; and it is chiefly, I may say, on their account that I rejoice at the bullet’s not having gone a deadlier road.”

Lydia looked at him with tenderness, with tears in her eyes; as if to ask if she, if his friends, could not pretend to any interest in his wish to live. Jarno answered, “Changes such as you project require to be considered well on every side before they are resolved on.”

“Long considerations,” said Lothario, “are commonly a proof that we have not the point to be determined clearly in our eye; precipitate proceedings, that we do not know it. I see distinctly, that, in managing my property, there are several particulars in which the services of my dependants cannot be remitted; certain rights which I must rigidly insist on: but I also see that there are other articles, advantageous to me, but by no means indispensable, which might admit of relaxation. Do I not profit by my lands far better than my father did? Is not my income still increasing? And shall I alone enjoy this growing benefit? Shall not those who labor with and for me partake, in their degree, of the advantages which expanding knowledge, which a period of improvement, are procuring for us?”

“’Tis human nature!” cried Jarno: “I do not blame myself when I detect this selfish quality among the rest. Every man desires to gather all things round him, to shape and manage them according to his own pleasure: the money which he himself does not expend, he seldom reckons well expended.”

“Certainly,” observed Lothario, “much of the capital might be abated if we consumed the interest less capriciously.”

“The only thing I shall mention,” said the other, “the only reason I can urge against your now proceeding with those alterations, which, for a time at least, must cause you loss, is, that you yourself are still in debt, and that the payment presses hard on you. My advice is, therefore, to postpone your plan till you are altogether free.”

“And in the mean while leave it at the mercy of a bullet, or the fall of a tile, to annihilate the whole result of my existence and activity! O my friend! it is ever thus: it is ever the besetting fault of cultivated men, that they wish to spend their whole resources on some idea, scarcely any part of them on tangible, existing objects. Why was it that I contracted debts, that I quarrelled with my uncle, that I left my sisters to themselves so long? Purely for the sake of an idea. In America I fancied I might accomplish something; over seas, I hoped to become useful and essential: if any task was not begirt with a thousand dangers, I considered it trivial, unworthy of me. How differently do matters now appear! How precious, how important, seems the duty which is nearest me, whatever it may be!”

“I recollect the letter which you sent me from the Western world,” said Jarno: “it contains the words, ‘I will return; and in my house, amid my fields, among my people, I will say, Here or nowhere is America!’“

“Yes, my friend; and I am still repeating it, and still repining at myself that I am not so busy here as I was there. For certain equable, continuous modes of life, there is nothing more than judgment necessary, and we study to attain nothing more: so that we become unable to discern what extraordinary services each vulgar day requires of us; or, if we do discern them, we find abundance of excuses for not doing them. A judicious man is valuable to himself, but of little value for the general whole.”

“We will not,” said Jarno, “bear too hard upon judgment: let us grant, that, whenever extraordinary things are done, they are generally foolish.”

“Yes! and just because they are not done according to the proper plan. My brother-in-law, you see, is giving up his fortune, so far as in his power, to the Community of Herrnhut: he reckons, that, by doing so, he is advancing the salvation of his soul. Had he sacrificed a small portion of his revenue, he might have rendered many people happy, might have made for them and for himself a heaven upon earth. Our sacrifices are rarely of an active kind: we, as it were, abandon what we give away. It is not from resolution, but despair, that we renounce our property. In these days, I confess it, the image of the count is hovering constantly before me: I have firmly resolved on doing from conviction what a crazy fear is forcing upon him. I will not wait for being cured. Here are the papers: they require only to be properly drawn out. Take the lawyer with you; our guest will help: what I want, you know as well as I; recovering or dying. I will stand by it, and say, Here or nowhere is Herrnhut!”

When he mentioned dying, Lydia sank before his bed: she hung upon his arm, and wept bitterly. The surgeon entered: Jarno gave our friend the papers, and made Lydia leave the room.

“For Heaven’s sake! what is this about the count?” cried Wilhelm, when they reached the hall and were alone. “What count is it that means to join the Herrnhuters?”

“One whom you know very well,” said Jarno. “You yourself are the ghost who have frightened the unhappy wiseacre into piety: you are the villain who have brought his pretty wife to such a state that she inclines accompanying him.”

“And she is Lothario’s sister?” cried our friend.

“No other!”  —  “And Lothario knows”  — 

“The whole!”

“Oh, let me fly!” cried Wilhelm. “How shall I appear before him? What can he say to me?”

“That no man should cast a stone at his brother; that when one composes long speeches, with a view to shame his neighbors, he should speak them to a looking-glass.”

“Do you know that too?”

“And many things beside,” said Jarno, with a smile. “But in the present case,” continued he, “you shall not get away from me so easily as you did last time. You need not now be apprehensive of my bounty-money: I have ceased to be a soldier; when I was one, you might have thought more charitably of me. Since you saw me, many things have altered. My prince, my only friend and benefactor, being dead, I have now withdrawn from busy life and its concerns. I used to have a pleasure in advancing what was reasonable; when I met with any despicable thing, I hesitated not to call it so; and men had never done with talking of my restless head and wicked tongue. The herd of people dread sound understanding more than any thing: they ought to dread stupidity, if they had any notion what was really dreadful. Understanding is unpleasant, they must have it pushed aside; stupidity is but pernicious, they can let it stay. Well, be it so! I need to live: I will by and by communicate my plans to you; if you incline, you shall partake in them. But tell me first how things have gone with you. I see, I feel, that you are changed. How is it with your ancient maggot of producing something beautiful and good in the society of gypsies?”

“Do not speak of it!” cried Wilhelm: “I have been already punished for it. People talk about the stage, but none that has not been upon it can form the smallest notion of it. How utterly these men are unacquainted with themselves, how thoughtlessly they carry on their trade, how boundless their pretensions are, no mortal can conceive. Each would be not only first, but sole; each wishes to exclude the rest, and does not see that even with them he can scarcely accomplish any thing. Each thinks himself a man of marvellous originality; yet, with a ravening appetite for novelty, he cannot walk a footstep from the beaten track. How vehemently they counterwork each other! It is only the pitifullest self-love, the narrowest views of interest, that unite them. Of reciprocal accommodation they have no idea: backbiting and hidden spitefulness maintain a constant jealousy among them. In their lives they are either rakes or simpletons. Each claims the loftiest respect, each writhes under the slightest blame. ‘All this he knew already,’ he will tell you! Why, then, did he not do it? Ever needy, ever unconfiding, they seem as if their greatest fear were reason and good taste; their highest care, to secure the majesty of their self-will.”

Wilhelm drew breath, intending to proceed with his eulogium, when an immoderate laugh from Jarno interrupted him. “Poor actors!” cried he; threw himself into a chair, and laughed away. “Poor, dear actors! Do you know, my friend,” continued he, recovering from his fit, “that you have been describing, not the playhouse, but the world; that, out of all ranks, I could find you characters and doings in abundance to suit your cruel pencil? Pardon me: it makes me laugh again, that you should think these amiable qualities existed on the boards alone.”

Wilhelm checked his feelings. Jarno’s extravagant, untimely laughter had in truth offended him. “It is scarcely hiding your misanthropy,” said he, “when you maintain that faults like these are universal.”

“And it shows your unacquaintance with the world, when you impute them to the theatre in such a heinous light. I pardon, in the player, every fault that springs from self-deception and the desire to please. If he seem not something to himself and others, he is nothing. To seem is his vocation; he must prize his moment of applause, for he gets no other recompense; he must try to glitter,  —  he is there to do so.”

“You will give me leave at least to smile, in my turn,” answered Wilhelm. “I should never have believed that you could be so merciful, so tolerant.”

“I swear to you I am serious, fully and deliberately serious. All faults of the man I can pardon in the player: no fault of the player can I pardon in the man. Do not set me upon chanting my lament about the latter: it might have a sharper sound than yours.”

The surgeon entered from the cabinet; and, to the question how his patient was, he answered, with a lively air of complaisance, “Extremely well, indeed: I hope soon to see him quite recovered.” He hastened through the hall, not waiting Wilhelm’s speech, who was preparing to inquire again with greater importunity about the leathern case. His anxiety to gain some tidings of his Amazon inspired him with confidence in Jarno: he disclosed his case to him, and begged his help. “You that know so many things,” said he, “can you not discover this?”

Jarno reflected for a moment; then, turning to his friend, “Be calm,” said he, “give no one any hint of it: we shall come upon the fair one’s footsteps, never fear. At present I am anxious only for Lothario: the case is dangerous; the kindliness and comfortable talking of the doctor tells me so. We should be quit of Lydia, for here she does no good; but how to set about the task I know not. To-night I am looking for our old physician: we shall then take further counsel.”

CHAPTER IV.

The physician came: it was the good, old, little doctor whom we know already, and to whom we were obliged for the communication of the pious manuscript. First of all, he visited the wounded man, with whose condition he appeared to be by no means satisfied. He had next a long interview with Jarno, but they made no allusion to the subject of it when they came to supper.

Wilhelm saluted him in the kindest manner, and inquired about the harper. “We have still hopes of bringing round the hapless creature,” answered the physician. “He formed a dreary item in your limited and singular way of life,” said Jarno. “How has it fared with him? Tell me.”

Having satisfied Jarno’s curiosity, the physician thus proceeded: “I have never seen another man so strangely circumstanced. For many years he has not felt the smallest interest in any thing without him, scarcely paid the smallest notice to it: wrapped up in himself, he has looked at nothing but his own hollow, empty Me, which seemed to him like an immeasurable abyss. It was really touching when he spoke to us of this mournful state. ‘Before me,’ cried he, ‘I see nothing; behind me nothing but an endless night, in which I live in the most horrid solitude. There is no feeling in me but the feeling of my guilt; and this appears but like a dim, formless spirit, far before me. Yet here there is no height, no depth, no forwards, no backwards: no words can express this never-changing state. Often in the agony of this sameness I exclaim with violence, Forever! Forever! and this dark, incomprehensible word is clear and plain to the gloom of my condition. No ray of Divinity illuminates this night: I shed all my tears by myself and for myself. Nothing is more horrible to me than friendship and love, for they alone excite in me the wish that the apparitions which surround me might be real. But these two spectres also have arisen from the abyss to plague me, and at length to tear from me the precious consciousness of my existence, unearthly though it be.’

“You should hear him speak,” continued the physician, “when in hours of confidence he thus alleviates his heart. I have listened to him often with the deepest feelings. When pressed by any thing, and, as it were, compelled for an instant to confess that a space of time has passed, he looks astounded, then again refers the alteration to the things about him, considering it as an appearance of appearances, and so rejecting the idea of progress in duration. One night he sung a song about his gray hairs: we all sat round him weeping.”

“Oh, get it for me!” cried Wilhelm.

“But have you not discovered any trace of what he calls his crime?” inquired Jarno: “nor found out the reason of his wearing such a singular garb; of his conduct at the burning of the house; of his rage against the child?”

“It is only by conjectures that we can approximate to any knowledge of his fate: to question him directly contradicts our principle. Observing easily that he was of the Catholic religion, we thought perhaps confession might afford him some assuagement; but he shrinks away with the strangest gestures every time we try to introduce the priest to him. However, not to leave your curiosity respecting him entirely unsatisfied, I may communicate our suppositions on the subject. In his youth, we think, he must have been a clergyman: hence probably his wish to keep his beard and long cloak. The joys of love appear to have remained for many years unknown to him. Late in life, as we conceive, some aberration with a lady very nearly related to him; then her death, the consequence of an unlucky creature’s birth,  —  have altogether crazed his brain.

“His chief delusion is a fancy that he brings misfortune everywhere along with him; and that death, to be unwittingly occasioned by a boy, is constantly impending over him. At first he was afraid of Mignon, not knowing that she was a girl; then Felix frightened him; and as, with all his misery, he has a boundless love of life, this may, perhaps, have been the origin of his aversion to the child.”

“What hopes have you of his recovery?” inquired our friend.

“It advances slowly,” answered the physician, “yet it does advance. He continues his appointed occupations: we have now accustomed him to read the newspapers; he always looks for them with eagerness.”

“I am curious about his songs,” said Jarno.

“Of these I can engage to get you several,” replied the doctor. “Our parson’s eldest son, who frequently writes down his father’s sermons, has, unnoticed by the harper, marked on paper many stanzas of his singing; out of which some songs have gradually been pieced together.”

Next morning Jarno met our friend, and said to him, “We have to ask a kindness of you. Lydia must, for some time, be removed: her violent, unreasonable love and passionateness hinder the baron’s recovery. His wound requires rest and calmness, though with his healthy temperament it is not dangerous. You see how Lydia tortures him with her tempestuous anxieties, her ungovernable terrors, her never-drying tears; and  —  Enough!” he added with a smile, after pausing for a moment, “our doctor expressly requires that she must quit us for a while. We have got her to believe that a lady, one of her most intimate friends, is at present in the neighborhood, wishing and expecting instantly to see her. She has been prevailed upon to undertake a journey to our lawyer’s, which is but two leagues off. This man is in the secret: he will wofully lament that Fräulein Theresa should just have left him again; he will seem to think she may still be overtaken. Lydia will hasten after her, and, if you prosper, will be led from place to place. At last, if she insist on turning back, you must not contradict her; but the night will help you: the coachman is a cunning knave, and we shall speak with him before he goes. You are to travel with her in the coach, to talk to her, and manage the adventure.”

“It is a strange and dubious commission that you give me,” answered Wilhelm. “How painful is the sight of true love injured! And am I to be the instrument of injuring it? I have never cheated any person so; for it has always seemed to me, that if we once begin deceiving, with a view to good and useful purposes, we run the risk of carrying it to excess.”

“Yet you cannot manage children otherwise,” said Jarno.

“With children it may do,” said Wilhelm; “for we love them tenderly, and take an open charge of them. But with our equals, in behalf of whom our heart is not so sure to call upon us for forbearance, it might frequently be dangerous. Yet do not think,” he added, after pausing for a moment, “that I purpose to decline the task on this account. Honoring your judgment as I do, feeling such attachment to your noble friend, such eagerness to forward his recovery by whatever means, I willingly forget myself and my opinions. It is not enough that we can risk our life to serve a friend: in the hour of need, we should also yield him our convictions. Our dearest passions, our best wishes, we are bound to sacrifice in helping him. I undertake the charge; though it is easy to foresee the pain I shall have to suffer, from the tears, from the despair, of Lydia.”

“And, for this, no small reward awaits you,” answered Jarno: “Fräulein Theresa, whom you get acquainted with, is a lady such as you will rarely see. She puts many a man to shame; I may say, she is a genuine Amazon: while others are but pretty counterfeits, that wander up and down the world in that ambiguous dress.”

Wilhelm was struck: he almost fancied that in Theresa he would find his Amazon again; especially as Jarno, whom he importuned to tell him more, broke off abruptly, and went away.

The new, near hope of once more seeing that beloved and honored being awoke a thousand feelings in his heart. He now looked upon the task which had been given him as the intervention of a special Providence: the thought that he was minded treacherously to carry off a helpless girl from the object of her sincerest, warmest love dwelt but a moment in his mind, as the shadow of a bird flits over the sunshiny earth.

The coach was at the door: Lydia lingered for a moment, as she was about to mount. “Salute your lord again for me,” said she to the old servant: “tell him that I shall be home before night.” Tears were standing in her eyes as she again looked back when the carriage started. She then turned round to Wilhelm, made an effort to compose herself, and said, “In Fräulein Theresa you will find a very interesting person. I wonder what it is that brings her hither; for, you must know, Lothario and she once passionately loved each other. In spite of the distance, he often used to visit her: I was staying with her then; I thought they would have lived and died for one another. But all at once it went to wreck, no creature could discover why. He had seen me, and I must confess that I was envious of Theresa’s fortune; that I scarcely hid my love from him; that, when he suddenly appeared to choose me in her stead, I could not but accept of him. She behaved to me beyond my wishes, though it almost seemed as if I had robbed her of this precious lover. But, ah! how many thousand tears and pains that love of his has cost me! At first we met only now and then, and by stealth, at some appointed place: but I could not long endure that kind of life; in his presence only was I happy, wholly happy! Far from him, my eyes were never dry, my pulse was never calm. Once he staid away for several days: I was altogether in despair; I ordered out my carriage, and surprised him here. He received me tenderly; and, had not this unlucky quarrel happened, I should have led a heavenly life with him. But, since the time he began to be in danger and in pain, I shall not say what I have suffered: at this moment I am bitterly reproaching myself that I could leave him for a single day.”

Wilhelm was proceeding to inquire about Theresa, when they reached the lawyer’s house. This gentleman came forward to the coach, lamenting wofully that Fräulein Theresa was already gone. He invited them to breakfast; signifying, however, that the lady might be overtaken in the nearest village. They determined upon following her: the coachman did not loiter; they had soon passed several villages, and yet come up with nobody. Lydia now gave orders for returning: the coachman drove along, as if he did not understand her. As she insisted with redoubled vehemence, Wilhelm called to him, and gave the promised token. The coachman answered that it was not necessary to go back by the same road: he knew a shorter, and, at the same time, greatly easier one. He turned aside across a wood, and over large commons. At last, no object they could recognize appearing, he confessed that unfortunately he had lost his way; declaring, at the same time, that he would soon get right again, as he saw a little town before him. Night came on: the coachman managed so discreetly, that he asked everywhere, and nowhere waited for an answer. He drove along all night: Lydia never closed an eye; in the moonshine she was constantly detecting similarities, which as constantly turned out to be dissimilar. In the morning things around seemed known to her, and but more strange on that account. The coach drew up before a neat little country-house: a young lady stepped out, and opened the carriage-door. Lydia looked at her with a stare of wonder, looked round, looked at her again, and fainted in the arms of Wilhelm.

CHAPTER V.

Wilhelm was conducted to a little upper room: the house was new, as small nearly as it could be, and extremely orderly and clean. In Theresa, who had welcomed him and Lydia at the coach, he had not found his Amazon: she was another and an altogether different woman. Handsome, and but of middle stature, she moved about with great alertness; and it seemed as if her clear, blue, open eyes let nothing that occurred escape them.

She entered Wilhelm’s room, inquiring if he wanted any thing. “Pardon me,” said she, “for having lodged you in a chamber which the smell of paint still renders disagreeable: my little dwelling is but just made ready; you are handselling this room, which is appointed for my guests. Would that you had come on some more pleasant errand! Poor Lydia is like to be a dull companion: in other points, also, you will have much to pardon. My cook has run away from me, at this unseasonable time; and a serving-man has bruised his hand. The case might happen I had to manage every thing myself; and if it were so, why, then we should just put up with it. One is plagued so with nobody as with one’s servants: none of them will serve you, scarcely even serve himself.”

She said a good deal more on different matters: in general she seemed to like speaking. Wilhelm inquired for Lydia,  —  if he might not see her, and endeavor to excuse himself.

“It will have no effect at present,” said Theresa: “time excuses, as it comforts. Words, in both cases, are of little effect. Lydia will not see you. ‘Keep him from my sight,’ she cried, when I was leaving her: ‘I could almost despair of human nature. Such an honorable countenance, so frank a manner, and this secret guile!’ Lothario she has quite forgiven: in a letter to the poor girl, he declares, ‘My friends persuaded me, my friends compelled me!’ Among these she reckons you, and she condemns you with the rest.”

“She does me too much honor in so blaming me,” said Wilhelm: “I have no pretension to the friendship of that noble gentleman; on this occasion, I am but a guiltless instrument. I will not praise what I have done: it is enough that I could do it. It concerned the health, it concerned the life, of a man whom I value more than any one I ever knew before. Oh, what a man is he, Fräulein! and what men are they that live about him! In their society, I for the first time, I may well say, carried on a conversation; for the first time, was the inmost sense of my words returned to me, more rich, more full, more comprehensive, from another’s mouth; what I had been groping for was rendered clear to me; what I had been thinking I was taught to see. Unfortunately this enjoyment was disturbed, at first by numerous anxieties and whims, and then by this unpleasant task. I undertook it with submission; for I reckoned it my duty, even though I sacrificed my feelings, to comply with the request of this gifted company of men.”

While he spoke, Theresa had been looking at him with a very friendly air. “Oh, how sweet is it to hear one’s own opinion uttered by a stranger tongue! We are never properly ourselves until another thinks entirely as we do. My own opinion of Lothario is perfectly the same as yours: it is not every one that does him justice, and therefore all that know him better are enthusiastic in esteem of him. The painful sentiment that mingles with the memory of him in my heart cannot hinder me from thinking of him daily.” A sigh heaved her bosom as she spoke thus, and a lovely tear glittered in her right eye. “Think not,” continued she, “that I am so weak, so easy to be moved. It is but the eye that weeps. There was a little wart upon the under eyelid; they have happily removed it, but the eye has been weak ever since; the smallest cause brings a tear into it. Here sat the little wart: you cannot see a vestige of it now.”

He saw no vestige, but he saw into her eye; it was clear as crystal: he almost imagined he could see to the very bottom of her soul.

“We have now,” said she, “pronounced the watchword of our friendship: let us get entirely acquainted as fast as possible. The history of every person paints his character. I will tell you what my life has been: do you, too, place a little trust in me, and let us be united even when distance parts us. The world is so waste and empty, when we figure only towns and hills and rivers in it; but to know of some one here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence,  —  this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.”

She hastened off, engaging soon to take him out to walk. Her presence had affected him agreeably: he wished to be informed of her relation to Lothario. He was called: she came to meet him from her room. While they descended, necessarily one by one, the straight and even steepish stairs, she said, “All this might have been larger and grander, had I chosen to accept the offers of your generous friend; but, to continue worthy of him, I must study to retain the qualities which gave me merit in his eyes. Where is the steward?” asked she, stepping from the bottom of the stairs. “You must not think,” continued she, “that I am rich enough to need a steward: the few acres of my own little property I myself can manage well enough. The steward is my new neighbor’s, who has bought a fine estate beside us, every point of which I am acquainted with. The good old gentleman is lying ill of gout: his men are strangers here; I willingly assist in settling them.”

They took a walk through fields, meadows, and some orchards. Everywhere Theresa kept instructing the steward; nothing so minute but she could give account of it: and Wilhelm had reason to wonder at her knowledge, her precision, the prompt dexterity with which she suggested means for ends. She loitered nowhere, always hastened to the leading-points; and thus her task was quickly over. “Salute your master,” said she, as she sent away the man: “I mean to visit him as soon as possible, and wish him a complete recovery. There, now,” she added with a smile, as soon as he was gone, “I might soon be rich: my good neighbor, I believe, would not be disinclined to offer me his hand.”

“The old man with the gout?” cried Wilhelm: “I know not how, at your years, you could bring yourself to make so desperate a determination.”  —  “Nor am I tempted to it!” said Theresa. “Whoever can administer what he possesses has enough; and to be wealthy is a burdensome affair, unless you understand it.”

Wilhelm testified his admiration at her skill in husbandry concerns. “Decided inclination, early opportunity, external impulse, and continued occupation in a useful business,” said she, “make many things, which were at first far harder, possible in life. When you have learned what causes stimulated me in this pursuit, you will cease to wonder at the talent you now think strange.”

On returning home, she sent him to her little garden. Here he could scarcely turn himself, so narrow were the walks, so thickly was it sown and planted. On looking over to the court, he could not help smiling: the fire-wood was lying there, as accurately sawed, split, and piled, as if it had been part of the building, and had been intended to continue permanently there. The tubs and implements, all clean, were standing in their places: the house was painted white and red; it was really pleasant to behold. Whatever can be done by handicraft, which knows not beautiful proportions, but labors for convenience, cheerfulness, and durability, appeared united in this spot. They served him up dinner in his own room: he had time enough for meditating. Especially it struck him, that he should have got acquainted with another person of so interesting a character, who had been so closely related to Lothario. “It is just,” said he to himself, “that a man so gifted should attract round him gifted women. How far the influence of manliness and dignity extends! Would that others did not come so wofully short, compared with him! Yes, confess thy fear. When thou meetest with thy Amazon, this woman of women, in spite of all thy hopes and dreaming, thou wilt find her, in the end, to thy humiliation and thy shame,  —  his bride.”

CHAPTER VI.

Wilhelm had passed a restless afternoon, not altogether without tedium, when towards evening his door opened, and a handsome hunter-boy stepped forward with a bow. “Shall we have a walk?” said the youth; and in the instant Wilhelm recognized Theresa by her lovely eyes.

“Pardon me this masquerade,” said she; “for now, alas! it is nothing more. But, as I am going to tell you of the time when I so enjoyed the world, I will recall those days by every method to my fancy. Come along! Even the place where we have rested so often from our hunts and promenades shall help me.”

They went accordingly. On their way Theresa said to her attendant, “It is not fair that I alone should speak: you already know enough of me, I nothing about you. Tell me, in the mean while, something of yourself, that I may gather courage to submit to you my history and situation.”  —  “Alas!” said Wilhelm, “I have nothing to relate but error on the back of error, deviation following deviation; and I know none from whom I would more gladly hide my present and my past embarrassments than from yourself. Your look, the scene you move in, your whole temperament and manner, prove to me that you have reason to rejoice in your by-gone life; that you have travelled by a fair, clear path in constant progress; that you have lost no time; that you have nothing to reproach yourself withal.”

Theresa answered with a smile, “Let us see if you will think so after you have heard my history.” They walked along: among some general remarks, Theresa asked him, “Are you free?”  —  “I think I am,” said he, “and yet I do not wish it.”  —  “Good!” said she: “that indicates a complicated story: you also will have something to relate.”

Conversing thus, they ascended the hill, and placed themselves beside a lofty oak, which spread its shade far out on every side. “Here,” said she, “beneath this German tree, will I disclose to you the history of a German maiden: listen to me patiently.

“My father was a wealthy nobleman of this province,  —  a cheerful, clear-sighted, active, able man; a tender father, an upright friend, an excellent economist. I knew but one fault in him: he was too compliant to a wife who did not know his worth. Alas that I should have to say so of my mother! Her nature was the opposite of his. She was quick and changeful; without affection either for her home or for me, her only child; extravagant, but beautiful, sprightly, full of talent, the delight of a circle she had gathered round her. Her society, in truth, was never large; nor did it long continue the same. It consisted principally of men, for no woman could like to be near her; still less could she endure the merit or the praise of any woman. I resembled my father, both in form and disposition. As the duckling, with its first footsteps, seeks the water; so, from my earliest youth, the kitchen, the storeroom, the granaries, the fields, were my selected element. Cleanliness and order in the house seemed, even while I was playing in it, to be my peculiar instinct, my peculiar object. This tendency gave my father pleasure; and he directed, step by step, my childish endeavor into the suitablest employments. On the contrary, my mother did not like me; and she never for a moment hid it.

“I waxed in stature: with my years increased my turn for occupation, and my father’s love to me. When we were by ourselves, when walking through the fields, when I was helping to examine his accounts, it was then I could see how glad he was. While gazing on his eyes, I felt as if I had been looking in upon myself; for it was in the eyes that I completely resembled him. But, in the presence of my mother, he lost this energy, this aspect: he excused me mildly when she blamed me unjustly and violently; he took my part, not as if he would protect me, but as if he would extenuate the demerit of my good qualities. To none of her caprices did he set himself in opposition. She began to be immensely taken with a passion for the stage: a theatre was soon got up; of men of all shapes and ages, crowding to display themselves along with her upon her boards, she had abundance; of women, on the other hand, there was often a scarcity. Lydia, a pretty girl who had been brought up with me, and who promised from the first to be extremely beautiful, had to undertake the secondary parts; the mothers and the aunts were represented by an ancient chamber-maid; while the leading heroines, lovers, and shepherdesses of every kind were seized on by my mother. I cannot tell you how ridiculous it seemed to me to see the people, every one of whom I knew full well, standing on their scaffold, and pretending, after they had dressed themselves in other clothes, to pass for something else than what they were. In my eyes they were never any thing but Lydia and my mother, this baron and that secretary, whether they appeared as counts and princes, or as peasants; and I could not understand how they meant to make me think that they were sad or happy, that they were indifferent or in love, liberal or avaricious, when I well knew the contrary to be the case. Accordingly I very seldom staid among the audience: I always snuffed their candles, that I might not be entirely without employment; I prepared the supper; and next morning, before they rose, I used to have their wardrobe all sorted, which commonly, the night before, they had left in a chaotic state.

“To my mother this activity appeared quite proper, but her love I could not gain. She despised me; and I know for certain that she more than once exclaimed with bitterness, ‘If the mother could be as uncertain as the father, you would scarcely take this housemaid for my daughter!’ Such treatment, I confess, at length entirely estranged me from her: I viewed her conduct as the conduct of a person unconnected with me; and, being used to watch our servants like a falcon (for this, be it said in passing, is the ground of all true housekeeping), the proceedings of my mother and her friends at the same time naturally forced themselves upon my observation. It was easy to perceive that she did not look on all men alike: I gave sharper heed, and soon found out that Lydia was her confidant, and had herself, by this opportunity, become acquainted with a passion, which, from her earliest youth, she had so often represented. I was aware of all their meetings; but I held my tongue, hinting nothing to my father, whom I was afraid of troubling. At last, however, I was obliged to speak. Many of their enterprises could not be accomplished without corrupting the servants. These now began to grow refractory: they despised my father’s regulations, disregarded my commands. The disorders which arose from this I could not tolerate: I discovered all, complained of all to my father.

“He listened to me calmly. ‘Good girl!’ replied he with a smile; ‘I know it all: be quiet, bear it patiently; for it is on thy account alone that I endure it.’

“I was not quiet: I had not patience. I in secret blamed my father, for I did not think that any reason should induce him to endure such things. I called for regularity from all the servants: I was bent on driving matters to extremity.

“My mother had been rich before her marriage, yet she squandered more than she had a right to; and this, as I observed, occasioned many conferences between my parents. For a long time the evil was not helped, till at last the passions of my mother brought it to a head.

“Her first gallant became unfaithful in a glaring manner: the house, the neighborhood, her whole condition, grew offensive to her. She insisted on removing to a different estate; there she was too solitary: she insisted on removing to the town; there she felt herself eclipsed among the crowd. Of much that passed between my father and her I know nothing: however, he at last determined, under stipulations which I did not learn, to consent that she should take a journey, which she had been meditating, to the south of France.

“We were now free; we lived as if in heaven: I do believe my father could not be a loser, had he purchased her absence by a considerable sum. All our useless domestics were dismissed, and fortune seemed to smile on our undertakings: we had some extremely prosperous years; all things succeeded to our wish. But, alas! this pleasing state was not of long continuance: altogether unexpectedly my father had a shock of palsy; it lamed his right side, and deprived him of the proper use of speech. We had to guess at every thing that he required, for he never could pronounce the word that he intended. There were times when this was dreadfully afflicting to us: he would require expressly to be left alone with me; with earnest gestures, he would signify that every one should go away; and, when we saw ourselves alone, he could not speak the word he meant. His impatience mounted to the highest pitch: his situation touched me to the inmost heart. Thus much seemed certain: he had something which he wished to tell me, which especially concerned my interest. What longing did I feel to know it! At other times I could discover all things in his eyes, but now it was in vain. Even his eyes no longer spoke. Only this was clear: he wanted nothing, he desired nothing; he was striving to discover something to me, which unhappily I did not learn. His malady revisited him: he grew entirely inactive, incapable of motion; and a short time afterwards he died.

“I know not how it had got rooted in my thoughts, that somewhere he had hid a treasure which he wished at death to leave me rather than my mother; I searched about for traces of it while he lived, but I could meet with none: at his death a seal was put on every thing. I wrote to my mother, offering to continue in the house, and manage for her: she refused, and I was obliged to leave the place. A mutual testament was now produced: it gave my mother the possession and the use of all; and I was left, at least throughout her life, dependent on her. It was now that I conceived I rightly understood my father’s beckonings: I pitied him for having been so weak; he had let himself be forced to do unjustly to me even after he was dead. Certain of my friends maintained that it was little better than if he had disinherited me: they called upon me to attack the will by law, but this I never could resolve on doing. I reverenced my father’s memory too much: I trusted in destiny; I trusted in myself.

“There was a lady in the neighborhood possessed of large property, with whom I had always been on good terms: she gladly received me; I engaged to superintend her household, and erelong the task grew very easy to me. She lived regularly, she loved order in every thing; and I faithfully assisted her in struggling with her steward and domestics. I am neither of a niggardly nor grudging temper; but we women are disposed to insist, more earnestly than men, that nothing shall be wasted. Embezzlement of all sorts is intolerable to us: we require that each enjoy exactly in so far as right entitles him.

“Here I was in my element once more: I mourned my father’s death in silence. My protectress was content with me: one small circumstance alone disturbed my peace. Lydia returned: my mother had been harsh enough to cast the poor girl off, after having altogether spoiled her. Lydia had learned with her mistress to consider passions as her occupation: she was wont to curb herself in nothing. On her unexpected re-appearance, the lady whom I lived with took her in: she wished to help me, but could train herself to nothing.

“About this time the relatives and future heirs of my protectress often visited the house, to recreate themselves with hunting. Lothario was frequently among them: it was not long till I had noticed, though without the smallest reference to myself, how far he was superior to the rest. He was courteous towards all, and Lydia seemed erelong to have attracted his attention to her. Constantly engaged in something, I was seldom with the company: while he was there I did not talk so much as usual; for, I will confess it, lively conversation, from of old, had been to me the finest seasoning of existence. With my father I was wont to talk of every thing that happened. What you do not speak of, you will seldom accurately think of. No man had I ever heard with greater pleasure than I did Lothario, when he told us of his travels and campaigns. The world appeared to lie before him clear and open, as to me the district was in which I lived and managed. We were not entertained with marvellous personal adventures, the extravagant half-truths of a shallow traveller, who is always painting out himself, and not the country he has undertaken to describe. Lothario did not tell us his adventures: he led us to the place itself. I have seldom felt so pure a satisfaction.

“But still higher was my pleasure when I heard him talk, one evening, about women. The subject happened to be introduced: some ladies of the neighborhood had come to see us, and were speaking, in the common style, about the cultivation of the female mind. Our sex, they said, was treated unjustly: every sort of higher education men insisted on retaining for themselves; they admitted us to no science, they required us either to be dolls or family drudges. To all this Lothario said not much; but, when the party was a little thinned, he gave us his opinion more explicitly. ‘It is very strange,’ cried he, ‘that men are blamed for their proceeding here: they have placed woman on the highest station she is capable of occupying. And where is there any station higher than the ordering of the house? While the husband has to vex himself with outward matters, while he has wealth to gather and secure, while perhaps he takes part in the administration of the state, and everywhere depends on circumstances; ruling nothing, I may say, while he conceives that he is ruling much; compelled to be but politic where he would willingly be reasonable, to dissemble where he would be open, to be false where he would be upright; while thus, for the sake of an object which he never reaches, he must every moment sacrifice the first of objects, harmony with himself,  —  a reasonable housewife is actually governing in the interior of her family; has the comfort and activity of every person in it to provide for, and make possible. What is the highest happiness of mortals, if not to execute what we consider right and good,  —  to be really masters of the means conducive to our aims? And where should or can our nearest aims be, but in the interior of our home? All those indispensable and still to be renewed supplies, where do we expect, do we require, to find them, if not in the place where we rise and where we go to sleep, where kitchen and cellar, and every species of accommodation for ourselves and ours, is to be always ready? What unvarying activity is needed to conduct this constantly recurring series in unbroken living order! How few are the men to whom it is given to return regularly like a star, to command their day as they command their night; to form for themselves their household instruments, to sow and to reap, to gain and to expand, and to travel round their circle with perpetual success and peace and love! It is when a woman has attained this inward mastery, that she truly makes the husband whom she loves, a master: her attention will acquire all sorts of knowledge; her activity will turn them all to profit. Thus is she dependent upon no one; and she procures her husband genuine independence, that which is interior and domestic: whatever he possesses, he beholds secured; what he earns, well employed: and thus he can direct his mind to lofty objects; and, if fortune favors, he may act in the state the same character which so well becomes his wife at home.’

“He then described to us the kind of wife he wished. I reddened; for he was describing me, as I looked and lived. I silently enjoyed my triumph; and the more, as I perceived, from all the circumstances, that he had not meant me individually, that, indeed, he did not know me. I cannot recollect a more delightful feeling in my life than this, when a man whom I so highly valued gave the preference, not to my person, but to my inmost nature. What a recompense did I consider it! What encouragement did it afford me!

“So soon as they were gone, my worthy benefactress with a smile observed to me, ‘Pity that men often think and speak of what they will never execute, else here were a special match, the exact thing for my dear Theresa!’ I made sport of her remark, and added, that indeed men’s understanding gave its vote for household wives, but that their heart and imagination longed for other qualities; and that we household people could not stand a rivalry with beautiful and lovely women. This was spoken for the ear of Lydia; she did not hide from us that Lothario had made a deep impression on her heart: and, in reality, he seemed at each new visit to grow more and more attentive to her. She was poor, and not of rank; she could not think of marriage; but she was unable to resist the dear delight of charming and of being charmed. I had never loved, nor did I love at present; but though it was unspeakably agreeable to see in what light my turn of mind was viewed, how high it was ranked by such a man, I will confess I still was not altogether satisfied. I now wished that he should be acquainted with me, and should take a personal interest in me. This wish arose, without the smallest settled thought of any thing that could result from it.

“The greatest service I did my benefactress was in bringing into order the extensive forests which belonged to her. In this precious property, whose value time and circumstances were continually increasing, matters still went on according to the old routine,  —  without regularity, without plan, no end to theft and fraud. Many hills were standing bare: an equal growth was nowhere to be found but in the oldest cuttings. I personally visited the whole of them, with an experienced forester. I got the woods correctly measured: I set men to hew, to sow, to plant; in a short time, all things were in progress. That I might mount more readily on horseback, and also walk on foot with less obstruction, I had a suit of men’s clothes made for me: I was present in many places, I was feared in all.

“Hearing that our young friends, with Lothario, were purposing to have another hunt, it came into my head, for the first time in my life, to make a figure, or, that I may not do myself injustice, to pass in the eyes of this noble gentleman for what I was. I put on my men’s clothes, took my gun upon my shoulder, and went forward with our hunters, to await the party on our marches. They came: Lothario did not know me; a nephew of the lady introduced me to him as a clever forester, joked about my youth, and carried on his jesting in my praise, till at last Lothario recognized me. The nephew seconded my project, as if we had concocted it together. He circumstantially and gratefully described what I had done for the estates of his aunt, and consequently for himself.

“Lothario listened with attention: he talked with me, inquired concerning all particulars of the estates and district. I, of course, was glad to have such an opportunity of showing him my knowledge: I stood my ordeal very well; I submitted certain projects of improvement to him, which he sanctioned, telling me of similar examples, and strengthening my arguments by the connection which he gave them. My satisfaction grew more perfect every moment. Happily, however, I merely wished that he should be acquainted with me, not that he should love me. We came home; and I observed, more clearly than before, that the attention he showed Lydia seemed expressive of a secret attachment. I had reached my object, yet I was not at rest: from that day he showed a true respect for me, a fine trust in me; in company he usually spoke to me, asked my opinion, and appeared to be persuaded, that, in household matters, nothing was unknown to me. His sympathy excited me extremely: even when the conversation was of general finance and political economy, he used to lead me to take part in it; and, in his absence, I endeavored to acquire more knowledge of our province, nay, of all the empire. The task was easy for me: it was but repeating on the great scale what I knew so accurately on the small.

“From this period he visited our house oftener. We talked, I may say, of every thing; yet in some degree our conversation always in the end grew economical, if even but in a secondary sense. What immense effects a man, by the continuous application of his powers, his time, his money, even by means which seem but small, may bring about, was frequently and largely spoken of.

“I did not withstand the tendency which drew me towards him; and, alas! I felt too soon how deep, how cordial, how pure and genuine, was my love, as I believed it more and more apparent that Lydia, and not myself, was the occasion of these visits. She, at least, was most vividly persuaded so: she made me her confidant; and this, again, in some degree, consoled me. For, in truth, what she explained so much to her advantage, I reckoned nowise of importance: there was not a trace of any serious lasting union being meditated, but the more distinctly did I see the wish of the impassioned girl to be his at any price.

“Thus did matters stand, when the lady of the house surprised me with an unexpected message. ‘Lothario,’ said she, ‘offers you his hand, and desires through life to have you ever at his side.’ She enlarged upon my qualities, and told me, what I liked sufficiently to hear, that in me Lothario was persuaded he had found the person whom he had so long been seeking for.

“The height of happiness was now attained for me: my hand was asked by a man for whom I had the greatest value, beside whom, and along with whom, I might expect a full, expanded, free, and profitable employment of my inborn tendency, of my talent perfected by practice. The sum of my existence seemed to have enlarged itself into infinitude. I gave my consent: he himself came, and spoke with me in private; he held out his hand to me; he looked into my eyes, he clasped me in his arms, and pressed a kiss upon my lips. It was the first and the last. He confided to me all his circumstances; told me how much his American campaign had cost him, what debts he had accumulated on his property: that, on this score, he had in some measure quarrelled with his grand-uncle; that the worthy gentleman intended to relieve him, though truly in his own peculiar way, being minded to provide him with a rich wife, whereas, a man of sense would choose a household wife, at all events; that, however, by his sister’s influence, he hoped his noble relative would be persuaded. He set before me the condition of his fortune, his plans, his prospects, and requested my co-operation. Till his uncle should consent, our promise was to be a secret.

“Scarcely was he gone when Lydia asked me whether he had spoken of her. I answered no, and tired her with a long detail of economical affairs. She was restless, out of humor; and his conduct, when he came again, did not improve her situation.

“But the sun, I see, is bending to the place of rest. Well for you, my friend! You would otherwise have had to hear this story, which I often enough go over by myself, in all its most minute particulars. Let me hasten: we are coming to an epoch on which it is not good to linger.

“By Lothario I was made acquainted with his noble sister; and she, at a convenient time, contrived to introduce me to the uncle. I gained the old man: he consented to our wishes, and I returned with happy tidings to my benefactress. The affair was now no secret in the house: Lydia heard of it; she thought the thing impossible. When she could no longer doubt of it, she vanished all at once: we knew not whither she had gone.

“Our marriage-day was coming near: I had often asked him for his portrait; just as he was going off, I reminded him that he had promised it. He said, ‘You have never given me the case you want to have it fitted into.’ This was true: I had got a present from a female friend, on which I set no ordinary value. Her name, worked from her own hair, was fastened on the outer glass: within, there was a vacant piece of ivory, on which her portrait was to have been painted, when a sudden death snatched her from me. Lothario’s love had cheered me at the time her death lay heavy on my spirits, and I wished to have the void which she had left me in her present filled by the picture of my friend.

“I ran to my chamber, fetched my jewel-box, and opened it in his presence. Scarcely had he looked into it, when he noticed a medallion with the portrait of a lady. He took it in his hand, considered it attentively, and asked me hastily whose face it was. ‘My mother’s,’ answered I. ‘I could have sworn,’ said he, ‘that it was the portrait of a Madame Saint Alban, whom I met some years ago in Switzerland.’  —  ‘ It is the same,’ replied I, smiling, ‘and so you have unwittingly become acquainted with your step-mother. Saint Alban is the name my mother has assumed for travelling with: she passes under it in France at present.’

“‘I am the miserablest man alive!’ exclaimed he, as he threw the portrait back into the box, covered his eyes with his hand, and hurried from the room. He sprang on horseback: I ran to the balcony, and called out after him; he turned, waved his hand to me, went speedily away,  —  and I have never seen him more.”

The sun went down: Theresa gazed with unaverted looks upon the splendor, and both her fine eyes filled with tears.

Theresa spoke not: she laid her hand upon her new friend’s hands; he kissed it with emotion: she dried her tears, and rose. “Let us return, and see that all is right,” said she.

The conversation was not lively by the way. They entered the garden-door, and noticed Lydia sitting on a bench: she rose, withdrew before them, and walked in. She had a paper in her hand: two little girls were by her. “I see,” observed Theresa, “she is still carrying her only comfort, Lothario’s letter, with her. He promises that she shall live with him again so soon as he is well: he begs of her till then to stay in peace with me. On these words she hangs, with these lines she solaces herself; but with his friends she is extremely angry.”

Meanwhile the two children had approached. They courtesied to Theresa, and gave her an account of all that had occurred while she was absent. “You see here another part of my employment,” said Theresa. “Lothario’s sister and I have made a league: we educate some little ones in common; such as promise to be lively, serviceable housewives I take charge of, she of such as show a finer and more quiet talent: it is right to provide for the happiness of future husbands, both in household and in intellectual matters. When you become acquainted with my noble friend, a new era in your life will open. Her beauty, her goodness, make her worthy of the reverence of the world.” Wilhelm did not venture to confess, that unhappily the lovely countess was already known to him; that his transient connection with her would occasion him perpetual sorrow. He was well pleased that Theresa let the conversation drop, that some business called for her within. He was now alone: the intelligence which he had just received of the young and lovely countess being driven to replace, by deeds of benevolence, her own lost comfort, made him very sad; he felt, that, with her, it was but a need of self-oblivion, an attempt to supply, by the hopes of happiness to others, the want of a cheerful enjoyment of existence in herself. He thought Theresa happy, since, even in that unexpected melancholy alteration which had taken place in her prospects, there was no alteration needed in herself. “How fortunate beyond all others,” cried he, “is the man, who, in order to adjust himself to fate, is not required to cast away his whole preceding life!”

Theresa came into his room, and begged pardon for disturbing him. “My whole library,” said she, “is in the wall-press here: they are rather books which I do not throw aside, than which I have taken up. Lydia wants a pious book: there are one or two of that sort among them. Persons who throughout the whole twelve months are worldly, think it necessary to be godly at a time of straits: all moral and religious matters they regard as physic, which is to be taken with aversion when they are unwell; in a clergyman, a moralist, they see nothing but a doctor, whom they cannot soon enough get rid of. Now, I confess, I look upon religion as a kind of diet, which can only be so when I make a constant practice of it, when throughout the whole twelve months I never lose it out of sight.”

She searched among the books: she found some edifying works, as they are called. “It was of my mother,” said Theresa, “that poor Lydia learned to have recourse to books like these. While her gallant continued faithful, plays and novels were her life: his departure brought religious writings once more into credit. I, for my share, cannot understand,” continued she, “how men have made themselves believe that God speaks to us through books and histories. The man to whom the universe does not reveal directly what relation it has to him, whose heart does not tell him what he owes to himself and others, that man will scarcely learn it out of books, which generally do little more than give our errors names.”

She left our friend alone: he passed his evening in examining the little library; it had, in truth, been gathered quite at random.

Theresa, for the few days Wilhelm spent with her, continued still the same: she related to him at different times the consequences of that singular incident with great minuteness. Day and hour, place and name, were present to her memory: we shall here compress into a word or two so much of it as will be necessary for the information of our readers.

The reason of Lothario’s quick departure was, unhappily, too easy to explain. He had met Theresa’s mother on her journey: her charms attracted him; she was no niggard of them; and this luckless transitory aberration came at length to shut him out from being united to a lady whom nature seemed to have expressly made for him. As for Theresa, she continued in the pure circle of her duties. They learned that Lydia had been living in the neighborhood in secret. She was happy that the marriage, though for unknown causes, had not been completed. She endeavored to renew her intimacy with Lothario; and more, as it seemed, out of desperation than affection, by surprise than with consideration, from tedium than of purpose, he had met her wishes.

Theresa was not uneasy on this account; she waived all further claims; and, if he had even been her husband, she would probably have had sufficient spirit to endure a matter of this kind, if it had not troubled her domestic order: at least, she often used to say, that a wife who properly conducted her economy should take no umbrage at such little fancies of her husband, but be always certain that he would return.

Erelong Theresa’s mother had deranged her fortune: the losses fell upon the daughter, whose share of the effects, in consequence, was small. The old lady, who had been Theresa’s benefactress, died, leaving her a little property in land, and a handsome sum by way of legacy. Theresa soon contrived to make herself at home in this new, narrow circle. Lothario offered her a better property, Jarno endeavoring to negotiate the business; but she refused it. “I will show,” said she, “in this little, that I deserved to share the great with him; but I keep this before me, that, should accident embarrass me, on my own account or that of others, I will betake myself without the smallest hesitation to my generous friend.”

There is nothing less liable to be concealed and unemployed than well-directed practical activity. Scarcely had she settled in her little property, when her acquaintance and advice began to be desired by many of her neighbors; and the proprietor of the adjacent lands gave her plainly enough to understand that it depended on herself alone whether she would take his hand, and be heiress of the greater part of his estates. She had already mentioned the matter to our friend: she often jested with him about marriages, suitable and unsuitable.

“Nothing,” said she once, “gives a greater loose to people’s tongues than when a marriage happens which they can denominate unsuitable: and yet the unsuitable are far more common than the suitable; for, alas! with most marriages, it is not long till things assume a very piteous look. The confusion of ranks by marriage can be called unsuitable only when the one party is unable to participate in the manner of existence which is native, habitual, and which at length grows absolutely necessary, to the other. The different classes have different ways of living, which they cannot change or communicate to one another; and this is the reason why connections such as these, in general, were better not be formed. Yet exceptions, and exceptions of the happiest kind, are possible. Thus, too, the marriage of a young woman with a man advanced in life is generally unsuitable; yet I have seen some such turn out extremely well. For me, I know but of one kind of marriage that would be entirely unsuitable,  —  that in which I should be called upon to make a show, and manage ceremonies: I would rather give my hand to the son of any honest farmer in the neighborhood.”

Wilhelm at length made ready for returning. He requested of Theresa to obtain for him a parting word with Lydia. The impassioned girl at last consented: he said some kindly things to her, to which she answered, “The first burst of anguish I have conquered. Lothario will be ever dear to me: but for those friends of his, I know them; and it grieves me that they are about him. The abbé, for a whim’s sake, could leave a person in extreme need, or even plunge one into it; the doctor would have all things go on like clock-work; Jarno has no heart; and you  —  at least no force of character! Just go on: let these three people use you as their tool; they will have many an execution to commit to you. For a long time, as I know well, my presence has been hateful to them. I had not found out their secret, but I had observed that they had one. Why these bolted rooms, these strange passages? Why can no one ever reach the central tower? Why did they banish me, whenever they could, to my own chamber? I will confess, jealousy at first incited me to these discoveries: I feared some lucky rival might be hid there. I have now laid aside that suspicion: I am well convinced that Lothario loves me, that he means honorably by me; but I am quite as well convinced that his false and artful friends betray him. If you would really do him service, if you would ever be forgiven for the injury which I have suffered from you, free him from the hands of these men. But what am I expecting! Give this letter to him; repeat what it contains,  —  that I will love him forever, that I depend upon his word. Ah!” cried she, rising, and throwing herself with tears upon Theresa’s neck: “he is surrounded by my foes; they will endeavor to persuade him that I have sacrificed nothing for his sake. Oh! Lothario may well believe that he is worthy of any sacrifice, without needing to be grateful for it.”

Wilhelm’s parting with Theresa was more cheerful: she wished they might soon meet again. “Me you wholly know,” said she: “I alone have talked while we have been together. It will be your duty, next time, to repay my candor.”

During his return he kept contemplating this new and bright phenomenon with the liveliest recollection. What confidence had she inspired him with. He thought of Mignon and Felix, and how happy they might be if under her direction; then he thought of himself, and felt what pleasure it would be to live beside a being so entirely serene and clear. As he approached Lothario’s castle, he observed, with more than usual interest, the central tower and the many passages and side-buildings: he resolved to question Jarno or the abbé on the subject, by the earliest opportunity.

CHAPTER VII.

On arriving at the castle, Wilhelm found its noble owner in the way of full recovery: the doctor and the abbé had gone off; Jarno alone was there. It was not long till the patient now and then could ride, sometimes by himself, sometimes with his friends. His conversation was at once courteous and earnest, instructive and enlivening: you could often notice in it traces of a tender sensibility; although he strove to hide it, and almost seemed to blame it, when, in spite of him, it came to view.

One evening while at table he was silent, though his look was very cheerful.

“To-day,” said Jarno, “you have met with an adventure; and, no doubt, you relished it.”

“I give you credit for your penetration,” said Lothario. “Yes, I have met with a very pleasing adventure. At another time, perhaps, I should not have considered it so charming as to-day, when it came upon me so attractively. Towards night I rode out beyond the river, through the hamlets, by a path which I had often visited in former years. My bodily ailings must have reduced me more than I supposed: I felt weak; but, as my strength was re-awakening, I was, as it were, new-born. All objects seemed to wear the hues they had in earlier times: all looked graceful, lovely, charming, as they have not looked to me for many years. I easily observed that it was mere debility, yet I continued to enjoy it: I rode softly onwards, and could now conceive how men may grow to like diseases which attune us to those sweet emotions. You know, perhaps, what used of old so frequently to lead me that way?”

“If I mistake not,” answered Jarno, “it was a little love-concern you were engaged in with a farmer’s daughter.”

“It might be called a great one,” said Lothario; “for we loved each other deeply, seriously, and for a long time. To-day, it happened, every thing combined to represent before me in its liveliest color the earliest season of our love. The boys were again shaking may-bugs from the trees: the ashen grove had not grown larger since the day I saw her first. It was now long since I had met with Margaret. She is married at a distance; and I had heard by chance that she was come with her children, some weeks ago, to pay a visit to her father.”

“This ride, then, was not altogether accidental?”

“I will not deny,” replied Lothario, “that I wished to meet her. On coming near the house, I saw her father sitting at the door: a child of probably a year old was standing by him. As I approached, a female gave a hasty look from an upper window; and a minute afterwards I heard some person tripping down-stairs. I thought surely it was she; and, I will confess, I was flattering myself that she had recognized me, and was hastening to meet me. But what was my surprise and disappointment, when she bounded from the door, seized the child, to whom the horses had come pretty close, and took it in! It gave me a painful twinge: my vanity, however, was a little solaced when I thought I saw a tint of redness on her neck and on the ear, which were uncovered.

“I drew up, and, while speaking with the father, glanced sideways over all the windows, to observe if she would not appear at some of them; but no trace of her was visible. Ask I would not, so I rode away. My displeasure was a little mollified by wonder; though I had not seen the face, it appeared to me that she was scarcely changed; and ten years are a pretty space! Nay, she looked even younger, quite as slim, as light of foot; her neck, if possible, was lovelier than before; her cheeks as quick at blushing; yet she was the mother of six children, perhaps of more. This apparition suited the enchantment which surrounded me so well, that I rode along with feelings grown still younger; and I did not turn till I was at the forest, when the sun was going down. Strongly as the falling dew and the prescription of our doctor called upon me to proceed direct homewards, I could not help again going round by the farmhouse. I observed a woman walking up and down the garden, which is fenced by a light hedge. I rode along the footpath to it, and found myself at no great distance from the person whom I wanted.

“Though the evening sun was glancing in my eyes, I saw that she was busy with the hedge, which only slightly covered her. I thought I recognized my mistress. On coming up, I halted, not without a palpitation at the heart. Some high twigs of wild roses, which a soft air was blowing to and fro, made her figure indistinct to me. I spoke to her, asked her how she was. She answered, in an under-tone, ‘Quite well.’ In the mean time I perceived a child behind the hedge, engaged in plucking roses; and I took the opportunity of asking where her other children were. ‘It is not my child,’ said she: ‘that were rather early!’ And at this moment it happened that the twigs were blown aside, and her face could be distinctly seen. I knew not what to make of the affair. It was my mistress, and it was not. Almost younger, almost lovelier, than she used to be ten years before. ‘Are not you the farmer’s daughter?’ inquired I, half confused. ‘No,’ said she: ‘I am her cousin.’

“‘You resemble one another wonderfully,’ added I.

“‘Yes, so says every one that knew her half a score of years ago.’

“I continued putting various questions to her: my mistake was pleasant to me, even after I had found it out. I could not leave this living image of by-gone blessedness that stood before me. The child, meanwhile, had gone away: it had wandered to the pond in search of flowers. She took her leave, and hastened after it.

“I had now, however, learned that my former love was really in her father’s house. While riding forward, I employed myself in guessing whether it had been her cousin or she that had secured the child from harm. I more than once, in thought, repeated all the circumstances of the incident: I can remember few things that have affected me more gratefully. But I feel that I am still unwell: we must ask the doctor to deliver us from the remains of this pathetic humor.”

With confidential narratives of pretty love adventures, it often happens as with ghost stories: when the first is told, the others follow of themselves.

Our little party, in recalling other times, found numerous passages of this description. Lothario had the most to tell. Jarno’s histories were all of one peculiar character: what Wilhelm could disclose we already know. He was apprehensive they might mention his adventure with the countess; but it was not hinted at, not even in the remotest manner.

“It is true,” observed Lothario, “there can scarcely any feeling in the world be more agreeable than when the heart, after a pause of indifference, again opens to love for some new object; yet I would forever have renounced that happiness, had fate been pleased to unite me with Theresa. We are not always youths: we ought not always to be children. To the man who knows the world, who understands what he should do in it, what he should hope from it, nothing can be more desirable than meeting with a wife who will everywhere co-operate with him, who will everywhere prepare his way for him; whose diligence takes up what his must leave; whose occupation spreads itself on every side, while his must travel forward on its single path. What a heaven had I figured for myself beside Theresa! Not the heaven of an enthusiastic bliss, but of a sure life on earth; order in prosperity, courage in adversity, care for the smallest, and a spirit capable of comprehending and managing the greatest. Oh! I saw in her the qualities which, when developed, make such women as we find in history, whose excellence appears to us far preferable to that of men,  —  this clearness of view, this expertness in all emergencies, this sureness in details, which brings the whole so accurately out, although they never seem to think of it. You may well forgive me,” added he, and turning to Wilhelm, with a smile, “that I forsook Aurelia for Theresa: with the one I could expect a calm and cheerful life, with the other not a happy hour.”

“I will confess,” said Wilhelm, “that, in coming hither, I had no small anger in my heart against you; that I proposed to censure with severity your conduct to Aurelia.”

“It was really censurable,” said Lothario: “I should not have exchanged my friendship for her with the sentiment of love; I should not, in place of the respect which she deserved, have intruded an attachment she was neither calculated to excite nor to maintain. Alas! she was not lovely when she loved,  —  the greatest misery that can befall a woman.”

“Well, it is past!” said Wilhelm. “We cannot always shun the things we blame; in spite of us, our feelings and our actions sometimes strangely swerve from their natural and right direction; yet there are certain duties which we never should lose sight of. Peace be to the ashes of our friend! Without censuring ourselves or her, let us with sympathizing hearts strew flowers upon her grave. But, at the grave in which the hapless mother sleeps, let me ask why you acknowledge not the child,  —  a son whom any father might rejoice in, and whom you appear entirely to overlook? With your pure and tender nature, how can you altogether cast away the instinct of a parent? All this while you have not spent one syllable upon that precious creature, of whose attractions I could say so much.”

“Whom do you speak of?” asked Lothario: “I do not understand you.”

“Of whom but of your son, Aurelia’s son, the lovely child, to whose good fortune there is nothing wanting, but that a tender father should acknowledge and receive him.”

“You mistake, my friend!” exclaimed Lothario; “Aurelia never had a son, at least by me: I know of no child, or I would with joy acknowledge it; and, even in the present case, I will gladly look upon the little creature as a relic of her, and take charge of educating it. But did she ever give you to believe that the boy was hers, was mine?”

“I cannot recollect that I ever heard a word from her expressly on the subject; but we took it up so, and I never for a moment doubted it.”

“I can give you something like a clew to this perplexity,” said Jarno. “An old woman, whom you must have noticed often, gave Aurelia the child: she accepted it with passion, hoping to alleviate her sorrows by its presence; and, in truth, it gave her many a comfortable hour.”

This discovery awoke anxieties in Wilhelm: he thought of his dear Mignon and his beautiful Felix with the liveliest distinctness. He expressed his wish to remove them both from the state in which they were.

“We shall soon arrange it,” said Lothario. “The little girl may be committed to Theresa: she cannot be in better hands. As for the boy, I think you should yourself take charge of him: what in us the women leave uncultivated, children cultivate when we retain them near us.”

“But first, I think,” said Jarno, “you will once for all renounce the stage, as you have no talent for it.”

Our friend was struck: he had to curb himself, for Jarno’s harsh sentence had not a little wounded his self-love. “If you convince me of that,” replied he, forcing a smile, “you will do me a service, though it is but a mournful service to rouse one from a pleasing dream.”

“Without enlarging on the subject,” answered Jarno, “I could merely wish you would go and fetch the children. The rest will come in course.”

“I am ready,” answered Wilhelm: “I am restless, and curious to see if I can get no further knowledge of the boy: I long to see the little girl who has attached herself so strangely to me.”

It was agreed that he should lose no time in setting out. Next day he had prepared himself: his horse was saddled; he only waited for Lothario to take leave of him. At the dinner-hour they went as usual to table, not waiting for the master of the house. He did not come till late, and then sat down by them.

“I could bet,” said Jarno, “that to-day you have again been making trial of your tenderness of heart: you have not been able to withstand the curiosity to see your quondam love.”

“Guessed!” replied Lothario.

“Let us hear,” said Jarno, “how it went: I long to know.”

“I confess,” replied Lothario, “the affair lay nearer my heart than it reasonably ought: so I formed the resolution of again riding out, and actually seeing the person whose renewed young image had affected me with such a pleasing illusion. I alighted at some distance from the house, and sent the horses to a side, that the children, who were playing at the door, might not be disturbed. I entered the house: by chance she met me just within the threshold; it was herself; and I recognized her, notwithstanding the striking change. She had grown stouter, and seemed to be larger; her gracefulness was shaded by a look of staidness; her vivacity had passed into a calm reflectiveness. Her head, which she once bore so airily and freely, drooped a little: slight furrows had been traced upon her brow.

“She cast down her eyes on seeing me, but no blush announced any inward movement of the heart. I held out my hand to her, she gave me hers; I inquired about her husband, he was absent; about her children, she stepped out and called them; all came in and gathered round her. Nothing is more charming than to see a mother with a child upon her arm; nothing is more reverend than a mother among many children. That I might say something, I asked the name of the youngest. She desired me to walk in and see her father; I agreed; she introduced me to the room, where every thing was standing almost just as I had left it; and, what seemed stranger still, the fair cousin, her living image, was sitting on the very seat behind the spinning-wheel, where I had found my love so often in the self-same form. A little girl, the very figure of her mother, had come after us; and thus I stood in the most curious scene, between the future and the past, as in a grove of oranges, where within a little circle flowers and fruits are living, in successive stages of their growth, beside each other. The cousin went away to fetch us some refreshment: I gave the woman I had loved so much my hand, and said to her, ‘I feel a true joy in seeing you again.’  —  ‘You are very good to say so,’answered she; ‘but I also can assure you I feel the highest joy. How often have I wished to see you once more in my life! I have wished it in moments which I regarded as my last.’ She said this with a settled voice, without appearance of emotion, with that natural air which of old delighted me so much. The cousin returned, the father with her; and I leave you to conceive with what feelings I remained, and with what I came away.”

CHAPTER VIII.

In his journey to the town, our friend was thinking of the lovely women whom he knew or had heard of: their curious fortunes, which contained so little happiness, were present to him with a sad distinctness. “Ah!” cried he, “poor Mariana! What shall I yet learn of thee? And thou, noble Amazon, glorious, protecting spirit, to whom I owe so much, whom I everywhere expect to meet, and nowhere see, in what mournful circumstances may I find thee, shouldst thou again appear before me!”

On his arrival in the town, there was not one of his acquaintances at home: he hastened to the theatre; he supposed they would be rehearsing. Here, however, all was still; the house seemed empty: one little door alone was open. Passing through it to the stage, he found Aurelia’s ancient serving-maid, employed in sewing linen for a new decoration: there was barely light enough to let her work. Felix and Mignon were sitting by her on the floor: they had a book between them; and, while Mignon read aloud, Felix was repeating all the words, as if he, too, knew his letters,  —  as if he, too, could read.

The children started up, and ran to him: he embraced them with the tenderest feelings, and brought them closer to the woman. “Art thou the person,” said he to her with an earnest voice, “from whom Aurelia received this child?” She looked up from her work, and turned her face to him: he saw her in full light; he started back in terror,  —  it was old Barbara.

“Where is Mariana?” cried he. “Far from here,” replied the crone.

“And Felix”  — 

“Is the son of that unhappy and too true and tender-hearted girl. May you never feel what you have made us suffer! May the treasure which I now deliver you make you as happy as he made us wretched!”

She arose to go away: Wilhelm held her fast. “I mean not to escape you,” said she: “let me fetch a paper that will make you glad and sorrowful.”

She retired, and Wilhelm gazed upon the child with a painful joy: he durst not reckon him his own. “He is thine!” cried Mignon, “he is thine!” and passed the child to Wilhelm’s knee.

Barbara came back, and handed him a letter. “Here are Mariana’s last words,” said she.

“She is dead!” cried he.

“Dead,” said the old woman. “I wish to spare you all reproaches.”

Astonished and confounded, Wilhelm broke up the letter; but scarcely had he read the first words of it when a bitter grief took hold of him: he let the letter fall, and sank upon a seat. Mignon hurried to him, trying to console him. In the mean time Felix had picked up the letter: he teased his playmate till she yielded, till she knelt beside him and read it over. Felix repeated the words, and Wilhelm was compelled to hear them twice. “If this sheet should ever reach thee, then lament thy ill-starred friend. Thy love has caused her death. The boy, whose birth I survive but a few days, is thine: I die faithful to thee, much as appearances may be against me; with thee I lost every thing that bound me to life. I die content, for they have assured me that the child is healthy and will live. Listen to old Barbara; forgive her: farewell, and forget me not.”

What a painful, and yet, to his comfort, half enigmatic letter! Its contents pierced through his heart, as the children, stuttering and stammering, pronounced and repeated them.

“That’s what has come of it!” said the crone, not waiting till he had recovered. “Thank Heaven, that, having lost so true a love, you have still left you so fine a child. Your grief will be unequalled when you learn how the poor, good girl stood faithful to you to the end, how miserable she became, and what she sacrificed for your sake.”

“Let me drain the cup of sorrow and of joy at once!” cried Wilhelm. “Convince me, even persuade me, that she was a good girl, that she deserved respect as well as love: then leave me to my grief for her irreparable loss.”

“It is not yet time,” said Barbara: “I have work to do, and I would not we were seen together. Let it be a secret that Felix is your son: I should have too much abuse to suffer from the company, for having formerly deceived them. Mignon will not betray us: she is good and close.”

“I have known it long, and I said nothing,” answered Mignon. “How is it possible?” cried Barbara. “Whence?” cried Wilhelm.

“The spirit told it me.”

“Where? Where?”

“In the vault, when the old man drew his knife, it called to me, ‘Bring his father;’ and I thought it must be thou.”

“Who called to thee?”

“I know not: in my heart, in my head, I was terrified; I trembled, I prayed; then it called, and I understood it.”

Wilhelm pressed her to his heart, recommended Felix to her, and retired. He had not observed till then that she was grown much paler and thinner than when he left her. Madam Melina was the first acquaintance he met: she received him in the friendliest manner. “Oh that you might find every thing among us as you wished!” exclaimed she.

“I doubt it,” answered Wilhelm: “I do not expect it. Confess that they have taken all their measures to dispense with me.”

“Why would you go away?” replied his friend.

“We cannot soon enough convince ourselves,” said he, “how very simply we may be dispensed with in the world. What important personages we conceive ourselves to be! We think that it is we alone who animate the circle we move in; that, in our absence, life, nourishment, and breath will make a general pause: and, alas! the void which occurs is scarcely remarked, so soon is it filled up again; nay, it is often but the place, if not for something better, at least for something more agreeable.”

“And the sorrows of our friends we are not to take into account?”

“For our friends, too, it is well, when they soon recover their composure, when they say each to himself, there where thou art, there where thou remainest, accomplish what thou canst; be busy, be courteous, and let the present scene delight thee.”

On a narrower inquiry, he found what he had looked for: the opera had been set up, and was exclusively attracting the attention of the public. His parts had in the mean while been distributed between Horatio and Laertes, and both of them were in the habit of eliciting from the spectators far more liberal applause than he had ever been enabled to obtain.

Laertes entered: and Madam Melina cried, “Look you here at this lucky fellow; he is soon to be a capitalist, or Heaven knows what!” Wilhelm, in embracing him, discovered that his coat was superfine: the rest of his apparel was simple, but of the very best materials.

“Solve me the riddle!” cried our friend.

“You are still in time to learn,” replied Laertes, “that my running to and fro is now about to be repaid; that a partner in a large commercial house is turning to advantage my acquirements from books or observation, and allowing me a share with him. I would give something, could I purchase back my confidence in women: there is a pretty niece in the house; and I see well enough, that, if I pleased, I might soon be a made man.”

“You have not heard,” said Frau Melina, “that a marriage has already taken place among ourselves? Serlo is actually wedded to the fair Elmira: her father would not tolerate their secret correspondence.”

They talked in this manner about many things that had occurred while he was absent: nor was it difficult for him to observe, that, according to the present temper and constitution of the company, his dismissal had already taken place.

He impatiently expected Barbara, who had appointed him to wait for her far in the night. She was to come when all were sleeping: she required as many preparations as if she had been the youngest maiden gliding in to her beloved. Meanwhile he read a hundred times the letter she had given him,  —  read with unspeakable delight the word faithful in the hand of his darling, with horror the announcement of her death, whose approaches she appeared to view unmoved.

Midnight was past, when something rustled at the half-open door, and Barbara came in with a little basket. “I am to tell you the story of our woes,” said she: “and I must believe that you will sit unmoved at the recital; that you are waiting for me but to satisfy your curiosity; that you will now, as you did formerly, retire within your cold selfishness, while our hearts are breaking. But look you here! Thus, on that happy evening, did I bring you the bottle of champagne; thus did I place the three glasses on the table: and as you then began, with soft nursery tales, to cozen us and lull us asleep; so will I now with stern truths instruct you and keep you waking.”

Wilhelm knew not what to say, when the old woman, in fact, let go the cork, and filled the three glasses to the brim.

“Drink!” cried she, having emptied at a draught her foaming glass. “Drink, ere the spirit of it pass! This third glass shall froth away untasted to the memory of my unhappy Mariana. How red were her lips when she then drank your health! Ah, and now forever pale and cold!”

“Sibyl! Fury!” cried Wilhelm, springing up, and striking the table with his fist, “what evil spirit possesses thee and drives thee? For what dost thou take me, that thou thinkest the simplest narrative of Mariana’s death and sorrows will not harrow me enough, but usest these hellish arts to sharpen my torment? If thy insatiable greediness is such, that thou must revel at the funeral-table, drink and speak! I have loathed thee from of old; and I cannot reckon Mariana guiltless while I even look upon thee, her companion.”

“Softly, mein Herr!” replied the crone: “you shall not ruffle me. Your debts to us are deep and dark: the railing of a debtor does not anger one. But you are right: the simplest narrative will punish you sufficiently. Hear, then, the struggle and the victory of Mariana striving to continue yours.”

“Continue mine?” cried Wilhelm: “what fable dost thou mean to tell me?”

“Interrupt me not,” said she; “hear me, and then give what belief you list: to me it is all one. Did you not, the last night you were with us, find a letter in the room, and take it with you?”

“I found the letter after I had taken it with me: it was lying in the neckerchief, which, in the warmth of my love, I had seized and carried off.”

“What did the sheet contain?”

“The expectation of an angry lover to be better treated on the next than he had been on the preceding evening. And that you kept your word to him, I need not be told; for I saw him with my own eyes gliding from your house before daybreak.”

“You may have seen him; but what occurred within, how sadly Mariana passed that night, how fretfully I passed it, you are yet to learn. I will be altogether candid: I will neither hide nor palliate the fact, that I persuaded Mariana to yield to the solicitations of a certain Norberg; it was with repugnance that she followed my advice, nay, that she even heard it. He was rich; he seemed attached: I hoped he would be constant. Soon after, he was forced to go upon his journey; and Mariana became acquainted with you. What had I then to abide! What to hinder, what to undergo! ‘Oh!’ cried she often, ‘hadst thou spared my youth, my innocence, but four short weeks, I might have found a worthy object of my love; I had then been worthy of him; and love might have given, with a quiet conscience, what now I have sold against my will.’ She entirely abandoned herself to her affection for you: I need not ask if you were happy. Over her understanding I had an unbounded power, for I knew the means of satisfying all her little inclinations: but over her heart I had no control; for she never sanctioned what I did for her, what I counselled her to do, when her heart said nay. It was only to irresistible necessity that she would yield, but erelong the necessity appeared to her extremely pressing. In the first period of her youth, she had never known want; by a complication of misfortunes, her people lost their fortune; the poor girl had been used to have a number of conveniences; and upon her young spirit certain principles of honor had been stamped, which made her restless, without much helping her. She had not the smallest skill in worldly matters: she was innocent in the strictest meaning of the word. She had no idea that one could buy without paying; nothing frightened her more than being in debt: she always rather liked to give than take. This, and this alone, was what made it possible that she could be constrained to give herself away, in order to get rid of various little debts which weighed upon her.”

“And couldst not thou,” cried Wilhelm, in an angry tone, “have saved her?”

“Oh, yes!” replied the beldame, “with hunger and need, with sorrow and privation; but for this I was not disposed.”

“Abominable, base procuress! So thou hast sacrificed the hapless creature! Offered her up to thy throat, to thy insatiable maw!”

“It were better to compose yourself, and cease your reviling,” said the dame. “If you will revile, go to your high, noble houses: there you will meet with many a mother, full of anxious cares to find out for some lovely, heavenly maiden the most odious of men, provided he be the richest. See the poor creature shivering and faltering before her fate, and nowhere finding consolation, till some more experienced female lets her understand, that, by marriage, she acquires the right, in future, to dispose of her heart and person as she pleases.”

“Peace!” cried Wilhelm. “Dost thou think that one crime can be the excuse of another? To thy story, without further observations!”

“Do you listen, then, without blaming! Mariana became yours against my will. In this adventure, at least, I have nothing to reproach myself with. Norberg returned; he made haste to visit Mariana: she received him coldly and angrily,  —  would not even admit him to a kiss. I employed all my art in apologizing for her conduct,  —  gave him to understand that her confessor had awakened her conscience: that, so long as conscientious scruples lasted, one was bound to respect them. I at last so far succeeded that he went away, I promising to do my utmost for him. He was rich and rude; but there was a touch of goodness in him, and he loved Mariana without limit. He promised to be patient, and I labored with the greatest ardor not to try him too far. With Mariana I had a stubborn contest: I persuaded her, nay, I may call it forced her, by the threat of leaving her, to write to Norberg, and invite him for the night. You came, and by chance picked up his answer in the neckerchief. Your presence broke my game. For scarcely were you gone, when she anew began her lamentation: she swore she would not be unfaithful to you; she was so passionate, so frantic, that I could not help sincerely pitying her. In the end, I promised, that for this night also I would pacify her lover, and send him off, under some pretence or other. I entreated her to go to bed, but she did not seem to trust me: she kept on her clothes, and at last fell asleep, without undressing, agitated and exhausted with weeping as she was.

“Norberg came; representing in the blackest hues her conscientious agonies and her repentance, I endeavored to retain him: he wished to see her, and I went into the room to prepare her; he followed me, and both of us at once came forward to her bed. She awoke, sprang wildly up, and tore herself from our arms: she conjured and begged, she entreated, threatened, and declared she would not yield. She was improvident enough to let fall some words about the true state of her affections, which poor Norberg had to understand in a spiritual sense. At length he left her, and she locked her door. I kept him long with me, and talked with him about her situation. I told him that she was with child; that, poor girl, she should be humored. He was so delighted with his fatherhood, with his prospect of a boy, that he granted every thing she wished: he promised rather to set out and travel for a time, than vex his dear, and injure her by these internal troubles. With such intentions, at an early hour he glided out; and if you, mein Herr, stood sentry by our house, there was nothing wanting to your happiness, but to have looked into the bosom of your rival, whom you thought so favored and so fortunate, and whose appearance drove you to despair.”

“Art thou speaking truth?” said Wilhelm.

“True,” said the crone, “as I still hope to drive you to despair.”

“Yes: certainly you would despair, if I could rightly paint to you the following morning. How cheerfully did she awake! how kindly did she call me in, how warmly thank me, how cordially press me to her bosom! ‘Now,’ said she, stepping up to her mirror with a smile, ‘can I again take pleasure in myself, and in my looks, since once more I am my own, am his, my one beloved friend’s. How sweet is it to conquer! How I thank thee for taking charge of me; for having turned thy prudence and thy understanding, once, at least, to my advantage! Stand by me, and devise the means of making me entirely happy!’

“I assented, would not irritate her: I flattered her hopes, and she caressed me tenderly. If she retired but a moment from the window, I was made to stand and watch: for you, of course, would pass; for she at least would see you. Thus did we spend the restless day. At night, at the accustomed hour, we looked for you with certainty. I was already out waiting at the staircase: I grew weary, and came in to her again. With surprise I found her in her military dress: she looked cheerful and charming beyond what I had ever seen her. ‘Do I not deserve,’ said she, ‘to appear to-night in man’s apparel? Have I not struggled bravely? My dearest shall see me as he saw me for the first time: I will press him as tenderly and with greater freedom to my heart than then; for am I not his much more than I was then, when a noble resolution had not freed me? But,’ added she, after pausing for a little, ‘I have not yet entirely won him; I must still risk the uttermost, in order to be worthy, to be certain of possessing him; I must disclose the whole to him, discover to him all my state, then leave it to himself to keep or to reject me. This scene I am preparing for my friend, preparing for myself; and, were his feelings capable of casting me away, I should then belong again entirely to myself; my punishment would bring me consolation, I would suffer all that fate could lay upon me.’

“With such purposes and hopes, mein Herr, this lovely girl expected you: you came not. Oh! how shall I describe the state of watching and of hope? I see thee still before me,  —  with what love, what heartfelt love, thou spokest of the man whose cruelty thou hadst not yet experienced.”

“Good, dear Barbara!” cried Wilhelm, springing up, and seizing the old woman by the hand, “we have had enough of mummery and preparation! Thy indifferent, thy calm, contented tone betrays thee. Give me back my Mariana! She is living, she is near at hand. Not in vain didst thou choose this late, lonely hour to visit me; not in vain hast thou prepared me by thy most delicious narrative. Where is she? Where hast thou hidden her? I believe all, I will promise to believe all, so thou but show her to me, so thou give her to my arms. The shadow of her I have seen already: let me clasp her once more to my bosom. I will kneel before her, I will entreat forgiveness; I will congratulate her upon her victory over herself and thee; I will bring my Felix to her. Come! Where hast thou concealed her? Leave her, leave me no longer in uncertainty! Thy object is attained. Where hast thou hidden her? Let me light thee with this candle, let me once more see her fair and kindly face!”

He had pulled old Barbara from her chair: she stared at him; tears started into her eyes, wild pangs of grief took hold of her. “What luckless error,” cried she, “leaves you still a moment’s hope? Yes, I have hidden her, but beneath the ground: neither the light of the sun nor any social taper shall again illuminate her kindly face. Take the boy Felix to her grave, and say to him, ‘There lies thy mother, whom thy father doomed unheard.’ The heart of Mariana beats no longer with impatience to behold you: not in a neighboring chamber is she waiting the conclusion of my narrative or fable; the dark chamber has received her, to which no bridegroom follows, from which none comes to meet a lover.”

She cast herself upon the floor beside a chair, and wept bitterly. Wilhelm now, for the first time, felt entirely convinced that Mariana was no more: his emotions it is easy to conceive. The old woman rose: “I have nothing more to tell you,” cried she, and threw a packet on the table. “Here are some writings that will put your cruelty to shame: peruse these sheets with unwet eyes, if you can.” She glided softly out. Our friend had not the heart to open the pocket-book that night: he had himself presented it to Mariana; he knew that she had carefully preserved in it every letter he had sent her. Next morning he prevailed upon himself: he untied the ribbon; little notes came forward written with pencil in his own hand, and recalled to him every situation, from the first day of their graceful acquaintance to the last of their stern separation. In particular, it was not without acute anguish that he read a small series of billets which had been addressed to himself, and to which, as he saw from their tenor, Werner had refused admittance.

“No one of my letters has yet penetrated to thee; my entreaties, my prayers, have not reached thee; was it thyself that gave these cruel orders? Shall I never see thee more? Yet again I attempt it: I entreat thee, come, oh come! I ask not to retain thee, if I might but once more press thee to my heart.”

“When I used to sit beside thee, holding thy hands, looking in thy eyes, and with the full heart of love and trust to call thee ‘Dear, dear good Wilhelm!’ it would please thee so, that I had to repeat it over and over. I repeat it once again: ‘Dear, dear good Wilhelm! Be good as thou wert: come, and leave me not to perish in my wretchedness.’“

“Thou regardest me as guilty: I am so, but not as thou thinkest. Come, let me have this single comfort, to be altogether known to thee, let what will befall me afterwards.”

“Not for my sake alone, for thy own too, I beg of thee to come. I feel the intolerable pains thou art suffering, whilst thou fleest from me. Come, that our separation may be less cruel! Perhaps I was never worthy of thee till this moment, when thou art repelling me to boundless woe.”

“By all that is holy, by all that can touch a human heart, I call upon thee! It involves the safety of a soul, it involves a life, two lives, one of which must ever be dear to thee. This, too, thy suspicion will discredit: yet I will speak it in the hour of death; the child which I carry under my heart is thine. Since I began to love thee, no other man has even pressed my hand. Oh that thy love, that thy uprightness, had been the companions of my youth!”

“Thou wilt not hear me? I must even be silent. But these letters will not die: perhaps they will speak to thee, when the shroud is covering my lips, and the voice of thy repentance cannot reach my ear. Through my weary life, to the last moment, this will be my only comfort, that, though I cannot call myself blameless, towards thee I am free from blame.”

Wilhelm could proceed no farther: he resigned himself entirely to his sorrow, which became still more afflicting; when, Laertes entering, he was obliged to hide his feelings. Laertes showed a purse of ducats, and began to count and reckon them, assuring Wilhelm that there could be nothing finer in the world than for a man to feel himself on the way to wealth; that nothing then could trouble or detain him. Wilhelm bethought him of his dream, and smiled; but at the same time, he remembered with a shudder, that in his vision Mariana had forsaken him, to follow his departed father, and that both of them at last had moved about the garden, hovering in the air like spirits.

Laertes forced him from his meditations: he brought him to a coffee-house, where, immediately on Wilhelm’s entrance, several persons gathered round him. They were men who had applauded his performance on the stage: they expressed their joy at meeting him; lamenting that, as they had heard, he meant to leave the theatre. They spoke so reasonably and kindly of himself and his acting, of his talent, and their hopes from it, that Wilhelm, not without emotion, cried at last, “Oh, how infinitely precious would such sympathy have been to me some months ago! How instructive, how encouraging! Never had I turned my mind so totally from the concerns of the stage, never had I gone so far as to despair of the public.”

“So far as this,” said an elderly man who now stepped forward, “we should never go. The public is large: true judgment, true feeling, are not quite so rare as one believes; only the artist ought not to demand an unconditional approval of his work. Unconditional approval is always the least valuable: conditional you gentlemen are not content with. In life, as in art, I know well, a person must take counsel with himself when he purposes to do or to produce any thing: but, when it is produced or done, he must listen with attention to the voices of a number; and, with a little practice, out of these many votes he will be able to collect a perfect judgment. The few who could well have saved us this trouble for the most part hold their peace.”

“This they should not do,” said Wilhelm. “I have often heard people, who themselves kept silence in regard to works of merit, complain and lament that silence was kept.”

“To-day, then, we will speak aloud,” cried a young man. “You must dine with us; and we will try to pay off a little of the debt which we have owed to you, and sometimes also to our good Aurelia.”

This invitation Wilhelm courteously declined: he went to Frau Melina, whom he wished to speak with on the subject of the children, as he meant to take them from her.

Old Barbara’s secret was not too religiously observed by him. He betrayed himself so soon as he again beheld the lovely Felix. “Oh my child!” cried he: “my dear child!” He lifted him, and pressed him to his heart.

“Father! what hast thou brought for me?” cried the child. Mignon looked at both, as if she meant to warn them not to blab.

“What new phenomenon is this?” said Frau Melina. They got the children sent away; and Wilhelm, thinking that he did not owe old Barbara the strictest secrecy, disclosed the whole affair to Frau Melina. She viewed him with a smile. “Oh, these credulous men!” exclaimed she. “If any thing is lying in their path, it is so easy to impose it on them; while in other cases they will neither look to the right nor left, and can value nothing which they have not previously impressed with the stamp of an arbitrary passion!” She sighed, against her will: if our friend had not been altogether blind, he must have noticed in her conduct an affection for him which had never been entirely subdued.

He now spoke with her about the children,  —  how he purposed to keep Felix with him, and to place Mignon in the country. Madam Melina, though sorry at the thought of parting with them, said the plan was good, nay, absolutely necessary. Felix was becoming wild with her, and Mignon seemed to need fresh air and other occupation: she was sickly, and was not yet recovering.

“Let it not mislead you,” added Frau Melina, “that I have lightly hinted doubts about the boy’s being really yours. The old woman, it is true, deserves but little confidence; yet a person who invents untruths for her advantage, may likewise speak the truth when truths are profitable to her. Aurelia she had hoodwinked to believe that Felix was Lothario’s son; and it is a property of us women, that we cordially like the children of our lovers, though we do not know the mothers, or even hate them from the heart.” Felix came jumping in: she pressed him to her with a tenderness which was not usual to her.

Wilhelm hastened home, and sent for Barbara, who, however, would not undertake to meet him till the twilight. He received her angrily. “There is nothing in the world more shameful,” said he, “than establishing one’s self on lies and fables. Already thou hast done much mischief with them; and now, when thy word could decide the fortune of my life, now must I stand dubious, not venturing to call the child my own, though to possess him without scruple would form my highest happiness. I cannot look upon thee, scandalous creature, without hatred and contempt.”

“Your conduct, if I speak with candor,” said the old woman, “appears to me intolerable. Even if Felix were not yours, he is the fairest and the loveliest child in nature: one might purchase him at any price, to have him always near one. Is he not worthy your acceptance? Do not I deserve for my care, for the labor I have had with him, a little pension for the small remainder of my life? Oh, you gentlemen who know no want! It is well for you to talk of truth and honor; but how the miserable being whose smallest necessity is unprovided for, who sees in her perplexities no friend, no help, no counsel, how she is to press through the crowd of selfish men, and to starve in silence, you are seldom at the trouble to consider. Did you read Mariana’s letters? They are the letters she wrote to you at that unhappy season. It was in vain that I attempted to approach you to deliver you these sheets: your savage brother-in-law had so begirt you, that craft and cunning were of no avail; and at last, when he began to threaten me and Mariana with imprisonment, I had then to cease my efforts and renounce all hope. Does not every thing agree with what I told you? And does not Norberg’s letter put the story altogether out of doubt?”

“What letter?” asked he.

“Did you not find it in the pocket-book?” said Barbara.

“I have not yet read all of them.”

“Give me the pocket-book: on that paper every thing depends. Norberg’s luckless billet caused this sorrowful perplexity: another from his hand may loose the knots, so far as aught may still depend upon unravelling them.” She took a letter from the book: Wilhelm recognized that odious writing; he constrained himself, and read,  — 

“Tell me, girl, how hast thou got such power over me? I would not have believed that a goddess herself could make a sighing lover of me. Instead of hastening towards me with open arms, thou shrankest back from me: one might have taken it for aversion. Is it fair that I should spend the night with old Barbara, sitting on a trunk, and but two doors between me and my pretty Mariana? It is too bad, I tell thee! I have promised to allow thee time to think, not to press thee unrelentingly: I could run mad at every wasted quarter of an hour. Have not I given thee gifts according to my power? Dost thou still doubt of my love? What wilt thou have? Do but tell me: thou shalt want for nothing. Would the Devil had the priest that put such stuff into thy head! Why didst thou go to such a churl? There are plenty of them that allow young people somewhat. In short, I tell thee, things must alter: in two days I must have an answer, for I am to leave the town; and, if thou become not kind and friendly to me, thou shalt never see me more.”....

In this style the letter spun itself to great length; turning, to Wilhelm’s painful satisfaction, still about the same point, and testifying for the truth of the account which he had got from Barbara. A second letter clearly proved that Mariana, in the sequel, also had maintained her purpose; and it was not without heartfelt grief, that, out of these and other papers, Wilhelm learned the history of the unlucky girl to the very hour of her death.

Barbara had gradually tamed rude, regardless Norberg, by announcing to him Mariana’s death, and leaving him in the belief that Felix was his son. Once or twice he had sent her money, which, however, she retained for herself; having talked Aurelia into taking charge of the child. But, unhappily, this secret source of riches did not long endure. Norberg, by a life of riot, had impaired his fortune; and, by repeated love-affairs, his heart was rendered callous to his supposed first-born.

Probable as all this seemed, beautifully as it all agreed, Wilhelm did not venture to give way to joy. He still appeared to dread a present coming from his evil Genius.

“Your jealous fears,” said Barbara, who guessed his mood of mind, “time alone can cure. Look upon the child as a stranger one; take stricter heed of him on that account; observe his gifts, his temper, his capacities; and if you do not, by and by, discover in him the exact resemblance of yourself, your eyes must certainly be bad. Of this I can assure you,  —  were I a man, no one should foist a child on me; but it is a happiness for women, that, in these cases, men are not so quick of sight.”

These things over, Wilhelm and Barbara parted: he was to take Felix with him; she, to carry Mignon to Theresa, and afterwards to live in any place she pleased, upon a small annuity which he engaged to settle on her.

He sent for Mignon, to prepare her for the new arrangement. “Master,” said she, “keep me with thee: it will do me good, and do me ill.”

He told her, that, as she was now grown up, there should be something further done for her instruction. “I am sufficiently instructed,” answered she, “to love and grieve.”

He directed her attention to her health, and showed that she required continuous care, and the direction of a good physician. “Why care for me,” said she, “when there are so many things to care for?”

After he had labored greatly to persuade her that he could not take her with him, that he would conduct her to a place where he might often see her, she appeared as if she had not heard a word of it. “Thou wishest not to have me with thee,” said she. “Perhaps it is better: send me to the old harper; the poor man is lonely where he is.”

Wilhelm tried to show her that the old man was in comfortable circumstances. “Every hour I long for him,” replied the child.

“I did not see,” said Wilhelm, “that thou wert so fond of him when he was living with us.”

“I was frightened for him when he was awake; I could not bear his eyes: but, when he was asleep, I liked so well to sit by him! I used to chase the flies from him: I could not look at him enough. Oh! he has stood by me in fearful moments: none knows how much I owe him. Had I known the road, I should have run away to him already.”

Wilhelm set the circumstances in detail before her: he said that she had always been a reasonable child, and that, on this occasion also, she might do as she desired. “Reason is cruel,” said she; “the heart is better: I will go as thou requirest, only leave me Felix.”

After much discussion her opinion was not altered; and Wilhelm at last resolved on giving Barbara both the children, and sending them together to Theresa. This was the easier for him, as he still feared to look upon the lovely Felix as his son. He would take him on his arm, and carry him about: the child delighted to be held before the glass; Wilhelm also liked, though unavowedly, to hold him there, and seek resemblances between their faces. If for a moment any striking similarity appeared between them, he would press the boy in his arms; and then, at once affrighted by the thought that he might be mistaken, he would set him down, and let him run away. “Oh,” cried he, “if I were to appropriate this priceless treasure, and it were then to be snatched from me, I should be the most unhappy man on earth!”

The children had been sent away; and Wilhelm was about to take a formal leave of the theatre, when he felt that in reality he had already taken leave, and needed but to go. Mariana was no more: his two guardian spirits had departed, and his thoughts hied after them. The fair boy hovered like a beautiful uncertain vision in the eyes of his imagination: he saw him, at Theresa’s hand, running through the fields and woods, forming his mind and person in the free air, beside a free and cheerful foster-mother. Theresa had become far dearer to him since he figured her in company with Felix. Even while sitting in the theatre, he thought of her with smiles; he was almost in her own case: the stage could now produce no more illusion in him.

Serlo and Melina were excessively polite to him, when they observed that he was making no pretensions to his former place. A portion of the public wished to see him act again: this he could not accede to; nor in the company did any one desire it, saving Frau Melina.

Of this friend he now took leave; he was moved at parting with her: he exclaimed, “Why do we presume to promise any thing depending on an unknown future? The most slight engagement we have not power to keep, far less a purpose of importance. I feel ashamed in recollecting what I promised to you all, in that unhappy night, when we were lying plundered, sick, and wounded, crammed into a miserable tavern. How did misfortune elevate my courage! what a treasure did I think I had found in my good wishes! And of all this not a jot has taken effect! I leave you as your debtor; and my comfort is, that our people prized my promise at its actual worth, and never more took notice of it.”

“Be not unjust to yourself,” said Frau Melina: “if no one acknowledges what you have done for us, I at least will not forget it. Our whole condition had been different, if you had not been with us. But it is with our purposes as with our wishes. They seem no longer what they were, when they have been accomplished, been fulfilled; and we think we have done, have wished for, nothing.”

“You shall not, by your friendly statement,” answered Wilhelm, “put my conscience to peace. I shall always look upon myself as in your debt.”

“Nay, perhaps you are so,” said Madam Melina, “but not in the manner you suppose. We reckon it a shame to fail in the fulfilment of a promise we have uttered with the voice. O my friend! a worthy person by his very presence promises us much. The confidence he elicits, the inclination he inspires, the hopes he awakens, are unbounded: he is and continues in our debt, although he does not know it. Fare you well! If our external circumstances have been happily repaired by your direction, in my mind there is, by your departure, produced a void which will not be filled up again so easily.”

Before leaving the city, Wilhelm wrote a copious sheet to Werner. He had before exchanged some letters; but, not being able to agree, they had at length ceased to write. Now, however, Wilhelm had again approximated to his brother: he was just about to do what Werner had so earnestly desired. He could say, “I am abandoning the stage: I mean to join myself with men whose intercourse, in every sense, must lead me to a sure and suitable activity.” He inquired about his property; and it now seemed strange to him, that he had never, for so long a time, disturbed himself about it. He knew not that it is the manner of all persons who attach importance to their inward cultivation altogether to neglect their outward circumstances. This had been Wilhelm’s case: he now for the first time seemed to notice, that, to work effectively, he stood in need of outward means. He entered on his journey, this time, in a temper altogether different from that of last; the prospects he had in view were charming; he hoped to meet with something cheerful by the way.

CHAPTER IX.

On returning to Lothario’s castle, Wilhelm found that changes had occurred. Jarno met him with the tidings, that, Lothario’s uncle being dead, the baron had himself set out to take possession of the heritage. “You come in time,” said he, “to help the abbé and me. Lothario has commissioned us to purchase some extensive properties of land in this quarter: he has long contemplated the bargain, and we have now got cash and credit just in season. The only point which made us hesitate was, that a distant trading-house had also views upon the same estates: at length we have determined to make common cause with it, as otherwise we might outbid each other without need or reason. The trader seems to be a prudent man. At present we are making estimates and calculations: we must also settle economically how the lands are to be shared, so that each of us may have a fine estate.” The papers were submitted to our friend: the fields, meadows, houses, were inspected; and, though Jarno and the abbé seemed to understand the matter fully, Wilhelm could not help desiring that Theresa had been with them.

In these labors several days were spent, and Wilhelm had scarcely time to tell his friends of his adventures and his dubious fatherhood. This incident, to him so interesting, they treated with indifference and levity.

He had noticed, that they frequently in confidential conversation, while at table or in walks, would suddenly stop short, and give their words another application; thereby showing, at least, that they had on the anvil many things which were concealed from him. He bethought him of what Lydia had said; and he put the greater faith in it, as one entire division of the castle had always been inaccessible to him. The way to certain galleries, particularly to the ancient tower, with which externally he was so well acquainted, he had often sought, and hitherto in vain.

One evening Jarno said to him, “We can now consider you as ours, with such security, that it were unjust if we did not introduce you deeper into our mysteries. It is right that a man, when he first enters upon life, should think highly of himself, should determine to attain many eminent distinctions, should endeavor to make all things possible; but, when his education has proceeded to a certain pitch, it is advantageous for him, that he learn to lose himself among a mass of men, that he learn to live for the sake of others, and to forget himself in an activity prescribed by duty. It is then that he first becomes acquainted with himself, for it is conduct alone that compares us with others. You shall soon see what a curious little world is at your very hand, and how well you are known in it. To-morrow morning before sunrise be dressed and ready.”

Jarno came at the appointed hour: he led our friend through certain known and unknown chambers of the castle, then through several galleries; till at last they reached a large old door, strongly framed with iron. Jarno knocked: the door went up a little, so as to admit one person. Jarno shoved in our friend, but did not follow him. Wilhelm found himself in an obscure and narrow stand: all was dark around him; and, when he tried to go a step forward, he found himself hemmed in. A voice not altogether strange to him cried, “Enter!” and he now discovered that the sides of the place where he was were merely hung with tapestry, through which a feeble light glimmered in to him. “Enter!” cried the voice again: he raised the tapestry, and entered.

The hall in which he now stood appeared to have at one time been a chapel: instead of the altar, he observed a large table raised some steps above the floor, and covered with a green cloth hanging over it. On the top of this, a drawn curtain seemed as if it hid a picture; on the sides were spaces beautifully worked, and covered in with fine wire-netting, like the shelves of a library; only here, instead of books, a multitude of rolls had been inserted. Nobody was in the hall: the rising sun shone through the window, right on Wilhelm, and kindly saluted him as he came in.

“Be seated!” cried a voice, which seemed to issue from the altar. Wilhelm placed himself in a small arm-chair, which stood against the tapestry where he had entered. There was no seat but this in the room: Wilhelm had to be content with it, though the morning radiance dazzled him; the chair stood fast, he could only keep his hand before his eyes.

But now the curtain, which hung down above the altar, went asunder with a gentle rustling, and showed, within a picture-frame, a dark, empty aperture. A man stepped forward at it, in a common dress, saluted the astonished looker-on, and said to him, “Do you not recognize me? Among the many things which you would like to know, do you feel no curiosity to learn where your grandfather’s collection of pictures and statues are at present? Have you forgot the painting which you once so much delighted in? Where, think you, is the sick king’s son now languishing?” Wilhelm, without difficulty, recognized the stranger, whom, in that important night, he had conversed with at the inn. “Perhaps,” continued his interrogator, “we should now be less at variance in regard to destiny and character.”

Wilhelm was about to answer, when the curtain quickly flew together. “Strange!” said Wilhelm to himself: “can chance occurrences have a connection? Is what we call Destiny but Chance? Where is my grandfather’s collection? and why am I reminded of it in these solemn moments?”

He had not leisure to pursue his thoughts: the curtain once more parted; and a person stood before him, whom he instantly perceived to be the country clergyman that had attended him and his companions on that pleasure-sail of theirs. He had a resemblance to the abbé, though he seemed to be a different person. With a cheerful countenance, in a tone of dignity, he said, “To guard from error is not the instructor’s duty, but to lead the erring pupil; nay, to let him quaff his error in deep, satiating draughts, this is the instructor’s wisdom. He who only tastes his error, will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it out.” The curtain closed again, and Wilhelm had a little time to think. “What error can he mean,” said he within himself, “but the error which has clung to me through my whole life,  —  that I sought for cultivation where it was not to be found; that I fancied I could form a talent in me, while without the smallest gift for it?”

The curtain dashed asunder faster than before: an officer advanced, and said in passing, “Learn to know the men who may be trusted!” The curtain closed; and Wilhelm did not long consider, till he found this officer to be the one who had embraced him in the count’s park, and had caused his taking Jarno for a crimp. How that stranger had come hither, who he was, were riddles to our friend. “If so many men,” cried he, “took interest in thee, know thy way of life, and how it should be carried on, why did they not conduct thee with greater strictness, with greater seriousness? Why did they favor thy silly sports, instead of drawing thee away from them?”

“Dispute not with us!” cried a voice. “Thou art saved, thou art on the way to the goal. None of thy follies wilt thou repent; none wilt thou wish to repeat; no luckier destiny can be allotted to a man.” The curtain went asunder, and in full armor stood the old king of Denmark in the space. “I am thy father’s spirit,” said the figure; “and I depart in comfort since my wishes for thee are accomplished, in a higher sense than I myself contemplated. Steep regions cannot be surmounted save by winding paths: on the plain, straight roads conduct from place to place. Farewell, and think of me when thou enjoyest what I have provided for thee.”

Wilhelm was exceedingly amazed and struck: he thought it was his father’s voice; and yet in truth it was not: the present and the past alike confounded and perplexed him.

He had not meditated long when the abbé came to view, and placed himself behind the green table. “Come hither!” cried he to his marvelling friend. He went, and mounted up the steps. On the green cloth lay a little roll. “Here is your indenture,” said the abbé: “take it to heart; it is of weighty import.” Wilhelm lifted, opened it, and read:  — 

INDENTURE.

Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force: the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.

“Enough!” cried the abbé: “the rest in due time. Now look round you among these cases.”

Wilhelm went, and read the titles of the rolls. With astonishment he found, “Lothario’s Apprenticeship,” “Jarno’s Apprenticeship,” and his own Apprenticeship placed there, with many others whose names he did not know.

“May I hope to cast a look into these rolls?”

“In this chamber there is now nothing hid from you.”

“May I put a question?”

“Without scruple; and you may expect a positive reply, if it concerns a matter which is nearest your heart, and ought to be so.”

“Good, then! Ye marvellous sages, whose sight has pierced so many secrets, can you tell me whether Felix is in truth my son?”

“Hail to you for this question!” cried the abbé, clapping hands for joy. “Felix is your son! By the holiest that lies hid among us, I swear to you Felix is your son; nor, in our opinion, was the mother that is gone unworthy of you. Receive the lovely child from our hands: turn round, and venture to be happy.”

Wilhelm heard a noise behind him: he turned round, and saw a child’s face peeping archly through the tapestry at the end of the room; it was Felix. The boy playfully hid himself so soon as he was noticed. “Come forward!” cried the abbé: he came running; his father rushed towards him, took him in his arms, and pressed him to his heart. “Yes! I feel it,” cried he, “thou art mine! What a gift of Heaven have I to thank my friends for! Whence or how comest thou, my child, at this important moment?”

“Ask not,” said the abbé. “Hail to thee, young man! Thy Apprenticeship is done: Nature has pronounced thee free.”

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER II

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

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

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

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

“Not altogether,” said Lothario.

“Are we not giving hard cash for it?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I wish I were,’ said Mignon.

‘Why dost thou bear a lily?’

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

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

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

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

Such let me seem till such I be;

Take not my snow-white dress away!

Soon from this dusk of earth I flee

Up to the glittering lands of day.

There first a little space I rest,

Then wake so glad, to scene so kind;

In earthly robes no longer drest,

This band, this girdle left behind.

And those calm shining sons of morn

They ask not who is maid or boy;

No robes, no garments there are worn,

Our body pure from sin’s alloy.

Through little life not much I toil’d,

Yet anguish long this heart has wrung,

Untimely woe my blossom spoil’d;

Make me again forever young!

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

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

CHAPTER III

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You read the manuscript?” inquired Natalia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you know who it was?”

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

“I know it not myself.”

“Not Mignon, then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV

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

“A letter from Theresa!” cried he.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You have never loved?” cried Wilhelm.

“Never, or always!” said Natalia.

CHAPTER V

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He then began to read passages, speaking between whiles, and connecting them with his remarks and narrative. “The taste of youth for secrecy, for ceremonies, for imposing words, is extraordinary; and frequently bespeaks a certain depth of character. In those years, we wish to feel our whole nature seized and moved, even though it be but vaguely and darkly. The youth who happens to have lofty aspirations and forecastings, thinks that secrets, and effect much by means of them. It was with such views that the Abbé favoured a certain Society of young men; partly according to his principle of aiding every tendency of nature, partly out of habit and inclination; for in former times he had himself been joined to an association, which appears to have accomplished many things in secret. For this business I was least of all adapted. I was older than the rest; from youth I had thought clearly; I wished in all things nothing more than clearness; I felt no interest in men, but to know them as they were. With the same taste I gradually infected all the best of our associates; and this circumstance had almost given a false direction to our plan of culture. For we now began to look at nothing but the errors and the narrowness of others, and to think ourselves a set of highly-gifted personages. Here the Abbé came to our assistance: he taught us, that we never should inspect the conduct of men, unless we at the same time took an interest in improving it; and that through action only could we ever be in a condition to inspect and watch ourselves. He advised us, however, to retain the primary forms of the Society: hence there was still a sort of law in our proceedings; the first mystic impressions might be traced in the constitution of the whole.

At length, as by a practical similitude, it took the form of a corporate trade, whose business was the arts. Hence came the names of Apprentices, Assistants, and Masters. We wished to see with our own eyes, and to form for ourselves a special record of our own experience in the world. Hence those numerous confessions, which in part we ourselves wrote, in part made others write; and out of which the several Apprenticeships were afterwards compiled. The formation of his character is not the chief concern with every man. Many merely wish to find a sort of recipe for comfort, directions for acquiring riches, or whatever good they aim at. All such, when they would not be instructed in their proper duties, we were wont to mystify, to treat with juggleries and every sort of hocus-pocus, and at length to shove aside. We advanced none to the rank of Masters, but such as clearly felt and recognised the purpose they were born for, and had got enough of practice to proceed along their way with a certain cheerfulness and ease.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Hold! hold!” cried Wilhelm: “I have read it all.” — ”Yet a line or two!” said Jarno: “Here is our worthy Abbé to a hairsbreadth: ‘One power rules another; none can cultivate another: in each endowment, and not elsewhere, lies the force which must complete it: this many people do not understand, who yet attempt to teach and influence.”‘ — ”I too do not understand it,” answered Wilhelm. — ”You will often hear the Abbé preach on this text; and, therefore, ‘Let us merely keep a clear and steady eye on what is in ourselves; on what endowments of our own we mean to cultivate; let us be just to others; for we ourselves are only to be valued in so far as we can value.”‘ — ”For Heaven’s sake, no more of these wise saws! I feel them to be but a sorry balsam for a wounded heart. Tell me rather, with your cruel settledness, what you expect of me, how and in what manner you intend to sacrifice me.” — ”For every such suspicion, I assure you, you will afterwards beg our pardon. It is your affair to try and choose; it is ours to aid you. A man is never happy till his vague striving has itself marked out its proper limitation. It is not to me that you must look, but to the Abbé: it is not of yourself that you must think, but of what surrounds you. Thus, for instance, learn to understand Lothario’s superiority; how his quick and comprehensive vision is inseparably united with activity; how he constantly advances; how he expands his influence, and carries every one along with him. Wherever he may be, he bears a world about with him: his presence animates and kindles. Observe our good Physician, on the other hand! His nature seems to be directly the reverse. If the former only works upon the general whole, and at a distance, the latter turns his piercing eye upon the things that are beside him; he rather furnishes the means for being active, than himself displays or stimulates activity. His conduct is exactly like the conduct of a good domestic manager; he is busied silently, while he provides for each in his peculiar sphere; his knowledge is a constant gathering and expending, a taking in and giving out on the small scale. Perhaps Lothario in a single day might overturn what the other had for years been employed in building up: but perhaps Lothario also might impart to others, in a moment, strength sufficient to restore a hundredfold what he had overturned.” — ”It is but a sad employment,” answered Wilhelm, “to contemplate the sublime advantages of others at a moment when we are at variance with ourselves. Such contemplations suit the man at ease; not him whom passion and uncertainty are agitating.” — ”Peacefully and reasonably to contemplate is at no time hurtful,” answered Jarno: “and while we use ourselves to think of the advantages of others, our own mind comes insensibly to imitate them; and every false activity, to which our fancy was alluring us, is then willingly abandoned. Free your mind, if you can, from all suspicion and anxiety. Here comes the Abbé: be courteous towards him, till you have learned still farther what you owe him. The rogue! There he goes between Natalia and Theresa; I could bet he is contriving something. As in general he likes to act the part of Destiny a little; so he does not fail to show a taste for making matches, when he finds an opportunity.”

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

CHAPTER VI

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

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

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

“Do but hear the distracted stupid message,” said Lothario.

“‘As of all guests, Good Humour is believed to be the most agreeable wherever he appears, and as I always keep that gentleman beside me by way of travelling companion, I feel persuaded that the visit I intend to pay your noble Lordship will not be taken ill; on the contrary, I hope the whole of your illustrious family will witness my arrival with complete satisfaction; and in due time also my departure; being always, et cetera, Count of Snailfoot.”‘

“’Tis a new family,” said the Abbé.

“A vicariat count, perhaps,” said Jarno.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What visit?”

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

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

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

“Frau von —  — spent the first years of her wedlock in the utmost concord with her husband; only they had this misfortune, that the children she brought him came into the world dead; and on occasion of the third, the mother was declared by the Physicians to be on the verge of death, and to be sure of death if she should ever have another. The parties were obliged to take their resolution: they would not break the marriage; it was too suitable to both, in a civil point of view. Frau von —  — sought in the culture of her mind, in a certain habit of display, in the joys of vanity, a compensation for the happiness of motherhood which was refused her.

She cheerfully indulged her husband, when she noticed in him an attachment to a young lady, who had sole charge of their domestic economy; a person of beautiful exterior, and very solid character. Frau von —  — herself, ere long, assisted in procuring an arrangement; by which the lady yielded to the wishes of Theresa’s father; continuing to discharge her household duties, and testifying to the mistress of the family, if possible, a more submissive zeal to serve her than before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And how?” cried Friedrich.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The stranger was affected at again beholding these productions, when the owner of them was no more; and cheered to see the spirit of his friend surviving in the gifted persons left behind him.

They discussed a series of works; they found a lively satisfaction in the harmony of their ideas. The Marchese and the Abbé were the speakers; Natalia felt herself again transported to the presence of her uncle, and could enter without difficulty into their opinions and criticisms; Wilhelm could not understand them, except as he translated their technology into dramatic language. Friedrich’s facetious vein was sometimes rather difficult to keep in check. Jarno was seldom there.

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VIII

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

CHORUS

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

BOYS

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

CHORUS

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

BOYS

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

CHORUS

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

BOYS

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

CHORUS

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

BOYS

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

CHORUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE YOUTHS

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

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

CHAPTER IX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Doctor was informed of all that had transpired since his departure; towards Augustin, it was determined that they should observe the deepest silence in regard to it. The Abbé undertook to keep beside him, and to lead him forward on the healthful path he had entered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Will you help me,” said the Count to Jarno, after everything was settled, “to clear up my recollections of the young man there, whom you call Meister, and who, you tell me, is a German?” Jarno was silent; for he knew very well that the Count was one of those people who, in asking questions, merely wish to show their knowledge. The Count accordingly continued, without waiting for an answer: “You, I recollect, presented him to me; and warmly recommended him in the Prince’s name. If his mother was a German woman, I’ll be bound for it his father is an Englishman, and one of rank too: who can calculate the English blood that has been flowing, these last thirty years, in German veins! I do not wish to pump you: I know you have always family secrets of that kind; but in such cases it is in vain to think of cheating me.” He then proceeded to detail a great variety of things as having taken place with Wilhelm at the Castle; to the whole of which Jarno, as before, kept silence; though the Count was altogether in the wrong, confounding Wilhelm more than once with a young Englishman of the Prince’s suite. The truth was, the good old gentleman had in former years possessed a very excellent memory; and was still proud of being able to remember the minutest circumstances of his youth: but in regard to late occurrences, he used to settle in his mind as true, and utter with the greatest certainty, whatever fables and fantastic combinations in the growing weakness of his powers, imagination might present to him. For the rest, he was become extremely mild and courteous; his presence had a very favourable influence upon the company. He would call on them to read some useful book together; nay he often gave them little games, which, without participating in them, he directed with the greatest care. If they wondered at his condescension, he would reply, that it became a man, who differed from the world in weighty matters, to conform to it the more anxiously in matters of indifference.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The company looked at one another, and smiled.

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

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

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

“O ye shall wonders see!

What has been is not to be;

What is said is not to say,

Before the break of day

Ye shall wonders see!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He has listened,” said the Baron. — ”Scandalous!” exclaimed the Abbé.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

Translated by James Anthony Froude and R. Dillon Boylan

Goethe’s third novel was published in 1809. The title is a scientific term used to describe the tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances in preference to others. The novel is based on the metaphor of human passions being governed by the laws of chemical affinity, and examines whether or not the laws of chemistry undermine or uphold the institution of marriage, as well as other social relations.

Elective Affinities is set in the city of Weimar and features the protagonists Eduard and Charlotte, an aristocratic couple, enjoying a peaceful, but lacklustre life on the grounds of their rural estate. They invite the Captain, Eduard’s childhood friend, and Ottilie, the beautiful, orphaned, coming-of-age niece of Charlotte, to live with them. The decision to invite Ottilie and the Captain is described as an “experiment”, preparing for the conflict of the novel.

Ever since the time of its first publication, Elective Affinities has roused many interpretations among critics, who debate the role of the chemical theory of elective affinities. Some argue that it suggests a philosophy of nature that is rooted in fate, whilst others maintain that the novel concerns the importance of free choice. Others believe that the chemical theory is merely a structural device that allows the author to foreshadow events, bearing no relevance to the greater issues of the novel.

The first edition

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

PART II

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

Late Eighteenth-Century Weimar — the setting of the novel

The 1996 film adaptation

INTRODUCTION

In the spring of the year 1807 Goethe began work on the second part of Wilhelm Meister. He had no very definite plot in view, but proposed to make room for a number of short stories, all relating to the subject of renunciation, which was to be the central theme of the Wanderjahre. In the course of the summer, while he was taking the waters at Karlsbad, two or three of the stories were written. The following spring he set about elaborating another tale of renunciation, the idea of which had occurred to him some time before. But somehow it refused to be confined within the limits of a novelette. As he proceeded the matter grew apace, until it finally developed into the novel which was given to the world in 1809 under the title of The Elective Affinities.

When that which should be a short story is expanded into a novel one can usually detect the padding and the embroidery. So it is certainly in this case. Those long descriptions of landscape-gardening; the copious extracts from Ottilie’s diary, containing many thoughts which would hardly have entered the head of such a girl; the pages given to subordinate characters, whose comings and goings have no very obvious connection with the story, — all these retard the narrative and tend to hide the essential idea. The strange title, too, has served to divert attention from the real centre of gravity. Had the tale been called, say, “Ottilie’s Expiation,” there would have been less room for misunderstanding and irrelevant criticism; there would have been less concern over the moral, and more over the artistic, aspect of the story.

What then was the essential idea? Simply to describe a peculiar tragedy resulting from the invasion of the marriage relation by lawless passion. As for the title, it should be remembered that there was just then a tendency to look for curious analogies between physical law and the operations of the human mind. Great interest was felt in suggestion, occult influence, and all that sort of thing. Goethe himself had lately been lecturing on magnetism. He had also observed, as no one can fail to observe, that the sexual attraction sometimes seems to act like chemical affinity: it breaks up old unions, forms new combinations, destroys pre-existing bodies, as if it were a law that must work itself out, whatever the consequences. Such a process will now and then defy prudence, self-respect, duty, even religion, — going its way like a blind and ruthless law of physics. But if this is to happen the recombining elements must, of course, have each its specific character; else there is no affinity and no tragedy.

It is no part of the analogy that the pressure of sex is always and by its very nature like the attraction of atoms. Aside from the fact that character consists largely in the steady inhibition of instinct and passion by the will, there is this momentous difference between atoms or molecules, on the one hand, and souls on the other: the character of the atom or molecule is constant, that of the soul is highly variable. There is no room here for remarks on free will and determinism; suffice it to say that Goethe does not preach any doctrine of mechanical determinism in human relations. The scientific analogy must not be pressed too hard. It is really not important, since after all nothing turns on it. Whatever interest the novel has it would have if all reference to chemistry had been omitted. Goethe’s thesis, if he can be said to have one, is simply that character is fate.

He imagines a middle-aged man and woman, Edward and Charlotte, who are, to all seeming, happily united in marriage. Each has been married before to an unloved mate who has conveniently died, leaving them both free to yield to the gentle pull of long-past youthful attachment. Their feeling for each other is only a mild friendship, but that does not appear to augur ill, since they are well-to-do, and their fine estate offers them both a plenty of interesting work. Edward has a highly esteemed friend called the Captain, who is for the moment without suitable employment for his ability and energy. Edward can give him just the needed work, with great advantage to the property, and would like to do so. Charlotte fears that the presence of the Captain may disturb their pleasant idyl, but finally yields. She herself has a niece, Ottilie, a beautiful girl whom no one understands and who is not doing well at her boarding-school. Charlotte would like to have the girl under her own care. After much debate the pair take both the Captain and Ottilie into their spacious castle.

And now the elective affinity begins to do its disastrous work. Edward, who has always indulged himself in every whim and has no other standard of conduct, falls madly in love with the charming Ottilie, who has a passion for making herself useful and serving everybody. She adapts herself to Edward, fails to see what a shabby specimen of a man he really is, humors his whims, and worships him — at first in an innocent girlish way. Charlotte is not long in discovering that the Captain is a much better man than her husband; she loves him, but within the limits of wifely duty. In the vulgar world of prose such a tangle could be most easily straightened out by divorce and remarriage. This is what Edward proposes and tries to bring about. The others are almost won over to this solution when the event happens that precipitates the tragedy: the child of Edward and Charlotte is accidentally drowned by Ottilie’s carelessness.

It is a very dubious link in Goethe’s fiction that this child, while the genuine offspring of Edward and Charlotte, has the features of Ottilie and the Captain. From the moment of the drowning Ottilie is a changed being. Her character quickly matures; like a wakened sleep-walker she sees what a dangerous path she has been treading. She feels that marriage with Edward would be a crime. She resists his passionate appeals, and her remorse takes on a morbid tinge. It becomes a fixed idea. Happiness is not for her. She must renounce it all. She must atone — atone — for her awful sin. For a moment they plan to send her back to school, but she cannot tear herself away from Edward’s sinister presence. At last she refuses food and gradually starves herself to death. The wretched Edward does likewise.

Any just appreciation of Goethe’s art in The Elective Affinities must begin by recognizing that it is about Ottilie. For her sake the book was written. It is a study of a delicately organized virgin soul caught in the meshes of an ignoble fate and beating its wings in hopeless misery until death ends the struggle. The other characters are ordinary people: Charlotte and the Captain ordinary in their good sense and self-control, Edward ordinary in his moral flabbiness and his foolish infatuation. His death, to be sure, is unthinkable for such a man and does but testify to the unearthly attraction with which the girl is invested by Goethe’s art. The figure of Ottilie, like that of her spiritual sister Mignon, is irradiated by a light that never was on sea or land. She is a creature of romance, and we learn without much surprise that her dead body performs miracles. One is reminded of that medieval lady who is doomed to eat the heart of her crusading lover and then refuses all other food and dies. That Edward is quite unworthy of the girl’s love, that the death of the child is no sufficient reason for her morbid remorse, is quite immaterial, since at the end of the tale we are no longer in the realm of normal psychology. A season of dreamy happiness, as she moves about in a world unrealized; then a terrible shock, and after that, remorse, renunciation, hopelessness, the will to die. Such is the logic of the tale.

PART I

CHAPTER I

Edward — so we shall call a wealthy nobleman in the prime of life — had been spending several hours of a fine April morning in his nursery-garden, budding the stems of some young trees with cuttings which had been recently sent to him.

He had finished what he was about, and having laid his tools together in their box, was complacently surveying his work, when the gardener came up and complimented his master on his industry.

“Have you seen my wife anywhere?” inquired Edward, as he moved to go away.

“My lady is alone yonder in the new grounds,” said the man; “the summer-house which she has been making on the rock over against the castle is finished today, and really it is beautiful. It cannot fail to please your grace. The view from it is perfect: — the village at your feet; a little to your right the church, with its tower, which you can just see over; and directly opposite you, the castle and the garden.”

“Quite true,” replied Edward; “I can see the people at work a few steps from where I am standing.”

“And then, to the right of the church again,” continued the gardener, “is the opening of the valley; and you look along over a range of wood and meadow far into the distance. The steps up the rock, too, are excellently arranged. My gracious lady understands these things; it is a pleasure to work under her.”

“Go to her,” said Edward, “and desire her to be so good as to wait for me there. Tell her I wish to see this new creation of hers, and enjoy it with her.”

The gardener went rapidly off, and Edward soon followed. Descending the terrace, and stopping as he passed to look into the hot-houses and the forcing-pits, he came presently to the stream, and thence, over a narrow bridge, to a place where the walk leading to the summer-house branched off in two directions. One path led across the churchyard, immediately up the face of the rock. The other, into which he struck, wound away to the left, with a more gradual ascent, through a pretty shrubbery. Where the two paths joined again, a seat had been made, where he stopped a few moments to rest; and then, following the now single road, he found himself, after scrambling along among steps and slopes of all sorts and kinds, conducted at last through a narrow more or less steep outlet to the summer-house.

Charlotte was standing at the door to receive her husband. She made him sit down where, without moving, he could command a view of the different landscapes through the door and window — these serving as frames, in which they were set like pictures. Spring was coming on; a rich, beautiful life would soon everywhere be bursting; and Edward spoke of it with delight.

“There is only one thing which I should observe,” he added, “the summer-house itself is rather small.”

“It is large enough for you and me, at any rate,” answered Charlotte.

“Certainly,” said Edward; “there is room for a third, too, easily.”

“Of course; and for a fourth also,” replied Charlotte. “For larger parties we can contrive other places.”

“Now that we are here by ourselves, with no one to disturb us, and in such a pleasant mood,” said Edward, “it is a good opportunity for me to tell you that I have for some time had something on my mind, about which I have wished to speak to you, but have never been able to muster up my courage.”

“I have observed that there has been something of the sort,” said Charlotte.

“And even now,” Edward went on, “if it were not for a letter which the post brought me this morning, and which obliges me to come to some resolution today, I should very likely have still kept it to myself.”

“What is it, then” asked Charlotte, turning affectionately toward him.

“It concerns our friend the Captain,” answered Edward; “you know the unfortunate position in which he, like many others, is placed. It is through no fault of his own; but you may imagine how painful it must be for a person with his knowledge and talents and accomplishments, to find himself without employment. I — I will not hesitate any longer with what I am wishing for him. I should like to have him here with us for a time.”

“We must think about that,” replied Charlotte; “it should be considered on more sides than one.”

“I am quite ready to tell you what I have in view,” returned Edward. “Through his last letters there is a prevailing tone of despondency; not that he is really in any want. He knows thoroughly well how to limit his expenses; and I have taken care for everything absolutely necessary. It is no distress to him to accept obligations from me; all our lives we have been in the habit of borrowing from and lending to each other; and we could not tell, if we would, how our debtor and creditor account stands. It is being without occupation which is really fretting him. The many accomplishments which he has cultivated in himself, it is his only pleasure — indeed, it is his passion — to be daily and hourly exercising for the benefit of others. And now, to sit still, with his arms folded; or to go on studying, acquiring, and acquiring, when he can make no use of what he already possesses; — my dear creature, it is a painful situation; and alone as he is, he feels it doubly and trebly.”

“But I thought,” said Charlotte, “that he had had offers from many different quarters. I myself wrote to numbers of my own friends, male and female, for him; and, as I have reason to believe, not without effect.”

“It is true,” replied Edward; “but these very offers — these various proposals — have only caused him fresh embarrassment. Not one of them is at all suitable to such a person as he is. He would have nothing to do; he would have to sacrifice himself, his time, his purposes, his whole method of life; and to that he cannot bring himself. The more I think of it all, the more I feel about it, and the more anxious I am to see him here with us.”

“It is very beautiful and amiable in you,” answered Charlotte, “to enter with so much sympathy into your friend’s position; only you must allow me to ask you to think of yourself and of me, as well.”

“I have done that,” replied Edward. “For ourselves, we can have nothing to expect from his presence with us, except pleasure and advantage. I will say nothing of the expense. In any case, if he came to us, it would be but small; and you know he will be of no inconvenience to us at all. He can have his own rooms in the right wing of the castle, and everything else can be arranged as simply as possible. What shall we not be thus doing for him! and how agreeable and how profitable may not his society prove to us! I have long been wishing for a plan of the property and the grounds. He will see to it, and get it made. You intend yourself to take the management of the estate, as soon as our present steward’s term is expired; and that, you know, is a serious thing. His various information will be of immense benefit to us; I feel only too acutely how much I require a person of this kind. The country people have knowledge enough, but their way of imparting it is confused, and not always honest. The students from the towns and universities are sufficiently clever and orderly, but they are deficient in personal experience. From my friend, I can promise myself both knowledge and method, and hundreds of other circumstances I can easily conceive arising, affecting you as well as me, and from which I can foresee innumerable advantages. Thank you for so patiently listening to me. Now, do you say what you think, and say it out freely and fully; I will not interrupt you.”

“Very well,” replied Charlotte; “I will begin at once with a general observation. Men think most of the immediate — the present; and rightly, their calling being to do and to work; women, on the other hand, more of how things hang together in life; and that rightly too, because their destiny — the destiny of their families — is bound up in this interdependence, and it is exactly this which it is their mission to promote. So now let us cast a glance at our present and our past life; and you will acknowledge that the invitation of the Captain does not fall in so entirely with our purposes, our plans, and our arrangements. I will go back to those happy days of our earliest intercourse. We loved each other, young as we then were, with all our hearts. We were parted: you from me — your father, from an insatiable desire of wealth, choosing to marry you to an elderly and rich lady; I from you, having to give my hand, without any especial motive, to an excellent man, whom I respected, if I did not love. We became again free — you first, your poor mother at the same time leaving you in possession of your large fortune; I later, just at the time when you returned from abroad. So we met once more. We spoke of the past; we could enjoy and love the recollection of it; we might have been contented, in each other’s society, to leave things as they were. You were urgent for our marriage. I at first hesitated. We were about the same age; but I as a woman had grown older than you as a man. At last I could not refuse you what you seemed to think the one thing you cared for. All the discomfort which you had ever experienced, at court, in the army, or in traveling, you were to recover from at my side; you would settle down and enjoy life; but only with me for your companion. I settled my daughter at a school, where she could be more completely educated than would be possible in the retirement of the country; and I placed my niece Ottilie there with her as well, who, perhaps, would have grown up better at home with me, under my own care. This was done with your consent, merely that we might have our own lives to ourselves — merely that we might enjoy undisturbed our so-long-wished-for, so-long-delayed happiness. We came here and settled ourselves. I undertook the domestic part of the ménage, you the out-of-doors and the general control. My own principle has been to meet your wishes in everything, to live only for you. At least, let us give ourselves a fair trial how far in this way we can be enough for each other.”

“Since the interdependence of things, as you call it, is your especial element,” replied Edward, “one should either never listen to any of your trains of reasoning, or make up one’s mind to allow you to be in the right; and, indeed, you have been in the right up to the present day. The foundation which we have hitherto been laying for ourselves, is of the true, sound sort; only, are we to build nothing upon it? is nothing to be developed out of it? All the work we have done — I in the garden, you in the park — is it all only for a pair of hermits?”

“Well, well,” replied Charlotte, “very well. What we have to look to is, that we introduce no alien element, nothing which shall cross or obstruct us. Remember, our plans, even those which only concern our amusements, depend mainly on our being together. You were to read to me, in consecutive order, the journal which you made when you were abroad. You were to take the opportunity of arranging it, putting all the loose matter connected with it in its place; and with me to work with you and help you, out of these invaluable but chaotic leaves and sheets to put together a complete thing, which should give pleasure to ourselves and to others. I promised to assist you in transcribing; and we thought it would be so pleasant, so delightful, so charming, to travel over in recollection the world which we were unable to see together. The beginning is already made. Then, in the evenings, you have taken up your flute again, accompanying me on the piano, while of visits backwards and forwards among the neighborhood, there is abundance. For my part, I have been promising myself out of all this the first really happy summer I have ever thought to spend in my life.”

“Only I cannot see,” replied Edward, rubbing his forehead, “how, through every bit of this which you have been so sweetly and so sensibly laying before me, the Captain’s presence can be any interruption; I should rather have thought it would give it all fresh zest and life. He was my companion during a part of my travels. He made many observations from a different point of view from mine. We can put it all together, and so make a charmingly complete work of it.”

“Well, then, I will acknowledge openly,” answered Charlotte, with some impatience, “my feeling is against this plan. I have an instinct which tells me no good will come of it.”

“You women are invincible in this way,” replied Edward. “You are so sensible, that there is no answering you, then so affectionate, that one is glad to give way to you; full of feelings, which one cannot wound, and full of forebodings, which terrify one.”

“I am not superstitious,” said Charlotte; “and I care nothing for these dim sensations, merely as such; but in general they are the result of unconscious recollections of happy or unhappy consequences, which we have experienced as following on our own or others’ actions. Nothing is of greater moment, in any state of things, than the intervention of a third person. I have seen friends, brothers and sisters, lovers, husbands and wives, whose relation to each other, through the accidental or intentional introduction of a third person, has been altogether changed — whose whole moral condition has been inverted by it.”

“That may very well be,” replied Edward, “with people who live on without looking where they are going; but not, surely, with persons whom experience has taught to understand themselves.”

“That understanding ourselves, my dearest husband,” insisted Charlotte, “is no such certain weapon. It is very often a most dangerous one for the person who bears it. And out of all this, at least so much seems to arise, that we should not be in too great a hurry. Let me have a few days to think; don’t decide.”

“As the matter stands,” returned Edward, “wait as many days as we will, we shall still be in too great a hurry. The arguments for and against are all before us; all we want is the conclusion, and as things are, I think the best thing we can do is to draw lots.”

“I know,” said Charlotte, “that in doubtful cases it is your way to leave them to chance. To me, in such a serious matter, this seems almost a crime.”

“Then what am I to write to the Captain?” cried Edward; “for write I must at once.”

“Write him a kind, sensible, sympathizing letter,” answered Charlotte.

“That is as good as none at all,” replied Edward.

“And there are many cases,” answered she, “in which we are obliged, and in which it is the real kindness, rather to write nothing than not to write.”

CHAPTER II

Edward was alone in his room. The repetition of the incidents of his life from Charlotte’s lips; the representation of their mutual situation, their mutual purposes, had worked him, sensitive as he was, into a very pleasant state of mind. While close to her — while in her presence — he had felt so happy, that he had thought out a warm, kind, but quiet and indefinite epistle which he would send to the Captain. When, however, he had settled himself at his writing-table, and taken up his friend’s letter to read it over once more, the sad condition of this excellent man rose again vividly before him. The feelings which had been all day distressing him again awoke, and it appeared impossible to him to leave one whom he called his friend in such painful embarrassment.

Edward was unaccustomed to deny himself anything. The only child, and consequently the spoilt child, of wealthy parents, who had persuaded him into a singular, but highly advantageous marriage with a lady far older than himself; and again by her petted and indulged in every possible way, she seeking to reward his kindness to her by the utmost liberality; after her early death his own master, traveling independently of every one, equal to all contingencies and all changes, with desires never excessive, but multiple and various — free-hearted, generous, brave, at times even noble — what was there in the world to cross or thwart him?

Hitherto, everything had gone as he desired! Charlotte had become his; he had won her at last, with an obstinate, a romantic fidelity; and now he felt himself, for the first time, contradicted, crossed in his wishes, when those wishes were to invite to his home the friend of his youth — just as he was longing, as it were, to throw open his whole heart to him. He felt annoyed, impatient; he took up his pen again and again, and as often threw it down again, because he could not make up his mind what to write. Against his wife’s wishes he would not go; against her expressed desire he could not. Ill at ease as he was, it would have been impossible for him, even if he had wished, to write a quiet, easy letter. The most natural thing to do, was to put it off. In a few words, he begged his friend to forgive him for having left his letter unanswered; that day he was unable to write circumstantially; but shortly, he hoped to be able to tell him what he felt at greater length.

The next day, as they were walking to the same spot, Charlotte took the opportunity of bringing back the conversation to the subject, perhaps because she knew that there is no surer way of rooting out any plan or purpose than by often talking it over.

It was what Edward was wishing. He expressed him self in his own way, kindly and sweetly. For although, sensitive as, he was, he flamed up readily — although the vehemence with which he desired anything made him pressing, and his obstinacy made him impatient — his words were so softened by his wish to spare the feelings of those to whom he was speaking, that it was impossible not to be charmed, even when one most disagreed, with him.

This morning, he first contrived to bring Charlotte into the happiest humor, and then so disarmed her with the graceful turn which he gave to the conversation, that she cried out at last:

“You are determined that what I refused to the husband you will make me grant to the lover. At least, my dearest,” she continued, “I will acknowledge that your wishes, — and the warmth and sweetness with which you express them, have not left me untouched, have not left me unmoved. You drive me to make a confession; — till now, I too have had a concealment from you; I am in exactly the same position with you, and I have hitherto been putting the same restraint on my inclination which I have been exhorting you to put on yours.”

“Glad am I to hear that,” said Edward. “In the married state, a difference of opinion now and then, I see, is no bad thing; we learn something of each other by it.”

“You are to learn at present, then,” said Charlotte, “that it is with me about Ottilie as it is with you about the Captain. The dear child is most uncomfortable at the school, and I am thoroughly uneasy about her. Luciana, my daughter, born as she is for the world, is there training hourly for the world; languages, history, everything that is taught there, she acquires with so much ease that, as it were, she learns them off at sight. She has quick natural gifts, and an excellent memory; one may almost say she forgets everything, and in a moment calls it all back again. She distinguishes herself above every one at the school with the freedom of her carriage, the grace of her movement, and the elegance of her address, and with the inborn royalty of nature makes herself the queen of the little circle there. The superior of the establishment regards her as a little divinity, who, under her hands, is shaping into excellence, and who will do her honor, gain her reputation, and bring her a large increase of pupils; the first pages of this good lady’s letters, and her monthly notices of progress, are forever hymns about the excellence of such a child, which I have to translate into my own prose; while her concluding sentences about Ottilie are nothing but excuse after excuse — attempts at explaining how it can be that a girl in other respects growing up so lovely seems coming to nothing, and shows neither capacity nor accomplishment. This, and the little she has to say besides, is no riddle to me, because I can see in this dear child the same character as that of her mother, who was my own dearest friend; who grew up with myself, and whose daughter, I am certain, if I had the care of her education, would form into an exquisite creature.

“This, however, has not fallen in with our plan, and as one ought not to be picking and pulling, or for ever introducing new elements among the conditions of our lives, I think it better to bear, and to conquer as I can, even the unpleasant impression that my daughter, who knows very well that poor Ottilie is entirely dependent upon us, does not refrain from flourishing her own successes in her face, and so, to a certain extent, destroys the little good which we have done for her. Who are well trained enough never to wound others by a parade of their own advantages? and who stands so high as not at times to suffer under such a slight? In trials like these, Ottilie’s character is growing in strength, but since I have clearly known the painfulness of her situation, I have been thinking over all possible ways to make some other arrangement. Every hour I am expecting an answer to my own last letter, and then I do not mean to hesitate any more. So, my dear Edward, it is with me. We have both, you see, the same sorrows to bear, touching both our hearts in the same point. Let us bear them together, since we neither of us can press our own against the other.”

“We are strange creatures,” said Edward, smiling. “If we can only put out of sight anything which troubles us, we fancy at once we have got rid of it. We can give up much in the large and general; but to make sacrifices in little things is a demand to which we are rarely equal. So it was with my mother, — as long as I lived with her, while a boy and a young man, she could not bear to let me be a moment out of her sight. If I was out later than usual in my ride, some misfortune must have happened to me. If I got wet through in a shower, a fever was inevitable. I traveled; I was absent from her altogether; and, at once, I scarcely seemed to belong to her. If we look at it closer,” he continued, “we are both acting very foolishly, very culpably. Two very noble natures, both of which have the closest claims on our affection, we are leaving exposed to pain and distress, merely to avoid exposing ourselves to a chance of danger. If this is not to be called selfish, what is? You take Ottilie. Let me have the Captain; and, for a short period, at least, let the trial be made.”

“We might venture it,” said Charlotte, thoughtfully, “if the danger were only to ourselves. But do you think it prudent to bring Ottilie and the Captain into a situation where they must necessarily be so closely intimate; the Captain, a man no older than yourself, of an age (I am not saying this to flatter you) when a man becomes first capable of love and first deserving of it, and a girl of Ottilie’s attractiveness?”

“I cannot conceive how you can rate Ottilie so high,” replied Edward. “I can only explain it to myself by supposing her to have inherited your affection for her mother. Pretty she is, no doubt. I remember the Captain observing it to me, when we came back last year, and met her at your aunt’s. Attractive she is, — she has particularly pretty eyes; but I do not know that she made the slightest impression upon me.”

“That was quite proper in you,” said Charlotte, “seeing that I was there; and, although she is much younger than I, the presence of your old friend had so many charms for you, that you overlooked the promise of the opening beauty. It is one of your ways; and that is one reason why it is so pleasant to live with you.”

Charlotte, openly as she appeared to be speaking, was keeping back something, nevertheless; which was that at the time when Edward came first back from abroad, she had purposely thrown Ottilie in his way, to secure, if possible, so desirable a match for her protégée. For of herself, at that time, in connection with Edward, she never thought at all. The Captain, also, had a hint given to him to draw Edward’s attention to her; but the latter, who was clinging determinately to his early affection for Charlotte, looked neither right nor left, and was only happy in the feeling that it was at last within his power to obtain for himself the one happiness which he so earnestly desired; and which a series of incidents had appeared to have placed forever beyond his reach.

They were on the point of descending the new grounds, in order to return to the castle, when a servant came hastily to meet them, and, with a laugh on his face, called up from below, “Will your grace be pleased to come quickly to the castle? The Herr Mittler has just galloped into the court. He shouted to us, to go all of us in search of you, and we were to ask whether there was need; ‘whether there is need,’ he cried after us, ‘do you hear? But be quick, be quick.’“

“The odd fellow,” exclaimed Edward. “But has he not come at the right time, Charlotte? Tell him, there is need, — grievous need. He must alight. See his horse taken care of. Take him into the saloon, and let him have some luncheon. We shall be with him immediately.”

“Let us take the nearest way,” he said to his wife, and struck into the path across the churchyard, which he usually avoided. He was not a little surprised to find here, too, traces of Charlotte’s delicate hand. Sparing, as far as possible, the old monuments, she had contrived to level it, and lay it carefully out, so as to make it appear a pleasant spot on which the eye and the imagination could equally repose with pleasure. The oldest stones had each their special honor assigned them. They were ranged according to their dates along the wall, either leaning against it, or let into it, or however it could be contrived; and the string-course of the church was thus variously ornamented.

Edward was singularly affected as he came in upon it through the little wicket; he pressed Charlotte’s hand, and tears started into his eyes. But these were very soon put to flight, by the appearance of their singular visitor. This gentleman had declined sitting down in the castle; he had ridden straight through the village to the churchyard gate; and then, halting, he called out to his friends, “Are you not making a fool of me? Is there need, really? If there is, I can stay till mid-day. But don’t keep me. I have a great deal to do before night.”

“Since you have taken the trouble to come so far,” cried Edward to him, in answer, “you had better come through the gate. We meet at a solemn spot. Come and see the variety which Charlotte has thrown over its sadness.”

“Inside there,” called out the rider, “come I neither on horseback, nor in carriage, nor on foot. These here rest in peace: with them I have nothing to do. One day I shall be carried in feet foremost. I must bear that as I can. Is it serious, I want to know?”

“Indeed it is,” cried Charlotte, “right serious. For the first time in our married lives, we are in a strait and difficulty, from which we do not know how to extricate ourselves.”

“You do not look as if it were so,” answered he. “But I will believe you. If you are deceiving me, for the future you shall help yourselves. Follow me quickly, my horse will be none the worse for a rest.”

The three speedily found themselves in the saloon together. Luncheon was brought in, and Mittler told them what that day he had done, and was going to do. This eccentric person had in early life been a clergyman, and had distinguished himself in his office by the never-resting activity with which he contrived to make up and put an end to quarrels: quarrels in families, and quarrels between neighbors; first among the individuals immediately about him, and afterward among whole congregations, and among the country gentlemen round. While he was in the ministry, no married couple was allowed to separate; and the district courts were untroubled with either cause or process. A knowledge of the law, he was well aware, was necessary to him. He gave himself with all his might to the study of it, and very soon felt himself a match for the best trained advocate. His circle of activity extended wonderfully, and people were on the point of inducing him to move to the Residence, where he would find opportunities of exercising in the higher circles what he had begun in the lowest, when he won a considerable sum of money in a lottery. With this, he bought himself a small property. He let the ground to a tenant, and made it the centre of his operations, with the fixed determination, or rather in accordance with his old customs and inclinations, never to enter a house when there was no dispute to make up, and no help to be given. People who were superstitious about names, and about what they imported, maintained that it was his being called Mittler which drove him to take upon himself this strange employment.

Luncheon was laid on the table, and the stranger then solemnly pressed his host not to wait any longer with the disclosure which he had to make. Immediately after refreshing himself he would be obliged to leave them.

Husband and wife made a circumstantial confession; but scarcely had he caught the substance of the matter, when he started angrily up from the table, rushed out of the saloon, and ordered his horse to be saddled instantly.

“Either you do not know me, you do not understand me,” he cried, “or you are sorely mischievous. Do you call this a quarrel? Is there any want of help here? Do you suppose that I am in the world to give advice? Of all occupations which man can pursue, that is the most foolish. Every man must be his own counsellor, and do what he cannot let alone. If all go well, let him be happy, let him enjoy his wisdom and his fortune; if it go ill, I am at hand to do what I can for him. The man who desires to be rid of an evil knows what he wants; but the man who desires something better than he has got is stone blind. Yes, yes, laugh as you will, he is playing blindman’s-buff; perhaps he gets hold of something, but the question is what he has got hold of. Do as you will, it is all one. Invite your friends to you, or let them be, it is all the same. The most prudent plans I have seen miscarry, and the most foolish succeed. Don’t split your brains about it; and if, one way or the other, evil comes of what you settle, don’t fret; send for me, and you shall be helped. Till which time, I am your humble servant.”

So saying, he sprang on his horse, without waiting the arrival of the coffee.

“Here you see,” said Charlotte, “the small service a third person can be, when things are off their balance between two persons closely connected; we are left, if possible, more confused and more uncertain than we were.”

They would both, probably, have continued hesitating some time longer, had not a letter arrived from the Captain, in reply to Edward’s last. He had made up his mind to accept one of the situations which had been offered him, although it was not in the least up to his mark. He was to share the ennui of certain wealthy persons of rank, who depended on his ability to dissipate it.

Edward’s keen glance saw into the whole thing, and he pictured it out in just, sharp lines.

“Can we endure to think of our friend in such a position?” he cried; “you cannot be so cruel, Charlotte.”

“That strange Mittler is right after all,” replied Charlotte; “all such undertakings are ventures; what will come of them it is impossible to foresee. New elements introduced among us may be fruitful in fortune or in misfortune, without our having to take credit to ourselves for one or the other. I do not feel myself firm enough to oppose you further. Let us make the experiment; only one thing I will entreat of you — that it be only for a short time. You must allow me to exert myself more than ever, to use all my influence among all my connections, to find him some position which will satisfy him in his own way.”

Edward poured out the warmest expressions of gratitude. He hastened, with a light, happy heart, to write off his proposals to his friend. Charlotte, in a postscript, was to signify her approbation with her own hand, and unite her own kind entreaties with his. She wrote, with a rapid pen, pleasantly and affectionately, but yet with a sort of haste which was not usual with her; and, most unlike herself, she disfigured the paper at last with a blot of ink, which put her out of temper, and which she only made worse with her attempts to wipe it away.

Edward laughed at her about it, and, as there was still room, added a second postscript, that his friend was to see from this symptom the impatience with which he was expected, and measure the speed at which he came to them by the haste in which the letter was written.

The messenger was gone; and Edward thought he could not give a more convincing evidence of his gratitude, than in insisting again and again that Charlotte should at once send for Ottilie from the school. She said she would think about it; and, for that evening, induced Edward to join with her in the enjoyment of a little music. Charlotte played exceedingly well on the piano, Edward not quite so well on the flute. He had taken a great deal of pains with it at times; but he was without the patience, without the perseverance, which are requisite for the completely successful cultivation of such a talent; consequently, his part was done unequally, some pieces well, only perhaps too quickly — while with others he hesitated, not being quite familiar with them; so that, for any one else, it would have been difficult to have gone through a duet with him. But Charlotte knew how to manage it. She held in, or let herself be run away with, and fulfilled in this way the double part of a skilful conductor and a prudent housewife, who are able always to keep right on the whole, although particular passages will now and then fall out of order.

CHAPTER III

The Captain came, having previously written a most sensible letter, which had entirely quieted Charlotte’s apprehensions. So much clearness about himself, so just an understanding of his own position and the position of his friends, promised everything which was best and happiest.

The conversation of the first few hours, as is generally the case with friends who have not met for a long time, was eager, lively, almost exhausting. Toward evening, Charlotte proposed a walk to the new grounds. The Captain was delighted with the spot, and observed every beauty which had been first brought into sight and made enjoyable by the new walks. He had a practised eye, and at the same time one easily satisfied; and although he knew very well what was really valuable, he never, as so many persons do, made people who were showing him things of their own uncomfortable, by requiring more than the circumstances admitted of, or by mentioning anything more perfect, which he remembered having seen elsewhere.

When they arrived at the summer-house, they found it dressed out for a holiday, only, indeed, with artificial flowers and evergreens, but with some pretty bunches of natural corn-ears among them, and other field and garden fruit, so as to do credit to the taste which had arranged them.

“Although my husband does not like in general to have his birthday or christening-day kept,” Charlotte said, “he will not object today to these few ornaments being expended on a treble festival.”

“Treble?” cried Edward.

“Yes, indeed,” she replied. “Our friend’s arrival here we are bound to keep as a festival; and have you never thought, either of you, that this is the day on which you were both christened? Are you not both named Otto?”

The two friends shook hands across the little table.

“You bring back to my mind,” Edward said, “this little link of our boyish affection. As children, we were both called so; but when we came to be at school together, it was the cause of much confusion, and I readily made over to him all my right to the pretty laconic name.”

“Wherein you were not altogether so very high-minded,” said the Captain; “for I well remember that the name of Edward had then begun to please you better, from its attractive sound when spoken by certain pretty lips.”

They were now sitting all three round the same table where Charlotte had spoken so vehemently against their guest’s coming to them. Edward, happy as he was, did not wish to remind his wife of that time; but he could not help saying, “There is good room here for one more person.”

At this moment the notes of a bugle were heard across from the castle. Full of happy thoughts and feelings as the friends all were together, the sound fell in among them with a strong force of answering harmony. They listened silently, each for the moment withdrawing into himself, and feeling doubly happy in the fair circle of which he formed a part. The pause was first broken by Edward, who started up and walked out in front of the summer-house.

“Our friend must not think,” he said to Charlotte, “that this narrow little valley forms the whole of our domain and possessions. Let us take him up to the top of the hill, where he can see farther and breathe more freely.”

“For this once, then,” answered Charlotte, “we must climb up the old footpath, which is not too easy. By the next time, I hope my walks and steps will have been carried right up.”

And so, among rocks, and shrubs, and bushes, they made their way to the summit, where they found themselves, not on a level flat, but on a sloping grassy terrace, running along the ridge of the hill. The village, with the castle behind it, was out of sight. At the bottom of the valley, sheets of water were seen spreading out right and left, with wooded hills rising immediately from their opposite margin, and, at the end of the upper water, a wall of sharp, precipitous rocks directly overhanging it, their huge forms reflected in its level surface. In the hollow of the ravine, where a considerable brook ran into the lake, lay a mill, half hidden among the trees, a sweetly retired spot, most beautifully surrounded; and through the entire semicircle, over which the view extended, ran an endless variety of hills and valleys, copse and forest, the early green of which promised the near approach of a luxuriant clothing of foliage. In many places particular groups of trees caught the eye; and especially a cluster of planes and poplars directly at the spectator’s feet, close to the edge of the centre lake. They were at their full growth, and they stood there, spreading out their boughs all around them, in fresh and luxuriant strength.

To these Edward called his friend’s attention.

“I myself planted them,” he cried, “when I was a boy. They were small trees which I rescued when my father was laying out the new part of the great castle garden, and in the middle of one summer had rooted them out. This year you will no doubt see them show their gratitude in a fresh set of shoots.”

They returned to the castle in high spirits, and mutually pleased with each other. To the guest was allotted an agreeable and roomy set of apartments in the right wing of the castle; and here he rapidly got his books and papers and instruments in order, to go on with his usual occupation. But Edward, for the first few days, gave him no rest. He took him about everywhere, now on foot, now on horseback, making him acquainted with the country and with the estate; and he embraced the opportunity of imparting to him the wishes which he had been long entertaining, of getting at some better acquaintance with it, and learning to manage it more profitably.

“The first thing we have to do,” said the Captain, “is to make a magnetic survey of the property. That is a pleasant and easy matter; and if it does not admit of entire exactness, it will be always useful, and will do, at any rate, for an agreeable beginning. It can be made, too, without any great staff of assistants, and one can be sure of getting it completed. If by-and-by you come to require anything more exact, it will be easy then to find some plan to have it made.”

The Captain was exceedingly skilful at work of thus kind. He had brought with him whatever instruments he required, and commenced immediately. Edward provided him with a number of foresters and peasants, who, with his instruction, were able to render him all necessary assistance. The weather was favorable. The evenings and the early mornings were devoted to the designing and drawing, and in a short time it was all filled in and colored. Edward saw his possessions grow out like a new creation upon the paper; and it seemed as if now for the first time he knew what they were, as if they now first were properly his own.

Thus there came occasion to speak of the park, and of the ways of laying it out; a far better disposition of things being made possible after a survey of this kind, than could be arrived at by experimenting on nature, on partial and accidental impressions.

“We must make my wife understand this,” said Edward.

“We must do nothing of the kind,” replied the Captain, who did not like bringing his own notions in collision with those of others. He had learnt by experience that the motives and purposes by which men are influenced are far too various to be made to coalesce upon a single point, even on the most solid representations. “We must not do it,” he cried; “she will be only confused. With her, as with all people who employ themselves on such matters merely as amateurs, the important thing is, rather that she shall do something, than that something shall be done. Such persons feel their way with nature. They have fancies for this plan or that; they do not venture on removing obstacles. They are not bold enough to make a sacrifice. They do not know beforehand in what their work is to result. They try an experiment — it succeeds — it fails; they alter it; they alter, perhaps, what they ought to leave alone, and leave what they ought to alter; and so, at last, there always remains but a patchwork, which pleases and amuses, but never satisfies.”

“Acknowledge candidly,” said Edward, “that you do not like this new work of hers.”

“The idea is excellent,” he replied; “if the execution were equal to it, there would be no fault to find. But she has tormented herself to find her way up that rock; and she now torments every one, if you must have it, that she takes up after her. You cannot walk together, you cannot walk behind one another, with any freedom. Every moment your step is interrupted one way or another. There is no end to the mistakes which she has made.”

“Would it have been easy to have done it otherwise?” asked Edward.

“Perfectly,” replied the Captain. “She had only to break away a corner of the rock, which is now but an unsightly object, made up as it is of little pieces, and she would at once have a sweep for her walk and stone in abundance for the rough masonry work, to widen it in the bad places, and make it smooth. But this I tell you in strictest confidence. Her it would only confuse and annoy. What is done must remain as it is. If any more money and labor is to be spent there, there is abundance to do above the summer-house on the hill, which we can settle our own way.”

If the two friends found in their occupation abundance of present employment, there was no lack either of entertaining reminiscences of early times, in which Charlotte took her part as well. They determined, moreover, that as soon as their immediate labors were finished, they would go to work upon the journal, and in this way, too, reproduce the past.

For the rest, when Edward and Charlotte were alone, there were fewer matters of private interest between them than formerly. This was especially the case since the fault-finding about the grounds, which Edward thought so just, and which he felt to the quick. He held his tongue about what the Captain had said for a long time; but at last, when he saw his wife again preparing to go to work above the summer-house, with her paths and steps, he could not contain himself any longer, but, after a few circumlocutions, came out with his new views.

Charlotte was thoroughly disturbed. She was sensible enough to perceive at once that they were right, but there was the difficulty with what was already done — and what was made was made. She had liked it; even what was wrong had become dear to her in its details. She fought against her convictions; she defended her little creations; she railed at men who were forever going to the broad and the great. They could not let a pastime, they could not let an amusement alone, she said, but they must go and make a work out of it, never thinking of the expense which their larger plans involved. She was provoked, annoyed, and angry. Her old plans she could not give up, the new she would not quite throw from her; but, divided as she was, for the present she put a stop to the work, and gave herself time to think the thing over, and let it ripen by itself.

At the same time that she lost this source of active amusement, the others were more and more together over their own business. They took to occupying themselves, moreover, with the flower-garden and the hot-houses; and as they filled up the intervals with the ordinary gentlemen’s amusements, hunting, riding, buying, selling, breaking horses, and such matters, she was every day left more and more to herself. She devoted herself more assiduously than ever to her correspondence on account of the Captain; and yet she had many lonely hours; so that the information which she now received from the school became of more agreeable interest.

To a long-drawn letter of the superior of the establishment, filled with the usual expressions of delight at her daughter’s progress, a brief postscript was attached, with a second from the hand of a gentleman in employment there as an Assistant, both of which we here communicate.

POSTSCRIPT OF THE SUPERIOR

“Of Ottilie, I can only repeat to your ladyship what I have already stated in my former letters. I do not know how to find fault with her, yet I cannot say that I am satisfied. She is always unassuming, always ready to oblige others; but it is not pleasing to see her so timid, so almost servile.

“Your ladyship lately sent her some money, with several little matters for her wardrobe. The money she has never touched, the dresses lie unworn in their place. She keeps her things very nice and very clean; but this is all she seems to care about. Again, I cannot praise her excessive abstemiousness in eating and drinking. There is no extravagance at our table, but there is nothing that I like better than to see the children eat enough of good, wholesome food. What is carefully provided and set before them ought to be taken; and to this I never can succeed in bringing Ottilie. She is always making herself some occupation or other, always finding something which she must do, something which the servants have neglected, to escape the second course or the dessert; and now it has to be considered (which I cannot help connecting with all this) that she frequently suffers, I have lately learnt, from pain in the left side of her head. It is only at times, but it is distressing, and may be of importance. So much upon this otherwise sweet and lovely girl.”

SECOND POSTSCRIPT, BY THE ASSISTANT

“Our excellent superior commonly permits me to read the letters in which she communicates her observations upon her pupils to their parents and friends. Such of them as are addressed to your ladyship I ever read with twofold attention and pleasure. We have to congratulate you upon a daughter who unites in herself every brilliant quality with which people distinguish themselves in the world; and I at least think you no less fortunate in having had bestowed upon you, in your step-daughter, a child who has been born for the good and happiness of others, and assuredly also for her own. Ottilie is almost our only pupil about whom there is a difference of opinion between myself and our reverend superior. I do not complain of the very natural desire in that good lady to see outward and definite fruits arising from her labors. But there are also fruits which are not outward, which are of the true germinal sort, and which develop themselves sooner or later in a beautiful life. And this I am certain is the case with your protégée. So long as she has been under my care, I have watched her moving with an even step, slowly, steadily forward — never back. As with a child it is necessary to begin everything at the beginning, so it is with her. She can comprehend nothing which does not follow from what precedes it; let a thing be as simple and easy as possible, she can make nothing of it if it is not in a recognizable connection; but find the intermediate links, and make them clear to her, and then nothing is too difficult for her.

“Progressing with such slow steps, she remains behind her companions, who, with capacities of quite a different kind, hurry on and on, learn everything readily, connected or unconnected, recollect it with ease, and apply it with correctness. And again, some of the lessons here are given by excellent, but somewhat hasty and impatient teachers, who pass from result to result, cutting short the process by which they are arrived at; and these are not of the slightest service to her; she learns nothing from them. There is a complaint of her handwriting. They say she will not, or cannot, understand how to form her letters. I have examined closely into this. It is true she writes slowly, stiffly, if you like; but the hand is neither timid nor without character. The French language is not my department, but I have taught her something of it, in the step-by-step fashion; and this she understands easily. Indeed, it is singular that she knows a great deal, and knows it well, too; and yet when she is asked a question, it seems as if she knew nothing.

“To conclude generally, I should say she learns nothing like a person who is being educated, but she learns like one who is to educate — not like a pupil, but like a future teacher. Your ladyship may think it strange that I, as an educator and a teacher, can find no higher praise to give to any one than by a comparison with myself. I may leave it to your own good sense, to your deep knowledge of the world and of mankind, to make the best of my most inadequate, but well-intended expressions. You may satisfy yourself that you have much happiness to promise yourself from this child. I commend myself to your ladyship, and I beseech you to permit me to write to you again as soon as I see reason to believe that I have anything important or agreeable to communicate.”

This letter gave Charlotte great pleasure. The contents of it coincided very closely with the notions which she had herself conceived of Ottilie. At the same time, she could not help smiling at the excessive interest of the Assistant, which seemed greater than the insight into a pupil’s excellence usually calls forth. In her quiet, unprejudiced way of looking at things, this relation, among others, she was contented to permit to lie before her as a possibility; she could value the interest of so sensible a man in Ottilie, having learnt, among the lessons of her life, to see how highly true regard is to be prized in a world where indifference or dislike are the common natural residents.

CHAPTER IV

The topographical chart of the property and its environs was completed. It was executed on a considerable scale; the character of the particular localities was made intelligible by various colors; and by means of a trigonometrical survey the Captain had been able to arrive at a very fair exactness of measurement. He had been rapid in his work. There was scarcely ever any one who could do with less sleep than this most laborious man; and, as his day was always devoted to an immediate purpose, every evening something had been done.

“Let us now,” he said to his friend, “go on to what remains for us, to the statistics of the estate. We shall have a good deal of work to get through at the beginning, and afterward we shall come to the farm estimates, and much else which will naturally arise out of them. Only we must have one thing distinctly settled and adhered to. Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freer handling. Business demands the utmost stringency and sequence; in life, inconsecutiveness is frequently necessary, indeed, is charming and graceful. If you are firm in the first, you can afford yourself more liberty in the second; while if you mix them, you will find the free interfering with and breaking in upon the fixed.”

In these sentiments Edward felt a slight reflection upon himself. Though not naturally disorderly, he could never bring himself to arrange his papers in their proper places. What he had to do in connection with others, was not kept separate from what depended only on himself. Business got mixed up with amusement, and serious work with recreation. Now, however, it was easy for him, with the help of a friend who would take the trouble upon himself; and a second “I” worked out the separation, to which the single “I” was always unequal.

In the Captain’s wing, they contrived a depository for what concerned the present, and an archive for the past. Here they brought all the documents, papers, and notes from their various hiding-places, rooms, drawers, and boxes, with the utmost speed. Harmony and order were introduced into the wilderness, and the different packets were marked and registered in their several pigeon-holes. They found all they wanted in greater completeness even than they had expected; and here an old clerk was found of no slight service, who for the whole day and part of the night never left his desk, and with whom, till then, Edward had been always dissatisfied.

“I should not know him again,” he said to his friend, “the man is so handy and useful.”

“That,” replied the Captain, “is because we give him nothing fresh to do till he has finished, at his convenience, what he has already; and so, as you perceive, he gets through a great deal. If you disturb him, he becomes useless at once.”

Spending their days together in this way, in the evenings they never neglected their regular visits to Charlotte. If there was no party from the neighborhood, as was often the case, they read and talked, principally on subjects connected with the improvement of the condition and comfort of social life.

Charlotte, always accustomed to make the most of opportunities, not only saw her husband pleased, but found personal advantages for herself. Various domestic arrangements, which she had long wished to make, but which she did not know exactly how to set about, were managed for her through the contrivance of the Captain. Her domestic medicine-chest, hitherto but poorly furnished, was enlarged and enriched, and Charlotte herself, with the help of good books and personal instruction, was put in the way of being able to exercise her disposition to be of practical assistance more frequently and more efficiently than before.

In providing against accidents, which, though common, yet only too often find us unprepared, they thought it especially necessary to have at hand whatever is required for the recovery of drowning men — accidents of this kind, from the number of canals, reservoirs, and waterworks in the neighborhood, being of frequent occurrence. This department the Captain took expressly into his own hands; and the observation escaped Edward, that a case of this kind had made a very singular epoch in the life of his friend. The latter made no reply, but seemed to be trying to escape from a painful recollection. Edward immediately stopped; and Charlotte, who, as well as he, had a general knowledge of the story, took no notice of the expression.

“These preparations are all exceedingly valuable,” said the Captain, one evening. “Now, however, we have not got the one thing which is most essential — a sensible man who understands how to manage it all. I know an army surgeon, whom I could exactly recommend for the place. You might get him at this moment, on easy terms. He is highly distinguished in his profession, and has frequently done more for me, in the treatment even of violent inward disorders, than celebrated physicians. Help upon the spot, is the thing you often most want in the country.”

He was written for at once; and Edward and Charlotte were rejoiced to have found so good and necessary an object on which to expend so much of the money which they set apart for such accidental demands upon them.

Thus Charlotte, too, found means of making use, for her purposes, of the Captain’s knowledge and practical skill; and she began to be quite reconciled to his presence, and to feel easy about any consequences which might ensue. She commonly prepared questions to ask him; among other things, it was one of her anxieties to provide against whatever was prejudicial to health and comfort, against poisons and such like. The lead-glazing on the china, the verdigris which formed about her copper and bronze vessels, etc., had long been a trouble to her. She got him to tell her about these, and, naturally, they often had to fall back on the first elements of medicine and chemistry.

An accidental, but welcome occasion for entertainment of this kind, was given by an inclination of Edward to read aloud. He had a particularly clear, deep voice, and earlier in life had earned himself a pleasant reputation for his feeling and lively recitations of works of poetry and oratory. At this time he was occupied with other subjects, and the books which, for some time past, he had been reading, were either chemical or on some other branch of natural or technical science.

One of his especial peculiarities — which, by-the-by, he very likely shares with a number of his fellow-creatures — was, that he could not bear to have any one looking over him when he was reading. In early life, when he used to read poems, plays, or stories, this had been the natural consequence of the desire which the reader feels, like the poet, or the actor, or the story-teller, to make surprises, to pause, to excite expectation; and this sort of effect was naturally defeated when a third person’s eyes could run on before him, and see what was coming. On such occasions, therefore, he was accustomed to place himself in such a position that no one could get behind him. With a party of only three, this was unnecessary; and as with the present subject there was no opportunity for exciting feelings or giving the imagination a surprise, he did not take any particular pains to protect himself.

One evening he had placed himself carelessly, and Charlotte happened by accident to cast her eyes upon the page. His old impatience was aroused; he turned to her, and said, almost unkindly:

“I do wish, once for all, you would leave off doing a thing so out of taste and so disagreeable. When I read aloud to a person, is it not the same as if I was telling him something by word of mouth? The written, the printed word, is in the place of my own thoughts, of my own heart. If a window were broken into my brain or into my heart, and if the man to whom I am counting out my thoughts, or delivering my sentiments, one by one, knew beforehand exactly what was to come out of me, should I take the trouble to put them into words? When anybody looks over my book, I always feel as if I were being torn in two.”

Charlotte’s tact, in whatever circle she might be, large or small, was remarkable, and she was able to set aside disagreeable or excited expressions without appearing to notice them. When a conversation grew tedious, she knew how to interrupt it; when it halted, she could set it going. And this time her good gift did not forsake her.

“I am sure you will forgive me my fault,” she said, when I tell you what it was this moment which came over me. I heard you reading something about Affinities, and I thought directly of some relations of mine, two of whom are just now occupying me a great deal. Then my attention went back to the book. I found it was not about living things at all, and I looked over to get the thread of it right again.”

“It was the comparison which led you wrong and confused you,” said Edward. “The subject is nothing but earths and minerals. But man is a true Narcissus; he delights to see his own image everywhere; and he spreads himself underneath the universe, like the amalgam behind the glass.”

“Quite true,” continued the Captain. “That is the way in which he treats everything external to himself. His wisdom and his folly, his will and his caprice, he attributes alike to the animal, the plant, the elements, and the gods.”

“Would you,” said Charlotte, “if it is not taking you away too much from the immediate subject, tell me briefly what is meant here by Affinities?”

“I shall be very glad indeed,” replied the Captain, to whom Charlotte had addressed herself. “That is, I will tell you as well as I can. My ideas on the subject date ten years back; whether the scientific world continues to think the same about it, I cannot tell.”

“It is most disagreeable,” cried Edward, “that one cannot now-a-days learn a thing once for all, and have done with it. Our forefathers could keep to what they were taught when they were young; but we have, every five years, to make revolutions with them, if we do not wish to drop altogether out of fashion.”

“We women need not be so particular,” said Charlotte; “and, to speak the truth, I only want to know the meaning of the word. There is nothing more ridiculous in society than to misuse a strange technical word; and I only wish you to tell me in what sense the expression is made use of in connection with these things. What its scientific application is I am quite contented to leave to the learned; who, by-the-by, as far as I have been able to observe, do not find it easy to agree among themselves.”

“Whereabouts shall we begin,” said Edward, after a pause, to the Captain, “to come most quickly to the point?”

The latter, after thinking as little while, replied shortly:

“You must let me make what will seem a wide sweep; we shall be on our subject almost immediately.”

Charlotte settled her work at her side, promising the fullest attention.

The Captain began:

“In all natural objects with which we are acquainted, we observe immediately that they have a certain relation to themselves. It may sound ridiculous to be asserting what is obvious to every one; but it is only by coming to a clear understanding together about what we know, that we can advance to what we do not know.”

“I think,” interrupted Edward, “we can make the thing more clear to her, and to ourselves, with examples; conceive water, or oil, or quicksilver; among these you will see a certain oneness, a certain connection of their parts; and this oneness is never lost, except through force or some other determining cause. Let the cause cease to operate, and at once the parts unite again.”

“Unquestionably,” said Charlotte, “that is plain; rain-drops readily unite and form streams; and when we were children, it was our delight to play with quicksilver, and wonder at the little globules splitting and parting and running into one another.”

“And here,” said the Captain, “let me just cursorily mention one remarkable thing — I mean, that the full, complete correlation of parts which the fluid state makes possible, shows itself distinctly and universally in the globular form. The falling water-drop is round; you yourself spoke of the globules of quicksilver; and a drop of melted lead let fall, if it has time to harden before it reaches the ground, is found at the bottom in the shape of a ball.”

“Let me try and see,” said Charlotte, “whether I can understand where you are bringing me. As everything has a reference to itself, so it must have some relation to others.”

“And that,” interrupted Edward, “will be different according to the natural differences of the things themselves. Sometimes they will meet like friends and old acquaintances; they will come rapidly together, and unite without either having to alter itself at all — as wine mixes with water. Others, again, will remain as strangers side by side, and no amount of mechanical mixing or forcing will succeed in combining them. Oil and water may be shaken up together, and the next moment they are separate again, each by itself.”

“One can almost fancy,” said Charlotte, “that in these simple forms one sees people that one is acquainted with; one has met with just such things in the societies amongst which one has lived; and the strangest likenesses of all with these soulless creatures are in the masses in which men stand divided one against the other, in their classes and professions; the nobility and the third estate, for instance, or soldiers and civilians.”

“Then again,” replied Edward, “as these are united under common laws and customs, so there are intermediate members in our chemical world which will combine elements that are mutually repulsive.”

“Oil, for instance,” said the Captain, “we make combine with water with the help of alkalis —  — ”

“Do not go on too fast with your lesson,” said Charlotte. “Let me see that I keep step with you. Are we not here arrived among the affinities?”

“Exactly,” replied the Captain; “we are on the point of apprehending them in all their power and distinctness; such natures as, when they come in contact, at once lay hold of each other, each mutually affecting the other, we speak of as having an affinity one for the other. With the alkalis and acids, for instance, the affinities are strikingly marked. They are of opposite natures; very likely their being of opposite natures is the secret of their inter-relational effect — each reaches out eagerly for its companion, they lay hold of each other, modify each other’s character, and form in connection an entirely new substance. There is lime, you remember, which shows the strongest inclination for all sorts of acids — a distinct desire of combining with them. As soon as our chemical chest arrives, we can show you a number of entertaining experiments which will give you a clearer idea than words, and names, and technical expressions.”

“It appears to me,” said Charlotte, “that, if you choose to call these strange creatures of yours related, the relationship is not so much a relationship of blood as of soul or of spirit. It is the way in which we see all really deep friendship arise among men, opposite peculiarities of disposition being what best makes internal union possible. But I will wait to see what you can really show me of these mysterious proceedings; and for the present,” she added, turning to Edward, “I will promise not to disturb you any more in your reading. You have taught me enough of what it is about to enable me to attend to it.”

“No, no,” replied Edward, “now that you have once stirred the thing, you shall not get off so easily. It is just the most complicated cases which are the most interesting. In these you come first to see the degrees of the affinities, to watch them as their power of attraction is weaker or stronger, nearer or more remote. Affinities begin really to interest only when they bring about separations.”

“What!” cried Charlotte, “is that miserable word, which unhappily we hear so often now-a-days in the world; is that to be found in nature’s lessons too?”

“Most certainly,” answered Edward; “the title with which chemists were supposed to be most honorably distinguished was, artists of separation.”

“It is not so any more,” replied Charlotte; “and it is well that it is not. It is a higher art, and it is a higher merit, to unite. An artist of union is what we should welcome in every province of the universe. However, as we are on the subject again, give me an instance or two of what you mean.”

“We had better keep,” said the Captain, “to the same instances of which we have already been speaking. Thus, what we call limestone is a more or less pure calcareous earth in combination with a delicate acid, which is familiar to us in the form of a gas. Now, if we place a piece of this stone in diluted sulphuric acid, this will take possession of the lime, and appear with it in the form of gypsum, the gaseous acid at the same time going off in vapor. Here is a case of separation; a combination arises, and we believe ourselves now justified in applying to it the words ‘Elective Affinity;’ it really looks as if one relation had been deliberately chosen in preference to another.

“Forgive me,” said Charlotte, “as I forgive the natural philosopher. I cannot see any choice in this; I see a natural necessity rather, and scarcely that. After all, it is perhaps merely a case of opportunity. Opportunity makes relations as it makes thieves; and as long as the talk is only of natural substances, the choice to me appears to be altogether in the hands of the chemist who brings the creatures together. Once, however, let them be brought together, and then God have mercy on them. In the present case, I cannot help being sorry for the poor acid gas, which is driven out up and down infinity again.”

“The acid’s business,” answered the Captain, “is now to get connected with water, and so serve as a mineral fountain for the refreshing of sound or disordered mankind.”

“That is very well for the gypsum to say,” said Charlotte. “The gypsum is all right, is a body, is provided for. The other poor, desolate creature may have trouble enough to go through before it can find a second home for itself.”

“I am much mistaken,” said Edward, smiling, “if there be not some little arrière pensée behind this. Confess your wickedness! You mean me by your lime; the lime is laid hold of by the Captain, in the form of sulphuric acid, torn away from your agreeable society, and metamorphosed into a refractory gypsum.”

“If your conscience prompts you to make such a reflection,” replied Charlotte, “I certainly need not distress myself. These comparisons are pleasant and entertaining; and who is there that does not like playing with analogies? But man is raised very many steps above these elements; and if he has been somewhat liberal with such fine words as Election and Elective Affinities, he will do well to turn back again into himself, and take the opportunity of considering carefully the value and meaning of such expressions. Unhappily, we know cases enough where a connection apparently indissoluble between two persons, has, by the accidental introduction of a third, been utterly destroyed, and one or the other of the once happily united pair been driven out into the wilderness.”

“Then you see how much more gallant the chemists are,” said Edward. “They at once add a fourth, that neither may go away empty.”

“Quite so,” replied the Captain. “And those are the cases which are really most important and remarkable — cases where this attraction, this affinity, this separating and combining, can be exhibited, the two pairs severally crossing each other; where four creatures, connected previously, as two and two, are brought into contact, and at once forsake their first combination to form into a second. In this forsaking and embracing, this seeking and flying, we believe that we are indeed observing the effects of some higher determination; we attribute a sort of will and choice to such creatures, and feel really justified in using technical words, and speaking of ‘Elective Affinities.’“

“Give me an instance of this,” said Charlotte.

“One should not spoil such things with words,” replied the Captain. “As I said before, as soon as I can show you the experiment, I can make it all intelligible and pleasant for you. For the present, I can give you nothing but horrible scientific expressions, which at the same time will give you no idea about the matter. You ought yourself to see these creatures, which seem so dead, and which are yet so full of inward energy and force, at work before your eyes. You should observe them with a real personal interest. Now they seek each other out, attract each other, seize, crush, devour, destroy each other, and then suddenly reappear again out of their combinations, and come forward in fresh, renovated, unexpected form; thus you will comprehend how we attribute to them a sort of immortality — how we speak of them as having sense and understanding; because we feel our own senses to be insufficient to observe them adequately, and our reason too weak to follow them.”

“I quite agree,” said Edward, “that the strange scientific nomenclature, to persons who have not been reconciled to it by a direct acquaintance with or understanding of its object, must seem unpleasant, even ridiculous; but we can easily, just for once, contrive with symbols to illustrate what we are speaking of.”

“If you do not think it looks pedantic,” answered the Captain, “I can put my meaning together with letters. Suppose an A connected so closely with a B, that all sorts of means, even violence, have been made use of to separate them, without effect. Then suppose a C in exactly the same position with respect to D. Bring the two pairs into contact; A will fling himself on D, C on B, without its being possible to say which had first left its first connection, or made the first move toward the second.”

“Now then,” interposed Edward, “till we see all this with our eyes, we will look upon the formula as an analogy, out of which we can devise a lesson for immediate use. You stand for A, Charlotte, and I am your B; really and truly I cling to you, I depend on you, and follow you, just as B does with A. C is obviously the Captain, who at present is in some degree withdrawing me from you. So now it is only just that if you are not to be left to solitude a D should be found for you, and that is unquestionably the amiable little lady, Ottilie. You will not hesitate any longer to send and fetch her.”

“Good,” replied Charlotte; “although the example does not, in my opinion, exactly fit our case. However, we have been fortunate, at any rate, in today for once having met all together; and these natural or elective affinities have served to unite us more intimately. I will tell you, that since this afternoon I have made up my mind to send for Ottilie. My faithful housekeeper, on whom I have hitherto depended for everything, is going to leave me shortly, to be married. (It was done at my own suggestion, I believe, to please me.) What it is which has decided me about Ottilie, you shall read to me. I will not look over the pages again. Indeed, the contents of them are already known to me. Only read, read!”

With these words, she produced a letter, and handed it to Edward.

CHAPTER V

LETTER OF THE LADY SUPERIOR

“Your ladyship will forgive the brevity of my present letter. The public examinations are but just concluded, and I have to communicate to all the parents and guardians the progress which our pupils have made during the past year. To you I may well be brief, having to say much in few words. Your ladyship’s daughter has proved herself first in every sense of the word. The testimonials which I inclose, and her own letter, in which she will detail to you the prizes which she has won, and the happiness which she feels in her success, will surely please, and I hope delight you. For myself, it is the less necessary that I should say much, because I see that there will soon be no more occasion to keep with us a young lady so far advanced. I send my respects to your ladyship, and in a short time I shall take the liberty of offering you my opinion as to what in future may be of most advantage to her.

“My good assistant will tell you about Ottilie.”

LETTER OF THE ASSISTANT.

“Our reverend superior leaves it to me to write to you of Ottilie, partly because, with her ways of thinking about it, it would be painful to her to say what has to be said; partly, because she herself requires some excusing, which she would rather have done for her by me.

“Knowing, as I did too well, how little able the good Ottilie was to show out what lies in her, and what she is capable of, I was all along afraid of this public examination. I was the more uneasy, as it was to be of a kind which does not admit of any especial preparation; and even if it had been conducted as usual, Ottilie never can be prepared to make a display. The result has only too entirely justified my anxiety. She has gained no prize; she is not even amongst those whose names have been mentioned with approbation. I need not go into details. In writing, the letters of the other girls were not so well formed, but their strokes were far more free. In arithmetic, they were all quicker than she; and in the more difficult problems, which she does the best, there was no examination. In French, she was outshone and out-talked by many; and in history she was not ready with her names and dates. In geography, there was a want of attention to the political divisions; and for what she could do in music there was neither time nor quiet enough for her few modest melodies to gain attention. In drawing she certainly would have gained the prize; her outlines were clear, and the execution most careful and full of spirit; unhappily, she had chosen too large a subject, and it was incomplete.

“After the pupils were dismissed, the examiners consulted together, and we teachers were partially admitted into the council. I very soon observed that of Ottilie either nothing would be said at all, or if her name was mentioned, it would be with indifference, if not absolute disapproval. I hoped to obtain some favor for her by a candid description of what she was, and I ventured it with the greater earnestness, partly because I was only speaking my real convictions, and partly because I remembered in my own younger years finding myself in the same unfortunate case. I was listened to with attention, but as soon as I had ended, the presiding examiner said to me very kindly but laconically, ‘We presume capabilities: they are to be converted into accomplishments. This is the aim of all education. It is what is distinctly intended by all who have the care of children, and silently and indistinctly by the children themselves. This also is the object of examinations, where teachers and pupils are alike standing their trial. From what we learn of you, we may entertain good hopes of the young lady, and it is to your own credit also that you have paid so much attention to your pupil’s capabilities. If in the coming year you can develop these into accomplishments, neither yourself nor your pupil shall fail to receive your due praise.’

“I had made up my mind to what must follow upon all this; but there was something worse that I had not anticipated, which had soon to be added to it. Our good Superior, who like a trusty shepherdess could not bear to have one of her flock lost, or, as was the case here, to see it undistinguished, after the examiners were gone could not contain her displeasure, and said to Ottilie, who was standing quite quietly by the window, while the others were exulting over their prizes: ‘Tell me, for heaven’s sake, how can a person look so stupid if she is not so?’ Ottilie replied, quite calmly, ‘Forgive me, my dear mother, I have my headache again today, and it is very painful.’ Kind and sympathizing as she generally is, the Superior this time answered, ‘No one can believe that,’ and turned angrily away.

“Now it is true — no one can believe it — for Ottilie never alters the expression of her countenance. I have never even seen her move her hand to her head when she has been asleep.

“Nor was this all. Your ladyship’s daughter, who is at all times sufficiently lively and impetuous, after her triumph today was overflowing with the violence of her spirits. She ran from room to room with her prizes and testimonials, and shook them in Ottilie’s face. ‘You have come badly off this morning,’ she cried. Ottilie replied in her calm, quiet way, ‘This is not the last day of trial.’ ‘But you will always remain the last,’ cried the other, and ran away.

“No one except myself saw that Ottilie was disturbed. She has a way when she experiences any sharp unpleasant emotion which she wishes to resist, of showing it in the unequal color of her face; the left cheek becomes for a moment flushed, while the right turns pale. I perceived this symptom, and I could not prevent myself from saying something. I took our Superior aside, and spoke seriously to her about it. The excellent lady acknowledged that she had been wrong. We considered the whole affair; we talked it over at great length together, and not to weary your ladyship, I will tell you at once the desire with which we concluded, namely, that you will for a while have Ottilie with yourself. Our reasons you will yourself readily perceive. If you consent, I will say more to you on the manner in which I think she should be treated. The young lady your daughter we may expect will soon leave us, and we shall then with pleasure welcome Ottilie back to us.

“One thing more, which another time I might forget to mention: I have never seen Ottilie eager for anything, or at least ask pressingly for anything. But there have been occasions, however rare, when on the other hand she has wished to decline things which have been pressed upon her, and she does it with a gesture which to those who have caught its meaning is irresistible. She raises her hands, presses the palms together, and draws them against her breast, leaning her body a little forward at the same time, and turns such a look upon the person who is urging her that he will be glad enough to cease to ask or wish for anything of her. If your ladyship ever sees this attitude, as with your treatment of her it is not likely that you will, think of me, and spare Ottilie.”

Edward read these letters aloud, not without smiles and shakes of the head. Naturally, too, there were observations made on the persons and on the position of the affair.

“Enough!” Edward cried at last, “it is decided. She comes. You, my love, are provided for, and now we can get forward with our work. It is becoming highly necessary for me to move over to the right wing to the Captain; evenings and mornings are the time for us best to work together, and then you, on your side, will have admirable room for yourself and Ottilie.”

Charlotte made no objection, and Edward sketched out the method in which they should live. Among other things, he cried, “It is really very polite in this niece to be subject to a slight pain on the left side of her head. I have it frequently an the right. If we happen to be afflicted together, and sit opposite one another — I leaning on my right elbow, and she on her left, and our heads on the opposite sides, resting on our hands — what a pretty pair of pictures we shall make.”

The Captain thought that might be dangerous. “No, no!” cried out Edward. “Only do you, my dear friend, take care of the D, for what will become of B, if poor C is taken away from it?”

“That, I should have thought, would have been evident enough,” replied Charlotte.

“And it is, indeed,” cried Edward; “he would turn back to his A, to his Alpha and Omega;” and he sprung up and taking Charlotte in his arms, pressed her to his breast.

CHAPTER VI

The carriage which brought Ottilie drove up to the door. Charlotte went out to receive her. The dear girl ran to meet her, threw herself at her feet, and embraced her knees.

“Why such humility?” said Charlotte, a little embarrassed, and endeavoring to raise her from the ground.

“It is not meant for humility,” Ottilie answered, without moving from the position in which she had placed herself; “I am only thinking of the time when I could not reach higher than to your knees, and when I had just learnt to know how you loved me.”

She stood up, and Charlotte embraced her warmly. She was introduced to the gentlemen, and was at once treated with especial courtesy as a visitor. Beauty is a welcome guest everywhere. She appeared attentive to the conversation, without taking a part in it.

The next morning Edward said to Charlotte, “What an agreeable, entertaining girl she is!”

“Entertaining!” answered Charlotte, with a smile; “why, she has not opened her lips yet!”

“Indeed!” said Edward, as he seemed to bethink himself; “that is very strange.”

Charlotte had to give the new-comer but a very few hints on the management of the household. Ottilie saw rapidly all the arrangements, and what was more, she felt them. She comprehended easily what was to be provided for the whole party, and what for each particular member of it. Everything was done with the utmost punctuality; she knew how to direct, without appearing to be giving orders, and when any one had left anything undone, she at once set it right herself.

As soon as she had found how much time she would have to spare, she begged Charlotte to divide her hours for her, and to these she adhered exactly. She worked at what was set before her in the way which the Assistant had described to Charlotte. They let her alone. It was but seldom that Charlotte interfered. Sometimes she changed her pens for others which had been written with, to teach her to make bolder strokes in her handwriting, but these, she found, would be soon cut sharp and fine again.

The ladies had agreed with one another when they were alone to speak nothing but French, and Charlotte persisted in it the more, as she found Ottilie more ready to talk in a foreign language, when she was told it was her duty to exercise herself in it. In this way she often said more than she seemed to intend. Charlotte was particularly pleased with a description, most complete, but at the same time most charming and amiable, which she gave her one day, by accident, of the school. She soon felt her to be a delightful companion, and before long she hoped to find in her an attached friend.

At the same time she looked over again the more early accounts which had been sent her of Ottilie, to refresh her recollection with the opinion which the Superior and the Assistant had formed about her, and compare them with her in her own person. For Charlotte was of opinion that we cannot too quickly become acquainted with the character of those with whom we have to live, that we may know what to expect of them; where we may hope to do anything in the way of improvement with them, and what we must make up our minds, once for all, to tolerate and let alone.

This examination led her to nothing new, indeed; but much which she already knew became of greater meaning and importance. Ottilie’s moderation in eating and drinking, for instance, became a real distress to her.

The next thing on which the ladies were employed was Ottilie’s toilet. Charlotte wished her to appear in clothes of a richer and more recherché sort, and at once the clever active girl herself cut out the stuff which had been previously sent to her, and with a very little assistance from others was able, in a short time, to dress herself out most tastefully. The new fashionable dresses set off her figure. An agreeable person, it is true, will show through all disguises; but we always fancy it looks fresher and more graceful when its peculiarities appear under some new drapery. And thus, from the moment of her first appearance, she became more and more a delight to the eyes of all who beheld her. As the emerald refreshes the sight with its beautiful hues, and exerts, it is said, a beneficent influence on that noble sense, so does human beauty work with far larger potency on the outward and on the inward sense; whoever looks upon it is charmed against the breath of evil, and feels in harmony with himself and with the world.

In many ways, therefore, the party had gained by Ottilie’s arrival. The Captain and Edward kept regularly to the hours, even to the minutes, for their general meeting together. They never kept the others waiting for them either for dinner or tea, or for their walks; and they were in less haste, especially in the evenings, to leave the table. This did not escape Charlotte’s observation; she watched them both, to see whether one more than the other was the occasion of it. But she could not perceive any difference. They had both become more companionable. In their conversation they seemed to consider what was best adapted to interest Ottilie; what was most on a level with her capacities and her general knowledge. If she left the room when they were reading or telling stories, they would wait till she returned. They had grown softer and altogether more united.

In return for this, Ottilie’s anxiety to be of use increased every day; the more she came to understand the house, its inmates, and their circumstances, the more eagerly she entered into everything, caught every look and every motion; half a word, a sound, was enough for her. With her calm attentiveness, and her easy, unexcited activity, she was always the same. Sitting, rising up, going, coming, fetching, carrying, returning to her place again, it was all in the most perfect repose; a constant change, a constant agreeable movement; while, at the same time, she went about so lightly that her step was almost inaudible.

This cheerful obligingness in Ottilie gave Charlotte the greatest pleasure. There was one thing, however, which she did not exactly like, of which she had to speak to her. “It is very polite in you,” she said one day to her, “when people let anything fall from their hand, to be so quick in stooping and picking it up for them; at the same time, it is a sort of confession that they have a right to require such attention, and in the world we are expected to be careful to whom we pay it. Toward women, I will not prescribe any rule as to how you should conduct yourself. You are young. To those above you, and older than you, services of this sort are a duty; toward your equals they are polite; to those younger than yourself and your inferiors you may show yourself kind and good-natured by such things — only it is not becoming in a young lady to do them for men.”

“I will try to forget the habit,” replied Ottilie; “I think, however, you will in the meantime forgive me for my want of manners, when I tell you how I came by it. We were taught history at school; I have not gained as much out of it as I ought, for I never knew what use I was to make of it; a few little things, however, made a deep impression upon me, among which was the following: When Charles the First of England was standing before his so-called judges, the gold top came off the stick which he had in his hand, and fell down. Accustomed as he had been on such occasions to have everything done for him, he seemed to look around and expect that this time too some one would do him this little service. No one stirred, and he stooped down for it himself. It struck me as so piteous, that from that moment I have never been able to see any one let a thing fall, without myself picking it up. But, of course, as it is not always proper, and as I cannot,” she continued, smiling, “tell my story every time I do it, in future I will try to contain myself.”

In the meantime the fine arrangements which the two friends had been led to make for themselves, went uninterruptedly forward. Every day they found something new to think about and undertake.

One day as they were walking together through the village, they had to remark with dissatisfaction how far behind-hand it was in order and cleanliness, compared to villages where the inhabitants were compelled by the expense of building-ground to be careful about such things.

“You remember a wish we once expressed when we were traveling in Switzerland together,” said the Captain, “that we might have the laying out of some country park, and how beautiful we would make it by introducing into some village situated like this, not the Swiss style of building, but the Swiss order and neatness which so much improve it.”

“And how well it would answer here! The hill on which the castle stands, slopes down to that projecting angle. The village, you see, is built in a semicircle, regularly enough, just opposite to it. The brook runs between. It is liable to floods; and do observe the way the people set about protecting themselves from them; one with stones, another with stakes; the next puts up a boarding, and a fourth tries beams and planks; no one, of course, doing any good to another with his arrangement, but only hurting himself and the rest too. And then there is the road going along just in the clumsiest way possible, — up hill and down, through the water, and over the stones. If the people would only lay their hands to the business together, it would cost them nothing but a little labor to run a semi-circular wall along here, take the road in behind it, raising it to the level of the houses, and so give themselves a fair open space in front, making the whole place clean, and getting rid, once for all, in one good general work, of all their little trifling ineffectual makeshifts.”

“Let us try it,” said the Captain, as he ran his eyes over the lay of the ground, and saw quickly what was to be done.

“I can undertake nothing in company with peasants and shopkeepers,” replied Edward, “unless I may have unrestricted authority over them.”

“You are not so wrong in that,” returned the Captain; “I have experienced too much trouble myself in life in matters of that kind. How difficult it is to prevail on a man to venture boldly on making a sacrifice for an after-advantage! How hard to get him to desire an end, and not hesitate at the means! So many people confuse means with ends; they keep hanging over the first, without having the other before their eyes. Every evil is to be cured at the place where it comes to the surface, and they will not trouble themselves to look for the cause which produces it, or the remote effect which results from it. This is why it is so difficult to get advice listened to, especially among the many: they can see clearly enough from day to day, but their scope seldom reaches beyond the morrow; and if it comes to a point where with some general arrangement one person will gain while another will lose, there is no prevailing on them to strike a balance. Works of public advantage can be carried through only by an uncontrolled absolute authority.”

While they were standing and talking, a man came up and begged of them. He looked more impudent than really in want, and Edward, who was annoyed at being interrupted, after two or three fruitless attempts to get rid of him by a gentler refusal, spoke sharply to him. The fellow began to grumble and mutter abusively; he went off with short steps, talking about the right of beggars. It was all very well to refuse them an alms, but that was no reason why they should be insulted. A beggar, and everybody else too, was as much under God’s protection as a lord. It put Edward out of all patience.

The Captain, to pacify him, said, “Let us make use of this as an occasion for extending our rural police arrangements to such cases. We are bound to give away money, but we do better in not giving it in person, especially at home. We should be moderate and uniform in everything, in our charities as in all else; too great liberality attracts beggars instead of helping them on their way. At the same time there is no harm when one is on a journey, or passing through a strange place, in appearing to a poor man in the street in the form of a chance deity of fortune and making him some present which shall surprise him. The position of the village and of the castle makes it easy for us to put our charities here on a proper footing. I have thought about it before. The public-house is at one end of the village, a respectable old couple live at the other. At each of these places deposit a small sum of money, and let every beggar, not as he comes in, but as he goes out, receive something. Both houses lie on the roads which lead to the castle, so that any one who goes there can be referred to one or the other.”

“Come,” said Edward, “we will settle that on the spot. The exact sum can be made up another time.”

They went to the innkeeper, and to the old couple and the thing was done.

“I know very well,” Edward said, as they were walking up the hill to the castle together, “that everything in this world depends on distinctness of idea and firmness of purpose. Your judgment of what my wife has been doing in the park was entirely right; and you have already given me a hint how it might be improved. I will not deny that I told her of it.”

“So I have been led to suspect,” replied the Captain; “and I could not approve of your having done so. You have perplexed her. She has left off doing anything; and on this one subject she is vexed with us. She avoids speaking of it. She has never since invited us to go with her to the summer-house, although at odd hours she goes up there with Ottilie.”

“We must not allow ourselves to be deterred by that,” answered Edward. “If I am once convinced about anything good, which could and should be done, I can never rest till I see it done. We are clever enough at other times in introducing what we want, into the general conversation; suppose we have out some descriptions of English parks, with copper-plates, for our evening’s amusement. Then we can follow with your plan. We will treat it first problematically, and as if we were only in jest. There will be no difficulty in passing into earnest.”

The scheme was concerted, and the books were opened. In each group of designs they first saw a ground-plan of the spot, with the general character of the landscape, drawn in its rude, natural state. Then followed others, showing the changes which had been produced by art, to employ and set off the natural advantages of the locality. From these to their own property and their own grounds, the transition was easy.

Everybody was pleased. The chart which the Captain had sketched was brought and spread out. The only difficulty was, that they could not entirely free themselves of the plan in which Charlotte had begun. However, an easier way up the hill was found; a lodge was suggested to be built on the height at the edge of the cliff, which was to have an especial reference to the castle. It was to form a conspicuous object from the castle windows, and from it the spectator was to be able to overlook both the castle and the garden.

The Captain had thought it all carefully over, and taken his measurements; and now he brought up again the village road and the wall by the brook, and the ground which was to be raised behind it.

“Here you see,” said he, “while I make this charming walk up the height, I gain exactly the quantity of stone which I require for that wall. Let one piece of work help the other, and both will be carried out most satisfactorily and most rapidly.”

“But now,” said Charlotte, “comes my side of the business. A certain definite outlay of money will have to be made. We ought to know how much will be wanted for such a purpose, and then we can apportion it out — so much work, and so much money, if not by weeks, at least by months. The cash-box is under my charge. I pay the bills, and I keep the accounts.”

“You do not appear to have overmuch confidence in us,” said Edward.

“I have not much in arbitrary matters,” Charlotte answered. “Where it is a case of inclination, we women know better how to control ourselves than you.”

It was settled; the dispositions were made, and the work was begun at once.

The Captain being always on the spot, Charlotte was almost daily a witness to the strength and clearness of his understanding. He, too, learnt to know her better; and it became easy for them both to work together, and thus bring something to completeness. It is with work as with dancing; persons who keep the same step must grow indispensable to one another. Out of this a mutual kindly feeling will necessarily arise; and that Charlotte had a real kind feeling toward the Captain, after she came to know him better, was sufficiently proved by her allowing him to destroy her pretty seat, which in her first plans she had taken such pains in ornamenting, because it was in the lay of his own, without experiencing the slightest feeling about the matter.

CHAPTER VII

Now that Charlotte was occupied with the Captain, it was a natural consequence that Edward should attach himself more to Ottilie. Independently of this, indeed, for some time past he had begun to feel a silent kind of attraction toward her. Obliging and attentive she was to every one, but his self-love whispered that toward him she was particularly so. She had observed his little fancies about his food. She knew exactly what things he liked, and the way in which he liked them to be prepared; the quantity of sugar which he liked in his tea; and so on. Moreover, she was particularly careful to prevent draughts, about which he was excessively sensitive, and, indeed, about which, with his wife, who could never have air enough, he was often at variance. So, too, she had come to know about fruit-gardens and flower-gardens; whatever he liked, it was her constant effort to procure for him, and to keep away whatever annoyed him; so that very soon she grew indispensable to him — she became like his guardian angel, and he felt it keenly whenever she was absent. Besides all this, too, she appeared to grow more open and conversible as soon as they were alone together.

Edward, as he advanced in life, had retained something childish about himself, which corresponded singularly well with the youthfulness of Ottilie. They liked talking of early times, when they had first seen each other; and these reminiscences led them up to the first epoch of Edward’s affection for Charlotte. Ottilie declared that she remembered them both as the handsomest pair about the court; and when Edward would question the possibility of this, when she must have been so exceedingly young, she insisted that she recollected one particular incident as clearly as possible. He had come into the room where her aunt was, and she had hid her face in Charlotte’s lap — not from fear, but from a childish surprise. She might have added, because he had made so strong an impression upon her — because she had liked him so much.

While they were occupied in this way, much of the business which the two friends had undertaken together had come to a standstill; so that they found it necessary to inspect how things were going on — to work up a few designs and get letters written. For this purpose, they betook themselves to their office, where they found their old copyist at his desk. They set themselves to their work, and soon gave the old man enough to do, without observing that they were laying many things on his shoulders which at other times they had always done for themselves. At the same time, the first design the Captain tried would not answer, and Edward was as unsuccessful with his first letter. They fretted for a while, planning and erasing, till at last Edward, who was getting on the worst, asked what o’clock it was. And then it appeared that the Captain had forgotten, for the first time for many years, to wind up his chronometer; and they seemed, if not to feel, at least to have a dim perception, that time was beginning to be indifferent to them.

In the meanwhile, as the gentlemen were thus rather slackening in their energy, the activity of the ladies increased all the more. The every-day life of a family, which is composed of given persons, and is shaped out of necessary circumstances, may easily receive into itself an extraordinary affection, an incipient passion — may receive it into itself as into a vessel; and a long time may elapse before the new ingredient produces a visible effervescence, and runs foaming over the edge.

With our friends, the feelings which were mutually arising had the most agreeable effects. Their dispositions opened out, and a general goodwill arose out of the several individual affections. Every member of the party was happy; and they each shared their happiness with the rest.

Such a temper elevates the spirit, while it enlarges the heart, and everything which, under the influence of it, people do and undertake, has a tendency toward the illimitable. The friends could not remain any more shut up at home; their walks extended themselves further and further. Edward would hurry on before with Ottilie, to choose the path or pioneer the way; and the Captain and Charlotte would follow quietly on the track of their more hasty precursors, talking on some grave subject, or delighting themselves with some spot they had newly discovered, or some unexpected natural beauty.

One day their walk led them down from the gate at the right wing of the castle, in the direction of the hotel, and thence over the bridge toward the ponds, along the sides of which they proceeded as far as it was generally thought possible to follow the water; thickly wooded hills sloped directly up from the edge, and beyond these a wall of steep rocks, making further progress difficult, if not impossible. But Edward, whose hunting experience had made him thoroughly familiar with the spot, pushed forward along an overgrown path with Ottilie, knowing well that the old mill could not be far off, which was somewhere in the middle of the rocks there. The path was so little frequented, that they soon lost it; and for a short time they were wandering among mossy stones and thickets; it was not for long, however, the noise of the water-wheel speedily telling them that the place which they were looking for was close at hand. Stepping forward on a point of rock, they saw the strange old, dark, wooden building in the hollow before them, quite shadowed over with precipitous crags and huge trees. They determined directly to climb down amidst the moss and the blocks of stone. Edward led the way; and when he looked back and saw Ottilie following, stepping lightly, without fear or nervousness, from stone to stone, so beautifully balancing herself, he fancied he was looking at some celestial creature floating above him; while if, as she often did, she caught the hand which in some difficult spot he would offer her, or if she supported herself on his shoulder, then he was left in no doubt that it was a very exquisite human creature who touched him. He almost wished that she might slip or stumble, that he might catch her in his arms and press her to his heart. This, however, he would under no circumstances have done, for more than one reason. He was afraid to wound her, and he was afraid to do her some bodily injury.

What the meaning of this could be, we shall immediately learn. When they had got down, and were seated opposite each other at a table under the trees, and when the miller’s wife had gone for milk, and the miller, who had come out to them, was sent to meet Charlotte and the Captain, Edward, with a little embarrassment, began to speak:

“I have a request to make, dear Ottilie; you will forgive me for asking it, if you will not grant it. You make no secret (I am sure you need not make any), that you wear a miniature under your dress against your breast. It is the picture of your noble father. You could hardly have known him; but in every sense he deserves a place by your heart. Only, forgive me, the picture is exceedingly large, and the metal frame and the glass, if you take up a child in your arms, if you are carrying anything, if the carriage swings violently, if we are pushing through bushes, or just now, as we were coming down these rocks — cause me a thousand anxieties for you. Any unforeseen blow, a fall, a touch, may be fatally injurious to you; and I am terrified at the possibility of it. For my sake do this: put away the picture, not out of your affections, not out of your room; let it have the brightest, the holiest place which you can give it; only do not wear upon your breast a thing, the presence of which seems to me, perhaps from an extravagant anxiety, so dangerous.”

Ottilie said nothing, and while he was speaking she kept her eyes fixed straight before her; then, without hesitation and without haste, with a look turned more toward heaven than on Edward, she unclasped the chain, drew out the picture, and pressed it against her forehead, and then reached it over to her friend, with the words:

“Do you keep it for me till we come home; I cannot give you a better proof how deeply I thank you for your affectionate care.”

He did not venture to press the picture to his lips; but he caught her hand and raised it to his eyes. They were, perhaps, two of the most beautiful hands which had ever been clasped together. He felt as if a stone had fallen from his heart, as if a partition-wall had been thrown down between him and Ottilie.

Under the miller’s guidance, Charlotte and the Captain came down by an easier path, and now joined them. There was the meeting, and a happy talk, and then they took some refreshments. They would not return by the same way as they came; and Edward struck into a rocky path on the other side of the stream, from which the ponds were again to be seen. They made their way along it, with some effort, and then had to cross a variety of wood and copse — getting glimpses, on the land side, of a number of villages and manor-houses, with their green lawns and fruit-gardens; while very near them, and sweetly situated on a rising ground, a farm lay in the middle of the wood. From a gentle ascent, they had a view, before and behind, which showed them the richness of the country to the greatest advantage; and then, entering a grove of trees, they found themselves, on again emerging from it, on the rock opposite the castle.

They came upon it rather unexpectedly, and were of course delighted. They had made the circuit of a little world; they were standing on the spot where the new building was to be erected, and were looking again at the windows of their home.

They went down to the summer-house, and sat all four in it for the first time together; nothing was more natural than that with one voice it should be proposed to have the way they had been that day, and which, as it was, had taken them much time and trouble, properly laid out and gravelled, so that people might loiter along it at their leisure. They each said what they thought; and they reckoned up that the circuit, over which they had taken many hours, might be traveled easily with a good road all the way round to the castle, in a single one.

Already a plan was being suggested for making the distance shorter, and adding a fresh beauty to the landscape, by throwing a bridge across the stream, below the mill, where it ran into the lake; when Charlotte brought their inventive imagination somewhat to a standstill, by putting them in mind of the expense which such an undertaking would involve.

“There are ways of meeting that too,” replied Edward; “we have only to dispose of that farm in the forest which is so pleasantly situated, and which brings in so little in the way of rent: the sum which will be set free will more than cover what we shall require, and thus, having gained an invaluable walk, we shall receive the interest of well-expended capital in substantial enjoyment — instead of, as now, in the summing up at the end of the year, vexing and fretting ourselves over the pitiful little income which is returned for it.”

Even Charlotte, with all her prudence, had little to urge against this. There had been, indeed, a previous intention of selling the farm. The Captain was ready immediately with a plan for breaking up the ground into small portions among the peasantry of the forest. Edward, however, had a simpler and shorter way of managing it. His present steward had already proposed to take it off his hands — he was to pay for it by instalments — and so, gradually, as the money came in, they would get their work forward from point to point.

So reasonable and prudent a scheme was sure of universal approbation, and already, in prospect, they began to see their new walk winding along its way, and to imagine the many beautiful views and charming spots which they hoped to discover in its neighborhood.

To bring it all before themselves with greater fulness of detail, in the evening they produced the new chart. With the help of this they went over again the way that they had come, and found various places where the walk might take a rather different direction with advantage. Their other scheme was now once more talked through, and connected with the fresh design. The site for the new house in the park, opposite the castle, was a second time examined into and approved, and fixed upon for the termination of the intended circuit.

Ottilie had said nothing all this time. At length Edward pushed the chart, which had hitherto been lying before Charlotte, across to her, begging her to give her opinion; she still hesitated for a moment. Edward in his gentlest way again pressed her to let them know what she thought — nothing had as yet been settled — it was all as yet in embryo.

“I would have the house built here,” she said, as she pointed with her finger to the highest point of the slope on the hill. “It is true you cannot see the castle from thence, for it is hidden by the wood; but for that very reason you find yourself in another quite new world; you lose village and houses and all at the same time. The view of the ponds with the mill, and the hills and mountains in the distance, is singularly beautiful — I have often observed it when I have been there.”

“She is right,” Edward cried; “how could we have overlooked it. This is what you mean, Ottilie, is it not?” He took a lead pencil, and drew a great black rectangular figure on the summit of the hill.

It went through the Captain’s soul to see his carefully and clearly-drawn chart disfigured in such a way. He collected himself, however, after a slight expression of his disapproval and went into the idea. “Ottilie is right,” he said; “we are ready enough to walk any distance to drink tea or eat fish, because they would not have tasted as well at home — we require change of scene and change of objects. Your ancestors showed their judgment in the spot which they chose for the castle; for it is sheltered from the wind, with the conveniences of life close at hand. A place, on the contrary, which is more for pleasure parties than for a regular residence, may be very well yonder there, and in the fair time of year the most agreeable hours may be spent there.”

The more they talked it over, the more conclusive was their judgment in favor of Ottilie; and Edward could not conceal his triumph that the thought had been hers. He was as proud as if he had hit upon it himself.

CHAPTER VIII

Early the following morning the Captain examined the spot: he first threw off a sketch of what should be done, and afterward, when the thing had been more completely decided on, he made a complete design, with accurate calculations and measurements. It cost him a good deal of labor, and the business connected with the sale of the farm had to be gone into, so that both the gentlemen now found a fresh impulse to activity.

The Captain made Edward observe that it would be proper, indeed that it would be a kind of duty, to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday with laying the foundation-stone. Not much was wanted to overcome Edward’s disinclination for such festivities — for he quickly recollected that a little later Ottilie’s birthday would follow, and that he could have a magnificent celebration for that.

Charlotte, to whom all this work and what it would involve was a subject for much serious and almost anxious thought, busied herself in carefully going through the time and outlay which it was calculated would be expended on it. During the day they rarely saw each other, so that the evening meeting was looked forward to with all the more anxiety.

Ottilie meantime was complete mistress of the household — and how could it be otherwise, with her quick methodical rays of working? Indeed, her whole mode of thought was suited better to home life than to the world, and to a more free existence. Edward soon observed that she only walked about with them out of a desire to please; that when she stayed out late with them in the evening it was because she thought it a sort of social duty, and that she would often find a pretext in some household matter for going in again — consequently he soon managed so to arrange the walks which they took together, that they should be at home before sunset; and he began again, what he had long left off, to read aloud poetry — particularly such as had for its subject the expression of a pure but passionate love.

They ordinarily sat in the evening in the same places round a small table — Charlotte on the sofa, Ottilie on a chair opposite to her, and the gentlemen on each side. Ottilie’s place was on Edward’s right, the side where he put the candle when he was reading — at such times she would draw her chair a little nearer to look over him, for Ottilie also trusted her own eyes better than another person’s lips, and Edward would then always make a move toward her, that it might be as easy as possible for her — indeed he would frequently make longer stops than necessary, that he might not turn over before she had got to the bottom of the page.

Charlotte and the Captain observed this, and exchanged many a quiet smile at it; but they were both taken by surprise at another symptom, in which Ottilie’s latent feeling accidentally displayed itself.

One evening, which had been partly spoilt for them by a tedious visit, Edward proposed that they should not separate so early — he felt inclined for music — he would take his flute, which he had not done for many days past. Charlotte looked for the sonatas which they generally played together, and they were not to be found. Ottilie, with some hesitation, said that they were in her room — she had taken them there to copy them.

“And you can, you will, accompany me on the piano?” cried Edward, his eyes sparkling with pleasure. “I think perhaps I can,” Ottilie answered. She brought the music and sat down to the instrument. The others listened, and were sufficiently surprised to hear how perfectly Ottilie had taught herself the piece — but far more surprised were they at the way in which she contrived to adapt herself to Edward’s style of playing. Adapt herself, is not the right expression — Charlotte’s skill and power enabled her, in order to please her husband, to keep up with him when he went too fast, and hold in for him if he hesitated; but Ottilie, who had several times heard them play the sonata together, seemed to have learnt it according to the idea in which they accompanied each other — she had so completely made his defects her own, that a kind of living whole resulted from it, which did not move indeed according to exact rule, but the effect of which was in the highest degree pleasant and delightful. The composer himself would have been pleased to hear his work disfigured in a manner so charming.

Charlotte and the Captain watched this strange unexpected occurrence in silence, with the kind of feeling with which we often observe the actions of children — unable exactly to approve of them, from the serious consequences which may follow, and yet without being able to find fault, perhaps with a kind of envy. For, indeed, the regard of these two for one another was growing also, as well as that of the others — and it was perhaps only the more perilous because they were both stronger, more certain of themselves, and better able to restrain themselves.

The Captain had already begun to feel that a habit which he could not resist was threatening to bind him to Charlotte. He forced himself to stay away at the hour when she commonly used to be at the works; by getting up very early in the morning he contrived to finish there whatever he had to do, and went back to the castle to his work in his own room. The first day or two Charlotte thought it was an accident — she looked for him in every place where she thought he could possibly be. Then she thought she understood him — and admired him all the more.

Avoiding, as the Captain now did, being alone with Charlotte, the more industriously did he labor to hurry forward the preparations for keeping her rapidly-approaching birthday with all splendor. While he was bringing up the new road from below behind the village, he made the men, under pretence that he wanted stones, begin working at the top as well, and work down, to meet the others; and he had calculated his arrangements so that the two should exactly meet on the eve of the day. The excavations for the new house were already done; the rock was blown away with gunpowder; and a fair foundation-stone had been hewn, with a hollow chamber, and a flat slab adjusted to cover it.

This outward activity, these little mysterious purposes of friendship, prompted by feelings which more or less they were obliged to repress, rather prevented the little party when together from being as lively as usual. Edward, who felt that there was a sort of void, one evening called upon the Captain to fetch his violin — Charlotte should play the piano, and he should accompany her. The Captain was unable to refuse the general request, and they executed together one of the most difficult pieces of music with an ease, and freedom, and feeling, which could not but afford themselves, and the two who were listening to them, the greatest delight. They promised themselves a frequent repetition of it, as well as further practice together. “They do it better than we, Ottilie,” said Edward; “we will admire them — but we can enjoy ourselves together too.”

CHAPTER IX

The birthday was come, and everything was ready. The wall was all complete which protected the raised village road against the water, and so was the walk; passing the church, for a short time it followed the path which had been laid out by Charlotte, and then winding upward among the rocks, inclined first under the summer-house to the right, and then, after a wide sweep, passed back above it to the right again, and so by degrees out on to the summit. A large party had assembled for the occasion. They went first to church, where they found the whole congregation assembled in their holiday dresses. After service, they filed out in order; first the boys, then the young men, then the old; after them came the party from the castle, with their visitors and retinue; and the village maidens, young girls, and women, brought up the rear.

At the turn of the walk, a raised stone seat had been contrived, where the Captain made Charlotte and the visitors stop and rest. From here they could see over the whole distance from the beginning to the end — the troops of men who had gone up before them, the file of women following, and now drawing up to where they were. It was lovely weather, and the whole effect was singularly beautiful. Charlotte was taken by surprise, she was touched, and she pressed the Captain’s hand warmly.

They followed the crowd who had slowly ascended, and were now forming a circle round the spot where the future house was to stand. The lord of the castle, his family, and the principal strangers were now invited to descend into the vault, where the foundation-stone, supported on one side, lay ready to be let down. A well-dressed mason, a trowel in one hand and a hammer in the other, came forward, and with much grace spoke an address in verse, of which in prose we can give but an imperfect rendering.

“Three things,” he began, “are to be looked to in a building — that it stand on the right spot; that it be securely founded; that it be successfully executed. The first is the business of the master of the house — his and his only. As in the city the prince and the council alone determine where a building shall be, so in the country it is the right of the lord of the soil that he shall say, ‘Here my dwelling shall stand; here, and nowhere else.’“

Edward and Ottilie were standing opposite one another, as these words were spoken; but they did not venture to look up and exchange glances.

“To the third, the execution, there is neither art nor handicraft which must not in some way contribute. But the second, the founding, is the province of the mason; and, boldly to speak it out, it is the head and front of all the undertaking — a solemn thing it is — and our bidding you descend hither is full of meaning. You are celebrating your Festival in the deep of the earth. Here within this small hollow spot, you show us the honor of appearing as witnesses of our mysterious craft. Presently we shall lower down this carefully-hewn stone into its place; and soon these earth-walls, now ornamented with fair and worthy persons, will be no more accessible — but will be closed in forever!

“This foundation-stone, which with its angles typifies the just angles of the building, with the sharpness of its molding, the regularity of it, and with the truth of its lines to the horizontal and perpendicular, the uprightness and equal height of all the walls, we might now without more ado let down — it would rest in its place with its own weight. But even here there shall not fail of lime and means to bind it. For as human beings who may be well inclined to each other by nature, yet hold more firmly together when the law cements them, so are stones also, whose forms may already fit together, united far better by these binding forces. It is not seemly to be idle among the working, and here you will not refuse to be our fellow-laborer;” with these words he reached the trowel to Charlotte, who threw mortar with it under the stone — several of the others were then desired to do the same, and then it was at once let fall. Upon which the hammer was placed next in Charlotte’s, and then in the others’ hands, to strike three times with it, and conclude, in this expression, the wedlock of the stone with the earth.

“The work of the mason,” went on the speaker, “now under the free sky as we are, if it be not done in concealment, yet must pass into concealment — the soil will be laid smoothly in, and thrown over this stone, and with the walls which we rear into the daylight we in the end are seldom remembered. The works of the stone-cutter and the carver remain under the eyes; but for us it is not to complain when the plasterer blots out the last trace of our hands, and appropriates our work to himself; when he overlays it, and smooths it, and colors it.

“Not from regard for the opinion of others, but from respect for himself, the mason will be faithful in his calling. There is none who has more need to feel in himself the consciousness of what he is. When the house is finished, when the soil is smoothed, the surface plastered over, and the outside all overwrought with ornament, he can even penetrate through all disguises and still recognize those exact and careful adjustments to which the whole is indebted for its being and for its persistence.

“But as the man who commits some evil deed has to fear, that, notwithstanding all precautions, it will one day come to light — so too must he expect who has done some good thing in secret, that it also, in spite of himself, will appear in the day; and therefore we make this foundation-stone at the same time a stone of memorial. Here, in these various hollows which have been hewn into it, many things are now to be buried, as a witness to some far-off world — these metal cases hermetically sealed contain documents in writing; matters of various note are engraved on these plates; in these fair glass bottles we bury the best old wine, with a note of the year of its vintage. We have coins too of many kinds, from the mint of the current year. All this we have received through the liberality of him for whom we build. There is space yet remaining, if guest or spectator desires to offer anything to the after-world!”

After a slight pause the speaker looked round; but, as is commonly the case on such occasions, no one was prepared; they were all taken by surprise. At last, a merry-looking young officer set the example, and said, “If I am to contribute anything which as yet is not to be found in this treasure-chamber, it shall be a pair of buttons from my uniform — I don’t see why they do not deserve to go down to posterity!” No sooner said than done, and then a number of persons found something of the same sort which they could do; the young ladies did not hesitate to throw in some of their side hair combs — smelling bottles and other trinkets were not spared. Only Ottilie hung back; till a kind word from Edward roused her from the abstraction in which she was watching the various things being heaped in. Then she unclasped from her neck the gold chain on which her father’s picture had hung, and with a light gentle hand laid it down on the other jewels. Edward rather disarranged the proceedings, by at once, in some haste, having the cover let fall, and fastened down.

The young mason who had been most active through all this, again took his place as orator, and went on: “We lay down this stone for ever, for the establishing the present and the future possessors of this house. But in that we bury this treasure together with it, we do it in the remembrance — in this most enduring of works — of the perishableness of all human things. We remember that a time may come when this cover so fast sealed shall again be lifted; and that can only be when all shall again be destroyed which as yet we have not brought into being.

“But now — now that at once it may begin to be, back with our thoughts out of the future — back into the present. At once, after the feast, which we have this day kept together, let us on with our labor; let no one of all those trades which are to work on our foundation, through us keep unwilling holiday. Let the building rise swiftly to its height, and out of the windows, which as yet have no existence, may the master of the house, with his family and with his guests, look forth with a glad heart over his broad lands. To him and to all here present herewith be health and happiness.”

With these words he drained a richly cut tumbler at a draught, and flung it into the air, thereby to signify the excess of pleasure by destroying the vessel which had served for such a solemn occasion. This time, however, it fell out otherwise. The glass did not fall back to the earth, and indeed without a miracle.

In order to get forward with the buildings, they had already thrown out the whole of the soil at the opposite corner; indeed, they had begun to raise the wall, and for this purpose had reared a scaffold as high as was absolutely necessary. On the occasion of the festival, boards had been laid along the top of this, and a number of spectators were allowed to stand there. It had been meant principally for the advantage of the workmen themselves. The glass had flown up there, and had been caught by one of them, who took it as a sign of good luck for himself. He waved it round without letting it out of his hand, and the letters E and O were to be seen very richly cut upon it, running one into the other. It was one of the glasses which had been executed for Edward when he was a boy.

The scaffoldings were again deserted, and the most active among the party climbed up to look round them, and could not speak enough in praise of the beauty of the prospect on all sides. How many new discoveries does not a person make when on some high point he ascends but a single story higher. Inland many fresh villages came in sight. The line of the river could be traced like a thread of silver; indeed, one of the party thought that he distinguished the spires of the capital. On the other side, behind the wooded hill, the blue peaks of the far-off mountains were seen rising, and the country immediately about them was spread out like a map.

“If the three ponds,” cried some one, “were but thrown together to make a single sheet of water, there would be everything here which is noblest and most excellent.”

“That might easily be effected,” the Captain said. “In early times they must have formed all one lake among the hills here.”

“Only I must beseech you to spare my clump of planes and poplars that stand so prettily by the centre pond,” said Edward. “See!” He turned to Ottilie, bringing her a few steps forward, and pointing down — ”those trees I planted myself.”

“How long have they been standing there?” asked Ottilie.

“Just about as long as you have been in the world,” replied Edward. “Yes, my dear child, I planted them when you were still lying in your cradle.”

The party now betook themselves back to the castle. After dinner was over they were invited to walk through the village to take a glance at what had been done there as well. At a hint from the Captain, the inhabitants had collected in front of the houses. They were not standing in rows, but formed in natural family groups; part were occupied at their evening work, part out enjoying themselves on the new benches. They had determined, as an agreeable duty which they imposed upon themselves, to have everything in its present order and cleanliness, at least every Sunday and holiday.

A little party, held together by such feelings as had grown up among our friends, is always unpleasantly interrupted by a large concourse of people. All four were delighted to find themselves again alone in the large drawing-room, but this sense of home was a little disturbed by a letter which was brought to Edward, giving notice of fresh guests who were to arrive the following day.

“It is as we supposed,” Edward cried to Charlotte. “The Count will not stay away; he is coming tomorrow.”

“Then the Baroness, too, is not far off,” answered Charlotte.

“Doubtless not,” said Edward. “She is coming, too, tomorrow, from another place. They only beg to be allowed to stay for a night; the next day they will go on together.”

“We must prepare for them in time, Ottilie,” said Charlotte.

“What arrangement shall I desire to be made?” Ottilie asked.

Charlotte gave a general direction, and Ottilie left the room.

The Captain inquired into the relation in which these two persons stood toward each other, and with which he was only very generally acquainted. They had some time before, both being already married, fallen violently in love with each other; a double marriage was not to be interfered with without attracting attention. A divorce was proposed. On the Baroness’s side it could be effected, on that of the Count it could not. They were obliged seemingly to separate, but their position toward each other remained unchanged, and though in the winter at the Residence they were unable to be together, they indemnified themselves in the summer, while making tours and staying at watering-places.

They were both slightly older than Edward and Charlotte, and had been intimate with them from early times at court. The connection had never been absolutely broken off, although it was impossible to approve of their proceedings. On the present occasion their coming was most unwelcome to Charlotte; and if she had looked closely into her reasons for feeling it so, she would have found it was on account of Ottilie. The poor innocent girl should not have been brought so early in contact with such an example.

“It would have been more convenient if they had not come till a couple of days later,” Edward was saying; as Ottilie re-entered, “till we had finished with this business of the farm. The deed of sale is complete. One copy of it I have here, but we want a second, and our old clerk has fallen ill.” The Captain offered his services, and so did Charlotte, but there was something or other to object to in both of them.

“Give it to me,” cried Ottilie, a little hastily.

“You will never be able to finish it,” said Charlotte.

“And really I must have it early the day after tomorrow, and it is long,” Edward added.

“It shall be ready,” Ottilie cried; and the paper was already in her hands.

The next morning, as they were looking out from their highest windows for their visitors, whom they intended to go some way and meet, Edward said, “Who is that yonder, riding slowly along the road?”

The Captain described accurately the figure of the horse-man.

“Then it is he,” said Edward; “the particulars, which you can see better than I, agree very well with the general figure, which I can see too. It is Mittler; but what is he doing, coming riding at such a pace as that?”

The figure came nearer, and Mittler it veritably was. They received him with warm greetings as he came slowly up the steps.

“Why did you not come yesterday?” Edward cried, as he approached.

“I do not like your grand festivities,” answered he; “but I am come today to keep my friend’s birthday with you quietly.”

“How are you able to find time enough?” asked Edward, with a laugh.

“My visit, if you can value it, you owe to an observation which I made yesterday. I was spending a right happy afternoon in a house where I had established peace, and then I heard that a birthday was being kept here. Now this is what I call selfish, after all, said I to myself: you will only enjoy yourself with those whose broken peace you have mended. Why cannot you for once go and be happy with friends who keep the peace for themselves? No sooner said than done. Here I am, as I determined with myself that I would be.”

“Yesterday you would have met a large party here; today you will find but a small one,” said Charlotte; “you will meet the Count and the Baroness, with whom you have had enough to do already, I believe.”

Out of the middle of the party, who had all four come down to welcome him, the strange man dashed in the keenest disgust, seizing at the same time his hat and whip. “Some unlucky star is always over me,” he cried, “directly I try to rest and enjoy myself. What business have I going out of my proper character? I ought never to have come, and now I am persecuted away. Under one roof with those two I will not remain, and you take care of yourselves. They bring nothing but mischief; their nature is like leaven, and propagates its own contagion.”

They tried to pacify him, but it was in vain. “Whoever strikes at marriage,” he cried; — ”whoever, either by word or act, undermines this, the foundation of all moral society, that man has to settle with me, and if I cannot become his master, I take care to settle myself out of his way. Marriage is the beginning and the end of all culture. It makes the savage mild; and the most cultivated has no better opportunity for displaying his gentleness. Indissoluble it must be, because it brings so much happiness that what small exceptional unhappiness it may bring counts for nothing in the balance. And what do men mean by talking of unhappiness? Impatience it is which from time to time comes over them, and then they fancy themselves unhappy. Let them wait till the moment is gone by, and then they will bless their good fortune that what has stood so long continues standing. There never can be any adequate ground for separation. The condition of man is pitched so high, in its joys and in its sorrows, that the sum which two married people owe to each other defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.

“Its annoyances marriage may often have; I can well believe that, and it is as it should be. We are all married to our consciences, and there are times when we should be glad to be divorced from them; mine gives me more annoyance than ever a man or a woman can give.”

All this he poured out with the greatest vehemence: he would very likely have gone on speaking longer, had not the sound of the postilions’ horns given notice of the arrival of the visitors, who, as if on a concerted arrangement, drove into the castle-court from opposite sides at the same moment. Mittler slipped away as their host hastened to receive them, and desiring that his horse might be brought out immediately, rode angrily off.

CHAPTER X

The visitors were welcomed and brought in. They were delighted to find themselves again in the same house and in the same rooms where in early times they had passed many happy days, but which they had not seen for a long time. Their friends too were very glad to see them. The Count and the Baroness had both those tall fine figures which please in middle life almost better than in youth. If something of the first bloom had faded off them, yet there was an air in their appearance which was always irresistibly attractive. Their manners too were thoroughly charming. Their free way of taking hold of life and dealing with it, their happy humor, and apparent easy unembarrassment, communicated itself at once to the rest; and a lighter atmosphere hung about the whole party, without their having observed it stealing on them.

The effect made itself felt immediately on the entrance of the new-comers. They were fresh from the fashionable world, as was to be seen at once, in their dress, in their equipment, and in everything about them; and they formed a contrast not a little striking with our friends, their country style, and the vehement feelings which were at work underneath among them. This, however, very soon disappeared in the stream of past recollection and present interests, and a rapid, lively conversation soon united them all. After a short time they again separated. The ladies withdrew to their own apartments, and there found amusement enough in the many things which they had to tell one another, and in setting to work at the same time to examine the new fashions, the spring dresses, bonnets, and such like; while the gentlemen were employing themselves looking at the new traveling chariots, trotting out the horses, and beginning at once to bargain and exchange.

They did not meet again till dinner; in the meantime they had changed their dress. And here, too, the newly arrived pair showed to all advantage. Everything they wore was new, and in a style which their friends at the castle had never seen, and yet, being accustomed to it themselves, it appeared perfectly natural and graceful.

The conversation was brilliant and well sustained, as, indeed, in the company of such persons everything and nothing appears to interest. They spoke in French that the attendants might not understand what they said, and swept in happiest humor over all that was passing in the great or the middle world. On one particular subject they remained, however, longer than was desirable. It was occasioned by Charlotte asking after one of her early friends, of whom she had to learn, with some distress, that she was on the point of being separated from her husband.

“It is a melancholy thing,” Charlotte said, “when we fancy our absent friends are finally settled, when we believe persons very dear to us to be provided for for life, suddenly to hear that their fortunes are cast loose once more; that they have to strike into a fresh path of life, and very likely a most insecure one.”

“Indeed, my dear friend,” the Count answered, “it is our own fault if we allow ourselves to be surprised at such things. We please ourselves with imagining matters of this earth, and particularly matrimonial connections, as very enduring; and as concerns this last point, the plays which we see over and over again help to mislead us; being, as they are, so untrue to the course of the world. In a comedy we see a marriage as the last aim of a desire which is hindered and crossed through a number of acts, and at the instant when it is reached the curtain falls, and the momentary satisfaction continues to ring on in our ears. But in the world it is very different. The play goes on still behind the scenes, and when the curtain rises again we may see and hear, perhaps, little enough of the marriage.”

“It cannot be so very bad, however,” said Charlotte, smiling. “We see people who have gone off the boards of the theatre, ready enough to undertake a part upon them again.”

“There is nothing to say against that,” said the Count. “In a new character a man may readily venture on a second trial; and when we know the world we see clearly that it is only this positive, eternal duration of marriage in a world where everything is in motion, which has anything unbecoming about it. A certain friend of mine, whose humor displays itself principally in suggestions for new laws, maintained that every marriage should be concluded only for five years. Five, he said, was a sacred number — pretty and uneven. Such a period would be long enough for people to learn each other’s character, bring a child or two into the world, quarrel, separate, and what is best, get reconciled again. He would often exclaim, ‘How happily the first part of the time would pass away!’ Two or three years, at least, would be perfect bliss. On one side or the other there would not fail to be a wish to have the relation continue longer, and the amiability would increase the nearer they got to the parting time. The indifferent, even the dissatisfied party, would be softened and gained over by such behavior; they would forget, as in pleasant company the hours pass always unobserved, how the time went by, and they would be delightfully surprised when, after the term had run out, they first observed that they had unknowingly prolonged it.”

Charming and pleasant as all this sounded, and deep (Charlotte felt it to her soul) as was the moral significance which lay below it, expressions of this kind, on Ottilie’s account, were most distasteful to her. She knew very well that nothing was more dangerous than the licentious conversation which treats culpable or semi-culpable actions as if they were common, ordinary, and even laudable, and of such undesirable kind assuredly were all which touched on the sacredness of marriage. She endeavored, therefore, in her skilful way, to give the conversation another turn, and, when she found that she could not, it vexed her that Ottilie had managed everything so well that there was no occasion for her to leave the table. In her quiet observant way a nod or a look was enough for her to signify to the head servant whatever was to be done, and everything went off perfectly, although there were a couple of strange men in livery in the way who were rather a trouble than a convenience. And so the Count, without feeling Charlotte’s hints, went on giving his opinions on the same subject. Generally, he was little enough apt to be tedious in conversation; but this was a thing which weighed so heavily on his heart, and the difficulties which he found in getting separated from his wife were so great that it had made him bitter against everything which concerned the marriage bond — that very bond which, notwithstanding, he was so anxiously desiring between himself and the Baroness.

“The same friend,” he went on, “has another law which he proposes. A marriage shall be held indissoluble only when either both parties, or at least one or the other, enter into it for the third time. Such persons must be supposed to acknowledge beyond a doubt that they find marriage indispensable for themselves; they have had opportunities of thoroughly knowing themselves; of knowing how they conducted themselves in their earlier unions; whether they have any peculiarities of temper, which are a more frequent cause of separation than bad dispositions. People would then observe each other more closely; they would pay as much attention to the married as to the unmarried, no one being able to tell how things may turn out.”

“That would add no little to the interest of society,” said Edward. “As things are now, when a man is married nobody cares any more either for his virtues or for his vices.”

“Under this arrangement,” the Baroness struck in, laughing, “our good hosts have passed successfully over their two steps, and may make themselves ready for their third.”

“Things have gone happily with them,” said the Count. “In their case death has done with a good will what in others the consistorial courts do with a very bad one.

“Let the dead rest,” said Charlotte, with a half serious look.

“Why so,” persevered the Count, “when we can remember them with honor? They were generous enough to content themselves with less than their number of years for the sake of the larger good which they could leave behind them.”

“Alas! that in such cases,” said the Baroness, with a suppressed sigh, “happiness is bought only with the sacrifice of our fairest years.”

“Indeed, yes,” answered the Count; “and it might drive us to despair, if it were not the same with everything in this world. Nothing goes as we hope. Children do not fulfil what they promise; young people very seldom; and if they keep their word, the world does not keep its word with them.”

Charlotte, who was delighted that the conversation had taken a turn at last, replied cheerfully:

“Well, then, we must content ourselves with enjoying what good we are to have in fragments and pieces, as we can get it; and the sooner we can accustom ourselves to this the better.”

“Certainly,” the Count answered, “you two have had the enjoyment of very happy times. When I look back upon the years when you and Edward were the loveliest couple at the court, I see nothing now to be compared with those brilliant times, and such magnificent figures. When you two used to dance together, all eyes were turned upon you, fastened upon you, while you saw nothing but each other.”

“So much has changed since those days,” said Charlotte, “that we can listen to such pretty things about ourselves without our modesty being shocked at them.”

“I often privately found fault with Edward,” said the Count, “for not being more firm. Those singular parents of his would certainly have given way at last; and ten fair years is no trifle to gain.”

“I must take Edward’s part,” struck in the Baroness. “Charlotte was not altogether without fault — not altogether free from what we must call prudential considerations; and although she had a real, hearty love for Edward, and did in her secret soul intend to marry him, I can bear witness how sorely she often tried him; and it was through this that he was at last unluckily prevailed upon to leave her and go abroad, and try to forget her.”

Edward bowed to the Baroness, and seemed grateful for her advocacy.

“And then I must add this,” she continued, “in excuse for Charlotte. The man who was at that time suing for her, had for a long time given proofs of his constant attachment to her; and, when one came to know him well, was a far more lovable person than the rest of you may like to acknowledge.”

“My dear friend,” the Count replied, a little pointedly, “confess, now, that he was not altogether indifferent to yourself, and that Charlotte had more to fear from you than from any other rival. I find it one of the highest traits in women, that they continue so long in their regard for a man, and that absence of no duration will serve to disturb or remove it.”

“This fine feature, men possess, perhaps, even more,” answered the Baroness. “At any rate, I have observed with you, my dear Count, that no one has more influence over you than a lady to whom you were once attached. I have seen you take more trouble to do things when a certain person has asked you, than the friend of this moment would have obtained of you, if she had tried.”

“Such a charge as that one must bear the best way one can,” replied the Count. “But as to what concerns Charlotte’s first husband, I could not endure him, because he parted so sweet a pair from each other — a really predestined pair, who, once brought together, have no reason to fear the five years, or be thinking of a second or third marriage.”

“We must try,” Charlotte said, “to make up for what we then allowed to slip from us.”

“Aye, and you must keep to that,” said the Count; “your first marriages,” he continued, with some vehemence, “were exactly marriages of the true detestable sort. And, unhappily, marriages generally, even the best, have (forgive me for using a strong expression) something awkward about them. They destroy the delicacy of the relation; everything is made to rest on the broad certainty out of which one side or other, at least, is too apt to make their own advantage. It is all a matter of course; and they seem only to have got themselves tied together, that one or the other, or both, may go their own way the more easily.”

At this moment, Charlotte, who was determined once for all that she would put an end to the conversation, made a bold effort at turning it, and succeeded. It then became more general. She and her husband and the Captain were able to take a part in it. Even Ottilie had to give her opinion; and the dessert was enjoyed in the happiest humor. It was particularly beautiful, being composed almost entirely of the rich summer fruits in elegant baskets, with epergnes of lovely flowers arranged in exquisite taste.

The new laying-out of the park came to be spoken of; and immediately after dinner they went to look at what was going on. Ottilie withdrew, under pretence of having household matters to look to; in reality, it was to set to work again at the transcribing. The Count fell into conversation with the Captain, and Charlotte afterward joined them. When they were at the summit of the height, the Captain good-naturedly ran back to fetch the plan, and in his absence the Count said to Charlotte:

“He is an exceedingly pleasing person. He is very well informed, and his knowledge is always ready. His practical power, too, seems methodical and vigorous. What he is doing here would be of great importance in some higher sphere.”

Charlotte listened to the Captain’s praises with an inward delight. She collected herself, however, and composedly and clearly confirmed what the Count had said. But she was not a little startled when he continued:

“This acquaintance falls most opportunely for me. I know of a situation for which he is perfectly suited, and I shall be doing the greatest favor to a friend of mine, a man of high rank, by recommending to him a person who is so exactly everything which he desires.”

Charlotte felt as if a thunder-stroke had fallen on her. The Count did not observe it: women, being accustomed at all times to hold themselves in restraint, are always able, even in the most extraordinary cases, to maintain an apparent composure; but she heard not a word more of what the Count said, though he went on speaking.

“When I have made up my mind upon a thing,” he added, “I am quick about it. I have put my letter together already in my head, and I shall write it immediately. You can find me some messenger who can ride off with it this evening.”

Charlotte was suffering agonies. Startled with the proposal, and shocked at herself, she was unable to utter a word. Happily, the Count continued talking of his plans for the Captain, the desirableness of which was only too apparent to Charlotte.

It was time that the Captain returned. He came up and unrolled his design before the Count. But with what changed eyes Charlotte now looked at the friend whom she was to lose. In her necessity, she bowed and turned away, and hurried down to the summer-house. Before she was half way there, the tears were streaming from her eyes, and she flung herself into the narrow room in the little hermitage, and gave herself up to an agony, a passion, a despair, of the possibility of which, but a few moments before, she had not had the slightest conception.

Edward had gone with the Baroness in the other direction toward the ponds. This ready-witted lady, who liked to be in the secret about everything, soon observed, in a few conversational feelers which she threw out, that Edward was very fluent and free-spoken in praise of Ottilie. She contrived in the most natural way to lead him out by degrees so completely that at last she had not a doubt remaining that here was not merely an incipient fancy, but a veritable, full-grown passion.

Married women, if they have no particular love for one another, yet are silently in league together, especially against young girls. The consequences of such an inclination presented themselves only too quickly to her world-experienced spirit. Added to this, she had been already, in the course of the day, talking to Charlotte about Ottilie; she had disapproved of her remaining in the country, particularly being a girl of so retiring a character; and she had proposed to take Ottilie with her to the residence of a friend who was just then bestowing great expense on the education of an only daughter, and who was only looking about to find some well-disposed companion for her — to put her in the place of a second child, and let her share in every advantage. Charlotte had taken time to consider. But now this glimpse of the Baroness into Edward’s heart changed what had been but a suggestion at once into a settled determination; and the more rapidly she made up her mind about it, the more she outwardly seemed to flatter Edward’s wishes. Never was there any one more self-possessed than this lady; and to have mastered ourselves in extraordinary cases, disposes us to treat even a common case with dissimulation — it makes us inclined, as we have had to do so much violence to ourselves, to extend our control over others, and hold ourselves in a degree compensated in what we outwardly gain for what we inwardly have been obliged to sacrifice. To this feeling there is often joined a kind of secret, spiteful pleasure in the blind, unconscious ignorance with which the victim walks on into the snare. It is not the immediately doing as we please which we enjoy, but the thought of the surprise and exposure which is to follow. And thus was the Baroness malicious enough to invite Edward to come with Charlotte and pay her a visit at the grape-gathering; and, to his question whether they might bring Ottilie with them, to frame an answer which, if he pleased, he might interpret to his wishes.

Edward had already begun to pour out his delight at the beautiful scenery, the broad river, the hills, the rocks, the vineyard, the old castles, the water-parties, and the jubilee at the grape-gathering, the wine-pressing, etc., in all of which, in the innocence of his heart, he was only exuberating in the anticipation of the impression which these scenes were to make on the fresh spirit of Ottilie. At this moment they saw her approaching, and the Baroness said quickly to Edward that he had better say nothing to her of this intended autumn expedition — things which we set our hearts upon so long before so often failing to come to pass. Edward gave his promise; but he obliged his companion to move more quickly to meet her; and at last, when they came very close, he ran on several steps in advance. A heartfelt happiness expressed itself in his whole being. He kissed her hand as he pressed into it a nosegay of wild flowers which he had gathered on his way.

The Baroness felt bitter in her heart at the sight of it. Even whilst she was able to disapprove of what was really objectionable in this affection, she could not bear to see what was sweet and beautiful in it thrown away on such a poor paltry girl.

When they had collected again at the supper-table, an entirely different temper was spread over the party. The Count, who had in the meantime written his letter and dispatched a messenger with it, occupied himself with the Captain, whom he had been drawing out more and more — spending the whole evening at his side, talking of serious matters. The Baroness, who sat on the Count’s right, found but small amusement in this; nor did Edward find any more. The latter, first because he was thirsty, and then because he was excited, did not spare the wine, and attached himself entirely to Ottilie, whom he had made sit by him. On the other side, next to the Captain, sat Charlotte; for her it was hard, it was almost impossible, to conceal the emotion under which she was suffering.

The Baroness had sufficient time to make her observations at leisure. She perceived Charlotte’s uneasiness, and occupied as she was with Edward’s passion for Ottilie, she easily satisfied herself that her abstraction and distress were owing to her husband’s behavior; and she set herself to consider in what way she could best compass her ends.

Supper was over, and the party remained divided. The Count, whose object was to probe the Captain to the bottom, had to try many turns before he could arrive at what he wished with so quiet, so little vain, but so exceedingly laconic a person. They walked up and down together on one side of the saloon, while Edward, excited with wine and hope, was laughing with Ottilie at a window, and Charlotte and the Baroness were walking backward and forward, without speaking, on the other side. Their being so silent, and their standing about in this uneasy, listless way, had its effect at last in breaking up the rest of the party. The ladies withdrew to their rooms, the gentlemen to the other wing of the castle; and so this day appeared to be concluded.

CHAPTER XI

Edward went with the Count to his room. They continued talking, and he was easily prevailed upon to stay a little time longer there. The Count lost himself in old times, spoke eagerly of Charlotte’s beauty, which, as a critic, he dwelt upon with much warmth.

“A pretty foot is a great gift of nature,” he said. “It is a grace which never perishes. I observed it today, as she was walking. I should almost have liked even to kiss her shoe, and repeat that somewhat barbarous but significant practice of the Sarmatians, who know no better way of showing reverence for any one they love or respect, than by using his shoe to drink his health out of.”

The point of the foot did not remain the only subject of praise between two old acquaintances; they went from the person back upon old stories and adventures, and came on the hindrances which at that time people had thrown in the way of the lovers’ meetings — what trouble they had taken, what arts they had been obliged to devise, only to be able to tell each other that they loved.

“Do you remember,” continued the Count, “an adventure in which I most unselfishly stood your friend when their High Mightinesses were on a visit to your uncle, and were all together in that great, straggling castle? The day went in festivities and glitter of all sorts; and a part of the night at least in pleasant conversation.”

“And you, in the meantime, had observed the back-way which led to the court ladies’ quarter,” said Edward, “and so managed to effect an interview for me with my beloved.”

“And she,” replied the Count, “thinking more of propriety than of my enjoyment, had kept a frightful old duenna with her. So that, while you two, between looks and words, got on extremely well together, my lot, in the meanwhile, was far from pleasant.”

“It was only yesterday,” answered Edward, “when we heard that you were coming, that I was talking over the story with my wife and describing our adventure on returning. We missed the road, and got into the entrance-hall from the garden. Knowing our way from thence as well as we did, we supposed we could get along easily enough.

“But you remember our surprise on opening the door. The floor was covered over with mattresses on which the giants lay in rows stretched out and sleeping. The single sentinel at his post looked wonderingly at us; but we, in the cool way young men do things, strode quietly on over the outstretched boots, without disturbing a single one of the snoring children of Anak.”

“I had the strongest inclination to stumble,” the Count said, “that there might be an alarm given. What a resurrection we should have witnessed.”

At this moment the castle clock struck twelve.

“It is deep midnight,” the Count added, laughing, “and just the proper time; I must ask you, my dear Edward, to show me a kindness. Do you guide me tonight, as I guided you then. I promised the Baroness that I would see her before going to bed. We have had no opportunity of any private talk together the whole day. We have not seen each other for a long time, and it is only natural that we should wish for a confidential hour. If you will show me the way there, I will manage to get back again; and in any case, there will be no boots for me to stumble over.”

“I shall be very glad to show you such a piece of hospitality,” answered Edward; “only the three ladies are together in the same wing. Who knows whether we shall not find them still with one another, or make some other mistake, which may have a strange appearance?”

“Do not be afraid,” said the Count; “the Baroness expects me. She is sure by this time to be in her own room, and alone.”

“Well, then, the thing is easy enough,” Edward answered.

He took a candle, and lighted the Count down a private staircase leading into a long gallery. At the end of this, he opened a small door. They mounted a winding flight of stairs, which brought them out upon a narrow landing-place; and then, putting the candle in the Count’s hand, he pointed to a tapestried door on the right, which opened readily at the first trial, and admitted the Count, leaving Edward outside in the dark.

Another door on the left led into Charlotte’s sleeping-room. He heard her voice, and listened. She was speaking to her maid. “Is Ottilie in bed?” she asked. “No,” was the answer; “she is sitting writing in the room below.” “You may light the night-lamp,” said Charlotte; “I shall not want you any more. It is late. I can put out the candle, and do whatever I may want else myself.”

It was a delight to Edward to hear that Ottilie was writing still. She is working for me, he thought triumphantly. Through the darkness, he fancied he could see her sitting all alone at her desk. He thought he would go to her, and see her; and how she would turn to receive him. He felt a longing, which he could not resist, to be near her once more. But, from where he was, there was no way to the apartments which she occupied. He now found himself immediately at his wife’s door. A singular change of feeling came over him. He tried the handle, but the bolts were shot. He knocked gently. Charlotte did not hear him. She was walking rapidly up and down in the large dressing-room adjoining. She was repeating over and over what, since the Count’s unexpected proposal, she had often enough had to say to herself. The Captain seemed to stand before her. At home, and everywhere, he had become her all in all. And now he was to go; and it was all to be desolate again. She repeated whatever wise things one can say to oneself; she even anticipated, as people so often do, the wretched comfort that time would come at last to her relief; and then she cursed the time which would have to pass before it could lighten her sufferings — she cursed the dead, cold time when they would be lightened. At last she burst into tears; they were the more welcome, since tears with her were rare. She flung herself on the sofa, and gave herself up unreservedly to her sufferings. Edward, meanwhile, could not take himself from the door. He knocked again; and a third time rather louder; so that Charlotte, in the stillness of the night, distinctly heard it, and started up in fright. Her first thought was — it can only be, it must be, the Captain; her second, that it was impossible. She thought she must have been deceived. But surely she had heard it; and she wished, and she feared to have heard it. She went into her sleeping-room, and walked lightly up to the bolted tapestry-door. She blamed herself for her fears. “Possibly it may be the Baroness wanting something,” she said to herself; and she called out quietly and calmly, “Is anybody there?” A light voice answered, “It is I.” “Who?” returned Charlotte, not being able to make out the voice. She thought she saw the Captain’s figure standing at the door. In a rather louder tone, she heard the word “Edward!” She drew back the bolt, and her husband stood before her. He greeted her with some light jest. She was unable to reply in the same tone. He complicated the mysterious visit by his mysterious explanation of it.

“Well, then,” he said at last, “I will confess, the real reason why I am come is, that I have made a vow to kiss your shoe this evening.”

“It is long since you thought of such a thing as that,” said Charlotte.

“So much the worse,” he answered; “and so much the better.”

She had thrown herself back in an armchair, to prevent him from seeing the slightness of her dress. He flung himself down before her, and she could not prevent him from giving her shoe a kiss. And when the shoe came off in his hand, he caught her foot and pressed it tenderly against his breast.

Charlotte was one of those women who, being of naturally calm temperaments, continue in marriage, without any purpose or any effort, the air and character of lovers. She was never expressive toward her husband; generally, indeed, she rather shrank from any warm demonstration on his part. It was not that she was cold, or at all hard and repulsive, but she remained always like a loving bride, who draws back with a kind of shyness even from what is permitted. And so Edward found her this evening, in a double sense. How sorely did she not long that her husband would go; the figure of his friend seemed to hover in the air and reproach her. But what should have had the effect of driving Edward away only attracted him the more. There were visible traces of emotion about her. She had been crying; and tears, which with weak persons detract from their graces, add immeasurably to the attractiveness of those whom we know commonly as strong and self-possessed.

Edward was so agreeable, so gentle, so pressing; he begged to be allowed to stay with her. He did not demand it, but half in fun, half in earnest, he tried to persuade her; he never thought of his rights. At last, as if in mischief, he blew out the candle.

In the dim lamplight, the inward affection, the imagination, maintained their rights over the real; it was Ottilie that was resting in Edward’s arms; and the Captain, now faintly, now clearly, hovered before Charlotte’s soul. And so, strangely intermingled, the absent and the present flowed in a sweet enchantment one into the other.

And yet the present would not let itself be robbed of its own unlovely right. They spent a part of the night talking and laughing at all sorts of things, the more freely as the heart had no part in it. But when Edward awoke in the morning, on his wife’s breast, the day seemed to stare in with a sad, awful look, and the sun to be shining in upon a crime. He stole lightly from her side; and she found herself, with strange enough feelings, when she awoke, alone.

CHAPTER XII

When the party assembled again at breakfast, an attentive observer might have read in the behavior of its various members the different things which were passing in their inner thoughts and feelings. The Count and the Baroness met with the air of happiness which a pair of lovers feel, who, after having been forced to endure a long separation, have mutually assured each other of their unaltered affection. On the other hand, Charlotte and Edward equally came into the presence of the Captain and Ottilie with a sense of shame and remorse. For such is the nature of love that it believes in no rights except its own, and all other rights vanish away before it. Ottilie was in child-like spirits. For her — she was almost what might be called open. The Captain appeared serious. His conversation with the Count, which had roused in him feelings that for some time past had been at rest and dormant, had made him only too keenly conscious that here he was not fulfilling his work, and at bottom was but squandering himself in a half-activity of idleness.

Hardly had their guests departed, when fresh visitors were announced — to Charlotte most welcomely, all she wished for being to be taken out of herself, and to have her attention dissipated. They annoyed Edward, who was longing to devote himself to Ottilie; and Ottilie did not like them either; the copy which had to be finished the next morning early being still incomplete. They staid a long time, and immediately that they were gone she hurried off to her room.

It was now evening. Edward, Charlotte, and the Captain had accompanied the strangers some little way on foot, before the latter got into their carriage, and previous to returning home they agreed to take a walk along the water-side.

A boat had come, which Edward had had fetched from a distance, at no little expense; and they decided that they would try whether it was easy to manage. It was made fast on the bank of the middle pond, not far from some old ash trees on which they calculated to make an effect in their future improvements. There was to be a landing-place made there, and under the trees a seat was to be raised, with some wonderful architecture about it: it was to be the point for which people were to make when they went across the water.

“And where had we better have the landing-place on the other side?” said Edward. “I should think under my plane trees.”

“They stand a little too far to the right,” said the Captain. “You are nearer the castle if you land further down. However, we must think about it.”

The Captain was already standing in the stern of the boat, and had taken up an oar. Charlotte got in, and Edward with her — he took the other oar; but as he was on the point of pushing off, he thought of Ottilie — he recollected that this water-party would keep him out late; who could tell when he would get back? He made up his mind shortly and promptly; sprang back to the bank, and reaching the other oar to the Captain, hurried home — making excuses to himself as he ran.

Arriving there he learnt that Ottilie had shut herself up — she was writing. In spite of the agreeable feeling that she was doing something for him, it was the keenest mortification to him not to be able to see her. His impatience increased every moment. He walked up and down the large drawing-room; he tried a thousand things, and could not fix his attention upon any. He was longing to see her alone, before Charlotte came back with the Captain. It was dark by this time, and the candles were lighted.

At last she came in beaming with loveliness: the sense that she had done something for her friend had lifted all her being above itself. She put down the original and her transcript on the table before Edward.

“Shall we collate them?” she said, with a smile.

Edward did not know what to answer. He looked at her — he looked at the transcript. The first few sheets were written with the greatest carefulness in a delicate woman’s hand — then the strokes appeared to alter, to become more light and free — but who can describe his surprise as he ran his eyes over the concluding page? “For heaven’s sake,” he cried, “what is this? this is my hand!” He looked at Ottilie, and again at the paper; the conclusion, especially, was exactly as if he had written it himself. Ottilie said nothing, but she looked at him with her eyes full of the warmest delight. Edward stretched out his arms. “You love me!” he cried: “Ottilie, you love me!” They fell on each other’s breast — which had been the first to catch the other it would have been impossible to distinguish.

From that moment the world was all changed for Edward. He was no longer what he had been, and the world was no longer what it had been. They parted — he held her hands; they gazed in each other’s eyes. They were on the point of embracing each other again.

Charlotte entered with the Captain. Edward inwardly smiled at their excuses for having stayed out so long. Oh! how far too soon you have returned, he said to himself.

They sat down to supper. They talked about the people who had been there that day. Edward, full of love and ecstasy, spoke well of every one — always sparing, often approving. Charlotte, who was not altogether of his opinion, remarked this temper in him, and jested with him about it — he who had always the sharpest thing to say on departed visitors, was this evening so gentle and tolerant.

With fervor and heartfelt conviction, Edward cried, “One has only to love a single creature with all one’s heart, and the whole world at once looks lovely!”

Ottilie dropped her eyes on the ground, and Charlotte looked straight before her.

The Captain took up the word, and said, “It is the same with deep feelings of respect and reverence: we first learn to recognize what there is that is to be valued in the world, when we find occasion to entertain such sentiments toward a particular object.”

Charlotte made an excuse to retire early to her room where she could give herself up to thinking over what had passed in the course of the evening between herself and the Captain.

When Edward sprang on shore, and, pushing off the boat, had himself committed his wife and his friend to the uncertain element, Charlotte found herself face to face with the man on whose account she had been already secretly suffering so bitterly, sitting in the twilight before her, and sweeping along the boat with the sculls in easy motion. She felt a depth of sadness, very rare with her, weighing on her spirits. The undulating movement of the boat, the splash of the oars, the faint breeze playing over the watery mirror, the sighing of the reeds, the long flight of the birds, the fitful twinkling of the first stars — there was something spectral about it all in the universal stillness. She fancied her friend was bearing her away to set her on some far-off shore, and leave her there alone; strange emotions were passing through her, and she could not give way to them and weep.

The Captain was describing to her the manner in which, in his opinion, the improvements should be continued. He praised the construction of the boat; it was so convenient, he said, because one person could so easily manage it with a pair of oars. She should herself learn how to do this; there was often a delicious feeling in floating along alone upon the water, one’s own ferryman and steersman.

The parting which was impending sank on Charlotte’s heart as he was speaking. Is he saying this on purpose? she thought to herself. Does he know it yet? Does he suspect it or is it only accident? And is he unconsciously foretelling me my fate?

A weary, impatient heaviness took hold of her; she begged him to make for land as soon as possible and return with her to the castle.

It was the first time that the Captain had been upon the water, and, though generally he had acquainted himself with its depth, he did not know accurately the particular spots. Dusk was coming on; he directed his course to a place where he thought it would be easy to get on shore, and from which he knew the footpath which led to the castle was not far distant. Charlotte, however, repeated her wish to get to land quickly, and the place which he thought of being at a short distance, he gave it up, and exerting himself as much as he possibly could, made straight for the bank. Unhappily the water was shallow, and he ran aground some way off from it. From the rate at which he was going the boat was fixed fast, and all his efforts to move it were in vain. What was to be done? There was no alternative but to get into the water and carry his companion ashore.

It was done without difficulty or danger. He was strong enough not to totter with her, or give her any cause for anxiety; but in her agitation she had thrown her arms about his neck. He held her fast, and pressed her to himself — and at last laid her down upon a grassy bank, not without emotion and confusion * * * she still lay upon his neck * * * he caught her up once more in his arms, and pressed a warm kiss upon her lips. The next moment he was at her feet: he took her hand, and held it to his mouth, and cried:

“Charlotte, will you forgive me?”

The kiss which he had ventured to give, and which she had all but returned to him, brought Charlotte to herself again — she pressed his hand — but she did not attempt to raise him up. She bent down over him, and laid her hand upon his shoulder and said:

“We cannot now prevent this moment from forming an epoch in our lives; but it depends on us to bear ourselves in a manner which shall be worthy of us. You must go away, my dear friend; and you are going. The Count has plans for you, to give you better prospects — I am glad, and I am sorry. I did not mean to speak of it till it was certain but this moment obliges me to tell you my secret * * * Since it does not depend on ourselves to alter our feelings, I can only forgive you, I can only forgive myself, if we have the courage to alter our situation.” She raised him up, took his arm to support herself, and they walked back to the castle without speaking.

But now she was standing in her own room, where she had to feel and to know that she was Edward’s wife. Her strength and the various discipline in which through life she had trained herself, came to her assistance in the conflict. Accustomed as she had always been to look steadily into herself and to control herself, she did not now find it difficult, with an earnest effort, to come to the resolution which she desired. She could almost smile when she remembered the strange visit of the night before. Suddenly she was seized with a wonderful instinctive feeling, a thrill of fearful delight which changed into holy hope and longing. She knelt earnestly down, and repeated the oath which she had taken to Edward before the altar.

Friendship, affection, renunciation, floated in glad, happy images before her. She felt restored to health and to herself. A sweet weariness came over her. She lay down, and sank into a calm, quiet sleep.

CHAPTER XIII

Edward, on his part, was in a very different temper. So little he thought of sleeping that it did not once occur to him even to undress himself. A thousand times he kissed the transcript of the document, but it was the beginning of it, in Ottilie’s childish, timid hand; the end he scarcely dared to kiss, for he thought it was his own hand which he saw. Oh, that it were another document! he whispered to himself; and, as it was, he felt it was the sweetest assurance that his highest wish would be fulfilled. Thus it remained in his hands, thus he continued to press it to his heart, although disfigured by a third name subscribed to it. The waning moon rose up over the wood. The warmth of the night drew Edward out into the free air. He wandered this way and that way; he was at once the most restless and the happiest of mortals. He strayed through the gardens — they seemed too narrow for him; he hurried out into the park, and it was too wide. He was drawn back toward the castle; he stood under Ottilie’s window. He threw himself down on the steps of the terrace below. “Walls and bolts,” he said to himself, “may still divide us, but our hearts are not divided. If she were here before me, into my arms she would fall, and I into hers; and what can one desire but that sweet certainty!” All was stillness round him; not a breath was moving; — so still it was, that he could hear the unresting creatures underground at their work, to whom day or night are alike. He abandoned himself to his delicious dreams; at last he fell asleep, and did not wake till the sun with his royal beams was mounting up in the sky and scattering the early mists.

He found himself the first person awake on his domain. The laborers seemed to be staying away too long: they came; he thought they were too few, and the work set out for the day too slight for his desires. He inquired for more workmen; they were promised, and in the course of the day they came. But these, too, were not enough for him to carry his plans out as rapidly as he wished. To do the work gave him no pleasure any longer; it should all be done. And for whom? The paths should be gravelled that Ottilie might walk presently upon them; seats should be made at every spot and corner that Ottilie might rest on them. The new park house was hurried forward. It should be finished for Ottilie’s birthday. In all he thought and all he did, there was no more moderation. The sense of loving and of being loved, urged him out into the unlimited. How changed was now to him the look of all the rooms, their furniture, and their decorations! He did not feel as if he was in his own house any more. Ottilie’s presence absorbed everything. He was utterly lost in her; no other thought ever rose before him; no conscience disturbed him; every restraint which had been laid upon his nature burst loose. His whole being centered upon Ottilie. This impetuosity of passion did not escape the Captain, who longed, if he could, to prevent its evil consequences. All those plans which were now being hurried on with this immoderate speed, had been drawn out and calculated for a long, quiet, easy execution. The sale of the farm had been completed; the first instalment had been paid. Charlotte, according to the arrangement, had taken possession of it. But the very first week after, she found it more than usually necessary to exercise patience and resolution, and to keep her eye on what was being done. In the present hasty style of proceeding, the money which had been set apart for the purpose would not go far.

Much had been begun, and much yet remained to be done. How could the Captain leave Charlotte in such a situation? They consulted together, and agreed that it would be better that they themselves should hurry on the works, and for this purpose employ money which could be made good again at the period fixed for the discharge of the second instalment of what was to be paid for the farm. It could be done almost without loss. They would have a freer hand. Everything would progress simultaneously. There were laborers enough at hand, and they could get more accomplished at once, and arrive swiftly and surely at their aim. Edward gladly gave his consent to a plan which so entirely coincided with his own views.

During this time Charlotte persisted with all her heart in what she had determined for herself, and her friend stood by her with a like purpose, manfully. This very circumstance, however, produced a greater intimacy between them. They spoke openly to each other of Edward’s passion, and consulted what had better be done. Charlotte kept Ottilie more about herself, watching her narrowly; and the more she understood her own heart, the deeper she was able to penetrate into the heart of the poor girl. She saw no help for it, except in sending her away.

It now appeared a happy thing to her that Luciana had gained such high honors at the school; for her great aunt, as soon as she heard of it, desired to take her entirely to herself, to keep her with her, and bring her out into the world. Ottilie could, therefore, return thither. The Captain would leave them well provided for, and everything would be as it had been a few months before; indeed, in many respects better. Her own position in Edward’s affection, Charlotte thought, she could soon recover; and she settled it all, and laid it all out before herself so sensibly that she only strengthened herself more completely in her delusion, as if it were possible for them to return within their old limits — as if a bond which had been violently broken could again be joined together as before.

In the meantime Edward felt very deeply the hindrances which were thrown in his way. He soon observed that they were keeping him and Ottilie separate; that they made it difficult for him to speak with her alone, or even to approach her, except in the presence of others. And while he was angry about this, he was angry at many things besides. If he caught an opportunity for a few hasty words with Ottilie, it was not only to assure her of his love, but to complain of his wife and of the Captain. He never felt that with his own irrational haste he was on the way to exhaust the cash-box. He found bitter fault with them, because in the execution of the work they were not keeping to the first agreement, and yet he had been himself a consenting party to the second; indeed, it was he who had occasioned it and made it necessary.

Hatred is a partisan, but love is even more so. Ottilie also estranged herself from Charlotte and the Captain. As Edward was complaining one day to Ottilie of the latter, saying that he was not treating him like a friend, or, under the circumstances, acting quite uprightly, she answered unthinkingly, “I have once or twice had a painful feeling that he was not quite honest with you. I heard him say once to Charlotte: ‘If Edward would but spare us that eternal flute of his! He can make nothing of it, and it is too disagreeable to listen to him.’ You may imagine how it hurt me, when I like accompanying you so much.”

She had scarcely uttered the words when her conscience whispered to her that she had much better have been silent. However, the thing was said. Edward’s features worked violently. Never had anything stung him more. He was touched on his tenderest point. It was his amusement; he followed it like a child. He never made the slightest pretensions; what gave him pleasure should be treated with forbearance by his friends. He never thought how intolerable it is for a third person to have his ears lacerated by an unsuccessful talent. He was indignant; he was hurt in a way which he could not forgive. He felt himself discharged from all obligations.

The necessity of being with Ottilie, of seeing her, whispering to her, exchanging his confidence with her, increased with every day. He determined to write to her, and ask her to carry on a secret correspondence with him. The strip of paper on which he had, laconically enough, made his request, lay on his writing-table, and was swept off by a draught of wind as his valet entered to dress his hair. The latter was in the habit of trying the heat of the iron by picking up any scraps of paper which might be lying about. This time his hand fell on the billet; he twisted it up hastily, and it was burnt. Edward observing the mistake, snatched it out of his hand. After the man was gone, he sat himself down to write it over again. The second time it would not run so readily off his pen. It gave him a little uneasiness; he hesitated, but he got over it. He squeezed the paper into Ottilie’s hand the first moment he was able to approach her. Ottilie answered him immediately. He put the note unread in his waistcoat pocket, which, being made short in the fashion of the time, was shallow, and did not hold it as it ought. It worked out, and fell without his observing it on the ground. Charlotte saw it, picked it up, and after giving a hasty glance at it, reached it to him.

“Here is something in your handwriting,” she said, “which you may be sorry to lose.”

He was confounded. Is she dissembling? he thought to himself. Does she know what is in the note, or is she deceived by the resemblance of the hand? He hoped, he believed the latter. He was warned — doubly warned; but those strange accidents, through which a higher intelligence seems to be speaking to us, his passion was not able to interpret. Rather, as he went further and further on, he felt the restraint under which his friend and his wife seemed to be holding him the more intolerable. His pleasure in their society was gone. His heart was closed against them, and though he was obliged to endure their society, he could not succeed in re-discovering or in re-animating within his heart anything of his old affection for them. The silent reproaches which he was forced to make to himself about it were disagreeable to him. He tried to help himself with a kind of humor which, however, being without love, was also without its usual grace.

Over all such trials Charlotte found assistance to rise in her own inward feelings. She knew her own determination. Her own affection, fair and noble as it was, she would utterly renounce.

And sorely she longed to go to the assistance of the other two. Separation, she knew well, would not alone suffice to heal so deep a wound. She resolved that she would speak openly about it to Ottilie herself. But she could not do it. The recollection of her own weakness stood in her way. She thought she could talk generally to her about the sort of thing. But general expressions about “the sort of thing,” fitted her own case equally well, and she could not bear to touch it. Every hint which she would give Ottilie recoiled on her own heart. She would warn, and she was obliged to feel that she might herself still be in need of warning.

She contented herself, therefore, with silently keeping the lovers more apart, and by this gained nothing. The slight hints which frequently escaped her had no effect upon Ottilie; for Ottilie had been assured by Edward that Charlotte was devoted to the Captain, that Charlotte herself wished for a separation, and that he was at this moment considering the readiest means by which it could be brought about.

Ottilie, led by the sense of her own innocence along the road to the happiness for which she longed, lived only for Edward. Strengthened by her love for him in all good, more light and happy in her work for his sake, and more frank and open toward others, she found herself in a heaven upon earth.

So all together, each in his or her own fashion, reflecting or unreflecting, they continued on the routine of their lives. All seemed to go its ordinary way, as, in monstrous cases, when everything is at stake, men will still live on, as if it were all nothing.

CHAPTER XIV

In the meantime a letter came from the Count to the Captain — two, indeed — one which he might produce, holding out fair, excellent prospects in the distance; the other containing a distinct offer of an immediate situation, a place of high importance and responsibility at the Court, his rank as Major, a very considerable salary, and other advantages. A number of circumstances, however, made it desirable that for the moment he should not speak of it, and consequently he only informed his friends of his distant expectations, and concealed what was so nearly impending.

He went warmly on, at the same time, with his present occupation, and quietly made arrangements to insure the continuance of the works without interruption after his departure. He was now himself desirous that as much as possible should be finished off at once, and was ready to hasten things forward to prepare for Ottilie’s birthday. And so, though without having come to any express understanding, the two friends worked side by side together. Edward was now well pleased that the cash-box was filled by their having taken up money. The whole affair went forward at fullest speed.

The Captain had done his best to oppose the plan of throwing the three ponds together into a single sheet of water. The lower embankment would have to be made much stronger, the two intermediate embankments to be taken away, and altogether, in more than one sense, it seemed a very questionable proceeding. However, both these schemes had been already undertaken; the soil which was removed above being carried at once down to where it was wanted. And here there came opportunely on the scene a young architect, an old pupil of the Captain, who partly by introducing workmen who understood work of this nature, and partly by himself, whenever it was possible, contracting for the work itself, advanced things not a little, while at the same time they could feel more confidence in their being securely and lastingly executed. In secret this was a great pleasure to the Captain. He could now be confident that his absence would not be so severely felt. It was one of the points on which he was most resolute with himself, never to leave anything which he had taken in hand uncompleted, unless he could see his place satisfactorily supplied. And he could not but hold in small respect, persons who introduce confusion around themselves only to make their absence felt and are ready to disturb in wanton selfishness what they will not be at hand to restore.

So they labored on, straining every nerve to make Ottilie’s birthday splendid, without any open acknowledgment that this was what they were aiming at, or, indeed, without their directly acknowledging it to themselves. Charlotte, wholly free from jealousy as she was, could not think it right to keep it as a real festival. Ottilie’s youth, the circumstances of her fortune, and her relationship to their family, were not at all such as made it fit that she should appear as the queen of the day; and Edward would not have it talked about, because everything was to spring out, as it were, of itself, with a natural and delightful surprise.

They, therefore, came all of them to a sort of tacit understanding that on this day, without further circumstance, the new house in the park was to be opened, and they might take the occasion to invite the neighborhood and give a holiday to their own people. Edward’s passion, however, knew no bounds. Longing as he did to give himself to Ottilie, his presents and his promises must be infinite. The birthday gifts which on the great occasion he was to offer to her seemed, as Charlotte had arranged them, far too insignificant. He spoke to his valet, who had the care of his wardrobe, and who consequently had extensive acquaintance among the tailors and mercers and fashionable milliners; and he, who not only understood himself what valuable presents were, but also the most graceful way in which they should be offered, immediately ordered an elegant box, covered with red morocco and studded with steel nails, to be filled with presents worthy of such a shell. Another thing, too, he suggested to Edward. Among the stores at the castle was a small show of fireworks which had never been let off. It would be easy to get some more, and have something really fine. Edward caught the idea, and his servant promised to see to its being executed. This matter was to remain a secret.

While this was going on, the Captain, as the day drew nearer, had been making arrangements for a body of police to be present — a precaution which he always thought desirable when large numbers of men are to be brought together. And, indeed, against beggars, and against all other inconveniences by which the pleasure of a festival can be disturbed, he had made effectual provision.

Edward and his confidante, on the contrary, were mainly occupied with their fireworks. They were to be let off on the side of the middle water in front of the great ash-tree. The party were to be collected on the opposite side, under the planes, that at a sufficient distance from the scene, in ease and safety, they might see them to the best effect, with the reflections on the water, the water-rockets, and floating-lights, and all the other designs.

Under some other pretext, Edward had the ground underneath the plane-trees cleared of bushes and grass and moss. And now first could be seen the beauty of their forms, together with their full height and spread, right up from the earth. He was delighted with them. It was just this very time of the year that he had planted them. How long ago could it have been? he asked himself. As soon as he got home he turned over the old diary books, which his father, especially when in the country, was very careful in keeping. He might not find an entry of this particular planting, but another important domestic matter, which Edward well remembered, and which had occurred on the same day, would surely be mentioned. He turned over a few volumes. The circumstances he was looking for was there. How amazed, how overjoyed he was, when he discovered the strangest coincidence! The day and the year on which he had planted those trees, was the very day, the very year, when Ottilie was born.

CHAPTER XV

THE long-wished-for morning dawned at last on Edward; and very soon a number of guests arrived. They had sent out a large number of invitations, and many who had missed the laying of the foundation-stone, which was reported to have been so charming, were the more careful not to be absent on the second festivity.

Before dinner the carpenter’s people appeared, with music, in the court of the castle. They bore an immense garland of flowers, composed of a number of single wreaths, winding in and out, one above the other; saluting the company, they made request, according to custom, for silk handkerchiefs and ribands, at the hands of the fair sex, with which to dress themselves out. When the castle party went into the dining-hall, they marched off singing and shouting, and after amusing themselves a while in the village, and coaxing many a riband out of the women there, old and young, they came at last, with crowds behind them and crowds expecting them, out upon the height where the park-house was now standing. After dinner, Charlotte rather held back her guests. She did not wish that there should be any solemn or formal procession, and they found their way in little parties, broken up, as they pleased, without rule or order, to the scene of action. Charlotte staid behind with Ottilie, and did not improve matters by doing so. For Ottilie being really the last that appeared, it seemed as if the trumpets and the clarionets had only been waiting for her, and as if the gaieties had been ordered to commence directly on her arrival.

To take off the rough appearance of the house, it had been hung with green boughs and flowers. They had dressed it out in an architectural fashion, according to a design of the Captain’s; only that, without his knowledge, Edward had desired the Architect to work in the date upon the cornice in flowers, and this was necessarily permitted to remain. The Captain had arrived on the scene just in time to prevent Ottilie’s name from figuring in splendor on the gable. The beginning, which had been made for this, he contrived to turn skilfully to some other use, and to get rid of such of the letters as had been already finished.

The garland was set up, and was to be seen far and wide about the country. The flags and the ribands fluttered gaily in the air; and a short oration was, the greater part of it, dispersed by the wind. The solemnity was at an end. There was now to be a dance on the smooth lawn in front of the building, which had been inclosed with boughs and branches. A gaily-dressed working mason took Edward up to a smart-looking girl of the village, and called himself upon Ottilie, who stood out with him. These two couples speedily found others to follow them, and Edward contrived pretty soon to change partners, catching Ottilie, and making the round with her. The younger part of the company joined merrily in the dance with the people, while the elder among them stood and looked on.

Then, before they broke up and walked about, an order was given that they should all collect again at sunset under the plane-trees. Edward was the first upon the spot, ordering everything, and making his arrangements with his valet, who was to be on the other side, in company with the firework-maker, managing his exhibition of the spectacle.

The Captain was far from satisfied at some of the preparations which he saw made; and he endeavored to get a word with Edward about the crush of spectators which was to be expected. But the latter, somewhat hastily, begged that he might be allowed to manage this part of the day’s amusements himself.

The upper end of the embankment having been recently raised, was still far from compact. It had been staked, but there was no grass upon it, and the earth was uneven and insecure. The crowd pressed on, however, in great numbers. The sun went down, and the castle party was served with refreshments under the plane-trees, to pass the time till it should have become sufficiently dark. The place was approved of beyond measure, and they looked forward to a frequent enjoyment of the view over so lovely a sheet of water, on future occasions.

A calm evening, a perfect absence of wind, promised everything in favor of the spectacle, when suddenly loud and violent shrieks were heard. Large masses of the earth had given way on the edge of the embankment, and a number of people were precipitated into the water. The pressure from the throng had gone on increasing till at last it had become more than the newly laid soil would bear, and the bank had fallen in. Everybody wanted to obtain the best place, and now there was no getting either backward or forward.

People ran this and that way, more to see what was going on than to render assistance. What could be done when no one could reach the place?

The Captain, with a few determined persons, hurried down and drove the crowd off the embankment back upon the shore, in order that those who were really of service might have free room to move. One way or another they contrived to seize hold of such as were sinking; and with or without assistance all who had been in the water were got out safe upon the bank, with the exception of one boy, whose struggles in his fright, instead of bringing him nearer to the embankment, had only carried him further from it. His strength seemed to be failing — now only a hand was seen above the surface, and now a foot. By an unlucky chance the boat was on the opposite shore filled with fireworks — it was a long business to unload it, and help was slow in coming. The Captain’s resolution was taken; he flung off his coat; all eyes were directed toward him, and his sturdy vigorous figure gave every one hope and confidence: but a cry of surprise rose out of the crowd as they saw him fling himself into the water — every eye watched him as the strong swimmer swiftly reached the boy, and bore him, although to appearance dead, to the embankment.

Now came up the boat. The Captain stepped in and examined whether there were any still missing, or whether they were all safe. The surgeon was speedily on the spot, and took charge of the inanimate boy. Charlotte joined them, and entreated the Captain to go now and take care of himself, to hurry back to the castle and change his clothes. He would not go, however, till persons on whose sense he could rely, who had been close to the spot at the time of the accident, and who had assisted in saving those who had fallen in, assured him that all were safe.

Charlotte saw him on his way to the house, and then she remembered that the wine and the tea, and everything else which he could want, had been locked up, for fear any of the servants should take advantage of the disorder of the holiday, as on such occasions they are too apt to do. She hurried through the scattered groups of her company, which were loitering about the plane-trees. Edward was there, talking to every one — beseeching every one to stay. He would give the signal directly, and the fireworks should begin. Charlotte went up to him, and entreated him to put off an amusement which was no longer in place, and which at the present moment no one could enjoy. She reminded him of what ought to be done for the boy who had been saved, and for his preserver.

“The surgeon will do whatever is right, no doubt,” replied Edward. “He is provided with everything which he can want, and we should only be in the way if we crowded about him with our anxieties.”

Charlotte persisted in her opinion, and made a sign to Ottilie, who at once prepared to retire with her. Edward seized her hand, and cried, “We will not end this day in a lazaretto. She is too good for a sister of mercy. Without us, I should think, the half-dead may wake, and the living dry themselves.”

Charlotte did not answer, but went. Some followed her — others followed these: in the end, no one wished to be the last, and all followed. Edward and Ottilie found themselves alone under the plane-trees. He insisted that stay he would, earnestly, passionately, as she entreated him to go back with her to the castle. “No, Ottilie!” he cried; “the extraordinary is not brought to pass in the smooth common way — the wonderful accident of this evening brings us more speedily together. You are mine — I have often said it to you, and sworn it to you. We will not say it and swear it any more — we will make it BE.”

The boat came over from the other side. The valet was in it — he asked, with some embarrassment, what his master wished to have done with the fireworks?

“Let them off!” Edward cried to him: “let them off! It was only for you that they were provided, Ottilie, and you shall be the only one to see them! Let me sit beside you, and enjoy them with you.” Tenderly, timidly, he sat down at her side, without touching her.

Rockets went hissing up — cannon thundered — Roman candles shot out their blazing balls — squibs flashed and darted — wheels spun round, first singly, then in pairs, then all at once, faster and faster, one after the other, and more and more together. Edward, whose bosom was on fire, watched the blazing spectacle with eyes gleaming with delight; but Ottilie, with her delicate and nervous feelings, in all this noise and fitful blazing and flashing, found more to distress her than to please. She leant shrinking against Edward, and he, as she drew to him and clung to him, felt the delightful sense that she belonged entirely to him.

The night had scarcely reassumed its rights, when the moon rose and lighted their path as they walked back. A figure, with his hat in his hand, stepped across their way, and begged an alms of them — in the general holiday he said that he had been forgotten. The moon shone upon his face, and Edward recognized the features of the importunate beggar; but, happy as he then was, it was impossible for him to be angry with any one. He could not recollect that, especially for that particular day, begging had been forbidden under the heaviest penalties — he thrust his hand into his pocket, took the first coin which he found, and gave the fellow a piece of gold. His own happiness was so unbounded that he would have liked to share it with every one.

In the meantime all had gone well at the castle. The skill of the surgeon, everything which was required being ready at hand, Charlotte’s assistance — all had worked together, and the boy was brought to life again. The guests dispersed, wishing to catch a glimpse or two of what was to be seen of the fireworks from the distance; and, after a scene of such confusion, were glad to get back to their own quiet homes.

The Captain also, after having rapidly changed his dress, had taken an active part in what required to be done. It was now all quiet again, and he found himself alone with Charlotte — gently and affectionately he now told her that his time for leaving them approached. She had gone through so much that evening, that this discovery made but a slight impression upon her — she had seen how her friend could sacrifice himself; how he had saved another, and had himself been saved. These strange incidents seemed to foretell an important future to her — but not an unhappy one.

Edward, who now entered with Ottilie, was informed at once of the impending departure of the Captain. He suspected that Charlotte had known longer how near it was; but he was far too much occupied with himself, and with his own plans, to take it amiss, or care about it.

On the contrary, he listened attentively, and with signs of pleasure, to the account of the excellent and honorable position in which the Captain was to be placed. The course of the future was hurried impetuously forward by his own secret wishes. Already he saw the Captain married to Charlotte, and himself married to Ottilie. It would have been the richest present which any one could have made him, on the occasion of the day’s festival!

But how surprised was Ottilie, when, on going to her room, she found upon her table the beautiful box! Instantly she opened it; inside, all the things were so nicely packed and arranged that she did not venture to take them out; she scarcely even ventured to lift them. There were muslin, cambric, silk, shawls and lace, all rivalling one another in delicacy, beauty, and costliness — nor were ornaments forgotten. The intention had been, as she saw well, to furnish her with more than one complete suit of clothes but it was all so costly, so little like what she had been accustomed to, that she scarcely dared, even in thought, to believe it could be really for her.

CHAPTER XVI

The next morning the Captain had disappeared, having left a grateful, feeling letter addressed to his friends upon his table.

He and Charlotte had already taken a half leave of each other the evening before — she felt that the parting was for ever, and she resigned herself to it; for in the Count’s second letter, which the Captain had at last shown to her, there was a hint of a prospect of an advantageous marriage, and, although he had paid no attention to it at all, she accepted it for as good as certain, and gave him up firmly and fully.

Now, therefore, she thought that she had a right to require of others the same control over themselves which she had exercised herself: it had not been impossible to her, and it ought not to be impossible to them. With this feeling she began the conversation with her husband; and she entered upon it the more openly and easily, from a sense that the question must now, once for all, be decisively set at rest.

“Our friend has left us,” she said; “we are now once more together as we were — and it depends upon ourselves whether we choose to return altogether into our old position.”

Edward, who heard nothing except what flattered his own passion, believed that Charlotte, in these words, was alluding to her previous widowed state, and, in a roundabout way, was making a suggestion for a separation; so that he answered, with a laugh, “Why not? all we want is to come to an understanding.” But he found himself sorely enough undeceived, as Charlotte continued, “And we have now a choice of opportunities for placing Ottilie in another situation. Two openings have offered themselves for her, either of which will do very well. Either she can return to the school, as my daughter has left it and is with her great-aunt; or she can be received into a desirable family, where, as the companion of an only child, she will enjoy all the advantages of a solid education.”

Edward, with a tolerably successful effort at commanding himself, replied, “Ottilie has been so much spoilt, by living so long with us here, that she will scarcely like to leave us now.”

“We have all of us been too much spoilt,” said Charlotte; “and yourself not least. This is an epoch which requires us seriously to bethink ourselves. It is a solemn warning to us to consider what is really for the good of all the members of our little circle — and we ourselves must not be afraid of making sacrifices.”

“At any rate I cannot see that it is right that Ottilie should be made a sacrifice,” replied Edward; “and that would be the case if we were now to allow her to be sent away among strangers. The Captain’s good genius has sought him out here — we can feel easy, we can feel happy, at seeing him leave us; but who can tell what may be before Ottilie? There is no occasion for haste.”

“What is before us is sufficiently clear,” Charlotte answered, with some emotion; and as she was determined to have it all out at once, she went on: “You love Ottilie; every day you are becoming more attached to her. A reciprocal feeling is rising on her side as well, and feeding itself in the same way. Why should we not acknowledge in words what every hour makes obvious? and are we not to have the common prudence to ask ourselves in what it is to end?”

“We may not be able to find an answer on the moment,” replied Edward, collecting himself; “but so much may be said, that if we cannot exactly tell what will come of it, we may resign ourselves to wait and see what the future may tell us about it.”

“No great wisdom is required to prophesy here,” answered Charlotte; “and, at any rate, we ought to feel that you and I are past the age when people may walk blindly where they should not or ought not to go. There is no one else to take care of us — we must be our own friends, our own managers. No one expects us to commit ourselves in an outrage upon decency: no one expects that we are going to expose ourselves to censure or to ridicule.”

“How can you so mistake me?” said Edward, unable to reply to his wife’s clear, open words. “Can you find it a fault in me, if I am anxious about Ottilie’s happiness? I do not mean future happiness — no one can count on that — but what is present, palpable, and immediate. Consider, don’t deceive yourself; consider frankly Ottilie’s case, torn away from us, and sent to live among strangers. I, at least, am not cruel enough to propose such a change for her!”

Charlotte saw too clearly into her husband’s intentions, through this disguise. For the first time she felt how far he had estranged himself from her. Her voice shook a little. “Will Ottilie be happy if she divides us?” she asked. “If she deprives me of a husband, and his children of a father!”

“Our children, I should have thought, were sufficiently provided for,” said Edward, with a cold smile; adding, rather more kindly, “but why at once expect the very worst?”

“The very worst is too sure to follow this passion of yours,” returned Charlotte; “do not refuse good advice while there is yet time; do not throw away the means which I propose to save us. In troubled cases those must work and help who see the clearest — this time it is I. Dear, dearest Edward! listen to me — can you propose to me that now at once I shall renounce my happiness! renounce my fairest rights! renounce you!”

“Who says that?” replied Edward, with some embarrassment.

“You, yourself,” answered Charlotte; “in determining to keep Ottilie here, are you not acknowledging everything which must arise out of it? I will urge nothing on you — but if you cannot conquer yourself, at least you will not be able much longer to deceive yourself.”

Edward felt how right she was. It is fearful to hear spoken out, in words, what the heart has gone on long permitting to itself in secret. To escape only for a moment, Edward answered, “It is not yet clear to me what you want.”

“My intention,” she replied, “was to talk over with you these two proposals — each of them has its advantages. The school would be best suited to her, as she now is; but the other situation is larger, and wider, and promises more, when I think what she may become.” She then detailed to her husband circumstantially what would lie before Ottilie in each position, and concluded with the words, “For my own part I should prefer the lady’s house to the school, for more reasons than one; but particularly because I should not like the affection, the love indeed, of the young man there, which Ottilie has gained, to increase.”

Edward appeared to approve; but it was only to find some means of delay. Charlotte, who desired to commit him to a definite step, seized the opportunity, as Edward made no immediate opposition, to settle Ottilie’s departure, for which she had already privately made all preparations, for the next day.

Edward shuddered — he thought he was betrayed. His wife’s affectionate speech he fancied was an artfully contrived trick to separate him for ever from his happiness. He appeared to leave the thing entirely to her; but in his heart his resolution was already taken. To gain time to breathe, to put off the immediate intolerable misery of Ottilie’s being sent away, he determined to leave his house. He told Charlotte he was going; but he had blinded her to his real reason, by telling her that he would not be present at Ottilie’s departure; indeed, that, from that moment, he would see her no more. Charlotte, who believed that she had gained her point, approved most cordially. He ordered his horse, gave his valet the necessary directions what to pack up, and where he should follow him; and then, on the point of departure, he sat down and wrote:

“EDWARD TO CHARLOTTE

“The misfortune, my love, which has befallen us, may or may not admit of remedy; only this I feel, that if I am not at once to be driven to despair, I must find some means of delay for myself, and for all of us. In making myself the sacrifice, I have a right to make a request. I am leaving my home, and I return to it only under happier and more peaceful auspices. While I am away, you keep possession of it — but with Ottilie. I choose to know that she is with you, and not among strangers. Take care of her; treat her as you have treated her — only more lovingly, more kindly, more tenderly! I promise that I will not attempt any secret intercourse with her. Leave me, as long a time as you please, without knowing anything about you. I will not allow myself to be anxious — nor need you be uneasy about me: only, with all my heart and soul, I beseech you, make no attempt to send Ottilie away, or to introduce her into any other situation. Beyond the circle of the castle and the park, placed in the hands of strangers, she belongs to me, and I will take possession of her! If you have any regard for my affection, for my wishes, for my sufferings, you will leave me alone to my madness; and if any hope of recovery from it should ever hereafter offer itself to me, I will not resist.”

Thus last sentence ran off his pen — not out of his heart. Even when he saw it upon the paper, he began bitterly to weep. That he, under any circumstances, should renounce the happiness — even the wretchedness — of loving Ottilie! He only now began to feel what he was doing — he was going away without knowing what was to be the result. At any rate he was not to see her again now — with what certainty could he promise himself that he would ever see her again? But the letter was written — the horses were at the door; every moment he was afraid he might see Ottilie somewhere, and then his whole purpose would go to the winds. He collected himself — he remembered that, at any rate, he would be able to return at any moment he pleased; and that by his absence he would have advanced nearer to his wishes: on the other side, he pictured Ottilie to himself forced to leave the house if he stayed. He sealed the letter, ran down the steps, and sprang upon his horse.

As he rode past the hotel, he saw the beggar to whom he had given so much money the night before, sitting under the trees; the man was busy enjoying his dinner, and, as Edward passed, stood up, and made him the humblest obeisance. That figure had appeared to him yesterday, when Ottilie was on his arm; now it only served as a bitter reminiscence of the happiest hour of his life. His grief redoubled. The feeling of what he was leaving behind was intolerable. He looked again at the beggar. “Happy wretch!” he cried, “you can still feed upon the alms of yesterday — and I cannot any more on the happiness of yesterday!”

CHAPTER XVII

Ottilie heard some one ride away, and went to the window in time just to catch a sight of Edward’s back. It was strange, she thought, that he should have left the house without seeing her, without having even wished her good morning. She grew uncomfortable, and her anxiety did not diminish when Charlotte took her out for a long walk, and talked of various other things; but not once, and apparently on purpose, mentioning her husband. When they returned she found the table laid with only two covers. It is unpleasant to miss even the most trifling thing to which we have been accustomed. In serious things such a loss becomes miserably painful. Edward and the Captain were not there. The first time, for a long while, Charlotte sat at the head of the table herself — and it seemed to Ottilie as if she was deposed. The two ladies sat opposite each other; Charlotte talked, without the least embarrassment, of the Captain and his appointment, and of the little hope there was of seeing him again for a long time. The only comfort Ottilie could find for herself was in the idea that Edward had ridden after his friend, to accompany him a part of his journey.

On rising from table, however, they saw Edward’s traveling carriage under the window. Charlotte, a little as if she was put out, asked who had had it brought round there. She was told it was the valet, who had some things there to pack up. It required all Ottilie Is self-command to conceal her wonder and her distress.

The valet came in, and asked if they would be so good as to let him have a drinking cup of his master’s, a pair of silver spoons, and a number of other things, which seemed to Ottilie to imply that he was gone some distance, and would be away for a long time.

Charlotte gave him a very cold, dry answer. She did not know what he meant — he had everything belonging to his master under his own care. What the man wanted was to speak a word to Ottilie, and on some pretence or other to get her out of the room; he made some clever excuse, and persisted in his request so far that Ottilie asked if she should go to look for the things for him? But Charlotte quietly said that she had better not. The valet had to depart, and the carriage rolled away.

It was a dreadful moment for Ottilie. She understood nothing — comprehended nothing. She could only feel that Edward had been parted from her for a long time. Charlotte felt for her situation, and left her to herself.

We will not attempt to describe what she went through, or how she wept. She suffered infinitely. She prayed that God would help her only over this one day. The day passed, and the night, and when she came to herself again she felt herself a changed being.

She had not grown composed. She was not resigned, but after having lost what she had lost, she was still alive, and there was still something for her to fear. Her anxiety, after returning to consciousness, was at once lest, now that the gentlemen were gone, she might be sent away too. She never guessed at Edward’s threats, which had secured her remaining with her aunt. Yet Charlotte’s manner served partially to reassure her. The latter exerted herself to find employment for the poor girl, and hardly ever, — never, if she could help it, — left her out of her sight; and although she knew well how little words can do against the power of passion, yet she knew, too, the sure though slow influence of thought and reflection, and therefore missed no opportunity of inducing Ottilie to talk with her on every variety of subject.

It was no little comfort to Ottilie when one day Charlotte took an opportunity of making (she did it on purpose) the wise observation, “How keenly grateful people were to us when we were able by stilling and calming them to help them out of the entanglements of passion! Let us set cheerfully to work,” she said, “at what the men have left incomplete: we shall be preparing the most charming surprise for them when they return to us, and our temperate proceedings will have carried through and executed what their impatient natures would have spoilt.”

“Speaking of temperance, my dear aunt, I cannot help saying how I am struck with the intemperance of men, particularly in respect of wine. It has often pained and distressed me, when I have observed how, for hours together, clearness of understanding, judgment, considerateness, and whatever is most amiable about them, will be utterly gone, and instead of the good which they might have done if they had been themselves, most disagreeable things sometimes threaten. How often may not wrong, rash determinations have arisen entirely from that one cause!”

Charlotte assented, but she did not go on with the subject. She saw only too clearly that it was Edward of whom Ottilie was thinking. It was not exactly habitual with him, but he allowed himself much more frequently than was at all desirable to stimulate his enjoyment and his power of talking and acting by such indulgence. If what Charlotte had just said had set Ottilie thinking again about men, and particularly about Edward, she was all the more struck and startled when her aunt began to speak of the impending marriage of the Captain as of a thing quite settled and acknowledged. This gave a totally different aspect to affairs from what Edward had previously led her to entertain. It made her watch every expression of Charlotte’s, every hint, every action, every step. Ottilie had become jealous, sharp-eyed, and suspicious, without knowing it.

Meanwhile, Charlotte with her clear glance looked through the whole circumstances of their situation, and made arrangements which would provide, among other advantages, full employment for Ottilie. She contracted her household, not parsimoniously, but into narrower dimensions; and, indeed, in one point of view, these moral aberrations might be taken for a not unfortunate accident. For in the style in which they had been going on, they had fallen imperceptibly into extravagance; and from a want of seasonable reflection, from the rate at which they had been living, and from the variety of schemes into which they had been launching out, their fine fortune, which had been in excellent condition, had been shaken, if not seriously injured.

The improvements which were going on in the park she did not interfere with; she rather sought to advance whatever might form a basis for future operations. But here, too, she assigned herself a limit. Her husband on his return should still find abundance to amuse himself with.

In all this work she could not sufficiently value the assistance of the young architect. In a short time the lake lay stretched out under her eyes, its new shores turfed and planted with the most discriminating and excellent judgment. The rough work at the new house was all finished. Everything which was necessary to protect it from the weather she took care to see provided, and there for the present she allowed it to rest in a condition in which what remained to be done could hereafter be readily commenced again. Thus hour by hour she recovered her spirits and her cheerfulness. Ottilie only seemed to have done so. She was only for ever watching, in all that was said and done, for symptoms which might show her whether Edward would be soon returning: and this one thought was the only one in which she felt any interest.

It was, therefore, a very welcome proposal to her when it was suggested that they should get together the boys of the peasants, and employ them in keeping the park clean and neat. Edward had long entertained the idea. A pleasant — looking sort of uniform was made for them, which they were to put on in the evenings after they had been properly cleaned and washed. The wardrobe was kept in the castle; the more sensible and ready of the boys themselves were intrusted with the management of it — the Architect acting as chief director. In a very short time, the children acquired a kind of character. It was found easy to mold them into what was desired; and they went through their work not without a sort of manoeuvre. As they marched along, with their garden shears, their long-handled pruning-knives, their rakes, their little spades and hoes, and sweeping-brooms; others following after these with baskets to carry off the stones and rubbish; and others, last of all, trailing along the heavy iron roller — it was a thoroughly pretty, delightful procession. The Architect observed in it a beautiful series of situations and occupations to ornament the frieze of a garden-house. Ottilie, on the other hand, could see nothing in it but a kind of parade, to salute the master of the house on his near return.

And this stimulated her and made her wish to begin something of the sort herself. They had before endeavored to encourage the girls of the village in knitting, and sewing, and spinning, and whatever else women could do; and since what had been done for the improvement of the village itself, there had been a perceptible advance in these descriptions of industry. Ottilie had given what assistance was in her power, but she had given it at random, as opportunity or inclination prompted her; now she thought she — would go to work more satisfactorily and methodically. But a company is not to be formed out of a number of girls, as easily as out of a number of boys. She followed her own good sense, and, — without being exactly conscious of it, her efforts were solely directed toward connecting every girl as closely as possible each with her own home, her own parents, brothers and sisters: and she succeeded with many of them. One lively little creature only was incessantly complained of as showing no capacity for work, and as never likely to do anything if she were left at home.

Ottilie could not be angry with the girl, for to herself the little thing was especially attached — she clung to her, went after her, and ran about with her, whenever she was permitted — and then she would be active and cheerful and never tire. It appeared to be a necessity of the child’s nature to hang about a beautiful mistress. At first, Ottilie allowed her to be her companion; then she herself began to feel a sort of affection for her; and, at last, they never parted at all, and Nanny attended her mistress wherever she went.

The latter’s footsteps were often bent toward the garden, where she liked to watch the beautiful show of fruit. It was just the end of the raspberry and cherry season, the few remains of which were no little delight to Nanny. On the other trees there was a promise of a magnificent bearing for the autumn, and the gardener talked of nothing but his master and how he wished that he might be at home to enjoy it. Ottilie could listen to the good old man forever! He thoroughly understood his business; and Edward — Edward — Edward — was for ever the theme of his praise!

Ottilie observed how well all the grafts which had been budded in the spring had taken. “I only wish,” the gardener answered, “my good master may come to enjoy them. If he were here this autumn, he would see what beautiful sorts there are in the old castle garden, which the late lord, his honored father, put there. I think the fruit-gardeners there are now don’t succeed as well as the Carthusians used to do. We find many fine names in the catalogue, and then we bud from them, and bring up the shoots, and, at last, when they come to bear, it is not worth while to have such trees standing in our garden.”

Over and over again, whenever the faithful old servant saw Ottilie, he asked when his master might be expected home; and when Ottilie had nothing to tell him, he would look vexed, and let her see in his manner that he thought she did not care to tell him: the sense of uncertainty which was thus forced upon her became painful beyond measure, and yet she could never be absent from these beds and borders. What she and Edward had sown and planted together were now in full flower, requiring no further care from her, except that Nanny should be at hand with the watering-pot; and who shall say with what sensations she watched the later flowers, which were just beginning to show, and which were to be in the bloom of their beauty on Edward’s birthday, the holiday to which she had looked forward with such eagerness, when these flowers were to have expressed her affection and her gratitude to him! But the hopes which she had formed of that festival were dead now, and doubt and anxiety never ceased to haunt the soul of the poor girl.

Into real open, hearty understanding with Charlotte, there was no more a chance of her being able to return; for indeed, the position of these two ladies was very different. If things could remain in their old state — if it were possible that they could return again into the smooth, even way of calm, ordered life, Charlotte gained everything; she gained happiness for the present, and a happy future opened before her. On the other hand, for Ottilie all was lost — one may say, all; for she had first found in Edward what life and happiness meant; and, in her present position, she felt an infinite and dreary chasm of which before she could have formed no conception. A heart which seeks, feels well that it wants something; a heart which has lost, feels that something is gone — its yearning and its longing change into uneasy impatience — and a woman’s spirit, which is accustomed to waiting and to enduring, must now pass out from its proper sphere, must become active and attempt and do something to make its own happiness. Ottilie had not given up Edward — how could she? Although Charlotte, wisely enough, in spite of her conviction to the contrary, assumed it as a thing of course, and resolutely took it as decided that a quiet rational regard was possible between her husband and Ottilie. How often, however, did not Ottilie remain at nights, after bolting herself into her room, on her knees before the open box, gazing at the birthday presents, of which as yet she had not touched a single thing — not cut out or made up a single dress! How often with the sunrise did the poor girl hurry out of the house, in which she once had found all her happiness, away into the free air, into the country which then had had no charms for her. Even on the solid earth she could not bear to stay; she would spring into the boat, row out into the middle of the lake, and there, drawing out some book of travels, lie rocked by the motion of the waves, reading and dreaming that she was far away, where she would never fail to find her friend — she remaining ever nearest to his heart, and he to hers.

CHAPTER XVIII

It may easily be supposed that the strange, busy gentleman, whose acquaintance we have already made — Mittler — as soon as he received information of the disorder which had broken out among his friends, felt desirous, though neither side had as yet called on him for assistance, to fulfil a friend’s part toward them, and do what he could to help them in their misfortune. He thought it advisable, however, to wait first a little while; knowing too well, as he did, that it was more difficult to come to the aid of cultivated persons in their moral perplexities, than of the uncultivated. He left them, therefore, for some time to themselves; but at last he could withhold no longer, and he hastened to seek out Edward, on whose traces he had already lighted. His road led him to a pleasant, pretty valley, with a range of green, sweetly-wooded meadows, down the centre of which ran a never-failing stream, sometimes winding slowly along, then tumbling and rushing among rocks and stones. The hills sloped gently up on either side, covered with rich corn-fields and well-kept orchards. The villages were at proper distances from one another. The whole had a peaceful character about it, and the detached scenes seemed designed expressly, if not for painting, at least for life.

At last a neatly kept farm, with a clean, modest dwelling-house, situated in the middle of a garden, fell under his eye. He conjectured that this was Edward’s present abode; and he was not mistaken.

Of this our friend in his solitude we have only thus much to say — that in his seclusion he was resigning himself utterly to the feeling of his passion, thinking out plan after plan, and feeding himself with innumerable hopes. He could not deny that he longed to see Ottilie there; that he would like to carry her off there, to tempt her there; and whatever else (putting, as he now did, no check upon his thoughts) pleased to suggest itself, whether permitted or unpermitted. Then his imagination wandered up and down, picturing every sort of possibility. If he could not have her there, if he could not lawfully possess her, he would secure to her the possession of the property for her own. There she should live for herself, silently, independently; she should be happy in that spot — sometimes his self-torturing mood would lead him further — be happy in it, perhaps, with another.

So days flowed away in increasing oscillation between hope and suffering, between tears and happiness — between purposes, preparations, and despair. The sight of Mittler did not surprise him; he had long expected that he would come; and now that he did, he was partly welcome to him. He believed that he had been sent by Charlotte. He had prepared himself with all manner of excuses and delays; and if these would not serve, with decided refusals; or else, perhaps, he might hope to learn something of Ottilie — and then he would be as dear to him as a messenger from heaven.

Not a little vexed and annoyed was Edward, therefore, when he understood that Mittler had not come from the castle at all, but of his own free accord. His heart closed up, and at first the conversation would not open itself. Mittler, however, knew very well that a heart that is occupied with love has an urgent necessity to express itself — to pour out to a friend what is passing within it; and he allowed himself, therefore, after a few speeches backward and forward, for this once to go out of his character and play the confidant in place of the mediator. He had calculated justly. He had been finding fault in a good-natured way with Edward for burying himself in that lonely place, upon which Edward replied:

“I do not know how I could spend my time more agreeably. I am always occupied with her; I am always close to her. I have the inestimable comfort of being able to think where Ottilie is at each moment — where she is going, where she is standing, where she is reposing. I see her moving and acting before me as usual; ever doing or designing something which is to give me pleasure. But this will not always answer; for how can I be happy away from her? And then my fancy begins to work; I think what Ottilie should do to come to me; I write sweet, loving letters in her name to myself, and then I answer them, and keep the sheets together. I have promised that I will take no steps to seek her; and that promise I will keep. But what binds her that she should make no advances to me I Has Charlotte had the barbarity to exact a promise, to exact an oath from her, not to write to me, not to send me a word, a hint, about herself? Very likely she has. It is only natural; and yet to me it is monstrous, it is horrible. If she loves me — as I think, as I know that she does — why does she not resolve, why does she not venture to fly to me, and throw herself into my arms? I often think she ought to do it; and she could do it. If I ever hear a noise in the hall, I look toward the door. It must be her — she is coming — I look up to see her. Alas! because the possible is impossible, I let myself imagine that the impossible must become possible. At night, when I lie awake, and the lamp flings an uncertain light about the room, her form, her spirit, a sense of her presence, sweeps over me, approaches me, seizes me. It is but for a moment; it is that I may have an assurance that she is thinking of me, that she is mine. Only one pleasure remains to me. When I was with her I never dreamt of her; now when I am far away, and, oddly enough, since I have made the acquaintance of other attractive persons in this neighborhood, for the first time her figure appears to me in my dreams, as if she would say to me, ‘Look on them, and on me. You will find none more beautiful, more lovely than I.’ And so she is present in every dream I have. In whatever happens to me with her, we are woven in and in together. Now we are subscribing a contract together. There is her hand, and there is mine; there is her name, and there is mine; and they move one into the other, and seem to devour each other. Sometimes she does something which injures the pure idea which I have of her; and then I feel how intensely I love her, by the indescribable anguish which it causes me. Again, unlike herself, she will rally and vex me; and then at once the figure changes — her sweet, round, heavenly face draws out; it is not she, it is another; but I lie vexed, dissatisfied and wretched. Laugh not, dear Mittler, or laugh on as you will. I am not ashamed of this attachment, of this — if you please to call it so — foolish, frantic passion. No, I never loved before. It is only now that I know what to love means. Till now, what I have called life was nothing but its prelude — amusement, sport to kill the time with. I never lived till I knew her, till I loved her — entirely and only loved her. People have often said of me, not to my face, but behind my back, that in most things I was but a botcher and a bungler. It may be so; for I had not then found in what I could show myself a master. I should like to see the man who outdoes me in the talent of love. A miserable life it is, full of anguish and tears; but it is so natural, so dear to me, that I could hardly change it for another.”

Edward had relieved himself slightly by this violent unloading of his heart. But in doing so every feature of his strange condition had been brought out so clearly before his eyes that, overpowered by the pain of the struggle, he burst into tears, which flowed all the more freely as his heart had been made weak by telling it all.

Mittler, who was the less disposed to put a check on his inexorable good sense and strong, vigorous feeling, because by this violent outbreak of passion on Edward’s part he saw himself driven far from the purpose of his coming, showed sufficiently decided marks of his disapprobation. Edward should act as a man, he said; he should remember what he owed to himself as a man. He should not forget that the highest honor was to command ourselves in misfortune; to bear pain, if it must be so, with equanimity and self-collectedness. That was what we should do, if we wished to be valued and looked up to as examples of what was right.

Stirred and penetrated as Edward was with the bitterest feelings, words like these could but have a hollow, worthless sound.

“It is well,” he cried, “for the man who is happy, who has all that he desires, to talk; but he would be ashamed of it if he could see how intolerable it was to the sufferer. Nothing short of an infinite endurance would be enough, and easy and contented as he was, what could he know of an infinite agony? There are cases,” he continued, “yes, there are, where comfort is a lie, and despair is a duty. Go, heap your scorn upon the noble Greek, who well knows how to delineate heroes, when in their anguish he lets those heroes weep. He has even a proverb, ‘Men who can weep are good.’ Leave me, all you with dry heart and dry eye. Curses on the happy, to whom the wretched serve but for a spectacle. When body and soul are torn in pieces with agony, they are to bear it — yes, to be noble and bear it, if they are to be allowed to go off the scene with applause. Like the gladiators, they must die gracefully before the eyes of the multitude. My dear Mittler, I thank you for your visit; but really you would oblige me much, if you would go out and look about you in the garden. We will meet again. I will try to compose myself, and become more like you.”

Mittler was unwilling to let a conversation drop which it might be difficult to begin again, and still persevered. Edward, too, was quite ready to go on with it; besides that of itself, it was tending toward the issue which he desired.

“Indeed,” said the latter, “This thinking and arguing backward and forward leads to nothing. In this very conversation I myself have first come to understand myself; I have first felt decided as to what I must make up my mind to do. My present and my future life I see before me; I have to choose only between misery and happiness. Do you, my best friend, bring about the separation which must take place, which, in fact, is already made; gain Charlotte’s consent for me. I will not enter upon the reasons why I believe there will be the less difficulty in prevailing upon her. You, my dear friend, must go. Go, and give us all peace; make us all happy.”

Mittler hesitated. Edward continued:

“My fate and Ottilie’s cannot be divided, and shall not be shipwrecked. Look at this glass; our initials are engraved upon it. A gay reveller flung it into the air, that no one should drink of it more. It was to fall on the rock and be dashed to pieces; but it did not fall; it was caught. At a high price I bought it back, and now I drink out of it daily — to convince myself that the connection between us cannot be broken; that destiny has decided.”

“Alas! alas!” cried Mittler, “what must I not endure with my friends? Here comes superstition, which of all things I hate the worse — the most mischievous and accursed of all the plagues of mankind. We trifle with prophecies, with forebodings, and dreams, and give a seriousness to our every-day life with them; but when the seriousness of life itself begins to show, when everything around us is heaving and rolling, then come in these spectres to make the storm more terrible.”

“In this uncertainty of life,” cried Edward, “poised as it is between hope and fear, leave the poor heart its guiding-star. It may gaze toward it, if it cannot steer toward it.”

“Yes, I might leave it; and it would be very well,” replied Mittler, “if there were but one consequence to expect; but I have always found that nobody will attend to symptoms of warning. Man cares for nothing except what flatters him and promises him fair; and his faith is alive exclusively for the sunny side.”

Mittler, finding himself carried off into the shadowy regions, in which the longer he remained the more uncomfortable he always felt, was the more ready to assent to Edward’s eager wish that he should go to Charlotte. Indeed, if he stayed, what was there further which at that moment he could urge on Edward? To gain time, to inquire in what state things were with the ladies, was the best thing which even he himself could suggest as at present possible.

He hastened to Charlotte, whom he found as usual, calm and in good spirits. She told him readily of everything which had occurred; for from what Edward had said he had only been able to gather the effects. On his own side, he felt his way with the utmost caution. He could not prevail upon himself even cursorily to mention the word separation. It was a surprise, indeed, to him, but from his point of view an unspeakably delightful one, when Charlotte, at the end of a number of unpleasant things, finished with saying:

“I must believe, I must hope, that things will all work round again, and that Edward will return to me. How can it be otherwise as soon as I become a mother?”

“Do I understand you right?” returned Mittler.

“Perfectly,” Charlotte answered.

“A thousand times blessed be this news!” he cried, clasping his hands together. “I know the strength of this argument on the mind of a man. Many a marriage have I seen first cemented by it, and restored again when broken. Such a good hope as this is worth more than a thousand words. Now indeed it is the best hope which we can have. For myself, though,” he continued, “I have all reason to be vexed about it. In this case I can see clearly no self-love of mine will be flattered. I shall earn no thanks from you by my services; I am in the same case as a certain medical friend of mine, who succeeds in all cures which he undertakes with the poor for the love of God; but can seldom do anything for the rich who will pay him. Here, thank God, the thing cures itself, after all my talking and trying had proved fruitless.”

Charlotte now asked him if he would carry the news to Edward: if he would take a letter to him from her, and then see what should be done. But he declined undertaking this. “All is done,” he cried; “do you write your letter — any messenger will do as well as I — I will come back to wish you joy. I will come to the christening!”

For this refusal she was vexed with him — as she frequently was. His eager, impetuous character brought about much good; but his over-haste was the occasion of many a failure. No one was more dependent than he on the impressions which he formed on the moment. Charlotte’s messenger came to Edward, who received him half in terror. The letter was to decide his fate, and it might as well contain No as Yes. He did not venture, for a long time, to open it. At last he tore off the cover, and stood petrified at the following passage, with which it concluded:

“Remember the night-adventure when you visited your wife as a lover — how you drew her to you, and clasped her as a well-beloved bride in your arms. In this strange accident let us revere the providence of heaven, which has woven a new link to bind us, at the moment when the happiness of our lives was threatening to fall asunder and to vanish.”

What passed from that moment in Edward’s soul it would be difficult to describe! Under the weight of such a stroke, old habits and fancies come out again to assist to kill the time and fill up the chasms of life. Hunting and fighting are an ever-ready resource of this kind for a nobleman; Edward longed for some outward peril, as a counterbalance to the storm within him. He craved for death, because the burden of life threatened to become too heavy for him to bear. It comforted him to think that he would soon cease to be, and so would make those whom he loved happy by his departure.

No one made any difficulty in his doing what he purposed — because he kept his intention a secret. He made his will with all due formalities. It gave him a very sweet feeling to secure Ottilie’s fortune — provision was made for Charlotte, for the unborn child, for the Captain, and for the servants. The war, which had again broken out, favored his wishes: he had disliked exceedingly the half-soldiering which had fallen to him in his youth, and that was the reason why he had left the service. Now it gave him a fine exhilarating feeling to be able to rejoin it under a commander of whom it could be said that, under his conduct, death was likely and victory was sure.

Ottilie, when Charlotte’s secret was made known to her, bewildered by it, like Edward, and more than he, retired into herself — she had nothing further to say: hope she could not, and wish she dared not. A glimpse into what was passing in her we can gather from her Diary, some passages of which we think to communicate.

PART II

CHAPTER I

There often happens to us in common life what, in an epic poem, we are accustomed to praise as a stroke of art in the poet; namely, that when the chief figures go off the scene, conceal themselves or retire into inactivity, some other or others, whom hitherto we have scarcely observed, come forward and fill their places. And these putting out all their force, at once fix our attention and sympathy on themselves, and earn our praise and admiration.

Thus, after the Captain and Edward were gone, the Architect, of whom we have spoken, appeared every day a more important person. The ordering and executing of a number of undertakings depended entirely upon him, and he proved himself thoroughly understanding and businesslike in the style in which he went to work; while in a number of other ways he was able also to make himself of assistance to the ladies, and find amusement for their weary hours. His outward air and appearance were of the kind which win confidence and awake affection. A youth in the full sense of the word, well-formed, tall, perhaps a little too stout; modest without being timid, and easy without being obtrusive, there was no work and no trouble which he was not delighted to take upon himself; and as he could keep accounts with great facility, the whole economy of the household soon was no secret to him, and everywhere his salutary influence made itself felt. Any stranger who came he was commonly set to entertain, and he was skilful either at declining unexpected visits, or at least so far preparing the ladies for them as to spare them any disagreeableness.

Among others, he had one day no little trouble with a young lawyer, who had been sent by a neighboring nobleman to speak about a matter which, although of no particular moment, yet touched Charlotte to the quick. We have to mention this incident because it gave occasion for a number of things which otherwise might perhaps have remained long untouched.

We remember certain alterations which Charlotte had made in the churchyard. The entire body of the monuments had been removed from their places, and had been ranged along the walls of the church, leaning against the string-course. The remaining space had been levelled, except a broad walk which led up to the church, and past it to the opposite gate; and it had been all sown with various kinds of trefoil, which had shot up and flowered most beautifully.

The new graves were to follow one after another in a regular order from the end, but the spot on each occasion was to be carefully smoothed over and again sown. No one could deny that on Sundays and holidays when the people went to church the change had given it a most cheerful and pleasant appearance. At the same time the clergyman, an old man and clinging to old customs, who at first had not been especially pleased with the alteration, had become thoroughly delighted with it, all the more because when he sat out like Philemon with his Baucis under the old linden trees at his back door, instead of the humps and mounds he had a beautiful clean lawn to look out upon; and which, moreover, Charlotte having secured the use of the spot to the Parsonage, was no little convenience to his household.

Notwithstanding this, however, many members of the congregation had been displeased that the means of marking the spots where their forefathers rested had been removed, and all memorials of them thereby obliterated. However well preserved the monuments might be, they could only show who had been buried, but not where he had been buried, and the where, as many maintained, was everything.

Of this opinion was a family in the neighborhood, who for many years had been in possession of a considerable vault for a general resting-place of themselves and their relations, and in consequence had settled a small annual sum for the use of the church. And now this young lawyer had been sent to cancel this settlement, and to show that his client did not intend to pay it any more, because the conditions under which it had been hitherto made had not been observed by the other party, and no regard had been paid to objection and remonstrance. Charlotte, who was the originator of the alteration herself, chose to speak to the young man, who in a decided though not a violent manner, laid down the grounds on which his client proceeded, and gave occasion in what he said for much serious reflection.

“You see,” he said, after a slight introduction, in which he sought to justify his peremptoriness; “you see, it is right for the lowest as well as for the highest to mark the spot which holds those who are dearest to him. The poorest, peasant, who buries a child, finds it some consolation to plant a light wooden cross upon the grave, and hang a garland upon it, to keep alive the memorial, at least as long as the sorrow remains; although such a mark, like the mourning, will pass away with time. Those better off change the cross of wood into iron, and fix it down and guard it in various ways; and here we have endurance for many years. But because this too will sink at last, and become invisible, those who are able to bear the expense see nothing fitter than to raise a stone which shall promise to endure for generations, and which can be restored and made fresh again by posterity. Yet this stone it is not which attracts us; it is that which is contained beneath it, which is intrusted, where it stands, to the earth. It is not the memorial so much of which we speak, as of the person himself; not of what once was, but of what is. Far better, far more closely, can I embrace some dear departed one in the mound which rises over his bed, than in a monumental writing which only tells us that once he was. In itself, indeed, it is but little; but around it, as around a central mark, the wife, the husband, the kinsman, the friend, after their departure, shall gather in again; and the living shall have the right to keep far off all strangers and evil-wishers from the side of the dear one who is sleeping there. And, therefore, I hold it quite fair and fitting that my principal shall withdraw his grant to you. It is, indeed, but too reasonable that he should do it, for the members of his family are injured in a way for which no compensation could be even proposed. They are deprived of the sad sweet feelings of laying offerings on the remains of their dead, and of the one comfort in their sorrow of one day lying down at their side.”

“The matter is not of that importance,” Charlotte answered, “that we should disquiet ourselves about it with the vexation of a lawsuit. I regret so little what I have done, that I will gladly myself indemnify the church for what it loses through you. Only I must confess candidly to you, your arguments have not convinced me; the pure feeling of an universal equality at last, after death, seems to me more composing than this hard determined persistence in our personalities and in the conditions and circumstances of our lives. What do you say to it?” she added, turning to the Architect.

“It is not for me,” replied he, “either to argue, or to attempt to judge in such a case. Let me venture, however, to say what my own art and my own habits of thinking suggest to me. Since we are no longer so happy as to be able to press to our breasts the in-urned remains of those we have loved; since we are neither wealthy enough nor of cheerful heart enough to preserve them undecayed in large elaborate sarcophagi; since, indeed, we cannot even find place any more for ourselves and ours in the churches, and are banished out into the open air, we all, I think, ought to approve the method which you, my gracious lady, have introduced. If the members of a common congregation are laid out side by side, they are resting by the side of, and among their kindred; and, if the earth be once to receive us all, I can find nothing more natural or more desirable than that the mounds, which, if they are thrown up, are sure to sink slowly in again together, should be smoothed off at once, and the covering, which all bear alike, will press lighter upon each.”

“And is it all, is it all to pass away,” asked Ottilie, “without one token of remembrance, without anything to call back the past?”

“By no means,” continued the Architect; “it is not from remembrance, it is from place that men should be set free. The architect, the sculptor, are highly interested that men should look to their art — to their hand, for a continuance of their being; and, therefore, I should wish to see well-designed, well-executed monuments; not sown up and down by themselves at random, but erected all in a single spot, where they can promise themselves endurance. Inasmuch as even the good and the great are contented to surrender the privilege of resting in person in the churches, we may, at least, erect there or in some fair hall near the burying place, either monuments or monumental writings. A thousand forms might be suggested for them, and a thousand ornaments with which they might be decorated.”

“If the artists are so rich,” replied Charlotte, “then tell me how it is that they are never able to escape from little obelisks, dwarf pillars, and urns for ashes? Instead of your thousand forms of which you boast, I have never seen anything but a thousand repetitions.”

“It is very generally so with us,” returned the Architect, “but it is not universal; and very likely the right taste and the proper application of it may be a peculiar art. In this case especially we have this great difficulty, that the monument must be something cheerful and yet commemorate a solemn subject; while its matter is melancholy, it must not itself be melancholy. As regards designs for monuments of all kinds, I have collected numbers of them, and I will take some opportunity of showing them to you; but at all times the fairest memorial of a man remains some likeness of himself. This better than anything else, will give a notion of what he was; it is the best text for many or for few notes, only it ought to be made when he is at his best age, and that is generally neglected; no one thinks of preserving forms while they are alive, and if it is done at all, it is done carelessly and incompletely; and then comes death; a cast is taken swiftly of the face; this mask is set upon a block of stone, and that is what is called a bust. How seldom is the artist in a position to put any real life into such things as these!”

“You have contrived,” said Charlotte, “without perhaps knowing it or wishing it, to lead the conversation altogether in my favor. The likeness of a man is quite independent; everywhere that it stands, it stands for itself, and we do not require it to mark the site of a particular grave. But I must acknowledge to you to having a strange feeling; even to likenesses I have a kind of disinclination. Whenever I see them they seem to be silently reproaching me. They point to something far away from us — gone from us; and they remind me how difficult it is to pay right honor to the present. If we think how many people we have seen and known, and consider how little we have been to them and how little they have been to us, it is no very pleasant reflection. We have met a man of genius without having enjoyed much with him — a learned man without having learnt from him — a traveler without having been instructed, — a man to love without having shown him any kindness.

“And, unhappily, this is not the case only with accidental meetings. Societies and families behave in the same way toward their dearest members, towns toward their worthiest citizens, people toward their most admirable princes, nations toward their most distinguished men.

“I have heard it asked why we heard nothing but good spoken of the dead, while of the living it is never without some exception. It should be answered, because from the former we have nothing any more to fear, while the latter may still, here or there, fall in our way. So unreal is our anxiety to preserve the memory of others — generally no more than a mere selfish amusement; and the real, holy, earnest feeling would be what should prompt us to be more diligent and assiduous in our attentions toward those who still are left to us.”

CHAPTER II

Under the stimulus of this accident, and of the conversations which arose out of it, they went the following day to look over the burying-place, for the ornamenting of which and relieving it in some degree of its sombre look, the Architect made many a happy proposal. His interest too had to extend itself to the church as well; a building which had caught his attention from the moment of his arrival.

It had been standing for many centuries, built in old German style, the proportions good, the decorating elaborate and excellent; and one might easily gather that the architect of the neighboring monastery had left the stamp of his art and of his love on this smaller building also; it worked on the beholder with a solemnity and a sweetness, although the change in its internal arrangements for the Protestant service had taken from it something of its repose and majesty.

The Architect found no great difficulty in prevailing on Charlotte to give him a considerable sum of money to restore it externally and internally, in the original spirit, and thus, as he thought, to bring it into harmony with the resurrection-field which lay in front of it. He had himself much practical skill, and a few laborers who were still busy at the lodge might easily be kept together, until this pious work too should be completed.

The building itself, therefore, with all its environs, and whatever was attached to it, was now carefully and thoroughly examined; and then showed itself, to the greatest surprise and delight of the Architect, a little side chapel, which nobody had thought of, beautifully and delicately proportioned, and displaying still greater care and pains in its decoration. It contained at the same time many remnants, carved and painted, of the implements used in the old services, when the different festivals were distinguished by a variety of pictures and ceremonies, and each was celebrated in its own peculiar style.

It was impossible for him not at once to take this chapel into his plan; and he determined to bestow especial pains on the restoring of this little spot, as a memorial of old times and of their taste. He saw exactly how he would like to have the vacant surfaces of the walls ornamented, and delighted himself with the prospect, of exercising his talent for painting upon them; but of this, at first, he made a secret to the rest of the party.

Before doing anything else, he fulfilled his promise of showing the ladies the various imitations of, and designs from, old monuments, vases, and other such things which he had made, and when they came to speak of the simple barrow-sepulchres of the northern nations, he brought a collection of weapons and implements which had been found in them. He had got them exceedingly nicely and conveniently arranged in drawers and compartments, laid on boards cut to fit them, and covered over with cloth; so that these solemn old things, in the way he treated them, had a smart dressy appearance, and it was like looking into the box of a trinket merchant.

Having once begun to show his curiosities, and finding them prove serviceable to entertain our friends in their loneliness, every evening he would produce one or other of his treasures. They were most of them of German origin — pieces of metal, old coins, seals, and such like. All these things directed the imagination back upon old times; and when at last they came to amuse themselves with the first specimens of printing, woodcuts, and the earliest copper-plate engraving, and when the church, in the same spirit, was growing out, every day, more and more in form and color like the past, they had almost to ask themselves whether they really were living in a modern time, whether it were not a dream, that manners, customs, modes of life, and convictions were all really so changed.

After such preparation, a great portfolio, which at last he produced, had the best possible effect. It contained indeed principally only outlines and figures, but as these had been traced upon original pictures, they retained perfectly their ancient character, and most captivating indeed this character was to the spectators. All the figures breathed only the purest feeling; every one, if not noble, at any rate was good; cheerful composure, ready recognition of One above us, to whom all reverence is due; silent devotion, in love and tranquil expectation, was expressed on every face, on every gesture. The old bald-headed man, the curly-pated boy, the light-hearted youth, the earnest man, the glorified saint, the angel hovering in the air, all seemed happy in an innocent, satisfied, pious expectation. The commonest object had a trait of celestial life; and every nature seemed adapted to the service of God, and to be, in some way or other, employed upon it.

Toward such a region most of them gazed as toward a vanished golden age, or on some lost paradise; only perhaps Ottilie had a chance of finding herself among beings of her own nature. Who could offer any proposition when the Architect asked to be allowed to paint the spaces between the arches and the walls of the chapel in the style of these old pictures and thereby leave his own distinct memorial at a place where life had gone so pleasantly with him?

He spoke of it with some sadness, for he could see, in the state in which things were, that his sojourn in such delightful society could not last forever; indeed, that perhaps it would now soon be ended.

For the rest, these days were not rich in incidents; yet full of occasion for serious entertainment. We therefore take the opportunity of communicating something of the remarks which Ottilie noted down among her manuscripts, to which we cannot find a fitter transition than through a simile which suggested itself to us on contemplating her exquisite pages.

There is, we are told, a curious contrivance in the service of the English marine. The ropes in use in the royal navy, from the largest to the smallest, are so twisted that a red thread runs through them from end to end, which cannot be extracted without undoing the whole; and by which the smallest pieces may be recognized as belonging to the crown.

Just so is there drawn through Ottilie Is diary, a thread of attachment and affection which connects it all together, and characterizes the whole. And thus these remarks, these observations, these extracted sentences, and whatever else it may contain, were, to the writer, of peculiar meaning. Even the few separate pieces which we select and transcribe will sufficiently explain our meaning.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“To rest hereafter at the side of those whom we love is the most delightful thought which man can have when once he looks out beyond the boundary of life. What a sweet expression is that — ’He was gathered to his fathers!’“

“Of the various memorials and tokens which bring nearer to us the distant and the separated — none is so satisfactory as a picture. To sit and talk to a beloved picture, even though it be unlike, has a charm in it, like the charm which there sometimes is in quarrelling with a friend. We feel, in a strange sweet way, that we are divided and yet cannot separate.”

“We entertain ourselves often with a present person as with a picture. He need not speak to us, he need not look at us, or take any notice of us; we look at him, we feel the relation in which we stand to him; such relation can even grow without his doing anything toward it, without his having any feeling of it: he is to us exactly as a picture.”

“One is never satisfied with a portrait of a person that one knows. I have always felt for the portrait-painter on this account. One so seldom requires of people what is impossible, and of them we do really require what is impossible; they must gather up into their picture the relation of every body to its subject, all their likings and all dislikings; they must not only paint a man as they see him, but as every one else sees him. It does not surprise me if such artists become by degrees stunted, indifferent, and of but one idea; and indeed it would not matter what came of it, if it were not that in consequence we have to go without the pictures of so many persons near and dear to us.”

“It is too true, the Architect’s collection of weapons and old implements, which were found with the bodies of their owners, covered in with great hills of earth and rock, proves to us how useless is man’s so great anxiety to preserve his personality after he is dead; and so inconsistent people are, the Architect confesses to have himself opened these barrows of his forefathers, and yet goes on occupying himself with memorials for posterity.”

“But after all why should we take it so much to heart? Is all that we do, done for eternity? Do we not put on our dress in the morning, to throw it off again at night? Do we not go abroad to return home again? And why should we not wish to rest by the side of our friends, though it were but for a century?”

“When we see the many gravestones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them, we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which a man enters in the figure, or the picture, or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.”

CHAPTER III

It causes us so agreeable a sensation to occupy ourselves with what we can only half do, that no person ought to find fault with the dilettante, when he is spending his time over an art which he can never learn; nor blame the artist if he chooses to pass out over the border of his own art, and amuse himself in some neighboring field. With such complacency of feeling we regard the preparation of the Architect for painting the chapel. The colors were got ready, the measurements taken, the cartoons designed. He had made no attempt at originality, but kept close to his outlines; his only care was to make a proper distribution of the sitting and floating figures, so as tastefully to ornament his space with them.

The scaffoldings were erected. The work went forward; and as soon as anything had been done on which the eye could rest, he could have no objection to Charlotte and Ottilie coming to see how he was getting on.

The life-like faces of the angels, their robes waving against the blue sky-ground, delighted the eye, while their still and holy air calmed and composed the spirit, and produced the most delicate effect.

The ladies ascended the scaffolding to him, and Ottilie had scarcely observed how easily and regularly the work was being done when the power which had been fostered in her by her early education at once appeared to develop. She took a brush, and with a few words of direction, painted a richly folding robe, with as much delicacy as skill.

Charlotte, who was always glad when Ottilie would occupy or amuse herself with anything, left them both in the chapel, and went to follow the train of her own thoughts, and work her way for herself through her cares and anxieties which she was unable to communicate to a creature.

When ordinary men allow themselves to be worked up by common every-day difficulties into fever-fits of passion, we can give them nothing but a compassionate smile. But we look with a kind of awe on a spirit in which the seed of a great destiny has been sown, which must abide the unfolding of the germ, and neither dare nor can do anything to precipitate either the good or the ill, either the happiness or the misery, which is to arise out of it.

Edward had sent an answer by Charlotte’s messenger, who had come to him in his solitude. It was written with kindness and interest, but it was rather composed and serious than warm and affectionate. He had vanished almost immediately after, and Charlotte could learn no news about him; till at last she accidentally found his name in the newspaper, where he was mentioned with honor among those who had most distinguished themselves in a late important engagement. She now understood the method which he had taken; she perceived that he had escaped from great danger; only she was convinced at the same time that he would seek out greater; and it was all too clear to her that in every sense he would hardly be withheld from any extremity.

She had to bear about this perpetual anxiety in her thoughts, and turn which way she would, there was no light in which she could look at it that would give her comfort.

Ottilie, never dreaming of anything of this, had taken to the work in the chapel with the greatest interest, and she had easily obtained Charlotte’s permission to go on with it regularly. So now all went swiftly forward, and the azure heaven was soon peopled with worthy inhabitants. By continual practice both Ottilie and the Architect had gained more freedom with the last figures; they became perceptibly better. The faces, too, which had been all left to the Architect to paint, showed by degrees a very singular peculiarly. They began all of them to resemble Ottilie. The neighborhood of the beautiful girl had made so strong an impression on the soul of the young man, who had no variety of faces preconceived in his mind, that by degrees, on the way from the eye to the hand, nothing was lost, and both worked in exact harmony together. Enough; one of the last faces succeeded perfectly; so that it seemed as if Ottilie herself was looking down out of the spaces of the sky.

They had finished with the arching of the ceiling. The walls they proposed to leave plain, and only to cover them over with a bright brown color. The delicate pillars and the quaintly molded ornaments were to be distinguished from them by a dark shade. But as in such things one thing ever leads on to another, they determined at least on having festoons of flowers and fruit, which should, as it were, unite heaven and earth. Here Ottilie was in her element. The gardens provided the most perfect patterns; and although the wreaths were as rich as they could make them, it was all finished sooner than they had supposed possible.

It was still looking rough and disorderly. The scaffolding poles had been run together, the planks thrown one on the top of the other; the uneven pavement was yet more disfigured by the parti-colored stains of the paint which had been spilt over it.

The Architect begged that the ladies would give him a week to himself, and during that time would not enter the chapel; at the end of it, one fine evening, he came to them, and begged them both to go and see it. He did not wish to accompany them, he said, and at once took his leave.

“Whatever surprise he may have designed for us,” said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone, “I cannot myself just now go down there. You can go by yourself, and tell me all about it. No doubt he has been doing something which we shall like. I will enjoy it first in your description, and afterwards it will be the more charming in the reality.”

Ottilie, who knew well that in many cases Charlotte took care to avoid everything which could produce emotion, and particularly disliked to be surprised, set off down the walk by herself and looked round involuntarily for the Architect, who, however, was nowhere to be seen and must have concealed himself somewhere. She walked into the church, which she found open. This had been finished before; it had been cleaned up, and service had been performed in it. She went on to the chapel door; its heavy mass, all overlaid with iron, yielded easily to her touch, and she found an unexpected sight in a familiar spot.

A solemn, beautiful light streamed in through the one tall window. It was filled with stained glass, gracefully put together. The entire chapel had thus received a strange tone, and a peculiar genius was thrown over it. The beauty of the vaulted ceiling and the walls was set off by the elegance of the pavement, which was composed of peculiarly shaped tiles, fastened together with gypsum, and forming exquisite patterns as they lay. This and the colored glass for the windows the Architect had prepared without their knowledge, and a short time was sufficient to have it put in its place.

Seats had been provided as well. Among the relics of the old church some finely carved chancel chairs had been discovered, which now were standing about at convenient places along the walls.

The parts which she knew so well now meeting her as an unfamiliar whole, delighted Ottilie. She stood still, walked up and down, looked and looked again; at last she seated herself in one of the chairs, and it seemed, as she gazed up and down, as if she was, and yet was not — as if she felt and did not feel — as if all this would vanish from before her, and she would vanish from herself; and it was only when the sun left the window, on which before it had been shining full, that she awoke to possession of herself and hastened back to the castle.

She did not hide from herself the strange epoch at which this surprise had occurred to her. It was the evening of Edward’s birthday. Very differently she had hoped to keep it. How was not every thing to be dressed out for this festival and now all the splendor of the autumn flowers remained ungathered! Those sunflowers still turned their faces to the sky; those asters still looked out with quiet, modest eye; and whatever of them all had been wound into wreaths had served as patterns for the decorating a spot which, if it was not to remain a mere artist’s fancy, was only adapted as a general mausoleum.

And then she had to remember the impetuous eagerness with which Edward had kept her birthday-feast. She. thought of the newly erected lodge, under the roof of which they had promised themselves so much enjoyment. The fireworks flashed and hissed again before her eyes and ears; the more lonely she was, the more keenly her imagination brought it all before her. But she felt herself only the more alone. She no longer leant upon his arm, and she had no hope ever any more to rest herself upon it.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“I have been struck with an observation of the young architect.

“In the case of the creative artist, as in that of the artisan, it is clear that man is least permitted to appropriate to himself what is most entirely his own. His works forsake him as the birds forsake the nest in which they were hatched.

“The fate of the Architect is the strangest of all in this way. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter. The halls of kings owe their magnificence to him; but he has no enjoyment of them in their splendor. In the temple he draws a partition line between himself and the Holy of Holies; he may never more set his foot upon the steps which he has laid down for the heart-thrilling ceremonial, as the goldsmith may only adore from far off the monstrance whose enamel and whose jewels he has himself set together. The builder surrenders to the rich man, with the key of his palace, all pleasure and all right there, and never shares with him in the enjoyment of it. And must not art in this way, step by step, draw off from the artist, when the work, like a child who is provided for, has no more to fall back upon its father? And what a power there must be in art itself for its own self-advancing, when it has been obliged to shape itself almost solely out of what was open to all, only out of what was the property of every one, and therefore also of the artist!”

“There is a conception among old nations which is awful, and may almost seem terrible. They pictured their forefathers to themselves sitting round on thrones, in enormous caverns, in silent converse; when a new comer entered, if he were worthy enough, they rose up, and inclined their heads to welcome him. Yesterday, as I was sitting in the chapel, and other carved chairs stood round like that in which I was, the thought of this came over me with a soft, pleasant feeling. Why cannot you stay sitting here? I said to myself; stay here sitting meditating with yourself long, long, long, till at last your friends come, and you rise up to them, and with a gentle inclination direct them to their places. The colored window panes convert the day into a solemn twilight; and some one should set up for us an ever-burning lamp, that the night might not be utter darkness.”

“We may imagine ourselves in what situation we please, we always conceive ourselves as seeing. I believe men only dream that they may not cease to see. Some day, perhaps, the inner light will come out from within us, and we shall not any more require another.

“The year dies away, the wind sweeps over the stubble, and there is nothing left to stir under its touch. But the red berries on yonder tall tree seem as if they would still remind us of brighter things; and the stroke of the thrasher’s flail awakes the thought how much of nourishment and life lie buried in the sickled ear.”

CHAPTER IV

How strangely, after all this, with the sense so vividly impressed on her of mutability and perishableness, must Ottilie have been affected by the news which could not any longer be kept concealed from her, that Edward had exposed himself to the uncertain chances of war! Unhappily, none of the observations which she had occasion to make upon it escaped her. But it is well for us that man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him, or passes by him, and leaves him apathetic. There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another, and lose themselves in a dull indifference. If it were not so, how could we bear to know of those who are most dear to us being in hourly peril, and yet go on as usual with our ordinary everyday life?

It was therefore as if some good genius was caring for Ottilie, that, all at once, this stillness, in which she seemed to be sinking from loneliness and want of occupation, was suddenly invaded by a wild army, which, while it gave her externally abundance of employment, and so took her out of herself, at the same time awoke in her the consciousness of her own power.

Charlotte’s daughter, Luciana, had scarcely left the school and gone out into the great world; scarcely had she found herself at her aunt’s house in the midst of a large society, than her anxiety to please produced its effect in really pleasing; and a young, very wealthy man, soon experienced a passionate desire to make her his own. His large property gave him a right to have the best of everything for his use, and nothing seemed to be wanting to him except a perfect wife, for whom, as for the rest of his good fortune, he should be the envy of the world.

This incident in her family had been for some time occupying Charlotte. It had engaged all her attention, and taken up her whole correspondence, except so far as this was directed to the obtaining news of Edward; so that latterly Ottilie had been left more than was usual to herself. She knew, indeed, of an intended visit from Luciana. She had been making various changes and arrangements in the house in preparation for it; but she had no notion that it was so near. Letters, she supposed, would first have to pass, settling the time, and unsettling it; and at last a final fixing: when the storm broke suddenly over the castle and over herself.

Up drove, first, lady’s maids and men-servants, their carriage loaded with trunks and boxes. The household was already swelled to double or to treble its size, and then appeared the visitors themselves. There was the great aunt, with Luciana and some of her friends; and then the bridegroom with some of his friends. The entrance-hall was full of things — bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she had brought things to order, and disposed of them. Every one found his room — every one hand his things exactly as they wished, and all thought themselves well attended to, because they were not prevented from attending on themselves.

The journey had been long and fatiguing, and they would all have been glad of a little rest after it. The bridegroom would have liked to pay his respects to his mother-in-law, express his pleasure, his gratitude, and so on. But Luciana could not rest. She had now arrived at the happiness of being able to mount a horse. The bridegroom had beautiful horses, and mount they must on the spot. Clouds and wind, rain and storm, they were nothing to Luciana, and now it was as if they only lived to get wet through, and to dry themselves again. If she took a fancy to go out walking, she never thought what sort of dress she had on, or what her shoes were like; she must go and see the grounds of which she had heard so much; what could not be done on horseback, she ran through on foot. In a little while she had seen everything, and given her opinion about everything; and with such rapidity of character it was not easy to contradict or oppose her. The whole household had much to suffer, but most particularly the lady’s maids, who were at work from morning to night, washing, and ironing, and stitching.

As soon as she had exhausted the house and the park, she thought it was her duty to pay visits all around the neighborhood. Although they rode and drove fast, “all around the neighborhood” was a goodly distance. The castle was flooded with return visits, and that they might not miss one another, it soon came to days being fixed for them.

Charlotte, in the meantime, with her aunt, and the man of business of the bridegroom, were occupied in determining about the settlements, and it was left to Ottilie, with those under her, to take care that all this crowd of people were properly provided for. Gamekeepers and gardeners, fishermen and shopdealers, were set in motion, Luciana always showing herself like the blazing nucleus of a comet with its long tail trailing behind it. The ordinary amusements of the parties soon became too insipid for her taste. Hardly would she leave the old people in peace at the card-table. Whoever could by any means be set moving (and who could resist the charm of being pressed by her into service?) must up, if not to dance, then to play at forfeits, or some other game, where they were to be victimized and tormented. Notwithstanding all that, however, and although afterward the redemption of the forfeits had to be settled with herself, yet of those who played with her, never any one, especially never any man, let him be of what sort he would, went quite empty-handed away. Indeed, some old people of rank who were there she succeeded in completely winning over to herself, by having contrived to find out their birthdays or christening days, and marking them with some particular celebration. In all this she showed a skill not a little remarkable. Every one saw himself favored, and each considered himself to be the one most favored, a weakness of which the oldest person of the party was the most notably guilty.

It seemed to be a sort of pride with her that men who had anything remarkable about them — rank, character, or fame — she must and would gain for herself. Gravity and seriousness she made give way to her, and, wild, strange creature as she was, she found favor even with discretion itself. Not that the young were at all cut short in consequence. Everybody had his share, his day, his hour, in which she contrived to charm and to enchain him. It was therefore natural enough that before long she should have had the Architect in her eye, looking out so unconsciously as he did from under his long black hair, and standing so calm and quiet in the background. To all her questions she received short, sensible answers; but he did not seem inclined to allow himself to be carried away further, and at last, half provoked, half in malice, she resolved that she would make him the hero of a day, and so gain him for her court.

It was not for nothing that she had brought that quantity of luggage with her. Much, indeed, had followed her afterward. She had provided herself with an endless variety of dresses. When it took her fancy she would change her dress three or four times a day, usually wearing something of an ordinary kind, but making her appearance suddenly at intervals in a thorough masquerade dress, as a peasant girl or a fish-maiden, as a fairy or a flower-girl; and this would go on from morning till night. Sometimes she would even disguise herself as an old woman, that her young face might peep out the fresher from under the cap; and so utterly in this way did she confuse and mix together the actual and the fantastic, that people thought they were living with a sort of drawing-room witch.

But the principal use which she had for these disguises were pantomimic tableaux and dances, in which she was skilful in expressing a variety of character. A cavalier in her suite had taught himself to accompany her action on the piano with the little music which was required; they needed only to exchange a few words and they at once understood each other.

One day, in a pause of a brilliant ball, they were called upon suddenly to extemporize (it was on a private hint from themselves) one of these exhibitions. Luciana seemed embarrassed, taken by surprise, and contrary to her custom let herself be asked more than once. She could not decide upon her character, desired the party to choose, and asked, like an improvisatore, for a subject. At last her piano-playing companion, with whom it had been all previously arranged, sat down at the instrument, and began to play a mourning march, calling on her to give them the Artemisia which she had been studying so admirably. She consented; and after a short absence reappeared, to the sad tender music of the dead march, in the form of the royal widow, with measured step, carrying an urn of ashes before her. A large black tablet was borne in after her, and a carefully cut piece of chalk in a gold pencil case.

One of her adorers and adjutants, into whose ear she whispered something, went directly to call the Architect, to desire him, and, if he would not come, to drag him up, as master-builder, to draw the grave for the mausoleum, and to tell him at the same time that he was not to play the statist, but enter earnestly into his part as one of the performers.

Embarrassed as the Architect outwardly appeared (for in his black, close-fitting, modern civilian’s dress, he formed a wonderful contrast with the gauze crape fringes, tinsel tassels, and crown), he very soon composed himself internally, and the scene became all the more strange. With the greatest gravity he placed himself in front of the tablet, which was supported by a couple of pages, and drew carefully an elaborate tomb, which indeed would have suited better a Lombard than a Carian prince; but it was in such beautiful proportions, so solemn in its parts, so full of genius in its decoration, that the spectators watched it growing with delight, and wondered at it when it was finished.

All this time he had not once turned toward the queen, but had given his whole attention to what he was doing. At last he inclined his head before her, and signified that he believed he had now fulfilled her commands. She held the urn out to him, expressing her desire to see it represented on the top of the monument. He complied, although unwillingly, as it would not suit the character of the rest of his design. Luciana was now at last released from her impatience. Her intention had been by no means to get a scientific drawing out of him. If he had only made a few strokes, sketched out something which should have looked like a monument, and devoted the rest of his time to her, it would have been far more what she had wished, and would have pleased her a great deal better. His manner of proceeding had thrown her into the greatest embarrassment. For although in her sorrow, in her directions, in her gestures, in her approbation of the work as it slowly rose before her, she had tried to manage some sort of change of expression, and although she had hung about close to him, only to place herself into some sort of relation to him, yet he had kept himself throughout too stiff, so that too often she had been driven to take refuge with her urn; she had to press it to her heart and look up to heaven, and at last, a situation of that kind having a necessary tendency to intensify, she made herself more like a widow of Ephesus than a Queen of Caria. The representation had to lengthen itself out and became tedious. The pianoforte player, who had usually patience enough, did not know into what tune he could escape. He thanked God when he saw the urn standing on the pyramid, and fell involuntarily as the queen was going to express her gratitude, into a merry air; by which the whole thing lost its character, the company, however, being thoroughly cheered up by it, who forthwith divided, some going up to express their delight and admiration of the lady for her excellent performance, and some praising the Architect for his most artistlike and beautiful drawing.

The bridegroom especially paid marked attention to the Architect. “I am vexed,” he said, “that the drawing should be so perishable; you will permit me, however, to have it taken to my room, where I should much like to talk to you about it.”

“If it would give you any pleasure,” said the Architect, “I can lay before you a number of highly finished designs for buildings and monuments of this kind, of which this is but a mere hasty sketch.”

Ottilie was standing at no great distance, and went up to them. “Do not forget,” she said to the Architect, “to take an opportunity of letting the Baron see your collection. He is a friend of art and of antiquity. I should like you to become better acquainted.”

Luciana was passing at the moment. “What are they speaking of?” she asked.

“Of a collection of works of art,” replied the Baron, “which this gentleman possesses, and which he is good enough to say that he will show us.”

“Oh, let him bring them immediately,” cried Luciana. “You will bring them, will you not?” she added, in a soft and sweet tone, taking both his hands in hers.

“The present is scarcely a fitting time,” the Architect answered.

“What!” Luciana cried, in a tone of authority; “you will not obey the command of your queen!” and then she begged him again with some piece of absurdity.

“Do not be obstinate,” said Ottilie, in a scarcely audible voice.

The Architect left them with a bow, which said neither yes nor no.

He was hardly gone, when Luciana was flying up and down the saloon with a greyhound. “Alas!” she exclaimed, as she ran accidentally against her mother, “am I not an unfortunate creature? I have not brought my monkey with me. They told me I had better not; but I am sure it was nothing but the laziness of my people, and it is such a delight to me. But I will have it brought after me; somebody shall go and fetch it. If I could only see a picture of the dear creature, it would be a comfort to me; I certainly will have his picture taken, and it shall never be out of my sight.”

“Perhaps I can comfort you,” replied Charlotte. “There is a whole volume full of the most wonderful ape faces in the library, which you can have fetched if you like.”

Luciana shrieked for joy. The great folio was produced instantly. The sight of these hideous creatures, so like to men, and with the resemblance even more caricatured by the artist, gave Luciana the greatest delight. Her amusement with each of the animals, was to find some one of her acquaintance whom it resembled. “Is that not like my uncle?” she remorselessly exclaimed; “and here, look, here is my milliner M., and here is Parson S., and here the image of that creature — bodily! After all, these monkeys are the real incroyables, and it is inconceivable why they are not admitted into the best society.”

It was in the best society that she said this, and yet no one took it ill of her. People had become accustomed to allow her so many liberties in her prettinesses, that at last they came to allow them in what was unpretty.

During this time, Ottilie was talking to the bridegroom; she was looking anxiously for the return of the Architect, whose serious and tasteful collection was to deliver the party from the apes; and in the expectation of it, she had made it the subject of her conversation with the Baron, and directed his attention on various things which he was to see. But the Architect stayed away, and when at last he made his appearance, he lost himself in the crowd, without having brought anything with him, and without seeming as if he had been asked for anything.

For a moment Ottilie became — what shall we call it? — annoyed, put out, perplexed. She had been saying so much about him — she had promised the bridegroom an hour of enjoyment after his own heart; and with all the depth of his love for Luciana, he was evidently suffering from her present behavior.

The monkeys had to give place to a collation. Round games followed, and then more dancing; at last, a general uneasy vacancy, with fruitless attempts at resuscitating exhausted amusements, which lasted this time, as indeed they usually did, far beyond midnight. It had already become a habit with Luciana to be never able to get out of bed in the morning or into it at night.

About this time, the incidents noticed in Ottilie’s diary become more rare, while we find a larger number of maxims and sentences drawn from life and relating to life. It is not conceivable that the larger proportion of these could have arisen from her own reflection, and most likely some one had shown her varieties of them, and she had written out what took her fancy. Many, however, with an internal bearing, can be easily recognized by the red thread.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“We like to look into the future, because the undetermined in it, which may be affected this or that way, we feel as if we could guide by our silent wishes in our own favor.”

“We seldom find ourselves in a large party without thinking; the accident which brings so many here together, should bring our friends to us as well.”

“Let us live in as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time to look round.”

“If we meet a person who is under an obligation to us, we remember it immediately. But how often may we meet people to whom we are, ourselves, under obligation, without its even occurring to us!”

“It is nature to communicate one’s-self; it is culture to receive what is communicated as it is given.”

“No one would talk much in society, if he only knew how often he misunderstands others.”

“One alters so much what one has heard from others in repeating it, only because one has not understood it.”

“Whoever indulges long in monologue in the presence of others, without flattering his listeners, provokes ill-will.”

“Every word a man utters provokes the opposite opinion.”

“Argument and flattery are but poor elements out of which to form a conversation.”

“The pleasantest society is when the members of it have an easy and natural respect for one another.”

“There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.”

“The ridiculous arises out of a moral contrast, in which two things are brought together before the mind in an innocent way.”

“The foolish man often laughs where there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever touches him, his inner nature comes to the surface.”

“The man of understanding finds almost everything ridiculous; the man of thought scarcely anything.”

“Some one found fault with an elderly man for continuing to pay attention to young ladies. ‘It is the only means,’ he replied, ‘of keeping one’s-self young, and everybody likes to do that.’“

“People will allow their faults to be shown them; they will let themselves be punished for them; they will patiently endure many things because of them; they only become impatient when they have to lay them aside.”

“Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality. We should not be pleased, if old friends were to lay aside certain peculiarities.”

“There is a saying, ‘He will die soon,’ when a man acts unlike himself.”

“What kind of defects may we bear with and even cultivate in ourselves? Such as rather give pleasure to others than injure them.”

“The passions are defects or excellencies only in excess.”

“Our passions are true phoenixes: as the old burn out, the new straight rise up out of the ashes.”

“Violent passions are incurable diseases; the means which will cure them are what first make them thoroughly dangerous.”

“Passion is both raised and softened by confession. In nothing, perhaps, were the middle way more desirable than in knowing what to say and what not to say to those we love.”

CHAPTER V

So swept on Luciana in the social whirlpool, driving the rush of life along before her. Her court multiplied daily, partly because her impetuosity roused and attracted so many, partly because she knew how to attach the rest to her by kindness and attention. Generous she was in the highest degree; her aunt’s affection for her, and her bridegroom’s love, had heaped her with beautiful and costly presents, but she seemed as if nothing which she had was her own, and as if she did not know the value of the things which had streamed in upon her. One day she saw a young lady looking rather poorly dressed by the side of the rest of the party, and she did not hesitate a moment to take off a rich shawl which she was wearing and hang it over her — doing it, at the same time, in such a humorous, graceful way that no one could refuse such a present so given. One of her courtiers always carried about a purse, with orders, whatever place they passed through, to inquire there for the most aged and most helpless persons, and give them relief, at least for the moment. In this way she gained for herself all round the country a reputation for charitableness which caused her not a little inconvenience, attracting about her far too many troublesome sufferers.

Nothing, however, so much added to her popularity as her steady and consistent kindness toward an unhappy young man, who shrank from society because, while otherwise handsome and well-formed, he had lost his right hand, although with high honor, in action. This mutilation weighed so heavily upon his spirits, it was so annoying to him, that every new acquaintance he made had to be told the story of his misfortune, that he chose rather to shut himself up altogether, devoting himself to reading and other studious pursuits, and once for all would have nothing more to do with society.

She heard of the state of this young man. At once she contrived to prevail upon him to come to her, first to small parties, then to greater, and then out into the world with her. She showed more attention to him than to any other person; particularly she endeavored, by the services which she pressed upon him, to make him sensible of what he had lost in laboring herself to supply it. At dinner, she would make him sit next to her; she cut up his food for him, that he might have to use only his fork. If people older or of higher rank prevented her from being close to him, she would stretch her attention across the entire table, and the servants were hurried off to make up to him what distance threatened to deprive him of. At last she encouraged him to write with his left hand. All his attempts he was to address to her and thus, whether far or near, she always kept herself in correspondence with him. The young man did not know what had happened to him, and from that moment a new life opened out before him.

One may perhaps suppose that such behavior must have caused some uneasiness to her bridegroom. But, in fact, it was quite the reverse. He admired her exceedingly for her exertions, and he had the more reason for feeling entirely satisfied about her, as she had certain features in her character almost in excess, which kept anything in the slightest degree dangerous utterly at a distance. She would run about with anybody, just as she fancied; no one was free from danger of a push or a pull, or of being made the object of some sort of freak. But no person ever ventured to do the same to her; no person dared to touch her, or return, in the remotest degree, any liberty which she had taken herself. She kept every one within the strictest barriers of propriety in their behavior to herself, while she, in her own behavior, was every moment overleaping them.

On the whole, one might have supposed it had been a maxim with her to expose herself indifferently to praise or blame, to regard or to dislike. If in many ways she took pains to gain people, she commonly herself spoiled all the good she had done, by an ill tongue, which spared no one. Not a visit was ever paid in the neighborhood, not a single piece of hospitality was ever shown to herself and her party among the surrounding castles or mansions, but what, on her return, her excessive recklessness let it appear that all men and all human things she was only inclined to see on the ridiculous side.

There were three brothers who, purely out of compliment to one another, kept up a good-natured and urbane controversy as to which should marry first, had been overtaken by old age before they had got the question settled; here was a little young wife with a great old husband; there, on the other hand, was a dapper little man and an unwieldy giantess. In one house, every step one took one stumbled over a child; another, however many people were crammed into it, never would seem full, because there were no children there at all. Old husbands (supposing the estate was not entailed) should get themselves buried as quickly as possible, that such a thing as a laugh might be heard again in the house. Young married people should travel: housekeeping did not sit well upon them. And as she treated the persons, so she treated what belonged to them; their houses, their furniture, their dinner-services — everything. The ornaments of the walls of the rooms most particularly provoked her saucy remarks. From the oldest tapestry to the most modern printed paper; from the noblest family pictures to the most frivolous new copper-plate: one as well as the other had to suffer — one as well as the other had to be pulled in pieces by her satirical tongue, so that, indeed, one had to wonder how, for twenty miles round, anything continued to exist.

It was not, perhaps, exactly malice which produced all this destructiveness; wilfulness and selfishness were what ordinarily set her off upon it: but a genuine bitterness grew up in her feelings toward Ottilie.

She looked down with disdain on the calm, uninterrupted activity of the sweet girl, which every one had observed and admired; and when something was said of the care which Ottilie took of the garden and of the hot-houses, she not only spoke scornfully of it, in affecting to be surprised, if it were so, at there being neither flowers nor fruit to be seen, not caring to consider that they were living in the depth of winter, but every faintest scrap of green, every leaf, every bud which showed, she chose to have picked every day and squandered on ornamenting the rooms and tables, and Ottilie and the gardener were not a little distressed to see their hopes for the next year, and perhaps for a longer time, destroyed in this wanton recklessness.

As little would she be content to leave Ottilie to her quiet work at home, in which she could live with so much comfort. Ottilie must go with them on their pleasure-parties and sledging-parties; she must be at the balls which were being got up all about the neighborhood. She was not to mind the snow, or the cold, or the night-air, or the storm; other people did not die of such things, and why should she? The delicate girl suffered not a little from it all, but Luciana gained nothing. For although Ottilie went about very simply dressed, she was always, at least so the men thought, the most beautiful person present. A soft attractiveness gathered them all about her; no matter whereabouts in the great rooms she was, first or last, it was always the same. Even Luciana’s bridegroom was constantly occupied with her; the more so, indeed, because he desired her advice and assistance in a matter with which he was just then engaged.

He had cultivated the acquaintance of the Architect. On seeing his collection of works of art, he had taken occasion to talk much with him on history and on other matters, and especially from seeing the chapel had learnt to appreciate his talent. The Baron was young and wealthy. He was a collector; he wished to build. His love for the arts was keen, his knowledge small. In the Architect he thought that he had found the man he wanted; that with his assistance there was more than one aim at which he could arrive at once. He had spoken to his bride of what he wished. She praised him for it, and was infinitely delighted with the proposal. But it was more, perhaps, that she might carry off this young man from Ottilie (for whom she fancied she saw in him a kind of inclination), than because she thought of applying his talents to any purpose. He had shown himself, indeed, very ready to help at any of her extemporized festivities, and had suggested various resources for this thing and that. But she always thought she understood better than he what should be done, and as her inventive genius was usually somewhat common, her designs could be as well executed with the help of a tolerably handy domestic as with that of the most finished artist. Further than to an altar on which something was to be offered, or to a crowning, whether of a living head or of one of plaster of paris, the force of her imagination could not ascend, when a birthday, or other such occasion, made her wish to pay some one an especial compliment.

Ottilie was able to give the Baron the most satisfactory answer to his inquiries as to the relation of the Architect with their family. Charlotte had already, as she was aware, been exerting herself to find some situation for him; had it not been indeed for the arrival of the party, the young man would have left them immediately on the completion of the chapel, the winter having brought all building operations to a standstill; and it was, therefore, most fortunate if a new patron could be found to assist him, and to make use of his talents.

Ottilie’s own personal position with the Architect was as pure and unconscious as possible. His agreeable presence, and his industrious nature, had charmed and entertained her, as the presence of an elder brother might. Her feelings for him remained at the calm unimpassioned level of blood relationship. For in her heart there was no room for more; it was filled to overflowing with love for Edward; only God, who interpenetrates all things, could share with him the possession of that heart.

Meanwhile the winter sank deeper; the weather grew wilder, the roads more impracticable, and therefore it seemed all the pleasanter to spend the waning days in agreeable society. With short intervals of ebb, the crowd from time to time flooded up over the house. Officers found their way there from distant garrison towns; the cultivated among them being a most welcome addition, the ruder the inconvenience of every one. Of civilians too there was no lack; and one day the Count and the Baroness quite unexpectedly came driving up together.

Their presence gave the castle the air of a thorough court. The men of rank and character formed a circle about the Baron, and the ladies yielded precedence to the Baroness. The surprise at seeing both together, and in such high spirits, was not allowed to be of long continuance. It came out that the Count’s wife was dead, and the new marriage was to take place as soon as ever decency would allow it.

Well did Ottilie remember their first visit, and every word which was then uttered about marriage and separation, binding and dividing, hope, expectation, disappointment, renunciation. Here were these two persons, at that time without prospect for the future, now standing before her, so near their wished-for happiness, and an involuntary sigh escaped out of her heart.

No sooner did Luciana hear that the Count was an amateur of music, than at once she must get up something of a concert. She herself would sing and accompany herself on the guitar. It was done. The instrument she did not play without skill; her voice was agreeable: as for the words one understood about as little of them as one commonly does when a German beauty sings to the guitar. However, every one assured her that she had sung with exquisite expression, and she found quite enough approbation to satisfy her. A singular misfortune befell her, however, on this occasion. Among the party there happened to be a poet, whom she hoped particularly to attach to herself, wishing to induce him to write a song or two, and address them to her. This evening, therefore, she produced scarcely anything except songs of his composing. Like the rest of the party he was perfectly courteous to her, but she had looked for more. She spoke to him several times, going as near the subject as she dared, but nothing further could she get. At last, unable to bear it any longer, she sent one of her train to him, to sound him and find out whether he had not been delighted to hear his beautiful poems so beautifully executed.

“My poems?” he replied, with amazement; “pray excuse me, my dear sir,” he added, “I heard nothing but the vowels, and not all of those; however, I am in duty bound to express all gratitude for so amiable an intention.” The dandy said nothing and kept his secret; the other endeavored to get himself out of the scrape by a few well-timed compliments. She did not conceal her desire to have something of his which should be written for herself.

If it would not have been too ill-natured, he might have handed her the alphabet, to imagine for herself, out of that, such laudatory poem as would please her, and set it to the first melody that came to hand; but she was not to escape out of this business without mortification. A short time after, she had to learn that the very same evening he had written, at the foot of one of Ottilie’s favorite melodies, a most lovely poem, which was something more than complimentary.

Luciana, like all persons of her sort, who never can distinguish between where they show to advantage and where to disadvantage, now determined to try her fortune in reciting. Her memory was good, but, if the truth must be told, her execution was spiritless, and she was vehement without being passionate. She recited ballad stories, and whatever else is usually delivered in declamation. At the same time she had contracted an unhappy habit of accompanying what she delivered with gestures, by which, in a disagreeable way, what is purely epic and lyric is more confused than connected with the dramatic.

The Count, a keen-sighted man, soon saw through the party, their inclinations, dispositions, wishes, and capabilities, and by some means or other contrived to bring Luciana to a new kind of exhibition, which was perfectly suited to her.

“I see here,” he said, “a number of persons with fine figures, who would surely be able to imitate pictorial emotions and postures. Suppose they were to try, if the thing is new to them, to represent some real and well-known picture. An imitation of this kind, if it requires some labor in arrangement, has an inconceivably charming effect.”

Luciana was quick enough in perceiving that here she was on her own ground entirely. Her fine shape, her well-rounded form, the regularity and yet expressiveness of her features, her light-brown braided hair, her long neck — she ran them all over in her mind, and calculated on their pictorial effects, and if she had only known that her beauty showed to more advantage when she was still than when she was in motion, because in the last case certain ungracefulness continually escaped her, she would have entered even more eagerly than she did into this natural picture-making.

They looked out the engravings of celebrated pictures, and the first which they chose was Van Dyk’s Belisarius. A large well-proportioned man, somewhat advanced in years, was to represent the seated, blind general. The Architect was to be the affectionate soldier standing sorrowing before him, there really being some resemblance between them. Luciana, half from modesty, had chosen the part of the young woman in the background, counting out some large alms into the palm of his hand, while an old woman beside her is trying to prevent her, and representing that she is giving too much. Another woman who is in the act of giving him something, was not forgotten. Into this and other pictures they threw themselves with all earnestness. The Count gave the Architect a few hints as to the best style of arrangement, and he at once set up a kind of theatre, all necessary pains being taken for the proper lighting of it. They were already deep in the midst of their preparations, before they observed how large an outlay what they were undertaking would require, and that in the country, in the middle of winter, many things which they required it would be difficult to procure; consequently, to prevent a stoppage, Luciana had nearly her whole wardrobe cut in pieces, to supply the various costumes which the original artist had arbitrarily selected.

The appointed evening came, and the exhibition was carried out in the presence of a large assemblage, and to the universal satisfaction. They had some good music to excite expectation, and the performance opened with the Belisarius. The figures were so successful, the colors were so happily distributed, and the lighting managed so skilfully, that they might really have fancied themselves in another world, only that the presence of the real instead of the apparent produced a kind of uncomfortable sensation.

The curtain fell, and was more than once raised again by general desire. A musical interlude kept the assembly amused while preparation was going forward, to surprise them with a picture of a higher stamp; it was the well-known design of Poussin, Ahasuerus and Esther. This time Luciana had done better for herself. As the fainting, sinking queen she had put out all her charms, and for the attendant maidens who were supporting her, she had cunningly selected pretty, well-shaped figures, not one among whom, however, had the slightest pretension to be compared with herself. From this picture, as from all the rest, Ottilie remained excluded. To sit on the golden throne and represent the Zeus-like monarch, Luciana had picked out the finest and handsomest man of the party, so that this picture was really of inimitable perfection.

For a third they had taken the so-called “Father’s Admonition” of Terburg, and who does not know Wille’s admirable engraving of this picture? One foot thrown over the other, sits a noble knightly-looking father; his daughter stands before him, to whose conscience he seems to be addressing himself. She, a fine striking figure, in a folding drapery of white satin, is only to be seen from behind, but her whole bearing appears to signify that she is collecting herself. That the admonition is not too severe, that she is not being utterly put to shame, is to be gathered from the air and attitude of the father, while the mother seems as if she were trying to conceal some slight embarrassment — she is looking into a glass of wine, which she is on the point of drinking.

Here was an opportunity for Luciana to appear in her highest splendor. Her back hair, the form of her head, neck, and shoulders, were beyond all conception beautiful; and the waist, which in the modern antique of the ordinary dresses of young ladies is hardly visible, showed to the greatest advantage in all its graceful, slender elegance in the really old costume. The Architect had contrived to dispose the rich folds of the white satin with the most exquisite nature, and, without any question whatever, this living imitation far exceeded the original picture, and produced universal delight.

The spectators could never be satisfied with demanding a repetition of the performance, and the very natural wish to see the face and front of so lovely a creature, when they had done looking at her from behind, at last became so decided that a merry impatient young wit cried out aloud the words one is accustomed to write at the bottom of a page, “Tournez, s’il vous plait,” which was echoed all round the room.

The performers, however, understood their advantage too well, and had mastered too completely the idea of these works of art to yield to the most general clamor. The daughter remained standing in her shame, without favoring the spectators with the expression of her face. The father continued to sit in his attitude of admonition, and the mother did not lift nose or eyes out of the transparent glass, in which, although she seemed to be drinking, the wine did not diminish.

We need not describe the number of smaller after-pieces for which had been chosen Flemish public-house scenes and fair and market days.

The Count and the Baroness departed, promising to return in the first happy weeks of their approaching union. And Charlotte now had hopes, after having endured two weary months of it, of ridding herself of the rest of the party at the same time. She was assured of her daughter’s happiness, as soon as the first tumult of youth and betrothal should have subsided in her; for the bridegroom considered himself the most fortunate person in the world. His income was large, his disposition moderate and rational, and now he found himself further wonderfully favored in the happiness of becoming the possessor of a young lady with whom all the world must be charmed. He had so peculiar a way of referring everything to her, and only to himself through her, that it gave him an unpleasant feeling when any newly-arrived person did not devote himself heart and soul to her, and was far from flattered if, as occasionally happened, particularly with elderly men, he neglected her for a close intimacy with himself. Every thing was settled about the Architect. On New Year’s day he was to follow him and spend the Carnival at his house in the city, where Luciana was promising herself infinite happiness from a repetition of her charmingly successful pictures, as well as from a hundred other things; all the more as her aunt and her bridegroom seemed to make so light of the expense which was required for her amusements.

And now they were to break up. But this could not be managed in an ordinary way. They were one day making fun of Charlotte aloud, declaring that they would soon have eaten out her winter stores, when the nobleman who had represented Belisarius, being fortunately a man of some wealth, carried away by Luciana’s charms to which he had been so long devoting himself, cried out unthinkingly, “Why not manage then in the Polish fashion? You come now and eat up me, and then we will go on round the circle.” No sooner said than done. Luciana willed that it should be so. The next day they all packed up and the swarm alighted on a new property. There indeed they found room enough, but few conveniences and no preparations to receive them. Out of this arose many contretemps, which entirely enchanted Luciana; their life became ever wilder and wilder. Huge hunting-parties were set on foot in the deep snow, attended with every sort of disagreeableness; women were not allowed to excuse themselves any more than men, and so they trooped on, hunting and riding, sledging and shouting, from one place to another, till at last they approached the residence, and there the news of the day and the scandals and what else forms the amusement of people at courts and cities gave the imagination another direction, and Luciana with her train of attendants (her aunt had gone on some time before) swept at once into a new sphere of life.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“We accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out, only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.

“We venture upon anything in society except only what involves a consequence.

“We never learn to know people when they come to us: we must go to them to find out how things stand with them.

“I find it almost natural that we should see many faults in visitors, and that directly they are gone we should judge them not in the most amiable manner. For we have, so to say, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even cautious, sensible men can scarcely keep themselves in such cases from being sharp censors.

“When, on the contrary, we are staying at the houses of others, when we have seen them in the midst of all their habits and environments among those necessary conditions from which they cannot escape, when we have seen how they affect those about them, and how they adapt themselves to their circumstances, it is ignorance nay, worse, it is ill-will, to find ridiculous what in more than one sense has a claim on our respect.

“That which we call politeness and good breeding effects what otherwise can only be obtained by violence, or not even by that.

“Intercourse with women is the element of good manners.

“How can the character, the individuality, of a man co-exist with polish of manner?

“The individuality can only be properly made prominent through good manners. Every one likes what has something in it, only it not be a disagreeable something.

“In life generally, and in society, no one has such high advantages as a well-cultivated soldier.

“The rudest fighting people at least do not go out of their character, and generally behind the roughness there is a certain latent good humor, so that in difficulties it is possible to get on, even with them.

“No one is more intolerable than an underbred civilian. From him one has a right to look for a delicacy, as he has no rough work to do.

“When we are living with people who have a delicate sense of propriety, we are in misery on their account when anything unbecoming is committed. So I always feel for and with Charlotte, when a person is tipping his chair. She cannot endure it.

“No one would ever come into a mixed party with spectacles on his nose, if he did but know that at once we women lose all pleasure in looking at him or listening to what he has to say.

“Free-and-easiness, where there ought to be respect, is always ridiculous. No one would put his hat down when he had scarcely paid the ordinary compliments if he knew how comical it looks.

“There is no outward sign of courtesy that does not rest on a deep moral foundation. The proper education would be that which communicated the sign and the foundation of it at the same time.

“Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.

“There is a courtesy of the heart. It is akin to love. Out of it arises the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

“A freely offered homage is the most beautiful of all relations. And how were that possible without love?

“We are never further from our wishes than when we imagine that we possess what we have desired.

“No one is more a slave than the man who thinks himself free while he is not.

“A man has only to declare that he is free, and the next moment he feels the conditions to which he is subject. Let him venture to declare that he is under conditions, and then he will feel that he is free.

“Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

“There is something terrible in the sight of a highly-gifted man lying under obligations to a fool.

“‘No man is a hero to his valet,’ the proverb says. But that is only because it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The valet will probably know how to value the valet-hero.

“Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

“The greatest men are connected with their own century always through some weakness.

“One is apt to regard people as more dangerous than they are.

“Fools and modest people are alike innocuous. It is only your half-fools and your half-wise who are really and truly dangerous.

“There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art.

“Alike in the moment of our highest fortune and our deepest necessity, we require the artist.

“The business of art is with the difficult and the good.

“To see the difficult easily handled, gives us the feeling of the impossible.

“Difficulties increase the nearer we are to our end.

“Sowing is not so difficult as reaping.”

CHAPTER VI

The very serious discomfort which this visit had caused to Charlotte was in some way compensated to her through the fuller insight which it had enabled her to gain into her daughter’s character. In this, her knowledge of the world was of no slight service to her. It was not the first time that so singular a character had come across her, although she had never seen any in which the unusual features were so largely developed; and she had had experience enough to show her that such persons, after having felt the discipline of life, after having gone through something of it, and been in intercourse with older people, may come out at last really charming and amiable; the selfishness may soften and eager restless activity find a definite direction for itself. And therefore, as a mother, Charlotte was able to endure the appearance of symptoms which for others might perhaps have been unpleasing, from a sense that where strangers only desire to enjoy, or at least not to have their taste offended, the business of parents is rather to hope.

After her daughter’s departure, however, she had to be pained in a singular and unlooked-for manner, in finding that, not so much through what there really was objectionable in her behavior, as through what was good and praiseworthy in it, she had left an ill report of herself behind her. Luciana seemed to have prescribed it as a rule to herself not only to be merry with the merry, but miserable with the miserable; and in order to give full swing to the spirit of contradiction in her, often to make the happy, uncomfortable, and the sad, cheerful. In every family among whom she came, she inquired after such members of it as were ill or infirm, and unable to appear in society. She would go to see them in their rooms, enact the physician, and insist on prescribing powerful doses for them out of her own traveling medicine-chest, which she constantly took with her in her carriage; her attempted cures, as may be supposed, either succeeding or failing as chance happened to direct.

In this sort of benevolence she was thoroughly cruel, and would listen to nothing that was said to her, because she was convinced that she was managing admirably. One of these attempts of hers on the moral side failed very disastrously, and this it was which gave Charlotte so much trouble, inasmuch as it involved consequences and every one was talking about it. She never had heard of the story till Luciana was gone; Ottilie, who had made one of the party present at the time, had to give her a circumstantial account of it.

One of several daughters of a family of rank had the misfortune to have caused the death of one of her younger sisters; it had destroyed her peace of mind, and she had never been properly herself since. She lived in her own room, occupying herself and keeping quiet; and she could only bear to see the members of her own family when they came one by one. If there were several together, she suspected at once that they were making reflections upon her, and upon her condition. To each of them singly she would speak rationally enough, and talk freely for an hour at a time.

Luciana had heard of this, and had secretly determined with herself, as soon as she got into the house, that she would forthwith work a miracle, and restore the young lady to society. She conducted herself in the matter more prudently than usual, managed to introduce herself alone to the poor sick-souled girl, and, as far as people could understand, had wound her way into her confidence through music. At last came her fatal mistake; wishing to make a scene, and fancying that she had sufficiently prepared her for it, one evening she suddenly introduced the beautiful pale creature into the midst of the brilliant, glittering assembly; and perhaps, even then, the attempt might not have so utterly failed, had not the crowd themselves, between curiosity and apprehension, conducted themselves so unwisely, first gathering about the invalid, and then shrinking from her again; and with their whispers, and shaking their heads together, confusing and agitating her. Her delicate sensibility could not endure it. With a dreadful shriek, which expressed, as it seemed, a horror at some monster that was rushing upon her, she fainted. The crowd fell back in terror on every side, and Ottilie had been one of those who had carried back the sufferer utterly insensible to her room.

Luciana meanwhile, just like herself, had been reading an angry lecture to the rest of the party, without reflecting for a moment that she herself was entirely to blame, and without letting herself be deterred by this and other failures, from going on with her experimentalizing.

The state of the invalid herself had since that time become more and more serious; indeed, the disorder had increased to such a degree that the poor thing’s parents were unable to keep her any longer at home, and had been forced to confide her to the care of a public institution. Nothing remained for Charlotte, except, by the delicacy of her own attention to the family, in some degree to alleviate the pain which had been occasioned by her daughter. On Ottilie, the thing made a deep impression. She felt the more for the unhappy girl, as she was convinced, she did not attempt to deny it to Charlotte, that by a careful treatment the disorder might have been unquestionably removed.

So there came, too, as it often happens, that we dwell more on past disagreeables than on past agreeables, a slight misunderstanding to be spoken of, which had led Ottilie to a wrong judgment of the Architect, when he did not choose to produce his collection that evening, although she had so eagerly begged him to produce it. His practical refusal had remained, ever since, hanging about her heart, she herself could not tell why. Her feelings about the matter were undoubtedly just; what a young lady like Ottilie could desire, a young man like the Architect ought not to have refused. The latter, however, when she took occasion to give him a gentle reproof for it, had a very valid excuse to offer for himself.

“If you knew,” he said, “how roughly even cultivated people allow themselves to handle the most valuable works of art, you would forgive me for not producing mine among the crowd. No one will take the trouble to hold a medal by the rim. They will finger the most beautiful impressions, and the smoothest surfaces; they will take the rarest coins between the thumb and forefinger, and rub them up and down, as if they were testing the execution with the touch. Without remembering that a large sheet of paper ought to be held in two hands, they will lay hold, with one, of an invaluable proof-engraving of some drawing which cannot be replaced, like a conceited politician laying hold of a newspaper, and passing judgment by anticipation, as he is cutting the pages, on the occurrences of the world. Nobody cares to recollect that if twenty people, one after the other, treat a work of art in this way, the one-and-twentieth will not find much to see there.”

“Have not I often vexed you in this way?” asked Ottilie. “Have not I, through my carelessness, many times injured your treasures?”

“Never once,” answered the Architect, “never. For you it would be impossible. In you the right thing is innate.”

“In any case,” replied Ottilie, “it would not be a bad plan, if in the next edition of the book of good manners, after the chapters which tell us how we ought to eat and drink in company, a good circumstantial chapter were inserted, telling how to behave among works of art and in museums.”

“Undoubtedly,” said the Architect; “and then curiosity-collectors and amateurs would be better contented to show their valuable treasures to the world.”

Ottilie had long, long forgiven him; but as he seemed to have taken her reproof sorely to heart, and assured her again and again that he would gladly produce everything — that he was delighted to do anything for his friends — she felt that she had wounded his feelings, and that she owed him some compensation. It was not easy for her, therefore, to give an absolute refusal to a request which he made her in the conclusion of this conversation, although when she called her heart into counsel about it, she did not see how she could allow herself to do what he wished.

The circumstances of the matter were these: Ottilie’s exclusion from the picture-exhibition by Luciana’s jealousy had irritated him in the highest degree; and at the same time he had observed with regret, that at this, the most brilliant part of all the amusements at the castle, ill health had prevented Charlotte from being more than rarely present; and now he did not wish to go away without some additional proof of his gratitude, which, for the honor of one and the entertainment of the other, should take the thoughtful and attractive form of preparing a far more beautiful exhibition than any of those which had preceded it. Perhaps, too, unknown to himself, another secret motive was working on him. It was so hard for him to leave the house, and to leave the family. It seemed impossible to him to go away from Ottilie’s eyes, under the calm, sweet, gentle glance of which the latter part of the time he had been living almost entirely alone.

The Christmas holidays were approaching; and it became at once clear to him that the very thing which he wanted was a representation with real figures of one of those pictures of the scene in the stable — a sacred exhibition such as at this holy season good Christians delight to offer to the divine Mother and her Child, of the manner in which she, in her seeming lowliness, was honored first by the shepherds and afterward by kings.

He had thoroughly brought before himself how such a picture should be contrived. A fair, lovely child was found, and there would be no lack of shepherds and shepherdesses. But without Ottilie the thing could not be done. The young man had exalted her in his design to be the mother of God, and if she refused, there was no question but the undertaking must fall to the ground. Ottilie, half embarrassed at the proposal, referred him and his request to Charlotte. The latter gladly gave her permission, and lent her assistance in overcoming and overpersuading Ottilie’s hesitation in assuming so sacred a personality. The Architect worked day and night, that by Christmas-eve everything might be ready.

Day and night, indeed, in the literal sense. At all times he was a man who had but few necessities; and Ottilie’s presence seemed to be to him in the place of all delicacies. When he was working for her, it was as if he required no sleep; when he was busy about her, as if he could do without food. Accordingly, by the hour of the evening solemnity, all was completed. He had found the means of collecting some well-toned wind instruments to form an introduction, and produce the desired temper of thought and feeling. But when the curtain rose, Charlotte was taken completely by surprise. The picture which presented itself to her had been repeated so often in the world, that one could scarcely have expected any new impression to be produced. But here, the reality as representing the picture had its especial advantages. The whole space was the color rather of night than of twilight, and there was nothing even of the details of the scene which was obscure. The inimitable idea that all the light should proceed from the child, the artist had contrived to carry out by an ingenious method of illumination which was concealed by the figures in the foreground, who were all in shadow. Bright looking boys and girls were standing around, their fresh faces sharply lighted from below; and there were angels too, whose own brilliancy grew pale before the divine, whose ethereal bodies showed dim and dense, and needing other light in the presence of the body of the divine humanity. By good fortune the infant had fallen asleep in the loveliest attitude, so that nothing disturbed the contemplation when the eye rested on the seeming mother, who with infinite grace had lifted off a veil to reveal her hidden treasure. At this moment the picture seemed to have been caught, and there to have remained fixed. Physically dazzled, mentally surprised, the people round appeared to have just moved to turn away their half-blinded eyes, to be glancing again toward the child with curious delight, and to be showing more wonder and pleasure than awe and reverence — although these emotions were not forgotten, and were to be traced upon the features of some of the older spectators.

But Ottilie’s figure, expression, attitude, glance, excelled all which any painter has ever represented. A man who had true knowledge of art, and had seen this spectacle, would have been in fear lest any portion of it should move; he would have doubted whether anything could ever so much please him again. Unluckily, there was no one present who could comprehend the whole of this effect. The Architect alone, who, as a tall, slender shepherd, was looking in from the side over those who were kneeling, enjoyed, although he was not in the best position for seeing, the fullest pleasure. And who can describe the mien of the new-made queen of heaven? The purest humility, the most exquisite feeling of modesty, at the great honor which had undeservedly been bestowed upon her, with indescribable and immeasurable happiness, was displayed upon her features, expressing as much her own personal emotion as that of the character which she was endeavoring to represent.

Charlotte was delighted with the beautiful figures; but what had most effect on her was the child. Her eyes filled with tears, and her imagination presented to her in the liveliest colors the hope that she might soon have such another darling creature on her own lap.

They had let down the curtain, partly to give the exhibitors some little rest, partly to make an alteration in the exhibition. The artist had proposed to himself to transmute the first scene of night and lowliness into a picture of splendor and glory; and for this purpose had prepared a blaze of light to fall in from every side, which this interval was required to kindle.

Ottilie, in the semi-theatrical position in which she found herself, had hitherto felt perfectly at her ease, because, with the exception of Charlotte and a few members of the household, no one had witnessed this devout piece of artistic display. She was, therefore, in some degree annoyed when in the interval she learnt that a stranger had come into the saloon, and had been warmly received by Charlotte. Who it was no one was able to tell her. She therefore made up her mind not to produce a disturbance, and to go on with her character. Candles and lamps blazed out, and she was surrounded by splendor perfectly infinite. The curtain rose. It was a sight to startle the spectators. The whole picture was one blaze of light; and instead of the full depth of shadow, there now were only the colors left remaining, which, from the skill with which they had been selected, produced a gentle softening of tone. Looking out under her long eyelashes, Ottilie perceived the figure of a man sitting by Charlotte. She did not recognize him; but the voice she fancied was that of the Assistant at the school. A singular emotion came over her. How many things had happened since she last heard the voice of him, her kind instructor. Like a flash of forked lightning the stream of her joys and her sorrow rushed swiftly before her soul, and the question rose in her heart: Dare you confess, dare you acknowledge it all to him? If not, how little can you deserve to appear before him under this sainted form; and how strange must it not seem to him who has only known you as your natural self to see you now under this disguise? In an instant, swift as thought, feeling and reflection began to clash and gain within her. Her eyes filled with tears, while she forced herself to continue to appear as a motionless figure, and it was a relief, indeed, to her when the child began to stir — and the artist saw himself compelled to give the sign that the curtain should fall again.

If the painful feeling of being unable to meet a valued friend had, during the last few moments, been distressing Ottilie in addition to her other emotions, she was now in still greater embarrassment. Was she to present herself to him in this strange disguise? or had she better change her dress? She did not hesitate — she did the last; and in the interval she endeavored to collect and to compose herself; nor did she properly recover her self-possession until at last, in her ordinary costume, she had welcomed the new visitor.

CHAPTER VII

In so far as the Architect desired the happiness of his kind patronesses, it was a pleasure to him, now that at last he was obliged to go, to know that he was leaving them in good society with the estimable Assistant. At the same time, however, when he thought of their goodness in its relation to himself, he could not help feeling it a little painful to see his place so soon, and as it seemed to his modesty, so well, so completely supplied. He had lingered and lingered, but now he forced himself away; what, after he was gone, he must endure as he could, at least he could not stay to witness with his own eyes.

To the great relief of this half-melancholy feeling, the ladies at his departure made him a present of a waistcoat, upon which he had watched them both for some time past at work, with a silent envy of the fortunate unknown, to whom it was by-and-by to belong. Such a present is the most agreeable which a true-hearted man can receive; for while he thinks of the unwearied play of the beautiful fingers at the making of it, he cannot help flattering himself that in so long-sustained a labor the feeling could not have remained utterly without an interest in its accomplishment.

The ladies had now a new visitor to entertain, for whom they felt a real regard, and whose stay with them it would be their endeavor to make as agreeable as they could. There is in all women a peculiar circle of inward interests, which remain always the same, and from which nothing in the world can divorce them. In outward social intercourse, on the other hand, they will gladly and easily allow themselves to take their tone from the person with whom at the moment they are occupied; and thus by a mixture of impassiveness and susceptibility, by persisting and by yielding, they continue to keep the government to themselves, and no man in the cultivated world can ever take it from them.

The Architect, following at the same time his own fancy and his own inclination, had been exerting himself and putting out his talents for their gratification and for the purposes of his friends; and business and amusement, while he was with them, had been conducted in this spirit, and directed to the ends which most suited his taste. But now in a short time, through the presence of the Assistant, quite another sort of life was commenced. His great gift was to talk well, and to treat in his conversation of men and human relations, particularly in reference to the cultivation of young people. Thus arose a very perceptible contrast to the life which had been going on hitherto, all the more as the Assistant could not entirely approve of their having interested themselves in such subjects so exclusively.

Of the impersonated picture which received him on his arrival, he never said a single word. On the other hand, when they took him to see the church and the chapel with their new decorations, expecting to please him as much as they were pleased themselves, he did not hesitate to express a very contrary opinion about it.

“This mixing up of the holy with the sensuous,” he said, “is anything but pleasing to my taste; I cannot like men to set apart certain special places, consecrate them, and deck them out, that by so doing they may nourish in themselves a temper of piety. No ornaments, not even the very simplest, should disturb in us that sense of the Divine Being which accompanies us wherever we are, and can consecrate every spot into a temple. What pleases me is to see a home-service of God held in the saloon where people come together to eat, where they have their parties, and amuse themselves with games and dances. The highest, the most excellent in men, has no form; and one should be cautious how one gives it any form except noble action.”

Charlotte, who was already generally acquainted with his mode of thinking, and, in the short time he had been at the castle, had already probed it more deeply, found something also which he might do for her in his own department; and she had her garden-children, whom the Architect had reviewed shortly before his departure, marshalled up into the great saloon. In their bright, clean uniforms, with their regular orderly movement, and their own natural vivacity, they looked exceedingly well. The Assistant examined them in his own way, and by a variety of questions, and by the turns which he gave them, soon brought to light the capacities and dispositions of the children; and without its seeming so, in the space of less than one hour he had really given them important instruction and assistance.

“How did you manage that?” asked Charlotte, as the children marched away. “I listened with all my attention. Nothing was brought forward except things which were quite familiar, and yet I cannot tell the least how I should begin to bring them to be discussed in so short a time so methodically, with all this questioning and answering.”

“Perhaps,” replied the Assistant, “we ought to make a secret of the tricks of our own handicraft. However, I will not hide from you one very simple maxim, with the help of which you may do this, and a great deal more than this. Take any subject, a substance, an idea, whatever you like; keep fast hold of it; make yourself thoroughly acquainted with it in all its parts, and then it will be easy for you, in conversation, to find out, with a mass of children, how much about it has already developed itself in them; what requires to be stimulated, what to be directly communicated. The answers to your questions may be as unsatisfactory as they will, they may wander wide of the mark; if you only take care that your counter-question shall draw their thoughts and senses inwards again; if you do not allow yourself to be driven from your own position — the children will at last reflect, comprehend, learn only what the teacher desires them to learn, and the subject will be presented to them in the light in which he wishes them to see it. The greatest mistake which he can make is to allow himself to be run away with from the subject; not to know how to keep fast to the point with which he is engaged. Do you try this on your own account the next time the children come; you will find you will be greatly entertained by it yourself.”

“That is very good,” said Charlotte. “The right method of teaching is the reverse, I see, of what we must do in life. In society we must keep the attention long upon nothing, and in instruction the first commandment is to permit no dissipation of it.”

“Variety, without dissipation, were the best motto for both teaching and life, if this desirable equipoise were easy to be preserved,” said the Assistant; and he was going on further with the subject, when Charlotte called out to him to look again at the children, whose merry troop were at the moment moving across the court. He expressed his satisfaction at seeing them wearing a uniform. “Men,” he said, “should wear a uniform from their childhood upwards. They have to accustom themselves to work together; to lose themselves among their equals; to obey in masses, and to work on a large scale. Every kind of uniform, moreover, generates a military habit of thought, and a smart, straight-forward carriage. All boys are born soldiers, whatever you do with them. You have only to watch them at their mock fights and games, their storming parties and scaling parties.”

“On the other hand, you will not blame me,” replied Ottilie, “if I do not insist with my girls on such unity of costume. When I introduce them to you, I hope to gratify you by a parti-colored mixture.”

“I approve of that, entirely,” replied the other. “Women should go about in every sort of variety of dress; each following her own style and her own likings, that each may learn to feel what sits well upon her and becomes her. And for a more weighty reason as well — because it is appointed for them to stand alone all their lives, and work alone.”

“That seems to me to be a paradox,” answered Charlotte. “Are we then to be never anything for ourselves?”

“O, yes!” replied the Assistant. “In respect of other women assuredly. But observe a young lady as a lover, as a bride, as a housewife, as a mother. She always stands isolated. She is always alone, and will be alone. Even the most empty-headed woman is in the same case. Each one of them excludes all others. It is her nature to do so; because of each one of them is required everything which the entire sex have to do. With a man it is altogether different. He would make a second man if there were none. But a woman might live to an eternity, without even so much as thinking of producing a duplicate of herself.”

“One has only to say the truth in a strange way,” said Charlotte, “and at last the strangest thing will seem to be true. We will accept what is good for us out of your observations, and yet as women we will hold together with women, and do common work with them too; not to give the other sex too great an advantage over us. Indeed, you must not take it ill of us, if in future we come to feel a little malicious satisfaction when our lords and masters do not get on in the very best way together.”

With much care, this wise, sensible person went on to examine more closely how Ottilie proceeded with her little pupils, and expressed his marked approbation of it. “You are entirely right,” he said, “in directing these children only to what they can immediately and usefully put in practice. Cleanliness, for instance, will accustom them to wear their clothes with pleasure to themselves; and everything is gained if they can be induced to enter into what they do with cheerfulness and self-reflection.”

In other ways he found, to his great satisfaction, that nothing had been done for outward display; but all was inward, and designed to supply what was indispensably necessary. “In how few words,” he cried, “might the whole business of education be summed up, if people had but ears to hear!”

“Will you try whether I have any ears?” said Ottilie, smiling.

“Indeed I will,” answered he, “only you must not betray me. Educate the boys to be servants, and the girls to be mothers, and everything is as it should be.”

“To be mothers?” replied Ottilie. “Women would scarcely think that sufficient. They have to look forward, without being mothers, to going out into service. And, indeed, our young men think themselves a great deal too good for servants. One can see easily, in every one of them, that he holds himself far fitter to be a master.”

“And for that reason we should say nothing about it to them,” said the Assistant. “We flatter ourselves on into life; but life flatters not us. How many men would like to acknowledge at the outset, what at the end they must acknowledge whether they like it or not? But let us leave these considerations, which do not concern us here.

“I consider you very fortunate in having been able to go so methodically to work with your pupils. If your very little ones run about with their dolls, and stitch together a few petticoats for them; if the elder sisters will then take care of the younger, and the whole household know how to supply its own wants, and one member of it help the others, the further step into life will not then be great, and such a girl will find in her husband what she has lost in her parents.

“But among the higher ranks the problem is a sorely intricate one. We have to provide for higher, finer, more delicate relations; especially for such as arise out of society. We are, therefore, obliged to give our pupils an outward cultivation. It is indispensable, it is necessary, and it may be really valuable, if we do not overstep the proper measure in it. Only it is so easy, while one is proposing to cultivate the children for a wider circle, to drive them out into the indefinite, without keeping before our eyes the real requisites of the inner nature. Here lies the problem which more or less must be either solved or blundered over by all educators.

“Many things, with which we furnish our scholars at the school, do not please me; because experience tells me of how little service they are likely to be in after-life. How much is in a little while stripped off; how much at once committed to oblivion, as soon as the young lady finds herself in the position of a housewife or a mother!

“In the meantime, since I have devoted myself to this occupation, I cannot but entertain a devout hope that one day, with the companionship of some faithful helpmate, I may succeed in cultivating purely in my pupils that, and that only, which they will require when they pass out into the field of independent activity and self-reliance; that I may be able to say to myself, in this sense is their education completed. Another education there is indeed which will again speedily recommence, and work on well nigh through all the years of our life — the education which circumstances will give us, if we do not give it to ourselves.”

How true Ottilie felt were these words! What had not a passion, little dreamed of before, done to educate her in the past year! What trials did she not see hovering before her if she looked forward only to the next — to the very next, which was now so near!

It was not without a purpose that the young man had spoken of a helpmate — of a wife; for with all his diffidence, he could not refrain from thus remotely hinting at his own wishes. A number of circumstances and accidents, indeed, combined to induce him on this visit to approach a few steps toward his aim.

The Lady Superior of the school was advanced in years. She had been already for some time looking about among her fellow-laborers, male and female, for some person whom she could take into partnership with herself, and at last had made proposals to the Assistant, in whom she had the highest ground for feeling confidence. He was to conduct the business of the school with herself. He was to work with her in it, as if it was his own; and after her death, as her heir, to enter upon it as sole proprietor.

The principal thing now seemed to be, that he should find a wife who would cooperate with him. Ottilie was secretly before his eyes and before his heart. A number of difficulties suggested themselves, and yet again there were favorable circumstances on the other side to counterbalance them. Luciana had left the school; Ottilie could therefore return with the less difficulty. Of the affair with Edward, some little had transpired. It passed, however, as many such things do, as a matter of indifference, and this very circumstance might make it desirable that she should leave the castle. And yet, perhaps, no decision would have been arrived at, no step would have been taken, had not an unexpected visit given a special impulse to his hesitation. The appearance of remarkable people, in any and every circle, can never be without its effects.

The Count and the Baroness, who often found themselves asked for their opinion, almost every one being in difficulty about the education of their children, as to the value of the various schools, had found it desirable to make themselves particularly acquainted with this one, which was generally so well spoken of; and under their present circumstances, they were more easily able to carry on these inquiries in company.

The Baroness, however, had something else in view as well. While she was last at the castle, she had talked over with Charlotte the whole affair of Edward and Ottilie. She had insisted again and again that Ottilie must be sent away. She tried every means to encourage Charlotte to do it, and to keep her from being frightened by Edward’s threats. Several modes of escape from the difficulty were suggested. Accidentally the school was mentioned, and the Assistant and his incipient passion, which made the Baroness more resolved than ever to pay her intended visit there.

She went; she made acquaintance with the Assistant; looked over the establishment, and spoke of Ottilie. The Count also spoke with much interest of her, having in his recent visit learnt to know her better. She had been drawn toward him; indeed, she had felt attracted by him; believing that she could see, that she could perceive in his solid, substantial conversation, something to which hitherto she had been an entire stranger. In her intercourse with Edward, the world had been utterly forgotten; in the presence of the Count, the world appeared first worth regarding. The attraction was mutual. The Count conceived a liking for Ottilie; he would have been glad to have had her for a daughter. Thus a second time, and worse than the first time, she was in the way of the Baroness. Who knows what, in times when passions ran hotter than they do now-a-days, this lady might not have devised against her? As things were, it was enough if she could get her married, and render her more innocuous for the future to the peace of mind of married women. She therefore artfully urged the Assistant, in a delicate, but effective manner, to set out on a little excursion to the castle; where his plans and his wishes, of which he made no secret to the lady, he might forthwith take steps to realize.

With the fullest consent of the Superior he started off on his expedition, and in his heart he nourished good hopes of success. He knew that Ottilie was not ill-disposed toward him; and although it was true there was some disproportion of rank between them, yet distinctions of this kind were fast disappearing in the temper of the time. Moreover, the Baroness had made him perceive clearly that Ottilie must always remain a poor, portionless maiden. To be related to a wealthy family, it was said, could be of service to nobody. For even with the largest property, men have a feeling that it is not right to deprive of any considerable sum, those who, as standing in a nearer degree of relationship, appear to have a fuller right to possession; and really it is a strange thing, that the immense privilege which a man has of disposing of his property after his death, he so very seldom uses for the benefit of those whom he loves, only out of regard to established usage appearing to consider those who would inherit his estate from him, supposing he made no will at all.

Thus, while on his journey, he grew to feel himself entirely on a level with Ottilie. A favorable reception raised his hopes. He found Ottilie indeed not altogether so open with him as usual, but she was considerably matured, more developed, and, if you please, generally more conversible than he had known her. She was ready to give him the fullest insight into many things which were in any way connected with his profession; but when he attempted to approach his proper object, a certain inward shyness always held him back.

Once, however, Charlotte gave him an opportunity for saying something. In Ottilie’s presence she said to him, “Well now, you have looked closely enough into everything which is going forward in my circle. How do you find Ottilie? You had better say while she is here.”

Hereupon the Assistant signified, with a clear perception and composed expression, how that, in respect of a freer carriage, of an easier manner in speaking, of a higher insight into the things of the world, which showed itself more in actions than in words, he found Ottilie altered much for the better; but that he still believed it might be of serious advantage to her if she would go back for some little time to the school, in order methodically and thoroughly to make her own forever what the world was only imparting to her in fragments and pieces, rather perplexing her than satisfying her, and often too late to be of service. He did not wish to be prolix about it. Ottilie herself knew best how much method and connection there was in the style of instruction out of which, in that case, she would be taken.

Ottilie had nothing to say against this; she could not acknowledge what it was which these words made her feel, because she was hardly able to explain it to herself. It seemed to her as if nothing in the world was disconnected so long as she thought of the one person whom she loved; and she could not conceive how, without him, anything could be connected at all.

Charlotte replied to the proposal with a wise kindness. She said that she herself, as well as Ottilie, had long desired her return to the school. At that time, however, the presence of so dear a companion and helper had become indispensable to herself; still she would offer no obstacle at some future period, if Ottilie continued to wish it, to her going back there for such a time as would enable her to complete what she had begun, and to make entirely her own what had been interrupted.

The Assistant listened with delight to this qualified assent. Ottilie did not venture to say anything against it, although the very thought made her shudder. Charlotte, on her side, thought only how to gain time. She hoped that Edward would soon come back and find himself a happy father; then she was convinced all would go right; and one way or another they would be able to settle something for Ottilie.

After an important conversation which has furnished matter for after-reflection to all who have taken part in it, there commonly follows a sort of pause, which in appearance is like a general embarrassment. They walked up and down the saloon. The Assistant turned over the leaves of various books, and came at last on the folio of engravings which had remained lying there since Luciana’s time. As soon as he saw that it contained nothing but apes, he shut it up again.

It may have been this, however, which gave occasion to a conversation of which we find traces in Ottilie’s diary.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“It is strange how men can have the heart to take such pains with the pictures of those hideous monkeys. One lowers one’s-self sufficiently when one looks at them merely as animals, but it is really wicked to give way to the inclination to look for people whom we know behind such masks.”

“It is a sure mark of a certain obliquity, to take pleasure in caricatures and monstrous faces, and pigmies. I have to thank our kind Assistant that I have never been vexed with natural history; I could never make myself at home with worms and beetles.”

“Just now he acknowledged to me, that it was the same with him. ‘Of nature,’ he said, ‘we ought to know nothing except what is actually alive immediately around us. With the trees which blossom and put out leaves and bear fruit in our own neighborhood, with every shrub which we pass by, with every blade of grass on which we tread, we stand in a real relation. They are our genuine compatriots. The birds which hop up and down among our branches, which sing among our leaves, belong to us; they speak to us from our childhood upward, and we learn to understand their language. But let a man ask himself whether or not every strange creature, torn out of its natural environment, does not at first sight make a sort of painful impression upon him, which is only deadened by custom. It is a mark of a motley, dissipated sort of life, to be able to endure monkeys, and parrots, and black people, about one’s self.”

“Many times when a certain longing curiosity about these strange objects has come over me, I have envied the traveler who sees such marvels in living, everyday connection with other marvels. But he, too, must have become another man. Palm-trees will not allow a man to wander among them with impunity; and doubtless his tone of thinking becomes very different in a land where elephants and tigers are at home.”

“The only inquirers into nature whom we care to respect, are such as know how to describe and to represent to us the strange wonderful things which they have seen in their proper locality, each in its own especial element. How I should enjoy once hearing Humboldt talk!”

“A cabinet of natural curiosities we may regard like an Egyptian burying-place, where the various plant gods and animal gods stand about embalmed. It may be well enough for a priest-caste to busy itself with such things in a twilight of mystery. But in general instruction, they have no place or business; and we must beware of them all the more, because what is nearer to us, and more valuable, may be so easily thrust aside by them.”

“A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form. For what is the result of all these, except what we know as well without them, that the human figure preëminently and peculiarly is made in the image and likeness of God?”

“Individuals may be left to occupy themselves with whatever amuses them, with whatever gives them pleasure, whatever they think useful; but ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’“

CHAPTER VIII

There are but few men who care to occupy themselves with the immediate past. Either we are forcibly bound up in the present, or we lose ourselves in the long gone-by, and seek back for what is utterly lost, as if it were possible to summon it up again, and rehabilitate it. Even in great and wealthy families who are under large obligations to their ancestors, we commonly find men thinking more of their grandfathers than their fathers.

Such reflections as these suggested themselves to our Assistant, as, on one of those beautiful days in which the departing winter is accustomed to imitate the spring, he had been walking up and down the great old castle garden, and admiring the tall avenues of the lindens, and the formal walks and flower-beds which had been laid out by Edward’s father. The trees had thriven admirably, according to the design of him who had planted them, and now when they ought to have begun to be valued and enjoyed, no one ever spoke of them. Hardly any one even went near them, and the interest and the outlay was now directed to the other side, out into the free and the open.

He remarked upon it to Charlotte on his return; she did not take it unkindly. “While life is sweeping us forward,” she replied, “we fancy that we are acting out our own impulses; we believe that we choose ourselves what we will do, and what we will enjoy. But in fact, if we look at it closely, our actions are no more than the plans and the desires of the time which we are compelled to carry out.”

“No doubt,” said the Assistant. “And who is strong enough to withstand the stream of what is around him? Time passes on, and in it, opinions, thoughts, prejudices, and interests. If the youth of the son falls in the era of revolution, we may feel assured that he will have nothing in common with his father. If the father lived at a time when the desire was to accumulate property, to secure the possession of it, to narrow and to gather one’s-self in, and to base one’s enjoyment in separation from the world, the son will at once seek to extend himself, to communicate himself to others, to spread himself over a wide surface, and open out his closed stores.”

“Entire periods,” replied Charlotte, “resemble this father and son whom you have been describing. Of the state of things when every little town was obliged to have its walls and moats, when the castle of the nobleman was built in a swamp, and the smallest manor-houses were only accessible by a draw-bridge, we are scarcely able to form a conception. In our days, the largest cities take down their walls, the moats of the princes’ castles are filled in; cities are no more than great places, and when one travels and sees all this, one might fancy that universal peace was just established, and the golden age was before the door. No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country. There must be nothing to remind him of form and constraint, we choose to be entirely free, and to draw our breath without sense of confinement. Do you conceive it possible, my friend, that we can ever return again out of this into another, into our former condition?”

“Why should we not?” replied the Assistant. “Every condition has its own burden along with it, the most relaxed as well as the most constrained. The first presupposes abundance, and leads to extravagance. Let want reappear, and the spirit of moderation is at once with us again. Men who are obliged to make use of their space and their soil, will speedily enough raise walls up round their gardens to be sure of their crops and plants. Out of this will arise by degrees a new phase of things: the useful will again gain the upper hand; and even the man of large possessions will feel at last that he must make the most of all which belongs to him. Believe me, it is quite possible that your son may become indifferent to all which you have been doing in the park, and draw in again behind the solemn walls and the tall lindens of his grandfather.”

The secret pleasure which it gave Charlotte to have a son foretold to her, made her forgive the Assistant his somewhat unfriendly prophecy of how it might one day fare with her lovely, beautiful park. She therefore answered without any discomposure: “You and I are not old enough yet to have lived through very much of these contradictions; and yet when I look back into my own early youth, when I remember the style of complaints which I used then to hear from older people, and when I think at the same time of what the country and the town then were, I have nothing to advance against what you say. But is there nothing which one can do to remedy this natural course of things? Are father and son, parents and children, to be always thus unable to understand each other? You have been so kind as to prophesy a boy to me. Is it necessary that he must stand in contradiction to his father? Must he destroy what his parents have erected, instead of completing it, instead of following on upon the same idea, and elevating it?”

“There is a rational remedy for it,” replied the Assistant. “But it is one which will be but seldom put in practice by men. The father should raise his son to a joint ownership with himself. He should permit him to plant and to build; and allow him the same innocent liberty which he allows to himself. One form of activity may be woven into another, but it cannot be pieced on to it. A young shoot may be readily and easily grafted with an old stem, to which no grown branch admits of being fastened.”

The Assistant was glad to have had the opportunity, at the moment when he saw himself obliged to take his leave, of saying something agreeable to Charlotte, and thus making himself a new link to secure her favor. He had been already too long absent from home, and yet he could not make up his mind to return there until after a full conviction that he must allow the approaching epoch of Charlotte’s confinement first to pass by before he could look for any decision from her in respect to Ottilie. He therefore accommodated himself to the circumstances, and returned with these prospects and hopes to the Superior.

Charlotte’s confinement was now approaching; she kept more in her own room. The ladies who had gathered about her were her closest companions. Ottilie managed all domestic matters, hardly able, however, the while, to think what she was doing. She had indeed utterly resigned herself; she desired to continue to exert herself to the extent of her power for Charlotte, for the child, for Edward. But she could not see how it would be possible for her. Nothing could save her from utter distraction, except patiently to do the duty which each day brought with it.

A son was brought happily into the world, and the ladies declared, with one voice, it was the very image of its father. Only Ottilie, as she wished the new mother joy, and kissed the child with all her heart, was unable to see the likeness. Once already Charlotte had felt most painfully the absence of her husband, when she had to make preparations for her daughter’s marriage. And now the father could not be present at the birth of his son. He could not have the choosing of the name by which the child was hereafter to be called.

The first among all Charlotte’s friends who came to wish her joy was Mittler. He had placed expresses ready to bring him news the instant the event took place. He was admitted to see her, and, scarcely able to conceal his triumph even before Ottilie, when alone with Charlotte he broke fairly out with it; and was at once ready with means to remove all anxieties, and set aside all immediate difficulties. The baptism should not be delayed a day longer than necessary. The old clergyman, who had one foot already in the grave, should leave his blessing, to bind together the past and the future. The child should be called Otto; what name would he bear so fitly as that of his father and of his father’s friend?

It required the peremptory resolution of this man to set aside the innumerable considerations, arguments, hesitations, difficulties; what this person knew, and that person knew better; the opinions, up and down, and backward and forward, which every friend volunteered. It always happens on such occasions that when one inconvenience is removed, a fresh inconvenience seems to arise; and in wishing to spare all sides, we inevitably go wrong on one side or the other.

The letters to friends and relations were all undertaken by Mittler, and they were to be written and sent off at once. It was highly necessary, he thought, that the good fortune which he considered so important for the family, should be known as widely as possible through the ill-natured and misinterpreting world. For indeed these late entanglements and perplexities had got abroad among the public, which at all times has a conviction that, whatever happens, happens only in order that it may have something to talk about.

The ceremony of the baptism was to be observed with all due honor, but it was to be as brief and as private as possible. The people came together; Ottilie and Mittler were to hold the child as sponsors. The old pastor, supported by the servants of the church, came in with slow steps; the prayers were offered. The child lay in Ottilie’s arms, and as she was looking affectionately down at it, it opened its eyes and she was not a little startled when she seemed to see her own eyes looking at her. The likeness would have surprised any one. Mittler, who next had to receive the child, started as well; he fancying he saw in the little features a most striking likeness to the Captain. He had never seen a resemblance so marked.

The infirmity of the good old clergyman had not permitted him to accompany the ceremony with more than the usual liturgy.

Mittler, however, who was full of his subject, recollected his old performances when he had been in the ministry, and indeed it was one of his peculiarities that, on every sort of occasion, he always thought what he would like to say, and how he would express himself about it.

At this time he was the less able to contain himself, as he was now in the midst of a circle consisting entirely of well-known friends. He began, therefore, toward the conclusion of the service, to put himself quietly into the place of the clergyman; to make cheerful speeches aloud, expressive of his duty and his hopes as godfather, and to dwell all the longer on the subject, as he thought he saw in Charlotte’s gratified manner that she was pleased with his doing so.

It altogether escaped the eagerness of the orator, that the good old man would gladly have sat down; still less did he think that he was on the way to occasion a more serious evil. After he had described with all his power of impressiveness the relation in which every person present stood toward the child, thereby putting Ottilie’s composure sorely to the proof, he turned at last to the old man with the words, “And you, my worthy father, you may now well say with Simeon, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the savior of this house.’“

He was now in full swing toward a brilliant peroration, when he perceived the old man to whom he held out the child, first appear a little to incline toward it, and immediately after to totter and sink backward. Hardly prevented from falling, he was lifted to a seat; but, notwithstanding the instant assistance which was rendered, he was found to be dead.

To see thus side by side birth and death, the coffin and the cradle, to see them and to realize them, to comprehend not with the eye of imagination, but with the bodily eye, at one moment these fearful opposites, was a hard trial to the spectators; the harder, the more utterly it had taken them by surprise. Ottilie alone stood contemplating the slumberer, whose features still retained their gentle sweet expression, with a kind of envy. The life of her soul was killed; why should the bodily life any longer drag on in weariness?

But though Ottilie was frequently led by melancholy incidents which occurred in the day to thoughts of the past, of separation and of loss, at night she had strange visions given her to comfort her, which assured her of the existence of her beloved, and thus strengthened her, and gave her life for her own. When she laid herself down at night to rest, and was floating among sweet sensations between sleep and waking, she seemed to be looking into a clear but softly illuminated space. In this she would see Edward with the greatest distinctness, and not in the dress in which she had been accustomed to see him, but in military uniform; never in the same position, but always in a natural one, and not the least with anything fantastic about him, either standing or walking, or lying down or riding. The figure, which was painted with the utmost minuteness, moved readily before her without any effort of hers, without her willing it or exerting her imagination to produce it. Frequently she saw him surrounded with something in motion, which was darker than the bright ground; but the figures were shadowy, and she could scarcely distinguish them — sometimes they were like men, sometimes they were like horses, or like trees, or like mountains. She usually went to sleep in the midst of the apparition, and when, after a quiet night, she woke again in the morning, she felt refreshed and comforted; she could say to herself, Edward still lives, and she herself was still remaining in the closest relation toward him.

CHAPTER IX

The spring was come; it was late, but it therefore burst out more rapidly and more exhilaratingly than usual. Ottilie now found in the garden the fruits of her carefulness. Everything shot up and came out in leaf and flower at its proper time. A number of plants which she had been training up under glass frames and in hotbeds, now burst forward at once to meet, at last, the advances of nature; and whatever there was to do, and to take care of, it did not remain the mere labor of hope which it had been, but brought its reward in immediate and substantial enjoyment.

There was many a chasm, however, among the finest shoots produced by Luciana’s wild ways, for which she had to console the gardener, and the symmetry of many a leafy coronet was destroyed. She tried to encourage him to hope that it would all be soon restored again, but he had too deep a feeling, and too pure an idea of the nature of his business, for such grounds of comfort to be of much service to him. Little as the gardener allowed himself to have his attention dissipated by other tastes and inclinations, he could the less bear to have the peaceful course interrupted which the plant follows toward its enduring or its transient perfection. A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way. A calm eye, a silent method, in all seasons of the year, and at every hour, to do exactly what has then to be done, is required of no one perhaps more than of a gardener. These qualities the good man possessed in an eminent degree, and it was on that account that Ottilie liked so well to work with him; but for some time past he had not found himself able to exercise his peculiar talent with any pleasure to himself. Whatever concerned the fruit-gardening or kitchen-gardening, as well as whatever had in time past been required in the ornamental gardens, he understood perfectly. One man succeeds in one thing, another in another; he succeeded in these. In his management of the orangery, of the bulbous flowers, in budding shoots and growing cuttings from the carnations and auriculas, he might challenge nature herself. But the new ornamental shrubs and fashionable flowers remained in a measure strange to him. He had a kind of shyness of the endless field of botany, which had been lately opening itself, and the strange names humming about his ears made him cross and ill-tempered. The orders for flowers which had been made by his lord and lady in the course of the past year, he considered so much useless waste and extravagance — all the more, as he saw many valuable plants disappear, and as he had ceased to stand on the best possible terms with the nursery gardeners, who, he fancied, had not been serving him honestly.

Consequently, after a number of attempts, he had formed a sort of a plan, in which Ottilie encouraged him the more readily because its first essential condition was the return of Edward, whose absence in this, as in many other matters, every day had to be felt more and more seriously.

Now that the plants were ever striking new roots, and putting out their shoots, Ottilie felt herself even more fettered to this spot. It was just a year since she had come there as a stranger, as a mere insignificant creature. How much had she not gained for herself since that time! but, alas! how much had she not also since that time lost again! Never had she been so rich, and never so poor. The feelings of her loss and of her gain alternated momentarily one with another, chasing each other through her heart; and she could find no other means to help herself, except always to set to work again at what lay nearest to her, with such interest and eagerness as she could command.

That everything which she knew to be dear to Edward received especial care from her may be supposed. And why should she not hope that he himself would now soon come back again; and that, when present, he would show himself grateful for all the care and pains which she had taken for him in his absence?

But there was also a far different employment which she took upon herself in his service; she had undertaken the principal charge of the child, whose immediate attendant it was all the easier for her to be, as they had determined not to put it into the hands of a nurse, but to bring it up themselves by hand with milk and water. In the beautiful season it was much out of doors, enjoying the free air, and Ottilie liked best to take it out herself, to carry the unconscious sleeping infant among the flowers and blossoms which should one day smile so brightly on its childhood — among the young shrubs and plants, which, by their youth, seemed designed to grow up with the young lord to their after-stature. When she looked about her, she did not hide from herself to what a high position that child was born: far and wide, wherever the eye could see, all would one day belong to him. How desirable, how necessary it must therefore be, that it should grow up under the eyes of its father and its mother, and renew and strengthen the union between them!

Ottilie saw all this so clearly that she represented it to herself as conclusively decided, and for herself, as concerned with it, she never felt at all. Under this fair heaven, by this bright sunshine, at once it became clear to her, that her love if it would perfect itself, must become altogether unselfish; and there were many moments in which she believed it was an elevation which she had already attained. She only desired the well-being of her friend. She fancied herself able to resign him, and never to see him any more, if she could only know that he was happy. The one only determination which she formed for herself was never to belong to another.

They had taken care that the autumn should be no less brilliant than the spring. Sun-flowers were there, and all the other plants which are never tired of blossoming in autumn, and continue boldly on into the cold; asters especially were sown in the greatest abundance, and scattered about in all directions to form a starry heaven upon the earth.

FROM OTTILIE’S DIARY

“Any good thought which we have read, anything striking which we have heard, we commonly enter in our diary; but if we would take the trouble, at the same time, to copy out of our friends’ letters the remarkable observations, the original ideas, the hasty words so pregnant in meaning, which we might find in them, we should then be rich indeed. We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverably for ourselves and for others. I intend to make amends in future for such neglect.”

“So, then, once more the old story of the year is being repeated over again. We are come now, thank God, again to its most charming chapter. The violets and the may-flowers are as its superscriptions and its vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression on us when we open again at these pages in the book of life.”

“We find fault with the poor, particularly with the little ones among them, when they loiter about the streets and beg. Do we not observe that they begin to work again, as soon as ever there is anything for them to do? Hardly has nature unfolded her smiling treasures, than the children are at once upon her track to open out a calling for themselves. None of them begs any more; they have each a nosegay to offer you; they were out and gathering it before you had awakened out of your sleep, and the supplicating face looks as sweetly at you as the present which the hand is holding out. No person ever looks miserable who feels that he has a right to make a demand upon you.”

“How is it that the year sometimes seems so short, and sometimes is so long? How is it that it is so short when it is passing, and so long as we look back over it? When I think of the past (and it never comes so powerfully over me as in the garden), I feel how the perishing and the enduring work one upon the other, and there is nothing whose endurance is so brief as not to leave behind it some trace of itself, something in its own likeness.”

“We are able to tolerate the winter. We fancy that we can extend ourselves more freely when the trees are so spectral, so transparent. They are nothing, but they conceal nothing; but when once the germs and buds begin to show, then we become impatient for the full foliage to come out, for the landscape to put on its body, and the tree to stand before us as a form.”

“Everything which is perfect in its kind must pass out beyond and transcend its kind. It must be an inimitable something of another and a higher nature. In many of its tones the nightingale is only a bird; then it rises up above its class, and seems as if it would teach every feathered creature what singing really is.”

“A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is but poor comédie à tiroir. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste to the next. Even what we know to be good and important hangs but wearily together; every step is an end, and every step is a fresh beginning.”

CHAPTER X.

Charlotte meanwhile was well and in good spirits. She was happy in her beautiful boy, whose fair promising little form every hour was a delight to both her eyes and heart. In him she found a new link to connect her with the world and with her property. Her old activity began anew to stir in her again.

Look which way she would, she saw how much had been done in the year that was past, and it was a pleasure to her to contemplate it. Enlivened by the strength of these feelings, she climbed up to the summer-house with Ottilie and the child, and as she laid the latter down on the little table, as on the altar of her house, and saw the two seats still vacant, she thought of gone-by times, and fresh hopes rose out before her for herself and for Ottilie.

Young ladies, perhaps, look timidly round them at this or that young man, carrying on a silent examination, whether they would like to have him for a husband; but whoever has a daughter or a female ward to care for, takes a wider circle in her survey. And so it fared at this moment with Charlotte, to whom, as she thought of how they had once sat side by side in that summer-house, a union did not seem impossible between the Captain and Ottilie. It had not remained unknown to her, that the plans for the advantageous marriage, which had been proposed to the Captain, had come to nothing.

Charlotte went on up the cliff, and Ottilie carried the child. A number of reflections crowded upon the former. Even on the firm land there are frequent enough ship-wrecks, and the true, wise conduct is to recover ourselves, and refit our vessel at fast as possible. Is life to be calculated only by its gains and losses? Who has not made arrangement on arrangement, and has not seen them broken in pieces? How often does not a man strike into a road and lose it again! How often are we not turned aside from one point which we had sharply before our eye, but only to reach some higher stage. The traveler, to his greatest annoyance, breaks a wheel upon his journey, and through this unpleasant accident makes some charming acquaintance, and forms some new connection, which has an influence on all his life. Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

Among these and similar reflections they reached the new building on the hill, where they intended to establish themselves for the summer. The view all round them was far more beautiful than could have been supposed; every little obstruction had been removed; all the loveliness of the landscape, whatever nature, whatever the season of the year had done for it, came out in its beauty before the eye; and already the young plantations, which had been made to fill up a few openings, were beginning to look green, and to form an agreeable connecting link between parts which before stood separate.

The house itself was nearly habitable; the views, particularly from the upper rooms, were of the richest variety. The longer you looked round you, the more beauties you discovered. What magnificent effects would not be produced here at the different hours of day — by sunlight and by moonlight? Nothing could be more delightful than to come and live there, and now that she found all the rough work finished, Charlotte longed to be busy again. An upholsterer, a tapestry-hanger, a painter, who could lay on the colors with patterns, and a little gilding, were all which were required, and these were soon found, and in a short time the building was completed. Kitchen and cellar stores were quickly laid in; being so far from the castle, it was necessary to have all essentials provided; and the two ladies with the child went up and settled there. From this residence, as from a new centre point, unknown walks opened out to them, and in these high regions the free, fresh air and the beautiful weather were thoroughly delightful.

Ottilie’s favorite walk, sometimes alone, sometimes with the child, was down below, toward the plane-trees, along a pleasant footpath leading directly to the point where one of the boats was kept chained in which people used to go across the water. She often indulged herself in an expedition on the water, only without the child, as Charlotte was a little uneasy about it. She never missed, however, paying a daily visit to the castle garden and the gardener, and going to look with him at his show of greenhouse plants, which were all out now, enjoying the free air.

At this beautiful season, Charlotte was much pleased to receive a visit from an English nobleman, who had made acquaintance with Edward abroad, having met him more than once, and who was now curious to see the laying out of his park, which he had heard so much admired. He brought with him a letter of introduction from the Count, and introduced at the same time a quiet but most agreeable man as his traveling companion. He went about seeing everything, sometimes with Charlotte and Ottilie, sometimes with the gardeners and the foresters, often with his friend, and now and then alone; and they could perceive clearly from his observations that he took an interest in such matters, and understood them well; indeed, that he had himself probably executed many such.

Although he was now advanced in life, he entered warmly into everything which could serve for an ornament to life, or contribute anything to its importance.

In his presence, the ladies came first properly to enjoy what was around them. His practised eye received every effect in its freshness, and he found all the more pleasure in what was before him, as he had not previously known the place, and was scarcely able to distinguish what man had done there from what nature had presented to him ready made.

We may even say that through his remarks the park grew and enriched itself; he was able to anticipate in their fulfilment the promises of the growing plantations. There was not a spot where there was any effect which could be either heightened or produced, but what he observed it.

In one place he pointed to a fountain which, if it was cleaned out, promised to be the most beautiful spot for a picnic party; in another, to a cave which had only to be enlarged and swept clear of rubbish to form a desirable seat. A few trees might be cut down, and a view would be opened from it of some grand masses of rock, towering magnificently against the sky. He wished the owners joy that so much was still remaining for them to do, and he besought them not to be in a hurry about it, but to keep for themselves for years to come the pleasures of shaping and improving.

At the hours which the ladies usually spent alone he was never in the way, for he was occupied the greatest part of the day in catching such views in the park as would make good paintings, in a portable camera obscura, and drawing from them, in order to secure some desirable fruits from his travels for himself and others. For many years past he had been in the habit of doing this in all remarkable places which he visited, and had provided himself by it with a most charming and interesting collection. He showed the ladies a large portfolio which he had brought with him, and entertained them with the pictures and with descriptions. And it was a real delight to them, here in their solitude, to travel so pleasantly over the world, and see sweep past them, shores and havens, mountains, lakes, and rivers, cities, castles, and a hundred other localities which have a name in history.

Each of the two ladies had an especial interest in it — Charlotte the more general interest in whatever was historically remarkable; Ottilie dwelling in preference on the scenes of which Edward used most to talk — where he liked best to stay, and which he would most often revisit. Every man has somewhere, far or near, his peculiar localities which attract him; scenes which, according to his character, either from first impressions, or from particular associations, or from habit, have a charm for him beyond all others.

She, therefore, asked the Earl which, of all these places, pleased him best, where he would like to settle, and live for himself, if he might choose. There was more than one lovely spot which he pointed out, with what had happened to him there to make him love and value it; and the peculiar accentuated French in which he spoke made it most pleasant to listen to him.

To the further question, which was his ordinary residence that he properly considered his home, he replied, without any hesitation, in a manner quite unexpected by the ladies:

“I have accustomed myself by this time to be at home everywhere, and I find, after all, that it is much more agreeable to allow others to plant, and build, and keep house for me. I have no desire to return to my own possessions, partly on political grounds, but principally because my son, for whose sake alone it was any pleasure to me to remain and work there — who will, by-and-by, inherit it, and with whom I hoped to enjoy it — took no interest in the place at all, but has gone out to India, where, like many other foolish fellows, he fancies he can make a higher use of his life. He is more likely to squander it.

“Assuredly we spend far too much labor and outlay in preparation for life. Instead of beginning at once to make ourselves happy in a moderate condition, we spread ourselves out wider and wider, only to make ourselves more and more uncomfortable. Who is there now to enjoy my mansion, my park, my gardens? Not I, nor any of mine — strangers, visitors, or curious, restless travelers.

“Even with large means, we are ever but half and half at home, especially in the country, where we miss many things to which we have become accustomed in town. The book for which we are most anxious is not to be had, and just the thing which we most wanted is forgotten. We take to being domestic, only again to go out of ourselves; if we do not go astray of our own will and caprice, circumstances, passions, accidents, necessity, and one does not know what besides, manage it for us.”

Little did the Earl imagine how deeply his friend would be touched by these random observations. It is a danger to which we are all of us exposed when we venture on general remarks in a society the circumstances of which we might have supposed were well enough known to us. Such casual wounds, even from well-meaning, kindly-disposed people, were nothing new to Charlotte. She so clearly, so thoroughly knew and understood the world, that it gave her no particular pain if it did happen that through somebody’s thoughtlessness or imprudence she had her attention forced into this or that unpleasant direction. But it was very different with Ottilie. At her half-conscious age, at which she rather felt than saw, and at which she was disposed, indeed was obliged, to turn her eyes away from what she should not or would not see, Ottilie was thrown by this melancholy conversation into the most pitiable state. It rudely tore away the pleasant veil from before her eyes, and it seemed to her as if everything which had been done all this time for house and court, for park and garden, for all their wide environs, were utterly in vain, because he to whom it all belonged could not enjoy it; because he, like their present visitor, had been driven out to wander up and down in the world — and, indeed, in the most perilous paths of it — by those who were nearest and dearest to him. She was accustomed to listen in silence, but on this occasion she sat on in the most painful condition; which, indeed, was made rather worse than better by what the stranger went on to say, as he continued with his peculiar, humorous gravity:

“I think I am now on the right way. I look upon myself steadily as a traveler, who renounces many things in order to enjoy more. I am accustomed to change; it has become, indeed, a necessity to me; just as in the opera, people are always looking out for new and newer decorations, because there have already been so many. I know very well what I am to expect from the best hotels, and what from the worst. It may be as good or it may be as bad as it will, but I nowhere find anything to which I am accustomed, and in the end it comes to much the same thing whether we depend for our enjoyment entirely on the regular order of custom, or entirely on the caprices of accident. I have never had to vex myself now, because this thing is mislaid, or that thing is lost; because the room in which I live is uninhabitable, and I must have it repaired; because somebody has broken my favorite cup, and for a long time nothing tastes well out of any other. All this I am happily raised above. If the house catches fire about my ears, my people quietly pack my things up, and we pass away out of the town in search of other quarters. And considering all these advantages, when I reckon carefully, I calculate that, by the end of the year, I have not sacrificed more than it would have cost me to be at home.”

In this description Ottilie saw nothing but Edward before her; how he too was now amidst discomfort and hardship, marching along untrodden roads, lying out in the fields in danger and want, and in all this insecurity and hazard growing accustomed to be homeless and friendless, learning to fling away everything that he might have nothing to lose. Fortunately, the party separated for a short time. Ottilie escaped to her room, where she could give way to her tears. No weight of sorrow had ever pressed so heavily upon her as this clear perception (which she tried, as people usually do, to make still clearer to herself), that men love to dally with and exaggerate the evils which circumstances have once begun to inflict upon them.

The state in which Edward was came before her in a light so piteous, so miserable, that she made up her mind, let it cost her what it would, that she would do everything in her power to unite him again with Charlotte, and she herself would go and hide her sorrow and her love in some silent scene, and beguile the time with such employment as she could find.

Meanwhile the Earl’s companion, a quiet, sensible man and a keen observer, had remarked the new trend in the conversation, and spoke to his friend about it. The latter knew nothing of the circumstances of the family; but the other being one of those persons whose principal interest in traveling lay in gathering up the strange occurrences which arose out of the natural or artificial relations of society, which were produced by the conflict of the restraint of law with the violence of the will, of the understanding with the reason, of passion with prejudice — had some time before made himself acquainted with the outline of the story, and since he had been in the family had learnt exactly all that had taken place, and the present position in which things were standing.

The Earl, of course, was very sorry, but it was not a thing to make him uneasy. A man must hold his tongue altogether in society if he is never to find himself in such a position; for not only remarks with meaning in them, but the most trivial expressions, may happen to clash in an inharmonious key with the interest of somebody present.

“We will set things right this evening,” said he, “and escape from any general conversation; you shall let them hear one of the many charming anecdotes with which your portfolio and your memory have enriched themselves while we have been abroad.”

However, with the best intentions, the strangers did not, on this next occasion, succeed any better in gratifying their friends with unalloyed entertainment. The Earl’s friend told a number of singular stories — some serious, some amusing, some touching, some terrible — with which he had roused their attention and strained their interest to the highest tension, and he thought to conclude with a strange but softer incident, little dreaming how nearly it would touch his listeners.

THE TWO STRANGE CHILDREN

“Two children of neighboring families, a boy and a girl, of an age which would suit well for them at some future time to marry, were brought up together with this agreeable prospect, and the parents on both sides, who were people of some position in the world, looked forward with pleasure to their future union.

“It was too soon observed, however, that the purpose seemed likely to fail; the dispositions of both children promised everything which was good, but there was an unaccountable antipathy between them. Perhaps they were too much like each other. Both were thoughtful, clear in their wills, and firm in their purposes. Each separately was beloved and respected by his or her companions, but whenever they were together they were always antagonists. Forming separate plans for themselves, they only met mutually to cross and thwart each other; never emulating each other in pursuit of one aim, but always fighting for a single object. Good-natured and amiable everywhere else, they were spiteful and even malicious whenever they came in contact.

“This singular relation first showed itself in their childish games, and it continued with their advancing years. The boys used to play at soldiers, divide into parties, and give each other battle, and the fierce haughty young lady set herself at once at the head of one of the armies, and fought against the other with such animosity and bitterness that the latter would have been put to a shameful flight, except for the desperate bravery of her own particular rival, who at last disarmed his antagonist and took her prisoner; and even then she defended herself with so much fury that to save his eyes from being torn out, and at the same time not to injure his enemy, he had been obliged to take off his silk handkerchief and tie her hands with it behind her back.

“This she never forgave him: she made so many attempts, she laid so many plans to injure him, that the parents, who had been long watching these singular passions, came to a mutual understanding and resolved to separate these two hostile creatures, and sacrifice their favorite hopes.

“The boy shot rapidly forward in the new situation in which he was placed. He mastered every subject which he was taught. His friends and his own inclination chose the army for his profession, and everywhere, let him be where he would, he was looked up to and beloved. His disposition seemed formed to labor for the well-being and the pleasure of others; and he himself, without being clearly conscious of it, was in himself happy at having got rid of the only antagonist which nature had assigned to him.

“The girl, on the other hand, became at once an altered creature. Her growing age, the progress of her education, above all, her own inward feelings, drew her away from the boisterous games with boys in which she had hitherto delighted. Altogether she seemed to want something; there was nothing anywhere about her which could deserve to excite her hatred, and she had never found any one whom she could think worthy of her love.

“A young man, somewhat older than her previous neighbor-antagonist, of rank, property, and consequence, beloved in society, and much sought after by women, bestowed his affections upon her. It was the first time that friend, lover, or servant had displayed any interest in her. The preference which he showed for her above others who were older, more cultivated, and of more brilliant pretensions than herself, was naturally gratifying; the constancy of his attention, which was never obtrusive, his standing by her faithfully through a number of unpleasant incidents, his quiet suit, which was declared indeed to her parents, but which, as she was still very young, he did not press, only asking to be allowed to hope — all this engaged him to her, and custom and the assumption in the world that the thing was already settled carried her along with it. She had so often been called his bride that at last she began to consider herself so, and neither she nor any one else ever thought any further trial could be necessary before she exchanged rings with the person who for so long a time had passed for her bridegroom.

“The peaceful course which the affair had all along followed was not at all precipitated by the betrothal. Things were allowed to go on both sides just as they were; they were happy in being together, and they could enjoy to the end the fair season of the year as the spring of their future more serious life.

“The absent youth had meanwhile grown up into everything which was most admirable. He had obtained a well-deserved rank in his profession, and came home on leave to visit his family. Toward his fair neighbor he found himself again in a natural but singular position. For some time past she had been nourishing in herself such affectionate family feelings as suited her position as a bride; she was in harmony with everything about her; she believed that she was happy, and in a certain sense she was so. Now first for a long time something again stood in her way. It was not to be hated — she had become incapable of hatred. Indeed the childish hatred, which had in fact been nothing more than an obscure recognition of inward worth, expressed itself now in a happy astonishment, in pleasure at meeting, in ready acknowledgments, in a half willing, half unwilling, and yet irresistible attraction; and all this was mutual. Their long separation gave occasion for longer conversations; even their old childish foolishness served, now that they had grown wiser, to amuse them as they looked back; and they felt as if at least they were bound to make good their petulant hatred by friendliness and attention to each other — as if their first violent injustice to each other ought not to be left without open acknowledgment.

“On his side it all remained in a sensible, desirable moderation. His position, his circumstances, his efforts, his ambition, found him so abundant an occupation, that the friendliness of this pretty bride he received as a very thank-worthy present; but without, therefore, even so much as thinking of her in connection with himself, or entertaining the slightest jealousy of the bridegroom, with whom he stood on the best possible terms.

“With her, however, it was altogether different. She seemed to herself as if she had awakened out of a dream. Her fightings with her young neighbor had been the beginnings of an affection; and this violent antagonism was no more than an equally violent innate passion for him, first showing under the form of opposition. She could remember nothing else than that she had always loved him. She laughed over her martial encounter with him with weapons in her hand; she dwelt upon the delight of her feelings when he disarmed her. She imagined that it had given her the greatest happiness when he bound her: and whatever she had done afterward to injure him, or to vex him, presented itself to her as only an innocent means of attracting his attention. She cursed their separation. She bewailed the sleepy state into which she had fallen. She execrated the insidious lazy routine which had betrayed her into accepting so insignificant a bridegroom. She was transformed — doubly transformed, forward or backward, whichever way we like to take it.

“She kept her feelings entirely to herself; but if any one could have divined them and shared them with her, he could not have blamed her: for indeed the bridegroom could not sustain a comparison with the other as soon as they were seen together. If a sort of regard to the one could not be refused, the other excited the fullest trust and confidence. If one made an agreeable acquaintance, the other we should desire for a companion; and in extraordinary cases, where higher demands might have to be made on them, the bridegroom was a person to be utterly despaired of, while the other would give the feeling of perfect security.

“There is a peculiar innate tact in women which discovers to them differences of this kind; and they have cause as well as occasion to cultivate it.

“The more the fair bride was nourishing all these feelings in secret, the less opportunity there was for any one to speak a word which could tell in favor of her bridegroom, to remind her of what her duty and their relative position advised and commanded — indeed, what an unalterable necessity seemed now irrevocably to require; the poor heart gave itself up entirely to its passion.

“On one side she was bound inextricably to the bridegroom by the world, by her family, and by her own promise; on the other, the ambitious young man made no secret of what he was thinking and planning for himself, conducting himself toward her no more than a kind but not at all a tender brother, and speaking of his departure as immediately impending; and now it seemed as if her early childish spirit woke up again in her with all its spleen and violence, and was preparing itself in its distemper, on this higher stage of life, to work more effectively and destructively. She determined that she would die to punish the once hated; and now so passionately loved, youth for his want of interest in her; and as she could not possess himself, at least she would wed herself for ever to his imagination and to his repentance. Her dead image should cling to him, and he should never be free from it. He should never cease to reproach himself for not having understood, not examined, not valued her feelings toward him.

“This singular insanity accompanied her wherever she went. She kept it concealed under all sorts of forms; and although people thought her very odd, no one was observant enough or clever enough to discover the real inward reason.

“In the meantime, friends, relations, acquaintances had exhausted themselves in contrivances for pleasure parties. Scarcely a day passed but something new and unexpected was set on foot. There was hardly a pretty spot in the country round which had not been decked out and prepared for the reception of some merry party. And now our young visitor, before departing, wished to do his part as well, and invited the young couple, with a small family circle, to an expedition on the water. They went on board a large beautiful vessel dressed out in all its colors — one of the yachts which had a small saloon and a cabin or two besides, and are intended to carry with them upon the water the comfort and conveniences of land.

“They set out upon the broad river with music playing. The party had collected in the cabin, below deck, during the heat of the day, and were amusing themselves with games. Their young host, who could never remain without doing something, had taken charge of the helm to relieve the old master of the vessel, and the latter had lain down and was fast asleep. It was a moment when the steerer required all his circumspectness, as the vessel was nearing a spot where two islands narrowed the channel of the river, while shallow banks of shingle stretching off, first on one side and then on the other, made the navigation difficult and dangerous. Prudent and sharp-sighted as he was, he thought for a moment that it would be better to wake the master; but he felt confident in himself, and he thought he would venture and make straight for the narrows. At this moment his fair enemy appeared upon deck with a wreath of flowers in her hair. ‘Take this to remember me by,’ she cried out. She took it off and threw it at the steerer. ‘Don’t disturb me,’ he answered quickly, as he caught the wreath; ‘I require all my powers and all my attention now.’ ‘You will never be disturbed by me any more,’ she cried; ‘you will never see me again.’ As she spoke, she rushed to the forward part of the vessel, and from thence she sprang into the water. Voice upon voice called out, ‘Save her, save her, she is sinking!’ He was in the most terrible difficulty. In the confusion the old shipmaster woke, and tried to catch the rudder, which the young man bade him take. But there was no time to change hands. The vessel stranded; and at the same moment, flinging off the heaviest of his upper garments, he sprang into the water and swam toward his beautiful enemy. The water is a friendly element to a man who is at home in it, and who knows how to deal with it; it buoyed him up, and acknowledged the strong swimmer as its master. He soon overtook the beautiful girl, who had been swept away before him; he caught hold of her, raised her and supported her, and both of them were carried violently down by the current, till the shoals and islands were left far behind, and the river was again open and running smoothly. He now began to collect himself; they had passed the first immediate danger, in which he had been obliged to act mechanically without time to think; he raised his head as high as he could to look about him and then swam with all his might to a low bushy point which ran out conveniently into the stream. There he brought his fair burden to dry land, but he could find no signs of life in her; he was in despair, when he caught sight of a trodden path leading among the bushes. Again he caught her up in his arms, hurried forward, and presently reached a solitary cottage. There he found kind, good people — a young married couple; the misfortunes and the dangers explained themselves instantly; every remedy he could think of was instantly applied; a bright fire blazed up; woolen blankets were spread on a bed, counterpane, cloaks, skins, whatever there was at hand which would serve for warmth, were heaped over her as fast as possible. The desire to save life overpowered, for the present, every other consideration. Nothing was left undone to bring back to life the beautiful, half-torpid, naked body. It succeeded; she opened her eyes! her friend was before her; she threw her heavenly arms about his neck. In this position she remained for a time; and then a stream of tears burst out and completed her recovery. ‘Will you forsake me,’ she cried, ‘now when I find you again thus?’ ‘Never,’ he answered, ‘never,’ hardly knowing what he said or did. ‘Only consider yourself,’ she added; ‘take care of yourself, for your sake and for mine.’

“She now began to collect herself, and for the first time recollected the state in which she was; she could not be ashamed before her darling, before her preserver; but she gladly allowed him to go, that he might take care of himself; for the clothes which he still wore were wet and dripping.

“Their young hosts considered what could be done. The husband offered the young man, and the wife offered the fair lady, the dresses in which they had been married, which were hanging up in full perfection, and sufficient for a complete suit, inside and out, for two people. In a short time our pair of adventurers were not only equipped, but in full costume. They looked most charming, gazed at each other, when they met, with admiration, and then with infinite affection, half laughing at the same time at the quaintness of their appearance, they fell into each other’s arms.

“The power of youth and the quickening spirit of love in a few moments completely restored them; and there was nothing wanting but music to have set them both off dancing.

“To have found themselves brought from the water on dry land, from death into life, from the circle of their families into a wilderness, from despair into rapture, from indifference to affection and to love, all in a moment: the head was not strong enough to bear it; it must either burst, or go distracted; or if so distressing an alternative were to be escaped, the heart must put out all its efforts.

“Lost wholly in each other, it was long before they recollected the alarm and anxiety of those who had been left behind; and they themselves, indeed, could not well think, without alarm and anxiety, how they were again to encounter them. ‘Shall we run away? shall we hide ourselves?’ asked the young man. ‘We will remain together,’ she said, as she clung about his neck.

“The peasant having heard them say that a party was aground on the shoal, had hurried down, without stopping to ask another question, to the shore. When he arrived there, he saw the vessel coming safely down the stream. After much labor it had been got off; and they were now going on in uncertainty, hoping to find their lost ones again somewhere. The peasant shouted and made signs to them, and at last caught the attention of those on board; then he ran to a spot where there was a convenient place for landing, and went on signalling and shouting till the vessel’s head was turned toward the shore; and what a scene there was for them when they landed. The parents of the two betrothed first pressed on the banks; the poor loving bridegroom had almost lost his senses. They had scarcely learnt that their dear children had been saved, when in their strange disguise the latter came forward out of the bushes to meet them. No one recognized them till they were come quite close. ‘Whom do I see?’ cried the mothers. ‘What do I see?’ cried the fathers. The preserved ones flung themselves on the ground before them. ‘Your children,’ they called out; ‘a pair.’ ‘Forgive us!’ cried the maiden. ‘Give us your blessing!’ cried the young man. ‘Give us your blessing!’ they cried both, as all the world stood still in wonder. ‘Your blessing!’ was repeated the third time; and who would have been able to refuse it?”

CHAPTER XI

The narrator made a pause, or rather he had already finished his story, before he observed the emotion into which Charlotte had been thrown by it. She got up, uttered some sort of an apology, and left the room. To her it was a well-known history. The principal incident in it had really taken place with the Captain and a neighbor of her own; not exactly, indeed, as the Englishman had related it. But the main features of it were the same. It had only been more finished off and elaborated in its details, as stories of that kind always are when they have passed first through the lips of the multitude, and then through the fancy of a clever and imaginative narrator; the result of the process being usually to leave everything and nothing as it was.

Ottilie followed Charlotte, as the two friends begged her to do; and then it was the Earl’s turn to remark, that perhaps they had made a second mistake, and that the subject of the story had been well known to, or was in some way connected with, the family. “We must take care,” he added, “that we do no more mischief here; we seem to bring little good to our entertainers for all the kindness and hospitality which they have shown us; we will make some excuse for ourselves, and then take our leave.”

“I must confess,” answered his companion, “that there is something else which still holds me here, which I should be very sorry to leave the house without seeing cleared up or in some way explained. You were too busy yourself yesterday when we were in the park with the camera, in looking for spots where you could make your sketches, to have observed anything else which was passing. You left the broad walk, you remember, and went to a sequestered place on the side of the lake. There was a fine view of the opposite shore which you wished to take. Well, Ottilie, who was with us, got up to follow; and then proposed that she and I should find our way to you in the boat. I got in with her, and was delighted with the skill of my fair conductress. I assured her that never since I had been in Switzerland, where the young ladies so often fill the place of the boatmen, had I been so pleasantly ferried over the water. At the same time I could not help asking her why she had shown such an objection to going the way which you had gone, along the little by-path. I had observed her shrink from it with a sort of painful uneasiness. She was not at all offended. ‘If you will promise not to laugh at me,’ she answered, ‘I will tell you as much as I know about it; but to myself it is a mystery which I cannot explain. There is a particular spot in that path which I never pass without a strange shiver passing over me, which I do not remember ever feeling anywhere else, and which I cannot the least understand. But I shrink from exposing myself to the sensation, because it is followed immediately after by a pain on the left side of my head, from which at other times I suffer severely.’ We landed. Ottilie was engaged with you, and I took the opportunity of examining the spot, which she pointed out to me as we went by on the water. I was not a little surprised to find there distinct traces of coal in sufficient quantities to convince me that at a short distance below the surface there must be a considerable bed of it.

“Pardon me, my Lord; I see you smile; and I know very well that you have no faith in these things about which I am so eager, and that it is only your sense and your kindness which enable you to tolerate me. However, it is impossible for me to leave this place without trying on that beautiful creature an experiment with the pendulum.”

The Earl, whenever these matters came to be spoken of, never failed to repeat the same objections to them over and over again; and his friend endured them all quietly and patiently, remaining firm, nevertheless, to his own opinion, and holding to his own wishes. He, too, again repeated that there was no reason, because the experiment did not succeed with every one, that they should give them up, as if there was nothing in them but fancy. They should be examined into all the more earnestly and scrupulously; and there was no doubt that the result would be the discovery of a number of affinities of inorganic creatures for one another, and of organic creatures for them, and again for each other, which at present were unknown to us.

He had already spread out his apparatus of gold rings, marcasites, and other metallic substances, a pretty little box of which he always carried about with himself; and he suspended a piece of metal by a string over another piece, which he placed upon the table. “Now, my Lord,” he said, “you may take what pleasure you please (I can see in your face what you are feeling), at perceiving that nothing will set itself in motion with me, or for me. But my operation is no more than a pretense; when the ladies come back, they will be curious to know what strange work we are about.”

The ladies returned. Charlotte understood at once what was going on. “I have heard much of these things,” she said; “but I never saw the effect myself. You have everything ready there. Let me try whether I can succeed in producing anything.”

She took the thread in her hand, and as she was perfectly serious, she held it steady, and without any agitation. Not the slightest motion, however, could be detected. Ottilie was then called upon to try. She held the pendulum still more quietly and unconsciously over the plate on the table. But in a moment the swinging piece of metal began to stir with a distinct rotary action, and turned as they moved the position of the plate, first to one side and then to the other; now in circles, now in ellipses; or else describing a series of straight lines; doing all the Earl’s friend could expect, and far exceeding, indeed, all his expectations.

The Earl himself was a little staggered; but the other could never be satisfied, from delight and curiosity, and begged for the experiment again and again with all sorts of variations. Ottilie was good-natured enough to gratify him; till at last she was obliged to desire to be allowed to go, as her headache had come on again. In further admiration and even rapture, he assured her with enthusiasm that he would cure her forever of her disorder, if she would only trust herself to his remedies. For a moment they did not know what he meant; but Charlotte, who comprehended immediately after, declined his well-meant offer, not liking to have introduced and practised about her a thing of which she had always had the strongest apprehensions.

The strangers were gone, and notwithstanding their having been the inadvertent cause of strange and painful emotions, left the wish behind them, that this meeting might not be the last. Charlotte now made use of the beautiful weather to return visits in the neighborhood, which, indeed, gave her work enough to do, seeing that the whole country round, some from a real interest, some merely from custom, had been most attentive in calling to inquire after her. At home her delight was the sight of the child, and really it well deserved all love and interest. People, saw in it a wonderful, indeed a miraculous child; the brightest, sunniest little face; a fine, well-proportioned body, strong and healthy; and what surprised them more, the double resemblance, which became more and more conspicuous. In figure and in the features of the face, it was like the Captain; the eyes every day it was less easy to distinguish from the eyes of Ottilie.

Ottilie herself, partly from this remarkable affinity, perhaps still more under the influence of that sweet woman’s feeling which makes them regard with the most tender affection the offspring, even by another, of the man they love, was as good as a mother to the little creature as it grew, or rather, she was a second mother of another kind. If Charlotte was absent, Ottilie remained alone with the child and the nurse. Nanny had for some time past been jealous of the boy for monopolizing the entire affections of her mistress; she had left her in a fit of crossness, and gone back to her mother. Ottilie would carry the child about in the open air, and by degrees took longer and longer walks with it, carrying a bottle of milk to give the child its food when it wanted any. Generally, too, she took a book with her; and so with the child in her arms, reading and wandering, she made a very pretty Penserosa.

CHAPTER XII

The object of the campaign was attained, and Edward, with crosses and decorations, was honorably dismissed. He betook himself at once to the same little estate, where he found exact accounts of his family waiting for him, on whom all this time, without their having observed it or known of it, a sharp watch had been kept under his orders. His quiet residence looked most sweet and pleasant when he reached it. In accordance with his orders, various improvements had been made in his absence, and what was wanting to the establishment in extent, was compensated by its internal comforts and conveniences. Edward, accustomed by his more active habits of life to take decided steps, determined to execute a project which he had had sufficient time to think over. First of all, he invited the Major to come to him. This pleasure in meeting again was very great to both of them. The friendships of boyhood, like relationship of blood, possess this important advantage, that mistakes and misunderstandings never produce irreparable injury; and the old regard after a time will always reestablish itself.

Edward began with inquiring about the situation of his friend, and learnt that fortune had favored him exactly as he most could have wished. He then half-seriously asked whether there was not something going forward about a marriage; to which he received a most decided and positive denial.

“I cannot and will not have any reserve with you,” he proceeded. “I will tell you at once what my own feelings are, and what I intend to do. You know my passion for Ottilie; you must long have comprehended that it was this which drove me into the campaign. I do not deny that I desire to be rid of a life which, without her, would be of no further value to me. At the same time, however, I acknowledge that I could never bring myself utterly to despair. The prospect of happiness with her was so beautiful, so infinitely charming, that it was not possible for me entirely to renounce it. Feelings, too, which I cannot explain, and a number of happy omens, have combined to strengthen me in the belief, in the assurance, that Ottilie will one day be mine. The glass with our initials cut upon it, which was thrown into the air when the foundation-stone was laid, did not go to pieces; it was caught, and I have it again in my possession. After many miserable hours of uncertainty, spent in this place, I said to myself, ‘I will put myself in the place of this glass, and it shall be an omen whether our union be possible or not. I will go; I will seek for death; not like a madman, but like a man who still hopes that he may live. Ottilie shall be the prize for which I fight. Ottilie shall be behind the ranks of the enemy; in every intrenchment, in every beleaguered fortress, I shall hope to find her, and to win her. I will do wonders, with the wish to survive them; with the hope to gain Ottilie, not to lose her.’ These feelings have led me on; they have stood by me through all dangers; and now I find myself like one who has arrived at his goal, who has overcome every difficulty and who has nothing more left in his way. Ottilie is mine, and whatever lies between the thought and the execution of it, I can only regard as unimportant.”

“With a few strokes you blot out,” replied the Major, “all the objections that we can or ought to urge upon you, and yet they must be repeated. I must leave it to yourself to recall the full value of your relation with your wife; but you owe it to her, and you owe it to yourself, not to close your eyes to it. How can I so much as recollect that you have had a son given to you, without acknowledging at once that you two belong to each other forever; that you are bound, for this little creature’s sake, to live united, that united you may educate it and provide for its future welfare?”

“It is no more than the blindness of parents,” answered Edward, “when they imagine their existence to be of so much importance to their children. Whatever lives, finds nourishment and finds assistance; and if the son who has early lost his father does not spend so easy, so favored a youth, he profits, perhaps, for that very reason, in being trained sooner for the world, and comes to a timely knowledge that he must accommodate himself to others, a thing sooner or later we are all forced to learn. Here, however even these considerations are irrelevant; we are sufficiently well off to be able to provide for more children than one, and it is neither right nor kind to accumulate so large a property on a single head.”

The Major attempted to say something of Charlotte’s worth, and Edward’s long-standing attachment to her; but the latter hastily interrupted him. “We committed ourselves to a foolish thing, that I see all too clearly. Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man’s life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires. Woe to him who, either by circumstances or by his own infatuation, is induced to grasp at anything before him or behind him. We have done a foolish thing. Are we to abide by it all our lives? Are we, from some respect of prudence, to refuse to ourselves what the customs of the age do not forbid? In how many matters do men recall their intentions and their actions; and shall it not be allowed to them here, here, where the question is not of this thing or of that, but of everything; not of our single condition of life, but of the whole complex life itself?”

Again the Major powerfully and impressively urged on Edward to consider what he owed to his wife, what was due to his family, to the world, and to his own position; but he could not succeed in producing the slightest impression.

“All these questions, my friend,” he returned, “I have considered already again and again. They have passed before me in the storm of battle, when the earth was shaking with the thunder of the cannon, with the balls singing and whistling around me, with my comrades falling right and left, my horse shot under me, my hat pierced with bullets. They have floated before me by the still watch-fire under the starry vault of the sky. I have thought them all through, felt them all through. I have weighed them, and I have satisfied myself about them again and again, and now forever. At such moments why should I not acknowledge it to you? You too were in my thoughts, you too belonged to my circle; as, indeed, you and I have long belonged to each other. If I have ever been in your debt I am now in a position to repay it with interest; if you have been in mine you have now the means to make it good to me. I know that you love Charlotte, and she deserves it. I know that you are not indifferent to her, and why should she not feel your worth? Take her at my hand and give Ottilie to me, and we shall be the happiest beings upon the earth.”

“If you choose to assign me so high a character,” replied the Major, “it is the more reason for me to be firm and prudent. Whatever there may be in this proposal to make it attractive to me, instead of simplifying the problem, it only increases the difficulty of it. The question is now of me as well as of you. The fortunes, the good name, the honor of two men, hitherto unsullied with a breath, will be exposed to hazard by so strange a proceeding, to call it by no harsher name, and we shall appear before the world in a highly questionable light.”

“Our very characters being what they are,” replied Edward, “give us a right to take this single liberty. A man who has borne himself honorably through a whole life, makes an action honorable which might appear ambiguous in others. As concerns myself, after these last trials which I have taken upon myself, after the difficult and dangerous actions which I have accomplished for others, I feel entitled now to do something for myself. For you and Charlotte, that part of the business may, if you like it, be given up; but neither you nor any one shall keep me from doing what I have determined. If I may look for help and furtherance, I shall be ready to do everything which can be wished; but if I am to be left to myself, or if obstacles are to be thrown in my way, some extremity or other is sure to follow.”

The Major thought it his duty to combat Edward’s purposes as long as it was possible; and now he changed the mode of his attack and tried a diversion. He seemed to give way, and only spoke of the form of what they would have to do to bring about this separation, and these new unions; and so mentioned a number of ugly, undesirable matters, which threw Edward into the worst of tempers.

“I see plainly,” he cried at last, “that what we desire can only be carried by storm, whether it be from our enemies or from our friends. I keep clearly before my own eyes what I demand, what, one way or another, I must have; and I will seize it promptly and surely. Connections like ours, I know very well, cannot be broken up and reconstructed again without much being thrown down which is standing, and much having to give way which would be glad enough to continue. We shall come to no conclusion by thinking about it. All rights are alike to the understanding, and it is always easy to throw extra weight into the ascending scale. Do you makeup your mind, my friend, to act, and act promptly, for me and for yourself. Disentangle and untie the knots, and tie them up again. Do not be deterred from it by nice respects. We have already given the world something to say about us. It will talk about us once more; and when we have ceased to be a nine days’ wonder, it will forget us as it forgets everything else, and allow us to follow our own way without further concern with us.” The Major had nothing further to say, and was at last obliged to sit silent; while Edward treated the affair as now conclusively settled, talked through in detail all that had to be done, and pictured the future in every most cheerful color, and then he went on again seriously and thoughtfully: “If we think to leave ourselves to the hope, to the expectation, that all will go right again of itself, that accident will lead us straight, and take care of us, it will be a most culpable self-deception. In such a way it would be impossible for us to save ourselves, or reestablish our peace again. I who have been the innocent cause of it all, how am I ever to console myself? By my own importunity I prevailed on Charlotte to write to you to stay with us; and Ottilie followed in consequence. We have had no more control over what ensued out of this, but we have the power to make it innocuous; to guide the new circumstances to our own happiness. Can you turn away your eyes from the fair and beautiful prospects which I open to us? Can you insist to me, can you insist to us all, on a wretched renunciation of them? Do you think it possible? Is it possible? Will there be no vexations, no bitterness, no inconvenience to overcome, if we resolve to fall back into our old state? and will any good, any happiness whatever, arise out of it? Will your own rank, will the high position which you have earned, be any pleasure to you, if you are to be prevented from visiting me, or from living with me? And after what has passed, it would not be anything but painful. Charlotte and I, with all our property, would only find ourselves in a melancholy state. And if, like other men of the world, you can persuade yourself that years and separation will eradicate our feelings, will obliterate impressions so deeply engraved; why, then the question is of these very years, which it would be better to spend in happiness and comfort than in pain and misery. But the last and most important point of all which I have to urge is this: supposing that we, our outward and inward condition being what it is, could nevertheless make up our minds to wait at all hazards, and bear what is laid upon us, what is to become of Ottilie? She must leave our family; she must go into society where we shall not be to care for her, and she will be driven wretchedly to and fro in a hard, cold world. Describe to me any situation in which Ottilie, without me, without us, could be happy, and you will then have employed an argument which will be stronger than every other; and if I will not promise to yield to it, if I will not undertake at once to give up all my own hopes, I will at least reconsider the question, and see how what you have said will affect it.”

This problem was not so easy to solve; at least, no satisfactory answer to it suggested itself to his friend, and nothing was left to him except to insist again and again, how grave and serious, and in many senses how dangerous, the whole undertaking was; and at least that they ought maturely to consider how they had better enter upon it. Edward agreed to this, and consented to wait before he took any steps; but only under the condition that his friend should not leave him until they had come to a perfect understanding about it, and until the first measures had been taken.

CHAPTER XIII

Men who are complete strangers, and wholly indifferent to one another, if they live a long time together, are sure both of them to expose something of their inner nature, and thus a kind of intimacy will arise between them. All the more was it to be expected that there would soon be no secrets between our two friends, now that they were again under the same roof together, and in daily and hourly intercourse. They went over again the earlier stages of their history, and the Major confessed to Edward that Charlotte had intended Ottilie for him at the time at which he returned from abroad, and hoped that some time or other he might marry her. Edward was in ecstasies at this discovery; he spoke without reserve of the mutual affection of Charlotte and the Major, which, because it happened to fall in so conveniently with his own wishes, he painted in very lively colors.

Deny it altogether, the Major could not; at the same time, he could not altogether acknowledge it. But Edward only insisted on it the more. He had pictured the whole thing to himself not as possible, but as already concluded; all parties had only to resolve on what they all wished; there would be no difficulty in obtaining a separation; the marriages should follow as soon after as possible, and Edward could travel with Ottilie.

Of all the pleasant things which imagination pictures to us, perhaps there is none more charming than when lovers and young married people look forward to enjoying their new relation to each other in a fresh, new world, and test the endurance of the bond between them in so many changing circumstances. The Major and Charlotte were in the meantime to have unrestricted powers to settle all questions of money, property, and other such important worldly matters; and to do whatever was right and proper for the satisfaction of all parties. What Edward dwelt the most upon, however, what he seemed to promise himself the most advantage from was this: — as the child would have to remain with the mother, the Major would charge himself with the education of it; he would train the boy according to his own views, and develop what capacities there might be in him. It was not for nothing that he had received in his baptism the name of Otto, which belonged to them both.

Edward had so completely arranged everything for himself, that he could not wait another day to carry it into execution. On their way to the castle, they arrived at a small town, where Edward had a house, and where he was to stay to await the return of the Major. He could not, however, prevail upon himself to alight there at once, and accompanied his friend through the place. They were both on horseback, and falling into some interesting conversation, rode on further together.

On a sudden they saw, in the distance, the new house on the height, with its red tiles shining in the sun. An irresistible longing came over Edward; he would have it all settled that very evening; he would remain concealed in a village close by. The Major was to urge the business on Charlotte with all his power; he would take her prudence by surprise; and oblige her by the unexpectedness of his proposal to make a free acknowledgment of her feelings. Edward had transferred his own wishes to her; he felt certain that he was only meeting her half-way, and that her inclinations were as decided as his own; and he looked for an immediate consent from her, because he himself could think of nothing else.

Joyfully he saw the prosperous issue before his eyes; and that it might be communicated to him as swiftly as possible, a few cannon shots were to be fired off, and if it was dark, a rocket or two sent up.

The Major rode to the castle. He did not find Charlotte there; he learnt that for the present she was staying at the new house; at that particular time, however, she was paying a visit in the neighborhood, and she probably would not have returned till late that evening. He walked back to the hotel, to which he had previously sent his horse.

Edward, in the meantime, unable to sit still from restlessness and impatience, stole away out of his concealment along solitary paths known only to foresters and fishermen, into his park; and he found himself toward evening in the copse close to the lake, the broad mirror of which he now for the first time saw spread out in its perfectness before him.

Ottilie had gone out that afternoon for a walk along the shore. She had the child with her, and read as she usually did while she went along. She had gone as far as the oak-tree by the ferry. The boy had fallen asleep; she sat down; laid it on the ground at her side, and continued reading. The book was one of those which attract persons of delicate feeling, and afterward will not let them go again. She forgot the time and the hours; she never thought what a long way round it was by land to the new house; but she sat lost in her book and in herself, so beautiful to look at, that the trees and the bushes round her ought to have been alive, and to have had eyes given them to gaze upon her and admire her. The sun was sinking; a ruddy streak of light fell upon her from behind, tinging with gold her cheek and shoulder. Edward, who had made his way to the lake without being seen, finding his park desolate, and no trace of human creature to be seen anywhere, went on and on. At last he broke through the copse behind the oak-tree, and saw her. At the same moment she saw him. He flew to her, and threw himself at her feet. After a long, silent pause, in which they both endeavored to collect themselves, he explained in a few words why and how he had come there. He had sent the Major to Charlotte; and perhaps at that moment their common destiny was being decided. Never had he doubted her affection, and she assuredly had never doubted his. He begged for her consent; she hesitated; he implored her. He offered to resume his old privilege, and throw his arms around her, and embrace her; she pointed down to the child.

Edward looked at it, and was amazed. “Great God!” he cried; “if I had cause to doubt my wife and my friend, this face would witness fearfully against them. Is not this the very image of the Major? I never saw such a likeness.”

“Indeed!” replied Ottilie; “all the world say it is like me.”

“Is it possible?” Edward answered; and at the moment the child opened its eyes — two large, black, piercing eyes, deep and full of love; already the little face was full of intelligence. He seemed as if he knew both the figures which he saw standing before him. Edward threw himself down beside the child, and then knelt a second time before Ottilie. “It is you,” he cried; “the eyes are yours! ah, but let me look into yours; let me throw a veil over that ill-starred hour which gave its being to this little creature. Shall I shock your pure spirit with the fearful thought, that man and wife who are estranged from each other, can yet press each other to their heart, and profane the bonds by which the law unites them by other eager wishes? Oh yes! As I have said so much; as my connection with Charlotte must now be severed; as you will be mine, why should I not speak out the words to you? This child is the offspring of a double adultery. It should have been a tie between my wife and myself; but it severs her from me, and me from her. Let it witness, then, against me. Let these fair eyes say to yours, that in the arms of another I belonged to you. You must feel, Ottilie, oh! you must feel, that my fault, my crime, I can only expiate in your arms.”

“Hark!” he called out, as he sprang up and listened. He thought that he had heard a shot, and that it was the sign which the Major was to give. It was the gun of a forester on the adjoining hill. Nothing followed. Edward grew impatient.

Ottilie now first observed that the sun was down behind the mountains; its last rays were shining on the windows of the house above. “Leave me, Edward,” she cried; “go. Long as we have been parted, much as we have borne, yet remember what we both owe to Charlotte. She must decide our fate; do not let us anticipate her judgment. I am yours if she will permit it to be so. If she will not, I must renounce you. As you think it is now so near an issue, let us wait. Go back to the village, where the Major supposes you to be. Is it likely that a rude cannon-shot will inform you of the results of such an interview? Perhaps at this moment he is seeking for you. He will not have found Charlotte at home; of that I am certain. He may have gone to meet her; for they knew at the castle where she was. How many things may have happened! Leave me! she must be at home by this time; she is expecting me there with the baby.”

Ottilie spoke hurriedly; she called together all the possibilities. It was too delightful to be with Edward; but she felt that he must now leave her. “I beseech, I implore you, my beloved,” she cried out; “go back and wait for the Major.”

“I obey your commands,” cried Edward. He gazed at her for a moment with rapturous love, and then caught her close in his arms. She wound her own about him, and pressed him tenderly to her breast. Hope streamed away, like a star shooting in the sky, above their heads. They thought then, they believed, that they did indeed belong to each other. For the first time they exchanged free, genuine kisses, and separated with pain and effort.

The sun had gone down. It was twilight, and a damp mist was rising about the lake. Ottilie stood confused and agitated. She looked across to the house on the hill, and she thought she saw Charlotte’s white dress on the balcony.

It was a long way round by the end of the lake; and she knew how impatiently Charlotte would be waiting for the child. She saw the plane-trees just opposite her, and only a narrow interval of water divided her from the path which led straight up to the house. Her nervousness about venturing on the water with the child vanished in her present embarrassment. She hastened to the boat; she did not feel that her heart was beating; that her feet were tottering; that her senses were threatening to fail her.

She sprang in, seized the oar, and pushed off. She had to use force; she pushed again. The boat shot off, and glided, swaying and rocking into the open water. With the child in her left arm, the book in her left hand, and the oar in her right, she lost her footing, and fell over the seat; the oar slipped from her on one side, and as she tried to recover herself, the child and the book slipped on the other, all into the water. She caught the floating dress, but lying entangled as she was herself, she was unable to rise. Her right hand was free, but she could not reach round to help herself up with it; at last she succeeded. She drew the child out of the water; but its eyes were closed, and it had ceased to breathe.

In a moment, she recovered all her self-possession; but so much the greater was her agony; the boat was drifting fast into the middle of the lake; the oar was swimming far away from her. She saw no one on the shore; and, indeed, if she had, it would have been of no service to her. Cut off from all assistance, she was floating on the faithless, unstable element.

She sought for help from herself; she had often heard of the recovery of the drowned; she had herself witnessed an instance of it on the evening of her birthday; she took off the child’s clothes, and dried it with her muslin dress; she threw open her bosom, laying it bare for the first time to the free heaven. For the first time she pressed a living being to her pure, naked breast.

Alas! and it was not a living being. The cold limbs of the ill-starred little creature chilled her to the heart. Streams of tears gushed from her eyes, and lent a show of life and warmth to the outside of the torpid limbs. She persevered with her efforts; she wrapped it in her shawl, she drew it close to herself, stroked it, breathed upon it, and with tears and kisses labored to supply the help which, cut off as she was, she was unable to find.

It was all in vain; the child lay motionless in her arms; motionless the boat floated on the glassy water. But even here her beautiful spirit did not leave her forsaken. She turned to the Power above. She sank down upon her knees in the boat, and with both arms raised the unmoving child above her innocent breast, like marble in its whiteness; alas, too, like marble, cold; with moist eyes she looked up and cried for help, where a tender heart hopes to find it in its fulness when all other help has failed.

The stars were beginning one by one to glimmer down upon her; she turned to them and not in vain; a soft air stole over the surface, and wafted the boat under the plane-trees.

CHAPTER XIV

She hurried to the new house, and called the surgeon and gave the child into his hands. It was carried at once to Charlotte’s sleeping-room. Cool and collected from a wide experience, he submitted the tender body to the usual process. Ottilie stood by him through it all. She prepared everything, she fetched everything, but as if she were moving in another world; for the height of misfortune, like the height of happiness, alters the aspect of every object. And it was only when, after every resource had been exhausted, the good man shook his head, and to her questions, whether there was hope, first was silent, and then answered with a gentle No! that she left the apartment, and had scarcely entered the sitting-room, when she fell fainting, with her face upon the carpet, unable to reach the sofa.

At that moment Charlotte was heard driving up. The surgeon implored the servants to keep back, and allow him to go to meet her and prepare her. But he was too late; while he was speaking she had entered the drawing-room. She found Ottilie on the ground, and one of the girls of the house came running and screaming to her open-mouthed. The surgeon entered at the same moment, and she was informed of everything. She could not at once, however, give up all hope. She was flying up stairs to the child, but the physician besought her to remain where she was. He went himself, to deceive her with a show of fresh exertions, and she sat down upon the sofa. Ottilie was still lying on the ground; Charlotte raised her, and supported her against herself, and her beautiful head sank down upon her knee. The kind medical man went backward and forward; he appeared to be busy about the child; his real care was for the ladies; and so came on midnight, and the stillness grew more and more deathly. Charlotte did not try to conceal from herself any longer that her child would never return to life again. She desired to see it now. It had been wrapped up in warm woolen coverings. And it was brought down as it was, lying in its cot, which was placed at her side on the sofa. The little face was uncovered; and there it lay in its calm sweet beauty.

The report of the accident soon spread through the village; every one was aroused, and the story reached the hotel. The Major hurried up the well-known road; he went round and round the house; at last he met a servant who was going to one of the out-buildings to fetch something. He learnt from him in what state things were, and desired him to tell the surgeon that he was there. The latter came out, not a little surprised at the appearance of his old patron. He told him exactly what had happened, and undertook to prepare Charlotte to see him. He then went in, began some conversation to distract her attention, and led her imagination from one object to another, till at last he brought it to rest upon her friend, and the depth of feeling and of sympathy which would surely be called out in him. From the imaginative she was brought at once to the real. Enough! she was informed that he was at the door, that he knew everything and desired to be admitted.

The Major entered. Charlotte received him with a miserable smile. He stood before her; she lifted off the green silk covering under which the body was lying; and by the dim light of a taper, he saw before him, not without a secret shudder, the stiffened image of himself. Charlotte pointed to a chair, and there they sat opposite each other, without speaking, through the night. Ottilie was still lying motionless on Charlotte’s knee; she breathed softly, and slept or seemed to sleep.

The morning dawned, the lights went out; the two friends appeared to awake out of a heavy dream. Charlotte looked toward the Major, and said quietly: “Tell me through what circumstances you have been brought hither, to take part in this mourning scene.”

“The present is not a time,” the Major answered, in the same low tone as that in which Charlotte had spoken, for fear lest she might disturb Ottilie; “this is not a time, and this is not a place for reserve. The condition in which I find you is so fearful that even the earnest matter on which I am here loses its importance by the side of it.” He then informed her, quite calmly and simply, of the object of his mission, in so far as he was the ambassador of Edward; of the object of his coming, in so far as his own free will and his own interests were concerned in it. He laid both before her, delicately but uprightly; Charlotte listened quietly, and showed neither surprise nor unwillingness.

As soon as the Major had finished, she replied, in a voice so light that to catch her words he was obliged to draw his chair closer to her: “In such a case as this I have never before found myself; but in similar cases I have always said to myself, how will it be tomorrow? I feel very clearly that the fate of many persons is now in my hands, and what I have to do is soon said without scruple or hesitation. I consent to the separation; I ought to have made up my mind to it before; by my unwillingness and reluctance I have destroyed my child. There are certain things on which destiny obstinately insists. In vain may reason, may virtue, may duty, may all holy feelings place themselves in its way. Something shall be done which to it seems good, and which to us seems not good; and it forces its own way through at last, let us conduct ourselves as we will.

“And, indeed, what am I saying? It is but my own desire, my own purpose, against which I acted so unthinkingly, which destiny is again bringing in my way? Did I not long ago, in my thoughts, design Edward and Ottilie for each other? Did I not myself labor to bring them together? And you, my friend, you yourself were an accomplice in my plot. Why, why, could I not distinguish mere man’s obstinacy from real love? Why did I accept his hand, when I could have made him happy as a friend, and when another could have made him happy as a wife? And now, look here on this unhappy slumberer. I tremble for the moment when she will recover out of this half death-sleep into consciousness. How can she endure to live? How shall she ever console herself, if she may not hope to make good that to Edward, of which, as the instrument of the most wonderful destiny, she has deprived him? And she can make it all good again by the passion, by the devotion with which she loves him. If love be able to bear all things, it is able to do yet more; it can restore all things; of myself at such a moment I may not think.

“Do you go quietly away, my dear Major; say to Edward that I consent to the separation; that I leave it to him, to you, and to Mittler, to settle whatever is to be done. I have no anxiety for my own future condition; it may be what it will; it is nothing to me. I will subscribe whatever paper is submitted to me, only he must not require me to join actively. I cannot have to think about it, or give advice.”

The Major rose to go. She stretched out her hand to him across Ottilie. He pressed it to his lips, and whispered gently: “And for myself, may I hope anything?”

“Do not ask me now!” replied Charlotte. “I will tell you another time. We have not deserved to be miserable; but neither can we say that we have deserved to be happy together.”

The Major left her, and went, feeling for Charlotte to the bottom of his heart, but not being able to be sorry for the fate of the poor child. Such an offering seemed necessary to him for their general happiness. He pictured Ottilie to himself with a child of her own in her arms, as the most perfect compensation for the one of which she had deprived Edward. He pictured himself with his own son on his knee, who should have better right to resemble him than the one which was departed.

With such flattering hopes and fancies passing through his mind, he returned to the hotel, and on his way back he met Edward, who had been waiting for him the whole night through in the open air, since neither rocket nor report of cannon would bring him news of the successful issue of his undertaking. He had already heard of the misfortune; and he too, instead of being sorry for the poor creature, regarded what had befallen it, without being exactly ready to confess it to himself, as a convenient accident, through which the only impediment in the way of his happiness was at once removed.

The Major at once informed him of his wife’s resolution, and he therefore easily allowed himself to be prevailed upon to return again with him to the village, and from thence to go for a while to the little town, where they would consider what was next to be done, and make their arrangements.

After the Major had left her, Charlotte sat on, buried in her own reflections; but it was only for a few minutes. Ottilie suddenly raised herself from her lap, and looked full with her large eyes in her friend’s face. Then she got up from off the ground, and stood upright before her.

“This is the second time,” began the noble girl, with an irresistible solemnity of manner, “this is the second time that the same thing has happened to me. You once said to me that similar things often befall people more than once in their lives in a similar way, and if they do, it is always at important moments. I now find that what you said is true, and I have to make a confession to you. Shortly after my mother’s death, when I was a very little child, I was sitting one day on a footstool close to you. You were on a sofa, as you are at this moment, and my head rested on your knees. I was not asleep, I was not awake: I was in a trance. I knew everything which was passing about me. I heard every word which was said with the greatest distinctness, and yet I could not stir, I could not speak; and if I had wished it, I could not have given a hint that I was conscious. On that occasion you were speaking about me to one of your friends; you were commiserating my fate, left as I was a poor orphan in the world. You described my dependent position, and how unfortunate a future was before me, unless some very happy star watched over me. I understood well what you said. I saw, perhaps too clearly, what you appeared to hope of me, and what you thought I ought to do. I made rules to myself, according to such limited insight as I had, and by these I have long lived; by these, at the time when you so kindly took charge of me, and had me with you in your house, I regulated whatever I did and whatever I left undone.

“But I have wandered out of my course; I have broken my rules; I have lost the very power of feeling them. And now, after a dreadful occurrence, you have again made clear to me my situation, which is more pitiable than the first. While lying in a half torpor on your lap, I have again, as if out of another world, heard every syllable which you uttered. I know from you how all is with me. I shudder at the thought of myself; but again, as I did then, in my half sleep of death, I have marked out my new path for myself.

“I am determined, as I was before, and what I have determined I must tell you at once. I will never be Edward’s wife. In a terrible manner God has opened my eyes to see the sin in which I was entangled. I will atone for it, and let no one think to move me from my purpose. It is by this, my dearest, kindest friend, that you must govern your own conduct. Send for the Major to come back to you. Write to him that no steps must be taken. It made me miserable that I could not stir or speak when he went. I tried to rise — I tried to cry out. Oh, why did you let him leave you with such unlawful hopes!”

Charlotte saw Ottilie’s condition, and she felt for it; but she hoped that by time and persuasion she might be able to prevail upon her. On her uttering a few words, however, which pointed to a future — to a time when her sufferings would be alleviated, and when there might be better room for hope, “No!” Ottilie cried, with vehemence, “do not endeavor to move me; do not seek to deceive me. At the moment at which I learn that you have consented to the separation, in that same lake I will expiate my errors and my crimes.”

CHAPTER XV

Friends and relatives, and all persons living in the same house together, are apt, when life is going smoothly and peacefully with them, to make what they are doing, or what they are going to do, even more than is right or necessary, a subject of constant conversation. They talk to each other of their plans and their occupations, and, without exactly taking one another’s advice, consider and discuss together the entire progress of their lives. But this is far from being the case in serious moments; just when it would seem men most require the assistance and support of others, they all draw singly within themselves, every one to act for himself, every one to work in his own fashion; they conceal from one another the particular means which they employ, and only the result, the object, the thing which they realize, is again made common property.

After so many strange and unfortunate incidents, a sort of silent seriousness had passed over the two ladies, which showed itself in a sweet mutual effort to spare each other’s feelings. The child had been buried privately in the chapel. It rested there as the first offering to a destiny full of ominous foreshadowings.

Charlotte, as soon as ever she could, turned back to life and occupation, and here she first found Ottilie standing in need of her assistance. She occupied herself almost entirely with her, without letting it be observed. She knew how deeply the noble girl loved Edward. She had discovered by degrees the scene which had preceded the accident, and had gathered every circumstance of it, partly from Ottilie herself, partly from the letters of the Major.

Ottilie, on her side, made Charlotte’s immediate life much more easy for her. She was open, and even talkative, but she never spoke of the present, or of what had lately passed. She had been a close and thoughtful observer. She knew much, and now it all came to the surface. She entertained, she amused Charlotte, and the latter still nourished a hope in secret to see her married to Edward after all.

But something very different was passing in Ottilie. She had disclosed the secret of the course of her life to her friend, and she showed no more of her previous restraint and submissiveness. By her repentance and her resolution she felt herself freed from the burden of her fault and her misfortune. She had no more violence to do to herself. In the bottom of her heart she had forgiven herself solely under condition of the fullest renunciation, and it was a condition which would remain binding for all time to come.

So passed away some time, and Charlotte now felt how deeply house and park, and lake and rocks and trees, served to keep alive in them all their most painful reminiscences. They wanted change of scene, both of them, it was plain enough; but how it was to be effected was not so easy to decide.

Were the two ladies to remain together? Edward’s previously expressed will appeared to enjoin it — his declarations and his threats appeared to make it necessary; only it could not be now mistaken that Charlotte and Ottilie, with all their good will, with all their sense, with all their efforts to conceal it, could not avoid finding themselves in a painful situation toward each other. In their conversation there was a constant endeavor to avoid doubtful subjects. They were often obliged only half to understand some allusion; more often, expressions were misinterpreted, if not by their understandings, at any rate by their feelings. They were afraid to give pain to each other, and this very fear itself produced the evil which they were seeking to avoid.

If they were to try change of scene, and at the same time (at any rate for a while) to part, the old question came up again: Where was Ottilie to go? There was the grand, rich family, who still wanted a desirable companion for their daughter, their attempts to find a person whom they could trust having hitherto proved ineffectual. The last time the Baroness had been at the castle, she had urged Charlotte to send Ottilie there, and she had been lately pressing it again and again in her letters. Charlotte now a second time proposed it; but Ottilie expressly declined going anywhere, where she would be thrown into what is called the great world.

“Do not think me foolish or self-willed, my dear aunt,” she said; “I had better tell you what I feel, for fear you should judge hardly of me; although in any other case it would be my duty to be silent. A person who has fallen into uncommon misfortunes, however guiltless he may be, carries a frightful mark upon him. His presence, in every one who sees him and is aware of his history, excites a kind of horror. People see in him the terrible fate which has been laid upon him, and he is the object of a diseased and nervous curiosity. It is so with a house, it is so with a town, where any terrible action has been done; people enter them with awe; the light of day shines less brightly there, and the stars seem to lose their lustre.

“Perhaps we ought to excuse it, but how extreme is the indiscretion with which people behave toward such unfortunates, with their foolish importunities and awkward kindness! You must forgive me for speaking in this way, but that poor girl whom Luciana tempted out of her retirement, and with such mistaken good nature tried to force into society and amusement, has haunted me and made me miserable. The poor creature, when she was so frightened and tried to escape, and then sank and swooned away, and I caught her in my arms, and the party came all crowding round in terror and curiosity! — little did I think, then, that the same fate was in store for me. But my feeling for her is as deep and warm and fresh as ever it was; and now I may direct my compassion upon myself, and secure myself from being the object of any similar exposure.”

“But, my dear child,” answered Charlotte, “you will never be able to withdraw yourself where no one can see you; we have no cloisters now: otherwise, there, with your present feelings, would be your resource.”

“Solitude would not give me the resource for which I wish, my dear aunt,” answered Ottilie. “The one true and valuable resource is to be looked for where we can be active and useful; all the self-denials and all the penances on earth will fail to deliver us from an evil-omened destiny, if it be determined to persecute us. Let me sit still in idleness and serve as a spectacle for the world, and it will overpower me and crush me. But find me some peaceful employment, where I can go steadily and unweariedly on doing my duty, and I shall be able to bear the eyes of men, when I need not shrink under the eyes of God.”

“Unless I am much mistaken,” replied Charlotte, “your inclination is to return to the school.”

“Yes,” Ottilie answered; “I do not deny it. I think it a happy destination to train up others in the beaten way, after having been trained in the strangest myself. And do we not see the same great fact in history? some moral calamity drives men out into the wilderness; but they are not allowed to remain as they had hoped in their concealment there. They are summoned back into the world, to lead the wanderers into the right way; and who are fitter for such a service, than those who have been initiated into the labyrinths of life? They are commanded to be the support of the unfortunate; and who can better fulfil that command than those who have no more misfortunes to fear upon earth?”

“You are selecting an uncommon profession for yourself,” replied Charlotte. “I shall not oppose you, how ever. Let it be as you wish; only I hope it will be but for a short time.”

“Most warmly I thank you,” said Ottilie, “for giving me leave at least to try, to make the experiment. If I am not flattering myself too highly, I am sure I shall succeed: wherever I am, I shall remember the many trials which I went through myself, and how small, how infinitely small they were compared to those which I afterward had to undergo. It will be my happiness to watch the embarrassments of the little creatures as they grow; to cheer them in their childish sorrows, and guide them back with a light hand out of their little aberrations. The fortunate is not the person to be of help to the unfortunate; it is in the nature of man to require ever more and more of himself and others, the more he has received. The unfortunate who has himself recovered, knows best how to nourish, in himself and them, the feeling that every moderate good ought to be enjoyed with rapture.”

“I have but one objection to make to what you propose,” said Charlotte, after some thought, “although that one seems to me of great importance. I am not thinking of you, but of another person: you are aware of the feelings toward you of that good, right-minded, excellent Assistant. In the way in which you desire to proceed, you will become every day more valuable and more indispensable to him. Already he himself believes that he can never live happily without you, and hereafter, when he has become accustomed to have you to work with him, he will be unable to carry on his business if he loses you; you will have assisted him at the beginning only to injure him in the end.”

“Destiny has not dealt with me with too gentle a hand,” replied Ottilie; “and whoever loves me has perhaps not much better to expect. Our friend is so good and so sensible, that I hope he will be able to reconcile himself to remaining in a simple relation with me; he will learn to see in me a consecrated person, lying under the shadow of an awful calamity, and only able to support herself and bear up against it by devoting herself to that Holy Being who is invisibly around us, and alone is able to shield us from the dark powers which threaten to overwhelm us.”

All this, which the dear girl poured out so warmly, Charlotte privately reflected over; on many different occasions, although only in the gentlest manner, she had hinted at the possibility of Ottilie’s being brought again in contact with Edward; but the slightest mention of it, the faintest hope, the least suspicion, seemed to wound Ottilie to the quick. One day when she could not evade it, she expressed herself to Charlotte clearly and peremptorily on the subject.

“If your resolution to renounce Edward,” returned Charlotte, “is so firm and unalterable, then you had better avoid the danger of seeing him again. At a distance from the object of our love, the warmer our affection, the stronger is the control which we fancy that we can exercise on ourselves; because the whole force of the passion, diverted from its outward objects, turns inward on ourselves. But how soon, how swiftly is our mistake made clear to us, when the thing which we thought that we could renounce, stands again before our eyes as indispensable to us! You must now do what you consider best suited to your circumstances. Look well into yourself; change, if you prefer it, the resolution which you have just expressed. But do it of yourself, with a free consenting heart. Do not allow yourself to be drawn in by an accident; do not let yourself be surprised into your former position. It will place you at issue with yourself and will be intolerable to you. As I said, before you take this step, before you remove from me, and enter upon a new life, which will lead you no one knows in what direction, consider once more whether really, indeed, you can renounce Edward for the whole time to come. If you have faithfully made up your mind that you will do this, then will you enter into an engagement with me, that you will never admit him into your presence; and if he seeks you out and forces himself upon you, that you will not exchange words with him?”

Ottilie did not hesitate a moment; she gave Charlotte the promise, which she had already made to herself.

Now, however, Charlotte began to be haunted with Edward’s threat, that he would only consent to renounce Ottilie, as long as she was not parted from Charlotte. Since that time, indeed, circumstances were so altered, so many things had happened, that an engagement which was wrung from him in a moment of excitement might well be supposed to have been cancelled. She was unwilling, however, in the remotest sense to venture anything or to undertake anything which might displease him, and Mittler was therefore to find Edward, and inquire what, as things now were, he wished to be done.

Since the death of the child, Mittler had often been at the castle to see Charlotte, although only for a few moments at a time. The unhappy accident which had made her reconciliation with her husband in the highest degree improbable, had produced a most painful effect upon him. But ever, as his nature was, hoping and striving, he rejoiced secretly at the resolution of Ottilie. He trusted to the softening influence of passing time; he hoped that it might still be possible to keep the husband and the wife from separating; and he tried to regard these convulsions of passion only as trials of wedded love and fidelity.

Charlotte, at the very first, had informed the Major by letter of Ottilie’s declaration. She had entreated him most earnestly to prevail on Edward to take no further steps for the present. They should keep quiet and wait, and see whether the poor girl’s spirits would recover. She had let him know from time to time whatever was necessary of what had more lately fallen from her. And now Mittler had to undertake the really difficult commission of preparing Edward for an alteration in her situation. Mittler, however, well knowing that men can be brought more easily to submit to what is already done, than to give their consent to what is yet to be done, persuaded Charlotte that it would be better to send Ottilie off at once to the school.

Consequently, as soon as Mittler was gone, preparations were at once made for the journey. Ottilie put her things together; and Charlotte observed that neither the beautiful box, nor anything out of it, was to go with her. Ottilie had said nothing to her on the subject; and she took no notice, but let her alone. The day of the departure came; Charlotte’s carriage was to take Ottilie the first day as far as a place where they were well known, where she was to pass the night, and on the second she would go on in it to the school. It was settled that Nanny was to accompany her, and remain as her attendant.

This capricious little creature had found her way back to her mistress after the death of the child, and now hung about her as warmly and passionately as ever; indeed she seemed, with her loquacity and attentiveness, as if she wished to make good her past neglect, and henceforth devote herself entirely to Ottilie’s service. She was quite beside herself now for joy at the thought of traveling with her, and of seeing strange places, when she had hitherto never been away from the scene of her birth; and she ran from the castle to the village to carry the news of her good fortune to her parents and her relations, and to take leave.

Unluckily for herself, she went, among other places, into a room where a person was who had the measles, and caught the infection, which came out upon her at once. The journey could not be postponed. Ottilie herself was urgent to go. She had traveled once already the same road. She knew the people of the hotel where she was to sleep. The coachman from the castle was going with her. There could be nothing to fear.

Charlotte made no opposition. She, too, in thought, was making haste to be clear of present embarrassments. The rooms which Ottilie had occupied at the castle she would have prepared for Edward as soon as possible, and restored to the old state in which they had been before the arrival of the Captain. The hope of bringing back old happy days burns up again and again in us, as if it never could be extinguished. And Charlotte was quite right; there was nothing else for her except to hope as she did.

CHAPTER XVI

When Mittler was come to talk the matter over with Edward, he found him sitting by himself, with his head supported on his right hand, and his arm resting on the table. He appeared in great suffering.

“Is your headache troubling you again?” asked Mittler.

“It is troubling me,” answered he; “and yet I cannot wish it were not so, for it reminds me of Ottilie. She too, I say to myself, is also suffering in the same way at this same moment, and suffering more perhaps than I; and why cannot I bear it as well as she? These pains are good for me. I might almost say that they were welcome; for they serve to bring out before me with the greater vividness her patience and all her other graces. It is only when we suffer ourselves, that we feel really the true nature of all the high qualities which are required to bear suffering.”

Mittler, finding his friend so far resigned, did not hesitate to communicate the message with which he had been sent. He brought it out piecemeal, however; in order of time, as the idea had itself arisen between the ladies, and had gradually ripened into a purpose. Edward scarcely made an objection. From the little which he said, it appeared as if he was willing to leave everything to them; the pain which he was suffering at the moment making him indifferent to all besides.

Scarcely, however, was he again alone, than he got up, and walked rapidly up and down the room; he forgot his pain, his attention now turning to what was external to himself. Mittler’s story had stirred the embers of his love, and awakened his imagination in all its vividness. He saw Ottilie by herself, or as good as by herself, traveling on a road which was well known to him — in a hotel with every room of which he was familiar. He thought, he considered, or rather he neither thought nor considered; he only wished — he only desired. He would see her; he would speak to her. Why, or for what good end that was to come of it, he did not care to ask himself; but he made up his mind at once. He must do it.

He summoned his valet into his council, and through him he made himself acquainted with the day and hour when Ottilie was to set out. The morning broke. Without taking any person with him, Edward mounted his horse, and rode off to the place where she was to pass the night. He was there too soon. The hostess was overjoyed at the sight of him; she was under heavy obligations to him for a service which he had been able to do for her. Her son had been in the army, where he had conducted himself with remarkable gallantry. He had performed one particular action of which no one had been a witness but Edward; and the latter had spoken of it to the commander-in-chief in terms of such high praise that, notwithstanding the opposition of various ill-wishers, he had obtained a decoration for him. The mother, therefore, could never do enough for Edward. She got ready her best room for him, which indeed was her own wardrobe and store-room, with all possible speed. He informed her, however, that a young lady was coming to pass the night there, and he ordered an apartment for her at the back, at the end of the gallery. It sounded a mysterious sort of affair; but the hostess was ready to do anything to please her patron, who appeared so interested and so busy about it. And he, what were his sensations as he watched through the long, weary hours till evening? He examined the room round and round in which he was to see her; with all its strangeness and homeliness it seemed to him to be an abode for angels. He thought over and over what he had better do; whether he should take her by surprise, or whether he should prepare her for meeting him. At last the second course seemed the preferable one. He sat down and wrote a letter, which she was to read:

EDWARD TO OTTILIE

“While you read this letter, my best beloved, I am close to you. Do not agitate yourself; do not be alarmed; you have nothing to fear from me. I will not force myself upon you. I will see you or not, as you yourself shall choose.

“Consider, oh! consider your condition and mine. How must I not thank you, that you have taken no decisive step! But the step which you have taken is significant enough. Do not persist in it. Here, as it were, at a parting of the ways, reflect once again. Can you be mine: — will you be mine? Oh, you will be showing mercy on us all if you will; and on me, infinite mercy.

“Let me see you again! — happily, joyfully see you once more! Let me make my request to you with my own lips; and do you give me your answer your own beautiful self, on my breast, Ottilie! where you have so often rested, and which belongs to you for ever!”

As he was writing, the feeling rushed over him that what he was longing for was coming — was close — would be there almost immediately. By that door she would come in; she would read that letter; she in her own person would stand there before him as she used to stand; she for whose appearance he had thirsted so long. Would she be the same as she was? — was her form, were her feelings changed? He still held the pen in his hand; he was going to write as he thought, when the carriage rolled into the court. With a few hurried strokes he added: “I hear you coming. For a moment, farewell!”

He folded the letter, and directed it. He had no time for sealing. He darted into the room through which there was a second outlet into the gallery, when the next moment he recollected that he had left his watch and seals lying on the table. She must not see these first. He ran back and brought them away with him. At the same instant he heard the hostess in the antechamber showing Ottilie the way to her apartments. He sprang to the bedroom door. It was shut. In his haste, as he had come back for his watch, he had forgotten to take out the key, which had fallen out, and lay the other side. The door had closed with a spring, and he could not open it. He pushed at it with all his might, but it would not yield. Oh, how gladly would he have been a spirit, to escape through its cracks! In vain. He hid his face against the panels. Ottilie entered, and the hostess, seeing him, retired. From Ottilie herself, too, he could not remain concealed for a moment. He turned toward her; and there stood the lovers once more, in such strange fashion, in each other’s presence. She looked at him calmly and earnestly, without advancing or retiring. He made a movement to approach her, and she withdrew a few steps toward the table. He stepped back again. “Ottilie!” he cried aloud, “Ottilie! let me break this frightful silence! Are we shadows, that we stand thus gazing at each other? Only listen to me; listen to this at least. It is an accident that you find me here thus. There is a letter on the table, at your side there, which was to have prepared you. Read it, I implore you — read it — and then determine as you will!”

She looked down at the letter; and after thinking a few seconds, she took it up, opened it, and read it: she finished it without a change of expression; and she laid it lightly down; then joining the palms of her hands together, turning them upward, and drawing them against her breast, she leant her body a little forward, and regarded Edward with such a look, that, eager as he was, he was compelled to renounce everything he wished or desired of her. Such an attitude cut him to the heart; he could not bear it. It seemed exactly as if she would fall upon her knees before him, if he persisted. He hurried in despair out of the room, and leaving her alone, sent the hostess in to her.

He walked up and down the antechamber. Night had come on, and there was no sound in the room. At last the hostess came out and drew the key out of the lock. The good woman was embarrassed and agitated, not knowing what it would be proper for her to do. At last as she turned to go, she offered the key to Edward, who refused it; and putting down the candle, she went away.

In misery and wretchedness, Edward flung himself down on the threshold of the door which divided him from Ottilie, moistening it with his tears as he lay. A more unhappy night had been seldom passed by two lovers in such close neighborhood!

Day came at last. The coachman brought round the carriage, and the hostess unlocked the door and went in. Ottilie was asleep in her clothes; she went back and beckoned to Edward with a significant smile. They both entered and stood before her as she lay; but the sight was too much for Edward. He could not bear it. She was sleeping so quietly that the hostess did not like to disturb her, but sat down opposite her, waiting till she woke. At last Ottilie opened her beautiful eyes, and raised herself on her feet. She declined taking any breakfast, and then Edward went in again and stood before her. He entreated her to speak but one word to him; to tell him what she desired. He would do it, be it what it would, he swore to her; but she remained silent. He asked her once more, passionately and tenderly, whether she would be his. With downcast eyes, and with the deepest tenderness of manner she shook her head in a gentle No. He asked if she still desired to go to the school. Without any show of feeling she declined. Would she then go back to Charlotte? She inclined her head in token of assent, with a look of comfort and relief. He went to the window to give directions to the coachman, and when his back was turned she darted like lightning out of the room, and was down the stairs and in the carriage in an instant. The coachman drove back along the road which he had come the day before, and Edward followed at some distance on horseback.

CHAPTER XVII

It was with the utmost surprise that Charlotte saw the carriage drive up with Ottilie, and Edward at the same moment ride into the court-yard of the castle. She ran down to the hall. Ottilie alighted, and approached her and Edward. Violently and eagerly she caught the hands of the wife and husband, pressed them together, and hurried off to her own room. Edward threw himself on Charlotte’s neck and burst into tears. He could not give her any explanation; he besought her to have patience with him, and to go at once to see Ottilie. Charlotte followed her to her room, and she could not enter it without a shudder. It had been all cleared out. There was nothing to be seen but the empty walls, which stood there looking cheerless, vacant, and miserable. Everything had been carried away except the little box, which from an uncertainty what was to be done with it, had been left in the middle of the room. Ottilie was lying stretched upon the ground, her arm and head leaning across the cover. Charlotte bent anxiously over her, and asked what had happened; but she received no answer.

Her maid had come with restoratives. Charlotte left her with Ottilie, and herself hastened back to Edward. She found him in the saloon, but he could tell her nothing.

He threw himself down before her; he bathed her hands with tears; he flew to his own room, and she was going to follow him thither, when she met his valet. From this man she gathered as much as he was able to tell. The rest she put together in her own thoughts as well as she could, and then at once set herself resolutely to do what the exigencies of the moment required. Ottilie’s room was put to rights again as quickly as possible; Edward found his, to the last paper, exactly as he had left it.

The three appeared again to fall into some sort of relation with one another. But Ottilie persevered in her silence, and Edward could do nothing except entreat his wife to exert a patience which seemed wanting to himself. Charlotte sent messengers to Mittler and to the Major. The first was absent from home and could not be found. The latter came. To him Edward poured out all his heart, confessing every most trifling circumstance to him, and thus Charlotte learnt fully what had passed; what it had been which had produced such violent excitement, and how so strange an alteration of their mutual position had been brought about.

She spoke with the utmost tenderness to her husband. She had nothing to ask of him, except that for the present he would leave the poor girl to herself. Edward was not insensible to the worth, the affection, the strong sense of his wife; but his passion absorbed him exclusively. Charlotte tried to cheer him with hopes. She promised that she herself would make no difficulties about the separation; but it had small effect with him. He was so much shaken that hope and faith alternately forsook him. A species of insanity appeared to have taken possession of him. He urged Charlotte to promise to give her hand to the Major. To satisfy him and to humor him, she did what he required. She engaged to become herself the wife of the Major, in the event of Ottilie consenting to the marriage with Edward; with this express condition, however, that for the present the two gentlemen should go abroad together. The Major had a foreign appointment from the Court, and it was settled that Edward should accompany him. They arranged it all together, and in doing so found a sort of comfort for themselves in the sense that at least something was being done.

In the meantime they had to remark that Ottilie took scarcely anything to eat or drink. She still persisted in refusing to speak. They at first used to talk to her, but it appeared to distress her, and they left it off. We are not, universally at least, so weak as to persist in torturing people for their good. Charlotte thought over what could possibly be done. At last she fancied it might be well to ask the Assistant of the school to come to them. He had much influence with Ottilie, and had been writing with much anxiety to inquire the cause of her not having arrived at the time he had been expecting her; but as yet she had not sent him any answer.

In order not to take Ottilie by surprise, they spoke of their intention of sending this invitation in her presence. It did not seem to please her; she thought for some little time; at last she appeared to have formed some resolution. She retired to her own room, and before the evening sent the following letter to the assembled party:

OTTILIE TO HER FRIENDS

“Why need I express in words, my dear friends, what is in itself so plain? I have stepped out of my course, and I cannot recover it again. A malignant spirit which has gained power over me seems to hinder me from without, even if within I could again become at peace with myself.

“My purpose was entirely firm to renounce Edward, and to separate myself from him for ever. I had hoped that we might never meet again; it has turned out otherwise. Against his own will he stood before me. Too literally, perhaps, I have observed my promise never to admit him into conversation with me. My conscience and the feelings of the moment kept me silent toward him at the time, and now I have nothing more to say. I have taken upon myself, under the accidental impulse of the moment, a difficult vow, which if it had been formed deliberately, might perhaps be painful and distressing. Let me now persist in the observance of it so long as my heart shall enjoin it to me. Do not call in any one to mediate; do not insist upon my speaking; do not urge me to eat or to drink more than I absolutely must. Bear with me and let me alone, and so help me on through the time; I am young, and youth has many unexpected means of restoring itself. Endure my presence among you; cheer me with your love; make me wiser and better with what you say to one another: but leave me to my own inward self.”

The two friends had made all preparation for their journey, but their departure was still delayed by the formalities of the foreign appointment of the Major, a delay most welcome to Edward. Ottilie’s letter had roused all his eagerness again; he had gathered hope and comfort from her words, and now felt himself encouraged and justified in remaining and waiting. He declared, therefore, that he would not go; it would be folly, indeed, he cried, of his own accord, to throw away, by over precipitateness, what was most valuable and most necessary to him, when although there was a danger of losing it, there was nevertheless a chance that it might be preserved. “What is the right name of conduct such as that?” he said. “It is only that we desire to show that we are able to will and to choose. I myself, under the influences of the same ridiculous folly, have torn myself away, days before there was any necessity for it, from my friends, merely that I might not be forced to go by the definite expiration of my term. This time I will stay: what reason is there for my going; is she not already removed far enough from me? I am not likely now to catch her hand or press her to my heart; I could not even think of it without a shudder. She has not separated herself from me; she has raised herself far above me.”

And so he remained as he desired, as he was obliged; but he was never easy except when he found himself with Ottilie. She, too, had the same feeling with him; she could not tear herself away from the same happy necessity. On all sides they exerted an indescribable, almost magical power of attraction over each other. Living, as they were, under one roof, without even so much as thinking of each other, although they might be occupied with other things, or diverted this way or that way by the other members of the party, they always drew together. If they were in the same room, in a short time they were sure to be either standing or sitting near each other; they were only easy when as close together as they could be, but they were then completely happy. To be near was enough; there was no need for them either to look or to speak: they did not seek to touch one another, or make sign or gesture, but merely to be together. Then there were not two persons, there was but one person in unconscious and perfect content, at peace with itself and with the world. So it was that, if either of them had been imprisoned at the further end of the house, the other would by degrees, without intending it, have moved forward like a bird toward its mate; life to them was a riddle, the solution of which they could find only in union.

Ottilie was throughout so cheerful and quiet that they were able to feel perfectly easy about her; she was seldom absent from the society of her friends: all that she had desired was that she might be allowed to eat alone, with no one to attend upon her but Nanny.

What habitually befalls any person repeats itself more often than one is apt to suppose, because his own nature gives the immediate occasion for it. Character, individuality, inclination, tendency, locality, circumstance, and habits, form together a whole, in which every man moves as in an atmosphere, and where only he feels himself at ease in his proper element.

And so we find men, of whose changeableness so many complaints are made, after many years, to our surprise, unchanged, and in all their infinite tendencies, outward and inward, unchangeable.

Thus in the daily life of our friends, almost everything glided on again in its old smooth track. Ottilie still displayed by many silent attentions her obliging nature, and the others, like her, continued each themselves; and then the domestic circle exhibited an image of their former life, so like it that they might be pardoned if at times they dreamt that it might all be again as it was.

The autumn days, which were of the same length with those old spring days, brought the party back into the house out of the air about the same hour. The gay fruits and flowers which belonged to the season might have made them fancy it was now the autumn of that first spring, and the interval dropped out and forgotten; for the flowers which now were blooming were the same as those which then they had sown, and the fruits which were now ripening on the trees were those which at that time they had seen in blossom.

The Major went backward and forward, and Mittler came frequently. The evenings were generally spent in exactly the same way. Edward usually read aloud, with more life and feeling than before; much better, and even, it may be said, with more cheerfulness. It appeared as if he was endeavoring, by light-heartedness as much as by devotion, to quicken Ottilie’s torpor into life, and dissolve her silence. He seated himself in the same position as he used to do, that she might look over his book; he was uneasy and distracted unless she was doing so, unless he was sure that she was following his words with her eyes.

Every trace had vanished of the unpleasant, ungracious feelings of the intervening time. No one had any secret complaint against another; there were no cross purposes, no bitterness. The Major accompanied Charlotte’s playing with his violin, and Edward’s flute sounded again, as formerly, in harmony with Ottilie’s piano. Thus they were now approaching Edward’s birthday, which the year before they had missed celebrating. This time they were to keep it without any outward festivities, in quiet enjoyment among themselves. They had so settled it together, half expressly, half from a tacit agreement. As they approached nearer to this epoch, however, an anxiety about it, which had hitherto been more felt than observed, became more noticeable in Ottilie’s manner. She was to be seen often in the garden examining the flowers: she had signified to the gardener that he was to save as many as he could of every sort, and she had been especially occupied with the asters, which this year were blooming in beautiful profusion.

CHAPTER XVIII

The most remarkable feature, however, which was observed about Ottilie was that, for the first time, she had now unpacked the box, and had selected a variety of things out of it, which she had cut up, and which were intended evidently to make one complete suit for her. The rest, with Nanny’s assistance, she had endeavored to replace again, and she had been hardly able to get it done, the space being over full, although a portion had been taken out. The covetous little Nanny could never satisfy herself with looking at all the pretty things, especially as she found provision made there for every article of dress which could be wanted, even the smallest. Numbers of shoes and stockings, garters with devices on them, gloves, and various other things were left, and she begged Ottilie just to give her one or two of them. Ottilie refused to do that, but opened a drawer in her wardrobe, and told the girl to take what she liked. The latter hastily and awkwardly dashed in her hand and seized what she could, running off at once with her booty, to show it off and display her good fortune among the rest of the servants.

At last Ottilie succeeded in packing everything carefully into its place. She then opened a secret compartment which was contrived in the lid, where she kept a number of notes and letters from Edward, many dried flowers, the mementos of their early walks together, a lock of his hair, and various other little matters. She now added one more to them, her father’s portrait, and then locked it all up, and hung the delicate key by a gold chain about her neck, against her heart.

In the meantime, her friends had now in their hearts begun to entertain the best hopes for her. Charlotte was convinced that she would one day begin to speak again. She had latterly seen signs about her which implied that she was engaged in secret about something; a look of cheerful self-satisfaction, a smile like that which hangs about the face of persons who have something pleasant and delightful which they are keeping concealed from those whom they love. No one knew that she spent many hours in extreme exhaustion, and that only at rare intervals, when she appeared in public through the power of her will, she was able to rouse herself.

Mittler had latterly been a frequent visitor, and when he came he staid longer than he usually did at other times. This strong-willed, resolute person was only too well aware that there is a certain moment in which alone it will answer to smite the iron. Ottilie’s silence and reserve he interpreted according to his own wishes; no steps had as yet been taken toward a separation of the husband and wife. He hoped to be able to determine the fortunes of the poor girl in some not undesirable way. He listened; he allowed himself to seem convinced; he was discreet and unobtrusive, and conducted himself in his own way with sufficient prudence. There was but one occasion on which he uniformly forgot himself — when he found an opportunity for giving his opinion upon subjects to which he attached a great importance. He lived much within himself, and when he was with others, his only relation to them generally was in active employment on their behalf; but if once, when among friends, his tongue broke fairly loose, as on more than one occasion we have already seen, he rolled out his words in utter recklessness, whether they wounded or whether they pleased, whether they did evil or whether they did good.

The evening before the birthday, the Major and Charlotte were sitting together expecting Edward, who had gone out for a ride; Mittler was walking up and down the saloon; Ottilie was in her own room, laying out the dress which she was to wear on the morrow, and making signs to her maid about a number of things, which the girl, who perfectly understood her silent language, arranged as she was ordered.

Mittler had fallen exactly on his favorite subject. One of the points on which he used most to insist was, that in the education of children, as well as in the conduct of nations, there was nothing more worthless and barbarous than laws and commandments forbidding this and that action. “Man is naturally active,” he said, “wherever he is; and if you know how to tell him what to do, he will do it immediately, and keep straight in the direction in which you set him. I myself, in my own circle, am far better pleased to endure faults and mistakes, till I know what the opposite virtue is that I am to enjoin, than to be rid of the faults and to have nothing good to put in their place. A man is really glad to do what is right and sensible, if he only knows how to get at it. It is no such great matter with him; he does it because he must have something to do, and he thinks no more about it afterward than he does of the silliest freaks which he engaged in out of the purest idleness. I cannot tell you how it annoys me to hear people going over and over those Ten Commandments in teaching children. The fifth is a thoroughly beautiful, rational, preceptive precept. ‘Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother.’ If the children will inscribe that well upon their hearts, they have the whole day before them to put it in practice. But the sixth now? What can we say to that? ‘Thou shalt do no murder;’ as if any man ever felt the slightest general inclination to strike another man dead. Men will hate sometimes; they will fly into passions and forget themselves; and as a consequence of this or other feelings, it may easily come now and then to a murder; but what a barbarous precaution it is to tell children that they are not to kill or murder! If the commandment ran, ‘Have a regard for the life of another — put away whatever can do him hurt — save him though with peril to yourself — if you injure him, consider that you are injuring yourself;’ — that is the form which should be in use among educated, reasonable people. And in our Catechism teaching we have only an awkward clumsy way of sliding into it, through a ‘what do you mean by that?’

“And as for the seventh; that is utterly detestable. What! to stimulate the precocious curiosity of children to pry into dangerous mysteries; to obtrude violently upon their imaginations, ideas and notions which beyond all things you should wish to keep from them! It were far better if such actions as that commandment speaks of were dealt with arbitrarily by some secret tribunal, than prated openly of before church and congregation — ”

At this moment Ottilie entered the room.

“‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’“ — Mittler went on — ”How coarse! how brutal! What a different sound it has, if you let it run, ‘Thou shalt hold in reverence the bond of marriage. When thou seest a husband and a wife between whom there is true love, thou shalt rejoice in it, and their happiness shall gladden thee like the cheerful light of a beautiful day. If there arise anything to make division between them, thou shalt use thy best endeavor to clear it away. Thou shalt labor to pacify them, and to soothe them; to show each of them the excellencies of the other. Thou shalt not think of thyself, but purely and disinterestedly thou shalt seek to further the well-being of others, and make them feel what a happiness is that which arises out of all duty done; and especially out of that duty which holds man and wife indissolubly bound together.’“

Charlotte felt as if she was sitting on hot coals. The situation was the more distressing, as she was convinced that Mittler was not thinking the least where he was or what he was saying; and before she was able to interrupt him, she saw Ottilie, after changing color painfully for a few seconds, rise and leave the room.

Charlotte constrained herself to seem unembarrassed. “You will leave us the eighth commandment,” she said, with a faint smile.

“All the rest,” replied Mittler, “if I may only insist first on the foundation of the whole of them.”

At this moment Nanny rushed in, screaming and crying: “She is dying; the young lady is dying; come to her, come.”

Ottilie had found her way back with extreme difficulty to her own room. The beautiful things which she was to wear the next day were laid out on a number of chairs; and the girl, who had been running from one to the other, staring at them and admiring them, called out in her ecstasy, “Look, dearest madam, only look! There is a bridal dress worthy of you.”

Ottilie heard the word, and sank upon the sofa. Nanny saw her mistress turn pale, fall back, and faint. She ran for Charlotte, who came. The medical friend was on the spot in a moment. He thought it was nothing but exhaustion. He ordered some strong soup to be brought. Ottilie refused it with an expression of loathing: it almost threw her into convulsions, when they put the cup to her lips. A light seemed to break on the physician: he asked hastily and anxiously what Ottilie had taken that day. The little girl hesitated. He repeated his question, and she then acknowledged that Ottilie had taken nothing.

There was a nervousness of manner about Nanny which made him suspicious. He carried her with him into the adjoining room; Charlotte followed; and the girl threw herself on her knees, and confessed that for a long time past Ottilie had taken as good as nothing; at her mistress’s urgent request, she had herself eaten the food which had been brought for her; she had said nothing about it, because Ottilie had by signs alternately begged her not to tell any one, and threatened her if she did; and, as she innocently added, “because it was so nice.”

The Major and Mittler now came up as well. They found Charlotte busy with the physician. The pale, beautiful girl was sitting, apparently conscious, in the corner of the sofa. They had begged her to lie down; she had declined to do this; but she made signs to have her box brought, and resting her feet upon it, placed herself in an easy, half recumbent position. She seemed to be wishing to take leave; and by her gestures, was expressing to all about her the tenderest affection, love, gratitude, entreaties for forgiveness, and the most heartfelt farewell.

Edward, on alighting from his horse, was informed of what had happened; he rushed to the room; threw himself down at her side; and seizing her hand, deluged it with silent tears. In this position he remained a long time. At last he called out: “And am I never more to hear your voice? Will you not turn back toward life, to give me one single word? Well, then, very well. I will follow you yonder, and there we will speak in another language.”

She pressed his hand with all the strength she had; she gazed at him with a glance full of life and full of love; and drawing a long breath, and for a little while moving her lips inarticulately, with a tender effort of affection she called out, “Promise me to live;” and then fell back immediately.

“I promise, I promise!” he cried to her; but he cried only after her; she was already gone.

After a miserable night, the care of providing for the loved remains fell upon Charlotte. The Major and Mittler assisted her. Edward’s condition was utterly pitiable. His first thought, when he was in any degree recovered from his despair, and able to collect himself, was, that Ottilie should not be carried out of the castle; she should be kept there, and attended upon as if she were alive: for she was not dead; it was impossible that she should be dead. They did what he desired; at least, so far as that they did not do what he had forbidden. He did not ask to see her.

There was now a second alarm, and a further cause for anxiety. Nanny, who had been spoken to sharply by the physician, had been compelled by threats to confess, and after her confession had been overwhelmed with reproaches, had now disappeared. After a long search she was found; but she appeared to be out of her mind. Her parents took her home; but the gentlest treatment had no effect upon her, and she had to be locked up for fear she would run away again.

They succeeded by degrees in recovering Edward from the extreme agony of despair; but only to make him more really wretched. He now saw clearly, he could not doubt how, that the happiness of his life was gone from him for ever. It was suggested to him that if Ottilie was placed in the chapel, she would still remain among the living, and it would be a calm, quiet, peaceful home for her. There was much difficulty in obtaining his consent; he would only give it under condition that she should be taken there in an open coffin; that the vault in which she was laid, if covered at all, should be only covered with glass, and a lamp should be kept always burning there. It was arranged that this should be done, and then he seemed resigned.

They clothed the delicate body in the festal dress, which she had herself prepared. A garland of asters was wreathed about her head, which shone sadly there like melancholy stars. To decorate the bier and the church and chapel, the gardens were robbed of their beauty; they lay desolate, as if a premature winter had blighted all their loveliness. In the earliest morning she was borne in an open coffin out of the castle, and the heavenly features were once more reddened with the rising sun. The mourners crowded about her as she was being taken along. None would go before; none would follow; every one would be where she was, every one would enjoy her presence for the last time. Men and women and little boys — there was not one unmoved; least of all to be consoled were the girls, who felt most immediately what they had lost.

Nanny was not present; it had been thought better not to allow it, and they had kept secret from her the day and the hour of the funeral. She was at her parents’ house, closely watched, in a room looking toward the garden. But when she heard the bells tolling, she knew too well what they meant; and her attendant having left her out of curiosity to see the funeral, she escaped out of the window into a passage, and from thence, finding all the doors locked, into an upper open loft. At this moment the funeral was passing through the village, which had been all freshly strewed with leaves. Nanny saw her mistress plainly close below her, more plainly, more entirely, than any one in the procession underneath; she appeared to be lifted above the earth, borne as it were on clouds or waves, and the girl fancied she was making signs to her; her senses swam, she tottered, swayed herself for a moment on the edge, and fell to the ground. The crowd drew asunder on all sides with a cry of horror. In the tumult and confusion, the bearers were obliged to set down the coffin; the girl lay close by it; it seemed as if every limb was broken. They lifted her up, and by accident or providentially she was allowed to lean over the body; she appeared, indeed, to be endeavoring, with what remained to her of life, to reach her beloved mistress. Scarcely, however, had the loosely hanging limbs touched Ottilie’s robe, and the powerless finger rested on the folded hands, than the girl started up, and first raising her arms and eyes toward heaven, flung herself down upon her knees before the coffin, and gazed with passionate devotion at her mistress.

At last she sprang, as if inspired, from off the ground, and cried with a voice of ecstasy: “Yes, she has forgiven me; what no man, what I myself could never have forgiven. God forgives me through her look, her motion, her lips.

“Now she is lying again so still and quiet, but you saw how she raised herself up, and unfolded her hands and blessed me, and how kindly she looked at me. You all heard, you can witness that she said to me: ‘You are forgiven.’ I am not a murderess any more. She has forgiven me. God has forgiven me, and no one may now say anything more against me.”

The people stood crowding around her. They were amazed; they listened and looked this way and that, and no one knew what should next be done. “Bear her on to her rest,” said the girl. “She has done her part; she has suffered, and cannot now remain any more amongst us.” The bier moved on, Nanny now following it; and thus they reached the church and the chapel.

So now stood the coffin of Ottilie, with the child’s coffin at her head, and her box at her feet, inclosed in a resting-place of massive oak. A woman had been provided to watch the body for the first part of the time, as it lay there so beautiful beneath its glass covering. But Nanny would not permit this duty to be taken from herself. She would remain alone without a companion, and attend to the lamp which was now kindled for the first time; and she begged to be allowed to do it with so much eagerness and perseverance, that they let her have her way, to prevent any greater evil that might ensue.

But she did not long remain alone. As night was falling, and the hanging lamp began to exercise its full right and shed abroad a larger lustre, the door opened and the Architect entered the chapel. The chastely ornamented walls in the mild light looked more strange, more awful, more antique, than he was prepared to see them. Nanny was sitting on one side of the coffin. She recognized him immediately; but she pointed in silence to the pale form of her mistress. And there stood he on the other side, in the vigor of youth and of grace, with his arms drooping, and his hands clasped piteously together, motionless, with head and eye inclined over the inanimate body.

Once already he had stood thus before in the Belisarius; he had now involuntarily fallen into the same attitude. And this time how naturally! Here, too, was something of inestimable worth thrown down from its high estate. There were courage, prudence, power, rank, and wealth in one single man, lost irrevocably; there were qualities which, in decisive moments, had been of indispensable service to the nation and the prince; but which, when the moment was passed, were no more valued, but flung aside and neglected, and cared for no longer. And here were many other silent virtues, which had been summoned but a little time before by nature out of the depths of her treasures, and now swept rapidly away again by her careless hand — rare, sweet, lovely virtues, whose peaceful workings the thirsty world had welcomed, while it had them, with gladness and joy; and now was sorrowing for them in unavailing desire.

Both the youth and the girl were silent for a long time. But when she saw the tears streaming fast down his cheeks, and he appeared to be sinking under the burden of his sorrow, she spoke to him with so much truthfulness and power, with such kindness and such confidence, that, astonished at the flow of her words, he was able to recover himself, and he saw his beautiful friend floating before him in the new life of a higher world. His tears ceased flowing; his sorrow grew lighter: on his knees he took leave of Ottilie, and with a warm pressure of the hand of Nanny, he rode away from the spot into the night without having seen a single other person.

The surgeon had, without the girl being aware of it, remained all night in the church; and when he went in the morning to see her, he found her cheerful and tranquil. He was prepared for wild aberrations. He thought that she would be sure to speak to him of conversations which she had held in the night with Ottilie, and of other such apparitions. But she was natural, quiet, and perfectly self-possessed. She remembered accurately what had happened in her previous life; she could describe the circumstances of it with the greatest exactness, and never in anything which she said stepped out of the course of what was real and natural, except in her account of what had passed with the body, which she delighted to repeat again and again, how, Ottilie had raised herself up, had blessed her, had forgiven her, and thereby set her at rest for ever.

Ottilie remained so long in her beautiful state, which more resembled sleep than death, that a number of persons were attracted there to look at her. The neighbors and the villagers wished to see her again, and every one desired to hear Nanny’s incredible story from her own mouth. Many laughed at it, most doubted, and some few were found who were able to believe.

Difficulties, for which no real satisfaction is attainable, compel us to faith. Before the eyes of all the world, Nanny’s limbs had been broken, and by touching the sacred body she had been restored to strength again. Why should not others find similar good fortune? Delicate mothers first privately brought their children who were suffering from obstinate disorders, and they believed that they could trace an immediate improvement. The confidence of the people increased, and at last there was no one so old or so weak as not to have come to seek fresh life and health and strength at this place. The concourse became so great, that they were obliged, except at the hours of divine service, to keep the church and chapel closed.

Edward did not venture to look at her again; he lived on mechanically; he seemed to have no tears left, and to be incapable of any further suffering; his power of taking interest in what was going on diminished every day; his appetite gradually failed. The only refreshment which did him any good was what he drank out of the glass, which to him, indeed, had been but an untrue prophet. He continued to gaze at the intertwining initials, and the earnest cheerfulness of his expression seemed to signify that he still hoped to be united with her at last. And as every little circumstance combines to favor the fortunate, and every accident contributes to elate him; so do the most trifling occurrences love to unite to crush and overwhelm the unhappy. One day, as Edward raised the beloved glass to his lips, he put it down and thrust it from him with a shudder. It was the same and not the same. He missed a little private mark upon it. The valet was questioned, and had to confess that the real glass had not long since been broken, and that one like it belonging to the same set had been substituted in its place.

Edward could not be angry. His destiny had spoken out with sufficient clearness in the fact, and how should he be affected by the shadow? and yet it touched him deeply. He seemed now to dislike drinking, and thenceforward purposely to abstain from food and from speaking.

But from time to time a sort of restlessness came over him; he would desire to eat and drink something, and would begin again to speak. “Ah!” he said, one day to the Major, who now seldom left his side, “how unhappy I am that all my efforts are but imitations ever, and false and fruitless. What was blessedness to her, is pain to me; and yet for the sake of this blessedness I am forced to take this pain upon myself. I must go after her; follow her by the same road. But my nature and my promise hold me back. It is a terrible difficulty, indeed, to imitate the inimitable. I feel clearly, my dear friend, that genius is required for everything; for martyrdom as well as the rest.”

What shall we say of the endeavors which in this hopeless condition were made for him? His wife, his friends, his physician, incessantly labored to do something for him. But it was all in vain: at last they found him dead. Mittler was the first to make the melancholy discovery; he called the physician, and examined closely, with his usual presence of mind, the circumstances under which he had been found. Charlotte rushed in to them; she was afraid that he had committed suicide, and accused herself and accused others of unpardonable carelessness. But the physician on natural, and Mittler on moral grounds, were soon able to satisfy her of the contrary. It was quite clear that Edward’s end had taken him by surprise. In a quiet moment he had taken out of his pocketbook and out of a casket everything which remained to him as memorials of Ottilie, and had spread them out before him — a lock of hair, flowers which had been gathered in some happy hour, and every letter which she had written to him from the first and which his wife had ominously happened to give him. It was impossible that he would intentionally have exposed these to the danger of being seen by the first person who might happen to discover him.

But so lay the heart, which but a short time before had been so swift and eager, at rest now, where it could never be disturbed; and falling asleep, as he did, with his thoughts on one so saintly, he might well be called blessed. Charlotte gave him his place at Ottilie’s side, and arranged that thenceforth no other person should be placed with them in the same vault. In order to secure this, she made it a condition under which she settled considerable sums of money on the church and the school.

So lie the lovers, sleeping side by side. Peace hovers above their resting-place. Fair angel faces gaze down upon them from the vaulted ceiling, and what a happy moment that will be when one day they wake again together!

WILHELM MEISTER’S JOURNEYMAN YEARS

OR WILHELM’S TRAVELS

Translated by Albert Högni Stefánsson Gunlogsen

Published in 1821, Goethe’s fourth and final novel is a sequel to the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.  The novel received mixed reviews at first and only gained full critical attention much later in the mid-twentieth century. Consisting largely of short stories and novellas, woven together with elements of an epistolary novel and several interspersed poems, its structure challenged the typical conventions of a novel at the time of its first publication. Goethe revised the novel in 1829, which included significant alterations; a translation of the latter text is provided in this edition.

The novel opens with the Biblical title “Flight into Egypt,” in which Wilhelm and Felix, his son, encounter a family in the course of their travels. Felix befriends the boys of the family, and returns with them to their residence. Wilhelm, declining their invitation to come as well, returns to his lodge at the mountaintop and writes to Natalie. The chapter closes with this letter. Wilhelm speaks here of his wish to be with her, and also comments on the rules guiding his travels: “Not more than three days shall I remain under one roof. I shall leave no lodging without distancing myself at least one mile from it.”

The first edition

CONTENTS

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Goethe at the time of the second edition’s publication, 1829

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

IN the shadow of a mighty rock sat Wilhelm, at a gloomy and striking spot, where the steep mountain-path turned sharply round a corner, and rapidly wound down into the chasm below. The sun was still high, and illuminated the tops of the firs in the rocky valleys at his feet. He was just entering something in his memorandum-book, when Felix, who had been clambering about, came up to him with a stone in his hand. “What do they call this stone?” said the boy.

“I do not know,” replied Wilhelm.

“Is it gold that sparkles so in it?” said the former.

“Nothing of the kind!” replied the other; “and now I remember that people call it ‘cats’-gold.’ “

“Cats’-gold!” said the boy, laughing; “why?”

“Probably because it is false, and because cats are thought to be false.”

“I will remember that,” said his son, and put the stone into his leathern wallet; but at the same time pulled out something else, and asked, “What is this?”

“A fruit,” replied his father; “and to judge by its scales it ought to be akin to the fir-cones.”

“It does not look like a cone; why it is round.”

“Let us ask the huntsmen: they know the whole forest and all sorts of fruits; they know how to sow, to plant, and to wait; then they let the stems grow and become as big as they can.”

“The hunters know everything; yesterday the postman showed me where a stag had crossed the road; he called me back and made me observe the track, as he called it. I had jumped across it, but now I saw plainly a pair of claws printed; it must have been a big stag.”

“I heard how you were questioning the postman.”

“He knew a great deal, and yet he is not a huntsman. But I want to be a huntsman. It is glorious to be the whole day in the forest, and to listen to the birds, to know their names and where their nests are; how to take the eggs or the young ones; how to feed them, and when to catch the old ones: all this is so splendid!”

Scarcely had this been said, when there appeared coming down the rugged path an unusual phenomenon. Two boys, beautiful as the day, in colored tunics, which one might rather have taken for small shirts girt up, sprang down one after the other; and Wilhelm found an opportunity of inspecting them more closely, as they faltered before him, and for a moment stood still. Around the head of the elder one waved an abundance of fair locks, which one must needs see first on looking at him; and next his light-blue eyes attracted the glance which lost itself with pleasure in his beautiful figure. The second, who looked more like a friend than a brother, was adorned with smooth brown hair, which hung down over his shoulders, and the reflection of which seemed to mirror itself in his eyes.

Wilhelm had not time to contemplate more closely these two extraordinary, and in such a wilderness quite unexpected beings, when he heard a manly voice shouting down in a emptory yet kindly manner from behind the corner of the rock: “Why are you standing still? Do not stop the way for us!”

Wilhelm looked up; and if the children had caused him to wonder, what now met his eyes filled him with astonishment. A strong and vigorous, but not too tall, young man, lightly clad, with brown complexion and black hair, stepped firmly yet carefully down the rocky path, leading after him a donkey, which first displayed its own sleek and well-trimmed head, and then the beautiful burden which it carried. A gentle, lovable woman was sitting in a large finely-mounted saddle; within a blue mantle, which was wrapped round her, she held a lately-born infant, which she pressed to her bosom and regarded with indescribable love. The same thing occurred to the guide as to the children: he hesitated for a moment when he saw Wilhelm. The animal slackened its pace, but the descent was too steep — the passers-by could not stop, and Wilhelm with wonder saw them disappear behind the projecting wall of rock.

Nothing was more natural, than that this unwonted sight should snatch him from his meditations. He stood up in curiosity and looked down from his place into the depth to see whether they would not somewhere or other come into sight again. And he was just on the point of descending himself to greet these strange wanderers, when Felix came up and said:

“Father, may I not go with these children to their house? They want to take me with them. You must come too, the man said to me. Come! They are waiting down yonder.”

“I will speak to them,” answered Wilhelm.

He found them at a place where the road was less precipitous, and he devoured with his eyes the wonderful forms which had so much attracted his attention. But there were one or two other special circumstances, which before now it had not been possible for him to observe.

The young and active man had in fact an adze on his shoulder, and a long, thin, iron measuring-square.

The children carried tall bunches of bulrushes, as if they were palms; and if from this point of view they resembled angels, on the other hand they dragged along small baskets with eatables, and in this resembled the daily messengers, such as are accustomed to go to and fro across the mountain. The mother, too, when he looked at her more closely, had beneath her blue mantle a reddish delicately-tinted under-garment, so that our friend, with astonishment, was fain to find the Flight into Egypt, which he had so often seen painted, actually here before his eyes.

They greeted one another; and whilst Wilhelm, what with astonishment and absorption, could not utter a single word, the young man said:

“Our children have already made friends just now. Will you come with us, that we may see whether the grown-up people may not come to an understanding too.”

Wilhelm bethought himself a little, and then replied:

“The sight of your little family procession inspires confidence and kindliness, and — I may as well confess it at once — no less curiosity, and a lively desire to know more of you. For at the first moment one might almost ask one’s self whether you are real travellers, or only spirits who take a pleasure in animating this inhospitable mountain with pleasant visions.”

“Then come with us to our dwelling,” said the other.

“Come along!” shouted the children, already dragging Felix along with them.

“Come with us!” said the lady, turning her amiable kindly look from her babe towards the stranger.

Without hesitation, Wilhelm said:

“I am sorry that I cannot follow you immediately. This night at least I must pass at the frontier-house above. My wallet, papers and everything are still lying up there unpacked and unattended to. But, that I may show myself ready and willing to do justice to your kind invitation, I will hand you over my Felix as a pledge. To-morrow I shall be with you. How far is it from here?”

“Before sunset we shall reach our dwelling,” said the carpenter, “and from the frontier-house it will be only an hour and a half more for you. Your boy will augment our family for this night; to-morrow we shall expect you.”

The man and the beast set themselves in motion. Wilhelm with visible pleasure saw his Felix in such good company; he could compare him with the dear little angels, from whom he differed so markedly. For his years he was not tall, but robust, with a broad chest and strong shoulders. In his nature there was a peculiar mixture of authority and obedience; he had already laid hold of a palm-branch and a little basket, whereby he seemed to express both. The procession was already on the point of disappearing a second time round a rocky wall, when Wilhelm collected himself, and shouted after them:

“But how shall I inquire for you?”

“Only ask for St. Joseph’s!” rang from the depth, and the whole vision had disappeared behind the blue walls of shadow. A solemn religious hymn, sung in parts, arose and died away in the distance, and Wilhelm thought that he distinguished the voice of his Felix.

He mounted upwards, and in so doing retarded for himself the sunset. The star of heaven which he had lost more than once, shone on him again as he ascended higher, and it was still day when he arrived at his lodging. Once more he gladdened himself with the grand mountain view, and then withdrew to his chamber, where he at once seized a pen, and spent a part of the night in writing.

Wilhelm to Natalia.

“Now at last is the summit reached — the heights of the mountain chain which will set a more effectual separation between us than the whole stretch of country so far. It is my feeling that one is still ever in the neighborhood of one’s beloved ones as long as the streams flow from us to them. To-day I can still fancy to myself that the twig which I cast into the forest brook might leisurely float downwards to her — might in a few days be stranded in front of her garden; and thus our spirit sends its images, our heart its feelings, more easily downwards. But over there I fear that a partition wall is placed against imagination and feeling. Yet that is perhaps only a premature anxiety; for there, too, it will very likely not be otherwise than it is here.

“What could separate me from thee — from thee, to whom I am destined for ever, although a wondrous fate keeps me from thee, and unexpectedly shuts to me the heaven to which I was standing so near! I had time to collect myself, and yet no time would have sufficed to give me this self-possession, if I had not won it from thy mouth, from thy lips, in that decisive moment. How should I have been able to tear myself away, if the indestructible thread had not been spun, which is to unite us for time and eternity.

“Still, I ought not indeed to speak of all this. I will not transgress thy tender commands. Upon this summit let it be for the last time that I utter before thee the word, separation. My life shall become a journey. I have to discharge the traveller’s special duties, and to undergo tests of a peculiar kind. How often I smile when I read through the rules which my craft has prescribed for me, and those which I myself have made! Much has been observed and much transgressed; but even at the transgression, this sheet, this witness to my last confession, my last absolution, serves me instead of an admonishing conscience, and I make a fresh start. I am on my guard, and my errors no longer rush, like mountain torrents, one upon the top of the other.

“Still, I will willingly confess to you, that I often admire those teachers and leaders of men who only impose on their disciples outward mechanical duties. They make the thing easy to themselves and to the world. For just this part of my obligations, which formerly seemed to me the most arduous and the most wonderful — this I observe most conveniently and most pleasantly.

“I must stay not more than three days under the same roof. I must leave no inn without at least removing one mile from the same. These regulations are really designed to make my years years of journeying, and to prevent the least temptation of settling down occurring to me. I have hitherto scrupulously subjected myself to this condition — nay, not once availed myself of the indulgence allowed. It is in fact here for the first time that I make a halt — that I sleep for a third night in the same bed. From here I send you many things that I have, so far, learned, observed, saved up; and then to-morrow early we descend on the other side, in the first place to a wonderful family — a holy family, I might perhaps say — about which you will find more in my diary.

“Now, farewell, and lay down this sheet with the feeling that it has only one thing to say; only one thing that it might say and repeat forever, but will not say, will not repeat, until I have the happiness to lie again at thy feet, and over thy hands to sob out all that I have had to forego.

“Morning.

“I have packed up. The postman is fastening the wallet upon his frame. The sun has not yet risen, the mists are steaming out of all the valleys, but the sky overhead is bright. We are going down into the gloomy depth, which also will soon brighten up above us. Let me send across to you my last sigh! Let my last glance towards you be still filled with an involuntary tear! I am decided and determined. You shall hear no more complaints from me; you shall only hear what happens to the wanderer. And still, whilst I wish to conclude, a thousand more thoughts, wishes, hopes, and intentions, cross one another. Fortunately they urge me away. The postman is calling, and the host is already clearing up again in my presence, as if I had gone; even as cold-hearted improvident heirs do not conceal from the departing the arrangements for putting themselves in possession.”

CHAPTER II.

ST. JOSEPH THE SECOND.

Already had the traveller, following on foot his porter’s steps, left steep rocks behind and above him; already were they traversing a less rugged intermediate range, ever hurrying forwards, through many a well-wooded forest, through many a pleasant meadow-ground, until at last they found themselves upon a declivity, and looked down into a carefully cultivated valley shut in all round by hills. A large monastic building, half in ruins, half in good repair, at once attracted their attention.

“This is St. Joseph’s,” said the carrier; “a great pity for the beautiful church! Only look how fresh its pillars and columns still look through the underwood and the trees, although it has been lying so many hundreds of years in ruins.”

“The convent buildings, on the other hand,” replied Wilhelm, “are still, I see, in good preservation.”

“Yes,” said the other, “a steward lives on the spot, who manages the household, and collects the rents and tithes which have to be paid here from far around.”

With these words they had entered, through the open gate, a spacious courtyard, which, surrounded by solemn well-preserved buildings, announced itself as the abode of a peaceful community. He at once perceived his Felix, with the angels of yesterday, busy round a big market-basket, which a strongly-built woman had placed in front of her. They were just about to buy some cherries; but in point of fact, Felix, who always carried some money about him, was beating down the price. He now played the part of host as well as guest, and was lavishing an abundance of fruit on his playmates; even to his father the refreshment was welcome amidst these barren mossy wilds, where the colored shining fruits always seemed so beautiful. “She brought them up some distance from a large garden,” the fruit-woman remarked, in order to make the price satisfactory to the buyers, to whom it had seemed somewhat too high.

“Father will soon return,” said the children; “in the meanwhile you must go into the hall and rest there.”

Yet how astonished was Wilhelm when the children took him to the room which they called the hall. It was entered directly from the courtyard by a large door, and our traveller found himself in a very clean well-preserved chapel, which, however, as in fact he saw, had been arranged for the domestic use of daily life. On one side stood a table, a settle, several chairs and benches; on the other side a carved dresser with various-colored pottery, jugs and glasses. There were not wanting a number of chests and boxes, and, neatly ordered as everything was, there was no want of what is attractive in domestic everyday life. The light fell through high windows at the side. But what most aroused the traveller’s attention were colored pictures painted on the wall at a moderate height below the windows, extended like tapestries round three sides of the chapel, and coming down to a panelled skirting which covered the rest of the wall to the ground. The pictures represented the history of St. Joseph. Here you saw him busy with his carpenter’s work; there he was meeting Mary, and a lily sprouted out of the ground between them, whilst several angels hovered watchfully about them. Here he is being betrothed; then follows the angelic salutation. There he is sitting despondent amidst unfinished work, letting his axe lie, and is thinking of leaving his wife. But presently there appears to him the angel in a dream, and his position is changed. With devotion he regards the new-born Child in the manger at Bethlehem, and adores it. Soon after follows a wonderfully beautiful picture. All kinds of carpentered wood are seen; it is on the point of being put together, and accidentally a couple of pieces form a cross. The Child has fallen asleep upon the cross; its mother is sitting close by regarding it with tender love, and the foster-father stops his work in order not to disturb its sleep. Immediately after follows the Flight into Egypt. It provoked a smile from the traveller as he looked at it, when he saw on the wall the repetition of the living picture of yesterday.

He had not been left long to his meditations when the host entered, whom he recognized immediately as the leader of the holy caravan. They saluted each other most cordially; a conversation on sundry matters followed; still Wilhelm’s attention remained directed towards the picture. The host saw the interest of his guest, and commenced laughingly:

“No doubt you are wondering at the harmony of this structure with its inhabitants, whom you learned to know yesterday. But it is perhaps still more strange than might be supposed; the building has, in fact, made the inhabitants. For, if the lifeless comes to life, then it may well be able also to create a living thing.”

“Oh, yes,” rejoined Wilhelm, “it would surprise me if the spirit who centuries ago worked so powerfully amid this mountain desert, and attracted towards itself such a huge mass of buildings, possessions and rights, and thereby diffused manifold culture in the neighborhood, — it would surprise me if it did not still display its vital energy even out of these ruins upon a living human being. Still, let us not abide by the general; make me acquainted with your history, in order that I may learn how it was possible that, without trifling or pretension, the past is again represented in you, and that which is past and gone comes a second time upon the scene.”

Just as Wilhelm was expecting an instructive answer from the lips of his host, a friendly voice in the courtyard shouted the name of Joseph. The host heard it, and went to the door.

So he is called Joseph, too! said Wilhelm to himself. That is wonderful enough, and yet not quite so wonderful as that he represents his patron saint in the life. At the same time he glanced towards the door, and saw the Madonna of yesterday speaking with her husband. At last they separated; the woman went to the opposite dwelling.

“Mary!” he shouted after her, “just a word more.”

So she is called Mary, too! But a little more, and I shall feel myself transported backwards eighteen hundred years. He mused on the solemn pent-up valley in which he found himself, on the ruins and the stillness, and a strange olden-time sort of mood fell upon him. It was time that the host and children came in. The latter begged Wilhelm to come for a walk, whilst the host still discharged a few duties. They went now through the ruins of the church, with its wealth of columns: the lofty roof and walls seemed to strengthen themselves in wind and storm; whilst strong trees had, ages ago, struck root in the broad tops of the walls, and in company with a good deal of grass, flowers, and moss, represented gardens hanging boldly in the air. Grassy meadow-paths led to a rapid brook, and the traveller could now, from a certain height, look over the building and its situation with an interest which grew greater as its inhabitants became more and more remarkable to him, and, through their harmony with their surroundings, aroused his liveliest curiosity.

They returned, and found a table laid in the consecrated hall. At the upper end there stood an arm-chair, in which the housewife sat down. She had standing by her side a high basket, in which the little child was lying; next, the father on her left hand, and Wilhelm on her right. The three children occupied the lower part of the table. An old female servant brought in a well-prepared repast. The eating and drinking-vessels likewise indicated a bygone time. The children gave occasion for amusement, whilst Wilhelm could not look enough at the figure and bearing of his holy hostess.

After dinner the company separated; the host took his guest to a shady spot in the ruins, where from an elevated position one had in full view the pleasant prospect down the valley, and saw the hills of the lower land, with their fertile declivities and woody summits ranged one behind the other.

“It is fair,” said the host, “that I should satisfy your curiosity, and the rather as I feel, in your case, that you are capable of taking the marvellous seriously, if it rests upon a serious foundation. This religious institution, of which you still see the remains, was dedicated to the holy family, and in olden times, on account of many miracles, was renowned as a place of pilgrimage. The church was dedicated to the mother and the son. It was destroyed several centuries ago. The chapel, dedicated to the holy foster-father, has been preserved, as also the habitable part of the convent. The income for a great many years back has belonged to a secular prince, who keeps an agent up here, and that am I, the son of the former agent, who likewise succeeded his father in this office.

“St. Joseph, although all ecclesiastical honors had long ago ceased up here, had been so beneficent towards our family, that it is not to be wondered at, if they felt particularly well disposed towards him; and thence it came to pass, that at baptism I was called Joseph, whereby to a certain extent my manner of life was determined. I grew up, and if I became an associate of my father whilst he looked after the rents, still I clung quite as much, nay, even more affectionately, to my mother, who according to her means was fond of distributing relief, and through her kindly disposition and her good deeds was known and beloved on the whole mountain-side. She would send me, now here, and now there; at one time to fetch, at another to order, at another to look after; and I felt quite at home in this kind of charitable business.

“In general a mountain life has something more humanizing than life on the lowlands; inhabitants are closer together, or further apart, if you wish it; wants are smaller, but more pressing. Man is more thrown upon his own resources, — must learn to rely on his hands, on his feet. The laborer, postman, carrier, are all united in one and the same person; everybody also stands nearer to his neighbor, meets him oftener, and lives with him in a common sphere of activity.

“When I was still young, and my shoulders unable to carry much, it occurred to me to furnish a small donkey with baskets, and drive it before me up and down the steep footpaths. In the mountains, the ass is no such contemptible animal as in the lowlands, where the laborer who ploughs with horses thinks himself better than another who tears up the sod with oxen. And I trudged along behind my beast with all the less misgiving, that I had before noticed, in the chapel, that it had attained to the honor of carrying God and his mother. Still, this chapel was not then in the condition in which it is now. It was treated like an outbuilding, almost like a stable. Firewood, hurdles, tools, tubs and ladders, and all sorts of things, were heaped pell-mell together. It was fortunate that the paintings were situated so high, and that wainscot lasts a little while. But as a child I was especially fond of clambering here and there all about the wood, and looking at the pictures, which nobody could properly explain to me. Enough, I knew that the saint whose life was painted above was my namesake, and I congratulated myself on him, as much as if he had been my uncle. I grew up, and as it was a special condition that he who would lay claim to the profitable office of steward must exercise a trade, therefore, in accordance with the wish of my parents, who were anxious that I should one day inherit this excellent post, I was to learn a trade — and, moreover, such a one as would prove useful to the household up here.

“My father was a cooper by trade, and made everything of this sort of work that was necessary himself, whence accrued great advantage to himself and the whole family. But I could not make up my mind to follow him in this line. My inclination drew me irresistibly towards the carpenter’s trade, the implements of which I had from my youth seen so circumstantially and correctly painted by the side of my saint. I declared my wish; they did not oppose it, and the less so as the carpenter was often required by us for so many different constructions, and even because, if he has some ability and love for his work, the cabinet-maker’s and wood-carver’s arts, especially in forest districts, are closely allied to it. And what still more strengthened me in my higher designs was that picture, which, alas! now is almost entirely obliterated. As soon as you know what it is meant to represent, you will be able to make it out, when I take you to it presently. St. Joseph had been entrusted with nothing less than the making of a throne for King Herod. The gorgeous seat was to be placed between two specified pillars. Joseph carefully takes the measure of the breadth and height, and constructs a costly royal throne. But how astonished is he, how distracted, when he brings the chair of state: it is found to be too high and not wide enough. Now, as is well known, King Herod was not to be trifled with: the pious master-joiner is in the greatest embarrassment. The Christ-child, accustomed to accompany him everywhere, to carry his tools in childishly humble sport, sees his distress, and is immediately ready with advice and help. The wondrous Child desires his foster-father to take hold of the throne by one side. He seizes the other side of the carved work, and both begin to pull. With the greatest ease and as conveniently as if it had been of leather, the throne expands in breadth, loses proportionately in height, and fits most excellently to the place and position, to the greatest consolation of the reassured carpenter and to the perfect satisfaction of the king.

“In my youth that throne was still quite easy to see, and from the remains of one side you will be able to observe that there was no lack of carved work, which indeed must have proved easier to the painter than it would have been to the carpenter, if it had been demanded of him.

“However, I had no misgivings in consequence, but looked upon the craft to which I had devoted myself in such a favorable light, that I could scarcely wait until they had put me into apprenticeship; which was all the more easy to effect, inasmuch as there lived in the neighborhood a master-carpenter who worked for the whole district, and who could employ several assistants and apprentices. Thus I remained near my parents, and continued to a certain extent my former life, whilst employing hours of leisure and holy-days for the charitable commissions with which my mother continued to charge me.

The Visitation.

“In this way a few years passed,” continued the narrator. “I very soon understood the advantages of the craft; and my body, developed through work, was capable of undertaking anything required for the purpose. In addition, I discharged the former duties which I rendered to my good mother, or rather to the sick and needy. I went with my beast through the mountain, distributed the load punctually, and from grocers and merchants I took back with me what we lacked up here. My master was satisfied with me, and so were my parents. Already I had on my wanderings the pleasure of seeing many a house which I had helped to erect, which I had decorated. For it was especially this last — the notching of the beams, the carving of certain simple forms, the branding of ornamental figures, the red-coloring of certain cavities, by which a wooden mountain-house offers such a cheerful aspect, — all such performances were entrusted to me especially, because I showed myself best in the matter, always bearing in mind as I did the throne of Herod and its adornments.

“Among the help-worthy persons of whom my mother took particular care, the first place was especially awarded to young wives in expectation of childbed, as I by degrees could well observe, although in such cases it was usual to keep the messages a secret so far as I was concerned. In such cases I never had any direct commission, but everything went through the medium of a good woman who lived at no great distance down the valley, and who was called Frau Elizabeth. My mother, herself experienced in the art which rescues for life so many at the very entrance into life, was on unalterably good terms with Frau Elizabeth, and I often had to hear on all sides that many of our robust mountaineers had to thank both these women for their existence. The mystery with which Elizabeth every time received me, her reserved answers to my puzzling questions, which I myself did not understand, awoke in me a particular reverence for her and her house, which was in the highest degree clean, and seemed to me to represent a kind of little sanctuary.

“In the meanwhile, in consequence of my knowledge and skill in my trade, I had acquired a certain amount of influence in the family. As my father, in his quality of cooper, had provided for the cellar, so did I now care for house and home, and mended many injured portions of the ancient building. I particularly succeeded in restoring to domestic use certain dilapidated out-houses and coach-houses; and scarcely was this done, than I set about clearing and cleansing my beloved chapel. In a few days it had been put in order, almost as you see it; whereupon I set about restoring, in uniformity with the whole, the missing or injured parts of the panel-work. And you might perhaps take these folding-doors of the entrance to be rather old, but they are my own work. I have spent several years in carving them in hours of leisure, after I had in the first place neatly joined them into a whole by the aid of strong planks of oak. Whatever of the pictures had not up to that time been injured or obliterated, has also been preserved up to now; and I assisted the glazier at a new building on the condition that he restored the colored windows.

“If those pictures and thoughts on the life of the saint had occupied my imagination, so it all became only more deeply impressed upon me when I was able to consider the spot as once more a sanctuary, and while away the time in it, particularly in the summer, and meditate at leisure upon whatever I saw or imagined. I felt within me an irresistible inclination to imitate the saint; and, as similar circumstances cannot easily be called forth, I determined at least to begin to resemble him from below, as in fact I had already begun to do long ago by the use of the beast of burden. The little creature of which I had availed myself hitherto would not suffice me any longer. I found for myself a much finer animal, and was careful to get a well-constructed saddle, which was equally convenient for riding or for carrying goods. A pair of new baskets were procured, and a net with colored ribbons, tassels, and knots, mingled with chinking metal tags, adorned the neck of the long-eared creature, which was now soon able to vie with its prototype on the wall. It occurred to no one to mock me, when in this array I passed along the mountain; for people willingly allow benevolence a marvellous outward aspect.

“In the meantime the war, or rather its consequences, had approached our district, whilst on several occasions dangerous bands of runaway rascals collected together, and here and there perpetrated many a violent deed and much mischief. By a good system of country militia, patrols, and continuous vigilance, the evil was certainly very soon quelled; yet people too soon fell into carelessness again, and, before they had become aware of it, fresh mischiefs broke out.

“There had long been quiet in our district, and I with my sumpter beast went peacefully trudging along the accustomed paths, until, on a certain day, I came across the newly-sown clearing in the wood, and on the edge of the sunk fence I found sitting, or rather lying, a female figure. She seemed to be asleep or in a swoon. I attended to her, and when she opened her beautiful eyes, and sat up, she exclaimed passionately, ‘Where is he? Have you seen him?’

“ ‘Whom?’ I asked.

“She answered, ‘My husband!’

“Seeing how very youthful her aspect was, this answer was not expected by me; still, I continued to assist her only the more readily, and to assure her of my sympathy. I gathered that the two travellers had left their carriage at some distance, on account of the difficult carriage-road, in order to turn into a shorter foot-path. Close by the spot they had been assailed by armed men: her husband, whilst fighting, had got to some distance off. She had not been able to follow him far, and had been lying on this spot she did not know how long. She begged me imploringly to leave her and to hurry in search of her husband. She got upon her feet, and the most beautiful, the loveliest form stood before me; yet I could easily see that she was in a condition in which she might very soon need the assistance of my mother and Frau Elizabeth. We disputed for a while, for I wished first to take her to a place of safety; she wished first of all for news of her husband. She would not go far herself from the path he had taken, and all my representations would perhaps have proved fruitless, if a troop of our militia, which had turned out upon the news of fresh outrages, had not just then arrived through the forest. They were informed of what had happened; the necessary course was agreed upon, the place of meeting fixed, and thus the matter was so far set straight. I quickly hid my basket in a neighboring cave, which had already often served me as a storehouse, arranged my saddle into a comfortable seat, and lifted, not without a peculiar emotion, the lovely burden upon my willing beast, which was able by itself to find the familiar paths at once, and gave me an opportunity of walking along by her side.

“You may imagine, without my describing at length, in what a strange state of mind I was. What I so long had sought for I had really found. I felt as if I were dreaming, and then again, suddenly, as if I had awoke from a dream. This heavenly form, as I saw it hovering as it were in the air, and moving in front of the green trees, came before me now like some dream, which was called forth in my soul through those pictures in the chapel. Then, again, those pictures seemed to me to have been only dreams, which now resolved themselves into a beautiful reality. I questioned her on many things; she answered me gently and politely, as beseems a person of good standing, in trouble. She often begged me, when we reached some open height, to stand still, look round, and listen. She begged me with such grace, with such a deeply-imploring glance from beneath her long black eyelashes, that I had to do whatever was but possible: I actually climbed an isolated, tall, and branchless fir-tree. Never had this evidence of my dexterity been more welcome to me; never had I on holidays and at fair-times with greater satisfaction fetched down ribbons and silk handkerchiefs from similar altitudes. Yet this time I went, alas! without any prize; neither did I see or hear anything from above. At last she herself called to me to come down, and beckoned to me quite urgently with her hand; nay, when at length in sliding down I let go my hold at a considerable height and jumped down, she gave a cry, and a sweet friendliness overspread her face, when she saw me uninjured before her.

“Why should I detain you long with the hundred attentions with which I tried to make the whole way pleasant to her, in order to distract her thoughts. And how too could I? — for this is just the peculiar quality of true attentiveness, that for the moment it makes everything of nothing. To my own feeling, the flowers which I plucked for her, the distant landscapes which I showed her, the mountains, forests, which I named to her, were so many precious treasures, which I seemed to present to her in order to bring myself into relation with her, as one will try to do by the aid of gifts.

“She had already gained me for my whole life, when we arrived at our destination in front of that good woman’s door, and I at once saw a painful separation before me. Once more I cast a glance over her whole form, and when my eyes had reached her feet, I stooped down, as if I had to do something to the saddlegirth, and I kissed the prettiest shoe that I had ever seen in my life, but without her perceiving it. I helped her down, sprang up the steps and shouted into the house-door: ‘Frau Elizabeth, here is a visitor for you!’ The good woman came out, and I looked over her shoulders towards the house, when the lovely being, with charming sorrow and inward consciousness of pain, mounted the steps and then affectionately embraced my worthy old woman, and let her conduct her into the better room. They shut themselves within it, and I remained standing by my ass before the door, like one who has unladen costly goods, and has again become but a poor driver as before.

THE LILY-STALK.

“I was still hesitating to leave the spot, for I was irresolute as to what I should do, when Frau Elizabeth came to the door and asked me to summon my mother to her, and then to go about the neighborhood and obtain if possible some news of the husband. ‘Mary begs you particularly to do this,’ said she.

“ ‘Can I not speak to her once more?’ answered I.

“ ‘That will not do,’ said Frau Elizabeth, and we parted.

“In a short time I reached our dwelling; my mother was ready to go down the very same evening and assist the young stranger. I hurried down to the lower district and hoped to obtain the most trustworthy news at the bailiff’s. But he was himself still in uncertainty, and as he knew me he invited me to spend the night with him. It seemed to me interminably long, and I constantly had the beautiful form before my eyes, as she sat rocking to and fro on the animal, and looked down at me with such a look of sorrowful friendliness. Every moment I hoped for news. I did not grudge, but wished for the preservation of the good husband, and yet could so gladly think of her as a widow. The flying detachment by degrees came together again, and after a number of varying reports the truth at last was made clear, that the carriage had been saved, but that the unfortunate husband had died of his wounds in the neighboring village. I also heard, that according to the previous arrangement some had gone to announce the sorrowful news to Frau Elizabeth. I had accordingly nothing more to do, or aid in, there, and yet a ceaseless impatience, a boundless longing, drove me back through mountain and forest to her door. It was night; the house was shut up. I saw light in the rooms, I saw shadows moving on the curtains, and so I sat down upon a bench opposite, continually on the point of knocking, and continually held back by various considerations.

“Yet why do I go on relating circumstantially what in point of fact has no interest. Enough! Even the next morning they did not let me into the house. They knew the sad occurrence, they did not want me any more; they sent me to my father, to my work; they did not answer my questions; they wanted to get rid of me.

“They had been treating me this way for a week, when at last Frau Elizabeth called me in. ‘Tread gently, my friend,’ she said; ‘but come in with good comfort!’ She led me into a cleanly apartment, where, in the corner, through the half-opened bed-curtains, I saw my fair one sitting. Frau Elizabeth went to her as if to announce me, lifted something from the bed and brought it towards me: a most beautiful boy wrapped in the whitest of linen. Frau Elizabeth held him just between me and his mother, and upon the spot there occurred to me the lily-stalk in the picture, growing out of the earth between Mary and Joseph, in witness of a pure relationship. From that instant my heart was relieved of all oppression; I was sure of my aim and of my happiness. I could freely walk towards her, speak to her; I could bear her heavenly look, take the boy in my arms, and press a hearty kiss upon his brow.

“ ‘How I thank you for your affection for this orphan child!’ said the mother.

“I exclaimed, thoughtlessly, and passionately: ‘It is an orphan no longer, if you are willing!’

“Frau Elizabeth, wiser than I, took the infant from me, and managed to send me away.

“The recollection of that time still serves me constantly for my happiest diversion when I am obliged to roam through our mountains and valleys. I am still able to call to mind the smallest circumstance — which, however, it is but fair that I should spare you.

“Weeks passed by: Mary had recovered and I could see her more frequently. My intercourse with her was a series of services and attentions. Her family circumstances allowed her to live where she liked. At first she stayed with Frau Elizabeth; then she visited us, to thank my mother and me for so much friendly help. She was happy with us, and I flattered myself that this came to pass partly on my account. Yet, what I should have liked so much to say, and dared not say, was finally mooted in a strange and charming fashion when I took her into the chapel, which I had already transformed into a habitable hall. I showed and explained to her the pictures one after the other, and in so doing I expatiated in such a vivid heartfelt manner upon the duties of a foster-father, that tears came into her eyes, and I could not get to the end of my description of the pictures. I thought myself sure of her affection, although I was not presumptuous enough to wish to blot out so soon the memory of her husband. The law compels widows to one year of mourning; and certainly such a period, which comprehends within it the change of all earthly things, is necessary to a sensitive heart, in order to soothe the painful impressions of a great loss. One sees the flowers fade and the leaves fall, but one also sees fruits ripen and fresh buds germinate. Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for a change.

“I now spoke to my mother about the matter which I had most at heart. She thereupon revealed to me how painful the death of her husband had been to Mary, and how she had recovered again only at the thought that she must live for the sake of the child. My attachment had not remained unknown to the women, and Mary had already familiarized herself with the notion of living with us. She stayed some time longer in the neighborhood, then she came up here to us, and we lived for a while longer in the godliest and happiest state of betrothal. At last we were united. That first feeling which had brought us together did not disappear. The duties and joys of foster-father and father were combined; and thus our little family, as it increased, surpassed indeed its pattern in the number of its individuals, but the virtues of that example, in truth and purity of mind, were kept holy and practised by us. And hence also we maintain with kindly habitude the outward appearance which we have accidentally acquired, and which suits so well our inward disposition; for although we are all good walkers and sturdy carriers, yet the beast of burden remains constantly in our company, in order to carry one thing or another, when business or a visit obliges us to go through these mountains and valleys. As you met us yesterday, so the whole neighborhood knows us; and we are proud of the fact that our conduct is of a kind not to shame those holy names and persons whom we profess to follow.”

CHAPTER III.

WILHELM TO NATALIA.

“I have just ended a pleasant half wondrous story, which I have written down for thee from the lips of an excellent man. If it is not entirely in his own words — if here and there I have expressed my own feelings in the place of his, this is quite natural, in view of the relationship I have here felt with him. Is not that veneration for his wife like that which I feel for you? And has not even the meeting of these two lovers some likeness to our own? But, that he is happy enough in walking along by the side of the beast that carries its double burden of beauty; that in the evening he can, with his family following, enter through the old convent gates, and that he is inseparable from his beloved and from his children; — all this I may be allowed to envy him in secret. On the other hand, I must not complain of my own fate, since I have promised you to be silent and to suffer, as you also have undertaken to do.

“I have to pass over many beautiful features of the common life of these virtuous and happy people; for how could everything be written? A few days I have spent pleasantly, but the third already warns me to bethink me of my further travels.

“To-day I had a little dispute with Felix, for he wanted almost to compel me to transgress one of the good intentions which I have promised you to keep. Now it is just a defect, a misfortune, a fatality with me, that, before I am aware of it, the company increases around me, and I charge myself with a fresh burden, under which I afterwards have to toil and to drag myself along. Now, during my travels, we must have no third person as a constant companion. We wish and intend to be and to remain two only, and it has but just now seemed as if a new, and not exactly pleasing connection was likely to be formed.

“A poor, merry little youngster had joined the children of the house, with whom Felix had been enjoying these days in play, who allowed himself to be used or abused just as the game required, and who very soon won the favor of Felix. From various expressions I noticed already that the latter had chosen a playmate for the next journey. The boy is known here in the neighborhood; he is tolerated everywhere on account of his merriness, and occasionally receives gratuities. But he did not please me, and I begged the master of the house to send him away. This was accordingly done, but Felix was vexed about it, and there was a little scene.

“On this occasion I made a discovery which pleased me. In a corner of the chapel, or ball, there stood a box of stones, which Felix — who since our wandering through the mountain had become exceedingly fond of stones — eagerly pulled out and examined. Among them were some fine, striking specimens. Our host said that the child might pick out for himself any he liked: that these stones were what remained over from a large quantity which a stranger had sent from here a short time before. He called him Montan, and you can fancy how glad I was to hear this name, under which one of our best friends, to whom we owe so much, is travelling. As I inquired as to time and circumstances, I may hope soon to meet with him in my travels.”

The news that Montan was in the neighborhood had made Wilhelm thoughtful. He considered that it ought not to be left merely to chance whether he should see such a worthy friend again, and therefore he inquired of his host whether it was not known in what direction this traveller had bent his way. No one had any more exact knowledge of this, and Wilhelm had already determined to pursue his route according to the first plan, when Felix exclaimed, “If father were not so obstinate, we should soon find Montan.”

“In what manner?” asked Wilhelm.

Felix answered: “Little Fitz said yesterday that he would most likely follow up the gentleman who had the pretty stones with him, and knew so much about them too.”

After some discussion Wilhelm at last resolved to make the attempt, and in so doing to give all the more attention to the suspicious boy. He was soon found, and when he understood what was intended, he brought a mallet and iron, and a very powerful hammer, together with a bag, and, in this miner-like equipment, ran merrily in front.

The road led sideways up the mountain again. The children ran leaping together from rock to rock, over stock and stone, and brook and stream, without following any direct path. Fitz, glancing now to his right and now to his left, pushed quickly upwards. As Wilhelm, and particularly the loaded carrier, could not follow so quickly, the boys retraced the road several times forwards and backwards, singing and whistling. The forms of certain strange trees aroused the attention of Felix, who, moreover, now made for the first time the acquaintance of the larches and stone-pines, and was attracted by the wonderful gentians. And thus the difficult travelling from place to place did not lack entertainment.

Little Fitz suddenly stood still and listened. He beckoned to the others to come.

“Do you hear the knocking?” said he. “It is the sound of a hammer striking the rock.”

“We hear it,” said the others.

“It is Montan,” said he, “or someone who can give us news of him.”

As they followed the sound, which was repeated at intervals, they struck a clearing in the forest, and beheld a steep, lofty, naked rock, towering above everything, leaving even the tall forests under it. On the summit they descried a person. He stood at too great a distance to be recognized. The children at once commenced to clamber up the rugged paths. Wilhelm followed with some difficulty, nay, danger: for in ascending a rock, the first one goes more safely, because he feels his way for himself; the one that follows only sees where the former has got to, but not how. The boys soon reached the top, and Wilhelm heard a loud shout of joy.

“It is Jarno!” Felix called out to his father, and Jarno at once stepped forward to a steep place, reached his hand to his friend, and pulled him up to the top. They embraced and welcomed each other with rapture under the open canopy of heaven.

But they had scarcely let each other go when Wilhelm was seized with giddiness, not so much on his own behalf, as because he saw the children hanging over the fearful precipice. Jarno noticed it, and told them all to sit down at once.

“Nothing is more natural,” said he, “than to feel giddy before any great sight, upon which we come unexpectedly, and so feel at the same time our littleness and our greatness. But then, generally speaking, there is no true enjoyment except where one must at first feel giddy.”

“Are those below these the big mountains which we have crossed?” asked Felix. “How little they look! And here,” he continued, loosening a little piece of stone from the top, “here is the cats’-gold again; it seems to be everywhere!”

“It is found far and wide,” replied Jarno; “and since you are curious about such things, take notice that at present you are sitting upon the oldest mountain range, on the earliest form of stone, in the world.”

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

“Scarcely,” replied Montan; “good things require time.”

“Then down there there is another sort of stone,” said Felix, “and then again another, and others again, forever,” pointing from the nearest mountains towards the more distant ones, and so to the plains below.

It was a very fine day, and Jarno pointed out in detail the splendid view. Here and there stood several other summits like that upon which they were. A mountain in the middle distance seemed to vie with it, but still was far from reaching the same height. Farther off it was less and less mountainous; yet strangely prominent forms still showed themselves. Lastly, in the distance even the lakes and rivers became discernible, and a fertile region seemed to spread itself out like a sea. If the eye was brought back again it penetrated into fearful depths, traversed by roaring cataracts, depending one upon the other in labyrinthine confusion.

Felix was never weary of asking questions, and Jarno was accommodating enough in answering every question for him: in which, however, Wilhelm thought that he noticed that the teacher was not altogether truthful and sincere. Therefore, when the restless boys had clambered farther away, he said to his friend:

“You have not spoken to the child about these things as you speak with yourself about them.”

“That is rather a burdensome demand,” answered Jarno; “one does not always speak even to one’s self as one thinks, and it is our duty to tell others only what they can comprehend. Man understands nothing but what is proportionate to him. The best thing one can do, is to keep children in the present — to give them a name or a description. In any case they ask soon enough for the reasons.”

“They are not to be blamed for that,” answered Wilhelm. “The complicated nature of objects confuses everybody, and instead of dissecting them it is more convenient to ask quickly, Whence? and whither?”

“And yet,” continued Jarno, “as children only see objects superficially, one can only speak to them superficially about their origin and purpose.”

“Most people,” answered Wilhelm, “remain for their whole life in this condition, and do not reach that glorious epoch, in which the intelligible becomes commonplace and foolish to us.”

“One may indeed call it glorious,” replied Jarno; “for it is a middle state between desperation and deification.”

“Let us keep to the boy, who is now my chief anxiety,” said Wilhelm. “Now he has acquired an interest in minerals since we have been travelling. Can you not impart to me just enough to satisfy him at least for a time?”

“That will not do,” said Jarno; “in every new intellectual sphere one has first to commence like a child again, throw a passionate interest into the matter, and rejoice first in the outward husk before one has the happiness of reaching the kernel.”

“Then tell me,” answered Wilhelm, “how have you arrived at this knowledge and insight? — for it is still not so long since we parted from one another!”

“My friend,” replied Jarno, “we had to resign ourselves, if not for always, at least for a long time. The first thing that under such circumstances occurs to a brave man, is to commence a new life. New objects are not enough for him; these are only good as a distraction; he demands a new whole, and at once places himself in the centre of it.”

“But why,” interrupted Wilheim, “just this passing strange, this most solitary of all prepossessions?”

“Just for this reason,” exclaimed Jarno: “because it is hermit-like! I would avoid men. We cannot help them, and they hinder us from helping ourselves. If they are happy one must leave them alone in their vanity; if they are unhappy one must save them without injuring this vanity; and no one ever asks whether you are happy or unhappy.”

“But things are not yet quite so bad with them,” replied Wilhelm, laughing.

“I will not rob you of your happiness,” said Jarno. “Only journey onward, thou second Diogenes! Let not your little lamp be extinguished in broad daylight! Yonder, below, there lies a new world before you; but I will wager it goes on just like the old one behind us. If you cannot mate yourself and pay debts, you are of no use among them.”

“However,” replied Wilhelm, “they seem to me more amusing than those stubborn rocks of yours.”

“Not at all,” replied Jarno, “for the latter are at least incomprehensible.”

“You are trying to evade,” said Wilhelm, “for it is not in your way to deal with things which leave no hope of being comprehended. Be sincere, and tell me what you have found in this cold, stern hobby of yours?”

“That is difficult to tell of any hobby, particularly of this one.”

Then he reflected for a moment, and said:

“Letters may be fine things, and yet they are insufficient to express sounds: we cannot dispense with sounds, and yet they are a long way from sufficient to enable mind, properly so called, to be expressed aloud. In the end, we cleave to letters and to sound, and are no better off than if we had renounced them altogether: what we communicate, and what is imparted to us, is always only of the most commonplace, by no means worth the trouble.”

“You want to evade me,” said his friend; “for what has that to do with these rocks and pinnacles?”

“But suppose,” replied the other, “that I treated these very rents and fissures as if they were letters: sought to decipher them, fashion them into words, and learned to read them off-hand: would you have anything against that?”

“No, but it seems to me an extensive alphabet.”

“More limited than you think: one has only to learn it like any other one. Nature possesses only one writing, and I have no need to drag along with a number of scrawls. Here I have no occasion to fear — as may happen after I have been long and lovingly poring over a parchment — that an acute critic will come and assure me that everything is only interpolated.”

“And yet even here,” replied his friend, laughing, “your methods of reading are contested.”

“Even for that very reason,” said the other, “I do not talk with anybody about it; and with you too, just because I love you, I will no longer exchange and barter the wretched trash of empty words.”

CHAPTER IV.

The two friends, not without care and difficulty, had descended to join the children, who had settled themselves in a shady spot below. The mineral specimens collected by Montan and Felix were unpacked almost more eagerly than the provisions. The latter had many questions to ask, and the former many names to pronounce. Felix was delighted that he could tell him the names of them all, and committed them quickly to memory. At last he produced one more stone, and said, “What is this one called?”

Montan examined it with astonishment, and said, “Where did you get it?”

Fitz answered quickly, “I found it; it comes from this country.”

“It is not from this district,” replied Montan.

Felix enjoyed seeing the great man somewhat preplexed.

“You shall have a ducat,” said Montan, “if you take me to the place where it is found.”

“It will be easy to earn,” replied Fitz, “but not at once.”

“Then describe to me the place exactly, so that I shall be able to find it without fail. But that is impossible, for it is a cross-stone, which comes from St. James of Compostella, and which some foreigner has lost, if indeed you have not stolen it from him, because it looks so wonderful.”

“Give your ducat to your friend to take care of,” said Fitz, “and I will honestly confess where I got the stone. In the ruined church at St. Joseph’s there is a ruined altar as well. Among the scattered and broken stones at the top I discovered a layer of this stone, which served as a bed for the others, and I knocked down as much of it as I could get hold of. If you only lifted away upper stones, no doubt you would find a good deal more of it.”

“Take your gold-piece,” replied Montan; “you deserve it for this discovery. It is a pretty one. One justly rejoices when inanimate nature brings to light a semblance of what we love and venerate. She appears to us in the form of a sibyl, who sets down beforehand evidence of what has been predestined from eternity, but can only in the course of time become a reality. Upon this, as upon a miraculous, holy foundation, the priests had set their altar.”

Wilhelm, who had been listening for a time, and who had noticed that many names and many descriptions came over and over again, repeated his already expressed wish that Montan would tell him so much as he had need of for the elementary instruction of the boy.

“Give that up,” replied Montan. “There is nothing more terrible than a teacher who does not know more than the scholars, at all events, ought to know. He who wants to teach others may often indeed be silent about the best that he knows, but he must not be half-instructed himself.”

“But where, then, are such perfect teachers to be found?”

“You can find them very easily,” replied Montan.

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

“Wherever the matter which you want to master is at home,” replied Montan. “The best instruction is derived from the most complete environment. Do you not learn foreign languages best in the countries where they are at home — where only those given ones and no other strike your ear?”

“And have you then,” asked Wilhelm, “attained the knowledge of mountains in the midst of mountains?”

“Of course.”

“Without conversing with people?” asked Wilhelm.

“At least only with people,” replied the other, “who were familiar with mountains. Wheresoever the Pygmies, attracted by the metalliferous veins, bore their way through the rock to make the interior of the earth accessible, and by every means try to solve problems of the greatest difficulty, there is the place where the thinker eager for knowledge ought to take up his station. He sees business, action; let things follow their own course, and is glad at success and failure. What is useful is only a part of what is significant. To possess a subject completely, to master it, one has to study the thing for its own sake. But whilst I am speaking of the highest and the last, to which we raise ourselves only late in the day by dint of frequent and fruitful observation, I see the boys before me: to them matters sound quite differently. The child might easily grasp every species of activity, because everything looks easy that is excellently performed. Every beginning is difficult! That may be true in a certain sense, but more generally one can say that the beginning of everything is easy, and the last stages are ascended with most difficulty and most rarely.”

Wilhelm, who in the meantime had been thinking, said to Montan, “Have you really adopted the persuasion that the collective forms of activity have to be separated in precept as well as in practice?”

“I know no other or better plan,” replied the former. “Whatever man would achieve, must loose itself from him like a second self; and how could that be possible if his first self were not entirely penetrated therewith?”

“But yet a many-sided culture has been held to be advantageous and necessary.”

“It may be so, too, in its proper time,” answered the other. “Many-sidedness prepares, in point of fact, only the element in which the one-sided man can work, who just at this time has room enough given him. Yes, now is the time for the one-sided; well for him who comprehends it, and who works for himself and others in this mind. In certain things it is understood thoroughly and at once. Practise till you are an able violinist, and be assured that the director will have pleasure in assigning you a place in the orchestra. Make an instrument of yourself, and wait and see what sort of place humanity will kindly grant you in universal life. Let us break off. Whoso will not believe, let him follow his own path: he too will succeed sometimes; but I say it is needful everywhere to serve from the ranks upwards. To limit one’s self to a handicraft is the best. For the narrowest heads it is always a craft; for the better ones an art; and the best, when he does one thing, does everything — or, to be less paradoxical, in the one thing, which he does rightly, he beholds the semblance of everything that is rightly done.”

This conversation, which we only reproduce sketchily, lasted until sunset, which glorious as it was, yet led the company to consider where they would spend the night.

“I should not know how to bring you under cover,” said Fitz; “but if you care to sit or lie down for the night in a warm place at a good old charcoal-burner’s, you will be welcome.”

And so they all followed him through strange paths to a quiet spot, where anyone would soon have felt at home.

In the midst of a narrow clearing in the forest there lay smoking and full of heat the round-roofed charcoal kilns, on one side the hut of pine-boughs, and a bright fire close by. They sat down and made themselves comfortable; the children at once busy helping the charcoal-burner’s wife, who, with hospitable anxiety, was getting ready some slices of bread, toasted with butter so as to let them be filled and soaked with it, which afforded deliciously oily morsels to their hungry appetites.

Presently, whilst the boys were playing at hide-and-seek among the dimly-lighted pine stems, howling like wolves and barking like dogs, in such a way that even a courageous wayfarer might well have been frightened by it, the friends talked confidentially about their circumstances.

But now, to the peculiar duties of the Renunciants appertained also this, that on meeting they must speak neither of the past nor the future, but only occupy themselves with the present.

Jarno, who had his mind full of mining undertakings, and of all the knowledge and capabilities that they required, enthusiastically explained to Wilhelm, with the utmost exactitude and thoroughness, all that he promised himself in both hemispheres from such knowledge and capacities; of which, however, his friend, who always sought for the true treasure in the human heart alone, could hardly form any idea, but rather answered at last with a laugh:

“Thus you stand in contradiction with yourself, when beginning only in advanced years to meddle with what one ought to be instructed in from youth up.”

“Not at all,” replied the other; “for it is precisely this, that I was educated in my childhood at a kind uncle’s, a mining officer of consequence, that I grew up with the miner’s children, and with them used to swim little bark boats down the draining channel of the mine, that has led me back into this circle wherein I now feel myself again happy and contented. This charcoal smoke can hardly agree with you as with me, who from childhood up have been accustomed to swallow it as incense. I have essayed a great deal in the world, and always found the same: in habit lies the only satisfaction of man; even the unpleasant, to which we have accustomed ourselves, we miss with regret. I was once troubled a very long time with a wound that would not heal, and when at last I recovered, it was most unpleasant to me when the surgeon remained away and no longer dressed it, and no longer took breakfast with me.”

“But I should like, however,” replied Wilhelm, “to impart to my son a freer survey of the world than any limited handicraft can give. Circumscribe man as you will, for all that he will at last look about himself in his time, and how can he understand it all, if he does not in some degree know what has preceded him. And would he not enter every grocer’s shop with astonishment if he had no idea of the countries whence these indispensable rarities have come to him?”

“What does it matter?” replied Jarno; “let him read the newspapers like every Philistine, and drink coffee like every old woman. But still, if you cannot leave it alone, and are so bent upon perfect culture, I do not understand how you can be so blind, how you need search any longer, how you fail to see that you are in the immediate neighborhood of an excellent educational institution.”

“In the neighborhood?” said Wilhelm, shaking his head.

“Certainly,” replied the other; “what do you see here?”

“Where?”

“Here, just before your nose!” Jarno stretched out his forefinger, and exclaimed impatiently: “What is that?”

“Well then,” said Wilhelm, “a charcoal-kiln; but what has that to do with it?”

“Good, at last! a charcoal-kiln. How do they proceed to erect it?”

“They place logs one on top of the other.”

“When that is done, what happens next?”

“As it seems to me,” said Wilhelm, “you want to pay me a compliment in Socratic fashion — to make me understand, to make me acknowledge, that I am extremely absurd and thick-headed.”

“Not at all,” replied Jarno; “continue, my friend, to answer to the point. So, what happens then, when the orderly pile of wood has been arranged solidly yet lightly?”

“Why, they set fire to it.”

“And when it is thoroughly alight, when the flame bursts forth from every crevice, what happens? — do they let it burn on?”

“Not at all. They cover up the flames, which keep breaking out again and again, with turf and earth, with coal-dust, and anything else at hand.”

“To quench them?”

“Not at all: to damp them down.”

“And thus they leave it just as much air as is necessary, that all may be penetrated with the glow, so that all ferments aright. Then every crevice is shut, every outlet prevented; so that the whole by degrees is extinguished in itself, carbonized, cooled down, finally taken out separately, as marketable ware, forwarded to farrier and locksmith, to baker and cook; and when it has served sufficiently for the profit and edification of dear Christendom, is employed in the form of ashes by washerwomen and soapboilers.”

“Well,” replied Wilhelm, laughing, “what have you in view in reference to this comparison?”

“That is not difficult to say,” replied Jarno. “I look upon myself as an old basket of excellent beech charcoal; but in addition I allow myself the privilege of burning only for my own sake; whence also I appear very strange to people.”

“And me,” said Wilhelm; “how will you treat me?”

“At the present moment,” said Jarno, “I look on you as a pilgrim’s staff, which has the wonderful property of sprouting in every corner in which it is put, but never taking root. Now draw out the comparison further for yourself, and learn to understand why neither forester nor gardener, neither charcoal-burner nor joiner, nor any other craftsman, knows how to make anything of you.”

Whilst they were talking thus, Wilhelm, I do not know for what purpose, drew something out of his bosom which looked half like a pocketbook and half like a case, and which was claimed by Montan as an old acquaintance. Our friend did not deny that he carried it about like a kind of fetish, from the superstition that his fate, in a certain measure, depended thereon.

But what it was we would wish at this point not to confide as yet to the reader; but we may say thus much: that it led to a conversation, the final result of which was that Wilhelm confessed how he had long ago been inclined to devote himself to a certain special profession, an art of quite peculiar usefulness, provided that Montan would use his influence with the guild-brethren, in order that the most burdensome of all conditions of their life, that of not tarrying more than three days in one spot, might be dispensed with as soon as possible, and that for the attainment of his purpose, it might be allowed him to dwell here or there as might please himself. This Montan promised to do, after the other had solemnly promised himself unceasingly to pursue the aim which he had confidentially avowed, and to hold most faithfully to the purpose which he had once taken up.

Talking seriously of all this, and continually replying to one another, they had left their night’s lodgings, where a wonderfully suspicious company had by degrees gathered together, and by daybreak had got outside the wood on to an open space upon which they found some game, at which Felix particularly, who looked on delightedly, was very glad. They now prepared to separate; for here the paths led towards different points of the compass. Fitz was now questioned about the different directions, but he seemed absent, and, contrary to his usual habit, he gave confused answers.

“You are nothing but a rogue,” said Jarno; “you knew all of those men, last night, who came and sat down about us. There were woodcutters and miners, they might pass; but the later ones I take to be smugglers and poachers, and the tall one, the very last, who kept writing figures in the sand, and whom the others treated with a certain respect, was surely a treasure-digger, with whom you are secretly in concert.”

“They are all good people,” Fitz thereupon remarked, “who live poorly, and if they sometimes do what others forbid, they are just poor devils, who must give themselves some liberty, only to live.”

In point of fact, however, the little rogue, when he noticed the preparations of the friends to separate, became thoughtful. He mused quietly for a time, for he was in doubt as to which of the parties he should follow. He reckoned up his prospects: father and son were liberal with their silver, but Jarno rather with gold; he thought it the best plan not to leave him. Accordingly, he at once seized an opportunity that offered, when at parting Jarno said to him: “Now, when I come to St. Joseph’s I shall see whether you are honest: I shall look for the cross-stone and the ruined altar.”

“You will not find anything,” said Fitz, “and all the same I shall be honest; the stone is from there, but I have taken away all the pieces, and stored them up here. It is a valuable stone; without it no treasure can be dug up. For a little piece they pay me a great deal. You were quite right; this is how I came to be acquainted with the tall man.”

Now there were fresh deliberations. Fitz bound himself to Jarno, for an additional ducat, to get at a moderate distance a large piece of this rare mineral, on which account he advised them not to walk to the Giants’ Castle; but, however, since Felix insisted on it, he admonished the guide not to take the travellers too deep into the region, for no one would ever be able to find his way out again from those caverns and abysses.

They separated, and Fitz promised to meet them again, in good time, in the halls of the Giants’ Castle.

The guide walked ahead, the two others followed; the former, however, had scarcely ascended a certain distance up the mountain, when Felix observed that they were not walking on the path which Fitz had indicated.

The messenger replied, however: “I ought to know it better; for just these last few days a violent tempest has knocked down the next stretch of wood; the trees thrown one across the other obstruct this path. Follow me; I will bring you safely to the spot.”

Felix shortened the difficulty of the road by lively strides and jumps from rock to rock, and rejoiced at the knowledge he had gained, that he was actually jumping from granite to granite.

And so they went upwards, until he at last stopped short upon some black ruined columns, and all at once beheld before his eye the Giants’ Castle. Pillared walls stood out upon a solitary peak. Rows of connected columns formed doors within doors, aisles beyond aisles. The guide earnestly warned them not to lose themselves in the interior; and noticing at a sunny spot, commanding a wide view, traces of ashes left by his predecessors, he busied himself in keeping up a crackling fire. He was accustomed to prepare a frugal meal at spots of this kind, and whilst Wilhelm was seeking more correct information concerning the boundless prospect, Felix had disappeared; he must have lost himself within the cavern; he did not answer their shouting and whistling, and he did not appear again.

But Wilhelm, who, as beseems a pilgrim, was prepared against various accidents, took out of his hunting-wallet a ball of string, carefully tied it fast, and confided himself to this guiding clue, by which he had already formed the intention of taking his son into the interior. Thus he advanced, and from time to time blew his whistle, but for a time in vain. But at last there resounded from the depths a shrill whistle, and soon after Felix looked out on the ground from a cleft in the black rock.

“Are you alone?” whispered the boy, cautiously.

“Quite alone,” replied the father.

“Give me some logs of wood! give me some sticks!” said the boy; and, on receiving them, disappeared, first exclaiming anxiously, “Let nobody into the cave!”

But after a time he emerged again, and asked for a still longer and stronger piece of wood. His father waited anxiously for the solution of this riddle. At last the bold fellow arose quickly from out of the cleft, and brought out a little casket not bigger than a small octavo volume, of handsome antique appearance; it seemed to be of gold, adorned with enamel.

“Hide it, father, and let no one see it!”

Thereupon he hastily told how, from a mysterious inner impulse, he had crept into the cleft, and found underneath a dimlylighted space. In it there stood, he said, a large iron chest, not indeed locked, but the lid of which he could not raise, and indeed could hardly move. It was for the sake of mastering this that he had asked for the wood, partly to place them as supports under the lid, and partly to push them as wedges between; finally, he had found the box empty, save in one corner of it the ornamented little book. About this they mutually promised profound secrecy.

Noon was past; they had partaken of some food; Fitz had not yet come as he had promised; but Felix was particularly restless, longing to get away from the spot in which the treasure seemed exposed to earthly or unearthly claim. The columns seemed to him blacker, and the caverns still deeper. A secret had been laid upon him: a possession — lawful or unlawful? safe or unsafe? Impatience drove him from the spot; he thought that he should get rid of his anxiety by changing his locality.

They entered upon the road leading to those extensive possessions of the great landowner, of whose riches and eccentricities they had been told so much. Felix no longer leaped about as in the morning, and all three for hours walked silently on. Sometimes he wished to see the little casket, but his father, pointing to the porter, bade him be quiet. Now he was full of anxiety that Fitz should come. Then again he was afraid of the rogue; now he would whistle to give a signal, then again he would repent having done it; and so his wavering continued until Fitz at last made his whistle heard in the distance. He excused his own absence from the Giants’ Castle: he had been belated with Jarno; want of breath had hindered him. Then he inquired minutely how they had got on among the columns and the caves — how deep they had penetrated. Felix, half in bravado, half in embarrassment, told him one tale after another; he looked smilingly at his father, pinched him by stealth, and did all that was possible to make it clear that he had a secret, and was feigning.

They had at last reached a carriage-road, which ought to have taken them comfortably to those domains; but Fitz declared that he knew a nearer and better road: upon which the porter would not accompany them, but continued on the straight broad beaten road before him. The two wanderers trusted the independent youth, and thought that they had done well, for now they went straight down the mountain-side, through a forest of very tall thin-stemmed larches, which became every moment more penetrable to the sight, and at last allowed them to see, in the most brilliant sunlight, the loveliest demesne that can be imagined.

A large garden, devoted entirely as it seemed to the cultivation of produce, lay open, although plentifully planted with fruit-trees, before their eyes; and, regularly arranged in a number of divisions, covered an area of ground which, while it accorded with a general plan, was varied by many diversities of hill and hollow.

Several dwelling-houses lay scattered within it, so that the space seemed to belong to several owners, but yet, as Fitz declared, was owned and tilled by one single master. Beyond the garden they beheld a boundless landscape, richly cultivated and planted. They could plainly discern various lakes and rivers.

As they walked down the mountain they had got continually nearer, and thought that they would be in the garden directly, when Wilhelm started, and Fitz did not hide his malignant glee; for a precipitous cleft at the foot of the mountain disclosed itself before them, steep enough from the outside, although from inside fully on a level with the ground. Thus a deep ditch separated them from the garden, into which they directly looked.

“We shall have to make rather a long circuit,” said Fitz, “if we want to reach the road which leads into it. Still, I also know an entrance from this side, which will be a good deal nearer for us. The tunnels through which the rain-water is regulated as it rushes into the garden when it rains are on this side; they are high and wide enough for one to get through them pretty easily.”

As soon as Felix heard about tunnels he could not dismiss his curiosity to enter in this way. Wilhelm followed the children, and they descended together the steep steps, now lying dry, of these conduit-tunnels. They found themselves alternately in light and darkness, according as the light fell through side-openings, or was intercepted by columns and walls. At last they reached a tolerably level part, and were walking slowly forwards, when suddenly close to them a report was heard, and two hidden iron gratings closed and shut them in on either side. Not indeed the whole company, but only Felix and Wilhelm were imprisoned; for Fitz, as soon as the noise was heard, sprang back at once, and the closing grating caught only his large sleeves; but he, throwing off his jacket very quickly, escaped without waiting a moment.

The two captives had scarcely time to recover from their astonishment, when they heard human voices, which seemed to approach slowly. Then presently came some people with arms and torches to the grating, looking curiously to see what sort of capture they had made. They at once asked whether they would quietly surrender.

“There can be no question of surrender here,” replied Wilhelm; “we are in your power. We rather have reason to ask whether you will spare us. I deliver unto you the only weapon that we carry with us,” and with these words he handed his hunting-knife through the grating. This was at once opened, and quite leisurely the new-comers were taken onwards, and after being led up a winding stair, they soon found themselves in a curious place. It was a neat, spacious room, lit by small windows beneath the cornices, which in spite of strong iron bars shed sufficient light. For seats, sleeping-places, and whatever else could be required in a decent lodging, provision had been made, and it seemed as if nothing was wanting to one who found himself there but his liberty.

Wilhelm on entering, at once sat down and thought over the situation. Felix, on the contrary, when he had recovered from his astonishment, broke out into an incredible rage. These high walls, those lofty windows, these barred doors, this isolation, this confinement — was altogether new to him. He looked about, he ran hither and thither, stamped his feet, wept, rattled at the doors, beat with his fists against them; nay, he was on the point of running with his forehead against them, if Wilhelm had not caught him, and forcibly held him back.

“Only keep yourself quite quiet, my son,” began his father, “for impatience and violence will not help us out of this situation. The mystery will clear itself up; but I should be very much mistaken, if we have not fallen into good hands. Look at these inscriptions: ‘Deliverance and compensation for the innocent,’ ‘Pity for the tempted,’ and ‘Retributive justice for the culprit.’ All this shows us that these arrangements are works of necessity, and not of cruelty. Man has only too much cause to protect himself against man. Of malevolent people there are indeed many, and of evildoers not a few; and to live as it behoves, it is not enough always to do well.”

Felix had collected himself, but threw himself at once upon one of the beds, without any further demonstration or reply. His father did not desist, but said further:

“Let this experience, which you are gaining so early and so innocently, remain with you as living evidence of which and of what a perfect century you have been born in. What a long road has not humanity been forced to make, before it reached the point of being gentle to the guilty, merciful to the culprit, humane to the inhuman! They certainly were men of a divine nature who first taught this, and spent their lives in making possible and hastening its practice. Men are seldom susceptible of the beautiful; more often of the good; and how highly must we then hold those who seek to promote this at the cost of great sacrifices.”

These comforting, instructive words, which quite clearly expressed the purpose of the confining surroundings, Felix had not heard. He lay fast asleep, prettier and fresher than ever; for a passion, such as in general he was not easily subject to, had driven his whole inner being into his full cheeks. His father stood looking complacently at him, when a well-dressed young man entered, who, after he had looked for a while at the stranger in a friendly manner, began to ask him about the circumstances that had led him on the unusual path into this trap. Wilhelm told him about the occurrence straightforwardly, handed him certain papers which served to declare his identity, and referred him to the porter, who must soon arrive by the ordinary road from the other side. When all this was clear so far, the official begged his guest to follow him. It was impossible to arouse Felix; the servants therefore carried him upon the strong mattress, like the unconscious Ulysses of old, into the open air.

Wilhelm followed the official into a pretty garden, where refreshments were set out, which he was bidden to enjoy, whilst the other went to deliver his report at headquarters. When Felix, on awaking, beheld a little table laid out with fruit, wine and biscuits, as also the cheerful prospect through the open door, he felt quite bewildered. He runs out, he returns, he thinks he has been dreaming, and over such good fare and such pleasant surroundings has soon forgotten his previous terror and all his sorrow, like an unpleasant dream in broad daylight.

The porter had arrived, the official returned with him, and with another older and still more kindly man; and the matter was cleared up in the following manner. The master of this estate, benevolent in the higher sense, in that he aroused all about him to activity and industry, had for many years disposed of young plants from his extensive nursery-garden — to industrious and careful cultivators for nothing — to the negligent at a certain price — and likewise at a price, though a low one, to those who wished to trade with them. These two latter classes, however, demanded gratuitously what only the worthy received gratuitously, and as they were not yielded to they sought to purloin the plants. They had succeeded in doing so in various manners. This vexed the owner all the more, because not only were the nurseries plundered, but by excessive haste had also been injured. There were traces of their having entered through the water-channel, and on that account the grating with a spring-gun had been arranged, though it was only meant to serve as a symbol. The little boy had under many pretexts allowed himself to be seen in the garden, and nothing was more natural than that, from audacity and roguery, he should wish to take the strangers by a road which he had found out earlier, with a different object in view. They had wished to make him prisoner; meanwhile, his jacket would be preserved amongst other penal objects.

CHAPTER V.

On the road to the castle, our friend, to his astonishment, found nothing that would have resembled an older pleasure-garden or a modern park. Upon a gently sloping space he beheld, in one glance, fruit-trees planted in straight lines, vegetable beds, large plots sown with medicinal herbs, and only what could be esteemed useful in some way or other. A space, shaded round by tall lime-trees, expanded like an entrance-hall worthy of the fine building; a long alley leading out of it with trees of similar growth and beauty afforded an opportunity, at every hour of the day, of taking exercise or strolling in the open air. On entering the castle, he found the walls of the ground floor covered in a peculiar fashion: large geographical drawings of all the four quarters of the world met his eye. The walls of the stately staircase were similarly adorned with maps of particular countries; and on being admitted into the principal hall, he found himself surrounded by views of the most remarkable cities, enclosed above and below by landscape pictures of the neighborhoods in which they were situated; all depicted with such art, that the peculiarities of each distinctly met the eye, and at the same time an uninterrupted connection was perceptible throughout. The master of the house, a cheerful little man, somewhat advanced in years, welcomed his guest, and asked, without further introduction, pointing to the walls, whether by chance one of these towns were known to him; whether he had ever lived in any of them? Of many of them our friend was now able to give an account at length, and prove that he had not only seen several of the places, but also that he had not neglected to observe carefully their condition and peculiarities.

The master rang, and ordered that a room should be assigned to the two guests; and that presently they should be shown in to supper, which was accordingly done. In a large hall on the ground floor two ladies advanced towards him, one of whom said to him with great liveliness: “Here you will find little company, but good. I, the younger niece, am called Hersilia; this my elder sister is named Julietta; the two gentlemen are father and son, officials, as you know — friends of the family, who enjoy all the confidence that they deserve. Let us sit down!” The two ladies placed Wilhelm between them, the officials sat at the ends, Felix at the other side, where he at once moved himself opposite to Hersilia, and never took his eyes off her.

After some general preliminary talk, Hersilia seized an opportunity of saying: “In order that the stranger may the sooner become familiar with us, and initiated into our conversation, I must acknowledge that we read a great deal here, and that by accident, inclination, and perhaps also from a spirit of contradiction, we have divided ourselves amongst the different literatures. Our uncle has taken to the Italian; this lady, here, does not take it ill to be thought a perfect Englishwoman; but I hold to the French, in so far as they are cheerful and elegant. Papa-steward here rejoices in German antiquities, and the son is thus able, as is fitting, to devote his sympathy to the more modern and younger. You will judge of us accordingly, take part accordingly, agree or dispute; in every sense you will be welcome.” And in this sense, too, the conversation grew animated.

In the meantime the direction of the handsome Felix’s ardent glances had by no means escaped Hersilia; she felt surprised and flattered, and sent him the most delicate morsels, which he gladly and thankfully received. But at dessert, as he was looking towards her across a dish of apples, she fancied that in the splendid fruit she beheld so many rivals. Quick as thought she seized an apple, and reached it across the table to the enterprising youth. He, seizing it hastily, at once began to peel it; but as he looked unremittingly at his lovely opposite neighbor, he cut himself deeply in the thumb. The blood flowed quickly: Hersilia jumped up and attended to him, and when the blood had been stopped, she closed the wound with English plaster from her case. In the meantime the boy had caught hold of her and would not let her go; the interruption became general, the company rose from the table, and preparations were made to separate.

“I suppose you read before going to sleep,” said Hersilia to Wilhelm; “I will send you a manuscript, a translation from the French by myself, and you shall say whether you have ever met with anything prettier. A distracted girl enters upon the scene — that perhaps might not be any particular recommendation; but if I ever should become demented, as I sometimes have a wish to be, it would be in this manner.”

“THE WITLESS WANDERER”.

HERR VON REVANNE, a rich private gentleman, possesses the finest estates in his province. Together with his son and sister, he inhabits a chateau that would be worthy of a prince; and, in fact, as his park, his waterworks, his farms, his manufactures, and his household, support one-half the inhabitants for six miles round, he is, by his high repute and by the good that he causes, a prince in reality.

“A few years ago he was walking along the walls of his park out towards the public road, and it pleased him to rest himself in a little plantation in which travellers are fond of stopping awhile. Tall trees rear their tops above the young dense undergrowth; provision is made against sun and wind, and a modestly-fitted fountain gives forth its water over the roots, stones, and turf.

“The pedestrian, according to his wont, carried with him a book and gun. Now and then he attempted to read, but often the song of the birds, and sometimes the steps of a traveller, pleasantly interrupted and disturbed him.

“A beautiful morning was fast advancing, when a youthful and amiable-looking young lady appeared walking towards him. She left the road, seeming to promise herself rest and refreshment at the cool spot where he was. This wanderer, who had the loveliest eyes in the world, and a face pleasingly animated by expression, was also distinguished to such a degree by figure and demeanor, that he involuntarily got up from his seat and looked towards the road to see if the attendants, whom he supposed to be behind her, were coming. As she bowed towards him with dignity, her figure again attracted his attention, and he respectfully answered her greeting. The beautiful wayfarer sat down on the margin of the fountain with a sigh, without uttering a word.

“ ‘Strange effect of sympathy!’ exclaimed Herr von Revanne, as he told me the event: ‘in the stillness this sigh was echoed by me. I remained standing, without knowing what I ought to say or do. My eyes did not avail me to take in all her perfections. Lying thus reclined and resting on her elbow, she was the most beauteous female form one could imagine! Her shoes gave occasion for special observation on my part: all covered with dust, they bore witness to her having walked a long distance; and still her silken stockings were as shining as if they just then had been taken from beneath the smoothing-stone. Her fastened-up dress was not rumpled; her hair seemed to have been curled that very morning; fine linen, fine lace: she was dressed as if she were going to a ball. Nothing betrayed in her the vagabond; and yet she was one, but one to be pitied and revered.

“ ‘At last I took advantage of certain glances which she cast towards me, to ask if she were travelling alone.

“ ‘ “Yes, sir,” said she, “I am alone in the world.”

“ ‘ “How, madam? Can you be without parents, without acquaintances?”

“ ‘ “I should not exactly say that, sir; parents I have, and acquaintances enough, but no friends.”

“ ‘ “That,” I continued, “cannot possibly be your own fault. You possess an outward form, and surely too a heart, to which much would be forgiven.”

“ ‘She felt the kind of reproof which was hidden beneath my compliment, and I formed a favorable idea of her good-breeding. She opened towards me two heavenly eyes of the most perfect and purest azure, transparent and sparkling; then she said in a dignified tone, that she could not blame a gentleman, as I seemed to be, for looking with some degree of suspicion on a young girl whom he met alone on the high road; that had often happened to her already; still, although entirely a stranger, although nobody had any right to cross-question her, she nevertheless begged him to believe that the object of her journey was consistent with the strictest decorum. Certain causes, of which she owed nobody an account, compelled her to carry her grief about in the world. She had found that the dangers that people used to fear for her sex were purely imaginary, and that the honor of a woman even among highwaymen only ran a risk through weakness of heart or of principles. Moreover, she only walked at hours and on roads where she thought herself safe; that she did not speak to everybody, and often stayed at respectable places, where she could earn her maintenance by services of any sort consistent with her education. Here she lowered her voice; she dropped her eyelids, and I saw a few tears steal down her cheek.

“ ‘To this I replied that I by no means doubted her gentle extraction, and still less her honorable conduct. I only regretted that any necessity should compel her to serve other people, since she seemed so worthy of having servants herself; and that notwithstanding a lively curiosity, I would not further press her; that I wished rather by knowing her better to convince myself that she was in all respects as anxious about her reputation as her virtue. These words seemed again to offend her, for she answered that she concealed her name and her country precisely on account of her reputation, which after all generally comprises less of reality than of supposition. When she offered her services she showed testimonials from the last houses in which she had served, and did not conceal that she wished not to be asked about her country or her family. To this people accommodated themselves, and left to Heaven or to her own word the innocence of her whole life, and her honesty. Expressions of this kind did not cause a suspicion of any mental derangement on the part of the beautiful adventuress.’

“Herr von Revanne, who could not well understand this determination to wander about in the world, suspected now that there had been an intention of marrying her against her inclination. Thereupon the thought occurred to him, might it not be despair from love? and wonderfully enough, though such a thing has happened before, in giving her credit for loving another, he fell in love with her himself, and feared lest she might travel further away. He could not turn his eyes away from her fair face, the beauty of which was enhanced by the green half-light. Never, if ever there were nymphs, was a fairer one seen reclining on the green sward; and the somewhat romantic nature of this meeting endued it with a charm which he was unable to resist.

“So, without considering the thing very carefully, Herr von Revanne induced the fair stranger to let him conduct her to the chateau. She makes no difficulty; she goes with him, and shows herself to be a person acquainted with the great world. Refreshments are brought, which she accepts without affected politeness and with the most graceful acknowledgments. Whilst waiting for dinner she is shown over the house. She only remarks on what deserves special notice, whether in furniture or pictures, or in something pertaining to the convenient arrangement of the rooms. She finds a library: she knows the good books, she speaks about them with taste and modesty. No chattering, no embarrassment. At table, just the same high-bred and natural demeanor, and the most amiable style of conversation. So far, everything is rational in her speech, and her character seems as amiable as her person.

“After dinner a little trait of self-will made her seem still prettier. Turning to Fräulein Revanne with a smile, she said that it was a custom of hers to pay for her mid-day meal with some work, and whenever money failed her, to ask her hostesses for needles. ‘Allow me,’ she added, ‘to leave a flower behind on your embroidery frame, so that in future the sight of it may remind you of the poor stranger.’

“To this Fräulein Revanne replied, that she was very sorry that she had no pattern drawn, and should therefore be obliged to forego the pleasure of admiring her ability.

“The wanderer immediately turned her glance towards the piano.

“ ‘Then I shall discharge my debt in “wind-money,” ‘ she said, ‘as has been the fashion of other strolling minstrels before now.’ She tried the instrument with two or three preludes that showed a well-practised hand. There was no longer any doubt but that she was a young lady of condition, endowed with all attractive accomplishments. At first her performance was lively and brilliant; then she passed into serious tones, to tones of deep melancholy, which was also visible in her eyes. They became wet with tears, her face was changed, her fingers stayed; but of a sudden she surprised every one by delivering merrily and laughingly a bantering song with the loveliest voice in the world. As there may be reason in the sequel for thinking that this burlesque ballad concerned herself more closely, I shall probably be pardoned for inserting it here:

o “O thou in cloak, so speedy, whence!

o Ere scarce the day begins to break?

o A pilgrimage our friend, perchance,

o In this keen wind has vowed to make.

o Who of his hat has him deprived?

o Does he on purpose barefoot go?

o How has he in the wood arrived

o Across the hilly waste of snow?

o “Right marvellous, from cosy nest,

o Which did to better cheer invite!

o And had he not this flowing vest,

o How terrible would be his plight!

o That rascal must have him betrayed,

o And taken all he had to wear;

o Our friend is piteously arrayed,

o Nigh like to Adam, stark and bare.

o “Why did he, then, such ways pursue,

o To pluck an apple full of woe

o That in the mill-plot — fair, ‘t is true,

o As erst in Paradise — did grow.

o Not soon again such sport he’ll try:

o Forth from the house he quickly went,

o And, once beneath the open sky,

o Breaks out in loud and bitter plaint:

o “ ‘Amid her looks, so full of light,

o I read no syllable of guile;

o In me she seemed to have delight —

o And planned so black a deed the while!

o Could I divine, in her embrace,

o How treacherously her bosom moved?

o She called on Love to stay his pace,

o And kind enough to us he proved.

o “ ‘Such pleasure in my love to take,

o Which ne’er did end the livelong night,

o Then call and bid her mother wake,

o Just at the dawn of morning light!

o A dozen round of kith and kin

o Burst in — a very human flood:

o Here brothers came, and aunts peeped in;

o There cousins or an uncle stood.

o “ ‘What rage and madness on them came!

o A very beast each seemed to be

o Then wreath and garland they did claim,

o With din most horrible, from me.

o “Why do ye all, as if insane,

o Upon a guiltless youth so press?

o For such-like treasures to obtain,

o One needs, I trow, much more address.

o “ ‘ “And Amor sure enough takes heed

o Of when to have his pretty will;

o And flowers of sixteen years indeed

o He leaves not standing at the mill.” ‘

o So did they him of clothing rob,

o And tried to take his cloak and all;

o How e’er did such a cursed mob

o Into the narrow dwelling crawl?

o “ ‘So up I sprang, and raved and swore

o Through all, I wis, to force my way.

o I gave the mad girl one glance more,

o And ah, so lovely still she lay!

o Before my wrath they all were cowed,

o Yet many a wild word flew about;

o And so, with voice as thunder loud,

o The den at last I got without.

o “ ‘You maidens, then, of rustic sort,

o Like city wenches, one must flee;

o Yet fooling lovers is a sport

o Best left to dames of high degree;

o And if to practise ye are fain,

o And know no gentle faith in love,

o Change lovers o’er and o’er again,

o But traitors must ye never prove!’

o “So sings he in this wintry tide,

o When ne’er a sorry blade is green;

o His dire misfortunes I deride,

o For rightly is he served, I ween.

o So may it hap to every wight

o Who sweetheart true by day deludes,

o And all too recklessly by night

o Into love’s treacherous mill intrudes.

“It was indeed ominous that she could forget herself in such a fashion; and this outbreak might have served for an indication of a head that was not at all times equal to itself.

“ ‘But,’ said Herr von Revanne to me, ‘we also forgot all remarks that we might have made: I do not know how it came to pass. The unspeakable grace with which she performed these freaks must have prejudiced us. She played fantastically, but with understanding. She controlled her fingers completely, and her voice was really bewitching. When she had finished, she seemed as composed as before, and we thought that she had only wished to enliven the after-dinner interval.

“ ‘Soon after she asked for permission to resume her journey; but at a sign from me my sister said that, if she was not in a hurry, it would be a treat to us to have her with us for several days. I thought of offering her some occupation, since for once she agreed to remain. Yet this first day and the following one we only took her about the place. She never belied herself for one single moment; she was Reason endued with every grace. Her mind was subtle and striking, her memory so well stored, and her disposition so beautiful, that she repeatedly aroused our admiration, and fettered all our attention. Moreover, she knew the rules of good behavior, and practised them towards every one of us, and no less towards certain friends who visited us, so perfectly, that we found it impossible to reconcile her singularities with such a degree of education.

“ ‘I really no longer ventured to suggest any plans for household occupation with us. My sister, who was much pleased with her, likewise thought it her duty to spare the delicate feelings of this unknown. They managed the household affairs together, and with respect to these the good child would often condescend to perform manual work, and understood how to take her part in everything which required higher arrangement and calculation.

“ ‘In a short time she established a degree of order, such as we had hitherto certainly not felt the want of in the château. She was a very sensible housekeeper; and, as she had commenced with sitting at table with us, she did not, from false modesty, withdraw herself now, but continued to dine with us without any hesitation; but she did not touch any cards or instrument before she had brought to an end the duties which she had undertaken.

“ ‘Now, I must freely confess that the fate of this girl began to move me most profoundly. I pitied the parents, who probably would sorely miss such a daughter; I sighed that such gentle virtues and so many endowments should be lost. She had already lived several months with us, and I hoped that the confidence with which we sought to inspire her would at last bring the secret to her lips. If it were a misfortune, we might help; if a fault, it was to be hoped that our mediation, our testimony, might be able to gain forgiveness for her for any transient error; but all our assurances of friendship, our prayers even, were in vain. If she perceived an intention of winning an explanation from her, she would shelter herself behind general moralizations, in order to justify herself, without informing us. For instance, if we spoke to her about her ill-fortune: “Misfortune,” she would say, “falls upon both good and evil. It is a potent medicine, which attacks the good juices along with the bad.”

“ ‘If we tried to discover the reason of her flight from her paternal home: “If the deer flies,” she said, laughing, “it is not therefore guilty.” If we asked whether she had suffered persecutions: “It is the fate of many girls of good birth to experience and endure persecutions. He who cries at an offence will meet with more.” But how could she have made up her mind to expose her life to the roughness of the multitude, or at least to owe it often to its compassion? At this she would laugh again, and say, “The poor man who greets the rich at table does not lack sense.” Once, as the conversation turned to jest, we spoke to her of lovers, and asked whether she did not know the chilly hero of her ballad. I still remember well how this word seemed to cut through her. She opened towards me a pair of eyes, so serious, so severe, that mine could not endure such a glance; and afterwards, too, whenever love was spoken of, one was sure to see the grace of her person and the vivacity of her spirit overclouded. She immediately fell into thoughtfulness, which we took for brooding, but which probably was only grief. Still, upon the whole, she remained cheerful, but without great liveliness; highbred, without giving herself importance; frank without communicativeness, reserved without sensitiveness; rather patient than meek, and more grateful than affectionate in return for all caresses and courtesies. She was certainly a lady, educated to preside over a large household; and yet she did not seem older than one-and-twenty. So did this comprehensible young person, who had quite captivated me, show herself during the two years which it pleased her to stay with us; until she wound up with a piece of folly, which is all the more strange as her qualities were sterling and brilliant. My son, who is younger than I, will be able to console himself, but as concerns myself, I fear that I shall be weak enough to miss her always.

Natalia

“ ‘Now I will relate this act of folly in a sensible woman, to show that folly often is nothing but reason under another exterior. It is true that one will find a strange contradiction between the noble character of the pilgrim and the comical cunning of which she availed herself; but we already know two of her inconsistencies — the pilgrimage itself and the ballad.”

“It is probably clear that Herr von Revanne had fallen in love with the stranger. Now, he could not altogether rely upon his face, which was fifty years old, although he looked as fresh and robust as a man of thirty; but perhaps he hoped to please by his pure, childlike health, by the goodness, cheerfulness, gentleness, generosity of his character; perhaps also by his fortune, although he had delicacy enough to feel, that one does not buy what is priceless.

“But the son, on the other hand, amiable, tender, high-spirited, without taking more thought than his father, rushed headlong into the venture. First he tried prudently to win the unknown one who had first become really appreciated by him through the praise and the friendship of his father and aunt. He made sincere efforts to gain an amiable woman, whom his passion seemed to have raised far above her present condition. Her severity more than her merits and her beauty, inflamed his love; he ventured to speak, to undertake, to promise.

“The father, without wishing it himself, always gave to his wooing a somewhat paternal aspect. He knew himself, and when he had become aware of his rival, he could not hope to conquer him, unless he were willing to adopt means which do not beseem a man of principle. Nevertheless he pursued his course, although it was not unknown to him that kindness, nay, even fortune, are only attractions to which a young woman yields herself with caution; but which remain ineffectual as soon as love reveals itself with the charms of, and accompanied by, youth. Herr von Revanne also made other mistakes, which he repented later. In the midst of a friendship full of esteem, he spoke of ‘a lasting, secret, legal union.’ He even complained, and uttered the word ‘ingratitude.’ Surely he did not know her whom he loved, when one day he said to her, that many benefactors received back evil for good. The Unknown answered him with frankness: Many benefactors would like to acquire all the rights of their protégés at the price of a lentil. The beautiful stranger, involved in the courtship of two rivals, induced by unknown motives, seems to have had no other intention but to spare herself and others any foolish pranks, and in these doubtful circumstances adopted a wonderful expedient. The son pressed her with the boldness of his age, and threatened, as usual, to sacrifice his life to the inexorable one. The father, somewhat less unreasonable, was still equally pressing; both were in earnest. This amiable creature might now probably have assured herself of a well-deserved position of life; for both the Herren von Revanne aver that it had been their intention to marry her.

“But from the example of this girl let woman learn that an honest soul, even if the mind should have given way to vanity or to real derangement, does not cherish the wounds of the heart which it is not willing to heal. The pilgrim felt that she was standing at a critical point, where it would not be so easy for her to defend herself long. She was in the power of two lovers, who could excuse every pressure with the purity of their motives, inasmuch as they intended to justify their boldness by a sanctified tie. So it was, and so she understood it.

“She could shelter herself behind Fräulein von Revanne; but she omitted to do so, no doubt from consideration, from esteem for her benefactors. She is not put out of countenance; she thinks out a method for preserving to each his virtue, whilst she allows her own to be suspected. She is mad with a fidelity which her lover certainly does not deserve, if he feels not all her sacrifices, even if they should remain unknown to him.

“One day, as Herr von Revanne returned somewhat too impetuously the friendship, the gratitude, which she showed towards him, she assumed on a sudden a simple manner, which struck him. ‘Your goodness, sir, alarms me; and allow me frankly to confess why. I feel indeed that only to you I owe my whole gratitude; but in fact — ’

“ ‘Cruel girl!’ said Herr von Revanne. ‘I understand you; my son has touched your heart — ’

“ ‘Alas! sir, it has not stopped there. I can only express by my confusion — ’

“ ‘How? Mademoiselle, you would — ’

“ ‘Indeed, I think so,’ said she, as she bent low down and dropped a tear — for women are never at a loss for a tear in their artifices, nor for an excuse for their evil-doing.

“Smitten with love as Herr von Revanne was, still he was forced to wonder at this new kind of innocent sincerity in such circumstances, and he found the lowly posture very much in place.

“ ‘But, mademoiselle, it is quite incomprehensible to me.’

“ ‘To me too,’ said she, and the tears flowed more abundantly. They flowed so long that at last Herr von Revanne, after a very unpleasant reverie, again broke silence with a quiet air, and said:

“ ‘This enlightens me! I see how ridiculous are my pretensions. I bestow on you no reproaches; and, as the only penalty for the grief which you cause me, I promise you so much of his inheritance as is necessary to show whether he loves you as much as I.’

“ ‘Alas, sir, have pity on my innocence, and tell him nothing about it.’

“To ask for secrecy is not the means to obtain it. After these steps, the fair Unknown now expected to see her lover before her full of anger and highly incensed. He soon appeared with a look which augured annihilating words. However, he was choked, and could bring out no more than, ‘How, mademoiselle, is it possible?’

“ ‘Well, what is it, sir?’ she said, with a laugh, which on such an occasion can provoke despair.

“ ‘How? What is it? Away! mademoiselle; you are a nice creature! But at least legitimate children are not to be disinherited; it is quite enough to accuse them. Yes, mademoiselle, I see through your conspiracy with my father. You two give me a son, and he is my brother. Of that I am certain.’

“With the same quiet cheerful countenance the lovely unwise one answered him, ‘You are certain of nothing: it is neither your son nor your brother. Boys are naughty; I have never wanted one. It is a poor little girl that I will take away, far away, quite far from men — wicked, foolish, faithless men.’

“Then, giving free vent to her heart: ‘Farewell,’ she continued, ‘farewell, dear Revanne! From nature you have an honest heart; keep to the principles of uprightness. These are not dangerous with well-established wealth. Be kind towards the poor. He who despises the prayer of troubled innocence, will one day himself beg, and not be listened to. He who has no scruple in setting at naught the scruples of an unprotected girl, will himself become the victim of unscrupulous women. He who does not feel what a chaste girl must feel when she is being wooed, deserves not to gain her. He who, against all reason, against the intentions, against the design of his family, constructs schemes in behalf of his own passions, deserves to be deprived of the fruits of his passions, and to lose the esteem of his family. I believe indeed that you have loved me sincerely; but, my dear Revanne, the cat knows well whose beard it licks; and if you ever become the beloved of a worthy wife, then remember the mill of the unfaithful one. Learn from my example to rely on the constancy and discretion of your beloved. You know whether I am unfaithful; your father knows it also. I intended to roam through the world and to expose myself to all dangers; surely the greatest are those which threatened me in this house. But because you are young I tell it to you only and in confidence: men and women are only unfaithful of set purpose; and that I wanted to prove to the friend of the mill, who perhaps will see me again, when his heart will have become sufficiently pure to miss what he has lost.’

“Young Revanne still listened, though she had finished speaking. He stood as if struck by lightning; tears at last unclosed his eyes, and in this state of emotion he ran to his aunt, his father, to tell them that mademoiselle was going away, that mademoiselle was an angel, or rather a demon, roaming about in the world in order to torture the hearts of everybody. But the wanderer had taken her measures so well that she was not found again; and when father and son had come to a mutual explanation, her innocence, her talents, and her insanity, were no longer doubted; and, great as were the pains that Herr von Revanne took from that time, he did not succeed in obtaining the least enlightenment in reference to this beautiful person, who had made her appearance as transiently and in as lovely a form as an angel.”

CHAPTER VI.

After a long and thorough rest, of which the travellers might well stand in need, Felix jumped actively out of his bed, and made haste to dress himself; and, as his father thought he noticed, with more care than hitherto. Nothing fitted him neatly or smartly enough: he would have liked everything to be newer and less worn. He sprang into the garden, and only tasted on the way a little of the first meal, which the servant had brought for the guests, since the ladies would not appear in the garden for another hour.

The servant was accustomed to entertain strangers, and to show many of the things in the house; so he conducted our friends also into a gallery, in which only portraits were hung up and exhibited — all of persons who had worked in the eighteenth century — a large and glorious company; pictures and busts as well, when possible, by excellent masters.

“You will not find,” said the keeper, “in the whole castle, a single picture that points even distantly to religion, tradition, mythology, legend or fable: our master wishes that the imaginative power shall only be required to make present to itself the True. We deal enough in fiction, he is wont to say, without needing to exalt still higher this dangerous quality of our intellect by external stimulants.”

Wilhelm’s question, when they might expect him down, he answered with the information that his master, according to his habit, had ridden out quite early. He was accustomed to say: “Observation is life!” “You will see this and other maxims, in which he reflects himself, written in the fields above the gates — as for instance we forthwith light upon: ‘From the Useful, through the True, to the Beautiful.’ “

The women had already prepared the breakfast under the lime-trees; Felix frolicked about them, trying by all sorts of follies and extravagances to bring himself forward so as to get a warning or a reproof from Hersilia. The sisters now tried by frankness and communicativeness to gain the confidence of their taciturn guest, who pleased them; they told him about a favorite cousin, who had been three years absent, and was presently expected home; about a worthy aunt, who lived in her castle at no great distance, and was to be regarded as the tutelary genius of the family. In a state of bodily decay, she was described as being in blooming health of spirit, just as if the voice of a primeval sibyl no longer visible were to utter, quite simply, pure divine words on human things.

The new guest now turned his conversation and questions to the present. He wished to know the noble uncle more closely in a purely distinctive activity: he thought of the road which he had pointed out, “From the Useful, through the True, to the Beautiful,” and sought to interpret the words after his own fashion — in which, moreover, he succeeded quite well, and had the good fortune to gain Julietta’s approval.

Hersilia, who up to this time had remained silently smiling, replied on the other hand: “We women are in a peculiar position. We hear the maxims of men continually repeated, nay, we have to behold them in gilt letters above our heads, and yet we girls might be able in private to say the very reverse, which would also pass current, as is precisely the case in the present instance. The Beautiful maiden finds admirers, also suitors, and probably at last a husband; then she arrives at the True, which may not prove to be the pleasantest possible, and if she is wise she will devote herself to the Useful, attend to house and children, and in this abide. At least I have often found it so. We girls have time to observe, and then we generally find what we did not look for.”

A messenger from the uncle arrived with the news that the whole party was invited to dinner at a neighboring hunting-box; they could either ride or drive thither.

Hersilia chose to ride. Felix also begged urgently that they would give him a horse. It was agreed that Julietta should drive with Wilhelm, and that Felix as a page should be indebted for his first ride to the lady of his young heart.

In the meantime Julietta drove with her new friend through a series of plantations that all pointed to utility and enjoyment; nay, the innumerable fruit-trees made it doubtful whether the fruit could ever all be consumed.

“You have passed through such a wonderful ante-chamber into our society, and have found so much that is really uncommon and strange, that I may suppose that you wish to know the connection of all this. All depends on the spirit and sense of my excellent uncle. The vigorous years of this noble person’s manhood fell in the time of Beccaria and Filangieri; the maxims of a universal humanitarianism prevailed at that time on all sides. But his striving spirit and severe character transformed this general ideal into ideas which occupied themselves with the practical. He did not conceal from us, how according to his own fashion he had transformed that liberal motto: ‘The Best for the largest number,’ and destined ‘For the Many, the Desirable.’ The most cannot find or know what is the best, still less procure it. But many are always around us: what they wish, we learn to know; what they ought to wish, we reflect on; and thus something of importance can always be effected and created. With this view,” she continued, “everything that you see here has been planted, constructed and arranged; and simply for a quite close, easily-attainable purpose; all this has come to pass from love to the great neighboring mountain range.

“The excellent man, endowed with both strength and the means, said to himself: No child up yonder shall want a cherry or an apple, for which with good reason they are so greedy; the housewife shall not lack cabbage or turnips or any other vegetable for her saucepan, so that to some degree the unwholesome consumption of potatoes may be counterbalanced. To this end and in this manner he tries to achieve what his possessions give him an opportunity of doing; and thus for many years carriers, men and women, have been organized, who take the fruit for sale into the deepest clefts of the mountain rocks.”

“I have enjoyed it myself like any child,” replied Wilhelm; “there, where I never hoped to meet with anything of the sort, among pines and rocks, I was less surprised at finding pure simplicity of mind than new refreshing fruit! The gifts of the spirit are at home everywhere, but the gifts of nature are only sparely distributed over the earth’s surface.”

“Moreover, our worthy man has brought many things from distant places nearer to the mountain; in the buildings below here you will find salt laid up, and stores of spices. For tobacco and brandy he lets others provide; these are not necessaries, he says, but lusts, and consequently they have providers enough already.”

Arrived at the appointed place, a roomy huntsman’s house in the forest, the party found themselves assembled, and a small table ready laid out.

“Let us sit down,” said Hersilia. “Here, to be sure, stands our uncle’s chair, but as usual he is sure not to come. In a certain manner it gives me satisfaction, that our new guest, as I hear, is not going to stay long with us; for he might be wearied when he became acquainted with our company. The composition of it is what is everlastingly repeated in novels and plays: a wonderful uncle, one gentle and one lively niece, a sensible aunt, domestics of the well-known sort; and if our cousin were now to return, he would learn to recognize a fantastic traveller, who perhaps would bring with him a still more eccentric companion, and then the trite theatrical piece would be composed, and transformed into reality.”

“The peculiarities of our uncle we must needs revere,” replied Julietta; “they are not a burden to any one, but rather a convenience to everybody. He detests, as he always will, a fixed dinner-hour, but he rarely interferes with it, for indeed he maintains that one of the finest inventions of modern times is dinner à la carte.”

Amidst much other conversation they also discussed the worthy man’s taste to affect inscriptions everywhere.

“My sister,” said Hersilia, “knows how to interpret them all, and she vies with the keeper in making them out; but I find they can all be reversed, and that then they are just as true, and perhaps more so.”

“I do not deny,” replied Wilhelm, “that there are mottoes among them which seem to neutralize themselves. Thus, for instance, I saw written up very strikingly, ‘Ownership and Common-property.’ Do not these two ideas exclude one another?”

Hersilia interrupted him: “Such inscriptions, it seems, our uncle has borrowed from the Orientals, who on all their walls do honor to, rather than understand, the maxims of the Koran.”

Julietta, not to be put off, replied to the preceding question: “If you paraphrase the few words, their sense will at once become clear.”

After some discussion, Julietta continued to explain how it was meant: “Every one should try to dignify, to keep, and to increase the possession which has been granted to him by fate or by nature; with all his faculties he should grasp as far around him as he can reach, but should at the same time always think how he shall let others have a share in it; for people of means are only valued in so far as others enjoy through them.”

When they now began to seek for instances, our friend found himself in his proper element: they vied with each other, they strained their wits, in the endeavor to prove the truth of those laconic words.

“Why,” they maintained, “do people honor the prince — but because he can put in activity, can advance and bestow favors on every one, and make them, as it were, shareholders of his absolute power? Why does everybody look up to the rich? Because he himself, the most needy, on all sides wants participators in his abundance. Why do all men envy the poet? Because his nature makes communication necessary — nay, is communication itself. The musician is happier than the painter; he expends welcome gifts in person, immediately, whilst the latter only gives when the gift has been sundered from himself.”

Then they further asserted generally: Man ought to retain firmly every sort of possession; he ought to make himself a central point, from which the common good can issue; he must be an egoist, in order not to become an egoist; must keep together, in order to be able to expend. What does it mean — to give possession and goods to the poor? It is more praiseworthy to behave as a steward for them. This is the sense of the words “Ownership and Common-property:” the capital no one ought to attack; the interest will none the less belong in due course to every one.

In this manner the ladies conversed about many things with their new friend, and, as their mutual confidence increased more and more, they also spoke about a cousin who was shortly expected. “We believe that his strange behavior has been arranged with our uncle. For some years he has let us hear nothing from him. He will send charming presents, figuratively intimating his place of residence, then all of a sudden he writes from somewhere quite close by, but will not come before we have given him some information about our own condition. This behavior is not natural; what lurks behind it we must discover before his return. To-night we will give you a packet of letters, from which the rest may be seen.”

Hersilia added: “Yesterday I made you acquainted with a foolish wandering woman; to-day you shall hear about a crazy traveller.”

“But confess,” added Julietta, “that this communication is not without purpose.”

Hersilia was just asking, somewhat impatiently, what had become of the dessert, when the announcement was made that the uncle expected the company to enjoy dessert with him in the large summer-house. On the way back they observed a camp-kitchen staff very busily engaged in packing up, with much clatter, their brightly-burnished saucepans, plates, and dishes. They found the old gentleman in a spacious arbor, before a large, round, freshly-spread table, upon which, as they took their seats, the finest fruits, delicious pastry, and all the best sweets, were abundantly served. On the uncle’s asking what had they met with to amuse them, Hersilia replied quickly, “Our good guest would probably have run astray over your laconic inscriptions if Julietta had not come to his assistance with a running commentary.”

“You always bring in Julietta,” replied the uncle; “she is a good girl, who can learn and understand something too.”

“I should like to forget much of what I know; and what I do understand is not worth much either,” replied Hersilia in joke.

Hereupon Wilhelm joined in, and said thoughtfully, “Pithy mottoes of every kind I know how to honor, especially if they incite me to reflect on and bring into accord what contravenes them.”

“Precisely so,” replied the uncle; “indeed, rational man throughout his whole life has never yet had any other occupation.”

They had, as appeared in the course of the conversation, made the objection to the uncle, that his property did not bring him in what it ought. He replied thereto, “The deficiency of income I look on as an outlay, which gives me pleasure, inasmuch as I thereby render life more easy to others. I have not even the trouble of making this disbursement myself, and thus everything is made fair again.”

In the meantime the table had gradually filled all round, so that at last there was scarcely a place left.

The two stewards had arrived, huntsmen, horse-breakers, gardeners, foresters, and others whose occupation one could not tell at once. Each had something of the most recent occurrence to say and to report, which the old gentleman heard good-naturedly, or perhaps even elicited by sympathizing inquiries; but at last he rose, and saluting the company, whom he would not have move, went away with the two bailiffs. All had indeed enjoyed the fruit — and the young people the pastry — although they may have looked a little unconventional. One after another rose, saluted those that stayed, and went away.

The ladies, who noticed that the guest observed what passed with some wonder, expressed themselves as follows: “You see here again the effect of the peculiarities of our excellent uncle; he affirms, that no invention of the age deserves more admiration, than that you should be able to dine at inns at small separate tables ‘à la carte;’ as soon as he became aware of this, he also tried to introduce it into his family for himself and others. When he is in his best humor, he likes to paint vividly the horrors of a family table, where every member sits down occupied with extraneous thoughts, listens unwillingly, speaks absently, remains sullenly silent, and if ill-luck introduces little children, calls forth, with a sudden recourse to pedagogism, the most unreasonable bad humor.

“ ‘One has to bear with so many ills,’ he says, ‘but from this I have found out how to emancipate myself.’ He seldom appears at our table, and occupies the chair that stands empty for him only for a few moments. He carries his camp-kitchen about with him, and generally dines alone; others must take care of themselves. But if once in a way he offers breakfast, dessert, or other refreshment, then all his scattered dependants have to assemble together, and partake of what is offered, as you have seen. That gives him pleasure; but no one dares come who does not bring an appetite with him. Every one who has satisfied himself has to rise, and only thus he is certain of always being surrounded by people who enjoy themselves. ‘If you want to give people a treat,’ I heard him say, ‘you must try to procure for them what they are seldom or never in a condition to obtain.’ “

On the return journey an unexpected mishap caused some excitement among the party. Hersilia said to Felix, who was riding by her side, “Look there, what flowers are those? they cover the whole sunny side of the hill; I have never seen them before.” Felix at once urged on his horse, galloped towards the place, and in returning with a whole bunch of blooming flowers, which he waved in the air at a distance, all of a sudden disappeared with the horse. He had fallen into a ditch. Immediately two horsemen detached themselves from the party and galloped towards the spot.

Wilhelm wanted to get out of the carriage, but Julietta forbade it. “He has already got help, and our law in such cases is, that only one who is giving help may stir from the spot.”

Hersilia stopped her horse. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “doctors one wants but seldom, but surgeons every moment.”

Felix was already cantering up again, with a bandaged head, clutching the blooming booty, and holding it aloft. With complacency he reached the nosegay to his mistress. Hersilia in return gave him a light, bright-colored neckerchief.

“The white bandage does not suit you,” she said; “this will look much prettier.” And thus they reached home, reassured indeed, but in a sympathetic mood.

It had grown late: they separated in the friendly hope of meeting again on the morrow, but the following correspondence kept our friend awake and thoughtful for some hours.

LENARDO TO HIS AUNT.

“At last, dear aunt, you receive, after three years, my first letter, according to our arrangement, which indeed was strange enough. I wanted to see the world, and abandon myself to it, and for this period. I wished to forget my home, from which I came and to which I hoped to return again. I wanted to retain the whole impression, and that single details should not lead me, when at a distance, into misconception. In the meantime the necessary tokens of existence have been interchanged between us from time to time. I have received money, and little gifts for my nearest friends have meanwhile been handed over to you for distribution. From the sort of things sent, you could see where and how I was. In the wines my uncle has surely tasted out my place of residence every time; then the lace, the quodlibets, the steel-ware, have marked my way for the ladies through Brabant to Paris and on to London; thus, on your writing, sewing, and tea-tables, your morning robes and evening dresses, I shall find many a mark on which I can hang my tales of travel. You have accompanied me, without hearing from me, and perhaps are by no means curious to know anything further. To me, on the contrary, it is in the highest degree necessary to learn, through your goodness, how the circle which I am on the point of re-entering goes on. I should like to enter actually from foreign parts like a stranger who, to be agreeable, first informs himself about what they wish or like in the house, and does not imagine to himself that they must receive him exactly according to his own liking, just for the sake of his fine hair or eyes. Write to me, therefore, about the good uncle, the dear nieces, about yourself, about our relations near and remote, and also about old and new servants.

“Enough; let your practised pen, which you have not for so long inked for your nephew, hold sway on the paper for his benefit. Your instructive letter shall be my credentials, with which I shall present myself as soon as I have received it. Thus it depends upon you to see me in your arms. One changes far less than one thinks, and circumstances remain for the most part much the same. Not what has changed, but what has remained, what has gradually increased and decreased, I wish to recognize all at once, and to look again upon myself as in a familiar mirror. Greet all our friends heartily, and believe in the strange fashion of my absence and return more warmth is contained than is often found in uninterrupted sympathy and cordial correspondence. A thousand greetings to each and all.

“POSTSCRIPT.

“Do not neglect, dearest aunt, to say a word about our men of business, how our agents and tenants are getting on. What has become of Valerina, the daughter of the tenant whom uncle shortly before my departure had ejected — rightly indeed, but still, as it seems to me, rather severely? You see that I still remember much; I still know pretty well all. You must examine me about the past, after you have communicated the present to me.”

THE AUNT TO JULIETTA.

“At last, dear children, there is a letter from the Three-years-mute. How these wonderful people are wonderful indeed! He thinks that all his articles and tokens are as good as one single good word that one friend can say or write to another. He really imagines that the balance is in his favor, and wants us on our part to do what on his own he so harshly and unkindly denied us. What ought we to do? I, for my part, would at once meet his wishes with a long letter, if my headache did not announce itself, and scarcely allow me to finish the present letter. We all wish to see him. Take the matter, my dear ones, in hand. If I have recovered before you have finished, then I shall contribute my own quota. Choose the persons and circumstances as you like best; describe them. Divide them between you. You will do it all better than I. I suppose the messenger will bring me back a line from you?”

JULIETTA TO HER AUNT.

“We have already read, reflected, and tell you through the messenger our opinion, each for herself, though we have first satisfied ourselves together, that we are not so good-naturedly disposed as our dear aunt towards her always spoiled nephew. He having for three years kept his cards hidden from us, and still keeping them hidden, we are to throw up ours, and play an open game against his concealed one. That is by no means fair, but still it may pass; for even the most subtle often deceives himself just because he makes too sure. Only as to the style and manner we are not agreed; as to what shall be sent to him, and how. To write about what you think of your own people, that is, to us at least, a strange task. As a rule one only thinks about them in this or that case, when they cause one exceptional pleasure or vexation. Otherwise every one leaves others alone. You only could do it, dear aunt, for you have penetration and impartiality at the same time. Hersilia, who, as you know, is easily excited, has hurriedly given me a funny review of the whole family upon the spur of the moment; I wish it stood on paper, so as to win a smile from you amidst your suffering; but not that it should be sent to him. My proposal, however, is to send him our correspondence of these last three years; this he may peruse himself, if he has the courage, or may come to see what he does not care to read. Your letters to me, dear aunt, are in the best order, and are at your disposal at once.

“Hersilia is not of the same opinion; she excuses herself with the confusion of her papers, etc., as she will tell you herself.”

HERSILIA TO HER AUNT.

“I must and will be very short, dear aunt, for the messenger shows himself disagreeably impatient. I consider it superfluous kindness and quite out of place to communicate our letters to Lenardo. What business has he to know what good we have said of him, what business has he to know what evil we have said of him, in order to find out from the latter still more than from the former, that we are well-disposed to him. Keep a tight hand on him, I beg you. There is something so cool and presumptuous in this demand, in this behavior, such as these gentlemen generally show when they come from foreign lands. They always consider those who stay at home as not complete. Excuse yourself with your headache. He will come fast enough; and if he does not come we will wait a little longer. Perhaps in that case it will occur to him to introduce himself amongst us in some queer secret fashion, and learn to know us unrecognized, and I don’t know what all might not enter into the plans of such a clever man. That would be pretty and wonderful indeed! It might produce all kinds of complications, which could not possibly develop themselves under the diplomatic entry into the family which he now has in mind.

“The messenger! the messenger! Instruct your old people better, or send young ones. This one is not to be bribed either by flattery or wine. A thousand times farewell!

“POSTSCRIPT FOR POSTSCRIPT.

“Tell me, what does our cousin mean in his postscript about Valerina? This question has doubly occurred to me. She is the only person whom he mentions by name. We others are to him nieces, aunts, agents; no personalities, but only denominations. Valerina, the daughter of our lawyer! A fair, pretty child enough, who may have dazzled the eyes of our Herr Cousin before his departure. She is married, well and happily; that I need not tell you. But he knows as little about it as he knows in other respects about us. By no means forget to tell him, also in a postscript, that Valerina has become prettier every day, and on this very account too has made a very good match: that she is the wife of a rich landowner. The beautiful blonde is married: make that quite clear to him. But now, dear aunt, this is not yet all. How he can remember the fair beauty so well, and yet confound her with the daughter of the dissolute tenant, a wild romp of a brunette, called Nachodina, who is gone no one knows where — this is altogether incomprehensible to me, and puzzles me wonderfully, for it seems that Sir Cousin, who boasts of his good memory, mixes up names and persons in an extraordinary way. Perhaps he feels this defect, and wants to refresh again what has been forgotten by your description. Keep a tight hand on him, I beg you; but try to find out how Valerina and Nachodina are, and what Inas and Trinas and all are still preserved in his imagination, whilst the Ettas and Ilias have disappeared from it. The messenger! the confounded messenger!”

THE AUNT TO HER NIECES. (Dictated.)

“What is the good of much dissembling towards those with whom one has to spend one’s life! Lenardo with all his peculiarities deserves confidence. I am sending him both your letters; from them he will learn to know you, and I trust the rest of us will unconsciously seize an opportunity as soon as possible of presenting ourselves before him in the same way. Farewell! I am in great pain.”

HERSILIA TO HER AUNT.

“What is the good of dissembling towards those with whom we spend our lives! Lenardo is a spoiled nephew. It is abominable, that you should send him our letters. He will not learn to know us from them, and I only wish for an opportunity of presenting myself as soon as possible in another way. You make others suffer a great deal, whilst you suffer and are blind. A speedy recovery from your pain. There is no remedy for your love.”

THE AUNT TO HERSILIA.

“I should also have enclosed your last little note for Lenardo, if I had actually kept to the purpose which my incorrigible partiality, my illness, and considerations of convenience had suggested. Your letters are not gone.”

WILHELM TO NATALIA.

“Man is a sociable, communicative creature; his enjoyment is great when he exercises the faculties that have been given to him, even if nothing further were the outcome of it. How often is the complaint made in society, that one does not allow the other to have his say; and one can just as well say that one did not allow another to write, if writing were not usually a sort of business that one must discharge in solitude and alone. Of how much people write we have no idea at all. I do not wish to speak about so much of it as is printed, although it is quite enough. But of the amount in letters, news, stories, anecdotes, descriptions of the present condition of individual people, quietly circulating in letters and longer compositions — of this one may gain an idea by living for a time, as I do now, in a family of culture. In the sphere in which I find myself at present, one almost spends as much time in imparting information to relations and friends about what one is occupied with as one has for occupation itself. This observation, which has forced itself on my notice during the last few days, I make all the more gladly, since my new friends’ facility in writing gives me the opportunity of learning to know their mutual relations quickly and from all sides. They confide in me, give me a packet of letters, a few travelling journals, the confessions of a mind not yet at one with itself, and thus in a short time I am everywhere in the house. I know the neighboring society; I know the persons whose acquaintance I am going to make, and know almost more about them than they do themselves, since they are entangled in their own circumstances, whilst I flit past them, always at your hand, discussing everything with you. It is my first condition, too, before I accept a confidence, that I shall be allowed to impart everything to you. Here accordingly are a few letters, which will introduce you to the circle within which I am at present moving, without breaking or evading my vows.”

CHAPTER VII.

Very early in the morning our friend found himself alone in the gallery, and was enjoying himself over many a well-known form; to those unknown, a catalogue, which he found at hand, gave him the desired clue. Portraiture, like biography, has quite a peculiar interest; the distinguished man, whom one cannot think of without a surrounding, steps forward isolated, and places himself before us as before a mirror; we accordingly turn on him our special attention, we occupy ourselves with him exclusively, as he is complacently occupied with himself in the mirror. It is a general, who now represents the whole army, behind whom emperors as well as kings for whom he fights, step back into the shade. The clever courtier stands before us, even as if he were paying court to us; we do not think of the great world, for the sake of which he in fact has made himself so fascinating. Surprising, too, to our observer was the likeness of many a one long gone, to living people known to him, whom he had seen in the flesh — nay, even the likeness to himself. And why should Menæchmi-twins result only from one mother? Ought not the great mother of the gods and men also be able to bring forth the like form, at the same time or at intervals, from her fruitful lap? Finally, too, the sympathetic observer could not deny that many an attractive and many a repulsive form flitted across his vision.

In the midst of this contemplation he was surprised by the master of the house, with whom he conversed freely on these subjects, and whose favor he seemed to gain still more. For he was kindly taken into the inner room before the most precious portraits of remarkable men of the sixteenth century in complete presence just as they loved and lived, without any displaying of themselves in the mirror or to the spectator, self-reliant and self-contented, working by their own character, and not through any sort of willing or purposing.

The master of the house, satisfied that his guest should know how to value completely a past so richly brought before him, showed him the autographs of many persons, about whom they had been speaking before in the gallery; and at last some relics, which there was no doubt that the former possessors had used and touched.

“This is my kind of poetry,” said the master of the house, laughing; “my imagination must take hold of something! I can scarcely believe that anything has ever been, that is not still here. About such sacred relics of the past I try to procure the most rigid proofs, otherwise they are not admitted. Written traditions are most closely examined; for I believe, indeed, that the monk has written the chronicle, but what he bears witness to, that I seldom believe.”

At last he put a clean sheet of paper before Wilhelm with a request for a few lines but without signature; after which our guest found himself ushered through a side-door into the hall, and by his side the custodian.

“I am glad,” said the latter, “that you are valued by our master; the very fact that you have come out at this door is a proof of it. But do you know what he takes you for? He thinks that in you he sees a professional pedagogue; he supposes that the boy belongs to a family of rank, and has been intrusted to your guidance, in order to be initiated in the world and all its manifold conditions and principles, with right ideas in good time.”

“He does me too much honor,” said our friend; “still I shall not have heard this in vain.”

At breakfast, at which he found his Felix already busy amongst the ladies, they expressed to him the wish that, since he could on no account be detained, he would go to their noble Aunt Makaria, and perhaps thence to the cousin, to clear up the strange delay. He would thus become as it were a member of their family; he would confer upon them a distinct service, and without any great preparation would enter into confidential relations with Lenardo.

To this he replied, however: “Whithersoever you send me, I willingly betake myself. I set out for the purpose of seeing and thinking; with you I have experienced and learned more than I dared to hope, and I am convinced that on the next path to which I am introduced I shall find out and learn more than I can expect.”

“And you, pretty good-for-nothing? what are you going to learn?” asked Hersilia.

To which the boy answered very boldly: “I am learning to write, in order to be able to send you a letter; and to ride better than anyone, so that I may always be with you again immediately.”

Hereupon Hersilia said thoughtfully: “I have never been able to get on perfectly well with admirers of my own years; it seems as if the following generation is going to indemnify me very quickly.”

But now we feel with our friends how close at hand is the painful hour of leave-taking, and we should like to give a clear idea of the peculiarities of his excellent host, of the singularities of that extraordinary man. But, in order not to judge him falsely, we must first direct our attention to the descent and early development of this worthy person, already far advanced in years. What we were able to find out is as follows:

His grandfather lived as an active member of an embassy in England, just in the last years of William Penn. The great benevolence, the pure aims, the unflagging activity of such a distinguished man, the conflict into which for this reason he fell with the world, the dangers and afflictions to which this noble man seemed to be subjected, aroused in the susceptible soul of the young man a decisive interest; he associated himself with the enterprise, and finally went himself to America. The father of our squire was born in Philadelphia, and they both had the fame of having contributed to the result that a general increase of religious freedom prevailed in the colonies.

Here was deduced the maxim, that any nation isolated in itself and in harmony as regards morals and religion, ought carefully to guard itself against all foreign influence and all innovation; but that where on a new soil we wish to gather together many members from all sides, there should be granted the most unfettered activity in all pursuits, and a free scope to the universal moral and religious ideas.

The brisk, lively impetus towards America in the beginning of the eighteenth century was considerable, inasmuch as everyone on this side who felt himself in any degree uncomfortable hoped over there to emancipate himself. This impetus was encouraged by the desirable possessions which could be obtained, before population had as yet spread further westward. Whole so-called counties were still for sale on the border of the inhabited territory; and the father of our proprietor had acquired considerable possessions there.

Yet here also was shown how often in sons a contradiction to the paternal disposition manifests itself. Our squire arriving as a youth in Europe, felt himself another man. This inestimable culture, that had been called into being several thousands of years ago; which had grown, expanded, been curbed, oppressed, never entirely suppressed; breathing afresh, reviving, and afterwards as before displaying itself in infinite forms of activity — gave him quite different notions respecting the goal which humanity is able to reach. He preferred to take his share of the great, immeasurable advantages; and to lose himself as a fellow-worker amidst the great mass moving in orderly activity, rather than there beyond the seas, belated by many centuries, playing the part of an Orpheus or Lycurgus. He used to say: “Everywhere man has need of patience, must everywhere be on his guard, and I would rather settle matters with my king, that he should grant me such rights, rather accommodate myself with my neighbors, that they may allow me certain restrictions, provided that I yield to them on some other point, than be fighting with the Iroquois, in order to expel them, or deceiving them by contracts, in order to drive them out of their marshes, where one will be tortured to death by mosquitoes.”

He took possession of the family estates; he knew how to deal with them in a liberal spirit, to manage them economically, to annex prudently large and apparently useless neighboring tracts of land, and thus within the civilized world, — which, in a certain sense only, may too often be called a wilderness, — to acquire and cultivate a moderate domain, which with the limitations of circumstances is still always sufficiently utopian.

Religious liberty is therefore indigenous within this district; public worship is regarded as a free confession that we have a common ownership in life and in death; but very great care is at the same time taken that no one should separate himself.

In the several plantations are seen moderately large edifices; each of these is the room which the owner of the soil devotes to each community; here the eldest gather, in order to consult together; here the many assemble to listen to instruction and pious exhortation. But this room is also destined for merrymaking; here the wedding dances are celebrated, and the holiday concluded amidst music.

Nature herself can lead us towards this. In ordinarily fine weather under the same lime-tree we see the elders in consultation, the community at its instruction, and the youth whirling round in dance. Upon a serious background of life, the holy thus appears beautiful; seriousness and holiness moderate enjoyment, and only by moderation do we preserve ourselves.

If the community is otherwise disposed, and sufficiently well-to-do, it is at liberty to devote different buildings to the different purposes.

But if all this has been calculated for the public and common morality, still religion itself remains as before, something inward, nay, something individual. For it has only to do with the conscience. This must be aroused or tranquillized: aroused, when blunt, inactive, and in a state of torpor; but soothed down when it threatens to embitter life by a remorseful restlessness. For it is closely allied to the pain which threatens to become sorrow, when through our own fault we have drawn down any ill upon ourselves or others.

But as we are not always disposed to considerations such as are required for this, nor even always care to be stirred, therefore the Sunday has been set apart, in which all that oppresses man must, in a religious, moral, social or economical aspect, come under discussion.

“If you would stay a little longer with us,” said Julietta, “our Sunday would not displease you either. The day after to-morrow, early, you would notice a great stillness; every one remains alone and devotes himself to a prescribed meditation. Man is a limited being: in order that we may meditate on our narrowness the Sunday is set apart. If there happen to be bodily suffering, which during the whirl of the week we set at naught; then at the beginning of the new week we must at once look out for the doctor; if our difficulty is economical or otherwise connected with business, then our bailiffs are obliged to hold their sittings; if it is something spiritual, moral, that overclouds us, then we have recourse to a friend, to a right-minded person, and ask for his advice, his influence; enough, it is the law, that no one dare to transfer to the next week any concern that may disturb or afflict him. From oppressive duties, only the most conscientious practice is able to deliver us, and what cannot be relieved at all we leave finally to God, as the all-controlling, all redeeming Being. Even our uncle himself does not omit this probation; there are even cases in which he will speak confidently to us about a difficulty, that he has not been able to overcome at the moment; but generally he consults with our noble aunt, to whom he from time to time pays a visit. On Sunday evening he is also in the habit of asking whether a clean confession and settlement of all has been made. From this you may see that we take every care not to be admitted into your order, the community of the Renunciants.”

“It is a tolerable life,” cried Hersilia; “if I resign myself once every seven days, at least I have it to my credit for three hundred and sixty-five!”

Before his departure our friend received from the younger bailiff a packet with writing enclosed — from which we extract the following passage:

“It seems to me, that in every nation there prevails a different frame of mind, which only can make it happy, and one observes this in different individuals. He who desires to have his ear filled with grand and harmoniously regulated tones, and thereby elevate spirit and soul, — will he thank me if I place before his eyes the most beautiful picture? A lover of pictures will look; but he will decline to have his imagination aroused by a poem or a novel. Who then is so endowed, that he can enjoy in many different ways?

“But you, our passing friend, have appeared to me like such an one, and if you have known how to appreciate the prettiness of a fashionable rich French aberration, then I trust you will not scorn the simple, true honesty of German ways; and pardon me if, according to my custom and manner of thinking, according to my birth and position, I find no more charming image than is shown us by the German middle class in its pure domestic life.

“Take this kindly: and remember me.”

CHAPTER VIII.

WHO IS THE TRAITOR?

NO, no!” he exclaimed, as he burst violently and hurriedly into the bedroom assigned to him, and put down the light; “no, it is not possible! But whither shall I turn myself! For the first time I think differently — for the first time I feel and wish otherwise. Oh, my father! if you could be present invisibly, and look me through and through, you would convince yourself that I am still the same, ever the faithful, obedient and loving son. To say no — to oppose the dearest and long-cherished wish of my father! How shall I reveal it? — how shall I express it? No, I cannot marry Julia. Whilst uttering it, I am frightened. And how shall I present myself to him — reveal it to him, my kind, dear father? He looks at me astounded and silent; he shakes his head; the clearheaded, wise and learned man cannot find a single word. Woe is me! Oh, I know well to whom I should confide this pain, this embarrassment, whom I should choose as my intercessor: of all people, you, Lucinda! And to you I should like to tell first, how I love you, how I abandon myself to you, and implore you piteously, Be my representative; and if you can love me, if you will be mine, then represent both of us.”

To explain this short, heartfelt, passionate soliloquy, a great many words will be required.

Professor N — , of N — , had an only son of wonderful beauty, whom, until his eighth year, he left under the care of his wife, a very worthy lady. She guided the hours and days of the child to life, to learning, and all good conduct. She died, and at the moment the father felt that he would be unable, personally, to further continue this tutorship. Hitherto all had been harmony between the parents; they worked with one object, together determined what was to be done in the time immediately at hand, and the mother knew how to carry out everything wisely. Double and threefold was now the anxiety of the widower, who saw daily before his eyes that for sons of professors at the universities themselves, only by a mere chance could a successful education be hoped for. In this perplexity he turned to his friend the high-bailiff at R — , with whom he had already discussed earlier plans of a closer family connection. He was able to advise and to help, so that the son was received in one of the good educational institutes which then flourished in Germany, and in which all possible care was taken of the whole man — body, soul, and spirit.

The son had now been provided for, yet his father felt himself far too much alone: deprived of his wife, and strange to the lovely presence of the boy, whom, without any trouble on his own part, he had seen brought up so satisfactorily. At this point also the friendship of the high-bailiff stood him in good stead; the distance between their residences disappeared before the inclination to bestir themselves and to seek distraction. Here the widowed scholar found in a family circle, also deprived of a mother, two beautiful, and in different ways lovable, daughters, just grown up. And so the two fathers more and more strengthened themselves in the belief, in the prospect, of seeing at some future day their houses connected in the pleasantest manner.

They lived in the prosperous dominions of a sovereign prince; the able man was certain of his position for the length of his life, and so probably was a successor of his own nomination.

In accordance with a prudent family and official arrangement, Lucidor was now to prepare himself for the important place of his future father-in-law. In this he succeeded step by step. Nothing was neglected to impart to him every kind of knowledge, to develop in him all those capabilities of which the State at all times stood in need: the study of the strict judicial law; of the more discretionary one, where wisdom and ability lend their assistance to the functionary; calculation for daily wants — without excluding higher views, but everything pertaining immediately to life as it would surely and unfailingly be required for use.

To this intent Lucidor had completed his school years, and was now prepared by his father and well-wisher for the university. He displayed the finest talent for everything, and owed to nature also the rare good fortune of being willing, from love to his father, and respect for his friend, to guide his faculties just in that direction which was indicated to him, first from obedience and then from conviction. He was sent to a foreign university, and there, according both to his own epistolary accounts and to the testimonials of his teachers and tutors, he pursued the path which ought to lead him to his goal. They could only disapprove of his having in a few instances been too impetuously courageous. At this the father shook his head, and the highbailiff nodded. Who would not have wished for himself such a son!

Meantime the daughters, Julia and Lucinda, grew up — the former, who was the younger, capricious, amiable, restless, and very amusing; the latter, difficult to describe, because in rectitude and purity she represented just that which we consider as most desirable in all women. They interchanged visits, and Julia found the most inexhaustible entertainment in the professor’s house.

His specialty was geography, which he knew how to enliven by topographical descriptions; and as soon as Julia had noticed but a single volume, a whole series of similar ones from the Homann publications were ready at hand. Then the towns in a body were passed in review, judged, preferred or rejected: all seaports particularly gained her favor; other towns, that would obtain her approval only in a moderate degree, had carefully to make themselves conspicuous by a multitude of towers, cupolas, and minarets.

The father left her for weeks with his trusted friend: she really improved in knowledge and understanding, and knew tolerably well the inhabited world in its general features, points, and places. She was also very observant of the costumes of foreign nations, and when her adoptive father sometimes jestingly asked her whether some one or other of the many handsome young people who were walking up and down before the window did not really please her, she would say: “Yes, certainly, if he looks quite out of the common!” Now as our young students are never wanting in this respect, she often had occasion to take an interest in this or that one; she would recall to mind in reference to him some foreign national costume, but yet would declare at last, that a Greek at least must come by completely rigged out in his national dress, if she was to devote to him any special attention; on this account she would long to be at the Leipzig fair, where such fellows were to be seen in the streets.

After his dry and often disagreeable work our teacher knew no happier moments than those in which he playfully instructed her, and at the same time secretly congratulated himself on his task of educating such a charming and always easily amused daughter-in-law. The two fathers, moreover, had agreed that the girls should not suspect anything about their intentions; and they were concealed even from Lucidor.

Thus years passed by, as indeed years will easily pass. Lucidor presented himself, accomplished, and approved in every test to the satisfaction even of the higher powers, who wished for nothing better than to be able to fulfil, with a clear conscience, the hopes of old, worthy, favored and meritorious servants.

And thus the affair had, by regular steps, at last reached the point, that Lucidor, after behaving exemplarily in subordinate capacities, was about to obtain, according to his merit and desire, a profitable post, situated exactly midway between the university and the high-bailiff’s. The father, therefore, now spoke to his son about Julia, to whom he had hitherto only alluded, as his future bride and wife, without further doubt or stipulation, extolling his fortune in having won such a living jewel. In spirit he already saw his daughter-in-law from time to time again with him, busying herself with maps, plans and views of cities. The son, on the other hand, recalled to mind the lovable and merry creature, who in childhood’s time had always delighted him with her freaks as well as her friendliness. Lucidor was now to ride over to the high-bailiff’s to see more nearly the developed beauty, to devote himself for a few weeks to intercourse and acquaintanceship with the whole family. If the young people, as was to be hoped, were soon at one, then it should be announced; the father would at once appear, in order that a solemn betrothal might assure for ever the hoped-for happiness.

Lucidor arrives, he is received in the most friendly fashion, he is shown to a room, arranges his dress, and appears. He finds there, besides the family circle already known to us, a half-grown up son, spoiled without doubt, but clever and good-natured, so that if one had liked to take him for the family-jester, he would not have accorded with the whole at all badly. Then there belonged to the household a very old, but hale and cheerful man, quiet, refined, wise, near the end of life, but now and then of use. Immediately after Lucidor there came another stranger, no longer young, of distinguished aspect, estimable and experienced in life, and through his familiar knowledge of the world highly entertaining. They called him Antony.

Julia received her bridegroom-designate with modesty, but complacently. Lucinda, on the contrary, did the honors of the house, as her sister those of her own person. Thus the day passed with especial pleasure for all, except only Lucidor; otherwise taciturn, he was forced from time to time, in order not to remain entirely dumb, to assume a questioning attitude, in which circumstances no one appears to advantage.

He was thoroughly distracted, for from the first moment he had felt towards Julia neither disinclination nor aversion, but estrangement; Lucinda, on the contrary, attracted him, so that he trembled when she looked at him with her full, pure, quiet eyes. In this state of affliction, on the first evening he reached his bedchamber and unburdened himself in the soliloquy with which we began. But to clear this up too, and to reconcile the passion of such a tirade with what we already know about him, a short statement will be necessary.

Lucidor was a man of deep mind, and generally had in his thoughts something besides what the present demanded, on which account he was never quite happy in entertainment and conversation; he felt this, and was taciturn, except when the conversation turned upon special subjects which he had mastered, and in which what he wanted was at all times ready at his service. In addition to this, it happened that in earlier days at school, and later at the university, he had been disappointed in certain friends, and had unhappily expended in vain the outpourings of his heart. All sociability had become a suspicious matter to him; but any suspicion does away with all sociability. To his father he was accustomed to speak only in one tone, and therefore, as soon as he was alone, his heart would vent itself in monologues.

The next morning he had somewhat collected himself, and yet he was on the point of losing his presence of mind when Julia came towards him, more friendly, more cheerful, and more unconstrained than ever. She had plenty to ask him about his journeys by land and water, how as a student with his baggage at his back he had tramped and climbed through Switzerland, nay, had even crossed the Alps. Thereupon she wanted to know a great deal about the beautiful island in the large southern lake; then, on the return, the Rhine had to be traced from its remotest source, at first through the most joyless regions, and so downwards through many varying scenes, until at last between Mainz and Coblenz it is still quite worth while to dismiss the river honorably from its last limitations into the wide world — into the ocean. Lucidor felt very much relieved by this, and continued to tell his tales with pleasure, and so well that Julia exclaimed with rapture: “One ought to see such things in company with some one else,” at which Lucidor was again frightened, for in this remark he thought that he espied an allusion to their companionship through life.

However, he was soon relieved from his duty as a teller of tales, for the foreigner whom they called Antony speedily eclipsed all his mountain rills, rocky banks, rivers confined and flowing free. For now they went direct to Genoa; Leghorn lay at no great distance; and a raid was made upon all that was most interesting in the country; Naples must be seen before one died; but Constantinople was still left — this too was not to be neglected. The description that Antony gave of the wide world carried along with it the imagination of all, although he had less ardor to infuse into it. Julia, quite beside herself, was still by no means satisfied; she felt a longing for Alexandria, Cairo, but particularly for the Pyramids, about which she had gained a tolerably complete knowledge through the instruction of her presumptive father-in-law.

Lucidor, the following evening (he had scarcely shut the door, and not yet put down the light) exclaimed: “Now, look to yourself! it is a serious matter. You have learned and thought out many serious matters; what is the good of jurisprudence if now you do not forthwith act like a jurist? Regard yourself as a plenipotentiary; forget yourself, and do what you would be bound to do for others. Matters are coming to a crisis in the most appalling manner. The foreigner is evidently there for Lucinda’s sake; she shows him all the attentions of the home circle in the prettiest, most well-bred manner. The silly little one would like to roam with any one through the world, for nothing, nothing at all. Besides, she is a rogue too; her delight in towns and countries is a trick, by which she silences us. But why do I look at this matter in such a confused and limited manner. Is not the high-bailiff himself the most prudent, sensible and amiable of mediators? You will tell him what you feel and think, and he will appreciate, if not even sympathize. He can do anything with your father. And is not one his daughter as well as the other? And what, then, has this ‘Antony Roamer’ to do with Lucinda, who is born for home, to be happy and to create happiness? Yoke the restless Quicksilver to the Wandering Jew: that would be a charming match!”

In the morning Lucidor went down with the firm resolve of speaking to the father, and for this purpose to approach him without delay at a time when he knew that he would be at leisure. How great was his grief, his embarrassment, when he heard that the high-bailiff had set out on business, and was only expected back the day after to-morrow. Julia seemed to-day to be having a regular travelling time: she stuck to the globe-walker, and with a few joking speeches, that related to domestic matters, left Lucidor with Lucinda. If our friend had before seen the noble girl from a certain distance, and after a general impression, and already most heartily appropriated her to himself, now, in the nearest proximity, he discovered doubly and trebly what had first attracted him in a general way.

The good old friend of the family now came forward in place of the absent father; he too had lived and loved, and after many buffets of life he was at last cheered and well cared-for at the side of the friend of his youth. He animated the conversation, and expatiated especially about mistakes in the choice of a husband, and related remarkable instances of rectifications made sooner or later. Lucinda appeared in her full glory: she admitted that in life, and in marriages as well as other things, chance of all kinds might bring about the very best result; yet that it was more beautiful, more elevating to the heart, when a man could say to himself, that his fortune was due to himself — to the quiet, unwavering conviction of his heart, to noble resolve and prompt decision. Tears stood in the eyes of Lucidor, as he gave his approval, after which the ladies soon withdrew. The old gentleman, who presided, was quite ready to indulge further in an exchange of stories, and thus the conversation was extended to amusing examples, which, however, touched our hero so closely, that only a youth so purely educated as he, could refrain from an outbreak; this, however, happened when he was alone.

“I have controlled myself,” he exclaimed; “with such embarrassment I will not annoy my good father. I have restrained myself, for in this worthy family friend I recognize the representative of both fathers: to him I will speak, to him disclose everything; he will be sure to mediate in the matter, and has already almost expressed what I wish. Could he in the particular case blame what he in general approves? Early to-morrow I will seek him out; I must gain breath for this struggle.”

At breakfast the old man was not present; it was stated that yesterday evening he had talked too much, sat too long, and drunk a few drops of wine beyond his custom. They said a great deal in his praise, and indeed spoke of his words and actions in a way that drove Lucidor to despair, at not having at once applied to him. This disagreeable sensation was only made still keener by hearing that after such attacks the good old man often did not make his appearance again for a week.

Residence in a country-house has indeed great advantages for social intercourse, particularly when the entertainers, being people of thought and feeling, have found an opportunity, after several years’ experience, of aiding the natural conditions of their environment. It was fortunately so in this case. The high-bailiff, at first unmarried, then during a long and happy union, with means of his own, in a lucrative post, had — in accordance with his own taste and insight, the fancies of his wife, nay, even in compliance with the wishes and humors of his children — attended to and beautified several separate larger and smaller plots, which being by degrees connected tastefully with plantations and roads, afforded to the passer-by a most lovely, diverse and characteristic succession of scenes. The young members of the family accordingly made their guest undertake a pilgrimage of this kind; even as people like to show their surroundings to a stranger, in order that he may regard as a novelty what has become stale to themselves, and may retain the pleasant impression of it forever.

The nearer as well as the more distant portion of the estate was strictly appropriated to modest plantations, or peculiarly rural specialties. Fertile hills alternated with well-watered meadow-land, so that the whole could be seen from time to time without being level; and although land and soil were by preference devoted to utility, still the graceful and alluring had not been excluded.

To the mansion and offices were annexed pleasure-gardens, orchards, and grass lawns, out of which one lost one’s self unwittingly in a little copse, through which wound up and down, in and out, a broad carriage-road. In the middle of this, on the top of the most prominent eminence, a pavilion had been constructed, with a suite of apartments. On entering at the principal door, one saw in a large mirror the most lovely prospect that the neighborhood could offer, and quickly turned round to recover one’s self in the reality from the unexpected reflection, for the approach had been arranged artfully enough, and all that was designed to effect a surprise had been carefully hidden. No one entered without again and again turning with pleasure from the mirror to nature, and from nature to the mirror.

When once upon the road, on one of the finest, most genial, and longest days, they kept upon a good grass-road round and through the whole. Here was pointed out the evening resting-place of the good mother, where a splendid beech-tree had reserved round about itself an open space. Julia soon afterwards pointed out, half teasingly, the place of Lucinda’s morning devotion, in the vicinity of a tiny lake, among poplars and alders, near meadows sloping downwards, and corn-fields extending upwards. It was pretty beyond all description. One fancied that one had seen it often before, but nowhere so remarkable and so welcome in its simplicity. On the other hand, the young brother, half against Julia’s wish, showed the diminutive arbors and childish garden erections which, close by a cosily-situated mill, were scarcely noticeable. They dated from the time when Julia, in about her tenth year, had taken it into her head to become a miller’s wife, and after the departure of the two old people, was going to set up for herself, and look out for an honest miller youth.

“That was at a time,” exclaimed Julia, “when I still knew nothing about the towns that lie on rivers, or indeed on the sea, nothing about Genoa, and so forth. Your good father, Lucidor, has transformed me, and since that time I have not been so ready to come here.”

She sat down playfully on a little bench that scarcely sufficed to bear her weight, beneath an elder-tree that bent too deeply down. “Oh, how cramped!” she cried, jumped to her feet; and ran in front with her merry brother.

The couple that remained behind conversed together sensibly, and in such cases reason probably comes near to feeling. To roam successively through simple natural objects, and quietly to observe how the sensible, prudent man is able to turn them to account; how the comprehension of what is at hand, associating itself with the sense of his requirements, will do wonders, in first of all making the world inhabitable, then in peopling it, and at last in overpeopling it — all this could here be discussed in detail. Lucinda gave an account of everything, and howsoever modest she was, could not conceal that this convenient and pleasant connection of distant portions of the estate was her own work, under the suggestions, direction, and assistance of a revered mother.

But yet since even the longest day will at last verge towards evening, it was now needful to think of returning, and as they were thinking about some pleasant circuitous road, the merry young brother expressed a wish that they should enter upon the shorter road, although not the pleasanter, but rather the more difficult one. “For,” he exclaimed, “you have been boasting with your sites and contrivances how you have beautified and improved the country for artistic eyes and sensitive hearts, but now let me too gain credit.”

Now they had to pass across ploughed lands and rugged paths, nay, they had even to walk over stones roughly thrown across small bogs, and at some distance they soon beheld all kinds of machinery in confused piles. Seen nearer, it was a large pleasure or playground, erected not without judgment, in a certain popular style. Thus there were standing here, arranged at the proper distances, the great swing-wheel, on which those mounting and descending always remain as if sitting quietly in a horizontal position, and other swings, slack-ropes, balance-boards, bowling-greens and skittle-alleys, and all that can be imagined to occupy and amuse a number of people in different ways and to an equal extent, in an extensive pleasure-ground. “This,” he exclaimed, “is my contrivance, my laying out; and although father gave the money for it, and a clever fellow the head to make it, still, without me, whom you so often call silly, neither judgment nor money would have combined together.”

In this merry mood they all four reached home at sunset. Antony put in an appearance; the younger lady, however, who during all this day had not had enough exercise, had the horses put-to, and drove across the country to see a female friend, being desperate at not having seen her for two days. The four left behind felt embarrassed before they were aware of it, and it was then declared that the absence of the father began to alarm his family. The conversation began to flag, when all at once the merry lad jumped up, and soon returned with a book, offering to read aloud. Lucinda could not refrain from asking “how he had hit upon an idea which he had not had the whole year,” to which he merrily replied, “Everything occurs to me at the right time — a thing you cannot boast of.” He read a series of genuine fairy tales, which carry people out of themselves, flatter their wishes, and make them forget every condition by which we nevertheless remain limited even in our happiest moments.

“What shall I do now?” exclaimed Lucidor, when at last he found himself alone; “time presses; I have no confidence in Antony; he is an utter stranger — I do not know who he is, how he comes to be in the house, or what he wants: he seems to interest himself in Lucinda, and what in that case could I hope for from him? Nothing remains for me but to approach Lucinda myself; she must know it — she first. This indeed was my first feeling; why do we allow ourselves to be misled into paths of prudence? The first must now be last, and I trust to attain my end.”

On Saturday morning Lucidor having dressed early, was pacing to and fro in his room, and thinking over what he must say to Lucinda, when he heard a sort of good-humored wrangling outside his door, which at the same instant was opened. Thereupon the merry youth pushed in before him a boy with coffee and biscuits for the guest; he himself carried some cold meat and wine. “You shall go first,” he said, “for the guest must be served first; I am accustomed to wait upon myself. My friend, to-day I come somewhat early and noisily; let us enjoy our breakfast in peace, and then we will see what we shall set about, for we have little to hope from the company. The younger one has not yet returned from her friend; these two are obliged to pour out their hearts mutually at least once every fortnight, in case they explode. On Saturdays Lucinda is altogether useless, for she then delivers punctually her housekeeping accounts to father. I too ought to dabble in those things, but, Heaven preserve me! if I know what a thing costs, I cannot relish a mouthful. They expect guests to-morrow; the old gentleman has not yet recovered his equilibrium. Antony is shooting; we will do the same.”

Guns, game-bags, and dogs were ready, when they descended into the courtyard, and so they set out across the fields, where eventually a leveret and a poor indifferent bird were shot. In the meantime they talked about domestic affairs and those of the present party. Antony was mentioned, and Lucidor did not fail to inquire about him. The merry youth declared, with some complacency, that however mysteriously that wonderful man behaved, he had already seen through and through him.

“He is,” he continued, “no doubt the son of a rich man of business, who failed just at the moment when he, in the flower of his youth, was thinking of taking a share vigorously and cheerfully in great business transactions, but at the same time of sharing in the great enjoyments which they abundantly offer. Hurled down from the pinnacle of his expectations, he pulled himself together, and accomplished in the service of others what he could no longer do for himself and his relations. So he wandered through the world, learned to know it thoroughly in all its multifarious intercourse, yet in so doing did not forget his own interests. Untiring activity and approved honesty brought and retained for him an unlimited confidence from many. So he everywhere gained friends and acquaintance — nay, it is easy to see that his resources are distributed in the world as widely as his acquaintance extends, and that therefore his presence also is necessary from time to time in all four parts of the world.”

The merry youth had told this quite circumstantially and simply, inserting as many comical observations as if he had the intention of spinning out his little story to the end of the world.

“How long has he not already been connected with my father! They think that I see nothing, because I trouble myself about nothing; but for this very reason I see better, because it does not concern me! He has deposited a good deal of money with my father, who has again invested it safely and profitably. Only yesterday he handed the old gentleman a jewel casket; anything simpler, more beautiful, or precious I have never seen — although only at a glance, for the matter was a secret transaction. It is probably to be devoted to the pleasure and joy, and to the future safe keeping of the bride. Antony has placed his confidence in Lucinda. But when I see them thus together, I can scarcely regard them as a well-assorted couple. The brisk one would do better for him; I think too that she likes him better than the elder one; she really looks sometimes as cheerfully and sympathetically towards the old grumbler, as if she would like to mount into the carriage with him, and be up and off.” Lucidor collected himself; he did not know what could be said in answer — all that he had heard had his private approval.

The youth continued: “Generally speaking, the girl has a perverse love for old people; I believe she would as soon have married your father as his son.”

Lucidor followed his companion, as he led him over stock and stone; both forgot the sport, which any way could not have been very abundant. They put up at a farmhouse, where, being well entertained, one of the friends amused himself with eating, drinking, and chatting, but the other was absorbed in thoughts and meditations concerning the manner in which he might be able to avail himself to his own advantage of the discovery he had made. Lucidor after all these tales and confidences had acquired so much confidence in Antony, that, on entering the courtyard, he at once asked for him, and hurried into the garden, where he was told that he would find him. He traversed all the alleys of the park in the cheerful evening sun in vain. Not a soul was to be seen. At last he entered a door leading to the great saloon, and wonderfully enough, the setting sun, reflected from the mirror, dazzled him to such a degree, that he could not recognize the two persons who were sitting on the ottoman, though he could distinguish that a male person sitting by the side of a lady was passionately impressing a kiss on her hand. How great then was his horror, when on the recovery of his power of vision he beheld Lucinda and Antony before him. He would have liked to sink into the ground, but remained as if fixed to the spot, until Lucinda in an unembarrassed and most friendly way bade him welcome, made room for him, and invited him to come and sit on her right-hand side. He took the seat unconsciously, and when, addressing him, she asked how he had spent the day, and excused herself on the score of domestic affairs, he could hardly endure her voice. Antony arose, and took leave; and Lucinda, also rising, invited him, who remained, to go out for a walk. Walking along by her side he remained silent and embarrassed; she too seemed to be disturbed; and if he had only been in some degree himself, her deep breathing must have betrayed that she had to conceal some heartfelt sighs. At last she took leave of him, as they approached near to the house; but he turned, first slowly and then hurriedly, towards the open fields. The park had become too narrow for him; he hurried through the open land listening only to the voice of his heart, without any sense of the beauties of the most perfect evening. When he saw himself alone, and had vented his feelings in a soothing flood of tears, he exclaimed:

“Several times already in my life, but never so cruelly, have I experienced the grief which is now making me wretched, when the most longed for happiness comes up to us hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, and immediately takes leave of us forever. I sat by her, walked next her, her dress touched me as it moved, and even then I had lost her! Tell it not to yourself, do not fret yourself about it; be silent, and take your resolution.”

He had imposed silence on himself; he held his peace and reflected, strolling through fields, meadows and heath, not always on the smoothest paths. Only when he entered his room, at a late hour, did he cease to restrain himself, and exclaimed: “Early to-morrow I set off; a day like this I will not live again,” and so he threw himself on the bed in his clothes.

Happy, healthy youth! He was already asleep; the fatiguing exercise during the day had earned for him the sweetest night’s rest. From his comforting morning dreams, however, the earliest beam awoke him; it happened to be the longest day, which threatened him to be too long. If he had certainly not felt the charm of the soothing evening star, he felt the stimulating beauty of the morning one only to despair. He beheld the world as beautiful as ever; — it was still so to his eyesight, but his inner man denied it. In all this he had no more part or lot; he had lost Lucinda.

CHAPTER IX.

The portmanteau, which he intended to leave behind him, was quickly packed; he did not write any letter with it; his absence from dinner, perhaps also during the evening, was to be excused by only a few words through the groom, whom he must wake up at once. But he found him already below in front of the stable, pacing to and fro with long strides. “You surely do not want to take a ride?” cried the otherwise good-natured man, with a touch of vexation. “I suppose I may venture to tell you: the young gentleman gets every day more unendurable. He was knocking about the country all yesterday, so that one might have thought that he would thank God to rest on a Sunday morning. But, if he does not come here before daybreak, making a disturbance in the stables! As I am jumping up, he saddles and bridles your horse, and is not to be kept back by any argument; he vaults up and cries: ‘Only think of the good work I am doing! This creature alway goes only at a lawyer’s trot; I will see whether I can spur him into a swift gallop for life!’ That is about what he said; and added other strange speeches.”

Lucidor was doubly, trebly surprised: he loved his horse, as answering to his own character and mode of life; it vexed him to find the good and sagacious creature in the hands of a madcap. His plan was disturbed — his intention of seeking refuge in the present crisis with a university friend, with whom he had lived in frank and affectionate association. The old confidence had been reawakened; the miles lying between them had not been taken into account, and he already imagined himself finding advice and relief from his benevolent and sensible friend. This prospect was now cut off: and yet this was not the case, if he should venture to reach his goal on fresh walking feet, which remained at his disposal.

The first thing then was to try to find the road out of the park into the open country, that should take him to his friend. He was not quite sure of his direction, when, on the left hand, the hermitage of which they had previously made a mystery caught his eye, as it reared its head above the copse, raised upon a strange sort of wood-work, and there to his utmost surprise he beheld upon a gallery beneath the Chinese roof the old gentleman, — who for the last few days had been thought to be ill, — looking around in a cheerful manner. Lucidor declined his very friendly greeting, and pressing invitation to ascend, with excuses and hurried gestures. Only consideration for the good old man, who as he hurried down the steep staircase with infirm tread threatened to fall to the bottom, induced him to walk towards him, and to allow himself to be led up. With wonder he entered the charming little saloon; it had only three windows, looking over the country, a most beautiful prospect; the rest of the walls was adorned, or rather covered, with hundreds and hundreds of portraits, engraved in copper, and in some cases drawn, pasted on to the wall in a certain order, and separated by colored bands and spaces.

“I favor you, my friend, in a way that is not for every one; this is the sanctuary in which I contentedly spend my last days. Here I recover from all the mistakes which society makes me commit, and here I restore my dietetic errors into equilibrium.”

Lucidor gave a glance at the whole, and being well read in history, he saw at once that an historical taste lay at the bottom.

“Here above in the frieze,” said the old man, “you will find the names of excellent men of the remote past; then, of the later ones still only the names, for how they looked it would be difficult to find out. But here in the chief space my own life is actually concerned, for here are men whom I heard mentioned as a boy. For about fifty years the names of distinguished men will remain in the memory of the people, but beyond that lapse of time they either disappear or become legendary. Although of German parents, I was born in Holland, and to me William of Orange, as Stadtholder and King of England, is the prototype of all ordinary men and heroes. But now you see Louis XIV. close to him, than whom — ”

How willingly Lucidor would have liked to interrupt the good old man, if it had been seemly to do so — as indeed it probably beseems us, the storyteller, to do; for he was threatened with modern and the most recent history, as was easily to be gathered from the portraits of Fredrick the Great and of his generals, towards whom he was pointing.

If the kind youth honored the lively sympathy of the old man for the time immediately preceding his own as well as for the present, and if certain individual traits could not escape him as being interesting, still he had already heard modern and recent history in universities, and what one has once heard, one thinks one will always know. His mind was far away; he did not hear, he scarcely could see, and was just on the point of blundering towards the door and down the mortally long staircase, in the most awkward manner, when a violent clapping of hands was heard from below.

Whilst Lucidor drew back, the old man put his head out of the window, and from below there resounded a well-known voice: “Come down; for Heaven’s sake, come out of your historical picture gallery, old gentleman! Finish your fasting, and help me to appease our young friend, when he comes to know the matter. I have been treating Lucidor’s horse somewhat recklessly; it has cast a shoe, and I have had to leave it behind. What will he say? Oh, it is too absurd, when people are absurd!”

“Come up,” said the old man, and turning himself towards Lucidor: “Now, what do you say?”

Lucidor was silent, and the wild youth entered. The questions and replies occasioned a long scene; enough, they resolved to send the groom at once to take care of the horse.

Leaving the old man behind, the two young people hurried back to the house, whither Lucidor allowed himself to be taken, not quite unwillingly; because, come of it what might, within those walls at least was enclosed the only wish of his heart. In such a desperate case we hopelessly lose the help of our free-will, and feel ourselves relieved for a moment, if from anywhere determination or coercion lay hold of us. Still, when he entered his room, he found himself in a very strange frame of mind, very like a man who is compelled against his wish to return to the inn that he has just left, because he has broken an axletree.

The merry youth presently pounced on the portmanteau, to unpack everything in order; particularly he placed together whatever there was at hand of holiday attire, although it might be meant for travelling. He compelled Lucidor to put on shoes and stockings, arranged his closely curled brown locks of hair, and rigged him out at his best. Then stepping a few paces back, he contemplated our friend, and his handiwork, from head to feet, and cried: “Now at least, my little friend, you look like a man who has some claims on pretty maidens, and sufficiently in earnest to be looking out for a bride. Only just a moment, and you shall see how I manage to come to the front, when the hour strikes! I have learned that from officers, after whom the girls are always looking, and moreover I have enlisted myself in a kind of military corps, and now they look at me too again and again, for none of them knows what to make of me! Now, out of all this looking here and there, this admiration and attention, there often ensues something very pretty indeed, which, if it is not lasting, is still worth our while to devote a moment to. But now, my friend, come and show me the same service! When you see me slip bit by bit into my covering, you will not deny wit and a knack of invention to the careless boy!”

So he dragged his friend along with him, through the long rambling corridors of the old château. “I have made my lair,” he exclaimed, “quite in the background. Without wishing to conceal myself, I like to be alone; for one cannot make it quite pleasing to the others.”

They passed by the justice-room, just as a servant came out carrying an antique writing-desk, black, big, and completely filled; paper too was not forgotten.

“I know well enough what is going to be scribbled again within there,” exclaimed the youth. “Go away, and leave me the key. Just give a peep into it, Lucidor. It will amuse you until I am dressed. To a man of law such a place is not as unattractive as to a stable-fellow.” And so he pushed Lucidor into the magisterial hall.

The young man at once felt himself in a familiar and congenial element; the recollection of the days when, on business bent, he was sitting at such a table, listening and writing, repeated itself. Nor did he remain unaware of the fact that here a fine old domestic chapel had, at the change of religious opinions, been commuted to the service of Themis. On the shelves he found titles and deeds already known to him; he had worked at these very matters himself, in the capital. On his opening a bundle, a rescript fell into his hand which he himself had engrossed, and another which he had drafted! Handwriting and paper, the seal of the Chancellery, and the signature of the president, all recalled to his mind that season of the legitimate striving of youthful hope. And then when he looked round, and caught sight of the official chair of the high-bailiff, designed and destined for himself, so fine a position, and such a worthy sphere of activity, which he ran the risk of rejecting and renouncing: all this assailed him with a double and three-fold strength, whilst the form of Lucinda seemed at the same time to retreat away from him.

He wanted to go out into the open air, but found himself imprisoned. His wonderful friend had either heedlessly or wantonly locked the door behind him: still our friend did not remain long in this most awkward confinement, for the other came back, excused himself, and really awoke good humor by his strange presence. A certain loudness in the colors and cut of his dress was tempered by natural taste, just as we do not deny a sort of approval even to tattooed Indians.

“To-day,” he said, “shall make compensation for the tediousness of past days; good friends, merry friends have arrived, pretty girls, lively enamored creatures; and then too my father, and, wonder upon wonder, your father too! It will be a feast. They are all already assembled in the saloon for breakfast.”

Lucidor felt at once in a mood as if he were peering into a thick fog; all who were mentioned to him, whether known or unknown, seemed to him as so many ghostly forms; still his character, in conjunction with a pure heart, kept him erect; in a few seconds he felt himself equal to anything. He now followed his hurrying friend with a firm step, firmly resolved to stay it out, happen what might, and to explain himself, be it as it would.

And yet he felt surprised at the threshold of the saloon. In a large semicircle around the windows he at once discerned his father, together with the high-bailiff, both in full dress. He looked at the sisters, at Antony, and other known and unknown people, with a glance that threatened almost to become dim. He approached his father with failing steps, who received him in a most friendly manner yet with a certain formality, which scarcely favored any confidential approach. Standing before so many people, he looked out for a convenient place for the moment; he could have placed himself near Lucinda, but Julia, in contrast with the constrained state of things, made a turn, so that he was compelled to step towards her. Antony remained near Lucinda.

At this critical moment Lucidor felt himself again as one who has been charged with a trust, and, steeled with all his juristic science, he recalled to mind in his own favor that beautiful maxim: that we ought to treat the affairs of strangers committed to our trust as our own; and why should we not treat our own in just the same spirit. As he was well exercised in business statements, he quickly ran through all he had to say. Meantime the company, placed in a formal semicircle, seemed to be too much for him. The substance of his statement he knew well enough, but he could not find the beginning. Then on a table he observed the great inkstand, with some legal officials standing by; the high-bailiff made a movement, as if to begin his address; Lucidor wanted to precede him, and at the same moment Julia pressed his hand. This took away all his presence of mind; he was convinced that it was all decided, that all was lost for him.

LUCIDOR AND LUCINDA.

Now it was no longer the time when the present collective lifelong associations or these family ties, conventionalities of society and position, should be respected; he looked before him, withdrew his hand from Julia, and was so quickly outside the door that the company lost him before they were aware of it, and he himself outside scarcely knew where he was.

Fearing the light of the sun, which shone on his head in fullest splendor, avoiding the glances of people that he met, groping along timidly, he went onwards until he reached the large summer-house. At this point his knees were about to fail him; he rushed in, and disconsolately threw himself on the ottoman beneath the looking-glass: into such confusion had he been thrown in the midst of the precise business-like company, which seemed to be surging backwards and forwards around and within him. His past existence struggled with the present: it was a terrible moment.

And thus he lay for a time, with his face buried in the cushion, upon which Lucinda’s arm had yesterday been resting. Completely absorbed in his grief, feeling himself touched, without having perceived any one approach, he quickly raised himself; then he saw Lucinda, who was standing near him.

Fancying that she had been sent to fetch him, and charged to induce him with suitable sisterly words to accompany her back to the assembly, to his repugnant destiny, he exclaimed: “They ought not to have sent you, Lucinda, for it is you who drove me away from there; I shall not return! Give me, if you are capable of any pity, the opportunity and means for flight. For in order that you may bear witness how impossible it is to bring me back, then receive the key to my behavior, which to you and all must seem madness. Listen to the oath which I had sworn to myself, and which, as irretrievable, I now repeat aloud. With you only I wished to live, to use and enjoy my youth, and old age as well, in its true and honest completion. And let this be as firm and sure as anything that has ever been sworn before the altar, which I now swear, in leaving you, the most pitiable of all mankind.” He made a movement to slip away from her, as she stood so close in front of him, but she caught him gently in her arms.

“What are you going to do?” he exclaimed.

“Lucidor,” she said, “not pity you, as you imagine, perhaps; you are mine, I am yours. I hold you in my arms; do not be afraid of throwing yours round me. Your father is satisfied with everything; Antony is to marry my sister.”

He drew back from her, astounded.

“Can it be true?”

Lucinda laughed, and nodded; he freed himself from her arms.

“Let me once more behold at a distance her who is to belong so nearly, so closely to me.” He seized her hands.

“Face to face, Lucinda, are you mine?”

She replied, “Yes, indeed,” with the sweetest tears in the truest of eyes. He embraced her, and threw his head behind hers; he clung there like a shipwrecked man to a rock on the shore; the floor still trembled beneath him. But now his enraptured glance, opening again, fell upon the looking-glass. Then he beheld her in his arms, himself folded in hers; he looked towards it again and again. Such feelings accompany a man all through his life; at the same time, too, he saw on the mirror’s face the landscape, that but yesterday had seemed to him so gray and forbidding, now more splendid and glorious than ever: and himself in such a position on such a background! — a sufficient reward for all sufferings.

“We are not alone,” said Lucinda, and scarcely had he recovered from his rapture, when there appeared girls and boys, decked out and garlanded, carrying wreaths, filling up the entrance.

“That ought all to have been different,” exclaimed Lucinda. “How nicely it was arranged, and now it is all clumsily mixed up.” A stirring march sounded from afar, and they saw the company merrily coming in procession up the wide road. He hesitated to go to meet them, and only on her arm seemed sure of his steps. She remained at his side, awaiting from moment to moment the solemn scene of re-meeting, and of a pardon already granted.

But it had been fated differently by the mischievous gods; the merry, ringing tones of a post-horn from the opposite side seemed to throw the whole ceremony into confusion. “Who can be coming?” exclaimed Lucinda.

Lucidor shuddered at a strange presence, and the carriage too seemed quite strange. A new double-seated travelling-chaise of the latest make. She ran into the saloon. A remarkably well-dressed boy jumped down from behind, opened the door, but no one got out. The carriage was empty; the boy got in, with a few dexterous pulls he threw back the covering, and in an instant the pretty contrivance was prepared for a most pleasant drive before the eyes of all the company, who, in the meantime, had come up. Antony, hurrying in advance of the rest, handed Julia to the carriage.

“Try whether this sort of vehicle will suit you,” he said, “to drive in with me along the best roads through the world. I shall take you along no other ones; and if ever it should come to a pinch we will know how to help ourselves. Pack-horses ought to be able to carry us across the mountain and the carriage too.”

“You are a darling!” exclaimed Julia.

The boy stepped forward, and, with the dexterity of a conjuror, he showed all the conveniences, small advantages and contrivances of the whole light structure.

“On the earth I am unable to thank you,” exclaimed Julia; “only from this little movable heaven, from this cloud to which you raise me, I desire to thank you most cordially.”

She had already jumped into it, throwing a kind glance and a hand-kiss towards him.

“For the present you must not come in it with me; but there is another whom I think of taking with me on this trial drive. He has a trial still to undergo, too.”

She called to Lucidor, who, just then engaged in a diffident conversation with his father and father-in-law, gladly allowed himself to be pressed into the light vehicle, since he felt an unconquerable need of only a moment’s distraction in some way or other. He sat down by her; she called to the postilion how he should go. In the twinkling of an eye they disappeared, enveloped in dust, from the sight of the astonished spectators left behind. Julia settled herself closely and comfortably in the corner.

“Now you, too, lean back here, Herr Brother-in-law, that we may conveniently look at each other.”

Lucidor.

“You see my confusion, my embarrassment. I am still as in a dream; help me out of it.”

Julia.

“Look at the nice-looking village people, how civilly they greet us. During your stay here you have actually never been to the upper village: all well-to-do people, who are all partial to me. There is no one so rich that one cannot oblige him in some way or other by some important service. This road, along which we are driving so comfortably, my father laid out, and so set this good state of things on foot.”

Lucidor.

“I willingly believe it, and grant it; but what have these external things to do with the confusion of my mind?”

Julia.

“Only patience, I want to show you the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, now we are up above! How clearly the level plain lies against the mountains! All these villages owe a great deal to my father, and to mother and daughters too, I dare say. The outskirts of that little town yonder are the first boundaries.”

Lucidor.

“I see you are in a strange mood. You do not seem to say outright what you wished to say.”

Julia.

“Now look down here on the left, how beautifully everything discloses itself! The church with its high lime-trees, the town-house with its poplars, behind the village mound. The gardens, too, are lying before us, and the park.”

The postilion drove faster.

Julia.

“You recognize that pavilion up there; it looks just as pretty from here as the landscape does from there. At this tree we stop. Now, just at this spot, we are reflected up there in the large glass surface. They can see us there very well, but we cannot distinguish ourselves. Drive on! Probably it is not long since two people have reflected themselves there more closely, and, if I’m not much mistaken, with great mutual satisfaction.”

Lucidor in his vexation made no reply. They drove along for a while in silence; the pace was very swift.

“Here,” said Julia, “the bad road begins; some day you may make it a credit to you. Before we drive downwards look once more across the country: my mother’s beech-tree, with its magnificent summit, towers above everything.

“You drive on,” she continued to the coachman, “along the bad road; we will take the footpath through the valley, and will arrive over there before you.”

In descending, she exclaimed: “You must confess, however, that the Wandering Jew, the restless Antony Roamer, knows how to make his pilgrimages tolerably comfortable for himself and his companions. It is a very handsome and comfortable carriage.”

And by this time she was at the bottom of the hill. Lucidor followed thoughtfully, and found her sitting on a nicely-placed bench. It was Lucinda’s favorite place. She beckoned him to her.

Julia.

“So we are sitting here, and are nothing to one another! — and yet it was to have been so. The little Quicksilver would not have at all suited you. You could not love such a creature; she was repugnant to you.”

Lucidor’s astonishment increased.

Julia.

“But Lucinda, now — she is the compendium of all perfections, and the pretty sister was once for all cut out. I see it; the question is trembling on your lips — who could have informed us so correctly?”

Lucidor.

“A traitor lurks behind.”

Julia.

“Yes, indeed, there is a traitor in the game.”

Lucidor.

“Name him.”

Julia.

“He is soon unmasked. It is yourself! You have the praiseworthy, or blameworthy, habit of talking to yourself, and so I will confess, in the name of all of us, that we have in turns overheard you.”

Lucidor

(jumping up). “A nice sort of hospitality, to set a trap for the guest in this way!”

Julia.

“Not at all. We did not think of listening to you more than to any other individual. You know that your bed stands in a recess in the wall, and on the opposite side there is another, which generally serves only as a domestic repository. There we had, a few days before, forced our old gentleman to sleep, because we were a good deal concerned about him in his distant hermitage. Now on the very first evening you entered on the affair with that passionate soliloquy, the purport of which he most opportunely disclosed to us the next morning.”

Lucidor had no heart to interrupt her. He moved away.

Julia

(rising and following him). “And of what service this declaration was to us! For, I confess, although you were not precisely antipathic to me, still the position that awaited me was by no means so desirable. To become a ‘Madam High-bailiff,’ — what a horrible position! To get a good, honest man, whose duty it is to declare the law to the people, and who by sheer weight of law can never attain to justice; who does justice neither by laws above nor below, and, what is worst, not even to himself. I know what my mother has suffered from the incorruptibility, the inflexibility, of my father. At last, unfortunately after her death, he began to display a certain tenderness. He seemed to accommodate himself to the world; to reconcile himself to it, having hitherto vainly fought against it.”

Lucidor

(highly displeased at the affair, and vexed at her frivolous treatment of it — stands still). “For the diversion of one evening this might pass; but to practise such a mortifying mystification for days and nights on an unsuspecting guest, is unpaidonable.”

Julia.

“We have all shared in the guilt, we have all overheard you; but I alone expiate the guilt of listening.”

Lucidor.

“All! So much the more unpardonable. And how could you, during the day, look, without feeling abashed, at one whom you so disgracefully and illegitimately cheated by night? Still, I now see quite clearly in a glance that all your arrangements for the day were only calculated to make a fool of me. A worthy family indeed! And what becomes of your father’s love of fairness? And Lucinda — ”

Julia.

“ ‘And Lucinda,’ — what a tone! You would say how deeply it grieves you to think evil of Lucinda, to throw Lucinda into the same class with all the rest of us.”

Lucidor.

“I do not understand Lucinda.”

Julia.

“You mean to say, This pure soul, this quiet, composed being; goodness, benevolence personified; this woman as she ought to be, associating herself with a frivolous company — with an inconsiderate sister, a spoiled youngster, and certain other mysterious persons — that remains incomprehensible.”

Lucidor.

“Yes, it is indeed incomprehensible.”

Julia.

“Well, then, comprehend it. Lucinda’s hands, like those of all of us, were tied. If you had been able to observe her embarrassment, and how she could hardly restrain herself from revealing everything to you, you would love her doubly and trebly, if every true love were not on its own account ten and hundred-fold. Besides, I assure you the joke in the end became tedious to all of us.”

Lucidor.

“Why did you not put an end to it?”

Julia.

“That too must now be explained. When your first monologue had become known to our father, and he could soon observe that none of his children had any objection to such an exchange, then he determined to go over at once to your father. The importance of the business gave him some misgivings. Only a father can feel the respect that is due to a father. “He must be informed about it at the very first,” said mine, “if afterwards, when we are agreed, he is not to give a forced, reluctant consent. I know him exactly; I know how firmly he keeps to any thought, inclination or plan, and I am anxious enough about it. He has mixed up Julia, his maps and views, so closely in his thoughts, that he has already formed the plan of finally establishing everything here, when the day should come for the young couple to settle down here, and could not so easily change position and place: then he would devote to us every holiday, and whatever of kindness and goodness he had in mind. He must first know what a trick nature had played upon us, for as yet nothing has been declared, nothing decided.” Thereupon he took from us all the most solemn hand-pledge that we would watch you and, happen what might, would keep you here. How his return has been delayed, how it has cost art, labor and perseverance to obtain your father’s consent, that you may hear from him yourself. Enough, the thing is settled, and Lucinda is granted to you.”

And thus the two, quickly leaving their first seat, but stopping on the road, talking continuously, and slowly walking onwards, had reached an elevation on the other side of the meadows and another well-constructed highroad.

The carriage came driving quickly towards them; in a moment she directed her companion’s attention to a strange spectacle. All the machinery in which her brother took such pride was now animated and in motion; the wheels were conveying a number of people up and down, swings were oscillating, poles were being climbed, and you might see essayed all kinds of bold leaps and springs above the heads of a countless multitude.

All this the young squire had put into motion, in order to entertain the guests merrily after dinner.

“You will still drive through the lower village,” exclaimed Julia; “the people like me, and they shall see how happy I am.”

The village was deserted; the young men had already hastened, one and all, towards the pleasure-ground; old men and women, aroused by the post-horn, showed themselves at doors and windows; they were all greetings and blessings, and exclamations: “What a handsome couple!”

Julia.

“There now, you hear! we should probably have suited one another in the end; you may still repent it.”

Lucidor.

“But now, dear sister-in-law — ”

Julia.

“Just so! — ’dear,’ now that you have got rid of me.”

Lucidor.

“Only a word more. There rests a heavy responsibility upon you; what was the meaning of that pressing of my hand, when you knew and must have felt my awful position? Anything so thoroughly wicked I have never yet known in this world.”

Julia.

“Thank God, if that were expiated, all would be forgiven! I did not want you it is true; but, that you would have nothing to do with me, is a thing that no girl forgives, and that pressure of the hand, you see, was for the wretch. I confess that it was more villanous than was right, and I only forgive myself in forgiving you, and so let all be forgiven and forgotten! Here is my hand.”

He accepted it, and exclaimed: “Here we are back again already — already back in our park; and so you will probably soon have made the round of the wide world and perhaps back: we shall meet again.”

They had already arrived before the garden saloon. It seemed empty; the company, discontented at seeing dinner-time so long delayed, had set out for a walk, but Antony and Lucinda came forward. Julia threw herself out of the carriage towards her friend, she thanked him with a cordial embrace, and did not refrain from tears of deepest joy. The cheeks of the noble man reddened, his features expanded themselves, his eye looked bedimmed, and from beneath this outward form shone forth a handsome striking youth.

And thus the two couples proceeded towards the company, with feelings that the loveliest dream could not bestow.

CHAPTER X.

Father and son, accompanied by a groom, had reached a pleasant neighborhood, when the latter, stopping in front of a lofty wall that seemed to surround an extensive enclosure, intimated to them that they had now to approach the great gate on foot, for no horse was admitted within this enclosure. They rang the bell; the gate was opened without a human figure being visible, and they advanced towards an old building that peeped out towards them between the venerable trunks of beeches and oaks. It was wonderful to look at; for old it seemed in form, yet the bricklayers and stonemasons might but just have left it, so new and perfect and well-finished seemed the joints and elaborated decorations.

A heavy metal ring on a finely-carved door invited them to knock, which Felix from wantonness did somewhat ungently; this door too opened itself, and they found at once in the hall a maiden lady of middle age, sitting before an embroidery-frame, and occupied with a well-designed piece of work.

She at once greeted the visitors as being already expected, and began to sing a cheerful song, whereupon there forthwith stepped out of an adjacent door a woman, whom, from the appendages to her girdle, without anything else, it was easy to recognize as the custodian and acting housekeeper. She also with a friendly greeting took the strangers up a flight of stairs, and opened for them a room which impressed them in a solemn way, being spacious, lofty, and panelled all round, with a series of historical designs above. Two persons came towards them — a somewhat youthful lady, and an elderly man.

The former at once frankly bade the guests welcome. “You have,” she said, “been announced as one of our circle. But how shall I without ceremony introduce you to this gentleman? He is a family friend in the best and widest sense: by day the instructive companion, by night astronomer, and physician on every occasion.”

“And I,” added he, in friendly manner, “recommend to you this lady, as untiringly active, by day, by night when need be, ready at hand, and always the most cheerful companion to live with. Angela (for so this beauty, attractive both in figure and bearing, was called) announced forthwith Makaria’s approach: a green curtain was drawn aside, and a remarkable elderly lady was pushed into the room in an easy chair by two pretty young girls, and by two other girls a round table, with an inviting breakfast. In one corner of the massive oak benches round the room cushions had been laid, upon which the three above mentioned sat down, opposite to Makaria in her easy chair. Felix ate his breakfast standing, walking about the saloon, and inspecting with curiosity the knightly pictures above.

Makaria spoke to Wilhelm as to a confidential friend. She seemed to enjoy a vivid description of her relatives; it seemed as if she looked through the outward individual mask into the inner nature of each of them. The persons whom Wilhelm knew stood as if transfigured before his soul: the intelligent benevolence of the worthy woman threw off the outward husk, and ennobled and animated the sound kernel.

After these agreeable subjects had been exhausted with most kindly treatment, she said to her worthy companion: “You must not again find an excuse in the presence of this new friend, and once more put off the promised entertainment; he seems like one who would take a part in it himself.”

But to this he replied: “You know how difficult it is to explain one’s self on these subjects; for the question is of nothing less than the abuse of excellent and far-reaching expedients.”

“I grant that,” replied Makaria, “for one falls into a double embarrassment. If one speaks of abuse, one seems to impugn the worth of the method itself, for that is always latent in the abuse; if one speaks about the method, then one can scarcely allow that its thoroughness and value admit of any abuse. Still, as we are in private, and do not want to establish anything, or to produce any outward effect, but only to enlighten ourselves, the discussion can accordingly proceed.”

“Still,” replied the cautious man, “we must first of all ask whether our new friend has also a wish to take part in a to some degree abstruse matter, or whether he would not prefer to take needful repose in his apartment. Can our subject be willingly and favorably received by him apart from its connection, without any knowledge as to how we arrived at it?”

“If I were to explain by something analogous what you have said, the case seems to me to be almost as if in attacking hypocrisy one could be accused of an attack against religion.”

“We may let the analogy pass,” said the friend; “for the question now is of a complication of several remarkable men, of high science, of an important art, and, in short, of mathematics.”

“I have always,” replied Wilhelm, “even when I have heard the most unfamiliar subjects discussed, been able to appropriate something to myself; for whatever interests one man, will also find a sympathetic echo in another.”

“Assuming,” said the other, “that he has acquired a certain freedom of mind; and as we give you credit for this, I will not on my part at least make any objection to your presence here.”

“But what shall we do with Felix?” asked Makaria, “who I see has already finished his inspection of the pictures, and shows some signs of impatience.”

“May I whisper something to this young lady,” said Felix, running somewhat quietly up to Angela, who went aside with him, but soon returned laughing, when the friend began to speak as follows:

“In cases in which one has to express disapproval, or blame, or even only misgiving, I do not like to take the initiative; I look out for an authority, so that I can reassure myself, in finding that some else stands by me. I praise without misgiving, for why should I be silent, if anything falls in with me. Even if it should evince my narrowness, still I have no need to be ashamed of it; but if I blame, it may happen to me that I reject something of excellence, and thereby draw on myself the disapproval of others who understand it better; I am obliged to retract, when I become enlightened. Therefore I here bring some written matter, and some translations as well; for in such things I trust my own nation as little as myself: an agreement from a distance and from foreign parts seems to afford me more security.”

After obtaining permission he began to read as follows: — but our courteous readers will probably be inclined to approve, if we do not think fit to let this worthy man read. For what has been said above about the presence of Wilhelm at this discussion, applies even more to the case in which we find ourselves. Our friends have taken into their hands a novel, and if this has here and there turned out more than reasonably didactic, we find it advisable not to try too far the patience of our well-wishers. The documents that lie before us, we are thinking of having printed in some other place, and on this occasion shall continue the narrative without delay, since we ourselves are impatient to see the existing riddle solved. But still we cannot refrain from making some further mention of what came under discussion before the separation of this noble company in the evening.

Wilhelm, after listening with great attention to this reading, remarked quite unaffectedly: “I have heard here about great natural gifts, capacities and abilities, and at the same time about considerable diffidence in the use of them; if I were to express myself briefly about it, I should exclaim: ‘Great thoughts, and a pure heart, that is what we have to pray God for!’ “

Granting its full approval to these sensible words, the company separated: but the astronomer promised to let Wilhelm, on this clear and splendid night, have his full share in all the wonders of the starry firmament.

A few hours later the astronomer bid his guest ascend the winding staircase of the observatory, and at last step out upon the completely open platform of a lofty round tower. A most brilliant night, sparkling and glowing with all the stars of heaven, surrounded the observer, who seemed for the first time to behold the lofty firmament in all its glory. For in daily life, — irrespective of unfavorable weather, that conceals from us the splendid extent of ether, — at home we are hindered by roofs and gables, abroad by forests and by rocks, but most of all and everywhere by the inward commotions of the mind, which flit to and fro and obscure the prospect more than all fogs or storms.

Rapt and astonished, he shut his eyes. The immense ceases to be sublime; it surpasses our faculty of comprehension, it threatens to annihilate us.

“What am I then, in comparison with the All?” he said to his own spirit. “How can I stand opposite to Him? — how can I stand in His midst?”

Yet, after a short reverie, he continued:

“The result of our evening’s conference solves also the riddle of the present moment. How can man set himself against the Infinite, otherwise than by collecting in his deepest innermost soul all the spiritual energies that are scattered in every direction; but by asking himself, How durst thou even think of thyself in the midst of this eternal and living order, if there do not also reveal itself within thee a glorious moving principle circling round a pure centre? And even if it should prove difficult for thee to discover this central point within thy bosom, yet wouldst thou recognize it in this, that a benevolent and beneficent action proceeds from it, and bears witness to it. Yet, who ought, who is able to look back upon his past life, without feeling in some degree bewildered; as he will mostly find that his will has been right, but his conduct wrong; that his desires have been blameworthy, yet their attainment longed-for. How often hast thou seen these stars twinkling, and have they not always found thee different? but they are ever the same, and say ever the same thing: By our regulated march, they repeat, we indicate the day and the hour. Ask thyself also, How standest thou in reference to day and hour? And this time I can answer, Of present circumstances I need not be ashamed: my intention is to reinstate a noble family in longed-for union in all its members; the road is indicated. I shall inquire into what keeps noble souls aloof; I shall remove hindrances, of whatsoever kind they be. This thou mayest openly avow in face of these heavenly hosts: if they took any heed of thee, they would indeed laugh at thy narrowness, but they would certainly honor thine intention, and favor its fulfilment.”

With these words and thoughts he turned round to look about him; then Jupiter, the star of fortune, met his eye, as gloriously luminous as ever; he took this as a good omen, and for a time lingered gladly over the spectacle.

Presently the astronomer bade him come down, and let him look through a perfect telescope at this very star, considerably magnified and accompanied by its moons, as a celestial wonder.

After our friend had remained some time absorbed in it, he turned round and said to the star-lover: “I do not know whether I have to thank you for having brought this star so immeasurably nearer to me. As I saw it before, it stood in some relation to the innumerable others of heaven and to myself; but now it stands out in my imagination as incommensurable, and I do not know whether I ought to wish to bring out all the remaining host in like proportion. They would shut me in, oppress me.”

And so our friend went on according to his custom, and a good deal that was unpremeditated was discussed on the occasion. To some reply of the man of science, Wilhelm rejoined: “I can very well understand, that it must give you sky-searchers the greatest pleasure gradually to draw down to you all the immense universe, as I here saw, and see, this planet: but allow me to say that, in life in general and on the whole, I have found that these means, by which we come to the aid of our senses, do not exercise any morally favorable influence on man. He who looks through spectacles thinks himself wiser than he is, for his outward sense is thereby put out of balance with his inner faculty of judgment. It belongs to a higher culture, of which only excellent men are capable, to reconcile in some degree what is inwardly true, with this outward false effect. Whenever I look through a glass I become another man, and do not please myself; I see more than I ought to see; the world, seen more distinctly, does not harmonize with my inner self; and I quickly put aside my glasses, as soon as my curiosity as to how this or that distant object may be made is satisfied.”

In reply to certain jocose remarks of the astronomer, Wilhelm continued: “We shall not banish these glasses from the world, any more than any piece of machinery; but to the observer of morals, it is important to inquire and to know whence many things about which complaints are made have crept into humanity. Thus, for instance, I am convinced that to the habit of wearing spectacles is chiefly due the self-conceit of our young people.”

Julia.

With these discussions the night had far advanced, whereupon the astronomer, accustomed to watching, proposed to his young friend to lie down on the camp-bed, and sleep for a short time, and then with a fresher glance to contemplate and greet Venus as she anticipated the sunrise — who on this particular day promised to appear in her completed splendor.

Wilhelm, who up to this moment had felt quite brisk and cheerful, at this proposal of the kind and considerate man, felt himself really exhausted; he laid himself down, and in a moment was sunk in the deepest slumber.

When aroused by the astronomer, Wilhelm jumped up, and hurried to the window; there he remained for a moment transfixed with astonishment, and then exclaimed enthusiastically: “What splendor! what a wondrous sight!” Other words of rapture followed, but the sight still remained a wonder, a great wonder to him.

“That this lovely star, that to-day appears in a fulness and splendor quite unusual, would surprise you, I could foresee; but this I may maintain, without being reproached for being cold: I see nothing wonderful — nothing wonderful at all!”

“How could you?” replied Wilhelm, “since I bring it with me, since I carry it within me, since I do not know how it happens to me. Let me still look, dumb and astounded at it; then do you feel it.”

After a pause, he continued: “I was lying in soft but deep sleep, when I felt transported into the saloon as yesterday, but alone. The green curtain went up, Makaria’s chair moved forward of its own accord, like an animated being; it shone with gold, her dress seemed sacerdotal, her glance sparkled mildly; I was on the point of throwing myself down. Clouds spread forth around her feet, and ascending they bore like wings the holy form upwards: instead of her glorious countenance I beheld through the parting clouds a shining star, that was ever carried upwards, and through the opening roof united itself with the whole firmament, which seemed to be ever expanding and to embrace everything. In this moment you arouse me; heavy with sleep I rush to the window, still with the vivid image of the star in my eye, and as I look, the morning star, of equal beauty, although perhaps not of such refulgent magnificence, is really before me! This real star, hovering yonder above, replaces that of my dream, it consumes all that was glorious in that which appeared to me; but still I look and look, and you are looking also with me at what in point of fact ought to have disappeared with the haze of my sleep.”

The astronomer exclaimed: “Wonderful, wonderful indeed! You do not know, yourself, what wonderful things you are saying. May this not prognosticate the decease of the glorious woman, to whom sooner or later some such apotheosis is predestined.”

The next morning Wilhelm, in search of his Felix, who at an early hour had quietly stolen away, hurried into the garden, which to his astonishment he saw being tilled by a number of girls. If not all beautiful, not one was ugly, and none seemed to have reached her twentieth year. They were variously dressed, as if belonging to different localities; and were active, cheerful in greeting him, and industrious.

He was met by Angela, who was walking to and fro in order to direct and criticise the work; and to her the guest expressed his admiration at so pretty and industrious a colony.

“This,” she replied, “does not die out; it alters, but remains always the same. For with their twentieth year these girls, as indeed do all the female inhabitants of our establishment, enter upon active life, generally into the state of marriage. All the young men of the neighborhood, who are anxious to obtain for themselves a robust wife, pay attention to what is going on here with us. Neither are our pupils in any way shut up in this place; they have already looked round about them — at many an annual fair have been seen, desired, and betrothed; and thus several families are already attentively waiting for another vacancy with us in order to introduce their own daughters.”

After they had discussed this matter, the guest could not conceal from his new friend his desire once more to look through what had been read to them on the previous evening. “I have grasped the main drift of the conversation,” he said, “but now I should like to know more correctly the details which came into question.” “Fortunately I find myself in a position,” she replied, “to satisfy this wish of yours at once; the familiar relations towards us, that have been granted to you so soon, justify me in telling you, that those papers are already in my hands, to be carefully kept, along with certain other documents.

“My mistress,” she continued, “is profoundly convinced of the importance of impromptu conversation; things occur therein, she says, that no book contains, and yet again the best that books have ever contained. Therefore she has charged me with the duty of preserving a few good thoughts that spring from an intellectual conversation as so many grains of seed from a well-laden plant. Only if we are faithful in preserving the present, she says, can we have pleasure in tradition, in finding the best thought already spoken, the most worthy sentiment already expressed. By this process we attain to the contemplation of that agreement for which man has been born, in which he must often find himself against his own will, whilst he is only too fond of fancying that the world begins with him from the very beginning.”

Angela went on to confide to the guest, that in this manner a considerable manuscript collection had grown up, from which on sleepless nights she would sometimes read aloud a sheet to Makaria; on which occasions a thousand details would in turn present themselves in a wonderful way, just as when a mass of mercury falls, and scatters itself on all sides in an innumerable multitude of globules.

To his question, how far this collection of papers was kept secret, she revealed to him that at all events only their most intimate circle had knowledge of it, that she was quite willing to be responsible for it, and, since he desired it, to lay a few sheets before him.

During this garden conversation they had arrived at the château, and entering the room in one of the wings, she said, smiling: “I will take this opportunity of intrusting you with another secret, for which you will be by no means prepared.” Thereupon she made him peep through a curtain into a closet, where, to his great astonishment, he saw his own Felix sitting writing at a table, and was unable at once to explain to himself this unexpected diligence. But he was soon enlightened, when Angela disclosed to him that the boy had seized for this purpose the moment of his disappearance, and had declared that writing and riding were the only things in which he had pleasure.

Our friend was then introduced into a room, where in cupboards round about he saw a number of well-arranged papers. Labels of many kinds indicated the most various contents; discrimination and orderly arrangement were everywhere conspicuous.

When Wilhelm proceeded to praise these advantages, Angela gave the credit of it to the family friend — who was capable of settling under his own supervision not only the arrangement, but also in cases of difficulty the necessary interpolation. Thereupon she found out the manuscript that had been read aloud yesterday, and allowed the eager guest to avail himself of it and all the rest, and not only take notes, but even to copy them.

Here our friend had to go to work carefully, for there was only too much that was attractive and desirable: especially did he regard certain sheets of short and scarcely connected propositions as particularly valuable. They were products which, if we did not know their origins, would seem paradoxical, but which compel us by the aid of a reversed process of seeking and finding to return backwards in order if possible to bring home to us the filiation of such thoughts from afar and from below. Neither for these, for the reasons stated above, can we grant a place. Still, at the first opportunity that presents itself, we shall not neglect, and shall be able in a proper place to put forward a selection of what was here acquired.

On the morning of the third day our friend went to Angela and stood before her not without some embarrassment. “To-day I must take leave,” he said, “and receive my last commissions from that excellent lady, whom I regret that I was not allowed to see during the whole of yesterday. Now, something is weighing on my heart, on my own innermost soul, about which I have wished to be enlightened. If it be possible, then grant me this favor.”

“I think I understand you,” said the kind woman; “yet speak on.”

“A wonderful dream,” he continued, “a few words also from the earnest astronomer, a separate locked compartment among the accessible cases, with the inscription, The qualities of Makaria — all these suggestions are associated with an inner voice, that tells me that this study of the heavenly bodies is not merely a scientific amusement, a striving after knowledge of the world of stars, but that we ought rather to suppose that there is hidden in it some peculiar relation of Makaria to the stars, to know which must be a matter of the highest interest to me. I am neither inquisitive nor importunate, but this forms such an important case to the student of mind and character, that I cannot refrain from asking whether, in addition to so much confidence, this extra indulgence might also be kindly granted?”

“And I have the right to grant this,” replied the amiable woman. “Your remarkable dream has remained indeed a secret to Makaria, but with our friends I have observed and considered your singular intellectual sympathy, your unexpected comprehension of the deepest secrets; and we may take courage to lead you further. Allow me in the first instance to speak figuratively! In things difficult of comprehension one does well to help one’s self in this fashion.

“As is said of the poet, the elements of the moral world are hidden in the depths of his nature, and have had to develop themselves from him little by little, so that nothing existing in the world would come to view but of what he had previously had a presentiment: even thus, it will seem, the relations of our solar system from the beginning, at first in a state of rest, then little by little developing, and afterwards becoming ever more distinctly animated, are fundamentally innate in Makaria. At first she suffered from these apparitions, then she took pleasure in them, and with her years her enjoyment increased. Yet she did not attain to the present harmony and repose until she had gained the aid of the friend whose merits you too have already learned to know sufficiently well.

“As a mathematician and philosopher, incredulous from the beginning, she was long doubtful whether this visionary power of hers was not acquired; for Makaria had to allow that, at an early age, she had enjoyed instruction in astronomy, and had studied it passionately. But at the same time, she also informed him, for many years of her life she had put together and compared the inward apparitions and the outward phenomena, but never had been able to find out any harmony between them.

“Thereupon the man of science bade her explain to him most minutely what she saw, which only from time to time was quite clear to her; he then made his calculations, and concluded hence, that she did not so much carry within herself the whole solar system, but rather that as an integral part she was spiritually moving within it. He proceeded on this supposition, and his calculations were corroborated in an incredible way by her statements.

“Thus much only do I for this time venture to confide to you, and this too I reveal only with the urgent request not to mention a word of it to anybody. For would not every man of sense and understanding, with the purest good will, still regard and declare such opinions to be mere fancies and misunderstood reminiscences of a previously acquired science? Even her family know nothing more precise about it; it is these secret revelations, these rapturous visions, that amongst her relations pass for a malady, by which she is for a time prevented from taking a part in the world and in her own interests. This, my friend, keep quietly to yourself, and also say nothing about it to Lenardo.”

Towards evening our wanderer was once more led into Makaria’s presence: much that was pleasantly instructive came under discussion, from which we select the following:

“From nature we possess no defect that could not become a virtue, and no virtue that could not become a fault. These latter are just the most problematical. Our wonderful nephew has chiefly given me occasion to make this remark — the young man about whom you have heard in our family so many singular things, and whom I, according to my relatives, are said to treat more indulgently and lovingly than is due.

“From youth up there was developed in him a certain lively, technical cleverness, to which he entirely devoted himself, and in which he happily advanced to manifold knowledge and acquirements. Later, everything that he sent home from his travels was always of the most artistic, skilful, refined, and delicate handiwork, indicative of the country in which he might happen to be, and which we were expected to guess. From this it might be concluded that he was and would remain a dry, unsympathetic man, wrapped up in external things; in conversation, too, he was not disposed to agree in general ethical matters, but privately and in secret he was endowed with a wonderfully fine practical sense of good and evil, the praiseworthy and the unpraiseworthy; such that I have never seen him at fault either towards his elders or juniors, his superiors or inferiors. But this innate consciousness, unbridled as it was, in single instances transformed itself into a whimsical weakness; he would even invent for himself duties where they were not required, and sometimes quite needlessly avow himself a delinquent.

“From his whole plan of travel, but particularly from his preparations for returning, I believe that he fancies himself to have offended a certain female belonging to our circle, whose fate now causes him anxiety, from which he would feel relieved and absolved as soon as he could hear that she was well; and Angela will tell you the rest. Take this letter, and prepare a happy reunion for our family. I sincerely confess I would wish to see him once more in this world, and in taking leave of it to bless him with all my heart.”

CHAPTER XI.

When Wilhelm had circumstantially and correctly discharged his commission, Lenardo replied, with a smile: “Much obliged as I am to you for what I hear from you, still I must add a question. Has not my aunt, in conclusion, further commissioned you to inform me of a seemingly trifling matter?”

The other reflected a moment. “Yes,” he then said, “I now recollect. She mentioned a young lady whom she called Valerina. Of her I had to tell you that she is happily married, and finds herself in a very desirable position.”

“You roll a stone from my heart,” replied Lenardo. “Now I willingly return home, because I need not fear that the recollection of this girl will make the place and spot a reproach to me.”

“It beseems me not to ask what relation you have had with her;” said Wilhelm; “enough, you may be at ease, if you should in any way sympathize with the fate of this girl.”

“It is the strangest relation in the world,” said Lenardo; “by no means a love affair, as one might easily fancy. I may well confide in and tell you what, in point of fact, is no story; but what will you think when I tell you that my hesitation to return, the fear of coming back to our home, those strange arrangements and questions as to how matters looked, really had the object only of finding out precisely how matters stood with this child.

“For, believe me,” he continued, “I otherwise know well enough that we can leave people whom we know, for a length of time, without finding them again materially altered, and so too I expect soon to feel myself again quite at home with my relatives. It was only the question of this single person, whose situation must have been altered, and has, thank Heaven! altered itself for the better.”

“You make me curious,” said Wilhelm. “You make me anticipate something quite strange.”

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

“I had from youth up cherished the firm resolve of making the usual tour through civilized Europe in my young days, but, as will happen, I deferred its execution from time to time. The present attracted me, held me, and the distant more and more lost its charm to me, the more I read or heard told about it. Yet at last, urged by my uncle, enticed by friends, who had gone into the world before me, the resolve was made, and in fact sooner than we were all well aware of.

“My uncle, who in point of fact had to contribute the most in order to make the journey possible, had at once no other object. You know him and his peculiarity, how he always drives only at one thing, and first sets that going whilst in the meantime everything else has to abide and be quiet, whereby he has really effected a great deal that might seem to be beyond the power of a single individual. This journey came upon him in some degree unexpectedly; but still he was able to collect himself at once. Certain buildings, that he had undertaken, nay, actually begun, were discontinued, and as he never likes to infringe on his savings, like a clever financier he looked about for some other expedients. The most convenient was to collect outstanding debts, especially rents in arrear, for this too was part of his method, that he was indulgent towards debtors, as long as he, to a certain point, was in no necessity himself. His steward received the list, and on him devolved the execution. About the details we heard nothing; only accidentally I heard that the tenant of one of our farms, with whom my uncle had long been patient, had at last been actually evicted, his caution money retained in scanty satisfaction for the deficiency, and that the land was to be leased to some one else. This man was one of the sect of the Quiet-in-the-land,” but not, like his fellows, also prudent and active; beloved indeed for his piety and benevolence, but reproached for his weakness as a manager. On the death of his wife, a daughter, who was called simply the Nutbrown Maid, though she already promised to grow up active and determined, was far too young to take any decided measures. Enough, the man went down-hill, without my uncle’s indulgence having been able to prevent his fate.

“I had my journey in mind, and must needs approve of the means for that end. All was ready; the packing and untying went on, the moments sped on. One evening I once more strolled through the park, to take leave of the familiar trees and bushes, when all of a sudden Valerina crossed my path; — for so the girl was called; the other was but a nickname occasioned by her brown complexion. She stepped towards me.”

Lenardo stopped an instant, and mused. “Yet, what is the matter with me?” he said; “was she called Valerina? Yes, indeed,” he continued; “still, the nickname was the more usual one. Enough, the brown girl stepped towards me, and begged me warmly to interpose a kind word with my uncle for her father and for herself. As I knew how the matter stood, and saw well enough that it would be difficult, nay, impossible, at that moment to do anything for them, I spoke frankly to her, and put her father’s own delinquency in an unfavorable light.

“She answered me with so much clearness, and at the same time with so much daughterly indulgence and love, that she quite won my heart, and if the money had been my own, I should at once have made her happy by granting her request. But it was now a question of my uncle’s income; the arrangements were his, the orders his; according to his way of thinking, there was nothing to hope for from what had already happened. Hitherto I had always kept a promise sacred. Any one who asked anything of me put me in a difficulty. I had so accustomed myself to refuse, that I did not even promise what I intended to perform. This time, too, this habit stood me in good stead. Her motives rested on an individual case and on affection; mine on those of duty and reason, and I do not deny that in the end they seemed too severe even to myself. We had already repeated the same thing several times, without convincing one another, when distress made her more eloquent, and the inevitable ruin, that she saw before herself, forced tears from her eyes. Her composed demeanor did not entirely forsake her, but she spoke with animation, with emotion, and, whilst I still continued to feign coldness and indifference, her whole soul was revealed. I wished to end the scene, but all of a sudden she lay at my feet, had seized my hand, kissed it, and looked up at me so innocently and amiably imploring, that for the moment I forgot myself. Raising her from the ground I hurriedly said to her: ‘I will do what I possibly can: be quiet, my child!’ And then I turned into a side path.

“ ‘Do what is impossible!’ she called after me. I do not remember what I wanted to say, but I said, ‘I will,’ and stopped.

“ ‘Do!’ she cried suddenly, cheered with an expression of heavenly hope. I nodded to her and hurried away.

“I would not in the first instance apply to my uncle, for I knew him only too well: one must not venture to remind him of details when he was occupied with the whole. I sought the steward; he had ridden out. In the evening came guests — friends who wished to take leave. Playing and eating went on until deep into the night. They remained the following day, and the distraction blotted out the picture of the urgent petitioner. The steward returned; he was more busy and overworked than ever. Everyone was asking for him. He had no time to listen to me; still, I made an attempt to get hold of him; but scarcely had I mentioned the pious tenant to him, than he waved me off with some impatience. ‘Do not, for Heaven’s sake, say anything to your uncle about it, unless you want in the end to get into trouble yourself.’

“The day of my departure had been fixed; I had to write letters, to receive guests, to pay visits in the neighborhood. My people had up to this time sufficed for my service, but were by no means sufficiently dexterous in lightening the business of departure. Everything devolved upon myself; and yet, when the steward at last gave me an hour at night to settle our financial affairs, I once more ventured to intercede for Valerina’s father.

“ ‘Dear baron,’ said this active personage, ‘how can such a thing recur to you? I have to-day had a difficult business with your uncle; for what you require to get away from here amounts to much more than we thought. This is indeed quite natural, but yet awkward. In particular, the old gentleman has no pleasure, if a thing seems to be done, while a good deal still lags behind; yet it often happens, and the rest of us have to pay penalty for it. As regards the rigor with which outstanding debts have to be exacted, he has made a law for himself: he makes up his mind about it, and it would be difficult to induce him to give in. Don’t do it, I beg you! It would be altogether in vain.’

“I allowed myself to be deterred from my request, but not entirely. I besought him, since the execution depended upon him, to go kindly and indulgently to work. He promised everything, after the fashion of such persons, in order to have peace for the moment. He got rid of me; the hurry, the distraction increased. I sat in the carriage, and turned my back on every sympathy that I might have at home.

“A lively impression is like any other wound; one does not feel it as one receives it. Only later it begins to pain and to fester. So it was in my case in regard to the scene in the grounds. Every time that I was alone or unoccupied the image of the imploring girl arose like a vivid picture before my soul, with all its surroundings, with every tree and bush, the place where she knelt, and the path down which I turned to get away from her. It was an indelible impression, that indeed could be overshaded and veiled by other images and sympathies, but never be eradicated. It always arose new at every quiet hour, and the longer it lasted the more painfully I felt the guilt with which I had loaded myself against my principles, against my habit — although not expressly, but only blunderingly, for the first time involved in such a case.

“I did not fail, in my first letters, to ask our agent how the affair had turned out. He was some time in answering. Then he evaded replying on this point, then his words were equivocal; at last he was altogether silent. The distance between us increased; more objects intervened between me and my home; my attention was claimed for many observations and many sympathies; the image disappeared, and the girl, almost to her very name. The remembrance of her occurred more seldom, and my fancy not to communicate with my people through letters, but only by means of tokens, contributed much to make my former state of mind, with all its accompanying conditions, almost disappear. Now, only as I approach nearer home, when I am thinking of reimbursing my family, with interest, what they have hitherto been content to dispense with, now I am again assailed by this wonderful remorse (I must even call it wonderful), in all its force. The image of the girl is renewed with the images of my friends, and I dread nothing more than to hear that she has succumbed in the misfortune into which I plunged her; for my neglect appeared to me a help towards her ruin, a hastening of her sad fate. I have already said to myself a thousand times, that this feeling was in reality only a weakness, that, long ago, I had been impelled to make the rule never to give a promise solely from fear of repentance, and not from any more noble feeling. And now even the repentance, which I shunned, seems to take its revenge on me, laying hold of this instance instead of a thousand others to torture me. At the same time the image, the picture, that tortures me, is so pleasant, so sweet, that I willingly linger over it. And when I think about it, then the kiss, which she impressed upon my hand, seems still to burn me.”

Lenardo was silent, and Wilhelm replied quickly and cheerfully: “Then I could not have shown you any greater service than by the supplement to my message, just as the most interesting part of a letter may often be contained in the postscript. Indeed, I know but little about Valerina, for I heard her only casually mentioned; but she is certainly the wife of a well-to-do landowner, and lives happy, as your aunt assured me at parting.”

“Capital!” said Lenardo; “now, nothing holds me back: you have absolved me, and we will at once set off to my family, who, moreover, have been waiting for me longer than is right.”

Wilhelm replied to this: “Unfortunately I am not able to accompany you; for a special obligation devolves on me, never to rest longer than three days, and not to revisit the places that I leave within one year. Pardon me, if I dare not explain to you the reason of this singularity.”

“I am very sorry,” said Lenardo, “that we should lose you so soon, and that I am unable to assist you in anything. Still, since you have once set yourself in the way to do me good, you would make me very happy if you would go and see Valerina, inform yourself precisely about her affairs, and then, either by letter or word of mouth — for a third place of meeting can easily be found — would give me, for the sake of my peace of mind, a circumstantial report.”

This scheme was further discussed; Wilhelm had been told Valerina’s place of abode. He undertook to go and see her; another place was appointed, whither the baron was to come, and also bring with him Felix, who in the meantime had remained behind with the ladies.

Lenardo and Wilhelm, riding side by side, had pursued their way for some time, with varied conversation, through pleasant meadows, when they once more approached the carriage road, and overtook the baron’s carriage, which was to wend its way homewards in company with its master. Here the friends decided to part, and Wilhelm in a few friendly words took leave, and once more promised the baron to write him speedy news from Valerina.

“When I consider,” replied Lenardo, “that it would only be a little way round, if I accompanied you, why should I not go and see Valerina myself. Why not personally convince myself of her happy condition? You were so kind as to offer your services as a messenger; why should you not be my companion? For a companion I must have, a moral support, just as one obtains legal assistance when one does not consider one’s self quite equal to the matter of law.”

Wilhelm’s objections, that as the long-absent one was being waited for at home it might make a singular impression if the carriage returned empty, and aught else of the same kind, could not prevail with Lenardo, and Wilhelm had at last to accept the part of a companion, with no pleasant thoughts as to the consequences that were to be feared. The servants, therefore, were instructed as to what they would have to say on arrival, and the friends presently struck the road that led to Valerina’s dwelling. The neighborhood seemed rich and fruitful, and the true home of agriculture. Thus, in the ground belonging to Valerina’s husband, the soil was thoroughly good, and tilled with great care.

Wilhelm had time to inspect the landscape closely, while Lenardo rode in silence by his side.

At last the latter began: “Another in my place would perhaps try to approach Valerina unknown; for it is always a painful sensation to present one’s self to those whom one has offended; but I will rather endure that, and bear the reproach that I fear from her first glances, than screen myself from it by disguise and falsehood. Falsehood may put us in as great an embarrassment as truth; and when we strike a balance of how often one or the other avails us, it will always prove worth our while once for all to resign ourselves to truth. Let us therefore go forward confidently; I shall give my name, and introduce you as my friend and companion.”

They had now reached the farmhouse, and dismounted in the yard. A fine-looking man, simply clad, whom they could have known for a farmer, came towards them and announced himself as the master of the house. Lenardo gave his name, and the farmer seemed highly delighted to see him and to make his acquaintance. “What will my wife say,” he exclaimed, “when she sees again the nephew of her benefactor! She cannot imagine or describe all that she and her father owe your uncle!”

What strange ideas forthwith crossed each other in Lenardo’s mind! “Does this man, who seems so honest, conceal his bitterness behind a friendly face and smooth words? Is he able to utter his reproaches with such a pleasant outward aspect? For has not my uncle made this family unhappy? And can it have remained unknown to him? Or — as it occurred to him with quick hopefulness — did the affair turn out less badly than you think? For, after all, you have never received any precise information.” Such suppositions alternated to and fro, whilst the master of the house caused the horses to be harnessed, in order to fetch his wife, who was paying a visit in the neighborhood.

“If, in the meantime, until my wife returns, I may entertain you after my fashion, and at the same time continue my work, take a few steps into the field with me, and see how I manage my business; for surely to you, as a great landowner, nothing can be more attractive than the noble science, the noble art, of tilling the soil.”

Lenardo did not object; Wilhelm was glad to instruct himself; and the farmer kept his land and soil, which he occupied and owned without let or hindrance, in perfectly good order. Whatever he undertook was calculated for the end in view; what he sowed and planted was thoroughly in the right place; he knew how to explain so clearly all the treatment and the reasons, that anybody could understand it, and would have thought it possible to do and achieve the same — an illusion into which we easily fall when we look at a master who does everything with ease.

The strangers showed themselves highly satisfied, and could bestow nothing but praise and approval. This he took thankfully and kindly, but still added, “But now I must also show you my weak side, which indeed is always observable in anyone who devotes himself exclusively to one object.”

He took them into his yard, showed them his implements, his stock of these, as well as the stock of all imaginable appliances, and what appertained to them. “I am often blamed,” he said, “for going too far in these things; but indeed I cannot reproach myself on that account. Happy is he to whom his business also becomes his toy, who at last actually plays and enjoys himself in what his situation has made a duty.”

The two friends were not wanting in questions and inquiries. Wilhelm particularly enjoyed the general remarks, to which this man seemed addicted, and did not fail to reply to them; whilst Lenardo, more absorbed in himself, was quietly sympathizing with Valerina’s happiness — which in this state of things he took for granted — yet with a feeling of uneasiness, of which he could give no account to himself.

They had already returned to the house, when the hostess’s carriage drove up. They hurried towards it; but how astonished, how shocked was Lenardo, when he beheld her dismount. It was not she; it was not the Nutbrown Maid: nay, just the reverse — a fine slim figure enough, it is true, but fair, with all the advantages peculiar to fair women.

This beauty, this grace, shocked Lenardo. His eyes had sought the brown maiden; now there beamed on him quite a different one. He remembered these features, too; her address, her manner relieved him soon of every uncertainty — it was the daughter of the lawyer, who was held by the uncle in great esteem, on which account he had also done a good deal towards setting up and helping the young couple.

All this, and more too, was joyfully recounted by the young woman as an introductory greeting, and with a delight such as the surprise of recognition calls forth without restraint. They inquired whether they remembered each other; they discussed the alterations in appearance, that are perceptible enough in persons of this age. Valerina had always been charming, but was in the highest degree amiable when joy drew her out of her ordinary indifferent mood. The party became talkative, and the conversation so lively, that Lenardo could recover himself and hide his astonishment. Wilhelm, to whom his friend had soon given a hint about this strange occurrence, did his best to help him; and Valerina’s little vanity, that the baron had remembered her, even before he had seen his own people, did not allow her to entertain the least suspicion, that any other intention or a misunderstanding was involved.

They remained together until late at night, although the two friends were longing for a confidential conversation, which began then and there, as soon as they were alone together in the guest-chamber.

“It seems,” said Lenardo, “that I am not to be relieved of my anxiety. An unfortunate confusion of names, as I perceive, increases it. This fair beauty I have often seen playing with the brown one, who could not be called a beauty; aye, even I myself, although much older, used to run about with them in the fields and gardens. Neither of them made the slightest impression upon me; I have only remembered the name of one of them, and bestowed it on the other. Now I find the one who does not interest me, after her own fashion happy beyond measure, whilst the other has been cast upon the wide world, who knows whither!”

On the following morning the friends were up almost earlier than the active farm-people. The pleasure of seeing her guests had also awakened Valerina betimes. She did not apprehend in what frame of mind they came to breakfast.

Wilhelm, who saw well that Lenardo remained in a most painful state, without any information about the Nutbrown Maid, turned the conversation to pastimes, to games, to the locality, which he himself knew, to other recollections — so that Valerina at last quite naturally came to mention the Nutbrown Maid, and pronounced her name.

Scarcely had Lenardo heard the name of Nachodina, than he remembered it perfectly; but also, with the name, the image of the supplicant returned to him with such an overwhelming power, that everything else became quite unendurable as Valerina with warm sympathy related the eviction of the pious tenant, his resignation, and his departure, and how he had leaned upon his daughter, who carried a little bundle. Lenardo thought that he should faint. Unfortunately, and at the same time fortunately, Valerina expatiated upon certain circumstances, which although they wounded Lenardo’s heart, still made it possible for him, with the assistance of his companion, to show some presence of mind.

They took leave amidst many and sincere requests on the part of husband and wife that they would return soon, and half-feigned assent on the part of the two guests. And as with a man who has a good opinion of himself everything turns to his advantage, so Valerina finally interpreted Lenardo’s silence, his visible distraction at parting, his hurried departure, in her own favor; and although the faithful and loving wife of an excellent farmer, she still could not help feeling a certain complacency in the reawakened or newly-born inclination, as she took it to be — of her former landlord.

After this strange occurrence, Lenardo said: “With such fine hopes, to have been shipwrecked so close to the harbor! The only thing that can now in any degree cheer me up, tranquillize me for the moment, and let me present myself to my people, is the consideration that Heaven has sent you to me — you, to whom from the nature of your own peculiar mission, it is indifferent whither or to what purpose it directs your path. Do you then undertake to find Nachodina, and give me news of her. If she is happy, then I am content; if she is unhappy, then help her at my expense. Act without misgiving; spare, omit nothing.”

“But towards what quarter of the earth,” said Wilhelm, laughing, “must I direct my steps? If you yourself have no idea, how shall I be endowed therewith?”

“Look here!” answered Lenardo, “last night, when you saw me pacing restlessly to and fro, passionately upsetting both my heart and head about the matter, there came to my mind an old friend, a worthy man, who without exactly tutoring me, has had a great influence upon my youth. I should like to have had him, at least for some time, as a travelling companion, if he had not been extraordinarily bound to his home by the most beautiful rarities of art and antiquity, which he only leaves for a few moments at a time. He, I know, enjoys an extensive acquaintance with everything that in this world is bound by any worthy clue; you hasten to him, tell him all that I have said, and it remains to be hoped, that his kindly feeling will suggest to him some place, some region, where she may be found. In my trouble it occurred to me, that the father of the child belonged to the denomination of Pietists; and, at the moment, I became sufficiently pious to apply myself to the moral ordering of this world, and to pray that in the present case, it may, with miraculous grace, reveal itself for once in my own favor.”

“But there is still a difficulty,” replied Wilhelm, “that remains to be solved. What must I do with my Felix? For I should not like to take him about with me upon a so utterly uncertain mission, and yet I should not like to part with him, for it seems to me that the son nowhere develops himself better than in the presence of the father.”

“By no means!” replied Lenardo; “this is a kindly paternal error. The father always retains a kind of despotic relation towards the son, whose virtues he does not recognize, and in whose faults he takes pleasure; on which account even the ancients used to say, that the sons of heroes turned out good-for-nothings, and I have seen enough of the world to make up my mind as to that matter. Happily our old friend, to whom I will at once give you a hurried letter, will also be able to suggest the best solution of this matter. When years ago I saw him last, he told me a great deal about a certain pedagogic association which I could only consider a kind of Utopia; it seemed to me as if, under the image of reality, a series of ideas, thoughts, proposals and intentions, were meant, which were really connected, but which in the ordinary course of things would be rather difficult to meet with. But because I know him, and because he likes to realize by means of images what is possible and impossible, I approved of it, and now it will serve our purpose; he is certainly able to indicate to you the place and surroundings to which you can confidently intrust your boy, and hope the best from a wise training.”

Conversing together in this manner as they rode, they came in view of a noble villa; its construction in a pleasantly sombre style, with an open space in front, and somewhat farther, a dignified surrounding of well-grown trees. Doors and shutters, however, were everywhere closed; all was deserted, yet at the same time looked in good condition. From an elderly man, who seemed to be employed at the entrance, they learned that this was the inheritance of a young man, to whom it had been left by his father, who had died quite recently at a very advanced age.

On further inquiry, they were informed that to the heir it unfortunately seemed all too complete: nothing was left for him to do, and that to enjoy things ready at hand was by no means his fashion; that therefore he had sought out for himself a locality nearer to the mountains, where he had built log huts for himself and his companions, and intended to found a kind of hunters’ hermitage. As far as concerned their informant they gathered that he was the hereditary steward, and took the most punctilious care for the preservation and cleanliness of the premises, in order that a grandson, succeeding to the tastes and the possession of the grandfather, might find everything just as the latter had left it.

Having for some time pursued their road in silence, Lenardo commenced with the observation, that it was a peculiarity inherent in man to want to begin at the beginning; upon which his friend replied, that this was an easy thing to explain, and allow for, because in a strict sense everyone really did begin from the beginning.

“And yet,” he exclaimed, “if to none are the sufferings remitted with which his ancestors were tortured, can you blame him for not wanting to have anything to do with their pleasures?”

Lenardo thereupon replied, “You encourage me to confess that in reality I do not like to work at anything but what I have myself created. I never liked a servant whom I had not educated from a child, or a horse that I had not myself broken in. In consequence of this mode of thinking, I will also willingly confess that I am irresistibly drawn towards primitive conditions; that my travels through all highly civilized lands and people have not availed to blunt these feelings; that my imagination seeks a pleasure beyond the sea, and that a hitherto neglected family possession in those young countries allows me to hope that a plan of mine, conceived in solitude and gradually maturing in accordance with my wishes, will at last be executed.”

“I have nothing to object to this,” Wilhelm replied; “an idea of this kind, turned towards what is new and unsettled, has something peculiar and great about it. I only beg you to reflect, that such an enterprise can only succeed for a community. You cross the sea, and there find family possessions ready, I know; my friends entertain similar plans, and have already settled there. Associate yourself with these prudent, wise, and strong people; for both sides the matter will thereby be lightened and enlarged.”

With conversation of this kind the friends reached the spot where they must now really separate. They both sat down to write; Lenardo recommended his friend to the singular man above-mentioned, and Wilhelm described to his colleagues the position of his new associate, out of which naturally enough arose a letter of recommendation, in which, in conclusion, he also urged the matter that he had discussed with Jarno, and further set forth the reasons for which he wished to be freed as soon as possible from the inconvenient condition that stamped him as a wandering Jew. In reading these letters to each other, Wilhelm could not refrain from again bringing home to his friend certain other doubts.

“I consider it,” he said, “in my position the most enviable duty to free you, noble-hearted man, from a state of mental anxiety, and at the same time to rescue a human creature from misery, if she happen to be therein. Such an aim one might regard as a star, by which we sail, even whilst ignorant of what may happen to us, or what we may meet on the road. Still, I cannot hide from myself the danger to which in any case you are always exposed. If you were not a man who absolutely declines to pledge his word, I would require of you the promise never again to see this female, who will cost you so dear; to content yourself, if I inform you that she is well, in case I should be fortunate enough to ascertain that she is really happy, or am able to contribute to her happiness. But, since I neither can nor will induce you to make any promise, I implore you, by all that is dear to you and holy, for the sake of yourself and your people, and of myself, your newly-acquired friend, never to allow yourself any approach to that lost maiden on any pretext whatever; nor to ask me to indicate circumstantially, or even name the place, where I may find her, or the neighborhood where I leave her. You must only believe my word that she is well, and therewith be relieved and set at rest.”

Lenardo laughed and replied: “Only do me this service, and I shall be grateful. You shall have the credit for what you can and will do, and leave me to time, to common sense, and if possible to reason.”

“Pardon me,” Wilhelm replied; “he who knows under what strange forms inclination insinuates itself into us, must feel concerned when he foresees that a friend may wish for that which, in his condition and in his circumstances, must necessarily bring about misfortune and confusion.”

“I hope,” said Lenardo, “that if I know that the girl is happy, I shall be done with her.” The friends then separated, each in his own direction.

CHAPTER XII.

By a short and pleasant road, Wilhelm had reached the town to which his letter was addressed. He found it cheerful and well built; but an appearance of newness betrayed only too clearly that it must have recently suffered from fire. The address of his letter took him to the last, small portion of the town that had escaped, to a house of an ancient, solemn style of architecture. Colored window-panes, strangely combined together, gave indication of a cheerful wealth of color within. And the interior really corresponded with the outside. In the sombre rooms were seen on all sides pieces of furniture that might have served several generations already, interspersed with but few modern ones. The master of the house received him kindly, in an apartment similarly furnished. Many an hour of birth and death had these clocks already struck, and all that stood around called to mind that the past could flow on into the present. The visitor delivered his letter, but his host laid it aside without opening it, and in a cheerful conversation essayed in a direct way to become acquainted with his guest. They soon grew confidential, and when Wilhelm, contrary to his usual habit, allowed his glances to run observantly about the room, the kind old man said: “My surroundings awaken your interest. You see here how long a thing can last. And one must, too, look on such things as the counterpoise of what changes and alters so rapidly in the world. This tea-kettle before now served my parents, and was a witness of our evening family gatherings. This copper fire-screen still continues to protect me from the fire, which this strong old poker stirs up, and so it is with everything. I have consequently been able to devote sympathy and activity to many other subjects because I have not troubled myself further about the changing of these external requirements that expend the time and strength of so many people. A loving attention to what man possesses makes him rich while he thereby amasses for himself a wealth of memories in unimportant things. I have known a young man, who, in taking leave of his sweetheart, stole from her a pin, with which he used daily to pin on his cravat, and actually brought home from a distant journey of many years’ length this cherished and carefully preserved object. To us other petty human beings this may well be reckoned as a virtue.”

“Many also,” added Wilhelm, “perhaps bring back from a like long journey a thorn in the heart, that probably they would rather be free of.”

The old man seemed to know nothing about Lenardo’s circumstances, although he had in the meantime opened and read the letter, for he again returned to his former reflections.

“Attachment to what we possess,” he continued, “in many instances gives us the greatest energy. To this kind of selfishness I owe the saving of my house. When the town was on fire, those too, who were with me, wanted to run away and escape. I forbade it, ordered windows and doors to be shut, and with several of my neighbors turned to deal with the flames. Our efforts were successful in saving unscathed this corner of the town. The next morning everything in my house stood as you see it, and as it has stood almost a hundred years.”

“With all that,” said Wilhelm, “you will confess that man cannot resist changes that time brings about.”

“Granted,” said the old man; “but still he who has kept himself longest has also achieved something. Nay, we are even able to preserve and make sure beyond the term of our existence: we hand down knowledge, we transfer tastes just as well as property; and as it is for me chiefly a question of the latter, I have on this account for a long time been wonderfully cautious, and hit on quite peculiar expedients; but only of late have I succeeded in seeing my desire fulfilled. Usually the son scatters abroad what the father has collected, collects something different, or in different manner. But if we are able to wait for the grandson, for the new generation, then the same inclinations, the same objects come to light. And thus at last through the interest of our pedagogue-friends, I have got hold of a fine young man, who if possible is more tenacious of heirlooms than myself, and feels a strong bent for curious things. He has entirely gained my confidence through the strenuous efforts by which he succeeded in averting the fire from our house; he has doubly and trebly earned the treasure, the possession of which I think of bequeathing to him; nay, it is already handed over to him, and since that time our store has been increased in a wonderful way. Yet not all that you see here is ours; rather, just as at a pawnbroker’s you behold many an alien jewel, so I can also point out to you some valuables, which under the most diverse circumstances have been deposited here for better keeping.”

Wilhelm thought of the splendid casket, which in any case he did not like to carry about with him on journeys, and he did not refrain from showing it to his friend. The old man looked at it attentively, named the time when it must have been made, and showed him something similar. Wilhelm then mooted the point whether it might be opened.

The old man thought not.

“I believe indeed,” he said, “that it could be done, without any particular damage; but, since you have obtained it by such a strange accident, you ought to try your fortune with it. For if you are born to good luck, and if this casket betokens anything, then in time the key must be found for it, and just where you expect it least.”

“There are probably such cases,” replied Wilhelm.

“I have myself experienced several,” answered the old man, “and here you see the most remarkable one before you. For thirty years I possessed the body of this ivory crucifix with head and feet all of one piece; for its subject, as well as its most exquisite art, it was carefully locked up in my most precious drawer. About ten years ago, I received the cross belonging to it, with the inscription, and I let myself be persuaded to have the arms put on, by the cleverest carver of our time; yet how far was the good man behind his predecessor! Still, it might pass, more for edifying contemplation than for admiration of the workmanship. Now, only think of my delight! A short time ago I received the original, genuine arms, as you here see them, fitted on in the loveliest accord! And in my rapture at so happy a coincidence, I cannot refrain from recognizing in this the destinies of the Christian religion, which, often enough divided and scattered, must yet at last meet again at the cross.”

Wilhelm admired the image and its strange recombination. “I shall follow your advice,” he added; “let the casket remain shut, until the key has been found, even if it should lie by to the end of my life.”

“He who lives long,” said the old man, “sees many things gathered together, and many dispersed.”

The young joint-owner just then entered, and Wilhelm declared his intention of intrusting the casket to their keeping. A large book was now brought, and the property intrusted was entered; a receipt was made out with the observance of many ceremonies and stipulations. It was, in point of fact, expressed in favor of anyone who presented it, but would be honored only on a special sign agreed upon with the receiver.

When this was all completed, the contents of the letter were considered, the reception of the good Felix being first discussed, in which matter the elderly friend, without more ado, propounded certain maxims, which ought to form the basis of education.

“All life, all activity, all art must be preceded by handiwork, that can only be acquired in a limited sphere. A correct knowledge and practice give a higher culture than half-knowledge in hundredfold. In the place that I have indicated to you all activities have been isolated; the pupils are tested at every step; thereby a man finds out whither his nature really tends, or if he is turning with confused wishes, now this way, now that. Wise men allow the boy to find at hand what suits him; they cut off the by-roads along which men will only too easily stray away from their vocation.

“In the next place,” he continued, “I venture to hope that, from that grandly based centre, they will guide you upon the road to where that good girl will be found, who has made such a wonderful impression upon your friend, who by dint of moral feeling and reflection has so highly enhanced the value of an innocent, unfortunate creature that he has been compelled to make her existence the end and aim of his life. I hope that you will be able to set him at rest; for Providence possesses a thousand means of raising the fallen, and setting up those bowed down. Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it.”

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

Our pilgrims had performed the journey according to programme, and prosperously reached the frontier of the province in which they were to learn so many wonderful things. On their first entry they beheld a most fertile region, the gentle slopes of which were favorable to agriculture, its higher mountains to sheep-feeding, and its broad valleys to the rearing of cattle. It was shortly before the harvest, and everything was in the greatest abundance; still, what surprised them from the outset, was that they saw neither women nor men, but only boys and youths busy getting ready for a prosperous harvest, and even making friendly preparations for a joyous harvest-home. They greeted now one, and now another, and inquired about the master, of whose whereabouts no one could give an account. The address of their letter was: To the Master or to the Three, and this too the boys could not explain; however, they referred the inquirers to an overseer, who was just preparing to mount his horse. They explained their object; Felix’s frank bearing seemed to please him: and so they rode together along the road.

Wilhelm had soon observed that a great diversity prevailed in the cut and color of the clothing, which gave a peculiar aspect to the whole of the little community. He was just on the point of asking his companion about this when another strange sight was displayed to him: all the children, howsoever they might be occupied, stopped their work, and turned, with peculiar yet various gestures, towards the party riding past; and it was easy to infer that their object was the overseer. The youngest folded their arms crosswise on the breast, and looked cheerfully towards the sky; the intermediate ones held their arms behind them, and looked smiling upon the ground; the third sort stood erect and boldly; with arms at the side, they turned the head to the right, and placed themselves in a row, instead of remaining alone, like the others, where they were first seen.

Accordingly, when they halted and dismounted, just where several children had ranged themselves in various attitudes and were being inspected by the overseer, Wilhelm asked the meaning of these gestures.

Felix interposed, and said cheerfully: “What position have I to take, then?”

“In any case,” answered the intendant, “at first the arms across the breast, and looking seriously and gladly upward, without turning your glance.” He obeyed; however he soon exclaimed: “This does not please me particularly; I see nothing overhead; does it last long? But yes, indeed,” he exclaimed joyfully, “I see two hawks flying from west to east; that must be a good omen!”

“It depends on how you take to it, how you behave yourself,” rejoined the former; “now go and mingle with them, just as they mingle with each other.”

He made a sign, the children forsook their attitudes, resumed their occupations or went on playing as before.

“Will you, and can you,” Wilhelm now asked, “explain to me that which causes my wonder? I suppose that these gestures, these positions, are greetings, with which they welcome you.”

“Just so,” answered the other; “greetings, that tell me at once at what stage of cultivation each of these boys stands.”

“But could you,” Wilhelm added, “explain to me the meaning of the graduation? For that it is such, is easy to see.”

“That is the part of better people than me,” answered the other; “but I can assure you of this much, that they are no empty grimaces, and that, on the contrary, we impart to the children, not indeed the highest, but still a guiding and intelligible explanation; but at the same time we command each to keep and cherish for himself what we may have chosen to impart for the information of each: they may not chat about it with strangers, nor amongst themselves, and thus the teaching is modified in a hundred ways. Besides this the secrecy has very great advantages; for if we tell people immediately and perpetually the reason of everything, they think that there is nothing behind. To certain secrets, even if they may be known, we have to show deference by concealment and silence, for this tends to modesty and good morals.”

“I understand you,” said Wilhelm. “Why should we not also apply spiritually what is so necessary in bodily matters? But perhaps in another respect you can satisfy my curiosity. I am surprised at the great variety in the cut and color of their clothes, and yet I do not see all kinds of color, but a few only, and these in all their shades, from the brightest to the darkest. Still I observe, that in this there cannot be meant any indication of degrees of either age or merit; since the smallest and biggest boys mingled together may be alike in cut and color, whilst those who are alike in gestures do not agree with one another in dress.”

“As concerns this, too,” their companion replied, “I cannot explain any further; yet I shall be much mistaken if you depart hence without being enlightened about all that you may wish to know.”

They were now going in search of the master, whom they thought that they had found; but now a stranger could not but be struck by the fact, that the deeper they got into the country the more they were met by a harmonious sound of singing. Whatsoever the boys set about, in whatever work they were found engaged, they were forever singing, and in fact it seemed that the songs were specially adapted to each particular occupation, and in similar cases always the same. If several children were in any place, they would accompany each other in turns. Towards evening they came upon some dancing, their steps being animated and guided by choruses. Felix from his horse chimed in with his voice, and, in truth, not badly; Wilhelm was delighted with this entertainment, which made the neighborhood so lively. “I suppose,” he observed to his companion, “you devote a great deal of care to this kind of instruction, for otherwise this ability would not be so widely diffused, or so perfectly developed.”

“Just so,” replied the other; “with us the art of singing forms the first step in education; everything else is subservient to it, and attained by means of it. With us the simplest enjoyment, as well as the simplest instruction, is enlivened and impressed by singing; and even what we teach in matters of religion and morals is communicated by the method of song. Other advantages for independent ends are directly allied; for, whilst we practise the children in writing down by symbols on the slate the notes which they produce, and then, according to the indication of these signs, in reproducing them in their throats, and moreover in adding the text, they exercise at the same time the hand, ear, and eye, and attain orthography and calligraphy quicker than you would believe; and, finally, since all this must be practised and copied according to pure metre and accurately fixed time, they learn to understand much sooner than in other ways the high value of measure and computation. On this account, of all imaginable means, we have chosen music as the first element of our education, for from this equally easy roads radiate in every direction.”

Wilhelm sought to inform himself further, and did not hide his astonishment at hearing no instrumental music.

“We do not neglect it,” replied the other, “but we practise it in a special place, enclosed in the most charming mountain-valley; and then again we take care that the different instruments are taught in places lying far apart. Especially are the discordant notes of beginners banished to certain solitary spots, where they can drive no one crazy; for you will yourself confess, that in well-regulated civil society scarcely any more miserable nuisance is to be endured than when the neighborhood inflicts upon us a beginner on the flute or on the violin. Our beginners, from their own laudable notion of wishing to be an annoyance to none, go voluntarily for a longer or shorter period into the wilds, and, isolated there, vie with one another in attaining the merit of being allowed to draw nearer to the inhabited world; on which account they are, from time to time, allowed to make an attempt at drawing nearer, which seldom fails, because in these, as in our other modes of education, we venture actually to develop and encourage a sense of shame and diffidence. I am sincerely glad that your son has got a good voice; the rest will be effected all the more easily.”

They had now reached a place where Felix was to remain, and make trial of his surroundings, until they were disposed to grant a formal admission. They already heard from afar a cheerful singing; it was a game, which the boys were now enjoying in their play-hour. A general chorus resounded, in which each member of a large circle joined heartily, clearly, and vigorously in his part, obeying the directions of the superintendent. The latter, however, often took the singers by surprise, by suspending with a signal the chorus-singing, and bidding some one or other single performer, by a touch of his baton, to adapt alone some suitable song to the expiring tune and the passing idea. Most of them already showed considerable ability, a few who failed in the performance willingly paid their forfeit, without exactly being made a laughing-stock. Felix was still child enough to mix at once among them and came tolerably well out of the trial. Thereupon the first style of greeting was conceded to him: he forthwith folded his arms on his breast, looked upwards, and with such a droll expression withal, that it was quite plain that no hidden meaning in it had as yet occurred to him.

The pleasant spot, the kind reception, the merry games, all pleased the boy so well, that he did not feel particularly sad when he saw his father depart; he looked almost more wistfully at the horse as it was led away; yet he had no difficulty in understanding, when he was informed that he could not keep it in the present locality. On the other hand, they promised him that he should find, if not the same, at all events an equally lively and well-trained one when he did not expect it.

As the superior could not be found, the overseer said: “I must now leave you, to pursue my own avocations; but still I will take you to the Three who preside over holy things: your letter is also addressed to them, and together they stand in place of the superior.”

Wilhelm would have liked to learn beforehand about the holy things, but the other replied: “The Three in return for the confidence with which you have left your son with us will certainly, in accordance with wisdom and justice, reveal to you all that is most necessary. The visible objects of veneration, which I have called holy things, are included within a particular boundary, are not mingled with anything, or disturbed by anything; only at certain times of the year, the pupils, according to the stages of their education, are admitted to them, in order that they may be instructed historically and through their senses; for in this way they carry off with them an impression, enough for them to feed upon for a long time in the exercise of their duty.”

Wilhelm now stood at the entrance of a forest-valley, enclosed by lofty walls; on a given signal a small door was opened, and a serious, respectable-looking man received our friend. He found himself within a large and beautifully verdant enclosure, shaded with trees and bushes of every kind, so that he could scarcely see some stately walls and fine buildings through the dense and lofty natural growth; his friendly reception by the Three, who came up by-and-bye, ultimately concluded in a conversation, to which each contributed something of his own, but the substance of which we shall put together in brief.

“Since you have intrusted your son to us,” they said, “it is our duty to let you see more deeply into our methods of proceeding. You have seen many external things, that do not carry their significance with them all at once; which of these do you most wish to have explained?”

“I have remarked certain seemly yet strange gestures and obeisances, the significance of which I should like to learn; with you no doubt what is external has reference to what is within, and vice versâ; let me understand this relation.”

“Well-bred and healthy children possess a great deal; Nature has given to each everything that he needs for time and continuance: our duty is to develop this; often it is better developed by itself. But one thing no one brings into the world, and yet it is that upon which depends everything through which a man becomes a man on every side. If you can find it out yourself, speak out.”

Wilhelm bethought himself for a short time, and then shook his head. After a suitable pause, they exclaimed: “Veneration!”

Wilhelm was startled.

“Veneration,” they repeated. “It is wanting in all, and perhaps in yourself. You have seen three kinds of gestures, and we teach a threefold veneration, which when combined to form a whole, only then attains to its highest power and effect. The first is veneration for that which is above us. That gesture, the arms folded on the breast, a cheerful glance towards the sky, that is precisely what we prescribe to our untutored children, at the same time requiring witness of them that there is a God up above, who reflects and reveals Himself in our parents, tutors and superiors. The second, veneration for that which is below us. The hands folded on the back as if tied together, the lowered, smiling glance, bespeak that we have to regard the earth well and cheerfully; it gives us an opportunity to maintain ourselves; it affords unspeakable joys; but it brings disproportionate sufferings. If one hurts one’s self bodily, whether faultily or innocently; if others hurt one, intentionally or accidentally; if earthly chance does one any harm, let that be well thought of, for such danger accompanies us all our life long. But from this condition we deliver our pupil as soon as possible, directly we are convinced that the teachings of this stage have made a sufficient impression upon him; but then we bid him be a man, look to his companions, and guide himself with reference to them. Now he stands erect and bold, yet not selfishly isolated; only in a union with his equals does, he present a front towards the world. We are unable to add anything further.”

“I see it all,” replied Wilhelm; “it is probably on this account that the multitude is so inured to vice, because it only takes pleasure in the element of ill-will and evil speech; he who indulges in this soon becomes indifferent to God, contemptuous towards the world, and a hater of his fellows; but the true, genuine, indispensable feeling of self-respect is ruined in conceit and presumption.”

“Allow me, nevertheless,” Wilhelm went on, “to make one objection: has it not ever been held that the fear evinced by savage nations in the presence of mighty natural phenomena, and other inexplicable foreboding events, is the germ from which a higher feeling, a purer disposition, should gradually be developed?”

To this the other replied: “Fear, no doubt, is consonant with nature, but not reverence; people fear a known or unknown powerful being: the strong one tries to grapple with it, the weak to avoid it; both wish to get rid of it, and feel happy when in a short space they have conquered it, when their nature in some measure has regained its freedom and independence. The natural man repeats this operation a million times during his life; from fear he strives after liberty, from liberty he is driven back into fear, and does not advance one step further. To fear is easy, but unpleasant; to entertain reverence is difficult but pleasing. Man determines himself unwillingly to reverence, or rather never determines himself to it; it is a loftier sense which must be imparted to his nature, and which is self-developed only in the most exceptionally gifted ones, whom therefore from all time we have regarded as saints, as gods. In this consists the dignity, in this the function of all genuine religions, of which also there exist only three, according to the objects towards which they direct their worship.”

The men paused, Wilhelm remained silent for a while in thought; as he did not feel himself equal to pointing these strange words, he begged the worthy men to continue their remarks, which too they at once consented to do.

“No religion,” they said, “which is based on fear, is esteemed among us. With the reverence which a man allows himself to entertain, whilst he accords honor, he may preserve his own honor; he is not at discord with himself, as in the other case. The religion which rests on reverence for that which is above us, we call the ethnical one; it is the religion of nations, and the first happy redemption from a base fear; all so-called heathen religions are of this kind, let them have what names they will. The second religion, which is founded on that reverence which we have for what is like ourselves, we call the Philosophic; for the philosopher, who places himself in the middle, must draw downward to himself all that is higher, and upward to himself all that is lower, and only in this central position does he deserve the name of the sage. Now, whilst he penetrates his relations to his fellows, and therefore to the whole of humanity, and his relations to all other earthly surroundings, necessary or accidental, in the cosmical sense he only lives in the truth. But we must now speak of the third religion, based on reverence for that which is below us; we call it the Christian one, because this disposition of mind is chiefly revealed in it; it is the last one which humanity could and was bound to attain. Yet what was not demanded for it? not merely to leave earth below, and claim a higher origin, but to recognize as divine even humility and poverty, scorn and contempt, shame and misery, suffering and death; nay, to revere and make lovable even sin and crime, not as hindrances but as furtherances of holiness! Of this there are indeed found traces throughout all time; but a track is not a goal, and this having once been reached, humanity cannot turn backwards; and it may be maintained, that the Christian religion having once appeared, can never disappear again; having once been divinely embodied, cannot again be dissolved.”

“Which of these religions do you then profess more particularly?” said Wilhelm.

“All three,” answered the others, “for, in point of fact, they together present the true religion; from these three reverences outsprings the highest reverence, reverence for one’s self, and the former again develop themselves from the latter, so that man attains to the highest he is capable of reaching, in order that he may consider himself the best that God and nature have produced; nay, that he may be able to remain on this height without being drawn through conceit or egoism into what is base.”

“Such a profession of faith, thus developed, does not estrange me,” replied Wilhelm; “it agrees with all that one learns here and there in life, only that the very thing unites you that severs the others.”

To this the others replied: “This confession is already adhered to by a large part of the world, though unconsciously.”

“How so, and where?” asked Wilhelm.

“In the Creed!” exclaimed the others, loudly; “for the first article is ethnical, and belongs to all nations: the second is Christian, for those struggling against sufferings and glorified in sufferings; the third finally teaches a spiritual communion of saints, to wit, of those in the highest degree good and wise: ought not therefore in fairness the three divine Persons, under whose likeness and name such convictions and promises are uttered, to pass also for the highest Unity?”

“I thank you,” replied the other, “for having so clearly and coherently explained this to me — to whom, as a full-grown man, the three dispositions of mind are not new; and when I recall, that you teach the children these high truths, first through material symbols, then through a certain symbolic analogy, and finally develop in them the highest interpretation, I must needs highly approve of it.”

“Exactly so,” replied the former; “but now you must still learn something more, in order that you may be convinced that your son is in the best hands. However, let this matter rest for the morning hours; rest and refresh yourself, so that, contented and humanly complete, you may accompany us farther into the interior to-morrow.”

CHAPTER II.

Led by the hand of the eldest, our friend now entered through a handsome portal into a room, or rather, eight-sided hall, which was so richly adorned with pictures, that it caused astonishment to the visitor. He easily understood that all that he saw must have an important meaning, though he himself was not at once able to guess it. He was just on the point of asking his conductor about it, when the latter invited him to enter a side gallery, which, open on one side, surrounded a spacious, richly planted flower-garden. The wall, however, attracted the eye more than this brilliant adornment of nature, for it was painted throughout its whole length, and the visitor could not walk far along it without remarking that the sacred books of the Israelites had furnished the subjects of these pictures.

“It is here,” said the eldest, “that we teach that religion, which for the sake of brevity, I have called the ethnical. Its internal substance is found in the history of the world, as its external envelope in the events themselves. In the re-occurrence of the destinies of entire nations it is, properly speaking, grasped.”

“You have, I see,” said Wilhelm, “conferred the honor on the Israelitish people, and made its history the foundation of this exposition, or rather you have made it the principal subject of the same.”

“Just as you see,” rejoined the old man; “for you will observe that in the plinths and friezes are represented not so much synchronistic as symphronistic actions and events, whilst among all nations there occur traditions of similar and equal import. Thus, while in the principal field, Abraham is visited by his gods in the form of handsome youths, you see up there in the frieze, Apollo among the shepherds of Admetus; from which we may learn that when the gods appear to men, they mostly go about unrecognized among them.”

The two observers went farther. Wilhelm found for the most part well-known subjects, yet represented in a more lively and significant manner than he had been accustomed to see them before. In reference to a few matters he asked for some explanation, in doing which he could not refrain from inquiring again, why they had selected the Israelitish history before all others?

Hereupon the eldest answered: “Among all heathen religions (for such is the Israelitish also) this one has great advantages, of which I shall mention only a few. Before the ethnic tribunal, before the tribunal of the God of nations, it is not the question, whether it is the best or the most excellent nation, but only whether it still exists, whether it has maintained itself. The Israelitish nation has never been worth much, as its leaders, judges, rulers and prophets have a thousand times thrown in its teeth; it possesses few virtues, and most of the faults of other nations; but in independence, endurance, courage, and if all that were no longer of account, in toughness, it cannot find its equal. It is the most tenacious people on the face of the earth! It is, it has been, and will be to glorify the name of Jehovah through all time. We have, therefore, set it up as a pattern, as a masterpiece, to which the others only serve as a frame.”

“It is not becoming in me to argue with you,” replied Wilhelm, “since you are in a position to teach me. Proceed, therefore, to explain to me the other advantages of this nation, or rather of its history, of its religion.”

“One principal advantage,” answered the other, “consists in the excellent collection of its sacred books. They are combined so happily, that from the most heterogeneous elements there results a deceptive unity. They are complete enough to satisfy, fragmentary enough to stimulate interest; sufficiently barbaric to excite challenge, sufficiently tender to soothe; and how many other opposing qualities might we extol in these books, in this Book!”

The series of the principal pictures, as well as the connection of the smaller ones which accompanied them above and below, gave the guest so much to think of, that he scarcely listened to the explanatory remarks by which his companion seemed rather to divert his attention from, than to fix it on the subjects.

In the meanwhile the other took occasion to say: “I must here mention one advantage of the Israelitish religion: that it does not embody its God in any given form, and therefore leaves us at liberty to give him a worthy human figure; also, on the other hand, to depict base idolatry by the forms of beasts and monsters.”

Our friend, moreover, in a short stroll through these halls, had again called to mind the history of the world: there was something new to him in regard to the circumstance. Thus, through the juxtaposition of the pictures, through the reflections of his companion, fresh ideas had dawned upon his mind; and he was glad that Felix by means of a visible representation of such merit should appropriate to himself for his whole life long, as vividly as if they had actually happened in his own time, those grand, significant, and inimitable events. He looked at these pictures at last only with the eyes of the child, and in this aspect he felt perfectly satisfied with them. And so strolling on they reached those sad, confused periods, and finally the destruction of the City and the Temple, the murder, banishment and slavery of whole multitudes of this obstinate nation. Its subsequent destinies were represented by discreet allegory, since a historic and real representation of them lies beyond the limits of the noble art.

Here the gallery, through which they had walked, terminated abruptly, and Wilhelm wondered at finding himself already at the end.

“I find,” he said to his guide, “an omission in this historical walk. You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and scattered the nation, without introducing the Divine Man, who shortly before that very time taught in it, and to whom, too, shortly before they would give no hearing.”

“To do this, as you demand, would have been a mistake. The life of that Divine Man, to whom you allude, stands in no connection with the world-history of his time. His was a private life, his doctrine a doctrine for individuals. What publicly concerns the masses of the people and its members belongs to the history of the world, to the religion of the world, which we regard as the first. What inwardly concerns the individual belongs to the second religion, to the religion of the wise; such was the one that Christ taught and practised as long as he went about on earth. Wherefore the external ends here, and I now open to you the internal.”

A door opened, and they entered a similar gallery, where Wilhelm at once recognized the pictures of the second holy writings. They seemed to be by a different hand from the first: everything was gentler; forms, movements, surroundings, light and coloring.

“You see here,” said his companion, after they had walked past a part of the pictures, “neither deeds nor events, but miracles and parables. Here is a new world; a new exterior, different from the former, and an interior, which in that is entirely lacking. By miracles and parables a new world is opened. The former make the common extraordinary, the latter make the extraordinary common.”

“Have the kindness,” replied Wilhelm, “to explain me these few words more circumstantially, for I do not feel equal to doing it myself.”

“You possess a natural mind,” replied the other, “although a deep one. Examples will open it most readily. Nothing is more common or ordinary than eating and drinking; on the other hand, it is extraordinary to ennoble a beverage, or to multiply a meal, so that it may suffice for a countless number. Nothing is commoner than illness and bodily infirmity; but to cure, to alleviate these by spiritual or spiritual-seeming means, is extraordinary: and just in this consists the marvel of the miracle — that the common and extraordinary, the possible and the impossible, become one. In the similitude, in the parable, the reverse is the case: here you have mind, insight, the idea of the sublime, the extraordinary, the unattainable. When this is embodied in a common, ordinary, intelligible image, so that it confronts us as living, present and real, so that we can appropriate, seize, retain, and converse with it as with one of our own like: that indeed becomes a second species of miracle, which is fairly associated with the first kind, nay, perhaps, is to be preferred to it. Here the living doctrine itself is pronounced, the doctrine that arouses no dispute. It is no opinion as to what is right or wrong; it is indisputably right or wrong itself.”

This part of the gallery was shorter, or rather it was only the fourth part of the enclosure of the inner courtyard. But while one cared only to pass along the first, here one was glad to linger, here one liked to walk to and fro. The subjects were not so striking nor so manifold, but so much the more did they invite inquiry into their deep and quiet meaning; moreover the two wanderers turned at the end of the corridor, whilst Wilhelm expressed a fear that in fact only the last supper, the last parting of the Master from his disciples, was reached. He asked for the remaining part of the story.

“In all teaching,” replied the elder one, “in all tradition, we are very willing to set apart only what it is possible to set apart, for only thereby can the notion of what is significant be developed in youth. Life otherwise mingles and mixes everything together; and thus we have here the life of that excellent Man completely separated from its end. During life he appears as a true philosopher — do not be scandalized at this expression — as a sage, in the highest sense. He stands firmly to his point; he pursues his own path unflinchingly, and whilst he draws up to himself what is inferior, whilst he allows the ignorant, the poor, the sick, a share in his wisdom, wealth, and power, and thereby seems to step down to their level; still, on the other hand, he does not deny his divine origin; he dares to make himself equal to God, nay, to declare himself God. In this manner, from his youth up, he astonishes those who surround him, gains one part of them over to himself, arouses the other against himself, and shows all those to whom it is a question of a certain sublimity in doctrine and life what they will have to expect from the world. And thus his life’s journey for the noble part of humanity is more instructive and fruitful than his death; for to the one test every one is called, but to the other only a few. And in order that we may pass over all that follows from this, only look at the touching scene of the last supper! Here the sage, as always happens, leaves his followers behind, quite orphaned, so to say, and whilst he is taking thought for the good ones, he is at the same time feeding with them a traitor, who will bring him and the better ones to destruction.”

With these words the elder opened a door, and Wilhelm was astonished to find himself again in the first hall of entrance. In the meantime, they had made, as he could easily see, the entire circuit of the courtyard.

“I was hoping,” said Wilhelm, “that you would conduct me to the end, whilst you are taking me back to the beginning.” “This time I can show you nothing more,” said the elder; “we do not let our pupils see more, we do not explain to them more than what you have so far passed through: the external and generally mundane may be imparted to each from his youth up; the internal and specially spiritual and mental, only to those who are growing up to a certain degree of thoughtfulness; and the rest, which can be disclosed only once a year, only to those of whom we are taking leave. That last form of religion, which arises from respect for what is below us, that reverence for what is repugnant, hateful, and apt to be shunned, we impart to each only by way of outfit for the world, in order that he may know where he can find the like, if need of such should stir within him. I invite you to return after the lapse of a year to attend our general festival, and to see how far your son has progressed; at which time too you shall be initiated into the holy estate of sorrow.”

“Allow me one question,” replied Wilhelm; “have you then, besides representing the life of this Divine Man as a pattern of teaching and imitation, also exalted his sufferings, his death, as a model of sublime endurance?”

“By all means,” said the elder. “We make no secret of this; but we draw a veil over these sufferings, just because we honor them so highly. We hold it for criminal audacity to expose that scaffold of agony, and the Saint suffering thereupon, to the gaze of the sun, that hid its face when a reckless world obtruded this sight upon it; to play, to trifle with these deep mysteries, in which the divine depth of suffering lies hidden; to decorate them, and not to rest until the most holy seems commonplace and vulgar. Thus much may suffice for this time to set you at rest respecting your boy, and convince you thoroughly that you will find him again, in one way or other, more or less developed, yet in a desirable manner, and at all events not confused, wavering or unsteady.”

Wilhelm lingered, looking over the pictures in the vestibule, wishing to have their meaning explained.

“This too,” said the elder, “we shall continue to owe you until the year is over. We do not admit any strangers to the instruction which we impart to the children during the interval; but in due time come and listen to what our best speakers think fit to say publicly on these subjects.”

Soon after this conversation a knock was heard at the small door. The inspector of yesterday presented himself; he had led up Wilhelm’s horse. And thus our friend took leave of the Three, who at parting recommended him to the inspector in the following terms: “He is now numbered among the confidants, and what you have to answer to his questions is known to you: for he surely still wishes to be enlightened about many things that he has seen and heard with us; the measure and purport are not unknown to you.” Wilhelm had still in fact a few questions on his mind, which also he expressed forthwith. Wherever they rode by, the children ranged themselves as on the day before, but to-day he saw, although rarely, a boy here and there who did not salute the inspector as he rode past, did not look up from his work, and allowed him to pass by without notice. Wilhelm now inquired the cause of this, and what this exception meant.

The other replied thereto: “It is in fact exceedingly significant, for it is the severest punishment that we inflict upon our pupils; they are declared unworthy of showing reverence, and compelled to seem rude and uncultured; but they do all that is possible to rescue themselves from this position, and apply themselves as quickly as possible to every duty. Should, however, any hardened youngster show no readiness to recant, then he is sent back to his parents with a short but conclusive report. He who does not learn to adapt himself to the laws, must leave the region where they prevail.”

Another sight excited to-day as yesterday the curiosity of the traveller; it was the variety of color and shape in the clothes of the pupils. In this there seemed to prevail no graduated arrangement, for some who saluted differently were dressed in uniform style, whilst those who had the same way of greeting were clad differently. Wilhelm asked for the cause of this seeming contradiction.

“It is explained thus,” replied the other; “namely, that it is a means of finding out the peculiar disposition of each boy. With strictness and method in other things, in this respect we allow a certain degree of freedom to prevail. Within the scope of our stores of cloths and trimmings, the pupils are allowed to choose any favorite color, and also within moderate limits to select both shape and cut; this we scrupulously observe, for by the color you may find out people’s bent of mind, and by the cut, the style of life. Yet there is one special peculiarity of human nature which makes a more accurate judgment to some extent difficult; this is the spirit of imitation — the tendency to associate. It is very seldom that a pupil lights on anything that has not occurred before: for the most part they choose something familiar, what they see just before them. Still, this consideration does not remain unprofitable to us; by means of such external signs, they ally themselves to this or that party, join in here or there, and thus more general dispositions distinguish themselves; we learn to where each inclines, and to what example he assimilates himself. Now, cases have been seen, in which the dispositions inclined towards the general, in which one fashion would extend itself to all, and every peculiarity tend towards losing itself in the totality. In a gentle way we try to put a stop to a tendency of this kind, we allow our stores to run short; one or other kind of stuff or ornament is no more to be had. We substitute something new, something attractive; through light colors, and short close cut, we attract the cheerful ones; by sombre shades and comfortable, ample suits, the thoughtful ones, and thus gradually establish a balance. For we are altogether opposed to uniform; it hides the character, and, more than any other disguise, conceals the peculiarities of the children from the sight of their superiors.”

With such and other conversation, Wilhelm arrived at the frontier of the district, and precisely at the point where the traveller, according to his old friend’s direction, ought to leave it, in order to pursue his own private ends.

On parting, the inspector first of all observed, that Wilhelm might now wait until the grand festival for all their sympathizers in various ways was announced. To this all the parents would be invited, and able pupils be dismissed to the chances of free life. After that, he was informed, he might at his leisure enter the other districts, where in accordance with peculiar principles, special instruction amidst the most perfect surroundings, was imparted and practised.

CHAPTER III.

To flatter the taste of the worthy public, which for some time has derived pleasure in being entertained piece-meal, we had at first thought of presenting the following story in several sections. Yet, considered from the point of view of ideas, feelings and events, its internal structure required a continuous treatment. May it attain its aim, and at the same time may it in the end become clear how the personages of this seemingly isolated episode have been most intimately bound up with those whom we already know and love.

The Man of Fifty.

DURING the entry of the major into the manor-house, his niece Hilaria stood outside on the staircase that led up to the castle, ready to receive him. He scarcely recognized her, for by this time she had grown taller and more beautiful. She rushed towards him; he pressed her to his breast with the feelings of a father, and she hurried upstairs to her mother.

To the baroness, his sister, he was equally welcome, and when Hilaria went quickly away to prepare breakfast, the major cheerfully observed:

“This time I can be brief, and say that our business is done. Our brother, the marshal, sees pretty clearly that he cannot get on with either tenants or superintendents. He makes over the estates, in his lifetime, to us and to our children. The annual income that he stipulates for himself is heavy, it is true; but we can well afford to give it to him; we still gain a good deal for the present, and in the future, all. The new arrangement will soon be in order. Though every moment I expect my retirement, I still see before me an active life, that may be of decided advantage to us and ours. We shall quietly look on whilst our children grow up, and it depends upon us, upon them, to hasten their union.”

“That would be all very well,” said the baroness, “if only I had not to reveal you a secret, of which I myself have only lately become aware. Hilaria’s heart is no longer free; from that quarter your son has little or nothing to hope.”

“What do you say?” exclaimed the major; “is it possible! Whilst we are giving ourselves every possible trouble to manage with economy, does inclination play us such a trick? Tell me, my dear, tell me quickly who is it that could captivate Hilaria’s heart; or is it already as bad as that? Is it not perhaps a transient impression, that one may hope to extinguish again?”

“You must first think and guess awhile,” replied the baroness, thereby increasing his impatience. This had already reached its climax, when Hilaria, entering together with the servants, who were bringing the breakfast, rendered an immediate solution of the riddle impossible.

The major himself fancied that he now looked upon the beautiful child with other eyes than shortly before. He almost felt jealous of the fortunate one, whose image could impress itself on so beautiful a soul. He could not enjoy his breakfast, and he paid no attention to the fact that everything had been arranged precisely as he liked it best, and as he had formerly been used to wish and require it.

Amidst this silence and reserve, Hilaria herself almost lost her cheerfulness. The baroness felt embarrassed, and drew her daughter towards the piano, but her animated playing, full of feeling, could scarcely win a little applause from the major. He was anxious to see the beautiful child and the breakfast depart, the sooner the better, and the baroness had to make up her mind to break off, and propose to her brother a walk in the garden.

They were scarcely alone, when the major urgently repeated his former question; upon which his sister after a pause, replied, laughing:

“If you wish to find the fortunate man she loves, you need not go so far, he is quite close: it is you she loves.”

The major stood thunderstruck; then he exclaimed:

“It would be a very unseasonable jest, if you wished to persuade me of what in real earnest would make me no less embarrassed than unhappy. For although I need time to recover from my astonishment, yet I foresee at a glance how much our relations must be disturbed by such an unexpected circumstance. The only thing that consoles me, is the conviction that inclinations of this kind are only apparent, that self-deception lurks in the background, and that a genuinely good soul will often recover at once from mistakes of this kind of its own accord, or at least with a little assistance from sensible persons.”

“I am not of this opinion,” said the baroness; “for, to judge by all the symptoms, it is a very serious sentiment by which Hilaria is penetrated.”

“Anything so unnatural I should not have attributed to her natural character,” replied the major.

“It is not so unnatural,” said his sister; “in my own youth I recollect a passion even for an older man than you are. You are fifty years old; that at all events is by no means too much for a German, although perhaps other more lively nations grow old earlier.”

“But how will you prove your surmise?” said the major.

“It is no surmise, it is a certainty. The details you shall learn by-and-bye.”

Hilaria joined them, and the major against his will felt changed again. Her presence seemed to him still more amiable and dearer than before; her behavior seemed to him more affectionate, and he already began to give credence to his sister’s words. The sensation was in the highest degree agreeable to him, although he would neither acknowledge nor divulge it. Hilaria was indeed very amiable, whilst in her demeanor shyness towards a lover and the easy familiarity towards an uncle were most intimately combined; for she really loved him, and with her whole heart. The garden was in its full spring glory, and the major, whilst he saw so many old trees clothing themselves with leaves, was fain to believe in the return of his own spring-time. And who would not have been tempted to do so in the presence of the most amiable of girls.

In this manner the day was spent together; all domestic incidents passed off in the greatest harmony; in the evening after dinner Hilaria again sat down to the piano. The major listened with other ears than in the morning; one melody was entwined with another, one song connected itself with the next, and midnight scarcely availed to break up the little party.

When the major reached his room, he found everything arranged in accordance with his old accustomed convenience; even certain engravings, over which he had been wont to linger, had been brought from other rooms and hung up here; and now that he had once begun to notice, he saw himself attended to and flattered in every single little detail.

This time he required only a few hours’ sleep; his vital energies were awake early. But now he suddenly perceived that a new order of things would entail a good deal of inconvenience. To his old groom, who also fulfilled the duties of footmen and valet, he had never spoken an angry word for many years; for everything had gone on in its usual way with the strictest method: the horses were attended to, and the clothes ready brushed at the proper hour, but his master had risen sooner, and nothing was ready.

Another circumstance combined with this to increase the impatience and a sort of bad-humor on the part of the major. At other times everything had been correct with himself and with his servant; but now when he stepped before the looking-glass, he did not find himself as he wished to be. He could not deny a few gray hairs, and a few wrinkles also seemed to have put in an appearance. He rubbed and powdered more than usual, and yet had at last to leave things as they were. Neither was he satisfied with his dress, or with its plainness. There were always a few threads still on his coat, and a little dust on his boots. The old servant did not know what to say, and was astonished at seeing so transformed a master before him.

In spite of all these obstacles the major was early enough in the garden. Hilaria, whom he hoped to find there, he actually did find. She brought a nosegay for him, and he had not the courage, as at other times, to kiss her, and to press her to his heart. He found himself in the pleasantest embarrassment in the world, and abandoned himself to his feelings, without thinking whither they might lead him.

The baroness also was not slow in putting in an appearance, and, as she showed her brother a note that a messenger had just brought her, she exclaimed: “You cannot guess whom this letter is to announce!”

“Then only tell me quickly!” replied the major; and he was informed that an old theatrical friend happened to be travelling at no great distance from the manor, and thought of looking in for a moment.

“I am curious to see him again,” said the major; “he is no longer a boy, and yet I hear that he still continues to play youthful parts.”

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

“At the very least,” replied the major, “so far as I can recollect.”

It was not long before a cheerful, well-built, pleasant man made his appearance. Both were astonished for a moment as they looked at each other again. But very soon the friends became familiar, and reminiscences of all sorts animated the conversation. From this they passed to stories, to questions, and to giving accounts of themselves; they made themselves mutually acquainted with their present positions, and they soon felt as if they had never been separated.

Secret accounts tell us that this man in early life, as a very handsome and agreeable youth, had had the fortune or misfortune to please a lady of rank; that he had thereby fallen into great difficulties and danger, out of which the major had fortunately rescued him, at the very moment when a most sad fate was threatening him. He remained eternally grateful to both brother and sister; for the latter, by a timely warning, had given an opportunity of exercising prudence. A short time before dinner the men were left alone. Not without admiration, nay, with a certain amount of astonishment, the major had observed the outward deportment of his old friend, in general and in detail. He did not seem to be changed in the least, and it was no wonder that he could still continue to appear as a youthful lover on the stage.

Lucinda

“You are looking at me more closely than is fair,” he at last said to the major; “I very much fear that you find the difference compared with past times only too great.”

“By no means,” replied the major; “on the contrary, I am full of wonder at finding your looks fresher and more youthful than my own; although I know that you were already a grown-up man when I assisted you in certain difficulties with the audacity of a foolhardy fledgling.”

“It is your own fault,” replied the other, “it is the fault of all like you; and although you ought not to be reproached for it, still you are to blame. You only think about what is necessary; you want to be, and not to seem. That is right enough, so long as one is something. But when at last the Being begins to take leave of the Seeming, and the Seeming is still more transient than the Being, then everyone finds out that he would not have done badly if he had not entirely neglected the external in favor of the internal.”

“You are right,” replied the major, and could hardly refrain from a sigh.

“Perhaps not quite right,” answered the old youth; “for indeed in my trade it would be absolutely inexcusable if one did not bolster up the exterior as long as is simply possible. But you people have occasion to look at other things that are more important and lasting.”

“And yet there are occasions,” said the major, “when one feels inwardly fresh, and would be only too glad to freshen up one’s exterior too.”

As the guest could not divine the major’s real frame of mind, he took this utterance in a military sense, and expatiated long upon the point, how important the exterior was to military men, and how an officer, who had to expend so much care upon his dress, might pay some attention to his skin and hair as well.

“For example, it is undeniable,” he continued, “that your temples are already gray, that wrinkles contract themselves here and there, and that your crown is threatening to become bald. Only look at an old fellow like me! See how I have preserved myself, and all without any conjuring, and with far less trouble or care than one expends daily in injuring, or at least in wearying one’s self.”

The major found too much for his own purposes in this accidental conversation to break it off so soon; still he went gently, and even, in dealing with an old acquaintance, cautiously to work.

“Unfortunately I have now got behind-hand,” he exclaimed, “and it cannot be retrieved; I must now put up with it, and you will not think worse of me on account of it.”

“It is never too late,” replied the other; “if you serious gentlemen were not so obstinate and stiff-necked, immediately declaring anyone who attends to his own exterior vain, and thereby marring for yourselves the enjoyment of being in pleasant company and pleasing others yourselves.”

“If it is not magic,” laughingly said the major, “by means of which you keep yourselves young, it is nevertheless a secret; or there are at least ‘arcana,’ such as are often extolled in the papers, but from which you know how to choose the best.”

“Whether you speak in jest or in earnest,” replied his friend, “you have hit it. Among the many things that have continually been tried to give a kind of nourishment to the exterior, which often falls off much sooner than the interior, there are to be found really invaluable specifics, simple as well as compound, which have been imparted to me by fellow-artists, or handed over for cash or in some casual way, and tested by myself. I hold and abide by these, without on that account giving up my further researches. Thus much I may tell you, and I do not exaggerate: I carry about with me a dressing-case beyond all price, a casket, the effects of which I should like to try upon yourself, if we remain only a fortnight together.”

The thought that something of this kind was possible, and that this possibility had accidentally been brought within his reach just at the right moment, cheered up the major to such a degree, that he already looked really fresher and happier, and enlivened by the hope of bringing his head and face into harmony with his heart, excited by the restless desire of soon learning to know these specifics more intimately, he seemed at dinner quite a different man, met with confidence Hilaria’s graceful attentions, and looked on her with a certain trust, which in the morning had been still very foreign to him.

Now, inasmuch as the theatrical friend had managed, by all sorts of reminiscences, stories, and happy ideas, to keep alive and increase the good-humor once called forth, so much the more was the major troubled, when immediately after dinner he threatened to go away and pursue his journey. He sought by every means to facilitate the detention of his friend, at least for the night, expressly promising additional horses and relays early on the morrow. Enough, the healing toilet-case was not to depart from the house before he had been more particularly informed as to its contents and use.

The major saw well enough that there was now no time to be lost, and therefore immediately after dinner he sought to speak to his old familiar friend alone. As he had not the courage to go straight to the point, he alluded to it distantly, again taking up their former conversation, and affirming that, as for his own person, he would willingly bestow more care upon the exterior, if only people would not immediately stigmatize as vain any one in whom they discovered an endeavor of this kind, and thereby withdraw from him, in respect to moral esteem, as much as they felt bound to allow him in respect to what was physical.

“Do not make me angry with speeches of this kind,” replied his friend; “for these are expressions to which society has accustomed itself without thinking, or, to put it more severely, by which it expresses the unkindness and ill-will of its nature. When you come to consider it closely, what is that which is so often stigmatized as vanity? Every man ought to feel pleasure in himself, and happy is he who does so. Yet, if he does, how can he refrain from betraying this pleasant feeling? How, in the midst of existence, can he conceal that he feels a pleasure in existence? If good society — for only of such is the question now — should find these utterances blamable, only when they become too lively, when the joy of a man’s pleasure in himself and in his being prevents others from feeling pleasure in themselves, and from displaying it, — even then there would be nothing in it to remember; and the reproach has probably arisen in the first place from this excess. Yet, what is the good of a strange prohibitive severity against what is unavoidable? Why shall we not find an expression admissible and endurable which we, more or less, allow ourselves from time to time, nay, without which no good society could exist; for the pleasure in ourselves, the desire of communicating this individual feeling to others, makes us pleasant, the sense of our own charm makes us charming. Would to God that all men were vain! yet at the same time with consciousness, with moderation, and in the right sense; then we in the world of culture would be the happiest of people. Women, it is said, are vain from the beginning; yet it becomes them, and they please us all the more. How can a young man form himself who is not vain? An empty, hollow nature will at least know how to give itself an outward show, and the able man will soon form himself from the outward to the inward. As for myself, I have reason on this score to consider myself the happiest of men, because my trade justifies me in being vain, and because the more I am so, the greater pleasure I give people. I am praised where another is blamed, and it is just in this path that I have the right and the good fortune to delight and charm the public at an age at which others are compelled to withdraw from the stage, or only linger upon it with disgrace.”

The major was not pleased to hear the tendency of these observations. The little word vanity, when he used it, had only been meant to serve as a medium by which to bring his wish before his friend in a discreet manner; now he feared that in a lengthened conversation he would see his end still further set aside, and he therefore hastened directly to the point.

“For myself,” he said, “I should not be at all disinclined to swear fealty to your standard, since you do not think it too late, and believe that I could in some measure make up for lost time. Reveal to me something about your tinctures, pomades, and balsams, and I will make an attempt.”

“Revelations,” said the other, “are more difficult than one thinks. In this case, for instance, it is not only the question whether I pour out for you something from my bottles, or leave you a half of the best ingredients of my dressing-case; the greatest difficulty is the application. One cannot straightway make what is handed to us one’s own; how this or that may serve, under what circumstances, in what order the things are to be used, demands practice and reflection; nay, even these will hardly bear fruit, if one has not an inborn talent for the subject in question.”

“Now,” replied the major, “it seems to me you want to back out of it again. You are making difficulties in order to save the credit of your rather fabulous statements. You have no inclination to give me a pretext, an opportunity of putting your words to the test of fact.”

“By these sarcasms, my friend,” replied the other, “you would never induce me to acquiesce in your request if I did not myself harbor such kind intentions towards you, insomuch that as I in fact made you the offer in the first place. At the same time bear in mind, my friend, that man possesses a quite peculiar desire of making proselytes, of bringing what he values in himself into demonstration beyond himself, in others; in letting them enjoy what he himself enjoys, in finding and reflecting himself again in them. In truth, if this too is egoism, it is at all events of the most amiable and praiseworthy sort, such as makes us human, and keeps us human. From this too, irrespective of the friendship I entertain for you, I derive the pleasure of making a pupil of you in the art of rejuvenation. But, as one must expect from the master, that he should make no bunglers, I am at a loss as to how to set to work. I have already said that neither cosmetics nor any prescription is sufficient; the application cannot be taught in a general way. For love of you, and the desire of propagating my doctrine, I am prepared for any sacrifice. The greatest I can make for the moment I will at once offer you. I will leave you here my servant, a kind of valet and jack-of-all-trades, who, although he may not know how to prepare everything, or be initiated into all the secrets, yet understands very well the whole treatment, and at the beginning will be of great use to you, until you so work your way into the matter, that I may at length be able also to reveal to you the higher secrets.”

“How!” exclaimed the major, “you have also stages and degrees in your art of rejuvenation? You have secrets too for the initiated.”

“To be sure,” replied the former. “That would indeed be a wretched art which allowed itself to be grasped at once, the last results of which would be viewed at once by him who enters for the first time.”

There was no great hesitation; the valet was intrusted to the major, who promised to treat him well. The baroness had to furnish small boxes, pots and glasses, she did not know for what purpose; the partition took place; they remained together in good spirits and witty mood till far into the night. When the moon rose late the guest departed, promising to return in a short time.

The major went somewhat tired to his room. He had arisen early, had not spared himself during the day, and hoped at last to get speedily to bed. But instead of one servant he now found two. The old groom, according to old style and custom, undressed him quickly; but now the new one came forward, and bid him observe, that night was just the proper time for applying beautifying and rejuvenating remedies, in order that during a peaceful slumber they might take effect so much the more surely. So the major had to submit to having his head anointed, his face rubbed, his eyebrows marked, and his lips touched, besides which, several other ceremonies were required: thus the nightcap was not to be put on immediately, but before that a net, or at all events a fine leather cap, was drawn over his head.

The major lay down in bed, with a kind of unpleasant sensation, which, however, he had no time to make clear to himself, inasmuch as he soon fell asleep. Yet, if we were to speak his mind, he felt himself somewhat akin to a mummy, something between a sick man and an embalmed corpse. Only the sweet image of Hilaria, surrounded by the brightest hopes, lulled him soon into a refreshing sleep.

In the morning, at the appointed time, the groom was at hand. Everything appertaining to the dress of the master lay in its accustomed order on the chairs, and the major was just on the point of leaving the bed, when the new valet entered, and protested energetically against such premature haste. One must be quiet, one must wait, if the undertaking was to succeed, if from so much care and painstaking enjoyment was to be reaped. The gentleman accordingly was informed that he would have to rise in a short time, partake of a light breakfast, and then enter a bath, which was already prepared. There was no escape from this procedure; it must be carried out, and a few hours passed in these operations.

The major cut short the time of rest after the bath, thinking to throw on his clothes quickly, for by nature he was quick, and besides this he wished to meet Hilaria soon; but here also the new valet intervened, and made him understand that one must completely disaccustom one’s self from wishing to be done. All that one did must be completed slowly and leisurely, but the time of dressing especially must be regarded as a pleasant hour of communion with one’s own self.

The valet’s mode of treatment was perfectly in harmony with his words. But in return for all this, even the major thought that he really was better dressed than he had ever been before, when he stepped before the looking-glass, and saw himself dressed up to the highest point. Without much question, the valet had even given to the uniform a modern cut, having employed the night in this transformation. A rejuvenation, so quickly visible, imparted to the major a particularly cheerful disposition, so that both inwardly and outwardly he felt refreshed, and hurried to meet his friends with impatient longing.

He found his sister standing before their genealogical tree, which she had hung up, because on the preceding evening there had been some talk amongst them about certain collateral relations, who, being some unmarried, some living in distant lands, some quite lost sight of, gave the brother and sister or their children more or less hope of rich legacies. They conversed for some time about it, without mentioning the circumstance that hitherto all their family anxieties and endeavors had centred only on their children. Through Hilaria’s inclination, this whole prospect had in fact been completely changed, and yet neither the major nor his sister liked to think more about the matter at this moment.

The baroness went away, the major remained alone before the laconic family-picture: Hilaria came in to him, leaned childishly on his arm, looked at the pedigree, and asked whom among all these he had known, and who were still living?

The major began his description of the eldest, whom he now only vaguely remembered from the time of his youth. Then he went on to describe the characters of various fathers, the likeness or unlikeness of the children to them, observed that the grandfather often reappeared in his grandson, spoke generally about the influence of women, who, marrying into the stock from strange families, often change the character of the whole race. He praised the virtue of many an ancestor and collateral relation, and did not conceal their faults. He passed over in silence those of whom they had had reason to feel ashamed. At last he came to the latest generations. Among these were now found his brother the Obermarschall, himself, and his sister, and below them his son and Hilaria.

“These look one another straight enough in the face,” said the major, and did not add what he had in his mind.

After a pause, Hilaria modestly added, in a low voice and almost with a sigh, “And yet no one will blame one who looks upwards.” At the same time she looked up towards him with her two eyes, which expressed her entire affection.

“Do I understand you aright?” said the major, turning round towards her.

“I can say nothing,” answered Hilaria, laughing, “that you do not already know.”

“You make me the happiest man under the sun!” exclaimed he, and fell at her feet. “Will you be mine?”

“For Heaven’s sake, arise! I am yours forever.”

The baroness entered. Without being surprised, she was startled. “If it should be a misfortune,” said the major, “sister, the fault is yours; if it is good fortune, we shall always have to thank you for it.”

The baroness, from her youth up, had loved her brother in such a manner, that she set him before all other men, and perhaps the very inclination of Hilaria, if it had not actually sprung from this partiality of her mother’s, had certainly been nourished by it.

All three were henceforth united in one love, and one happiness, and so the happiest of hours were spent by them. Yet at last, too, they became aware again of the world around them, and this but seldom stands in harmony with such sentiments.

Now, too, they thought again about the son. For him Hilaria had been destined, as he knew very well. Directly after the termination of the business with the Obermarschall, the major was to have visited his son in garrison, to discuss everything with him, and bring these matters to a happy termination. But now, through an unexpected event, the whole arrangement was upset; the relations, which otherwise hung together in a friendly way, seemed henceforth to be in conflict, and it was difficult to foresee what turn things would take, and what sort of harmony would take possession of their minds.

In the meantime the major had to make up his mind to visit his son, with whom he had already appointed a meeting. Not without repugnance, not without a peculiar foreboding, not without pain at having to leave Hilaria for only a short time, he started, after a good deal of delay, and leaving groom and horses behind, he travelled with his rejuvenating valet, whom he could no longer dispense with, towards the city where his son was living.

The two greeted and embraced one another in the heartiest manner after so long a separation. They had much to say to one another, and yet did not immediately express what each had most at heart. The son expatiated upon his hopes of speedy promotion, in return for which the father gave him exact information as to what had been done and determined on between the elder members of the family respecting their fortune in general, and their landed property in particular.

The conversation was already beginning rather to drag, when the son took courage, and said, laughing, to his father, “You treat me very tenderly, father dear, and I thank you for it. You tell me about possessions and fortune, and do not mention the condition under which, at least partly, they will become mine; you refrain from mentioning the name of Hilaria; you wait for me to pronounce it myself, that I should reveal my desire of being soon united to the amiable child.”

The major, at these words of his son, found himself in great embarrassment; yet, as it was consonant partly with his nature and partly with an old habit of his, to explore the minds of those he had to deal with, he remained silent, and glanced at his son with a doubtful smile.

“You do not guess, father, what I have to say,” continued the lieutenant, “and I only wish to speak it out quickly once for all. I can rely upon your kindness, which, amidst so much solicitude in my behalf, has surely also thought about my true happiness. It will have to be said some time, and so let it be said at once: Hilaria cannot make me happy! I think of Hilaria as an amiable relation, with whom I would wish to remain all my life on the friendliest footing, but another has aroused my passion, fettered my inclination. This inclination is irresistible; you do not want to make me unhappy.”

Only with difficulty did the major hide the delight that would have spread over his countenance, and he asked his son in a gently serious way, “who the person was that had been able to conquer him so entirely?”

“You must see this person, father, for she is as indescribable as she is incomprehensible. I only fear that you will yourself be carried away by her, as everybody is who comes near her. By Heaven! I shall live to see you become the rival of your son.”

“Who is she, then?” asked the major. “If you are not able to describe her personally, tell me at least about her circumstances; for these perhaps ought to be mentioned first.”

“Well, father,” replied the son; “and yet these outward circumstances too would be different in another woman, and act differently upon another person. She is a young widow, the heir of an old and wealthy husband, only recently deceased; independent, and in the highest degree worthy of being so, surrounded by many friends, beloved by just as many, and wooed by them all, yet, if I am not greatly mistaken, attached to me with all her heart.”

As the father remained silent, and betrayed no sign of disapproval, the son continued complacently to describe the conduct of the pretty widow towards him, to extol in detail that irresistible grace and those tender demonstrations of favor, in which, however, the father could only recognize the easy civility of a universally adored woman, who among many may perhaps prefer one, without altogether deciding in favor of him especially. Under any other circumstances, he would certainly have tried to call the attention of a son, or only of a friend, to the self-deception that would be likely to prevail in the matter; but on this occasion his own interest was so great in the fact that his son was not deceiving himself, and that the widow was really in love with him, and should decide as quickly as possible in his favor, that either he had no misgiving, or repelled such a doubt from himself, or perhaps only concealed it.

“You put me in great embarrassment,” began the father, after a short pause. “The whole agreement between the remaining members of our family rests on the supposition that you marry Hilaria. If she marries a stranger, then the whole of the beautifully arranged concentration of a handsome fortune will be demolished again, and you especially will not be playing your cards to the best advantage. Still there would remain an expedient, which, however, sounds a little strange, and by which you too would not gain much. I, old as I am, should have to marry Hilaria, yet by doing this I should scarcely give you any great pleasure.”

“The greatest in the world!” exclaimed the lieutenant; “for who can feel any true affection, who can enjoy or hope for the happiness of love without wishing this highest happiness for every friend, for every one who is worthy of it? You are not old, father; and is not Hilaria so amiable? And the mere passing thought of offering her your hand bears witness to a youthful heart and fresh vigor. Let us deliberate on and think out this idea, this plan, upon the spot. For I should only be really happy when I knew that you were happy. I should only be really glad when you yourself were so beautifully and richly repaid for the care which you have bestowed upon my destiny. Now, at last, I can take you with courage, confidence, and a really open heart, to my fair one. You will approve of my sentiment, because you yourself can feel. You will place no obstacle in the way of your son’s happiness, because you are going in the direction of your own.”

With these and other urgent words, the son gave his father no opportunity for the many doubts he would have insinuated, but hurried him off to the beautiful widow, whom they found in a large, well-appointed house, surrounded by a perhaps not numerous, but select party, engaged in lively conversation. She was one of those women from whom no man can escape. With incredible tact she managed to make the major the hero of the evening. The rest of the company seemed to be her own family, the major alone the guest. She knew his circumstances quite well, and yet she knew how to inquire about them, as if her wish was to hear everything from himself for the first time; and thus too the whole of the company was obliged to show some sort of sympathy with the new visitor. One must have known his brother, another his property, and a third something no matter what, so that throughout a lively conversation the major always felt himself to be the central point. He was seated, too, next to the beauty; her eyes were upon him, her smiles were directed towards him; enough, he found himself so comfortable, that he almost forgot the cause of his coming. And she too, scarcely said a single word about his son, although the young man joined in the conversation with vivacity; to her he seemed like all the rest, to be there to-day only for his father’s sake.

Ladies’ work carried on in company, and to all appearance continued with indifference, often by help of cleverness and grace acquires a great significance. If pursued without preoccupation and diligently, such employments give a beautiful woman an air of complete inattention to surrounding company, and arouse in the latter a secret dissatisfaction. But then again, as if waking up, a word, a glance, places the absent one again in the midst of the company, she seems as if newly welcomed; but if she lays down her work in her lap, pays attention to a story, to an instructive dissertation, in which gentlemen are so fond of indulging, this becomes in the highest degree flattering to whomsoever she may favor in this manner.

Our fair widow was working in this fashion at a splendid as well as tasteful letter-case, which, moreover, was remarkable for its large dimensions. This was just now being discussed by the company; it was taken up by her next neighbor, and amidst much praise handed all around the circle, whilst the fair arist herself was discussing some serious subject with the major. An old family friend praised the almost finished work with some exaggeration, yet, when it reached the major, she seemed to be about to take it from him as not worthy of his attention, whilst he, on the contrary, did not fail to acknowledge the merit of the work in the most obliging manner, and the family friend, in the meantime, fancied that he saw in it the magical handiwork of a Penelope.

The company walked to and fro in the rooms, and formed themselves into accidental groups. The lieutenant stepped up to the beauty, and asked, “What do you say to my father?”

She answered, laughingly, “It seems to me that you might well take him for a pattern. Only look how neatly he is dressed! Does he not bear himself and behave himself better than his dear son?”

So she went on to cry up and praise the father at the expense of the son, and to provoke in the young man’s heart a very mixed feeling of content and jealousy. It was not long before the son joined his father, and repeated it all again to him minutely. The father behaved with all the more friendliness towards the widow, who already adopted towards him a more lively and confidential tone. In short, it may be said that when the time for parting came, the major already belonged to her and to her circle as much as all the others.

A heavy rain which was falling prevented the company from returning home in the manner in which they had come. A few carriages drove up, into which the pedestrians were distributed; only the lieutenant, under the pretext that they were already too full, allowed his father to drive off, and remained behind.

The major, when he entered his room, felt really in a whirl of uncertainty respecting himself, as happens to those who pass quickly from one condition into an opposite one. The earth seems to move to him who disembarks from on board ship, and light still trembles before the eye of him who suddenly enters into darkness. So the major still felt himself surrounded by the presence of that beautiful being. He wished still to be seeing her, to be listening to her, — to see her again, to listen to her again; and, after some reflection, he excused his son, nay, he extolled his happiness, in that he could make some claims to possess so many attractions. From these reflections he was torn by his son, who in a passionate ecstasy rushed in at the door, embraced his father, and exclaimed, “I am the happiest man in the world!”

After these and like exclamations the two at last came to an explanation. The father observed, that the beauty in her conversation with him had not spoken a syllable about his son.

“That is just the delicate, reserved, half-silent, half-significant manner, by which one learns her wishes, and still for all that cannot quite refrain from doubt. Thus it is that she has hitherto been towards me, but your presence, father, has done wonders. I willingly confess that I remained behind in order to see her another moment. I found her pacing to and fro in her lighted rooms, for I well know that this is her usual habit; when the company has left, not a single light may be extinguished. She walks up and down alone in her enchanted halls, when the spirits whom she has convoked have departed. She allowed the pretext to pass under cover of which I had returned. She spoke gracefully, yet on common topics. We walked backwards and forwards through the open doors of the whole suite of apartments. Several times already we had reached the end, the small retreat, which is lighted only by a dim lamp. If she was beautiful when she moved beneath the lustres, she was infinitely more so when illumined by the soft radiance of the lamp. We had reached it again, and, on turning round, we stopped silent for a moment. I do not know what impelled me to the boldness, I do not know how I could venture, in the midst of the most indifferent talk, suddenly to seize her hand, to kiss that delicate hand, and to press it to my heart. It was not drawn away. ‘Heavenly being!’ I exclaimed, ‘do not hide yourself longer from me! If in this beautiful heart there is harbored any affection for the fortunate one who stands before you, do not conceal it longer, reveal it, confess it! This is the fairest and the best hour. Banish me, or take me to your arms!’ I do not know all that I said, I do not know how I behaved. But she did not withdraw, she did not resist, she did not answer. I ventured to clasp her in my arms, to ask her whether she would be mine. I kissed her wildly; she pushed me away. ‘Yes, then yes,’ or something like that she said half-aloud, and as if confused. I withdrew, exclaiming, ‘I will send my father, he shall speak for me!’

“ ‘Not a word to him about it!’ she replied, whilst she followed me a few steps. ‘Go away, forget what has happened.’ “

What the major thought we shall not disclose. However, he said to his son: “What do you think ought to be done now? The matter, in my opinion, has been sufficiently well introduced on the spur of the moment to enable us now to set to work somewhat more formally, and to make it, perhaps, very proper that I should call to-morrow and intercede for you.”

“For God’s sake, father!” he exclaimed, “that would be to spoil the whole thing. That bearing, that tone, must not be disturbed or untuned by any kind of formality; it is enough, father, that your presence will accelerate this union, without your uttering a word. Yes, it is you to whom I owe my good fortune. The esteem of my beloved one for you has conquered every doubt, and the son would never have found so happy a moment if the father had not paved the way for it.”

They remained engaged in conversation of this kind until late in the night. They agreed mutually as to their plans. The major, only for form’s sake, wished to pay a farewell visit to the beautiful widow, and then to take steps towards his union with Hilaria; the son was to forward and expedite his as might be possible.

CHAPTER IV.

Our major paid a morning visit to the pretty widow to take leave, and if possible with becoming decency to further his son’s intentions. He found her in the most elegant morning toilet, in the company of an elderly lady, who at once captivated him by her highly refined and amiable presence. The grace of the younger, the dignity of the elder one, placed the two in a most admirably balanced relation; their mutual behavior also, throughout, seemed to suggest that they belonged to one another.

The younger lady seemed to have just finished a diligently-worked letter-case, already familiar to us, from yesterday; for, after the ordinary greetings and reassuring words of welcome, she turned to her friend, and handed her the work of art, as if again taking up an interrupted conversation. “So you see that I have finished it after all, though with so much delay and putting off, it scarcely looked likely that I would.”

“You come just in time, Herr Major,” said the elder lady, “to decide our dispute, or at least to declare yourself for one side or the other. I maintain that one never undertakes such a long-drawn work without thinking of some person for whom it is destined; one does not finish it without some such thought. Look yourself at this work of art, for so I can fairly call it; can anything of the kind ever be undertaken without an object?”

Our major had indeed to bestow all his approbation on the work. Partly worked, and partly embroidered, it aroused not only admiration, but also a desire to know how it was made. Colored silks predominated, but gold too was not dispensed with; one did not know whether splendor or taste was the more to be admired.

“And yet there is still something to be done to it,” replied the beauty, again untying the knot of the string that fastened it around, and busying herself with the interior. “I will not wrangle,” she continued, “but I will tell you how I am disposed towards work of this kind. As young girls, we grow accustomed to plying our fingers, and to wandering with our thoughts; both habits remain, whilst we learn by degrees to accomplish the most difficult and elegant kinds of work; and I do not deny that with every piece of work of this kind I have always associated the thoughts of persons and circumstances, and joy and sorrow. And thus what I had undertaken became valuable to me, and what I had finished, I may well say, became precious to me. As such, then, I was able to regard even the most trifling thing as something, the lightest work gained a value, and the most difficult, too, only on this account — that the recollections in this case were richer and more complete. I therefore always thought of being able to offer such kinds of work to friends and to those I loved — to worthy and distinguished persons; they, too, recognized the fact, and knew that I was offering them something of my very own, which, whilst constituting in many and indescribable ways, yet at all events, somehow or other, an acceptable gift, was always accepted graciously as a friendly compliment.”

THE LIEUTENANT DECLARES TO THE FAIR WIDOW.

To such an amiable confession a reply was indeed scarcely possible; yet her lady friend had the fact to add a few civil words in return. But the major, accustomed from of old to appreciate the graceful wisdom of the Roman writers and poets, and to imprint on his memory their luminous expressions, recollected a few apposite verses, but, lest he should appear as a pedant, took care not to utter them, or even to mention them. However, in order not to seem stupid and devoid of wit, he attempted an impromptu paraphrase in prose, which, however, did not quite succeed, so that the conversation nearly came to a standstill.

The elder lady therefore seized a book that had been laid down on our friend’s entrance; it was a selection of poetry, which just before had been occupying the attention of the friends. This afforded an opportunity of speaking about poetry in general, and yet the conversation did not remain long on the general subject, for soon the ladies candidly confessed that they had been informed of the major’s poetical talent. The son, who did not hide his own claims to the honorary title of poet, had told them beforehand about his father’s poetry, and even recited some of it; in reality in order to flatter himself with a poetical descent, and, as is the case with youth, to be able to announce himself, in a modest way, as a progressive son who carried to a higher pitch his father’s capabilities. But the major, who sought to withdraw, since he only wished to pass for a man of letters and an amateur, tried, when no escape remained, at least to back out, maintaining that the kind of poetry which he certainly had practised was regarded as only a subordinate and an almost spurious sort; he could not deny having made a few attempts in the kind which is called descriptive, and, in a certain sense, didactic.

The ladies, especially the younger, were fond of this kind of poetry; she said, “When one wants to live rationally and quietly, which, in fine, is the wish and intention of every human being, what is the good of the sensational kind, that wantonly allures us without giving us anything, that unsettles us, and yet in the end abandons us to ourselves again? Yet since I cannot willingly dispense with poetry of one sort or another, infinitely more pleasant to me is that kind which transports me into cheerful regions, where I seem to recognize myself again; which brings home to my mind the sterling worth of the simply rural, carries me through leafy shades into the forest, unexpectedly commanding from a height the view of an inland lake, opposite to which perhaps cultivated hills, and then wood-crowned heights arise, whilst the blue mountains in the background form a soothing picture. If this is offered me in plain rhythm and rhyme, then on my sofa I am thankful to the poet for having evolved in my fancy a picture, in which I can enjoy more at my ease than if I saw it before my eyes after fatiguing travel, and perhaps under other unfavorable circumstances.”

The major, who in point of fact looked on the present conversation only as a means of furthering his ends, tried to turn again to the lyrical style of poetry, in which his son had really achieved something praiseworthy. They did not gainsay him directly, but they tried jokingly to get him out of the path on which he had entered, particularly as he seemed to allude to passionate pieces, in which the son, not without force and ability, had tried to bring before the incomparable lady the decided inclination of his heart.

“Lovers’ lays,” said the lady, “I care neither to have said nor sung to me; happy lovers one envies before one is aware of it, and unhappy ones we always find tedious.”

Hereupon the elder lady, turning to her charming friend, struck in and said, “Why are we proceeding so indirectly and losing time in ceremonies towards a man whom we love and honor? Ought we not to confide to him that we have already the pleasure of knowing in part his charming poem, in which he describes the sturdy passion of the chase in all its details; and ought we not to beg him now to withhold longer from us the whole of it? Your son,” she continued, “has repeated to us with vivacity a few passages from memory, and made us curious to see it as a connected whole.”

But when the father was a second time about to revert to and extol the talents of his son, the ladies would not allow this to pass, denouncing it as an evident evasion for the purpose of declining indirectly to fulfil their wishes. He was not allowed to get off until he had unconditionally promised to send the poem; but after that the conversation took a turn, which prevented him from saying anything more in favor of his son, especially as the latter had dissuaded him from all importunity.

As it now seemed to be the time to take leave, and the friend too had already made some movement to that end, the beauty said, with a sort of embarrassment, which only made her still more beautiful, at the same time carefully arranging the knot of the letter-case, which had been newly tied: “Poets and amateurs have unfortunately been long in such sort of repute, that one ought not to rely too much upon their promises and agreements; pardon me, therefore, if I venture to call in doubt the word of an honorable man, and on that account purpose, not to ask, but to give a pledge, a token of faith. Take this letter-case; it has some resemblance to your hunting-poem: many recollections are attached to it, a long time has been spent in the work, at last it is finished; avail yourself of it as a messenger, in which to bring us your pleasing work.”

The major really felt struck at such an unexpected offer; the elegant splendor of this gift had so little relation to what habitually surrounded him, to everything else that he made use of, that although offered to him, he scarcely ventured to accept it; still, he collected himself, and as some treasure of traditional lore was never lacking to his memory, a classical passage immediately occurred to his mind. However, it would have been pedantic to quote it, and yet it suggested in him a bright thought, so that then and there he was able in a neat paraphrase to tender a friendly acknowledgment, and an elegant compliment in return. And thus the scene was closed in a satisfactory manner to all the interlocutors.

So, finally, he found himself, not without embarrassment, entangled in a pleasant connection: he had promised, had pledged himself to send, to write; and if the occasion in some measure seemed unsatisfactory, still he had to esteem as a piece of good fortune the fact that he was to remain in pleasant relations with the lady who, with all her great attractions, was to be so nearly allied to him. So he took his departure, not without a certain inward satisfaction; for how should the poet not feel such an encouragement as this, when his faithful and diligent work, that had so long lain unheeded, was now quite unexpectedly receiving amiable recognition?

Immediately after his return to his quarters, the major sat down to write, to inform his good sister of everything, and then nothing was more natural than that his whole style should betray a certain exultation, such as he himself felt, and which, by the remarks of his son interrupting him from time to time, was raised to a still higher degree.

Upon the baroness this letter made a very mingled impression; for although the circumstance — through which the union of her brother with Hilaria was likely to be facilitated and hastened — was in itself calculated to satisfy her completely, still the beautiful widow somehow failed to please her, though she would not have thought of taking herself to task on that account. We will take this opportunity of making the following observation:

An enthusiasm for any one woman, ought never to be confided to another; they know each other too well to believe themselves worthy of any such exclusive homage. Men appear to them as customers in a shop, where the tradesman, who knows his wares, has the best of it, and can also avail himself of the opportunity of displaying them in the best lights; whilst, on the other hand, the buyer always enters with a kind of innocence; he stands in need of the article, desires to have it, and but very rarely understands how to look at it with the eyes of an expert. The one knows very well what he is giving, the other does not always know what he is receiving. Yet once for all this cannot be changed in human life and converse — nay, it is even as legitimate as necessary; for all coveting and wooing, all buying and bartering, depends upon it.

In consequence of this sentiment, rather than reflection, the baroness could not be entirely satisfied either with the passion of the son or with the favorable description of the father; she found herself surprised by the fortunate turn of affairs, and yet she could not banish a foreboding, on account of the double disparity of age. Hilaria seems to her too young for her brother, the widow not young enough for the son; in the meanwhile the affair has taken a course which is not likely to be checked. A pious wish that all might end well arose with a subdued sigh. To relieve her heart, she seized a pen, and wrote to that friend of hers so well acquainted with mankind, and after a prefatory narrative, she thus continued:

“The method of this seductive widow is not unknown to me: she seems to decline all female company, and only to endure near her a woman who in no way prejudices her, who flatters her, and if her silent advantages are not sufficiently obvious, manages by words and an adroit treatment to recommend her to observation. Spectators, if sympathizers in such a performance, must be men; hence arises the necessity of enticing them and retaining them. I think no evil of the beautiful woman; she seems proper and discreet enough, but such a hankering vanity must doubtless sacrifice something to circumstances, and — what I regard as the worst — it is not all so considered and designed: a certain happy natural disposition guides and protects her, and nothing is more dangerous in a born coquette like her than an abandon resulting from innocence.”

The major, now at length arrived at his country house, devoted the day and hour to inspection and examination. He found himself in a situation to observe that a straightforward and well-grasped leading idea is in its execution subjected to manifold hindrances, and to the traversing of so many chances, to such a degree that the first idea almost vanishes, and for the moment seems to be utterly and completely lost, until in the midst of all the confusion the mind again perceives the possibility of success, when we see Time, the best ally of invincible endurance, offering us a hand.

And so too, here, there would have been the melancholy spectacle of fair and wide yet neglected possessions brought into a hopeless condition through the clever remarks of keen-witted economists, had it not at the same time been foreseen that a term of years, used with common-sense and honesty, are sufficient to reanimate what is dead, to bring into circulation what is stagnant, and so, by method and industry, to attain at last one’s end.

The good-natured Obermarschall had arrived, and with him, in fact, a grave lawyer; yet the latter caused the major less anxiety than the former, who was one of those people who have no fixed object, or, if they see one before them, decline the means of attaining it. Daily and hourly pleasure was the indispensable requirement of his life. After long hesitation, he had at last resolved in earnest to rid himself of his creditors, to shake off the burdens on his property, to put order into the confusion of his household, to enjoy without further anxieties a respectable and certain income; yet, for all that, not to discontinue even the smallest item of his previous habits.

On the whole he agreed to everything as to what his brother and sister were to pay for the undisturbed possession of the estate, and especially of the principal property; yet he would not completely forego his claims to a certain adjacent villa, to which every year on his birthday he invited his oldest friends and most recent acquaintances, nor to the ornamental gardens attached thereto that connected it with the principal building. The furniture was all to remain in the villa, the engravings on the walls; and, moreover, the fruit upon the espaliers was reserved to him. Peaches and strawberries of the most exquisite kind, pears and apples large and well-flavored, but particularly a certain kind of small gray apples, which he had been accustomed for many years to offer to the princess-dowager, were faithfully to be handed over to him. To this were added other conditions less important, but to the owner, the tenants, the overseers, and the gardeners, uncommonly burdensome.

For the rest the Obermarschall was in the best humor; for he did not relinquish the thought that all would ultimately be arranged according to his wishes, and as his sanguine temperament had anticipated; he therefore only troubled himself about a good dinner, and in an easy ride of a few hours obtained the requisite exercise, related story after story, and showed throughout a most cheerful countenance. In the same manner, too, he took his departure, thanked the major most handsomely for having treated him in such a brotherly manner, borrowed a little money, had the store of small gray apples, which this year had succeeded particularly well, carefully packed up, and with this treasure, which he intended to offer as a welcome compliment to the princess, he drove away to the dowager’s residence, where in due course he was received in a gracious and friendly manner.

The major, for his part, remained behind with totally opposite feelings, and would have been almost driven to despair at the restrictions that he found before him, if he had not been aided by that feeling which cheers and revives an active man when he has the hope of unravelling what is confused, and enjoying what has been unravelled.

Fortunately the lawyer happened to be an honest man, who, as he had a good deal else to do, soon settled the question. It was equally fortunate that a valet of the Obermarschall’s threw himself into it, and, on reasonable conditions, promised to co-operate in the affair, whereby a successful result might be hoped for. Satisfactory as this was, however, still the major, as a man of rectitude, felt, in the shifting pros and cons of this business, that satisfaction was only to be got through much that was unsatisfactory. But just as to women, the moment at which their hitherto uncontested beauty will become doubtful is in the highest degree painful, so also to men of a certain age, though still in the fulness of vigor, the faintest sense of insufficient power is extremely disagreeable, nay, in some degree painful.

Another circumstance, however, that occurred, which ought to have disturbed him, put him into the best humor. His cosmetical valet, who had not left him even during this country excursion, for some time back seemed to have struck into a fresh path, to which the major’s early rising, his daily rides and excursions, as also the admittance of many busy people — or even, during the Obermarschall’s presence, of many idle ones — seemed to compel him. For some time past he had excused the major all the small trifles, that only had a claim to engage the attention of an actor, but so much the more strictly did he hold fast to certain principal points, which hitherto had been obscured by a less important hocuspocus. He re-enforced everything which not only aimed at the appearance of health, but also was seriously supposed to maintain health itself, but particularly moderation in everything, and variety according to circumstances; attention likewise to the skin and hair, to eyebrows and teeth, to hands and nails, the most elegant form and neatest length of which this expert had long made his care. At the same time he stringently prescribed, over and over again, moderation in everything that is wont to throw a man off his balance; after which this professor of the art of beautification asked leave to go, because he could be of no further use to his master. At the same time one can imagine that he may well have wished himself back with his former patron, in order to be able to devote himself once more to the varied pleasures of a theatrical life.

And it really did the major a great deal of good to be again his own master. The sensible man needs only to keep himself under control, and he is happy. He could again freely indulge in his old exercise of riding, hunting, and of all pertaining thereto. The image of Hilaria in such solitary moments again came pleasantly forward, and he adapted himself to the condition of an engaged man — perhaps the most charming one that is allotted to us within the sphere of civilized life.

During a pause in the business that left him some liberty, he hurried to his estate, where, recollecting the promise given to the beautiful widow, which he had never forgotten, he rummaged among his poems, that were lying put away in excellent order; at the same time he put his hand on many note and memorandum-books, containing extracts from ancient and modern authors which he had read. Owing to his partiality for Horace and the Roman poets, most of them belonged to these, and it struck him that the passages chiefly expressed regrets for past time, and for a vanished state of things and feelings. Instead of many, we shall insert only the following passage:

Heu! . . . .

Quæ mens est hodie, cur eadem non puero fuit?

Vel cur his animis incolumes non redeunt genæ?

Translation.

To-day how full I am of glee,

Content in heart and clear in thought;

But when my boyish blood flowed free,

How gloomy was I and distraught!

Yet, when I feel the years behind,

However joyous I may be,

Those ruddy cheeks I call to mind,

And wish they still remained to me.

Our friend having very soon found the hunting-poem among his well-arranged papers, he congratulated himself on the careful calligraphy, as years ago he had written it down in most elegant style, with Roman characters, in large octavo. The precious letter-case, being of considerable size, would contain the poem quite conveniently, and not often has an author seen himself so magnificently bound. A few lines on the subject were absolutely necessary; but prose was scarcely admissible. That Ovidian passage again occurred to him, and he thought he would best manage the matter by a poetical transcription, as he had on the other occasion by a prose one. It ran as follows:

Nec factas solum vestes spectare juvabat,

Tum quoque, dum fierent: tantus decor adfuit arti

Translation.

I watch’d it when in hands well skill’d —

(How I recall that season sweet!) —

It grew and grew, until fulfill’d

In splendor never so complete;

And, true enough, ‘t is now my own,

Yet, to myself alone I tell,

I wish it still were not quite done —

I loved its making all too well!

With this transposition our friend did not long remain satisfied; he regretted the conversion of the beautifully inflected verb fierent into a sorry abstract substantive, and he was vexed that, in spite of all reflection, he was unable to mend the passage. Now all at once his partiality for the ancient languages awoke again, and the splendor of the German Parnassus, the heights of which, however, he was privately striving to ascend, seemed to grow dim before him.

But at last, finding that this pleasant compliment, apart from the original text, was good enough, and venturing to believe that a lady would accept it quite in good part, there arose a second source of misgiving, namely, that if one cannot be galant in verse without seeming to be in love, he would in that case, as a father-in-law about to be, be playing a strange part. The worst, however, occurred to him last. The Ovidian verses were uttered by Arachne, a lady spinner no less clever than beautiful and attractive. Now, if she through the envy of Minerva was turned into a spider, then it would be dangerous to compare even remotely a beautiful woman with a spider, and see her hovering at the centre of an outspread net. Among all the witty company which surrounded our lady, could one imagine any scholar who would have blundered into a comparison of this kind? How our friend extricated himself from such a dilemma has remained unknown to us, and we must number this case among those over which the muses slyly make bold to throw a veil. Enough, the hunting-poem itself was despatched; but about this we have to add a few words.

The reader of it is supposed to revel in a determined love of sport, and of everything that contributes to it; delightful is the succession of the seasons, which in different ways occasion and promote it. The peculiarities of all the creatures that are pursued and that one seeks to kill, the different characters of the sportsmen who devote themselves to this pleasure, to this toil, the accidents that favor or hinder it — all, especially whatever related to the winged tribe, was set forth in the best of moods, and treated with great originality. From the breeding of the grouse to the second flight of the woodcock, and from that to the building of the crow, nothing was neglected; all was well observed, clearly conceived, passionately pursued, and was lightly, playfully, and often ironically set forth.

The elegiac strain, however, sounded throughout the whole; it was treated rather as a farewell to these pleasures of life, whereby it indeed gained a pathetic touch as of a merry life spent, and had a very beneficial effect, but yet in the end, as in the case of those mottoes above cited, allowed a certain emptiness after enjoyment to be felt. Whether it was due to turning over these papers, or to a momentary indisposition, the major did not feel in a happy mood. At the diverging point at which he found himself, he seemed all at once to feel keenly that the years at first bring us one pleasant gift after the other, and then by degrees withdraw them again. A holiday put off, a summer gone without enjoyment, want of continual, habitual exercise — all caused him to feel certain bodily ailments, which he took for real evils, and showed more impatience thereat than there might seem occasion for.

The various members of the family had now been for several months without any special news of one another; the major was busy in the capital finally negotiating certain grants and confirmations appertaining to his affairs; the baroness and Hilaria bestowed their energies upon securing the gayest and richest outfit; the son, passionately devoting himself to his fair one, seemed to forget everything in that. The winter had set in, and enveloped all rural habitations in dismal rain-storms and premature gloom.

Anyone who at this time might have lost his way on a dark November night in the neighborhood of the noble castle, and seen by the feeble light of the half-veiled moon cornfields, meadows, clumps of trees, hills and underwood lying gloomily before him, and then all at once at a sharp turning round a corner have beheld in front of him the whole range of windows of an extensive edifice lit up, might well have thought that he had there fallen in with a company in festive array. Yet how would he have been astonished, when ushered up the illuminated staircase by a few servants, to see only three women — the baroness, Hilaria, and the ladies’-maid, in the lighted apartments within those bright walls, among hospitable domestic surroundings, thoroughly warm and comfortable.

Yet, since we suppose that we are surprising the baroness in a festive array, it is necessary to observe, that this splendid illumination is in this case not to be regarded as anything extraordinary, but that it is one of the peculiarities that the lady had brought with her from her earlier life. As the daughter of a lady-in-waiting, educated at court, she was wont to prefer the winter to all other seasons, and to make the display of a grand illumination the chief element of all her enjoyments. In fact there was no stint of wax candles, but one of her oldest servants had such a great delight in artificial illumination, that it was not easy for a new kind of lamp to be invented without his taking pains to introduce it into the castle, whereby surely enough the illumination gained considerably, but it also occasionally happened that here and there partial darkness was the result.

By her marriage with a distinguished landowner and eminent cultivator, the baroness, from affection and on due consideration, had changed her condition of a lady at court, and her sensible husband, when at first a country life failed to suit her, had, with the consent of his neighbors, nay, even at the injunction of the government, so much improved the roads for many miles round, that the intercommunication of the neighborhood had never been found anywhere in such a good condition; yet in this laudable improvement the principal object had really been that the lady, especially in favorable weather, might be able to drive everywhere; but in winter, on the other hand, she might remain at home with him, whilst he managed, by means of artificial light, to make night like day. After her husband’s death, her passionate solicitude for her daughter afforded her sufficient occupation, her brother’s frequent visits gratified her affection, and the habitual brightness of her surroundings gave a degree of comfort which had all the appearance of real contentment.

To-day, however, this illumination was altogether in place, for in one of the rooms we see displayed a kind of Christmas-show, attractive and resplendent to the sight. The cunning ladies’-maid had prevailed on the butler to increase the illumination, and at the same time had collected and spread out all that had been prepared beforehand for Hilaria’s marriage outfit — in point of fact with the sly purpose rather of bringing under discussion what was still wanting, than of showing off what had already been provided. All the needful things were there, made, moreover, of the finest material, and with the most elegant handiwork; neither was there any lack of fancy articles; and yet Ananetta was clever enough still to make a gap visible everywhere, where one could just as easily have found the most beautiful continuity. Whilst all sorts of under-clothing, handsomely set out, dazzled the eyes, linen, muslin, and all delicate fabrics of the kind, whatever their names might be, casting light enough around, yet all the colored silk-stuffs were missing, for the purchase of those had been wisely deferred, because, considering the very changeable fashions, it was intended to add whatever was most recent as a climax and conclusion.

After this most merry inspection, they betook themselves again to their customary but varied evening entertainment. The baroness, who knew well what makes a young lady endowed with a pleasant exterior attractive also from within, and her presence desirable wheresoever fate might lead her, had managed to introduce into these rural surroundings so many varied and instructive means of amusement, that Hilaria, young as she was, seemed at home everywhere, was not at a loss in any conversation, and yet showed herself withal quite on a level with her years. To show step by step how this had been possible, would be too long a task; enough to say, this evening also was a sample of the kind of life they had hitherto led Intellectual reading, a graceful piano recital, pretty songs, went on for some hours, pleasantly and in due order as heretofore, and yet not without a certain significance; they had in mind a third person, a beloved and honored man, to welcome whom in the heartiest manner they were practising this and much besides. It was a bridal feeling that animated Hilaria, and not her alone, with the sweetest sensations; the mother, with delicate sentiment, felt an unalloyed sympathy therein, and even Ananetta, in general only scheming and busy, was fain to abandon herself to certain distant hopes, which pictured to her fancy an absent friend as returning and present. In this manner the feelings of all three women, each of them amiable in her own way, were in harmony with the surrounding brightness, with the cheering warmth, and with the most comfortable circumstances.

CHAPTER V.

A violent knocking and shouting at the outermost gate — an interchange of threatening and peremptory voices — lamp and torch-light in the courtyard — interrupted the gentle singing. Yet the noise had subsided before they had learned the cause of it, but quiet there was not: on the staircase the trample and quick discussing of men ascending. The door sprang open without any announcement; the ladies were terrified. Flavio rushed in in the most forlorn condition, with disordered head, on which the hair was partly ruffled up and partly hanging down drenched with rain; with tattered clothes, like one who has been rushing through thorns and bushes, dreadfully soiled, as if he had been wading through a mire and marsh.

“My father!” he exclaimed, “Where is my father?”

The ladies were out of their wits; the old huntsman, his earliest servant and favorite attendant, entering along with him, called out to him, “Your father is not here; calm yourself; here is your aunt, here is your cousin, see here!”

“Not here! then let me go away and find him. He alone shall hear it, and then I will die! Let me get away from the lamps, from the light of day. It dazzles me, it annihilates me.”

The house physician came in, seized his hand cautiously, feeling his pulse; several servants were standing anxiously around.

“What am I doing on these carpets? I am spoiling them, I am ruining them; my wretchedness drips down upon them, my abject destiny defiles them!”

He rushed towards the door; they took advantage of this effort to lead him away, and take him to the distant guest-chamber that his father usually occupied. Mother and daughter stood aghast; they had seen an Orestes chased by furies, not ennobled by art, but in a horrible repugnant reality, which in contrast with the comfort of a splendid dwelling in the brightest glow of waxen lights seemed only the more fearful. Terror-stricken, the women looked at one another, and each believed that she saw in the eyes of the other the picture of horror that had impressed itself so deeply on her own.

Only half herself, the baroness sent one servant after another to get information. It was some consolation to hear that he was being undressed, dried, and taken care of; that half consciously, half unwittingly, he allowed all this to be done. On repeating their inquiries, they were counselled to have patience.

At last the anxious ladies were informed that he had been bled, and in other respects every possible soothing remedy employed; he had been brought to a quiet condition, and sleep was hoped for.

Midnight arrived; the baroness asked to see him if he was asleep; the physician opposed — the physician yielded; Hilaria pressed in with her mother. The room was dimly lighted, only one candle glistened behind the green screen, there was little to be seen, nothing to be heard; the mother approached the bed, Hilaria with eager longing seized the candle and threw the light upon the sleeper. There he lay, turned away from them, but a very well-formed ear, a rounded cheek, now somewhat pale, peeped forth most gracefully among the locks that by this time curled again; a hand lying quietly, with its long, delicate, yet strong fingers, attracted the wandering glance. Hilaria, breathing gently, thought that she even perceived his gentle breathing; she brought the light nearer, like Psyche, at the risk of disturbing this most wholesome rest. The physician took the candle away and lighted the ladies to their rooms.

How these kind persons, so worthy of all sympathy, spent the hours of night, has remained a secret from us; but early the next morning they both showed themselves very impatient. There was no end to their questioning, to their desire to see the patient, proffered diffidently yet urgently; only towards midday the physician allowed a short visit.

The baroness stepped forward; Flavio extended his hand.

“Pardon, dearest aunt; only a little patience, perhaps not for long.”

Hilaria came forward; to her, too, he gave his right hand. “Welcome, dear sister.”

This went through her heart: he did not leave hold; they looked at one another, the most beauteous pair, a contrast in the finest sense. The youth’s black, flashing eyes harmonized with the dark tangled locks; she, on the other hand, stood, to all appearance divine in peace, and yet with the agitating past was now associated the present full of foreboding. That name, sister! — her inmost heart was stirred.

The baroness spoke: “How are you, dear nephew?”

“Pretty well, but they treat me badly.”

“How so?”

“They have bled me; it is cruel; they have carried it away, it was audacious; it does not belong to me, it is all — all hers.”

With these words his face seemed to change, but with hot tears he hid his face in the pillow.

Hilaria’s countenance betrayed to her mother a terrible expression; it was as if the dear child saw the gates of hell open before her, and for the first time looked on a monster, and forever. Swiftly, passionately, she hurried through the saloon, threw herself in the last chamber upon the sofa; her mother followed, and asked what, alas! she already perceived.

Hilaria, looking up in a strange way, cried, “The blood, the blood! it all belongs to her — all to her, and she is not worthy of it. Unhappy man! poor man!”

With these words, the bitterest storm of tears relieved the agonized heart.

Who is there that would undertake to reveal the situation that was developing itself from the foregoing scene — to bring to light the inward mischief for the women growing from this first meeting? To the patient, too, it was in the highest degree hurtful; so at least affirmed the physician, who came, it is true, often enough to impart news and to give consolation, but who felt himself in duty bound to forbid all further visiting. In this also he found a willing obedience; the daughter did not venture to ask what her mother would not have allowed, and so the order of the sensible gentleman was obeyed. But, on the other hand, he brought the welcome tidings that Flavio had asked for writing materials, and written down something, but had forthwith hidden it close by him in the bed. Curiosity was now added to their remaining restlessness and impatience; those were painful hours. After some time, however, he brought a scrap, written in a fine free hand, although hastily; it contained the following lines:

A marvel comes poor Man into the world,

In marvels lost Man to and fro is hurl’d.

With steps uncertain, hard it is to tell

To what dark gate he wends his pathless way;

For in heaven’s living light and midmost ray

I see, I feel but night, and death, and hell.

So here once again could the noble art of poetry display its healing power. Intimately associated with music, she heals all sorrows of the soul from its very depths, whilst powerfully arousing, evoking, and putting them to flight with liberating pangs. The physician had convinced himself that the youth would soon be well; sound in body, he would soon feel cheerful again, if the passion weighing upon his mind could be removed or mitigated. Hilaria meditated upon a reply; she sat down to the piano, and tried to accompany the lines of the patient with a melody. She did not succeed; nothing in her soul responded to such deep grief; yet, at this attempt, rhythm and rhyme accommodated themselves to such a degree to her ideas, that she responded to the poem with soothing cheerfulness, and taking her time, composed and worked up the following strophe:

Though still in very depths of woe and pain,

Thou ‘rt destined for the joys of youth again.

Arise and man thyself for health’s quick pace!

To friendship’s clear and heavenly light be led;

Midst good and true ones find a resting-place —

So may life’s joyous dew be o’er thee shed!

The medical friend of the family took charge of the missive; it succeeded, the youth already replied in a moderate tone; Hilaria continued soothingly, and thus, little by little, they seemed to gain daylight and open ground once more, and perhaps we may be allowed, when occasion serves, to describe the whole course of this pleasing treatment. Enough, some time was spent most pleasantly in this sort of occupation; a quiet interview was being arranged beforehand, and the physician no longer thought it necessary to defer it.

In the meantime the baroness had busied herself in sorting and arranging old papers, and this occupation, which so completely accorded with present circumstances, acted wonderfully upon her excited spirit. She passed in review many years of her own life; deep, threatening sorrows had gone by, the reconsideration of which strengthened her courage for the present moment; particularly was she moved by the recollection of her beautiful friendship with Makaria, and indeed under trying circumstances. The excellence of that unique woman was again brought to her mind, and she at once formed the resolution of applying to her on this occasion also; for to whom else could she express her present feelings, to whom else candidly avow her fears and hopes?

But in the midst of her researches she found amongst other things her brother’s miniature portrait, and was forced with a smile to sigh at its likeness to the son. Hilaria surprised her at this moment, possessed herself of the portrait, and she too was strangely struck with the resemblance.

Some time passed thus; at last, with the assent of the physician, and attended by him, Flavio, after having been announced, came in to breakfast. The women had been afraid of this first appearance; but as it very often happens in important, nay, in terrible moments, that something amusing, or even ridiculous, will take place, so it happened here. The son came in dressed completely in his father’s clothes; for nothing of his own suit was wearable; they had availed themselves of the major’s country and home wardrobe, which he had left in his sister’s keeping in readiness for shooting or house wear. The baroness laughed, and recovered herself; Hilaria was startled, she knew not why; at all events she turned her face away, and at this moment would give the youth neither a cordial word nor a phrase of greeting. However, in order to help the whole party out of their embarrassment, the doctor began a comparison of the two figures. The father was somewhat taller, he said, and for that reason the coat was a little too long; the son was slightly broader, and the coat therefore was too tight across the shoulders. Both differences of proportion gave a comical appearance to this disguise; yet, with these trifles, they escaped the momentary difficulty. To Hilaria, however, the likeness between the juvenile effigy of the father and the fresh living presence of the son remained discomforting — nay, oppressive.

But now we might well have wished to see the next interval of time circumstantially described by a woman’s delicate hand, since in our own style and manner we venture to occupy ourselves only with the general. For here the discourse must again be of the influence of poetic art.

Our Flavio must be credited with a certain amount of talent; but it needed only too much a passionate, sensual impulse, if it was to have any striking success; and it was on that account that almost all the poems dedicated to that irresistible woman seemed in the highest degree impressive and praiseworthy, and now, when read aloud with enthusiastic delivery in the presence of a most amiable beauty, must needs produce no little effect.

A young lady, who sees that another is loved passionately, willingly accommodates herself to the rôle of a confidante; she nourishes a secret, scarcely conscious feeling, that it would certainly not be unpleasant to see herself gently elevated to the place of the adored one. The conversation also became more and more significant. Responsive poems, such as a lover likes to compose, because, though but diffidently, he can half-and-half reply to himself, as from his fair one, what he himself wishes, and what he could hardly expect to hear from her own beautiful lips. Such poems, too, were read alternately with Hilaria, and in fact, as it could only be from the one manuscript, into which both had to look to strike in at the right time, and to this end both had to hold the little volume, it so came to pass that, sitting close together, little by little body and hand drew ever nearer, and at last, quite naturally, the contact was secretly maintained.

But amidst these sweet relations, in spite of the charming delight which they caused, Flavio felt a painful anxiety, which he concealed but ill, and longing continually for his father’s arrival, made it evident that he had to confide the most important thing to him. This secret, meanwhile, it would not have been difficult to guess with a little reflection. The charming woman, in a moment of excitement, provoked by the youth’s importunities, may have peremptorily dismissed the unhappy one, and have banished and destroyed the hope which he had hitherto obstinately cherished. We have not ventured to depict the scene in which this may have passed, from fear that the fire of youth might fail us here. In short, he had been so beside himself, that he had left the garrison in haste without leave, and in order to find his father, he had attempted in despair to reach his aunt’s country house through night, storm, and rain, — where, too, we lately saw him arrive. On the return of sober reflection, the consequences of such a step occurred vividly to him, and, as his father still remained absent, and he would have to dispense with the only possible mediation, he was unable either to compose or help himself.

How surprised and struck he therefore felt when a letter from his colonel was handed to him, the well-known seal of which he broke with hesitation and anxiety, but which, after the most friendly words, ended to the effect that the leave allowed him would be prolonged for another month.

Inexplicable as this favor seemed to him, still he felt freed thereby from a burden which began to weigh upon his mind almost more painfully than even his rejected love. He now thoroughly felt the happiness of being so well received by his amiable relations; he dared to rejoice in Hilaria’s presence, and, after a short time, recovered all the agreeable social qualities which for a time had rendered him necessary to the beautiful widow herself as well as to her circle, and which had been overclouded only by his peremptory claim to her hand forever.

In this frame of mind he could wait well enough for his father to come, and they were stimulated into an active way of life by natural events that intervened. The continuous rain, that up to this time had kept them together in the castle, pouring down in torrents, had caused the rivers everywhere to rise one after the other; dams had burst, and the region below the castle lay like a smooth lake, out of which the villages, farms, and country houses, big and little, being situated upon hills, looked for all the world like so many islands.

For such emergencies — rare enough, yet possible — people were prepared: the housewife gave her orders, the servants carried them out. After the first universal rendering of assistance, bread was baked, oxen were slaughtered, fishing-boats rowed to and fro extending help and provisions in all directions. Everything was carried out pleasantly and well, what was kindly given was gladly and thankfully received; only at one place the distributing officials of the commune were not trusted. Flavio undertook the duty, and with a well-laden boat rowed quickly and safely to the place. Transacting the simple business in a simple manner, he succeeded completely; moreover, rowing further, our youth discharged a commission which Hilaria had given him at parting. Just in the midst of these calamitous days the confinement of a woman, in whom the good child was especially interested, had taken place. Flavio found the patient, and took back home the thanks of all, and hers in particular. Amidst all this there could be no lack of things to talk of. If not one had perished, yet there was much to tell of wonderful rescues, of strange, of amusing, nay, even of ludicrous occurrences; many trying circumstances were described in an interesting manner. In short, Hilaria felt all at once an irresistible desire to make an expedition too, to congratulate the sick woman, to distribute gifts, and to spend a few pleasant hours.

FLAVIO AND HILARIA SKATING.

After a little opposition on the part of her good mother, Hilaria’s lively determination to try the adventure at last prevailed, and we willingly admit that in the course of these events, as they became known to us, we were to some degree concerned, lest some danger might be hovering here, such as shipwreck, capsizing of the boat, or mortal peril to the fair one, and, on the youth’s part, a bold rescue, drawing still tighter the loosely-knotted bond. But of all this there was no question; the expedition went off successfully; the invalid was visited and received a present; the doctor’s company was not without a good effect; and if here or there a little obstacle was met with, if the appearance of a critical moment seemed to alarm the rowers, it nevertheless all ended in a sly joke to the effect that one said he had noticed in another an anxious air, increased embarrassment, or a timid gesture. In the meantime the mutual confidence had considerably increased; the habit of seeing each other, and of being together under all conditions, had been strengthened, and the dangerous situation — when relationship and inclination alternately assume a right to approach and take possession — became more and more critical.

And yet they were to be gracefully enticed still further and further along this path of love. The sky cleared up, and, agreeably with the season, a hard frost set in; the waters froze before they could flow away. Then to the eyes of all the aspect of the world was all at once changed; what had just been separated by the flood was now again connected by a hardened floor, and forthwith there appeared, as a desirable coadjutor, that beautiful art, which was invented in the far North, to glorify the first speedy winter days, and to give new life to the frozen. The lumber-room was opened, each sought his own marked skates, anxious, even at some risk, to be the first to cross the pure smooth expanse. Among the household there were many who were practised to the highest degree of activity; for almost every year they had this enjoyment on the neighboring lakes and connecting canals; but this time it was on a far more extensive surface.

Flavio only now felt thoroughly well, and Hilaria, who had had her uncle’s instruction from her earliest years, showed herself no less charming than energetic upon the newly-made floor. They sped about merrily, and yet more merrily, sometimes together, sometimes separately, sometimes apart, and sometimes hand-in-hand. Separation and avoidance, which in general weigh so heavily on the heart, became in this instance but small and laughable evils; they fled each other only to meet again the next moment.

Yet in the midst of this joy and gladness there moved also a world of necessity. Certain places still remained only half provided for; swiftly now did the most necessary articles speed to and fro upon bravely-drawn sledges, and, what was of still more advantage to the district, from many places that lay too far from the nearest high-road they could now quickly transport the products of farming and husbandry to the nearest depots of the towns and small boroughs, and from there bring back wares of all kinds. Thus, all at once, an ill-fated district, suffering the bitterest want, was once more rescued, once more cared for, connected as it was by a smooth surface open to the skilful and the bold.

Neither did the young couple omit, in the midst of the ruling pastime, to call to mind many duties due to kindly associations. The new mother was visited and supplied with every necessary. Others, too, were visited; old people, about whose health they were anxious; clergymen, with whom they had laudably been accustomed to keep up an edifying intercourse, and whom in this present trial they found still more worthy of esteem; small farmers, who in past times had settled down boldly enough in dangerous low-lying ground, but who this time being protected by well-built dams had remained unharmed, and after incessant alarms were doubly delighted with their escape. Every farm, every house, every family, nay, every single individual, had his story to tell; he had become to himself, and often to others also, an important personage; and so it happened that one narrator easily fell into the groove of another. Every one hurried in speaking, doing, coming and going, for there was always the danger that a sudden thaw might destroy the whole beautiful round of happy intercourse, threatening the householders, and cutting off the guests from their homes.

If the day was thus occupied in swift movement, and in the keenest interest, the evening afforded also in quite another way the pleasantest of hours; for skating has this advantage over all other bodily exercises, that in it effort does not overheat, nor long continuance fatigue. The limbs all seem to become more pliant, and every expenditure of strength to generate fresh strength, so at last a blissful, mobile state of rest comes over us, in which we are tempted to lull ourselves forever.

And so to-day our young couple could not tear themselves away from the smooth floor; each turn towards the lighted castle, where a large company was already assembled, was suddenly counter-turned, and a retreat into the distance preferred; they did not like to keep apart, for fear of losing each other; they held each other’s hand, to be sure of each being there. But sweetest of all seemed the motion when arms lay crosswise on shoulders, and dainty fingers played unconsciously in each other’s locks.

The full moon rose in the star-bespangled firmament, and completed the magic of the surroundings. They again saw each other distinctly, and mutually sought, as ever, for a response in the shaded eyes; but it seemed to be elsewhere. From the depths of their hearts a light seemed to beam forth, and betray what the mouth wisely forbore to utter; they both felt themselves in a mood of quiet joy.

All the high-growing willows and alders by the ditches, each lowly shrub on the heights and hills, had become distant; the stars glowed, the cold had increased — they felt nothing of it, and glided along the moon’s reflection, leading far into the distance straight towards the heavenly globe itself. Then they looked up, and saw in the flickering reflection a man’s form gliding to and fro, who seemed to be following his shadow, and dark himself, but surrounded by light, to be striding towards them; involuntarily they turned away; to encounter anyone would be unpleasant. They avoided the figure, that continued to move hither and thither, and seemed not to be observed. They pursued their direct path towards the castle; yet all at once their quiet composure forsook them, for the figure more than once circled round the startled couple. By chance they had reached the side in shadow; the stranger, illuminated by the full splendor of the moon, made straight towards them; he stood close in front of them — it was impossible not to recognize the father.

Hilaria, stopping short, in her surprise lost her balance and fell to the ground; Flavio at the same time dropped on one knee, and caught her head up to his breast; she hid her face, she did not know what had happened to her.

“I will fetch a sledge, there is one just passing below there; here I shall look for you again, close by these three tall alders!”

So spoke the father, and was already far off. Hilaria gathered herself up against the youth.

“Let us fly!” she exclaimed, “for this I cannot bear!”

She sped hastily towards the other side of the castle, so that Flavio was only able to overtake her with an effort; he spoke to her in the tenderest words.

It is impossible to paint the inward state of the three confused wanderers in the moonlight, now benighted on the smooth surface. Enough, they arrived at the castle late, the young couple singly, not daring to touch or approach one another, the father with the empty sledge, which, eager to assist her, he had driven fruitlessly far and wide around. Music and dancing were already proceeding: Hilaria, under the pretext of painful results from a bad fall, hid herself in her room; Flavio willingly left the first dance and the arrangement to certain young fellows, who in his absence had already taken them into their hands; the major did not put in an appearance, and thought it strange, although he was not unexpected, to find his room as if inhabited; his own clothes, linen, and articles lying about, only not in such good order as he was accustomed to. The lady of the house discharged all her duties with dignified restraint, and how glad was she when, all the guests being properly provided for, she at last had leisure for an explanation with her brother. It was soon over; but it needed time for him to recover from his surprise, to comprehend what was so unexpected, to remove doubts, to overcome anxiety. A solution of the riddle, relief to the mind, was not to be thought of at once.

Our readers are probably convinced, that from this point onward in relating our story, we must no longer proceed by depicting, but by narrating and reflecting, if we desire to penetrate the respective moods of the actors, upon which everything now depends, and render them present to our minds.

We announce therefore, in the first place, that the major, since we lost sight of him, had been devoting his time continuously to the family business, but in this, in spite of the beautiful simplicity in which it lay before him, he still met with unexpected hindrances in many details. For, in general, it is not so easy to unravel a confused condition of long standing, and to wind all the many tangled threads into one ball. As he had accordingly often to change his locality, in order to push on his business in different places and with different persons, his sister’s letters only reached him slowly and irregularly. He first heard of his son’s distracted mental condition and his illness; then he heard about a leave of absence, which he did not understand. That Hilaria’s affection was on the point of changing remained unknown to him, for how could his sister have informed him of that? Upon the news of the floods he hastened his journey, but only after the frost had set in did he arrive at the ice-fields, when he procured skates, sent servants and horses by a side-road to the castle, and setting off at a rapid pace towards it, he arrived, in a night as clear as day, just as he saw the lighted windows in the distance, in time to behold a most joyless sight, and thus had fallen into the most unpleasant complication with himself.

The transition from inner truth to outward reality is, in the contrast, always painful; and ought not love and constancy to have just the same privileges as parting and forsaking? And yet, when one person leaves another, an awful chasm is created in the soul, in which many a heart has before now perished. Indeed the illusion, so long as it lasts, has an unconquerable truth, and only manly, active spirits become elevated and strengthened by the recognition of an error. A discovery of this kind raises them above themselves; they stand elevated beyond themselves, and seeing the old road barred, look quickly round about for a new one, which they forthwith cheerfully and bravely enter on. Innumerable are the difficulties in which a man in such moments finds himself involved; innumerable also the remedies which an inventive nature is able to discover within its own powers, or, where these do not suffice, to indicate, in kindly mood, outside its own domain.

Fortunately, however, the major, without any wish or endeavor of his own, was already half-consciously in his inmost heart prepared for an event of this kind. Since he had dispensed with his cosmetic valet, to abandon himself to his natural way of life, and had ceased to make any claims in the matter of appearance, he found himself, as it were, curtailed in respect to physical enjoyment. He felt the inconvenience of a transition from a first lover to a tender father; and yet this latter part would continually press itself more and more upon him. Anxiety as to Hilaria’s fate and that of his own family was always foremost in his thoughts, whilst the feeling of love, of attachment, the desire of a still nearer presence, were only disclosed later. And when he thought of Hilaria in his arms, it was her happiness that he cherished, that he longed to procure, rather than the bliss of possessing her. Nay, if he wished purely and simple to enjoy the thought of her, he had first to remember the divinely expressed affection, he had first to think of that moment in which she had so unexpectedly devoted herself to him.

But now having, on the brightest of nights, seen before him a young couple in close conjunction, the most charming of beings swooning in the arms of the youth, neither of them heeding his promise of returning with assistance, nor waiting for him at the place which he so precisely indicated, but vanishing in the darkness, whilst he himself was left in the most dismal state of mind: who could feel all this and not in his heart despair?

The family, so accustomed to harmony, and hoping for a still closer union, kept aloof from one another in dismay. Hilaria obstinately kept her room; the major braced himself to learn from his son the previous events. The misfortune had been occasioned by a feminine caprice on the part of the beautiful widow. In order not to surrender her hitherto passionate adorer Flavio to another amiable woman, who betrayed designs upon him, she bestows on him more obvious favor than is legitimate. Excited and encouraged by this, he passionately attempts to pursue his aim to an unreasonable extent, whence at first arises opposition and disagreement; and at last a decisive rupture irrevocably puts an end to the whole connection.

To paternal indulgence nothing remains but to pity, and if possible to retrieve the errors of their children, when they have tragic consequences; but if they pass off more smoothly than was to be hoped, to pardon and to forget. After a little reflection and persuasion, then, Flavio set out for the newly-acquired possessions, to attend, instead of his father, to a number of matters, and there he was to remain until the expiration of his leave of absence, when he would again have to join his regiment, which in the meantime had been transferred to another garrison.

To the major it was a business of several days to open all the letters and packets that had accumulated at his sister’s house during his long absence. Among the rest he found a letter from his cosmetical friend, the well-preserved actor. He having been informed by the transferred valet about the major’s situation, and his intention of marrying, submitted to him, in the best of humors, the considerations that one ought to keep in sight in such undertakings; he treated the matter after his own fashion, and gave as his opinion that, for a man at a certain time of life, the surest cosmetic was to abstain from the fair sex, and to enjoy a laudable and convenient state of freedom. So the major, smiling, handed the note to his sister, jokingly, it is true, yet at the same time hinting seriously enough at the importance of its contents. Meanwhile, too, a poem had occurred to him on this occasion, the rhythmic expression of which does not immediately concern us, but of which the contents were marked by happy metaphors and elegant phraseology:

“The belated moon, still beaming chastely through the night, pales before the rising sun; the love-dream of age vanishes in the presence of passionate youth; the fir, that in the winter seems fresh and vigorous, in spring looks brown and discolored by the side of the bright-green shoots of the birch.”

However, we do not wish to give any special recommendation here either to philosophy or poetry as the decisive helpmates to a final resolution; for as a trifling circumstance may have the weightiest consequences, so also it often decides when wavering thoughts prevail, by inclining the balance to one side or the other. The major, a short time before, had lost one of his front teeth, and he was afraid of losing the other. In his present frame of mind an obvious artificial reparation was not to be thought of, and, with this defect, to woo a young sweetheart began to seem altogether humiliating to him, especially now when he found himself under the same roof with her. Earlier or later a circumstance of this kind would have had little effect, but such an accident happening just at this moment must needs be in the highest degree repugnant to any man accustomed to a sound state of health. He feels as if the keystone of his organic being were removed, and the rest of the arch were also threatening little by little to fall in by degrees.

However this might be, the major very soon spoke prudently and sensibly to his sister about a situation that seemed so confused: they had both to confess that, in point of fact, they had reached only by a roundabout way a goal quite near to that from which they had by accident, through external instigation — misled by the error of an inexperienced child — unwittingly diverged; they determined that nothing was more natural than to remain in this path, to bring about the union of the two children, and then to devote to them faithfully and constantly every paternal care that it was within their power to provide. Completely agreeing with her brother, the baroness went to Hilaria in the room. She was sitting at the piano, singing to an accompaniment of her own, and immediately, with a cheerful glance and a bow, invited the visitor, who greeted her, to listen. It was a pleasant, soothing song, which expressed in the singer a mood that could not have been wished better.

After she had finished she stood up, and before the elder lady, who was thinking, could begin her harangue, she began to speak: “Dearest mother! it was well that we were so long silent about this most important affair; I thank you for not having up to this time touched this chord; but now perhaps it is time to come to an explanation, if it so pleases you. What do you think about the matter?”

The baroness, highly delighted at the quietness and gentleness to which she found her daughter disposed, began at once a sensible retrospect of the past time, of her brother’s personal qualities and merits; she granted the impression, which the only man of worth — who had ever been so familiarly acquainted with a young girl — must necessarily make upon a free heart, and out of this feeling, instead of childlike reverence and confidence, could develop an inclination which manifested itself as love and passion. Hilaria listened attentively, and by looks and gestures of assent testified her complete agreement. The mother passed on to the son, and the girl now cast down her long eyelashes; and although the speaker did not find such praiseworthy arguments in favor of the younger man as she had managed to bring forward for the father, yet she dwelt chiefly on the similarity of the two, on the advantage that youth gave him, who, if chosen as a fully espoused companion for life, doubtless promised in time, as was reasonable, to become a complete development of his father’s character. In this, too, Hilaria seemed to think in the same way, although a somewhat more serious glance and an eye frequently downcast betrayed an emotion in this case very natural. Hereupon the conversation turned on the external, happy, and in some measure controlling, circumstances. The effected reconciliation, the handsome profit accruing for the present, the prospects that enlarged themselves in many directions, all were truthfully presented to the mind’s eye, and finally she could not fail to hint how Hilaria herself must remember that she had at an earlier time been betrothed, even if it were only in fun, to her half-grown-up cousin. From all this her mother now drew the self-evident conclusion, that with her own and the uncle’s consent, the union of the young people might now take place without delay.

Hilaria, looking and speaking calmly, replied, that she could not allow this inference to pass forthwith, and brought forward, admirably and gracefully, on the other side all that a delicate mind is sure to feel in common with her, and which we do not undertake to express in words.

Rational people, when they have devised any sensible plan as to how this or that embarrassment may be overcome, how this or that end may be attained, and for this purpose have elucidated and arranged all imaginable arguments, will feel most disagreeably surprised when those who ought to co-operate towards their own happiness are found to be of an entirely different mind, and, from motives lying deep in their hearts, oppose themselves to that which is as commendable as it is necessary. They interchanged arguments without convincing one another: the rational would not penetrate the purely sentimental, and feeling would not accommodate itself to the useful, the necessary; the conversation grew warm, the sharp edge of reason smote the already wounded heart, which now no longer in moderation but passionately revealed its own condition, so that at last the mother herself withdrew dumbfoundered before the high-mindedness and dignity of the young girl, as she put forward, with energy and truth, the indecency, nay, the criminality, of such a union.

One can imagine in what a state of confusion the baroness returned to her brother, and can probably sympathize, though, it may be, not completely, with what the major — who, flattered in his innermost soul by this decided refusal, stood before his sister satisfied and yet hopeless — gained from this defeat, and thus felt that he justified with his conscience a situation which had become to him a matter of the most delicate honor. For the moment, however, he concealed this state of mind from his sister, and hid his painful satisfaction behind the remark, in this case perfectly natural, that one must not be in too much of a hurry, but that time must be left to the poor child to enter of her own free will upon the path which had now in a certain manner become a self-evident one.

But we can yet scarcely encourage our readers to pass from these engrossing inner conditions to the external ones, upon which, however, so much now depended. Whilst the baroness allowed her daughter every opportunity of passing her time pleasantly with music and singing, with drawing and embroidery, and to read alone or amuse herself and her mother by reading aloud, the major at the commencement of spring occupied himself in setting the family affairs in order; the son, who looked upon himself as in the future a rich landowner, and — he did not in the least doubt — as the happy husband of Hilaria, now began to feel a military aspiration for renown and rank, should the threatened war break out. And so they trusted that, set at rest for the moment, they could anticipate as a certainty that this riddle — which seemed only to be implicated in one single misgiving — would soon be cleared up and resolved.

Unfortunately, however, in this seeming quietude no real satisfaction was to be found. The baroness waited day after day, but in vain, for a change in her daughter’s disposition; who modestly indeed, and but seldom, yet still, on every decisive occasion, resolutely gave them to understand that she would abide as firmly by her conviction as only one can do who has been inwardly convinced of a truth, whether it is in harmony with the surrounding world or not. The major felt a conflict within himself; he should feel himself forever injured if Hilaria should really decide for his son; yet should she decide in his own favor, he was equally convinced that he must decline her hand.

Let us pity the good man, around whom all these cares and troubles were flitting continuously like a moving cloud, sometimes as a background against which arose all the realities and occupations of the busy day, and sometimes drawing nearer, and overcasting all the present. Such a sort of wavering and reeling moved before his mind’s eyes; and though daytime peremptorily summoned him to vigorous and strenuous activity, it was in the night-watches that all these repugnant shapes, changing and changing again, danced round and round their dismal circle in his mind. These ever-returning irrepressible phantoms brought him into a condition which we might almost call despair — since action and creation, that otherwise afford the surest remedy in such circumstances, had here scarcely any mitigating, much less any healing, effect.

In this situation our friend received from an unknown hand a note, with an invitation to go to the post-office of a small neighboring town, where a traveller, passing through in haste, wished anxiously to speak to him. He, accustomed in his many business and social relations to such matters, acquiesced all the less reluctantly, inasmuch as the free, flowing handwriting seemed in some degree familiar. Quiet and collected, as was his wont, he betook himself to the indicated place, when, in the homely and almost rustic upper-room, the beautiful widow stepped towards him, prettier and more charming than he had left her. Whether it be that our imagination is not capable of retaining what is most excellent, or of realizing it again completely, or that a state of excitement had in reality given her a greater charm, it is enough to say, he actually required a double measure of self-control to hide his astonishment and confusion under the show of common politeness; he greeted her with restraint and embarrassed coldness.

“Not thus, my dearest friend!” she exclaimed. “It is by no means for this that I have summoned you to a meeting between these whitewashed walls, amidst these most ignoble surroundings; a house so meanly appointed as this does not demand such a courtly style of address. I relieve my breast of a heavy burden when I say, when I admit, that I have caused a great deal of mischief in your house.”

The major faltered and stepped back.

“I know all,” she continued, “we need no explanation; you and Hilaria, Hilaria and Flavio, your kind sister — I pity all of you.”

Speech seemed to fail her; the most lovely eyelashes could not hold back the tears that gushed forth; her cheeks reddened, she was more beautiful than ever. The worthy man stood before her in the utmost confusion; he was penetrated by an unknown emotion.

“Let us sit down,” said this most amiable creature, drying her eyes. “Forgive me, pity me! You see how I am punished.” She again held her embroidered kerchief to her eyes, and concealed how bitterly she wept.

“But, explain, gracious madam!” he said with haste.

“No more of gracious!” she replied, with a heavenly smile; “call me your friend — you have not a more faithful one; and so, my friend, I know all — I know exactly the position of the whole family, I am aware of the inclinations and sorrows of them all.”

“Who could have informed you to this extent?”

“Personal confessions. This hand cannot be strange to you.” She showed him several unfolded letters.

“My sister’s hand! Letters, several, and, to judge by the careless writing, confidential ones! Have you ever had any relations with her?”

“Not directly; but indirectly, for some time. Look here at the address. To . . . .”

“Another riddle! To Makaria, the most discreet of women.”

“But on that account, too, the confidante, the confessor of all oppressed souls, of all who have lost themselves, who wish to find themselves again, and do not know where.”

“Thank God!” he exclaimed, “that such a remedy has been found. It would not have befitted me to beg her intercession: I bless my sister for having done it; for I too know of instances in which this excellent woman, by holding up a moral magic mirror, has shown to some unfortunate or other his pure, fair inner being through the confused outward form, and, reconciling him first with himself, summoned him to a new existence.”

“This benefit she also conferred on me,” replied the beauty.

And at this moment our friend felt, and even if it was not quite clear to him, felt distinctly that from this remarkable person, otherwise wrapped up in her individual exclusiveness, there shone forth a morally beautiful, sympathizing, and consoling personality.

“I was not unhappy, but ill at ease,” she continued; “I no longer belonged properly to myself, and that, after all, is equivalent to not being happy. I no longer pleased myself; pose myself as I would before the lookingglass, it always seemed to me as if I were dressing-up for a masquerade; but since she held up the mirror before me, since I became aware how one can adorn one’s self from within, I am again well satisfied with my looks.” This she said between smiling and weeping, and was, it must be admitted, more than amiable. She seemed worthy of esteem, and worthy of a lasting, faithful attachment.

“And now, my friend, let us be brief: here are the letters; to read them, and read them again, to reflect, to prepare yourself, you would need at all events an hour — longer if you wish; then our respective positions can be determined with few words.”

She left him, to walk up and down in the garden; he now unfolded a correspondence between the baroness and Makaria, the contents of which we indicate summarily. The former complained of the beautiful widow. It is evident how one woman looks on and severely judges another. In point of fact the question is only about outward matters and about expressions, there is no reference to what is within. Then on Makaria’s part a milder judgment; the description of such a being from within outwards. The outward form appears as a result of contingencies hardly to be blamed, perhaps to be excused. Now the baroness describes the raving and madness of the son, the growing attachment of the young couple, tells of the arrival of the father, Hilaria’s determined non-compliance. Everywhere Makaria’s replies are pure impartiality, derived from the well-founded conviction, that out of all this moral improvement must ensue. Finally, she despatches the whole correspondence to the beautiful woman, whose mind, fair as heaven, is now revealed, and begins to glorify her outward being. The whole concludes with a grateful reply to Makaria.

CHAPTER VI.

Wilhelm to Lenardo.

“At last, dearest friend, I can say she is found, and, for your peace of mind, I may add, in a position in which nothing further remains to be wished for for her well-being. Let me speak in a general way: I am still writing from the place and spot where I have before my eyes everything of which I have to give an account.

“A domestic condition, grounded in piety, inspired and maintained by industry and order, not too narrow, not too wide, but in the happiest proportion to her capacities and powers. Around her is busy a circle of handworkers, in the purest, most primitive sense; here reign limitation and far-reaching effect, caution and moderation, innocence and activity. I have not often found myself in a pleasanter situation, over which a brighter prospect for the morrow and for the future impends. This, regarded as a whole, might well be sufficient to set every sympathizer at rest.

“I may, therefore, in remembrance of all that has been discussed between us, most urgently beg that my friend will be satisfied with general description, and at all events fill it up in his thoughts; while, on the other hand, he renounces all further inquiry, and devotes himself as energetically as possible to the great business of life, into which by this time he will probably be perfectly initiated.

“I send a duplicate of this letter to Hersilia, and the other to the Abbé, who I presume knows most certainly where you are to be found. To this tried friend, in matters secret or open always equally to be relied on, I write something further, which he will tell you; I beg you particularly, as far as I am myself concerned, to look upon me with sympathy, and further my undertaking with pious and true good-will.”

Wilhelm to the Abbé.

“If I am not altogether mistaken, our most estimable Lenardo is at present in your midst, and I therefore send the duplicate of a letter, in order that it may be more certain to reach him. May this excellent young man, within your circle, be drawn into an uninterrupted, efficient activity, now that, as I hope, his inner being is tranquillized.

“As to myself, after a protracted and active self-effected test, I am now able to repeat still more earnestly my request, proffered through Montan long ago; the wish to complete my travel-years with more composure and steadiness becomes more and more urgent. In the confident hope that they would give heed to my representations, I have completely prepared myself, and made my plans. After the completion of the business to the advantage of my worthy friend, I may probably now be permitted to enter with fresh courage upon my further career, under the conditions already stated. As soon as I have completed one more pious pilgrimage, I intend to arrive at — . At this place I hope to find your letters, and in accordance with my inward impulse to begin afresh.”

CHAPTER VII.

[In the earlier edition of the “Wanderjahre” (ch. xii.) occurs a letter, which is necessary for the due understanding of what follows. In it Hersilia informs Wilhelm that the beautiful widow and Hilana — whose story, under the title of the Man of Fifty, she at the same time transmits to him — are at present travelling, and recommends him to seek them out. She continues, “To show you the way how this amiable pair may be met with on your wandering, I adopt a singular expedient. You herewith receive a little clipping of a map: when you lay this in its place on the full map of the country, the magnetic needle painted here will point with its barb to the spot whither the Desirable are moving. . . . This arrow-shaft, on the little patch of map, Hilaria herself was at the pains to draw, and to decorate with such dainty plumage: the sharp point, however, was the fair widow’s work. Have a care that it do not scratch, or perhaps pierce you. Our bargain is, that whenever you meet, be this where it may, you are forthwith to present the small shred of paper, and so be the sooner and more heartily admitted into trust.”

In the next chapter (ch. xiii.) we read, “The wanderer now tried on a large map the little fragment which had been sent him; and stood surprised, amazed, affrighted, as he saw the needle pointing straight to Mignon’s native place, to the houses where she had lived. What his peculiar feelings were, we do not find declared; but whoever can bring back to memory the end of the ‘Apprenticeship,’ will in his own heart and mind, without difficulty, call forth the like.” — Ed.]

THE VISIT OF THE MYSTERIOUS LADY.

After our friend had despatched the above letters, he went wandering on through many a neighboring mountain-range, farther and farther, until the glorious lowland opened out before him, where, ere the beginning of a new life, he purposed to bring so much to completion. He here fell in unexpectedly with a young and lively travelling companion, who was destined to prove in many ways conducive to his aims and his enjoyment. He finds himself in the company of a painter, who, like many of the same sort in the real world, and many more who pervade and haunt novels and dramas, this time turned out to be an excellent artist. The two soon suit each other, and mutually confide their inclinations, aims and plans; and it now comes out that the clever artist, who was skilled in executing water-color landscapes with finely-conceived, well-drawn, and well-finished figures, was passionately interested in the fate, form, and character of Mignon. He had already represented her often, and was now undertaking a journey to draw from nature the surroundings amidst which she had lived, and to represent here the amiable child in her happy and unhappy surroundings and moods, and thus to summon her image, which lives in all tender hearts, before the sense of sight as well.

The friends soon arrived at the great lake. Wilhelm endeavors to find out, one by one, the places which had been indicated to him. Splendid villas, extensive monasteries, ferries, creeks, capes, and landing-places were sought out, and the habitations of the bold and good-humored fishermen were no more neglected than the cheerful little towns built on the shore, and the castles on the neighboring hills. All this the artist is able to grasp and harmonize through light and color with the mental mood which their story in every case evoked, so that Wilhelm spent his days and hours in absorbing emotion.

On several sheets Mignon was represented in the foreground as she loved and lived, whilst Wilhelm was able to assist the happy imagination of his friend by exact description, and to reduce the more general idea into the narrower limits of individuality. And thus one beheld the boy-girl presented in all manner of positions and meanings. She stood beneath the lofty portico of the splendid villa, thoughtfully contemplating the statues in the hall. Here she was rocking herself and splashing in the boat fastened to the bank, there she was climbing the mast, and showing herself a bold sailor.

Yet one painting there was that excelled all the others, which the artist on his journey hither, before he met Wilhelm, had conceived with every characteristic lineament. In the midst of a rude mountain-tract the graceful feigned-boy shines forth, surrounded by precipitous rocks, besprinkled by waterfalls, amongst a troop of people difficult to describe. Never, perhaps, has an overawing and rugged primeval mountain-chasm been represented in a more charming or more impressive manner. The motley, gypsy-like company, rude and fantastic at the same time, strange and mean, too extravagant to inspire fear, too uncommon to awaken confidence. Strong pack-horses, now along winding-paths, now down steps hewn in the rock, slowly bring down a motley and miscellaneous assortment of baggage, among which a whole collection of instruments of noisy music, dangling and clattering about from time to time, molest the ear with discordant tones. In the midst of all this the amiable child, absorbed in herself, without disdain — unwilling, yet unresisting — taken, yet not forced away. Who would not have been pleased with so remarkable and complete a picture? The grim proximity of these rocky masses, the black chasms cutting through all, was powerfully characteristic, towering together, and threatening to prevent all exit, had not a bold bridge pointed to the possibility of effecting communication with the outer world. The artist, too, with a truly poetical sense of reality, had made discernible a cave, that might have been taken for nature’s own factory of mighty crystals, or the abode of a fabulous and terrible dragon’s brood.

Not without a holy shudder did the friends visit the palace of the marquis; the old man had not as yet returned from his journey; but in this locality also — since they knew how to ingratiate themselves with the spiritual and civil authorities — they were received and treated kindly. Wilhelm, however, found the absence of the master of the house very agreeable; for although he would have liked to see the worthy man again, and heartily greet him, still he felt afraid of his grateful liberality, and indeed of any compulsory acknowledgment of that true and loving service for which he had already received the most delicate return.

And thus in graceful skiffs the friends were drifted from shore to shore, crossing the lake in every direction. In this, the fairest season of the year, neither sunrise nor sunset escaped them, nor any of those thousand hues with which the heavenly light lavishly overspreads its firmament, and lake and earth therefrom, and only fully glorifies itself in its own reflection.

A luxuriant vegetation, sown broadcast by nature, tended and fostered by art, surrounded them on every side. The first chestnut forests had already bidden them welcome, and now they could not refrain from a melancholy smile, when, resting beneath cypresses, they beheld the laurel growing, the pomegranate reddening, oranges and lemons unfolding their buds, whilst fruit at the same time glowed forth from the dusky foliage.

By the help of his cheerful companion there arose even a fresh delight for Wilhelm. Nature had not given our old acquaintance a painter’s eye. Susceptible to visible beauty only in human form, he suddenly found that, through a friend of like disposition, but framed for quite other enjoyments and activities, the world around was opened up to him.

In verbal remarks on the changing glories of the country, but still more by a concentrated imitation, his eyes were opened, and he was relieved from all the doubts that he had hitherto obstinately cherished. The representations of Italian landscapes had always seemed suspicious to him; the sky seemed to him too blue, the violet tints of enchanting distances surpassingly lovely, it might be, yet untrue; and the many shades of bright green too variegated; but now, from his inmost mind, he identified himself with his new friend, and, susceptible as he was, learned to look at the world with his eyes, and whilst nature disclosed the open secret of her beauty, he was fain to feel an unconquerable longing after art as her most worthy exponent.

But quite unexpectedly his friend the painter showed himself to him from a different side: he had many a time struck up a merry song, and thereby enlivened and solaced the quiet hours of their lake-voyages far and wide; but now it happened that, in one of the palaces, he found a peculiar kind of stringed instrument, a lute, of small dimensions, strong, of good tone, convenient and portable; he was able to tune the instrument at once, and to handle it so happily and agreeably, and to amuse his hearers so well, that, like another Orpheus, he softened the otherwise severe and dry custodian of the castle, and compelled him in a kindly way to intrust the instrument to the singer for a time, on condition that he would faithfully return the same before his departure, and also in the interval would come now and then on a Sunday or holiday and entertain the family.

Lake and shore were now enlivened in quite a different way. Boats and skiffs would court their neighborhood, even freight and market-boats lingered near them, rows of people gathered on the shore. On landing, they saw themselves at once surrounded by a merry crowd; when they put off, everybody blessed them, contented, yet with a sense of longing.

Now a third person, observing the friends, could easily have seen that the mission of both was in point of fact at an end; all the scenes and localities relating to Mignon had been drawn, some put in in light shade and color, and some faithfully copied in the hot hours of the day. To accomplish this, they had in a peculiar fashion been moving from place to place, for Wilhelm’s vow was often a hindrance to them; yet they occasionally managed to avoid it by the excuse that it only held good on land, and was not applicable on the water.

Wilhelm, too, felt himself that their real intention had been attained, but he could not deny to himself that the wish to see Hilaria and the beautiful widow had still to be satisfied, if he was to leave this region with his mind at ease. His friend, to whom he had confided the story, was not less curious, and already congratulated himself in remembering a splendid position still vacant and unassigned in one of his drawings, which he proposed to fill up artistically with the forms of such charming persons.

They now set out on expeditions here and there and everywhere, watching the points at which a stranger is accustomed to enter this paradise. They had acquainted their boatmen with their hope of seeing friends here, and it was no long time before they saw gliding towards them a finely ornamented stateboat, to which they gave chase, and did not refrain from ardently capturing at once. The ladies, somewhat astonished, recovered at once, when Wilhelm showed them the small piece of paper, and both without hesitation recognized the arrow that had been drawn by themselves on the top. The friends were soon confidently invited to mount into the ladies’ boat, which was quickly done.

And now let anyone picture to himself the four as they sit opposite to one another, in the loveliest retreat, in a world of bliss, fanned by soft air-breath, rocked to and fro on shining waves. Let us fancy to ourselves the two ladies, as we have seen them but recently described; the two men, with whom for weeks we have been leading a common life of travel: and we see them, after brief consideration, together in the most charming although most dangerous situation. For the three who already, willingly or unwillingly, have numbered themselves amongst the Renunciants, we need not fear the worst; the fourth, however, might only too soon see himself received into that order.

After they had several times crossed the lake, and pointed out the most interesting localities both of the shore and of the islands, the ladies were taken towards the place where they were to pass the night, and where an able guide, who had been engaged for this tour, managed to provide all desirable comforts. Under these circumstances, Wilhelm’s vow became a suitable albeit an inconvenient kind of master of the ceremonies; for at this very station the friends had recently spent three days, and exhausted everything noteworthy in the neighborhood. The artist, who was not hampered by any pledge, was about to beg permission to accompany the ladies on shore, but they declined it, for which reason they parted company at a little distance from the landing-place.

Hardly had the minstrel sprung into his boat and put off hastily from the shore, when he seized his lute, and began charmingly to sing that strangely plaintive song that the Venetian gondoliers are wont to make resound from shore to lagoon, from lagoon to shore. Sufficiently practised in such exercise, in which on this occasion he succeeded with singular tenderness and expression, he proportionately strengthened his tone with the increasing distance, so that on the shore one fancied that the departing singer was heard continuously from the same distance. At last he laid down the lute, trusting to his voice alone, and had the pleasure of observing that the ladies, instead of withdrawing into the house, preferred to linger on the shore. He felt so inspired that he could not leave off, even when night and distance at last veiled the sight of every object; until at last his calmer friend made him observe, that even if darkness favored the sound, yet the boat had long passed the circle within which it could have any effect. According to appointment, the next day they again met on the open lake. As they glided along they familiarized themselves with the beautiful series of remarkably situated prospects sometimes to be seen in one row, sometimes hiding one another, which, doubling themselves, as it were, in the water, afford to the passers on the bank the most varied kind of pleasure. At the same time the artistic imitations allowed one to suspect and suppose on the paper, what during the day’s voyage one had failed to see immediately. For all this the quiet Hilaria seemed to possess a ready and beautiful appreciation.

But now towards noon the marvellous appeared again; the ladies landed alone, the men cruised in front of the harbor. The singer now attempted to adapt his delivery to such a degree of proximity, that some sort of happy effect might be hoped for, not simply from a tender and quickly modulated ordinary tone of longing, but from cheerful alluring importunity. Thus it happened that ofttimes one or other of those songs, for which we are indebted to the beloved persons of the Apprenticeship, would hover about the strings and lips; still, he restrained himself from a well-meant sense of forbearance, of which he himself stood in need, and revelled rather in foreign images and feelings, to the advantage of his performance, which thereby became all the more winning. The two friends, blockading the port in this manner, would probably not have thought of eating or drinking, if their thoughtful lady-friends had not sent over a few dainty dishes, which, with a draught of choice wine that accompanied them, were relished to the utmost.

Every separation, every limitation which obstructs our germinating passions, sharpens instead of subduing them; and this time too, it may be supposed, that the short absence only awakened a similar longing on both sides. At all events, the ladies in their dazzlingly gay gondola were very soon seen to approach again. The term gondola, however, must not here be taken in its melancholy Venetian sense; here it denotes a joyous, convenient, pleasant bark, that, had our small circle been doubled, would still have proved sufficiently capacious.

In this peculiar way, between meeting and parting, separating and remaining together, several days were spent; in the enjoyment of the most cheerful society, separation and renunciation hovered ever before the agitated soul.

In the presence of the new friends the older ones were recalled to mind: if the new ones were missed, it must be confessed that they too had succeeded in establishing strong claims to remembrance. Only a self-possessed, tried spirit like our beautiful widow could, at such a juncture, fully maintain her balance of mind. Hilaria’s heart was too deeply wounded for it to have been capable of receiving a fresh and pure impression; but when the charm of a glorious country soothingly surrounds us, when the tenderness of sympathetic friends works upon us, then does something quite singular come over our mind and sense, which, as in a dream, recalls to us the past, the absent, and spirits away the present, as if it were but a phantom. And so, rocked alternately backwards and forwards, attracted and sundered, brought nearer together and farther apart, they ebbed and flowed for several days.

Without scrutinizing these relations more closely, the clever and experienced guide thought that he observed some alteration in the hitherto restful demeanor of his heroines; and when at last the whim-fostering condition of affairs was evident to him, he was able to remedy it in the pleasantest possible way. For just as the ladies were about to be taken back again to the spot where their meal would be made ready for them, they were encountered by another gayly-decked vessel, which, coming alongside theirs, invitingly displayed a well-spread table, with all the luxuries of a festive meal. They could now outwait together the lapse of several hours, and night only decreed the inevitable parting.

Fortunately the two male friends on their earlier expeditions had, from a certain natural whim, neglected to visit the very island that was the most beautiful of all, and had not even now thought of showing their lady friends the treasures preserved there — which were by no means in the best condition — until the glorious world of beauty had been completely exhausted. But at last a different light dawned upon them. The guide was taken into their confidence. He managed to expedite this excursion at once, and they looked forward to it as a most blissful one. Now might they hope and expect, after so many interrupted pleasures, to spend three whole heavenly days, brought together in one secluded domain.

Here we must give special commendation to the guide: he was one of those active, industrious experts, who in conducting different parties of gentlefolk often traverse the same roads: perfectly well acquainted with all comforts and discomforts, they know how to avail themselves of the former and how to avoid the latter, and without neglect of their own interests are capable of guiding their patrons through the country more cheaply and satisfactorily than would be the case if the latter depended on themselves.

At the same time a lively company of female attendants on the ladies came for the first time effectively and industriously to the front, so that the beautiful widow could now make it a condition that the two friends should remain as her guests, and content themselves with modest entertainment. In this matter, too, everything turned out most favorably; for their clever manager had on this occasion, as on others before, managed to make such a discreet use of their letters of recommendation and credit, that, in the owner’s absence, castle and garden, and kitchen no less, were open for use at their discretion, and even some prospect of the cellar was left. Everything fell together so harmoniously, that from the first moment they must fain feel as much at home as the native lords of this paradise.

The collective baggage of all our travellers was forthwith brought to the island — a source of great comfort to the party — but the greatest advantage thereby attained was that, all the portfolios of our excellent artist being for the first time collected together, he had an opportunity of making present to the fair ladies in unbroken sequence the route that he had taken. They took up his work with delight — not as amateurs and artists mutually eulogize each other; in this case an excellent man received the most sympathetic, the most appreciative applause. But, that we may not incur the suspicion of only wishing, in general phrases, to palm off on credulous readers what we cannot lay before them, let us set down here the verdict of an expert, who several years later lingered admiringly over the works in question, as well as others of equal and similar merit.

“He succeeds in representing the cheerful repose of calm lake-prospects, where habitations in friendly nearness, mirrored in the clear flood, appear as it were to bathe within it; shores girt with green-clad hills, behind which mountains of forest and icy glacier-peaks rear themselves. The color-tone of such scenes is cheerful, joyously clear; the distances, as it were, diffused with mellowing vapor, which mounts in gray and enwrapping mist from torrents in chasm and valley, and indicates their winding courses. No less is the master’s art to be praised in views from valleys lying nearer to the mountain heights, where luxuriously clothed hill-sides slope down, and fresh streams rush swiftly on at the foot of the rocks.

“He is exceedingly clever at indicating satisfactorily, in the wide-spreading trees of the foreground, the differing character of the various sorts, as much in the form of the whole as in the lay of the branches and the several portions of the leaves; not less in the fresh many-shaded foliage in which soft breezes seem to fan with gentle breath, and the flickering lights to be moved thereby.

“In the middle distance the fresh green tone fades gradually away, and mingles itself in the pale violet of distant mountain heights with the blue of the sky. But above all our artist succeeds in representations of higher Alpine regions; the simple grandeur and repose of their character, the pastures spread out on the slope of the mountains, clad with the freshest green, where dark solitary firs stand out from the turfy carpet, and foaming torrents hurl themselves from the lofty rocky walls. Whether he peoples the pastures with grazing kine, or the narrow mountain-path that winds around the rocks with laden baggage-horses and mules, he indicates all with equal truth and talent; always introduced in the proper place and in not too great a number, they heighten and enliven these pictures, without destroying or even lessening their peaceful loneliness. The execution bears witness to the boldness of a master-hand — easy, with a few confident strokes, and yet complete. Later he was accustomed to employ brilliant English permanent colors on paper, consequently these pictures are especially bright in color, cheerful, but at the same time strong and solid.

“His pictures of deep rocky ravines, where, all around, naught but dead stone confronts us, and the wild torrent, boldly o’er-spanned by bridges, hurls itself into the chasm, do not, it is true, please us like the preceding, yet their truthfulness takes hold upon us; we marvel at the grand effect of the whole, brought out at the least expenditure, by a few significant touches, and masses of local color.

“He knows how to represent no less characteristically the high mountain districts, where neither tree nor shrub is any longer found, but only sunny patches, covered with tender grass, between rocky crags and snow-covered summits. But beautifully in their hazy green, and invitingly as he has colored these spots, yet he has rightly omitted to people them with pasturing flocks, for such tracts afford only fodder to the chamois and a dangerous booty to the wild-haymen.”

We shall not go beyond the object of bringing the condition of such wild districts as near to our readers as possible if we briefly explain the expression, “wild-haymen,” of which we have just made use. By it are indicated the poorer dwellers in the uplands, who make it their business to make hay upon the grassy slopes which are utterly inaccessible to cattle. For this purpose they climb, with clamps on their feet, the steepest and most perilous cliffs, or, when it is necessary, let themselves down with ropes from rocky heights to the grassy plots described. When they have cut the grass, and it is dried into hay, they cast it from the mountain heights into the deep valley below, where it is again collected and sold to the owners of cattle, who willingly buy it on account of its excellent quality.

These pictures, which must indeed have pleased and attracted everyone, were regarded by Hilaria especially with great attention. Her remarks showed that she was herself no stranger to this pursuit; and from the artist least of all did this remain concealed, for by no one had he seen himself better appreciated than by this most charming of all people. Her elder friend, therefore, was no longer silent, but blamed Hilaria for hesitating now as always to come forward with her own accomplishment. It was not a question now of being praised or blamed, but of learning; a more favorable opportunity would perhaps never be found again.

Now, for the first time, when she was compelled to produce her sketches, it became manifest what talent lay hidden behind this quiet, most attractive personality. Her capacity was inborn, fostered by diligent practice. She possessed a true eye, and a delicate hand, such as fits women in their ordinary ornamental and fancy-work for higher kinds of art. A certain unsteadiness in the strokes was indeed noticeable, and consequently a not sufficiently-marked character in the subjects; but one was quite enough surprised at the great industry shown in the execution, although the whole was not grasped in the most advantageous manner, nor quite artistically composed. It seemed as if she were afraid of desecrating the subject, unless she kept quite faithfully to it; consequently she is strained, and loses herself in detail.

Now, however, by the help of the great unfettered talent, the bold hand of the artist, she feels herself aroused, and whatever perception and taste was truly slumbering within her awakened. She perceives that she has only to take courage, and follow earnestly and literally certain axioms which the artist had commended to her, at the same time urging them thoroughly and in a kindly manner. Sureness of stroke is acquired; she gradually pays less attention to the parts than to the whole, and thus the fairest capacity develops unwittingly into ability; as a rosebud which in the evening we heedlessly pass by, on the morrow bursts forth with the sunrise before our eyes, so that we imagine that we can see with our very eyes the living tremulousness that the glorious apparition gives forth towards the light.

Such æsthetic cultivation, too, did not rest without moral result; for a perception of the deepest gratitude towards anyone to whom we are indebted for any decided instruction makes a magical impression on a pure soul. On this occasion it was the first joyous feeling that had arisen in Hilaria’s heart for a considerable time. To see the glorious world before her the first time for so many days, and now to feel the gift of more perfectly representing it suddenly acquired! What delight to approach in lines and colors more near to the inexpressible! She felt herself surprised with new youth, and could not withhold a special kindliness from the man to whom she owed this happiness.

So they were sitting by one another: it would have been difficult to say whether he were the quicker in imparting artistic gains or she in grasping and exercising them. The happiest rivalry, such as is seldom kindled between scholar and master, arose. Many a time the friend seemed to wish to modify her drawing with some decisive stroke, but she, gently declining, hastened to do at once what he wanted or what was necessary, and always in such a way as to astonish him.

The lovely widow in the meanwhile was walking with Wilhelm beneath cypresses and pines along terraces trellised now with vines, now with orange-trees, and at length could not refrain from satisfying the gently expressed wish of her new friend. She was fain to declare to him the wonderful straits through which two friends, severed from former ties, and closely drawn towards each other, had been sent out into the world.

Wilhelm, who was not wanting in the gift of taking accurate note of things, afterwards wrote out the melancholy story, and we purpose presently to impart it to our readers as he compiled it, and sent it to Natalia through Hersilia.

The last evening was now come, and a brilliantly clear full-moon made imperceptible the transition from day to night. The party had seated themselves together upon one of the highest terraces in order to look completely and clearly across the breadth of the quiet lake, with the shining lights on all sides again reflected from it, though its full length was in part concealed.

Whatever in such circumstances might be talked of, it was impossible not to notice what has been noticed hundreds of times; once more to tell the beauties of this sky, this water, this world, under the influence of a powerful sun, a gentle moon — nay, to recognize them in an exclusive and lyric sense.

But what was not confessed, what they would scarce acknowledge to themselves, was that deeply painful feeling that thrilled in each bosom; more or less strongly it may be, yet alike true and tender in all. The foreboding of separation spread over the whole party; a gradually increasing silence was becoming almost painful.

Then did the singer man himself, and make up his mind; as he preluded powerfully upon his instrument, he was unmindful of the forbearance previously so well observed. Before him hovered the image of Mignon, with the first tender song of the sweet child. Borne beyond limits in his emotion, and awaking the tuneful strings with passionate touch, he began to chant,

“Know’st thou the land where the fair citron blows?”

Hilaria suddenly moved, stood up, and moved away, veiling her brow; our lovely widow moved one hand warningly towards the singer, whilst she grasped Wilhelm’s arm with the other. The youth, really distracted, followed Hilaria; her more self-possessed friend drew Wilhelm quietly behind the two. And now, as all four stood opposite each other in full moonlight, the general emotion could no longer be hidden. The ladies threw themselves into each others’ arms, the men embraced each other, and Luna was witness to the noblest and chastest tears. At last some composure slowly returned. They disengaged themselves in silence, with strange feelings and wishes, from which, however, hope was already dissevered. And now our artist, whom his friend drew away with him, beneath the high heavens in the solemn kindly hours of night, felt himself initiated in all the pains of the first grade of the Renunciants, which those friends had already passed, though they now saw themselves in danger of being again put painfully to the proof.

It was late when the young men betook themselves to rest, and awaking betimes in the early morning, they took heart, believing themselves strong enough for a farewell to this Paradise; and devising many plans as to how they might at all events make it possible, without violation of duty, to linger in this pleasant neighborhood.

They were thinking of bringing their projects to this end into effect, when they were astonished by the news that the ladies had already departed at the first appearance of daylight. A letter in the handwriting of our Queen of Hearts told them the rest. It was doubtful whether common-sense or goodness, affection or friendship, recognition of merit or gentle, bashful partiality was most expressed therein. Unhappily the conclusion contained the hard condition, that they should neither follow the two friends, nor seek them out anywhere — nay, if they should meet accidentally, that they should faithfully avoid each other.

Now was this Paradise converted, as if by a stroke of magic, into a complete desert for the two friends; and assuredly they would have laughed themselves, if it had been clear to them at the moment, how wrongly and thanklessly they were, all at once, disposed towards such beautiful and remarkable surroundings. No self-seeking hypochondriac would so keenly and enviously have resented and abused the ruin of the buildings, the dilapidation of the walls, the storm-beaten towers, the grassy growth on the walks, the decay of the trees, the mossy mouldering of the artificial grottoes, and aught else of the same sort that was noticeable. Meanwhile they recovered themselves as well as was possible; our artist carefully packed up his work, and the two got on board their boat. Wilhelm accompanied him to the upper portion of the lake, whence the other, according to previous arrangement, started on his way to Natalia, to transport her, by the aid of his beautiful landscapes, into regions which probably she would not soon visit. At the same time he was authorized to narrate, in confessing the unexpected incident, how he had come into a position to be received most cordially by the guild-brethren of Renunciation, and by kindly treatment to be, if not healed, at any rate comforted.

THE MEETING OF THE TWO BOATS.

Lenardo to Wilhelm.

“Your letter, my dearest friend, found me in a state of activity, which I might call confusion if the end were not so great, and its attainment so sure. The association with your friends is of more importance than either side could imagine. I dare not begin to write about it, because it is at once obvious how unfathomable the whole is, how unspeakable the union. Doing, without talking, must now be our watchword. A thousand thanks for showing me, half-veiled in the distance, so charming a secret. I congratulate the good creature on a situation of such simple happiness, whilst a whirlpool of complications, though not without a guiding star, will drive me round and round. The abbé undertakes to tell you the rest. I must think only of what presses: longing vanishes in doing and effecting. You have — but no more now, where there is enough to do, there remains no room for reflection.”

The Abbé to Wilhelm

“A little more, and your well-meant letter — quite in opposition to your intention — would have been highly detrimental to us. The picture of the refound one is so genial and charming, that our wonderful friend would probably have thrown up everything in order to seek her out at once, if our now concerted plans had not been so great and far-reaching. But he has now withstood the trial, and it is well assured that he is fully penetrated by the importance of the matter, and feels himself drawn away from everything else, and to this end alone.

“In this our new relationship, for the introduction of which we have to thank you, have appeared, on closer inquiry, far greater advantages for him, as well as for us, than one would have thought. For it happens that through a region less favored by nature, where a part of the property which his uncle cedes to him is situate, a canal has been recently projected, which will also pass through our property, the value of which, if we are associated together, is inestimably increased.

“In this he can very conveniently develop his chief desire, to begin quite at the beginning. On both sides of this canal plenty of untilled and uninhabited land will be found. There spinners and weavers may settle, masons, carpenters, and blacksmiths may erect modest workshops for them and for themselves; all may be done at first-hand, whilst we others undertake to solve complicated problems and manage to further the round of industry.

“This, then, is our friend’s first task. From the mountains, complaints after complaints reach us of the want of means of subsistence that prevails there: these districts are also said to be over-peopled. There he will look round about, judge of people and of circumstances, and the really active ones, those useful to themselves and to others, he will take away in our train.

“Further, I have to report of Lothario, that he is preparing the complete consummation. He has undertaken a journey to the Pedagogues, to ask for skilled artisans, though only a very few. The arts are the salt of the earth; as this substance is to food, so are they related to technical work. We borrow nothing more from art, but the result that handiwork shall not be insipid.

“A permanent connection with this training institution will, on the whole, be very useful and necessary to us. We must be doing, and cannot think about forming, but to draw the ready-formed to us in our highest duty.

“Thousands of considerations here suggest themselves: allow me, after our old fashion, only one more general remark, occasioned by a passage in your letter to Lenardo. We do not wish to deprive domestic piety of its due commendation; upon it is founded the security of the individual, upon which fortitude and dignity may ultimately repose. But it extends no further; we must grasp the notion of a universal piety, send forth to the world our honestly human dispositions, in a practical shape, and not only help our neighbors, but at the same time take up the whole of humanity.

“And now, to refer at last to your request, I say thus much: Montan has duly reported it to us. The strange man would not on any account declare what you actually had in view; yet he pledged the word of a friend that it was reasonable, and if it should succeed, would be highly advantageous to the society. And so you are forgiven for likewise making a secret of it in your letter. In short, you are freed from all restrictions, as you should already have been informed, if your address had been known to us. Therefore, in the name of all, I repeat: your object, although undeclared, is approved, in confidence in Montan and you. Travel, stop, move about, or linger; whatever answers your purpose will be right. May you make yourself the most necessary link of our chain!

“I enclose at the end a little table, from which you will discover the movable centre of our communications. You will find therein displayed before your eyes, whither at each season you have to send your letters. We should like best to have them sent by trustworthy messengers, who are indicated to you sufficiently at several places. In the same way you will find it shown by symbols where you have to seek out one or the other of our friends.”

INTERCALATION.

But at this point we find occasion to announce a pause to the reader, and one in fact of several years, on which account we should have liked, had it been reconcilable with typographical arrangements, to conclude a volume at this place.

Yet the space between two chapters will amply suffice for us to carry ourselves across the measure of time mentioned, as we have long been accustomed to allow of, between the falling and rising of the curtain in our own presence.

In this second book we have seen the circumstances of our old friends advanced in a remarkable manner, and at the same time we have gained fresh acquaintances; the prospects are such, that it is to be hoped that each and all, if they know how to take their place in life, will completely gain their wishes. Let us then expect soon to find them again, one after the other, interweaving and disengaging themselves upon trodden and untrodden paths.

CHAPTER IX.

If we now seek out our friend again — for some time left to his own resources, we shall find him as he comes hither from the side of the level country into the Pedagogic province. He comes across pastures and meadows, skirts on the dry down many a small lake, looks on bushy rather than wooded hills; on all sides a free prospect over a land but little tilled. On such tracks it did not long remain doubtful that he was in the horse-breeding district, and he noticed here and there smaller and larger herds of these noble beasts of different sex and age. But all at once the horizon is covered with a fearful dust-cloud, which rapidly looming nearer and nearer, completely conceals the whole breadth of the space, but at last parted by a keen side-wind is forced to disclose the tumult inside it.

A large body of the said noble beasts rushes forward in full gallop; they are guided and kept together by keepers on horseback. The tremendous hurly-burly rushes past the traveller; a fine boy, amongst the keepers in charge, looks at him in astonishment, pulls up, jumps off, and embraces his father.

Now questioning and explanation ensue. The son relates that he had had to put up with a good deal during the first probation time; dispensing with his horse, and going about on foot over ploughed lands and meadows, and, as he had declared beforehand, had not shown himself to advantage in the quiet toilsome country life. The harvest-feast had pleased him well enough; but the tillage afterwards, the ploughing, digging, and waiting, not at all. He had certainly occupied himself with the necessary and useful domestic animals, but always lazily and discontentedly until he was at last promoted to the more lively business of riding. The occupation of looking after the mares and foals was tedious enough; meanwhile, if one sees before one a lively little beast, that in three or four years’ time will perhaps carry one about, it is quite a different sort of thing from troubling one’s self about calves and sucking pigs, of which the end and aim is to be well fed and fattened, and then sold.

With the growth of his boy, who was now really reaching youth’s estate, with his healthy condition, and a certain merry freedom, not to say cleverness, in his talk, his father had good reason to be content. The two now proceeded to follow quickly on horseback the speeding convoy, past remote-lying and extensive farms to the village or country town where the great market was held. There incredible confusion was in full career, and it was impossible to distinguish whether the wares or the merchants raised the more dust. From all countries would-be purchasers here meet together in order to acquire animals of fine breed and careful rearing; and one might think that one heard all the tongues of the earth. In the midst of it all, too, sounds the lively music of the most powerful wind instruments, and everything indicates movement, vigor, and life.

Our traveller now again meets the overseer already known to him of old, and falls in company with other clever men, who manage quietly and no less unnoticeably to maintain discipline and order. Wilhelm believing that here again he sees an instance of exclusive occupation, and in spite of its seeming breadth, of a narrow course of life, is anxious to ascertain by what other means they are accustomed to train the pupils, in order to prevent the youth — in such a wild, and in some degree savage, occupation of rearing and training beasts — from becoming a wild beast himself. And thus it was very gratifying to him to learn that with this same violent and rough-seeming vocation was united the most delicate in the world, the practice and the learning of languages.

At this moment the father missed his son from his side; he saw him through the interstices of the crowd eagerly bargaining and arguing with a young pedlar over some trifles. In a short time he altogether lost him. On the overseer’s inquiring the reason of a certain embarrassment and abstraction, and hearing in reply that it was on his son’s account, “Never mind that,” he said, to reassure the father, “he is not lost. But to show you how we keep our charges together — ” and thereupon he blew shrilly on a whistle that hung at his breast. In a moment it was answered by dozens from all sides. The man went on: “I will let this serve for the present, it is only a signal that the overseer is in the neighborhood, and happens to want to know how many hear him. On a second signal they keep quiet, but make themselves ready; on the third they answer and come rushing up. Moreover, these signals are multiplied in very many ways and for special uses.” A more open space had suddenly cleared itself round about them; they were able to speak more freely whilst walking towards the adjoining heights.

“We were led to this practice of languages,” proceeded the overseer, “by the fact that we find here youths from all parts of the world. Now it was to prevent the people of one country from clanning together, as usually happens abroad, and forming parties asunder from the other nations, that we try, by free communion of speech, to bring them nearer to one another. But a universal knowledge of language is most necessary, inasmuch as at this fair every foreigner is glad to find a sufficient means of intercourse in his own sounds and expressions, and at the same time all possible convenience in bargaining and dealing. Yet in order that no Babylonish confusion, no corruption of speech shall ensue, one language only is spoken in common, month by month throughout the year, in accordance with the principle that one should learn nothing that has to be made compulsory except the rudiments.

“We look upon our scholars,” said the overseer, “as so many swimmers, who in the element that threatens to swallow them feel themselves with wonder to be lighter, and are borne up and carried forward by it — and so it is with everything that man undertakes. Yet if one of our pupils shows a special inclination for this or that language, provision is made even in the midst of this tumultuous-seeming life, which affords withal very many quiet, idle, and lonely, nay, tedious hours for true and thorough instruction. You would have some difficulty in picking out our equestrian grammarians, amongst whom there are verily a few pedants, from amidst these bearded and beardless centaurs. Your Felix has set himself to Italian, and since melodious singing, as you know already, pervades everything in our institutions, you might hear him, in the monotony of a herdsman’s life, bring out many a ditty with taste and feeling. Activity and practical ability are far more reconcilable with efficient instruction than one thinks.”

As every district has its own peculiar festival, the guest was led to the domain of instrumental music. Bordering on the plains, it at once exhibited pleasantly and gracefully diversified valleys, little narrow copses, gentle brooks by the banks of which a moss-grown rock slyly peeped out here and there amidst the turf. Scattered habitations, surrounded by bushes, were to be seen upon the hills; in gentle dales the houses clustered nearer to each other. These cottages, set gracefully apart, were so far from each other, that no musical sound either true or false could be heard from one to the other.

They now approached a wide space, built and covered round about, where men standing shoulder to shoulder seemed on the tiptoe of attention and expectation. Just as the guest entered, a powerful symphony on all the instruments commenced, the full-toned strength and tenderness of which he could not but admire.

By the side of this roomily-constructed orchestra stood a smaller one, which attracted special attention; upon it were younger and older scholars. Each held his instrument in readiness, without playing on it. These were they who as yet were not able or did not venture to join in with the whole. One noticed with interest how they were standing as it were at the spring, and heard it declared that such a festival seldom passed by without a genius in some one or other being suddenly developed.

When vocal music also was brought forward in the intervals of the instrumental, there was no longer room to doubt that this too was in favor. Upon his inquiry, moreover, as to what further sort of education was joined in friendly union with this, the traveller learned that it was the art of poetry, and withal of the lyric sort. Their whole aim in this was that the two arts, each for and from itself, but at the same time in contrast to and in conjunction with each other should be developed. The pupils learn to know one as well as the other in their special limitations: then they are taught how they mutually limit, and again mutually emancipate one another.

To the rhythm of poetry the tone-artist opposes the division and movement of time. But here the sway of music over poetry soon manifests itself — for if the latter, as is proper and necessary, always keeps its quantities as clearly as possible in view, yet for the musician few syllables are definitely long or short; he destroys at pleasure the most conscientious proceedings of the dealer in rhythm — nay, actually converts prose into song; whence ensue the most wonderful possibilities, and the poet would very soon feel himself annihilated, were he not able, on his own part, to inspire the musician with reverence by means of lyric tenderness and boldness, and to call forth new feelings, at one time in the most delicate gradation, at another by the most abrupt transitions.

The singers one finds here are for the most part themselves poets. Dancing, too, is taught in its rudiments; so that all these accomplishments may diffuse themselves methodically throughout the whole of these regions.

When the guest was conducted across the next boundary he suddenly beheld quite a different style of building. The houses were no longer scattered, and no more of the cottage-sort; they rather appeared to be set together with regularity — solid and handsome from without, roomy, convenient, and elegant within. Here one perceived an unconfined and well-built town, adapted to its situation. Here plastic art and its kindred crafts are at home, and a stillness quite peculiar prevails in these places.

The plastic artist, it is true, always considers himself in relation to whatever lives and moves amidst mankind; but his occupation is a solitary one, and, by the strangest contradiction, no other, perhaps, so decidedly calls for a living environment. Here, then, does each one create in silence what is soon to occupy the eyes of men forever. A Sabbath stillness reigns over the whole place, and if one did not notice here and there the chipping of the stone-mason, or the measured blows of carpenters, just now busily employed in finishing a splendid building, not a sound would disturb the air.

Our traveller was struck with the seriousness, the wonderful strictness, with which beginners, as well as the more advanced, were treated; it seemed as if no one essayed anything by his own strength and power, but as if a hidden spirit animated all throughout, guiding them to one single great end. Neither draft nor sketch was anywhere to be seen; every stroke was drawn with care. And when the traveller asked the guide for an explanation of the whole process, the latter remarked, “The imagination is of itself a vague inconstant faculty, whilst the whole merit of the plastic artist consists in this, namely, in learning ever more and more to define and grasp it firmly, nay, even at last to elevate it to the level of the present.”

He was reminded of the necessity in other arts of more certain principles. “Would the musician allow a pupil to strike wildly at the strings, or to invent intervals according to his own caprice and pleasure? Here it is remarkable that nothing is to be left to the learner’s discretion. The element in which he is to work is given definitely, the tool that he has to handle is placed in his hand, the very style and method by which he is to avail himself of them (I mean the fingering) he finds prescribed, by which one member gets out of the way of another, and gets the proper road ready for its successor, by which orderly co-operation alone the impossible becomes possible at last. But what mostly justifies us in strict demands and definite laws, is that it is precisely genius, the inborn talent, that grasps them first, and yields them the most willing obedience. Only mediocrity would fain substitute its limited specialty for the unlimited whole, and glorify its false ideas under the pretence of an incontrollable originality and independence. This, however, we do not let pass, but we protect our pupils against all false steps, whereby a great part of life, nay, often the whole life, is confused and broken up. With the genius we love best to deal, for he is specially inspired with the good spirit of recognizing quickly what is useful to him. He sees that Art is called Art, precisely because it is not Nature; he accommodates himself to the proper respect even for that which might be called conventional, for what else is this but that the best men have agreed to regard the necessary, the inevitable, as the best? And is it not successful in every case? To the great assistance of the teachers, the three reverences and their symbols are introduced and inculcated here too, as everywhere with us, with some variation in conformity with the nature of the business that prevails.”

As the traveller was led further around, he was constrained to wonder at the fact, that the city seemed to extend itself forever, streets growing out of streets, and affording numberless fine views. The exterior of the buildings expressed their object unambiguously: they were substantial and imposing, less showy than beautiful. After the nobler and more solemn one in the middle of the town, came those of more cheerful aspect, until at last charming suburbs, of a graceful character, spread away towards the open country, dwindling away finally in the shape of country villas.

The traveller could not avoid remarking here that the habitations of the musicians in the preceding region were, in respect to beauty and size, in no way to be compared with the present ones in which painters, sculptors and architects dwelt. The answer given to him was that this lay in the nature of things. The musician must always be absorbed within himself, to shape out his inmost thought and to bring it forth. He has not to flatter the sense of sight; the eye very easily supplants the ear, and tempts outward the spirit from within. The plastic artist, on the contrary, must live in the outer world, and make his inner nature manifest, as it were unconsciously, on and in the external world. Plastic artists must live like kings and gods; how otherwise would they build and adorn for kings and gods? They must at last raise themselves above the ordinary so far that the whole community may feel honored in and by their works.

Our friend then desired the explanation of another paradox — why is it that just on these festivals, which in other regions are such lively and tumultuously excited days, here the greatest quiet prevails, and work is not even exhibited.

“A plastic artist,” he said, “requires no festival; to him the whole year is a festival. When he has accomplished anything excellent, it stands afterwards, as it did before, in his sight and in the sight of the whole world. In this no repetition is needed, no new effort, no fresh success, such as the musician is forever tormented by: who for that reason is not to be grudged the most splendid festival amidst the most numerous audience.”

“But yet,” replied Wilhelm, “on days like this one would be glad to see an exhibition in which the three years’ progress of the best pupils might be examined and criticised with pleasure.”

“In other places,” he was told, “an exhibition may be necessary; with us it is not; our whole end and aim is exhibition. Look here at the buildings of every sort, all carried out by pupils; after plans, discussed and revised, it is true, a hundred times; for one who builds must not potter about and make experiments. What has to remain standing, must stand well, and suffice, if not for eternity, at any rate for a considerable time. We may commit ever so many faults, but we must not build any. With sculptors we deal a little more leniently, most leniently of all with painters; they may experiment, here and there, each in his own style. It is open to them to choose in the inside or outside spaces of buildings, in the open squares, a spot which they will decorate. They make their ideas public, and, if one is in any degree worthy of approbation, the execution is agreed to; but in one of two ways — either with the privilege of taking the work away, sooner or later, should it cease to please the artist himself, or with the condition of leaving the work, when once set up, irremovably in its place. The most choose the former, and reserve the privilege for themselves, in which they are always well advised. The second case seldom occurs; and it is observable that the artists then rely less upon themselves, hold long conferences with their comrades and critics, and by that means manage to produce works really worthy of being valued and made permanent.”

After all this, Wilhelm did not neglect to inquire what other instruction was given besides, and he was informed that this consisted of poetry, and in fact of epic poetry.

Yet it must needs appear strange to our friend when they added that the pupils are not allowed to read or to recite the completed poems of ancient and modern poets. “Merely a series of myths, traditions and legends is briefly imparted to them. Thus we soon recognize by pictorial or poetic expression, the special productive power of the genius devoted to one or the other art. Poets and artists both occupy themselves at the same well-spring, and each one tries to guide the stream towards his own side for his own advantage, so as to attain his end according to his requirements; at which he succeeds much better than if he set about making over again what has been made already.”

The traveller had an opportunity of seeing the process himself. Several painters were busy in one room; a lively young companion was telling a quite simple story very circumstantially, so that he employed almost as many words as they did pencil-strokes to complete his exposition in the most rounded style possible.

They assured Wilhelm that in their joint work the friends entertained themselves very pleasantly, and that in this way improvisators were often developed who were able to arouse great enthusiasm in the twofold representation.

Our friend now turned his inquiries again to plastic art. “You have,” he said, “no exhibition, and, consequently, I suppose, no award of prizes.”

“We have not in point of fact,” replied the other; “but quite close by here, we can let you see what we regard as more useful.”

They turned into a large hall, lighted with good effect from above. A large circle of busy artists was first seen, from the midst of whom a colossal group, favorably placed, reared itself. Vigorous male and female forms, in powerful poses, reminded one of that splendid fight between youthful heroes and Amazons, in which hate and animosity at last resolve themselves into mutual and faithful alliance. This remarkably involved piece of art-work was seen to equal advantage from any point around it. Artists were sitting and standing in a large circle, each occupied after his own fashion: the painter at his easel, the draughtsman at his drawing-board, some modelling in the round, some in bas-relief; architects were even making drawings for the pedestal, upon which a similar work of art was afterwards to be placed. Every one taking part in it adopted his own method in copying. Painters and draughtsmen developed the group in the flat, carefully, indeed, so as not to spoil it, but to give as much as possible. The work in bas-relief was treated in precisely the same manner. Only one had reproduced the whole group on a smaller scale, and, in certain movements and arrangement of members, he really seemed to have surpassed the model.

It now appeared that this was the designer of the model, who, before its execution in marble, was now submitting it not to a critical but to a practical test; and who, by taking accurate note of everything that each of his fellow-workers, according to his own method and way of thinking, saw, preserved, or altered in it, was enabled to turn it to his own advantage; with this object, that ultimately, when the perfect work should come forth chiselled in marble, though undertaken, designed, and executed by only one, yet still it might seem to belong to all.

In this room, too, the greatest silence reigned; but the director raised his voice and cried, “Who is there here, who, in the presence of this motionless work, can so move the imagination with the excellence of his words that all that we can see transfixed here, shall again become resolved without losing its character, so that we may convince ourselves that what the artist has here laid hold of is indeed the worthiest.”

Major Jarno

Expressly called on by them all, a beautiful youth left his work, and began by delivering a quiet discourse, in which he seemed merely to describe the present work, but soon he threw himself into the peculiar region of poetry, plunged into the midst of the action, and controlled this element to a marvel. Little by little his rendering was elevated by brilliant declamation, to such a height that the rigid group seemed to turn upon its axis, and the number of the figures seemed thereby doubled and trebled. Wilhelm stood enraptured, and at last cried, “Who can longer refrain from passing on into actual song and rhythmic verse?”

“This I would beg to refuse,” replied the overseer; “for if our excellent sculptor will speak sincerely, he will confess that our poet hardly pleases him, and simply because the two artists stand as far as possible from one another: on the other hand, I would wager that here and there a painter has appropriated from him certain living traits. Yet there is a gentle kindly song that I might allow our friend to hear, one that you deliver with such sweet seriousness: it relates to art as a whole, and does me good myself whenever I hear it.”

After a pause, in which they beckoned to each other, and made arrangements by signs, the following fine heart and spirit-stirring song resounded from all sides: —

o “To invent and bring to ending,

o Artist, bide thou oft alone:

o Joy to reap from toilsome spending,

o Gayly to thy friends begone!

o See them as a whole compacted,

o And discern thine own career;

o Deeds in many a year enacted

o In thy neighbor will be clear.

o “First conceiving, then presenting,

o Ranging shapes in order wise,

o Each of them the rest accenting

o Till at last they all suffice.

o Well invented, render’d neatly,

o Feelingly and thoroughly done,

o Thus the artist hath discreetly

o Power from everlasting won.

o “As the thousand forms of Nature

o Of one God alone do tell,

o So does one enduring feature

o In Art’s wide domain prevail.

o This, the sense of Truth Eternal,

o Beauty dons as her array,

o And unharmed by light supernal

o Gazes on the brightest day.

o “As the speaker, as the singer

o Blithely fare in rhyme or prose,

o Fresh beneath the painter’s finger

o Must bloom forth Life’s joyous rose.

o With her sisters round her closing,

o With the fruits that autumn brings,

o Thus the mysteries disclosing

o Of Life’s deeply hidden springs.

o “Form from form do thou dissever,

o Fair, in shapes a thousand fold;

o Of man’s image glad forever

o That a God it did enfold.

o Stand in brotherhood united,

o Whatsoe’er your work may be;

o And like sacred incense lighted

o Rise on high in melody.”

Wilhelm might well have let all this pass, although it must have seemed to him very paradoxical, and, had he not seen it with his eyes, actually impossible. But when they proceeded, in beautiful sequence, to declare and make it all clear to him openly and frankly, he hardly needed to ask a single question for further information; yet he did not forbear, at last, to address his conductor as follows:

“I see that here everything desirable in life has been provided for very wisely, but tell me, besides, which region can manifest a similar solicitude for dramatic poetry, and where might I gain information on that subject. I have looked round amongst all your edifices, and find none that could be destined for such an object.”

“In reply to this question we cannot deny that there is nothing of the sort to be met with in the whole of our province, for the theatre presupposes an idle crowd, perhaps even a rabble, the like of which is not to be found amongst us; for such people, if they do not go away disgusted, of their own accord, are conveyed across the frontier. Be assured, however, that in our universally active institution so important a point as this has been well considered; but no region could be found for it; some weighty objection occurred in every case. Who is there amongst our pupils who would have easily made up his mind to awaken in this mass, with feigned merriment or hypocritical sorrow, an unreal emotion inconsistent with the time, and thereby produce in alterations an ever-dubious pleasure? Such foolishness we considered altogether dangerous, and could not connect it with our serious aim.”

“And yet it is said,” replied Wilhelm, “that this widely-encompassing art requires all the others together.”

“Not at all,” was the reply; “she makes use of the others, but spoils them. I do not blame the actor when he associates himself with the painter, but still the painter, in such a partnership, is lost. The actor, without any conscience, will, for his own momentary ends, and with no small profit, use up all that art and life offer him; the painter, on the other hand, who would reap some advantage again from the theatre, will always find himself at a disadvantage, and the musician will be in the same case. The arts seem to me like so many sisters, of whom the greater number have been disposed to economy, but one of trivial disposition has had a mind to appropriate the possessions and property of the whole family. The theatre is in this situation: it has an ambiguous origin, which, whether as art or handicraft or dilettanteism, it can never wholly disguise.”

Wilhelm looked down with a deep sigh, for all the enjoyment and the sorrow that he had had from and on the stage, was suddenly present to him. He blessed the good men who were wise enough to spare their pupils such pain, who, from conviction and principle, banished these perils from their circle.

His conductor, however, did not leave him long to these meditations, but proceeded: “As it is our highest and holiest principle to misdirect no disposition or talent, we cannot hide from ourselves the fact, that amongst so great a number a natural mimetic gift may very likely be decisively displayed. This, however, shows itself in an irrepressible desire to ape the characters, figures, motion and speech of others. This we do not encourage, it is true, but we observe the pupil carefully, and if he remains throughout true to his nature, we have put ourselves in connection with the large theatres of all nations, and thither we send anyone of tried capacity, in order that, like the duck upon the pond, he may with all speed be guided on the stage to the future waddling and quacking of his life.”

Wilhelm listened to this with patience, yet only with partial conviction, and perhaps with some annoyance; for so wonderfully is man minded, that whilst he is really persuaded of the worthlessness of some favorite subject or other, and will turn away from, and even execrate himself, yet still he will not bear to have it treated in the same way by anyone else, and probably the spirit of contradiction which dwells in all mankind is never more vigorously and effectively excited than in such a case.

The editor of these papers may even confess that he allows this wonderful passage to pass with some reluctance. Has he not, too, in many senses devoted more than a due share of life and strength to the theatre? and would it be easy to convince him that this has been an inexcusable error, a fruitless exertion?

However, we have not time to apply ourselves ill-humoredly to such recollections and underlying feelings, for our friend finds himself agreeably surprised on seeing before him, once more, one of the Three, and one especially sympathetic. A communicative gentleness, telling of the purest peace of soul, imparted itself most revivingly: the Wanderer could approach him trustfully, and feel that his trust was returned.

He now learned that the Superior was at present in the sanctuary, and was there instructing, teaching and blessing, whilst the Three arranged severally to visit all the regions, and in every place — after obtaining the most minute information, and arranging with the subordinate overseers to carry forward what had been begun — to establish what had been newly determined, and thus faithfully fulfil their high duty.

This excellent man it was, who gave him a more general view of their internal economy, and external connections, as well as a knowledge of the reciprocal effect of all the different regions; nor did he fail to make clear how a pupil could be transferred from one to the other after a longer or shorter period. Enough, everything fully harmonized with what he already knew. At the same time, the account given of his son was a source of great satisfaction, and the plan on which they intended to proceed with him must needs obtain his entire approbation.

CHAPTER X.

Thereupon Wilhelm was invited by assistants and overseers to a mountain-festival which was on the point of being celebrated. They ascended the mountain with some difficulty, and Wilhelm fancied he noticed that towards evening the guide walked more slowly, as if the darkness would not oppose still further hindrance to their progress. But as soon as deep night surrounded them the riddle was solved for him: he saw, from numerous ravines and valleys, small flames glimmering unsteadily, stretching out into lines, and rolling towards them across the mountain heights. Much friendlier than when a volcano opens out, and its belching din threatens whole districts with destruction, did this spectacle appear; and yet, by-and-bye, it glowed much stronger, broader, and more concentrated, sparkling like a stream of stars, gentle and kindly it is true, but yet spreading itself boldly over the whole scene.

After enjoying some time the astonishment of the guest (for they could actually see each other well, their faces and forms seemed illuminated by the light in the distance, as well as their path), his companion began to speak:

“You see here a wonderful sight indeed: those lights, which glow and work, day and night, throughout the whole year, aiding the acquisition of hidden and scarcely attainable subterranean treasures, it is they that at the present moment are welling and gushing forth from their caverns and cheer the outer darkness. Hardly ever has a finer sight been seen, where the most useful industry, dispersed beneath the ground, withdrawn from sight, discloses itself to us in full completeness, bringing a vast secret combination to view.”

Amid such conversation and reflections, they had reached the spot where the rivulets of fire merged themselves into the sea of flame surrounding a brightly lighted insular space. The wanderer now stood in the blinding circle, where glancing lights by the thousand formed a weird contrast to the black background of the rows of miners. Forthwith the liveliest music was heard, with appropriate singing. Hollow masses of rock came away by the aid of machinery, and soon discovered a brilliant interior to the eye of the delighted spectator. Mimetic representations, and aught else that can add a charm to such a moment for the crowd, combined to excite and at the same time to satisfy a cheerful attention.

But with what astonishment was our friend filled, when he saw himself presented to the chief people, and amongst them, in solemn attire of state, beheld friend Jarno.

“Not without reason,” exclaimed the latter, “have I exchanged my earlier name for the more significant Montan. You find me here, consecrated to mountain and cavern, and happier in this limited situation below and upon the earth than can be imagined.”

“Then,” replied the wanderer, “you will thus, as a thorough expert, now be more liberal with explanation and instruction than you showed yourself towards me on those rocky mountain crags yonder.”

“Not at all,” rejoined Montan; “mountains are dumb teachers, and make silent scholars.”

After this festal celebration they supped at numerous tables. All the guests who, invited or uninvited, were present, belonged to the craft; consequently, even at the table at which Montan and his friend sat down, a conversation suited to the place at once commenced. The talk was all of mountains, lodes, and strata, of the veins and metals of the district in detail. But presently the conversation was merged into general subjects, and then the question turned on nothing less than the creation and origin of the world. But hereupon the discussion was no longer amicable, but rather involved itself speedily in a lively dispute.

Several of them would derive the formation of our earth from a watery covering sinking and diminishing itself little by little. They adduced in their support the remains of organic dwellers in the sea, on the highest mountains, as well as on the low hills. Others, on the contrary, averred more positively that it was first glowing and molten, that fire also prevailed throughout, which after it had had sufficient effect upon the outer surface, was finally withdrawn into the very depths, and was henceforward in constant activity through volcanoes raging violently in the sea as well as on the earth, and thus by successive eruptions, and lava likewise streaming over time after time, formed the highest mountains. They also especially reminded those who thought otherwise, that, in fact, without fire nothing could become hot, and that an active fire always presupposed a hearth. However reconcilable with experience this might seem, many were not contented with it. They affirmed that mighty forms which had already become fully perfected within the bosom of the earth, were driven by the agency of irresistible elastic forces through the earth’s crust and out into the heights, and in this tumult many portions of them were at the same time scattered and splintered far over the contiguous and distant tracts; they appealed to many facts which were not to be explained without some such assumption. A fourth, though perhaps not a numerous party, laughed at these futile attempts, and affirmed that indeed many circumstances of the surface of this earth would never be capable of explanation if we did not allow that larger and smaller mountain ranges had fallen down from the atmosphere, and tracts of land had been covered far and wide by them. They called to witness larger and smaller masses of rock which are found lying scattered about in many countries, and even in our days are collected as having been hurled down from above.

At last, two or three quiet guests essayed to call in the assistance of a period of severe cold, and from the highest mountain ridges would look in spirit upon glaciers sloping down far into the land, sliding-planes so to speak, provided for heavy masses of primitive rock, which were thus pushed farther and farther down upon the slippery path. These, on the advent of the period of thaw, must needs sink down, to remain lying forever on foreign soil. Thus, also, the transport of enormous blocks of stone hither from the north by means of floating drift-ice would become possible. These good folks, however, could not make any impression with their somewhat calm views. It was held to be far more in accordance with nature to allow the creation of a world to proceed with gigantic bursting and upheaving, with tumultuous roaring and fiery jaculation; and when, moreover, the heat of wine had contributed its potent effect, the sumptuous feast had almost been broken up in murderous doings.

Utterly confused and befogged was our friend’s mind, who, in quiet thought, still cherished from of old the Spirit that had moved upon the face of the waters, and the deep flood which had stood fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, and to whom, amid this strange talk, the world, well-ordered, developed, and animated as it was, seemed to fall, before his imagination, into a chaotic heap.

The next morning he did not omit to question the grave Montan on this subject, exclaiming, “I could not understand you yesterday, for amongst all the extraordinary things and speeches, I was hoping to hear at last your opinion, and your decision; instead of which, you were sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and always tried to confirm the opinion of him who happened to be speaking. But now tell me seriously what you think of it all, what you know about it.”

To this Montan replied, “I know as much as they, and would rather not think at all about it.”

“But here,” replied Wilhelm, “are so many contradictory opinions; and it is said, forsooth, that truth lies in the middle.”

“Not at all,” rejoined Montan; “the problem lies in the middle, insoluble perhaps, perhaps also accessible if it is taken in hand.”

So after somewhat more had been said to like effect by one and the other, Montan continued confidentially: “You blame me for supporting each one in his opinion, insomuch that a further argument can always be found for everything; I thereby increased the confusion, it is true, but, in point of fact, I cannot, with this breed, take the matter more seriously. I have thoroughly convinced myself that what each holds dearest — and these, in fact, are our convictions — he must, in deepest seriousness, keep to himself. Each one knows what he does know only for himself; and that he must keep secret; when he utters it, contradiction is excited forthwith, and when he ventures into conflict, he loses the equilibrium in himself, and what is best in him, if not annihilated, is at any rate disturbed.”

Prompted by some counter-arguments of Wilhelm’s, Montan further declared, “If one once knows on what everything depends, one ceases to be argumentative.”

“But what does everything depend on then?” replied Wilhelm impatiently.

“That is soon said,” answered the other. “Thinking and Doing, Doing and Thinking, from all time admitted, from all time practised, but not discerned by everyone. Like expiration and inhalation, the two must forever be pulsating backwards and forwards in life; like question and answer, the one cannot exist without the other. Whoever makes for himself a law — which the genius of human understanding secretly whispers into the ear of every new-born child — to test Doing by Thinking, Thinking by Doing, he cannot go astray; and if he does go astray, he will soon find himself on the right way again.”

Montan now proceeded to conduct his friend methodically round the mining district; they were greeted everywhere with a gruff “Good-luck!” which they cheerfully returned.

“I often feel inclined,” said Montan, “to call out to them, ‘Good sense!’ for sense is more than luck; yet the people always have sense enough, if their superiors have any. Since I am here, if not to command, at any rate to advise, I have taken some trouble to learn the peculiarities of the mountain. They are striving most vigorously after the metals that it contains. I have been trying to make clear to myself where these occur, and I have succeeded. It is not done by luck alone, but by sense, which calls in the aid of luck in order to regulate it. How these mountains have come to be here I know not, and what is more I do not care to know; but I daily endeavor to win away from them their property. The lead and silver that they bear in their bosom is greedily sought after; how they have it, I keep to myself, and provide an opportunity of finding what is wished for. At my advice an experimental attempt is made, it succeeds, and is lucky for me. What I know, I know to myself; in what I succeed, I succeed for the benefit of others, and no one imagines that in the same way he might have succeeded just as well. I am under the suspicion of possessing a magic wand; but they do not remark that they contradict me whenever I bring forward anything in the way of reasoning, and that they thereby cut off from themselves the way to the tree of knowledge where these divining rods may be plucked.”

Reassured by this conversation, persuaded that he, too, having hitherto prospered in his Doing and Thinking, had in general adapted himself, in a widely different department, to his friend’s requirements, he now proceeded to give account of the employment of his time, since he had obtained the favor of distributing and using the prescribed term of travel, not by days and hours, but in accordance with the true aim of a complete culture.

In this there was now, as it happened, no need of many words, for a circumstance of some moment gave our friend an opportunity of turning his acquired talent skilfully and favorably to account, and of proving himself truly useful to human society.

But of what sort this was, we must not at the moment disclose, though the reader shall soon, before the end of this book, be sufficiently informed of it.

CHAPTER XI.

Hersilia to Wilhelm.

“Everyone has for many years upbraided me with being a strange whimsical girl. If it is the case, I am so without any fault of my own. People have had to be patient with me; and now I need to have patience with myself, and with my imagination, which brings father and son sometimes together, sometimes alternately backwards and forwards before my eyes. I seem to myself like an innocent Alkmene, who is perpetually haunted by two beings who personate each other.

“I have much to say to you, and yet I write to you, it seems, only when I have an adventure to relate; all the rest, too, is adventure-like, it is true, but not an adventure. So now for that of to-day.

“I am sitting under the tall lime-trees, and am just finishing a letter-case, a very pretty one, without knowing for certain who is to have it — father or son — but certainly one of the two. A young pedlar comes up to me with small baskets and boxes; he modestly legitimates himself by a permit from the bailiff allowing him to hawk goods upon the estate. I examine his small wares down to the endless trifles that nobody wants, and everybody buys from a childish impulse to possess and to spend. The boy seems to look at me attentively. Fine black, somewhat cunning eyes, well-marked eyebrows, profuse locks, sparkling rows of teeth — enough, you understand me, something of the oriental.

“He makes a great many inquiries in reference to the persons composing the family, to whom he would at any rate venture to offer something; by all sorts of manœuvres he manages to get me to name myself to him. ‘Hersilia,’ he says shyly, ‘will Hersilia excuse me if I discharge a commission?’ I looked at him in astonishment. He draws forth the smallest little slate enclosed in a white frame, such as are made in the mountains for the first childish attempts at writing. I take it, see that it is written upon, and read the inscription, neatly cut in with a sharp pencil: Felix loves Hersilia. The equerry is coming soon.

“I am dumfoundered, I ponder in astonishment on what I hold in my hand, see before my eyes; and chiefly on this, that destiny will prove itself almost more extraordinary than I am myself. ‘What does this mean?’ I say to myself, and the little rogue is more than ever present to me; nay, it seems as if his image would drill itself into my eyes.

“Then I begin to ask questions, and receive strange, unsatisfactory answers. I examine, and arrive at nothing. I think, and cannot properly collect my thoughts. At length, from talking and counter-talking, I gather thus much, that the young dealer had also passed through the Pedagogic province, and acquired the confidence of my young adorer, who having bought a slate had written the inscription upon it, and promised him the best recompenses for a word or two in reply. He then handed me a similar slate, several of which he disclosed in his pack, and likewise a pencil, and at the same time insisted and begged in so friendly a manner, that I took both, thought, thought again, and not being able to excogitate anything, wrote, Hersilia greets Felix, and hopes the equerry is well.

“I considered what I had written, and felt vexed at its clumsy expression. Neither tenderness, nor inspiration, nor wit; mere embarrassment: and why? I was standing before a boy, and writing to a boy: ought that to deprive me of my composure? I verily believe that I sighed, and was just on the point of wiping out what I had written, but he took it so gracefully out of my hand, asked me for something or other with which to cover it carefully; and so it happened that I — though I know not how it happened — put the little slate into the letter-case, wound the string round it, and handed it, fastened up, to the boy, who took it gracefully, and bowing deeply, lingered a moment, so that I just had time to press my purse into his hand, and blamed myself for not having given him enough. He ran off at a pretty good pace, and when I looked after him had already disappeared, I do not rightly understand how.

“Now it is past, I am already back on the ordinary, everyday level, and scarcely believe in the apparition. Do I not hold the slate in my hand? It is only too charming, the writing quite beautifully and carefully traced; I believe I should have kissed it if I had not been afraid of obliterating the writing.

“I have taken a little time after writing the above; but whatever I think about this, too, will always avail nothing. Most certainly there was something mysterious about the figure, the like of which are now-a-days indispensable in fiction; must they then encounter us in real life too? Agreeable and suspicious, foreign-looking, yet inspiring confidence; why did he go away too before the puzzle was solved? Why had I not sufficient presence of mind civilly to detain him?

“After a pause I again take pen in hand to pursue my confessions. The decided, constant affection of a boy ripening into youth might be flattering to me, but then it occurred to me that, at this age, it is nothing uncommon to be attached to older women. Indeed there is a mysterious inclination in younger men for older women. At another time, when it did not concern myself, I would have laughed over it, and maliciously declared it to be a reminiscence of the tender age of nursing and sucking-babyhood from which they were scarcely emancipated. Now it vexes me to think of the matter like this; I reduce the good Felix to infancy, and yet I do not find myself in an advantageous position either. Alas! what a difference it makes whether one is judging one’s self or other people!”

CHAPTER XII.

Wilhelm to Natalia.

“I have been walking about for days, and cannot make up my mind to set pen to paper, there are so many things to tell: in speaking, perhaps, one thing would connect itself with another; one thing, too, would easily develop itself out of the other. Let me then, the absent one, begin only with what is most general; it will yet lead me at last to the strange matter that I have to impart.

“You have heard of the youth who, walking on the seashore, found a rudder-pin; the interest that he felt in it impelled him to procure a rudder as necessarily belonging to it. But this too was of no further use to him. He earnestly desired to get a boat, and succeeded in doing so. Yet boat, rudder, and rudder-pin were of no particular use; he provided himself with masts and sails, and so, piece by piece, with whatever is requisite for speed and convenience in navigation. By efforts adapted to his ends he attained to greater aptitude and dexterity; fortune favors him, he sees himself at last master and owner of a larger vessel, and so success increases; he wins wealth, respect, and a good name amongst the seafarers.

“In causing you to read this pretty story again, I must confess that it is appropriate here only in the widest sense, yet it gives me an opening for expressing that which I have to say. Meanwhile, I must run through something still more remote.

“The capabilities that lie in men can be divided into general and special; the general are to be regarded as activities in a state of balanced repose, which are aroused by circumstances, and directed accidentally to this or that end. Man’s faculty of imitation is general: he will make or form in imitation of what he sees, even without the slightest inward and outward means to that end. It is always natural, therefore, that he should wish to do what he sees to be done: the most natural thing, however, would be that the son should embrace the occupation of his father. In this case it is all in one, a decided activity in an original direction, with probably an inborn faculty for a special end; then a resultant and gradually progressive exercise and a developed talent, that would have compelled us to proceed upon the beaten path, even if other impulses are developed within us, and a free choice might have led us to an occupation for which nature has given us neither capacity nor perseverance. On the average, therefore, those men are the happiest who find an opportunity of cultivating an inborn, family talent in the domestic circle. We have seen painter-pedigrees of this sort; amongst them there have been feeble talents, it is true, but in the meantime, they have brought to light something useful, and perhaps better than they would have achieved with moderate powers in any other department of their own choice.

“But as this, too, is not what I wanted to say, I must try to approach my subject from some other side.

“This is the pity of friends being far apart, that the intermediate and auxiliary members of our thoughts, which in mutual presence are reciprocally developed and interwoven as swiftly as lightning, cannot be produced and expressed in momentary connection and association. Here then, in the first place, is one of the earliest of children’s tales.

“We children, brought up in an ancient and sober city, had acquired the ideas of streets, squares, and walls, and soon, also, of ramparts, of the glacis, and of the adjoining walled gardens. But our parents, in order to take us, or rather themselves, once into the open country, had for a long time arranged, though it was continually deferred, a party, with some friends in the country. At last, one Whitsuntide, the invitation and proposal came more pressingly, and was agreed to, but only on the condition that everything should be so arranged that we might be home again by night-time; for to sleep out of one’s long-accustomed bed seemed to be an impossibility. To concentrate the pleasures of the day into so narrow a space was certainly difficult; two friends had to be visited, and their claims to so infrequent an entertainment satisfied; however, with great punctuality, there were hopes of carrying it all out.

“On the third day of the holidays all were standing, at the earliest hour, cheerful and ready. The carriage drew up at the appointed time. We had left all confinements of streets, gates, bridges, and town-ditches behind us; an open far-extending world spread itself before our inexperienced eyes. The green of cornfields and meadows lately refreshed by rain in the night, the tint more or less bright of buds on hedges and trees just bursting forth, the dazzling whiteness of the tree-blossoms diffusing itself on all sides, everything gave us a foretaste of happy Eden-like hours.

“We arrived in due time at the first halting-place, the house of a worthy clergyman. Our cordial reception soon assured us that the ecclesiastical feast now concluded was no detriment to spirits seeking rest and refreshment. I regarded the rural household for the first time with pleased interest — plough and harrow, wagon and cart, betrayed their immediate use; even the repulsive-looking manure seemed the most indispensable in the whole circuit, for it was carefully collected, and, to a certain degree, neatly stored up. Yet this first glance, directed to what was new and yet intelligible, was soon riveted by a treat: appetizing cakes, new milk, and many other country dainties were greedily regarded by us. Then the children, forsaking the little garden-plot and the hospitable arbor, quickly busied themselves in performing, in the adjoining spinney, a task which an old, kindly-disposed aunt had given them. That was to gather as many cowslips as possible, and carefully take them back to town with them, for the thrifty goodwife was in the habit of making all sorts of wholesome beverages of them.

“Whilst thus employed in the meadows, we were running backwards and forwards along banks and hedges, several of the village-children joined us, and the sweet scent of the gathered spring-flowers seemed to grow more and more refreshing and balmy. We had by this time collected such a mass of stalks and flowers that we did not know what to do with them. Now we began to pick off the yellow coronals, for it was really only with these that we had to do; each tried to fill his little hat or cap as full as possible.

“However, the eldest of these boys, the fisherman’s son, who was a little older than myself, a boy who had at once especially attracted me by his serious demeanor, did not seem to enjoy this trifling over flowers, and he invited me to walk with him to the river, which, already of considerable breadth, flowed by at a short distance. We sat down, with a couple of fishing-rods, in a shady place, where in the deep, clear, calm water many little fishes were darting hither and thither. He good-naturedly showed me what to do, and how the bait was to be fastened on the hook, and several times I was successful in whisking into the air, against their will, the smallest of these delicate creatures. As we were thus sitting quietly leaning against each other, he seemed to get tired of it, and made me observe a flat, pebbly bank which projected into the stream from our side, and that there was a most beautiful opportunity for a bathe. ‘He could not help trying it,’ he cried at last, springing up, and before I was aware, he was down, undressed, and in the water.

“As he swam very well, he soon left the shallow place, abandoned himself to the stream, and soon came up to me in the deeper water. Quite a strange feeling came over me: grasshoppers were dancing about me, ants were crawling towards me, colored beetles were clinging to the twigs, and gold-gleaming ‘sun-maidens,’ as he had called them, were hovering and flitting spirit-like at my feet, just as he, pulling out a great cray-fish from between some roots, held it up merrily, and then cleverly concealed it again at the old place with what we had caught before. It was so warm and sultry all around, one yearned to be out of the sun and in the shade, out of the cool shade in the still cooler water below. So it was easy for him to entice me down; I found an invitation, not often repeated, irresistible, and what with fear of my parents, and timidity about the unfamiliar element in addition, I was quite strangely excited. But soon undressed upon the gravel, I ventured gently into the water, but not deeper than was due to the gradually sloping bottom. Here he let me linger, went to some distance in the sustaining element, came back, and when he got out and stood up to dry himself in the fuller sunshine, my eyes seemed to be dazzled by a triple sun; so fair was the human form, of which I had never had any idea. He seemed to look at me with equal attention. Though quickly dressed, we still seemed to stand unclothed before each other; our spirits drew together, and amidst the most ardent kisses we swore eternal friendship.

“But then swiftly, swiftly, we betook ourselves home, just at the right moment, as the party were setting out on the most delightful footpath, for about an hour and a half, through bush and wood, to the bailiff’s dwelling. My friend accompanied me; we already seemed inseparable; but when, about half-way there, I asked permission to take him into the bailiff’s house, the pastor’s wife refused, with a quiet hint about the impropriety; on the other hand, she gave him a strict injunction to tell his father when he came in, that she must be sure on her return home to find some fine crayfish, that she wished to give her guests to take back to the city as a rarity. The boy went off, but pledged himself with hand and lips to wait for me in the evening at this corner of the wood.

“The party soon reached the bailiff’s, where we also found a rural household, but of a higher style. A dinner delayed in consequence of the housewife’s being over-busy, did not make me impatient; for a stroll in a well-kept pleasure-garden, in which the daughter, who was somewhat younger than I, accompanied me to show me the way, was very agreeable to me. Spring-flowers of every kind grew in tastefully laid-out plots, filling them or decking their edges. My companion was beautiful, fair-haired, and gentle; we walked confidentially together, soon held each other by the hand, and seemed to wish for nothing better. Thus we walked past tulip-beds, past narcissuses and jonquils in rows; she showed me several places where the most splendid hyacinth-bells had already just gone off. On the other hand, provision had been made for the coming seasons too; the plants of future ranunculuses and anemones were already green; the care bestowed upon numerous carnation slips promised the most abundant bloom; but the hope of many-flowered lily-stems, very wisely distributed among roses, was already budding more nearly. And how many were the bowers that promised presently both the beauty and the shade of honeysuckle, jasmine, and vine-like and creeping kinds of growth!

“When I look back, after so many years, at my situation on that occasion, it seems to me really enviable. Unexpectedly, at the same moment, the premonition of friendship and love seized me: for when I unwillingly took leave of the beautiful child, I comforted myself with the thought of disclosing these feelings to my young friend, of confiding in him, and of enjoying his sympathy together with these fresh sentiments.

“And if I add one more remark here, I may perhaps confess that in the course of life that first out-blooming of the exterior world has appeared to me as the real original nature, in comparison with which all else that later appeals to our senses seem to be but copies, which at every comparison with the former are deficient in that peculiarly original spirit and sense.

“How we must have despaired at seeing so cold, so lifeless an outward life, had not something revealed itself in our heart that glorifies nature in quite another way, whilst manifesting a creative power, to beautify ourselves in her.

“It was already dusk when we again approached the corner of the wood, where my young friend had promised to wait for me. I strained my eyesight to its utmost extent to descry his presence; and when I was unsuccessful in this, I impatiently hurried in front of the party, who walked leisurely, running to and fro amongst the bushes. I called out, I worried myself; he was not to be seen, nor did he answer; for the first time I experienced, in double and manifold degree, a passionate grief.

“The unmeasured demands of confidential affection had already developed themselves in me, there was already an irresistible need to unburden my soul, by talking, of the image of that fair-haired one, to relieve my heart of the emotions which she had awakened in me. It was full, the lips already muttered, to overflowing. I blamed the good boy aloud for violated friendship, for broken faith.

“But heavier trials were soon in store for me. From out of the first houses of the village rushed shrieking women, followed by screaming children; no one gave information or answer. Round the corner house on one side we saw a sad procession approach: it moved slowly along the street; it seemed like a funeral, but of more complicated character; there was no end to the bearing and carrying along. The shrieking continued, increased, the crowd thickened: ‘They are drowned — all drowned together!’ ‘He! who? which?’ The mothers who saw their children about them seemed consoled. But a serious-looking man came up, and said to the pastor’s wife, ‘Unhappily, I stayed out too long; Adolphus has been drowned with four others; he wished to keep his promise and mine.’ The man — it was the fisherman himself — walked on after the procession; we stood shocked and astounded. Then a little boy came up, holding out a bag: ‘Here are the crayfish, madam!’ and held the token high in the air. All were horrified at it, as at a thing of most evil omen: they questioned, inquired, and heard thus much: this last child had remained on the bank and picked up the crayfish that they threw to him from below. But then, after much questioning and cross-questioning, they found out that Adolphus and two sensible boys had gone down to and into the water; two others, younger, had joined them unasked, and could not be kept back by any scolding and threats. The first two had almost got across a rocky and dangerous place; the other two slipped, seized hold of and kept pulling each other underneath. The same thing occurred at last to the foremost two also, and they all sank in the deep water. Adolphus, being a good swimmer, would have saved himself, but in their terror they all hung on to him, and he was dragged down. This little one had then run screaming into the village, holding his bag of crayfish tight in his hands. The fisherman, accidentally late on his way home, ran off with others who were alarmed; they had dragged them out one after the other, found that they were dead, and were now bringing them in.

“The pastor, together with the father, walked sadly towards the town-house; the full moon had risen, and shone on the path of death. I followed in passionate grief; they would not let me in, I was in a terrible condition. I walked round and round the house without resting; at last I saw my opportunity, and sprang in at the open window.

“In the large room, where meetings of all kinds are held, lay the unfortunates, stretched naked upon straw, dazzling white corpses, shining also in the dim lamplight. I threw myself upon the tallest — my friend. I had no words to express my condition; I wept bitterly, and deluged his broad breast with unceasing tears. I had heard something of rubbing, which in such a case was said to be of use. I rubbed in my tears, and cheated myself with the warmth that I excited. Amidst my confusion, I thought of breathing breath into him, but the pearly rows of his teeth were fast locked; the lips, on which the parting kiss still seemed to remain, refused even the slightest symptom of response. Despairing of human aid, I had recourse to prayer: I implored, I prayed. It seemed to me as if at this moment I must perform a miracle to call forth the still indwelling soul, to lure it in again if still hovering near. I was torn away, weeping, sobbing. I sat in the carriage, and scarcely understood what my parents were saying. Our mother, as I afterwards heard so often repeated, had resigned herself to God’s will. In the meanwhile I had fallen asleep, and awoke gloomily, late next morning, in a doubtful and confused condition.

“But when I went to breakfast I found my mother, my aunt, and the cook in weighty consultation. The crayfish were not to be boiled nor brought to table; my father would not endure such a direct reminiscence of the calamity that had so lately occurred. The aunt seemed to wish most eagerly to possess herself of these uncommon creatures, but at the same time blamed me for our having forgotten to bring the cowslips with us. However, she soon seemed to be pacified about this, when those misshapen creatures crawling alive over each other were handed over to her free disposal, whereupon she took counsel with the cook as to their further treatment.

“But to make the significance of this scene clear, I must say something more of the character and personality of this woman. The peculiarities by which she was governed one could not by any means praise from a moral point of view; and yet from a civic and political point of view they produced many a good result. She was, in the proper sense of the word, miserly; for she regretted every mere penny that she had to spend, and for her requirements she looked about everywhere for substitutes that could be got for nothing, by exchange, or in any sort of fashion. Thus the cowslips were intended for tea, which she maintained to be more wholesome than any Chinese sort. God had given every land what was necessary, whether for food, for relish, or for medicine; on that account one need not have recourse to foreign countries. So in a little garden she cultivated everything that, after her notions, would make food palatable, or would be useful to the sick. She never visited another person’s garden without taking away with her something of the sort.

“This disposition and whatever resulted from it could well be pardoned, since her diligently-hoarded cash would after all be for the benefit of the family. In this matter, too, our father and mother managed to give in completely to her and be accommodating.

“Another propensity, however, one of activity, and indefatigably asserting itself, was a pride in being regarded as an important and influential person. And, in truth, she had deserved and attained this reputation, for she was clever enough to turn to her own advantage the useless, and often indeed mischievous, gossip current among women. Everything that went on in the town, and consequently even the private affairs of families, was accurately known to her, and it was not often that any matter of dispute arose without her having contrived to mix herself up in it, in which she was the more successful inasmuch as she always tried to be of some use, but managed thereby to increase her reputation and good name. Many a match had she made with which one side at least probably remained satisfied. But what she gave her attention to most was the furthering and assisting of such persons as were seeking an office or appointment, whereby she really gained a large number of clients, of whose influence she was able to avail herself in return.

“The widow of an official of some importance, an upright and strict man, she yet had learned how those whom one cannot get at by any considerable overtures are gained over by trifles.

“However, to keep on the beaten path without further digression, be it said at once that she had contrived to gain great influence over a man who occupied an important office. He was miserly like her, and, to his own misfortune, equally gluttonous and fond of dainties; so to set on the table before him, on any pretext, a tasty dish, was always her chief anxiety. His conscience was not one of the most sensitive; but his courage and audacity had also to be called into request, whenever in dubious cases he had to overcome the opposition of his colleagues and stifle the voice of duty which they brought to bear against him.

“It was precisely this case now — that she was favoring an unworthy individual: she had done all she could to push him in, the matter had taken a favorable turn for her, and now the crayfish, of which the like were indeed rarely seen, luckily came to her assistance. They were to be carefully fed up, and served up at intervals on the table of her distinguished patron, who commonly dined alone very sparely.

“As to other matters, the unfortunate calamity gave occasion to a good deal of talk and social excitement. My father was one of the first who on this occasion was impelled by a spirit of general benevolence to extend his consideration and care beyond the limits of his family and of the town. He was interested, in conjunction with certain intelligent physicians, and those connected with the police, in overcoming the great obstacles which at first opposed inoculation for smallpox. Greater carefulness in the hospital, more humane treatment of prisoners, and other kindred objects, were the end and aim of his life, or at any rate of his reading and thinking; and, as he used to give utterance to his convictions on all occasions, he thus effected a great deal of good.

“He looked upon the association of citizens, to whatever form of government it might be subjected, as a natural condition which had its good and its bad side — its ordinary courses, its years of plenty and scarcity alternately, and hailstorms, floods, and fires, no less accidentally and irregularly: the good to be seized and used, the bad to be avoided or endured. But nothing, he considered, was more desirable than the diffusion of universal goodwill, independently of every other consideration.

“As a natural consequence of such a disposition he must now needs be determined to bring again under discussion a matter of benevolence that had already been mooted before: this was the resuscitation of such as were thought to be dead, in whatever way, moreover, the outward signs of life might have been lost. During conversations of this sort I now learned that in the case of these children the reverse of what was right had been tried and applied, nay, that, in a certain sense, they had been killed. It was furthermore maintained that by opening a vein they might perhaps all have been saved. In my youthful ardor, I therefore determined in silence that I would spare no opportunity of learning everything that might be needful in such a case, especially blood-letting, and whatever else there might be of like sort.

“But how soon did daily routine carry me away! The need for friendship and love had been awakened; I looked round about me everywhere to satisfy it. Meanwhile sensibility, imagination, and intellect were occupied beyond measure by the theatre: how far I was here led, and misled, I must not repeat.

“But if after this circumstantial narrative I have still to confess that I am as far as ever from the goal of my intention, and that I can only hope to arrive at it by a circuitous route, what am I to say? How can I excuse myself? In any case I should have to bring forward what follows. If it is allowable to the humorist to mix up his matter in minutest confusion, when he impudently leaves it to his reader to find out at last in half-meanings what — if anything — is to be got out of it, should it not be permitted to the intelligent and rational man to work in a strange-seeming way towards many points, so that one may at last see them reflected and concentrated in one focus, and may learn to understand how the most varied influences surrounding a man drive him to a conclusion which he would have been able to attain in no other way, either through inward impulse or outward motive?

“From the many things which still remain for me to say, I have the choice as to which I shall take first; but this too, is a matter of indifference. You must just possess your soul in patience, read and read on; for at last there will suddenly dawn upon you, and seem quite natural, that which spoken in one word would have struck you as exceedingly strange, and in fact to such a degree, that you would hardly have cared afterwards to give a moment to these introductions in the form of explanations.

“But that I may now in some sort get in the right direction, I will take a glance back at that rudder-pin again, and call to mind a conversation that I was accidentally led to hold with our tried friend Jarno — whom I met in the mountains under the name of Montan — and which awakened certain feelings of my own in a very special way. The circumstances of our life have a mysterious course which cannot be calculated. You remember, doubtless, that case which your skilful surgeon brought out when you came to help me as I lay prostrate and wounded in the forest? It flashed in my eyes at that time with such effect, and made so deep an impression, that I was quite delighted when I found it again, years after, in the hands of a younger man. He attached no particular value to it; instruments altogether had been improved in more recent times, and were better adapted to their purpose, and I obtained it all the more easily as the acquisition of a new set was thereby facilitated. From that time I always carried it about with me, not to make any use of it, it is true; but in order to be surer of comforting recollections; it was a witness to the moment when my good fortune began, at which I was to arrive only after a long circuit.

“By chance Jarno saw it when we spent the night at the charcoal-burner’s; and he recognized it at once, and in reply to my explanation said:

“ ‘I have nothing to object to a man’s setting up such a fetish in memory of many an unlooked-for benefit, or of important results from some ordinary circumstance; it elevates us as something that points to an Incomprehensible, stimulates us in difficulties, and encourages our hopes; but it would be a finer thing if you had let yourself be enticed, through those tools, to understand their use also, and to accomplish what they mutely demand of you.’

“ ‘Let me confess,’ I replied thereto, ‘that this has occurred to me a hundred times; an inner voice stirred within me, bidding me recognize in this my peculiar vocation.’

“I thereupon told him the story of the drowned boys, and how I had heard then that they might have been saved, if they had been bled. ‘I intended to learn how to do it; but every hour made the intention weaker.’

“ ‘Then seize it now!’ replied he. ‘I have for long seen you occupied with matters that concern and bear upon the human spirit, disposition, heart, and whatever you call it all. But what have you thereby gained for yourself and others? Sorrows of the mind into which we have fallen by misfortune or our own faults; to heal these intellect can do nothing, reason little, time much; resolute activity, on the other hand, everything. In this every one works with and for himself; that you have experienced in yourself and others.’

“He attacked me with angry and bitter words, as is his wont, and said many hard things that I do not care to repeat. ‘There is nothing,’ he concluded at last, ‘better worth the trouble of learning and doing than to assist the healthy man when he is injured by some accident or other; with prudent treatment, nature easily restores itself: the sick must be left to the physician; but no one needs a surgeon more than the sound and healthy man. In the quietude of country life, in the narrowest family circle, he is just as welcome as in and after the turmoil of battle; in the sweetest moments, as in the bitterest and most terrible; evil fate prevails everywhere, more dreadful than death itself, and not a whit less ruthless, nay, after a fashion, yet more noxious, more destructive to pleasure and to life.’

“You know him, and can imagine without effort that he spared me as little as the world. But he inclined most strongly to the argument which he directed against me in the name of the society at large.

“ ‘Your universal culture,’ said he, ‘and all institutions for that end, are foolishness. The thing is, that a man should understand something quite definitely, do it with an excellence which scarce anyone else in the immediate neighborhood could attain; and in our association particularly this is a self-evident matter. You are just of an age when a man forms any plan with intelligence, judges what lies before him with discernment, grapples with it from the right side, and directs his capacities and abilities to the right end.’

“Why, then, need I proceed to express what is a self-understood matter? He made it clear to me that I could obtain a dispensation from the restless life so strangely enjoined, though it might be difficult for me to obtain it. ‘You are one of that sort of men,’ he said, ‘who easily grow accustomed to a place, but not to an occupation. To all such a restless state of life is prescribed, in order, perhaps, that they may attain to a surer manner of life. If you will devote yourself in earnest to the most divine of all employments, to heal without miracles, and to perform miracles without words, I will use my influence in your favor.’ So he spoke hurriedly, adding all such cogent reasons as his eloquence was able to muster.

“Here then, I am disposed to make an end: but you shall very soon learn circumstantially how I have made use of the permission to remain a longer time at certain places; how I have succeeded in applying myself to the profession for which I have always had a secret liking, and of thoroughly training myself therein. Enough, in the great undertaking for which you are preparing yourself, I shall prove myself a useful, a necessary member of the society, and I shall fall into your paths with a certain assurance — with some amount of pride; for to be worthy of you is a laudable pride.”

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

After all this, and whatever followed upon it, Wilhelm’s first anxiety was to come into contact again with the guild-brethren, and to meet with some portion or other of them, wherever it might be. He therefore consulted his little diagram, and took the road which promised to bring him sooner than the others to his goal. But since, in order to reach the most favorable point, it was necessary for him to go across country, he found himself obliged to make the journey on foot, and to have his baggage carried after him. However, at every step he was richly rewarded for his walk, for he encountered unexpectedly the most lovely scenery. It was such as the last mountainous tracts form as they merge into the plains — wooded hills, gentle declivities used for husbandry, all the surfaces green, and nowhere aught that was rugged, unfruitful, or untilled to be seen. He now arrived at the main valley, into which the tributary streams poured themselves; this, too, was carefully tilled, and pleasant to behold: slender trees marked the bends of the river that flowed through it, and of the streams that poured into it; and when he took up the map that was his guide, he saw, to his astonishment, that the line drawn upon it cut right through this valley, and that thus he was at any rate upon the right path.

An old castle, in a good state of preservation, having been renovated at various periods, was conspicuous upon a woody hill; spreading outward from its foot lay a cheerful-looking village, in which an inn that stood out prominently caught the eye. He walked up to the latter, and was received in a very friendly manner by the host, but with the excuse that he could not take him in without the permission of a party who had hired the whole house for a time, on which account he was obliged to refer all guests to the older hostelry, that lay farther up.

After a short parley, the man seemed to think better of it, and said, “As a matter of fact, there is no one as yet in the house; but it happens to be Saturday, and it cannot be long before the bailiff, who settles the accounts every week and gives his orders for the next, arrives. In truth there is a nice regularity amongst these people, and it is a pleasure to deal with them, although they are rather close. For if there certainly is no great profit, it is a sure one.” Therewith he bade the new guest remain patiently in the large upper hall, and await what further might occur.

Here he found, on entering, a spacious and neat apartment, quite empty but for benches and tables; so much the more did he wonder on seeing a large tablet placed above a door, upon which, in letters of gold, were to be read the words Ubi homines sunt, modi sunt, which we interpret to the effect that wherever men meet together in social life, there the way and fashion in which they can exist and remain together are evolved. This motto gave our wanderer food for thought; he took it as a good omen, that here he found confirmed what he had often in the course of his life recognized as reasonable and helpful. It was not long before the bailiff made his appearance, who, having been instructed beforehand, admitted him, after a short conversation and no particular investigation, on the following conditions: that he should stay three days, should quietly take part in all that went on, and, whatever might happen, should not inquire the reason, and still less should not, on his departure, ask for the reckoning. All this the traveller was forced to agree to, since the deputy, as such, could not give in in any point.

The bailiff was just about to depart, when a song resounded up the stairs: two beautiful young men approached singing, whom the bailiff by a simple sign gave to understand that the guest was accepted. Without interrupting their song, they greeted him kindly, gracefully singing a duet, and it was easy to see that they were in perfect practice, and masters of their craft. As Wilhelm showed the most attentive appreciation, they stopped and asked him whether in his travels on foot he too had not often hit upon some song that he thus sang aloud to himself.

“A good voice,” answered Wilhelm, “has in fact been denied me by nature, but a hidden genius within me often seems to inspire me with something rhythmic, so that in walking I move constantly in time, and at the same time seem to perceive soft tones by which some song is accompanied, that in one way or another pleasantly presents itself to me.”

“If you remember any one of the sort, write it down for us,” said he; “we should like to see whether we are able to accompany your singing daimon.”

Hereupon he took a leaf from his notebook and handed them the following stanza:

“From the mountain heights descending,

Down the slopes, the vale along,

Hark! a wing-like flutter, blending

With a movement as of song.

And on unrestricted roving

Joy attends and prudent heed:

Let thy striving be with loving,

Let thy life consist in deed.”

After a short time for thought there forthwith sounded a lively duet, timed to marching pace, which, with all repetition and abridgment, went constantly forward and carried away the hearers with it; he was in doubt whether this was his own melody, his former theme, or whether it was only now so adapted to it that no other movement was conceivable. In this way the singers had proceeded pleasantly for some time, when two sturdy fellows entered, whom one recognized at once by their attributes as masons; but two who followed them, one must needs regard as carpenters. These four, gently laying down their tools, listened to the song, and presently joined in with sureness and decision, so that one had the sensation of a whole company of travellers marching onward over mountain and valley, and Wilhelm thought that he had never heard anything so graceful and so elevating to heart and mind. This enjoyment, however, was to be further increased and heightened to the last degree, when a gigantic figure mounted the steps, and with the best intentions was scarcely able to moderate his powerful, heavy tread. He proceeded to stand a heavily-packed porter’s frame in the corner, but sat himself down upon a bench, which began to crack — at which the others laughed, yet without falling out of the song. But very much astonished was Wilhelm when this son of Anak immediately began to join in with a tremendous bass voice. The hall trembled, and it was noticeable that he, in his part, at once altered the refrain, and sang it, in fact, in this shape:

“Day by day be not unmoving,

Let thy life be deed on deed.”

Moreover, one could very soon see that he brought down the time to a slower pace, and obliged the others to adapt themselves to him. When at length they had come to an end, and had fully satisfied themselves, the others upbraided him as if he had tried to mislead them.

“Not at all,” he exclaimed; “it is you who tried to mislead me: you were for throwing me out of my step, which must be measured and sure when I trudge with my burden up hill and down dale, and yet must at last come at the appointed hour and satisfy you.”

One after the other now went in to the bailiff, and Wilhelm could easily see that the business was about settling accounts, as to which he did not venture to make further inquiry. In the meantime there came a couple of lively, handsome boys, who laid a table in haste, providing it moderately with eatables and wine, to which the bailiff, who came out of his room, now invited all to sit down with him. The boys waited upon them, but they did not forget to look after themselves too, and ate their share standing. Wilhelm called to mind similar scenes when he still dwelt amongst the actors; but the present party seemed to him much more earnest, intent not on amusement in representation, but on important aims in life.

The conversation between the craftsmen and the bailiff gave the guest the clearest knowledge on this point. The four sturdy young fellows were employed in the neighborhood, where a destructive fire had laid a most beautiful country-town in ashes; nor did he fail to hear that the honest bailiff was engaged in procuring timber and other building materials. This seemed the more inexplicable to the guest, inasmuch as the men, one and all, were not natives of the place, but in every other respect were evidently passing travellers. At the end of the meal St. Christopher, for so they named the giant, fetched from one side a good glass of wine, by way of a sleeping-draught, and a lively song held the party together for a time, for the ear, when for the eye they had already dispersed. Wilhelm, thereupon, was conducted to a chamber of most pleasant aspect. The full-moon, illuminating a luxuriant plain, was already up, and awakened in the breast of our wanderer recollections of similar and equally beautiful scenes. The spirits of all his dear friends passed in procession before him; but Lenardo’s figure especially was so life-like to him, that he fancied he saw him standing actually before him. All this was giving him an inward disposition for his nightly rest, when he was almost frightened by a most extraordinary noise. It sounded from the distance, and yet seemed to be in the house itself, for the house frequently shook, and the timbers groaned when the sound mounted to its highest strength. Wilhelm, who in general had a delicate ear to distinguish all sounds, could make nothing of it; he compared it with the droning of a large organ-pipe, that from sheer size is unable to give out any definite tone. Whether this night-terror ceased towards morning, or whether Wilhelm, by degrees accustomed to it, was no longer sensible of it, is difficult to ascertain; in fine, he fell asleep, and was pleasantly aroused by the rising sun.

Scarcely had one of the waiting-boys brought him breakfast, when a figure entered whom he had noticed at supper, without being clear as to his peculiar qualities. He was a well-built, broad-shouldered, and active man withal, who by his implements exhibited to view announced himself as a barber, and made himself ready to render to Wilhelm this so requisite service. At the same time he remained silent, and the business was accomplished with a very light hand, without his having emitted a single sound.

Wilhelm therefore began, and said, “You are a master-hand at your business, and I do not know that I have ever felt a gentler blade upon my cheeks; but at the same time you seem to pay strict observance to the laws of the society.”

With a sly smile, and laying his finger on his lips, he slipped mutely out of the door.

“In very truth,” called Wilhelm after him, “you must be ‘Redcloak,’ or, if not himself, at least a descendant of his. It is fortunate for you that you do not require a return of your service from me. You would have come off badly.”

Scarcely had this extraordinary man departed when our friend the bailiff entered, proffering an invitation to dinner that midday, which also ran somewhat strangely. The Bond — so the inviter expressly stated — bade the friend welcome, invited him to the mid-day meal, and flattered itself with the hope of coming into nearer relations with him. It further inquired after the guest’s well-being, and how he was satisfied with the accommodation, to which he could only reply with praise of everything that he had encountered. It is true that he would have liked to inquire of this man, as of the mute barber before, about the horrible noise which had disturbed, if not distressed him in the night; yet, mindful of his promise, he refrained from every question, and hoped, without being importunate, to be enlightened in accordance with his wishes, either through the complaisance of the society or by some chance.

When our friend found himself alone, he at last began to think about the strange person who had sent him the invitation, and he did not know what to make of it. To designate one or more leaders by means of a neuter substantive, seemed to him rather dubious. For the rest, all was so quiet about him here that he thought he had never spent a quieter Sunday. He went out of doors; but hearing the sound of bells, he walked towards the little town. Mass was just over, and amongst the townsfolk and the peasants who were thronging out he saw the three acquaintances of yesterday, a journeyman carpenter, a mason, and a boy. Later he noticed amongst the Protestant worshippers the three others. What form of worship the others professed remained unknown to him: thus much, however, he was confident in concluding, that in this society a very decided freedom in religion prevailed.

At noon the bailiff came to meet him at the castle-door, to conduct him through various halls into a large vestibule, where he bade him sit down. A good many people kept walking past into an adjoining saloon. Those he knew already were to be seen amongst them; even St. Christopher went by. They all greeted the bailiff and the visitor. What struck our friend here most, was that he seemed to see none but artisans; all clad in their ordinary dress, but with extreme neatness; there were few whom, at best, he would have taken to be of the scrivener class.

As soon as no new guests continued to press in, the bailiff led our friend through the stately portal into a spacious hall. There an interminably long table was spread, from the lower end of which he was conducted to the top, across which he saw three persons standing. But with what astonishment was he seized, when he came near, and Lenardo, hardly yet recognized, fell upon his neck. He had scarcely recovered from this surprise, when another person embraced Wilhelm no less ardently and vigorously, and proclaimed himself to be Natalia’s brother, the wonderful Friedrich. The delight of the friends infected the whole assembly: words of congratulation and blessing re-echoed along the whole table. But of a sudden, when they were seated, all was still, and the repast was served up, and eaten with a certain solemnity.

Towards the end of the meal Lenardo gave a signal. Two singers stood up, and Wilhelm was much surprised to hear repeated his song of yesterday, which we find it necessary, on account of what immediately follows, to insert once more:

“From the mountain heights descending,

Down the slopes, the vale along,

Hark! a wing-like flutter, blending

With a movement as of song.

And on unrestricted roving

Joy attends and prudent heed:

Let thy striving be with loving,

Let thy life consist in deed”

Hardly had this duet, accompanied by a chorus of agreeable strength, approached its end, when two other singers impetuously rose opposite to each other, and with serious emphasis paraphrased rather than continued the song; and to the astonishment of the guest expressed themselves thus:

“For the ties are rent asunder,

Confidence is aye foreclosed,

Can I tell, or duly ponder

On the haps, to which exposed,

I must now my way be making,

Filled with all a widow’s woe,

Leaving one, another taking,

Onward, onward still to go?”

The chorus striking into this strophe became more and more numerous, more and more powerful, and yet the voice of St. Christopher could soon be distinguished from the lower end of the table. The dirge swelled till at last it was almost terrible; a weird mood, by dint of skill on the part of the singers, introduced something fugue-like into the whole, so that our friend felt as if he should shudder. They all really seemed as if they were completely of one mind, and were lamenting their own destiny just before their separation. The strangest repetitions, the frequent revival of an almost expiring song, seemed at last dangerous to the band itself. Lenardo stood up, and all, breaking off the hymn, immediately sat down.

He began, with kindly words: “In truth I cannot blame you for making ever present to yourselves the fate that confronts us all, so that you may be prepared for it at any hour. Yet if men weary of life, and full of years, have cried to their brethren, ‘Think of dying!’ so ought we, we younger men full of life, to be ever encouraging each other, and admonish ourselves with the cheering words ‘Think of wandering!’ But it were well, withal, to mention with caution and cheerfulness, whatever we either undertake voluntarily, or think that we are constrained to do. You know best what amongst us is fixed, and what is movable; allow us to enjoy this too in glad encouraging strains, to which for this time let this parting glass be drunk!”

Thereupon he emptied his goblet and sat down: the four singers thereupon stood up, and began in flowing self-connecting tones —

“Stay not fettered in inaction,

Venture briskly, briskly roam!

Head and arm, in glad connection,

Everywhere will be at home.

Where beneath the sun we revel

Care with us will ne’er abide;

Space there is for all to travel,

Therefore is the world so wide.”

On the repetition of the chorus Lenardo stood up, and all the rest with him; a signal from him set the whole table in motion in time with the singing: those at the lower end, headed by St. Christopher, marched out of the hall in pairs, and the harmonious wanderers’ song grew more and more joyous and free: but it sounded especially well when the party, assembled in the terraced castle-garden, looked over the spacious valley in the luxuriance and beauty of which one might well have wished to lose one’s self. Whilst they were dispersing themselves on this side or that at their pleasure, Wilhelm was made acquainted with the third superior. He was the bailiff, who, in addition to many other advantages, had been able to procure for this society, as long as they found it convenient to stay here, the use of the count’s castle, which lay amidst several noblemen’s manors: but on the other hand, being a clever man, had managed to turn the presence of such unwonted guests to good account. For whilst for a moderate payment he opened his nurseries, and was able to provide aught else that was helpful for support of life or in time of need, he took the same opportunity of having long-neglected roofs changed, rafters replaced, walls propped, planks set straight, and other defects repaired, to such a degree, that a property belonging to an expiring family, long neglected and falling into decay, preserved the cheerful aspect of a dwelling used for living in, and bore witness that life creates life, and that he who is useful to others, also puts them under the necessity of being of use to him.

CHAPTER II.

Hersilia to Wilhelm.

“My situation appears to me like a tragedy by Alfieri; when the confidants altogether fail it must all, at last, be carried on in monologue. And in truth a correspondence with you is exactly like a monologue: for as a matter of fact your answers merely superficially take up our syllables for the purpose of causing them to die gradually away. Have you in only a single instance made any reply to which one could say anything in return? Your letters are all parrying and evasion; when I stand up to go and meet you, you motion me back again to my seat.

“The above was written some days ago: a fresh necessity and occasion now occurs for conveying these present to Lenardo: there they find you, or it is known where you are to be found. But wherever they may reach you my remarks come to this, that if, on reading this letter, you do not immediately jump up from your seat, and like a pious Wanderer do not speedily present yourself before me, I declare you to be the most manlike of all men: that is to say, one in whom the most lovable of all the characteristics of our sex is totally wanting: whereby I signify curiosity, which at this very moment most unmistakably torments me.

“In short, the little key of your ornamental casket has been found; but this no one but you and I must know. How it has come into my hands learn now.

“A few days ago our agent receives a despatch from a foreign authority, in which the inquiry is made whether at such and such a time in this neighborhood a boy has not been stopping, who was expert in all sorts of tricks, and who at last forfeited his jacket in some audacious enterprise. According to the description of this rascal, no doubt remains that it is that Fitz of whom Felix had so much to tell, and whom he so often wished to have for a playfellow again.

“Now this note made a request for the aforesaid garment, if it were still in existence, because the boy on being subjected to examination had appealed to it. Our agent accordingly takes an opportunity of mentioning this presumption, and submits the little jacket to us before he sends it away.

“A good or evil spirit impels me to feel in the breast-pocket; a tiny little angular something comes into my hand: I, who am in general so apprehensive, nervous and timid, shut my hand, keep it, say nothing, and the coat is sent away. The strangest of all sensations immediately seizes me. At the first stolen peep I see, I guess that it is the key to your casket. Now came strange conscientious doubts; all sorts of scruples arose within me. To make the discovery public, to surrender it, was impossible for me. Of what interest was it to those magistrates, when it might be so useful to our friend? Then many considerations of right and duty again arose, which, however, could not convince me.

“So you see now in what a situation friendship involves me. A famous faculty suddenly develops itself for your sake: what a wonderful occurrence. May it be nothing more than friendship that holds the balance for my conscience to such purpose. What between guilt and curiosity I am marvellously discomposed. I fancy a hundred whims and stories which may follow on it. Law and justice are not to be trifled with. Hersilia the careless and occasionally domineering creature involved in a criminal prosecution! for that is what it may come to. And what else can I do but think of the friend, for whose sake I endure all this? I have thought of you on other accounts, too, but at intervals; but now it is without ceasing. Now when my heart throbs, and I think of the eighth commandment, I must turn to you as to the saint who has occasioned the trespass, and can presumably also absolve me again. And so only the opening of the casket will pacify me. My curiosity is doubly strong. Come as soon as you can, and bring the casket with you! To what judgment-seat the secret properly belongs, we will make out between us. Till then it remains between us. Let no one know of it, be it who it will!

“There! But, my friend, now to conclude, what do you say to this picture of the puzzle? Does it not remind one of an arrow with barbs? God be gracious to us! But the casket must first stand unopened between me and you; and then when opened, enjoin the rest itself. I should be glad if nothing at all were found inside: and what else and all do I not wish; and what else could I not tell you? — yet let this be withheld from you, so that you may the more quickly get on your way.

“And now, girl-like enough, one more postscript! What, in point of fact, have I and you to do with the casket? It belongs to Felix; he found it, and intrusted it to me: we must fetch him here: out of his presence, we ought not to open it.

“And what conditions are these again! The matter shifts and shifts itself again.

“Why are you roaming about so in the world? Come here; bring with you the dear boy. I should like to see him once more.

“And so there they go again, — father and son. Do what you can, but come both of you!”

CHAPTER III.

The preceding extraordinary letter had been written, in truth, long before, and carried to and fro, until now at last it could be delivered in accordance with its address. Wilhelm decided to answer in a friendly manner — but declining — by the first messenger, who was about to depart. Hersilia seemed not to take the distance into account, and he was at present too seriously occupied for even the slightest curiosity as to what might be found in the casket to be able to attract him.

Certain mishaps too which had befallen the boldest members of this brave company, gave him an opportunity of showing himself a master in the art that he had adopted. And as one word suggests another, so still more happily does one deed follow on another, and if finally occasion is again given thereby for words, they are so much the more fruitful and elevating to the mind. Their conversations were therefore as instructive as they were enjoyable, for the friends reciprocally rendered account of the progress of their learning and doing hitherto; whence had ensued such an amount of culture, to their mutual astonishment, that between themselves they must needs learn to know each other anew.

One evening then Wilhelm began his story: — ”I forthwith essayed to pursue my surgical studies at a large institution in the largest town, in which alone they are possible: to anatomy, as the fundamental study, I at once applied myself with zeal.

“By a peculiar method which no one would guess, I had already made good progress in knowledge of the human frame: and this was during my theatrical career. When all is properly looked to, the physical man after all plays the principal part there — a fine man, a fine woman! If the manager is lucky enough to have got hold of these, comedy and tragedy writers are assured. The freer footing upon which such society lives makes their associates more familiar with the peculiar beauty of the uncovered limbs than any other relationship: different costumes even oblige them to make visible what otherwise is generally concealed. On this point I might have much to say, as also of physical defects which the sensible actor must recognize in himself or others, in order if not to correct, at least to hide them. In this way I was sufficiently prepared to give consistency to the anatomical course which taught me to know the outer parts more accurately, whilst the inner parts too were not strange to me, inasmuch as a certain preconception of them had always been present to me. A disagreeable hindrance to this study was the continually repeated complaint of the want of subjects, of the inadequate number of dead bodies which we desired, for such high ends, to subject to the knife. To provide these, if not adequately, at any rate in as large a number as possible, strict laws had been promulgated: not only criminals, who in every sense had forfeited their individual existence, but others too, neglected in body or mind, were laid claim to.

“In proportion to the need, the severity increased, and therewith the repugnance of the people who in a moral and religious sense cannot give up their personality, nor that of persons beloved by them. But the evil increased more and more, whilst a distracting anxiety arose that there was occasion to fear for the peaceful graves of beloved ones departed. No age, no rank, — neither high nor low, — was any longer secure in its resting-place; the mound which had been decked with flowers, the inscriptions with which they had sought to preserve a memory, — nothing could give protection from the profitable depredation; the painfullest separation seemed disturbed in the most horrible way, and even whilst one turned away from the grave a fear was felt lest the decently clad and composed limbs of the beloved ones should be known to have been severed, misplaced and dishonored.

“But all this was repeatedly talked of, and discussed over and over again without anyone having thought about a remedy, or having been able to think of one; and the complaints became continually more universal when young men who had listened to the course of lectures with attention were desirous of convincing themselves also with hand and eye of what they had hitherto seen and heard, and of transferring such necessary knowledge more deeply and vividly to the imagination. At such times there arises a sort of unnatural scientific famine, which awakens a craving after the most repulsive sort of satisfaction, as if it were the most pleasant and necessary.

“Such deferring and delaying had for some time occupied and interested those who were keen for knowledge and action, when at last one morning an occurrence, over which the whole town was set astir, for some hours passionately evoked all the pros and cons. An exceedingly beautiful girl, distracted by an unhappy love, had sought and found her death in the water. The anatomical school got possession of her: all in vain were the efforts of the parents, the relatives, nay, of the lover himself, who had been the object of only a false suspicion: the higher authorities, who had just made the law more stringent, could assent to no exception, and they even hastened to avail themselves of the prize as quickly as possible, and to distribute it for use.”

Wilhelm, who as the first candidate was summoned forthwith, found in front of the seat indicated to him, up on a plain board neatly covered, a critical task; for when he took off the covering, there lay exposed to view the most beautiful female arm that probably had ever wound itself round a youth’s neck. He held his instrument-case in his hand and did not trust himself to open it; he stood up, not venturing to sit down. Repugnance to still further deforming this glorious product of nature contended with the demand which the eager man of science had to make upon himself, and which all who sat around him took care to satisfy.

At this moment there came up to him a man of good appearance, whom he had noticed — though but seldom — yet always as a very attentive listener and observer, and about whom he had already inquired. No one however had been able to give more exact information: that he was a sculptor, all were agreed, but he was also held to be an alchemist, who lived in a large old house, the first floor of which was alone accessible to visitors or to those who were employed by him, whilst all the other rooms were shut up. This man had at various times approached Wilhelm, and had gone away from lecture with him, but yet he seemed to shun any further connection or explanation.

On this occasion, however, he spoke with a certain frankness: “I see that you hesitate, you are amazed at the beautiful form, and are unable to destroy it: put yourself above professional feeling, and follow me.” Thereupon he covered up the arm again, made a sign to the servitor, and the two left the place. They walked side by side in silence, until the half-known one stopped before a large gateway, the wicket of which he opened, and obliged our friend to enter. There he found himself upon a stage, large and spacious, such as we see in old business-houses where the cases and bales arriving are at once shipped away. Here were standing plaster-casts of statues and busts, as well as boarded receptacles, packed and empty.

“It looks business-like here,” said the man; “the means of carriage by water possible from here are invaluable to me.”

Now, all this agreed quite well with the trade of a sculptor; nor could Wilhelm think otherwise when the friendly host took him up a few steps into a large room adorned round about with plaques in high and low relief, with large and small figures, with busts and separate members of the most lovely figures. Our friend regarded all this with pleasure, and gladly listened to his host’s instructive words, although he must needs be conscious of a wide gulf between these artistic labors and the scientific aspirations from which they had come away.

At last the owner of the house said with some seriousness: “My reason for bringing you here, you will soon see. This door,” he continued, as he turned towards one side, “is nearer to the door of the hall from which we have come than you may think.” Wilhelm entered, and in truth had occasion for surprise, when, instead of seeing as before the imitation of living forms, he here found the walls covered throughout with anatomical dissections, made it might be of wax or of some other material; enough, they had throughout the fresh-colored appearance of preparations that had just been made.

“Here, my friend,” said the artist, “here you see the inestimable substitutes for those subjects which we, with the disapprobation of the world, at unseasonable moments, with disgust and with great anxiety prepare for destruction or for a repulsive preservation. I am obliged to carry on this business in the greatest secrecy; for you must before now have heard men of the faculty speak of it with depreciation. I do not let myself be put out, and I am preparing something which in the long run will assuredly have great effect. The surgeon especially, if he elevates himself to the plastic idea, will certainly be able in every case of injury to come to the aid of nature, ever reconstructing with the best effect; even the physician would be elevated in his functions by such a conception. Yet let us not waste many words! You shall learn, in brief, that building-up teaches more than pulling in pieces, joining together more than separating, animating what is dead more than killing over again what is killed: in short, then, will you be my pupil?” And on his assenting, the expert laid the skeleton of a woman’s arm in front of his guest in the same position in which they had seen one before them a short time before.

“I have had occasion to notice,” continued the master, “how you have given thorough attention to the subject of the ligaments, and very properly, for with them the lifeless heap of bones first begins to live again for us. Ezekiel had first to see his field of bones join and unite themselves in this fashion before the limbs could move, the arms feel about and the feet stand up. Here is pliable material, small rods, and aught else that may be required; now try your luck!”

The new pupil collected his thoughts, and when he began to examine the portions of bone more closely, he saw that they were carved artificially from wood.

“I have,” remarked the teacher, “an expert man, whose art was going in quest of bread, when the saints and martyrs whom he had been accustomed to carve no longer found a sale. I therefore induced him to master the art of skeleton-making, and to practise in life-size and on a smaller scale after nature.”

Our friend now did his best, and earned the approbation of his adviser. It was a pleasure to him to test how strong or weak his recollection was, and he found to his satisfaction and astonishment that it was called up again by action. He conceived a passion for this work, and begged of the master to be admitted into his house. Here he worked incessantly; and the bones, large and small, of the arm, were very quickly united. But from here were to proceed the sinews and muscles, and it seemed a complete impossibility to readjust in this way the whole body similarly in all its parts. But on this point the teacher consoled him by showing him the process of multiplication by casting, since otherwise the imitation, and the perfection of the models, required a fresh effort again and fresh attention.

Everything to which man applies himself in earnest is a constant toil; it is only by emulous industry that he contrives to make head against it. Wilhelm too soon got over the condition of feeling his inability, which is always a kind of despair, and felt himself at home in the work.

“I am glad,” said the master, “that you are able to adapt yourself to this mode of proceeding, and that you give me evidence of how fruitful such a method is, even if it is not recognized by the masters of the faculty. A school there must be, and this will chiefly occupy itself with tradition: what has taken place heretofore must continue to take place in the future: this is good, and must and shall be. But the point where the school stops short must be marked and understood; what is living must be grasped and made use of, but quietly, or otherwise one is hindered, and hinders others. You have felt in a living way, and show it practically. Joining is more than separating, imitation more than inspection.”

Wilhelm now learned that such models were, privately, already widely distributed, but to his greatest astonishment he heard that the stock in hand was to be packed up to go abroad. This sterling artist had already established relations with Lothario and those friends of his: the establishment of such a school in those self-developing provinces was considered to be especially fitting, nay, necessary in the highest degree, especially amongst naturally moral and right-thinking people, for whom actual dissection has always something cannibal-like.

“If you grant that the greater number of physicians and surgeons retain in their minds, and believe that they will get on with, only a general impression of the dissected human body, then such models will assuredly avail to revive in their minds the gradually vanishing forms, and to keep alive in them just what is necessary. Nay, if it comes to inclination for and love of the subject, the most delicate results of the science of dissection may be imitated. Pencil, brush and graver already accomplish this.”

Here he opened a side cupboard, and displayed to view the facial nerves, imitated in the most wonderful manner. “This, alas,” he said, “is the last achievement of a young assistant who died, who inspired me with the best hopes of carrying out my ideas, and usefully promoting my aims.”

A great deal was said between the two on the influence of this mode of treatment in many directions: its relations, too, towards plastic art were the subject of noteworthy discussion. A strikingly beautiful example of how to work forwards and backwards in this way was supplied by this conversation. The master had cast, in a shapely mass, a beautiful torso of an antique youth, and was now skilfully trying to divest the ideal form of the epidermis, to change the beautiful shapes of life into a veritable preparation of muscular tissue.

“Here, too, means and end are too close together, and I am free to confess that for the sake of the means I have neglected the end, yet not altogether through my own fault. Properly speaking, man is man without covering: the sculptor stands directly at the side of the Elohim, when they changed the shapeless repulsive clay into the most glorious of forms: such divine thoughts must he cherish. To the pure all things are pure; why not the direct design of God in nature? But one cannot ask this from this age; fig-leaves and skins of beasts cannot be dispensed with, and this is still much too little. I had scarcely learned anything when worthy men in dressing-gowns and wide sleeves and innumerable folds were required of me. So I withdrew, and since I dared not apply what I knew to the expression of the beautiful, I chose to be useful; and this too is a matter of importance. If my wish is fulfilled, if it is recognized as practicable that, as in so many other things, imitating and the imitation assist imagination and memory in those cases where the human mind loses a certain freshness: then assuredly many a plastic artist will turn round as I have done, and rather join you in working than carry on a repulsive trade against conviction and feeling.”

And on this followed the observation that it was beautiful to observe how art and handicraft were always, as it were, in equilibrium, and so closely connected and always related to each other, that art cannot sink without passing into praiseworthy handiwork, nor handiwork elevate itself without becoming artistic.

These two persons adapted and accustomed themselves to each other so completely, that they parted with regret only when it was necessary to pursue their own several important aims.

“But that it may not be thought,” said the master, “that we shut ourselves out from nature, and propose to deny her, we are developing fresh views. Across the sea there, where certain humane theories are ever on the increase, it is at length found necessary, on the abolition of capital punishment, to build extensive castles, walled enclosures, to protect the peaceful citizen against crime, and to prevent crime from prevailing and doing its work with impunity. There, my friend, in these melancholy precincts, let us reserve a chapel for Æsculapius. There, isolated as the punishment itself, our knowledge of such subjects will be continually refreshed; for the dissection of them does not injure our human feeling, nor does the sight of them — as happened to you with that beautiful and innocent arm — stay the knife in the hand whilst all eagerness for knowledge is extinguished in the feeling of humanity.”

“This,” said Wilhelm, “was our last conversation. I saw the well-filled cases sail down the river, wishing them a prosperous journey, and ourselves a happy meeting at their unpacking.”

Our friend had ended this narrative as he had related it, with spirit and enthusiasm, and particularly with a certain vivacity of voice and speech that he had not been prone to of late. But when at the end of his tale he thought he noticed that Lenardo, preoccupied and absent, did not seem to follow his remarks, while on the other hand Friedrich had smiled, and sometimes almost shaken his head, such scanty sympathy with a matter that seemed to him so important so struck this sensitive scrutinizer of gestures that he could not refrain from taxing his friends with it.

Friedrich explained himself quite simply and straightforwardly: he could allow that the scheme was praiseworthy and good, but could by no means consider it so important; and least of all as practicable. This opinion he tried to support with reasons of a sort that always strike a person who is taken up with a subject, and counts, perhaps more than one may think, on carrying it through, as offensive; consequently then our plastic anatomist, after seeming to listen patiently for a time, answered with vivacity:

“You have advantages, my good Friedrich, which no one will deny — I least of any; but now you talk like ordinary people in an ordinary way. In what is new we see only the strangeness, but to discern at once in the strangeness what is important, needs something more. For you, everything must first come to pass in deed; it must happen in order to be possible; must come before the eyes to be real: and then you let it pass like anything else. What you bring forward I already hear beforehand as repeated by the initiated and by laymen; by the former from prejudice and indolence, by the latter from indifference. A scheme like the above-mentioned can, perhaps, only be carried out in a new world, where the mind must gather courage to seek out new remedies for an inevitable need, for of available ones there is a total absence. To that end is invention awakened, to that end intrepidity and steadfastness combine with necessity.

“Every medical man, whether he goes to work with medicines or with his hand, is nothing without the most precise knowledge of the outward and the inner members of man; and it by no means suffices to have acquired a transitory knowledge of this in schools, and to have got a superficial idea of the shape, position and connection of the innumerable portions of his inscrutable organism. Day by day, the physician who is in earnest ought to practise himself in the repetition of this knowledge, of this contemplation; to seek all opportunities constantly to renew to his mind and eye the interdependence of this living miracle. If he knew his own interest, he would, if he lacked time for such labors, take an anatomist into his pay, who under his instructions, quietly working for him in the presence as it were of all the intricacies of the most complicated life, would at once be able to answer the most difficult questions.

“The more one gets to see this, the more vividly, energetically and passionately will the study of dissection be pursued. But the means will diminish in just the same proportion; the subjects, the bodies on which such studies must be based, will fail, and become scarcer and dearer, and there will arise a veritable conflict between living and dead.

“In the old world it is all routine, where they will always want to treat the new after the old fashion, and what is growing in a method that is rigid. This conflict which I proclaim between the dead and living will be for life and death; there will be panic, there will be investigation, making of laws and nothing effected. Foresight and prohibition in such cases are of no avail — one must begin from the beginning. And this it is that my master and I in the new circumstances hope to achieve: nothing new indeed, for there it is already: but what is now art must become handicraft; what happens in special cases must become possible in general, and nothing can be diffused abroad that is not recognized. Our doing and achieving must be recognized as the only remedy in a definite crisis which especially threatens large towns. I will quote the words of my master, but pay attention! He said one day in the greatest confidence:

“ ‘The newspaper-reader finds the article interesting and almost amusing when he reads about ‘Resurrection-men.’ At first they stole the bodies in profound secrecy; watchers were placed to provide against this: they came in an armed band in order to gain possession of their prey by force. And the worst will ensue from what is bad: I dare not speak it aloud; or I should be implicated, not, it is true, as an accomplice, but still as one accidentally cognizant in an investigation of the greatest danger, in which in any case I must be punished for not having reported the crime to the authorities as soon as I had discovered it. I confess to you, my friend, that murder has been committed in this town in order to supply the importunate highly-paying anatomist with a subject. The soulless corpse lay before us — I dare not depict the scene: he detected the crime, but so did I: we looked at one another, and both were silent; we looked straight before us, said nothing, and went to work. And it is this, my friend, that has confined me between wax and plaster; this it is that assuredly will keep you, too, steadfast to the art that sooner or later will be prized above all others.’ “

Friedrich sprang up, clapped his hands, and would not leave off shouting his applause, so that Wilhelm at last was angry in earnest.

“Bravo!” he cried; “now I recognize you again; it is the first time for a long while that you have spoken like one who really has something at heart, the first time that the flow of speech has again carried you away; you have shown yourself as one who is in a position to do something, and to estimate it properly.”

Lenardo hereupon struck in, and adjusted this little misunderstanding completely.

“I seemed to be absent,” he said, “but only because I was more than present; that is to say, I was thinking of the large museum of this sort that I had seen on my travels, and which interested me to such a degree that the custodian, who, in order to get done according to custom, began to offer his mechanically learned jabber, very soon — for he himself was the artificer — forgot his part, and proved himself to be a highly-informed demonstrator.

“The extraordinary contrast, to see before one in the height of summer, in cool rooms with sultry heat outside, the same objects which one scarcely trusts one’s self to approach in the severest winter! Here everything conveniently served the craving for knowledge. With the greatest composure, and in the fairest order, he showed me the marvels of the human frame, and was glad to be able to convince me that for the first commencement, and for after assistance to memory, an institution of this sort was fully sufficient; while it remained free to everyone to have recourse to nature during the middle period, and at convenient opportunities to educate himself in this or that special department. He begged me to recommend him, for he had made a similar collection for only one large foreign museum, but the universities were thoroughly opposed to the scheme, because the masters of the science were able to educate proficients in dissection well enough, but not teachers of the constructive method.

“After this I regarded this able man as the only one in the world, and now we hear that there is another occupied in the same way: who can tell whereabouts even a third and a fourth may come to light? We wish on our part to give an impulse to this subject. The recommendation must come from without, and in our new relations this useful enterprise must certainly be furthered.”

CHAPTER IV.

The next morning Friedrich came betimes into Wilhelm’s room, with a pamphlet in his hand, and handing it to him he said, “Yesterday evening, what with all your virtues — which you were circumstantial enough in recounting — I had no opportunity of speaking of myself and my good qualities, of which I have good enough cause to boast, and which stamp me as a worthy member of this neat caravan. Look here at this book, and you will recognize a masterpiece.”

Wilhelm ran over the sheets with hasty glances, and saw written, in an agreeably legible though hurried style, the yesterday’s narrative of his anatomical studies, almost word for word as he had given it, so that he could not conceal his astonishment.

“You know,” replied Friedrich, “the fundamental law of our association: each must be perfect in some one department or other, if he wish to claim membership. Well, I cudgelled my brains as to how I could manage this, and could not hit upon anything, though I knew well enough that no one surpassed me in memory, nor in a swift, easy and legible handwriting. You will recollect these agreeable accomplishments from the days of our theatrical career, when we shot away our powder upon sparrows, without reflecting that a shot prudently utilized would perhaps procure a hare for the kitchen. How often have I prompted without a book, how often have I, after a few hours, written out my part from memory! It was a matter of course to you at that time: you thought it must needs be so: so did I, and it never occurred to me how much it might avail me. The abbé made the discovery first: he found that it brought grist to his mill: he tried exercising me, and I was glad to do what was so easy for me, and gave pleasure to an earnest man. And now I, when there is need, am a whole office in myself; besides we thus carry with us a two-legged calculating machine, and no prince, however numerous his officials, is better provided than our superiors.”

A lively discussion about occupations of this sort led their minds to other members of the society.

“Would you have thought,” said Friedrich, “that the most useless creature in the world, as it seemed, my Philina, would become the most useful member of the long chain? Give her a bit of cloth; set men, set women before her: without taking a measurement she cuts out for the whole lot, and contrives to use up all the patches and gores in such a way, that a great saving is the result — and all without any paper-pattern. A happy inspired glance informs her of everything; she looks at the man, and cuts; he may go where he likes; she cuts away, and makes him a coat that seems to be moulded upon his body. Yet this would not be possible if she had not got a seamstress to aid her, Montan’s Lydia, who has at last become quiet, and remains quiet, but sews too like no one else, stitch after stitch just like pearls, like embroidery. That is what people may come to! In point of fact a great deal that is useless hangs about us from habit, liking, carelessness, or wilfulness — a bundled-up cloak of rags. What nature has intended us for, the best of what she has stored within us, we consequently can neither discover nor make use of.”

General reflections on the advantages of the social club which had so fortunately found itself assembled together, gave an opening for the fairest expectations.

When Lenardo, presently, joined them, he was requested by Wilhelm to speak of himself too: of the life he had hitherto led, and kindly to give them information on the way in which he had helped on himself and others.

“You no doubt remember, my good friend,” replied Lenardo, “in what an extraordinarily excited condition you found me at the first moment of our new acquaintanceship. I was sunk, absorbed in the most wonderful desire, in an irresistible longing: the question then could only be of the ensuing hour, of the deep suffering that was awaiting me, which I showed myself so active in making keener. I could not make known to you the earlier circumstances of my youth, as I now must do in order to take you along the way which has brought me hither.

“Amongst the earliest of my capacities which were gradually developed by surrounding circumstances, a certain impulse towards technical knowledge became prominent, which was every day fed by the impatience that one feels in the country, when in large buildings, but particularly in small alterations, plans and whims, one is obliged to forego one sort of work for another, and chooses rather to fall-to at once in a clumsy bungling manner than be delayed for the sake of skilful work. By good luck, there was roving up and down in our neighborhood a ‘jack-of-all-trades,’ who, as he found that I suited his purpose, preferred to help me rather than any of the neighbors: he set me up a turning-lathe, which at every visit he managed to use more for his own benefit than for my instruction. In the same way, too, I procured carpenter’s tools, and my liking for such things was increased and enlivened by the conviction, at that time loudly expressed, that no one should venture out into life unless, in case of need, he was qualified to earn his living by a trade. My zeal was approved of by my instructors in accordance with their own principles. I can scarcely recollect that I ever played, for all my leisure hours were employed in doing or making something. Yes, I may boast that even when still a boy I advanced a clever smith, through my representations, to be lock-maker, file-cutter, and watchmaker.

“To accomplish all this, tools, indeed, must first be procured, and we suffered to no small degree from the disease of those practitioners who transpose the means to the end, and rather spend time in preparations and plans than apply themselves right seriously to carrying them out. Where, however, we showed ourselves practically industrious was in forwarding the laying-out of parks, with which no landowner could now dispense. Numerous summer-houses of moss and bark, rustic bridges and benches, testified to the activity with which we indefatigably occupied ourselves in exemplifying a primitive architecture in all its rudeness, in the midst of the civilized world.

“This impulse led me, with increasing years, to take more serious interest in all that is so useful, and in its present condition so indispensable to the world, and gave a peculiar interest to my tour of several years’ length.

“But since man is commonly wont to wander on along the road which has brought him so far, I was less favorably disposed towards machinery than to direct handwork, in which we practise strength and feeling in combination; on this account I was glad to confine myself especially to those narrow circles in which, according to circumstances, this or that work had its natural sphere. A condition of this sort gives to every association a special individuality, and to every family, or to a small community consisting of several families, the most definite character: one lives in the purest feeling of a living whole.

“At the same time I had accustomed myself to note down everything, to set it forth in figures, and thus, not without a view to future use, to employ my time profitably and pleasantly.

“This natural taste, this talent, improved by cultivation, I used to the best advantage in the important task which the society had imposed upon me — of investigating the condition of the mountain-people, and enlisting in our ranks such as were available and adapted for travel. Would you like to employ this beautiful evening, in which manifold matters of business press upon me, in the perusal of a part of my diary? I will not affirm that it is exactly agreeable reading; to me it has always seemed amusing, and to a certain degree instructive. Still, we always reflect ourselves in everything that we produce.”

CHAPTER V.

Lenardo’s Diary.

“Monday, 15th September.

“Late at night, after a difficult ascent halfway up the mountain, I had lighted upon a decent inn, and at daybreak was awakened, to my great annoyance, from a refreshing sleep by a ceaseless tinkling and ringing of bells. A long train of packhorses passed by, before I had been able to dress and to hurry on in front of them. I now found, too, as I followed my path, how disagreeable and annoying such society is — the monotonous ringing deafens one’s ears. The packs, which extend on both sides far beyond the beasts (on this occasion they were carrying big bales of cotton), are pretty sure to graze the rocks on one side; and if the beast, to prevent this, draws off towards the other side, the load hangs over the precipice, and awakens anxiety and giddiness in the spectator, whilst — which is worst of all — he is in either case hindered from slipping past them, and going on in advance.

“At last I got alongside of them, upon an unoccupied rock, where St. Christopher, who had stoutly carried my luggage so far, greeted a man who was standing quietly and seemed to be passing the procession in review as it filed by. He was in reality their conductor; not only did a considerable number of the beasts of burden belong to him (he had hired the others with their drivers), but he was also the owner of a smaller proportion of the goods. For the most part, however, his business consisted in faithfully superintending for larger merchants the transport of theirs. In conversation I found out from him, that this was cotton that came from Macedonia and Cyprus by way of Trieste, and was brought from the mountain-foot to these heights upon mules and packhorses, and even farther to the other side of the mountain, where spinners and weavers innumerable throughout the vales and ravines were busy with the preliminaries of an extensive traffic with foreign countries in goods that were in request. The bales, for the sake of convenience of carriage, were some of one and a half, and some of three hundredweight, which latter made a full load for a beast. The man praised the quality of the cotton that came by this route, and compared it with that from the East and West Indies, particularly with that from Cayenne, as being the best known: he seemed very well informed in his business; and as it was not altogether strange to myself also, it gave us an agreeable and profitable subject of conversation. In the meantime the whole procession had gone on in front of us, and I looked with nothing but repugnance at the endless train of these laden creatures, on the rocky path that twined snakelike up the heights, behind whom we should have to creep on, and be baked between rocks under the advancing sun. Whilst I was grumbling about this to my porter, there came up with us a thick-set lively man, who appeared to be carrying on a tolerably large frame a proportionately easy burden. A greeting passed, and it very soon appeared from the lusty shaking of hands that St. Christopher and this new-comer were well acquainted: whereupon I speedily learned about him what follows.

“For the more remote tracts of the mountain-range, where it would be too far for every single workman to go to market, there is a sort of subordinate merchant or collector, who is called a yarn-man. He trudges, in fact, through all the valleys and nooks, visits house after house, takes cotton for the spinners in small quantities, takes in exchange or buys spun yarn, of whatever quality it may be, and hands it over with a certain profit in the lump to the manufacturers settled in the lower district.

“As the inconvenience of creeping along behind the mules was again mentioned, the man at once invited me to descend with him a side-valley that branched just at this spot from the principal valley so as to draw off the waters into another district. The decision was soon made, and when with some effort we had surmounted a somewhat steep mountainridge we saw before us the declivities on the other side, at first sight a most uninviting view. The rock was of a different sort, and assumed a slaty form; no vegetation enlivened the crag and boulders, and an abrupt descent seemed to be threatened: springs gushed from several points at once, and we passed a small tarn surrounded by rugged rocks. At last there appeared singly, and afterwards more closely together, pine trees, larches and birches; then, in between them, scattered rustic habitations, but certainly of the meanest sort, every one put together by the inmates themselves, with crossed balks of timber, with the great black slabs on the roof weighted with stones to prevent the wind carrying them away. In spite of this melancholy exterior aspect, the narrow space inside was still not uncomfortable; warm and dry and neatly kept, it suited well with the cheerful appearance of the inmates with whom one at once felt one’s self at home in country fashion.

“The messenger was not unexpected; they had even been looking for him out of the little window, for it was his custom to come, if possible, on the same day of the week. He made his bargain for the yarn, and distributed fresh wool; then we quickly descended to where, a little way off, several more horses were standing near each other. We were no sooner seen than the inhabitants ran together to greet us. Children joined the throng, and were highly delighted with a sponge-cake or seed-biscuit. The pleasure everywhere was great, and was increased when it appeared that St. Christopher had a supply of these, and thus at once had the pleasure of earning the gratitude of all the children; all the more pleasant to him because, like his comrade, he knew very well how to get on with the little folk.

“The elders, on the other hand, were ready with all sorts of questions: everyone wanted to know something about the war, which happily was being waged at a considerable distance, and even if nearer would hardly have been dangerous for such districts. However, they rejoiced at the peace, although they were concerned about another danger that threatened, for it was not to be denied that machinery was continually on the increase in the country, and was little by little threatening the working hands with inactivity; still various grounds for consolation and hope suggested themselves.

“Our friend’s advice, in the meantime, was asked on many ordinary matters; nay, he must needs prove himself not only a family friend, but also a family doctor: magic-drops, salts, and ointments were things that he always carried with him.

“Entering the various houses, I found an opportunity of indulging my old hobby, and informing myself about the spinners’ art. I paid attention to the children, who busied themselves carefully and diligently in pulling the wool-flocks asunder, and taking out the seeds, the chips of the shells of the pods and other impurities; this they call picking it. I asked whether that was the task of the children only, but learned that in the winter evenings it was also done by the men and youths.

“Buxom spinsters then, as was but proper, attracted my attention. The preparing is done in this wise: the picked or cleansed cotton is equally distributed on the cards, which in Germany are called krämpel, and carded, so that the dust is got rid of, and the fibres of the cotton take one direction; then it is taken off, twisted into skeins, and so prepared for spinning on the wheel.

“I was then shown the difference between left-spun and right-spun yarn: the former is generally finer, which is effected by the thread which turns the spindle being confined round about the ring, as is shown in the accompanying drawing (which, like the rest, we have unfortunately not been able to give).

“The spinner sits facing the wheel, not too high. Several of them kept it steady with their feet one upon the other; others only with the right, putting the left behind. With the right hand she turns the wheel, and stretches out as far and as high as she can reach, whereby beautiful movements come into play, and a slim figure, by graceful turns of the body and the rounded fulness of the arms, shows itself to very great advantage: the position, especially in the last species of spinning, gives a very picturesque contrast, so that our finest ladies would have no need to fear a loss of real attractiveness and grace, if they would for once take to the spinning-wheel instead of the guitar.

LENARDO MEETING THE PACK-MULES.

“Amidst such surroundings new and peculiar sensations forced themselves upon me: the whirring wheels have a certain eloquence: the girls sing psalms, and also, though less often, other songs; siskins and goldfinches, suspended in cages, twitter amidst it all, and it would not be easy to find a picture of more active life than in a room where several spinners are at work.

“To the above described ‘wheel-yarn,’ however, the ‘paper-yarn’ is to be preferred. For this the best cotton, which has longer fibres than the rest, is used. When it has been picked clean, it is taken, instead of being carded, to combs, which consist of simple rows of long steel needles, and is combed. Then the longer and finer part of it is abstracted in the shape of bands (the technical word is a ‘cutting’) with a blunt knife, mixed up together, and done up in a paper cornet, which is then fastened to the distaff. From such a cornet it is spun with the spindle by hand; on which account it is called ‘spinning from the paper,’ and the resulting yarn is called ‘paper-yarn.’

“This occupation, which is only pursued by quiet thoughtful people, gives the spinner a gentler aspect than that at the wheel. If the latter shows off a tall slim figure to the greatest advantage, a quiet gentle form is very much favored by the latter. Of such diverse characters, occupied in divers tasks, I saw more than one in a room, and at last I could not rightly tell whether I must give my attention to the work or to the workers.

“But, at all events, I could not deny that the ladies of the mountain, excited by the unusual guests, showed themselves in a kindly and agreeable light. They were especially pleased that I made such particular inquiries about everything, noted what they told me, made drawings of their implements and simple mechanism, and hastily sketched their pretty limbs with gracefulness, as ought to be seen here annexed. Moreover, when evening came on, the finished work was displayed, the full spindles were laid aside in the little boxes made for the purpose, and the whole day’s work was carefully taken away. By this time we had got better acquainted, yet the work sped on its course: they busied themselves now with the reel, and already much more freely exhibited, some the machine, some the method of manipulating, whilst I carefully wrote it down.

“The reel has a wheel and ratchet, so that by every turn a spring is worked, which runs down as often as a hundred revolutions have been made by the reel. The tale of one thousand revolutions is called a ‘schneller,’ according to the weight of which the varying fineness of the yarn is estimated.

“Of right-spun yarn there are twenty-five to thirty to the pound; if left-spun, sixty to eighty, perhaps even ninety. The revolution of the reel comes to about seven quarter-ells, or something more, and the slender industrious spinner declared that she spun four and even five schnellers, which would be five thousand revolutions, and therefore eight to nine thousand ells of yarn every day at the wheel; she offered to make a bet about it if we would stay one day longer.

“The quiet and modest paper-spinner, however, could not let the matter rest here, and assured us that she spun one hundred and twenty schnellers from the pound in a proportionate time. For paper-spinning is slower than spinning at the wheel, and at the same time is better paid; perhaps double the amount is spun with the wheel. She had just completed the full number of revolutions at the reel, and showed me how the end of the thread is twisted round a couple of times and knotted. She took the schneller off, turned it round, so that it was wrapped within itself, drew one end of it through the other, and could thus display with innocent complacency the task of the practised spinner concluded.

“As there was now nothing further to be noted here, the mother stood up and said that, as the young gentleman wanted to see everything, she would now show him the dry-weaving. She explained to me, with the same good-nature, as she set herself down at the loom, how they only practised this sort, because in point of fact it was only good for coarse cottons, in which the weft was inserted dry, and was not woven very close: she then showed me dry goods of the kind; these are always smooth, without stripes or squares or any other rich pattern, and only from five to five and a half quarter-ells in breadth.

“The moon was shining in the heavens, and our yarn-man insisted on a further pilgrimage, since he must keep to his day and hour, and arrive punctually at every place. The paths were good and distinct, especially with such a nocturnal torch as this. We, on our side, cheered the parting with silk ribands and neckerchiefs, of which sort of articles St. Christopher carried with him a considerable package. The gift was handed to the mother, that she might distribute it amongst her family.

“Tuesday, 16th, early morning.

“Our walk through a splendidly clear night was full of beauty and enjoyment. We reached a somewhat large assemblage of chalets, which might perhaps have been called a village; at some distance from it, upon an open hill, stood a chapel, and the outlook began already to be more habitable and civilized. We passed by enclosures which gave indications not, it is true, of gardens, but still of scanty and carefully protected meadow growth.

“We had reached a place where, in addition to spinning, weaving was more seriously pursued. Our journey of yesterday, prolonged into the night, had exhausted our robust and youthful powers: the yarn-man climbed up into the hayloft, and I was on the point of following him, when St. Christopher commended his frame to me, and went up to the door. I understood his kindly intention, and let him have his way.

“The first thing, however, next morning, the family assembled together, and the children were strictly forbidden to go out of doors, since a terrible bear or some other monster must be haunting the neighborhood, for all through the night there had been such a growling and grumbling from the chapel, that rocks and houses over here might well have been shaken, and they advised us to be well on our guard in our further travels to-day. We tried to reassure the good people as much as possible, which, however, in this solitary waste seemed difficult to do.

“The yarn-man now declared that he would finish his business as quickly as possible, and then come and fetch us away; for we should have to-day a long and difficult road before us, as we should not only continue to clamber down the valley, but would have a troublesome climb across a spur of the mountain that barred our way. I therefore determined to employ the time as well as possible, and get myself introduced by our good entertainers of yesterday into the preliminaries of weaving.

“They were both elderly people, who had yet been blessed in their latter days with two or three children; one very soon became aware, in their surroundings, conduct, and speech, of religious feeling and superstitious ideas. I came just at the beginning of such a piece of work, the transition from spinning to weaving, and as I found no occasion for further discursiveness, I had the process, as it was just then in operation, dictated forthwith into my note-book.

“The first task, of sizing the yarn, had been done yesterday. It is boiled in a thin solution of size, consisting of starch and a little carpenter’s glue, whereby the thread acquires more toughness. The skeins of yarn were dry by early morning, and they made ready to ‘spool’ — that is to say, to wind the yarn with the wheel upon reed-bobbins. The old grandfather, sitting at the stove, performed this easy task; a grandchild stood by him, and seemed eager to turn the bobbin-wheel himself. In the meanwhile the father stuck the spools for the warp upon a frame divided by cross staves, so that they moved freely about strong wires standing vertically, and let the thread run off. They are arranged in the proper order with coarser and finer yarn, as the pattern, or rather the stripes in the web require. An appliance — the ‘brittli,’ shaped almost like a sistrum, has holes on both sides, through which the threads are drawn; this is held in the right hand of the warper; with the left he grasps the threads all together, and lays them, walking backwards and forwards, upon the warping-frame. From the top to the bottom, and from the bottom to the top, is called a course, and so many courses are made according to the thickness and breadth of the cloth. The length amounts to either sixty-four or thirty-two ells. At the beginning of each course one or two threads are always laid above, with the fingers of the left hand, and the same number below; and this is called the lease. Then the crossed threads are laid over the two nails that are put on the top of the warp-frame. This is done so that the weaver can receive the threads in properly even order. As soon as the warp is ready, the leases are tied below, and thereby every course is kept separate, so that there can be no confusion. Then, on the last course, marks are made with dissolved verdigris, so that the weaver may get the proper measure again; finally, it is taken off, and the whole rolled up in the form of a large coil, which is called the warp.

“Wednesday, 17th.

“We had set out early before daybreak, and had enjoyed the glorious light of a belated moon. The dawning day, the rising sun, allowed us to see a better populated and cultivated country. While higher up, when crossing streams, we had met with stepping-stones or sometimes a narrow plank, provided only on one side with a rail, here were already stone bridges thrown across the ever widening waters: the attractive would little by little ally itself with the savage, and an enjoyable impression was experienced by all the travellers.

“Hither over the mountain from another river-region came trudging a tall black-haired man, who cried when still at a distance, as one who has good eyes and a powerful voice, ‘God greet you, gossip yarn-man!’

“The latter allowed him to get nearer, then he too exclaimed with astonishment, ‘God bless me, gossip loom-fitter! where in the world do you come from? What an unexpected meeting!’

“The other answered, as he came up, ‘For the last two months I have been tramping about the mountain mending their gear for all good folk, and setting their benches to rights so that they can work away again untroubled for a long time.’

“Thereupon the yarn-man, turning to me, said, ‘As you, young gentleman, show so much pleasure and liking for the craft, and interest yourself in it so anxiously, this man comes at the very time, whilst I have been silently wishing for your sake that he were here during the last few days: he would have explained everything better for you than the girls, with all their good-will: he is master of his trade, and all that belongs to spinning, weaving and the like; he understands perfectly how to contrive, apply, preserve and repair, as need demands and anybody may just happen to want.’

“I addressed myself to him, and found him a very sensible man, in a certain sense educated, and perfectly at home in his business; whilst I repeated him something of what I had learned in these few days, and asked him to clear up some doubts. I also told him what I had seen of the first processes of weaving yesterday.

“He joyously exclaimed in reply, ‘That is a good wish indeed! then I have come just in the nick of time to give such a worthy kind gentleman the needful information about the most ancient and glorious art that, in point of fact, distinguishes the man from the brute. We have this very day arrived amongst worthy and clever people, and call me no loom-fitter if you don’t presently understand the craft as well as I do myself.’

“I returned him friendly thanks, the conversation was continued on all sorts of topics, and after a short halt and breakfast, we reached a group of houses which, whilst certainly somewhat irregular, were at all events better built. He showed us up to the best of them; and the yarn-man, as we arranged, went in first with me and St. Christopher. Then, after the first greetings and some joking, the loom-fitter followed, and it was astonishing what a joyful surprise his entrance created in the family. Father, mother, daughters and children gathered round him: the shuttle stopped in the hand of a finely grown girl sitting at the loom, as it was on the point of travelling through the warp: at the same moment she stayed the treadle, stood up, and presently came, with slow embarrassment, to give him her hand.

“Both of them, the yarn-man as well as the loom-fitter, soon put themselves, with jokes and tales, on the old footing due to family friends; and after spending some time in refreshing themselves, the excellent fellow turned to me and said, ‘We must not neglect you, dear sir, amidst these rejoicings at meeting again; we could go on gossiping with one another for days: you must be off to-morrow. Let the gentleman see the mystery of our craft: sizing and warping he knows; we must show him the rest. The young ladies there will help, I dare say. At this stool, I see, you are winding on.’

“This was the work of the younger one, to whom we turned. The elder sat down again at her loom, and, with a quiet amiable demeanor, pursued her lively task.

“I now carefully watched the winding on. For this purpose the courses of the work are allowed to run in their order through a big comb, of just the same breadth as the yarn-beam on which the winding is to be done. This is provided with a groove in which lies a thin round rod, which is inserted through the end of the warp and made tight in the groove. A little boy or girl sits under the loom and holds the string of the warp tight, whilst the weaver turns the yarn-beam round powerfully with a lever, at the same time taking care that everything is lying in proper order. When it is all wound on, one round and two flat rods (Schiene) are pushed through the ‘lease’ so as to hold it; and now the drawing begins.

“Of the old web there is still about a quarter of an ell left on the second yarn-beam, and from this the threads run for a length of about three quarter-ells through the reed in the batten as well as through the leaves of the heddles. On to these the weaver now carefully twists the threads of the new warp, one on to another, and when he has done the whole of what is twisted on is drawn through in one, so that the new threads reach to the still empty front yarn-beam: the broken threads are knotted together, the weft is wound upon small reels so that they fit into the little shuttle, and the last preparation for the weaving, namely, the dressing, is made.

“Throughout the length of the loom the warp is damped through and through with a size made of glove leather, by aid of a brush dipped into it; then the before-mentioned rods which hold the leases are drawn back, all the threads are laid most exactly in order, and it is all fanned with a goosewing fastened to a stick until it is dry; and now the weaving can begin, to go on until it is again necessary to dress.

“The dressing and fanning are commonly left to young people who are familiarized with the weaving trade; but in the leisure of the winter evenings a brother, or a lover, performs this office for the comely weaver, or at the least they prepare the little reels of weft-yarn.

“Fine muslins are woven wet, that is to say, the thread of the weft-yarn is dipped in size, wound whilst still damp upon the little reels, and worked forthwith, by which means the web can be more evenly worked and looks cleaner.

“Thursday, 18th.

“In general I found something busy, indescribably animated, homely and peaceful in the whole condition of a weaving-room like this: several looms were in activity; spinning and spooling wheels were going; and at the stove sat the old people, with friends and neighbors who had looked in, engaged in confidential talk. Between whiles singing would perhaps be heard, generally Ambrosius Lobwasser’s psalms in four parts; more seldom ordinary songs; then perhaps there breaks out a merry peal of laughter from the girls, when cousin Jacob has made a witty remark.

“A really smart and at the same time diligent weaver, if she has help, can, at most, in the course of a week finish a piece of not too fine muslin, thirty-two ells in length; but this is very unusual, and in some working households this is commonly the work of a fortnight.

“The beauty of the web depends upon the even action of the heddles, on the even motion of the batten, and also upon whether the weft is wet or dry. A perfectly equal and at the same time strong tension also contributes, to secure which the weaver of fine cotton cloths hangs a heavy stone on the pin of the front beam. If the web during the work is strongly strained (the technical word is dämmen) it is perceptibly lengthened — in thirty-two ells by three-quarters of an ell, and in sixty-four by about one and a half. This overplus belongs to the weaver; she is paid extra for it, or keeps it for neckerchiefs, aprons, etc.

“On the brightest, tenderest of moonlit nights, such as prevail only in the high mountain regions, sat the family with their guest, at the house door, in the most animated talk, Lenardo deep in thought. Amidst all the life and employment, and so much thought devoted to manufacturing processes, his friend Wilhelm’s letter written to reassure him again came to his recollection. The words that he had read so often, the lines he had several times conned, again presented themselves to his inner sense. And as a favorite tune suddenly becomes, before we are aware of it, gently present to our deeper sense of hearing, so did that tender missive repeat itself in the quiet and self-absorbed soul.

“ ‘A domestic condition grounded in piety, inspired and maintained by industry and order, not too narrow, not too wide, but in the happiest proportion to her capacities and powers. Around her is busy a circle of handworkers, in the purest, most primitive sense; here reign limitation, and far-reaching effect, caution and moderation, innocence and activity.’

“But on this occasion reminiscence was more exacting than soothing. ‘And yet,’ said he to himself, ‘this general laconic description accords completely with the circumstances that surround me here. Is there not here peace, piety, and unintermittent activity? It is only the far-reaching effect that fails to seem equally obvious to me. May it be that the good creature animates a like circle, but a wider and a better one. May she find herself as happily situate as these — perhaps still more happily — and look round about her with more joy and freedom.’

“But now, aroused by a lively and increasing flow of talk on the part of the others, and paying more heed to what was passing, an idea which he had been cherishing all this time became perfectly vivid to him. ‘Might not this selfsame man, this man who deals with tools and apparatus in so masterly a manner, be able to make the most useful of members for our society?’ He pondered on this and everything — how the advantages of this expert workman had already powerfully struck him. He therefore turned the conversation in that direction; and as if in jest, it is true, but for that reason all the more unconstrainedly, he made the proposal whether he would not join an association of some importance, and make a trial of emigrating over the sea.

“The other excused himself, declaring, with equal good-humor, that he was getting on very well here, and expected to do better too; that he was born in this part of the country, accustomed to it, known far and wide and received with confidence everywhere. In general there would be found no liking for emigration in these valleys; they had no want to trouble them, and a mountain country has a firm hold on its people.

“ ‘For that reason,’ said the yarn-man, ‘I am surprised to hear it said that Frau Susanna is going to marry the manager, sell her property, and go with a fair sum of money over the sea.’

“On inquiry, our friend found that this was a young widow who was in easy circumstances and carried on a lucrative trade in the products of the mountain-side; of which the travelling tourist could satisfy himself the first thing on the morrow, for they would come across her in good time on the road they were following.

“ ‘I have already heard her mentioned in various ways,’ replied Lenardo, ‘as exercising activity and benevolence in this valley, and have been intending to inquire about her.’

“ ‘But let us retire to rest,’ said the yarnman, ‘so as to avail ourselves of the approaching day, which promises to be a merry one, betimes.’ “

Here the manuscript ended, and when Wilhelm asked for the continuation, he was told that it was not at present in the friends’ hands. It had been sent, they said, to Makaria, who by aid of wit and good-will was to smooth over certain difficulties which were referred to in it and solve various unpropitious complications. Our friend had to make the best of this interruption, and make up his mind to be satisfied with a social evening spent in lively conversation.

CHAPTER VI.

When evening came, and the friends were sitting in an arbor from which there was a wide prospect all round, there appeared on the threshold a notable figure, whom our friend recognized at once as the barber of the morning before.

To a deep and silent obeisance on the man’s part, Lenardo replied, “You come, as ever, very opportunely, and you will not delay to gratify us with your gift.

“I may perhaps tell you,” he went on, turning to Wilhelm, “something about the association of which I may boast myself to be the Bond. No one enters our circle but he who has given evidence of certain talents which would contribute to the profit or pleasure of every society. This man is a thorough surgeon, who, in precarious cases, in which decision and physical strength are requisite, is ready to assist his master cleverly. To what he achieves as a beard-artist you can yourself bear witness in his favor; on this account he is equally necessary and welcome to us. But as this occupation commonly brings with it a great and often burdensome loquacity, he has, for the sake of his own culture, let himself be placed under a condition: as indeed everyone who wishes to live amongst us must restrain himself on one particular side, though greater freedom is accorded to him on another. This man accordingly has renounced the use of speech in so far as anything commonplace or casual is expressed by it; but from this another kind of speaking-talent has developed itself in him, which produces its effect designedly, cleverly and pleasantly: namely, the gift of narration.

“His life is rich in strange experiences, which at one time he used to splinter up by chattering in undue season, but which now, constrained by silence, he repeats and arranges in the quiet of his mind. With this, too, is associated the power of imagination adding life and movement to the occurrence. He knows how to tell real legends and legendary histories with peculiar art and address, by the help of which he often delights us at suitable times when his tongue is loosened by me. This then I do at the present moment; and, at the same time, give him credit for having, during the considerable time that I have known him, not once repeated himself. I hope now that, for love and honor of our dear guest, he will specially distinguish himself on this occasion too.”

A merry look, full of intelligence, overspread Redcloak’s face, and without delay he began to speak as follows.

The New Melusina.

HONORED SIRS: As I am aware that you do not particularly care for preliminary speeches and introductions, I will assure you without more ado that this time I hope to acquit myself exceedingly well. Without doubt many true stories have already gone forth from me to the high satisfaction of all; but to-day, I dare maintain, that I have one to tell which far surpasses all that have gone before, and which, though it happened to me several years ago, still disquiets me whenever I recollect it, nay, even still makes me hope for an explanation in the end. You would have difficulty in finding the like of it.

First I must confess that I have not always ordered my plan of life so as to be quite sure of the time that was shortly coming on, even of the next day. In my youth I was not a good manager, and often found myself in divers perplexities. Once I undertook a journey which should have brought me in a good profit; but I cut my cloth a little too big, and after beginning it with extra-post, and then proceeding for a time by diligence, I at last found myself obliged to face the end of it on foot.

As a lively young fellow, I had always made a practice of looking about for the landlady, or even for the cook, as soon as I entered an inn, and, by expending a little flattery on them, my reckoning was generally diminished.

One evening, as I was entering the post-house of a small town, and was just going to set to work in this customary manner, a handsome two-seated carriage, with four horses, rattled up to the door close behind me. I turned round and saw a young lady all alone, without maid and without attendants. I at once hastened to open the door for her, and inquire whether I could do anything for her. As she got out a beautiful figure became evident, and her amiable face, when one looked at it more nearly, was adorned with a slight trace of sadness. I asked once more whether I could serve her in any way.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “if you will carefully lift out the little box that lies on the seat, and carry it up for me; but I beg you earnestly to carry it quite steadily, and not to swing or shake it in the least!”

I took up the box carefully, whilst she shut the carriage-door. We went up the stairs together, and she told the servants that she would stay here for the night.

We were now alone in the room. She bade me set the box upon the table that stood by the wall, and on noticing from some of her movements that she wished to be alone, I took my leave, and respectfully but warmly kissed her hand.

“Order supper for both of us,” she then said; and it may be imagined with what satisfaction I fulfilled this commission, whilst, in self-conceit, I scarcely threw a side-glance at the hostess and servants. I awaited with impatience the moment which was at last to take me again to her. It was served up, and we sat down opposite one another. For the first time for a long while I refreshed myself with a good meal, and at the same time with a sight so enviable; nay, it seemed to me as if she became more beautiful every minute.

Her conversation was agreeable, yet she made a point of repudiating everything that related to regard or affection. The table was cleared. I lingered; I tried all sorts of artifices to get near her, but in vain; she kept me back with a certain dignity that I could not withstand. Nay, I was obliged, against my will, to leave her in rather good time.

After a night for the best part of which I lay awake or dreamed restlessly, I got up early. I inquired whether she had ordered horses; I was told “No,” and walked into the garden. I saw her standing at the window dressed, and ran up to her. As she stepped towards me, as beautiful as, nay, more beautiful than yesterday, love, impudence and audacity were all at once set astir within me: I rushed towards her and clasped her in my arms. “Angelic, irresistible being,” I exclaimed, “forgive me, but it is impossible — ”

With incredible address she freed herself from my arms, and I was not able to imprint a single kiss upon her cheeks.

“Keep back such outbreaks of sudden, passionate affection, if you do not wish to forfeit a piece of good fortune that lies close to you, but which can only be grasped after certain trials.”

“Demand what thou wilt, angelic spirit,” I exclaimed, “but do not drive me to despair!”

She answered with a smile, “If you are willing to devote yourself to my service, hear the conditions. I have come to this place to visit a female friend, with whom I expect to pass a few days: meanwhile I wish my carriage and this case to be taken farther on. Are you willing to take charge of it? You will have nothing to do but to lift the box carefully into and out of the carriage, to sit down by it, and to take every care of it. When you come to an inn it is placed on a table in a room by itself, in which you must neither sit nor sleep. You always lock the door with this key, which opens and closes any lock, and gives the lock the special property that no one is able to open it otherwise.”

I looked at her, and a strange feeling came over me. I promised to do everything, if I might hope to see her soon again, and if she would seal this hope to me with a kiss. This she did, and from that moment I had become completely her body-slave. I was now, she said, to order the horses. We settled the road that I was to take, the places where I should stop and should wait for her. Lastly she pressed a purse of gold into my hand, and I my lips to her hands. She seemed moved at parting, and already I knew not what I did or was about to do.

When I came back after giving my orders I found the room-door locked; I immediately tried my master-key, and it stood its test perfectly. The door sprang open: I found the room empty: there was only the box standing upon the table where I had set it down.

The carriage had driven up. I took the box carefully down and set it beside me.

The hostess asked, “Where is the lady, then?”

A child answered, “She is gone into the town.”

I nodded to the people and drove away in triumph from the door, at which yesterday evening I had arrived with dusty spatterdashes. That I now, at complete leisure, turned this occurrence over and over in my mind, that I counted the gold, made all sorts of schemes, and continued to look occasionally at the box, you can easily imagine. I drove straight forward, did not alight for several stations, and did not rest until I arrived at a considerable town where she had appointed to meet me. Her commands were carefully obeyed, the box was placed in a room by itself, and a few wax candles were lighted near it, as she had also ordered. I locked up the room, settled myself in mine, and made myself comfortable.

For awhile I was able to occupy myself with thinking of her: but soon the time began to seem long. I was not accustomed to be without company; this I soon found at the inn-tables and in public places in accordance with my taste. In this way my money began to melt away, and one evening, when I imprudently abandoned myself to a passionate fit of gaming, it vanished absolutely from my purse. When I reached my room I was beside myself. Bereft of money, with the appearance of a wealthy man, expecting a heavy reckoning, uncertain whether and when my fair one would again make her appearance, I was in the greatest embarrassment. Doubly did I long for her, and was certain that without her and her money I was now quite unable to live.

After supper, for which I had had no sort of relish, since this time I had been obliged to eat it alone, I walked rapidly up and down the room, talked aloud to myself, cursed myself, threw myself on the floor, tore my hair, and behaved like an utter madman. Suddenly in the locked-up room adjoining, I hear a gentle movement, and shortly afterwards a knocking at the well-secured door. I collect myself, and seize hold of the master-key; but the folding-doors fly open of themselves, and in the glow of the lighted wax-candles my fair one comes towards me. I throw myself at her feet, kiss her skirt, her hands: she raises me, I do not venture to embrace her, scarcely to look at her; yet frankly and penitently I confess to her my fault.

“It may be pardoned,” said she; “only unfortunately you delay your good fortune and mine. You must now once more make an expedition into the world before we meet again. Here is more gold,” said she, “and quite enough if you are willing to be at all careful; but if wine and play have got you into trouble this time, be on your guard now against wine and women, and let me hope for a more joyous meeting.”

She retired through her doorway; the folding-doors closed. I knocked, I implored, but nothing more was to be heard.

When I called for the reckoning the next morning, the waiter laughed and said, “So we know why you lock your doors in such a scientific and incomprehensible way that no master-key is able to open them. We assumed that you had a great deal of money and jewels; but now we have seen your treasure going down-stairs, and it seemed on all accounts worthy of being well guarded.”

I said nothing in reply, but paid my reckoning and got into the carriage with my box. I now drove again into the wide world, with the most fixed intention to pay heed for the future to my mysterious friend’s warning. Yet scarce had I again arrived at a large town, when I presently got acquainted with some amiable young ladies, from whom I absolutely could not tear myself away. They seemed disposed to make me pay dearly for their favor, for, whilst they continued to keep me at a certain distance, they led me on to one expense after another, and, as all that I cared for was to further their enjoyment, I never thought twice about my purse, but paid and spent away just as occasion occurred. How great then was my astonishment and delight, when, at the end of some weeks, I noticed that the fulness of my purse showed as yet no diminution, but that it was still as round and bulky as at first. I would fain assure myself more exactly of this pretty quality, and set to work to reckon up. I noticed the sum precisely, and now began to live merrily with my companions as before. There was no stint of country and river-excursions, of dancing, singing, and other enjoyments; but now it required no great attention to perceive that the purse really was diminishing, just as if I, by my confounded counting, had taken away from it the virtue of being uncountable. However the life of pleasure was once for all in full swing: I could not draw back, and yet I was soon at the end of my cash. I cursed my situation, blamed my fair friend who had thus led me into temptation, took it ill of her that she did not come on the scene again; repudiated in my anger all duties towards her, and proposed to myself to open the box, in case perchance some help might be found in it; for, though it was not heavy enough to contain gold, yet there might be jewels in it, and these would have been very welcome to me. I was on the point of carrying out my intention; however I put it off till night-time, in order to carry out the operation quite quietly, and I hastened to a banquet, which was just about to take place. Here again the fun was speeding fast, and we were highly excited with wine and trumpet-tones, when by ill-luck it befell me that, at supper-time, an earlier friend of my favorite fair one, returning from a journey, came in unexpectedly, sat down by her side, and without much ceremony sought to assert his old privileges. Hence arose ill-humor, anger and strife; we drew, and I was taken home half dead with sundry wounds.

The surgeon had bandaged me and gone away; it was already deep in the night, and my attendant had fallen asleep; the door of the side-room opened, my mysterious friend entered, and sat down by my bedside. She asked how I was; I did not answer, for I was faint and sullen. She went on speaking with much sympathy, rubbed my temples with a certain balsam, so that I felt rapidly and distinctly strengthened — so strengthened that I was able to grow angry and upbraid her. In hasty words I laid all the blame of my ill-fortune upon her, on the passion with which she had inspired me, on her appearance, her disappearance, on the tedium, on the yearning that I had felt. I became more and more violent, as if a fever were attacking me, and at last I swore to her that if she would not be mine — would not this time belong to and unite herself with me, I cared no longer to live; and thereto I demanded a decisive answer. When she hesitated and held back with an explanation, I got quite beside myself, and tore the double and threefold bandage from the wounds, with the indubitable intention of letting myself bleed to death. But how astounded was I when I found my wounds all healed, my body sleek and shining, and her in my arms!

Now were we the happiest couple in the world. We alternately asked pardon of each other, though we ourselves knew not rightly wherefore. She now promised to travel on with me, and we were soon sitting by one another in the carriage, with the box opposite to us, in the third person’s place. I had never made any mention of it to her: and even now it did not occur to me to speak of it, although it was standing before our eyes, and we both by a tacit agreement took it in charge as occasion might require: except that I always lifted it in and out of the carriage, and, as before, attended to the locking of the doors.

As long as there was anything left in my purse I had always paid: when my cash came to an end, I gave her notice of the fact. “That is easily remedied,” she said, pointing to a couple of little pockets, attached to the top of the carriage at the sides, which I certainly had noticed before, but had not used. She felt in one and took out a few gold pieces, and out of the other a few silver coins, and showed me thus the possibility of continuing any sort of expenditure we liked.

Thus we journeyed from town to town, from country to country, pleased with ourselves and other people; and I never thought that she could again leave me; all the less so, inasmuch as for some time she had decidedly had expectations through which our happiness and love would be only further increased. But one morning I found, alas, that she was no longer there, and as remaining without her was burdensome to me, I started again on my travels with my little box, tested the power of the two pockets, and found that it was still maintained.

The journey sped well; and if, so far, I had had no further thoughts about my adventure, inasmuch as I was expecting a perfectly natural explanation of these strange occurrences, yet there presently happened something which threw me into astonishment, into anxiety, nay, even into fear. In order to get far away from the place I was accustomed to travel night and day, and thus it happened that I often drove in the dark, and if the lamps by chance went out, it was pitch dark in my carriage. Once in a night thus dark I had fallen asleep, and when I awoke I noticed the reflection of a light on the roof of my carriage. I examined it, and found that it issued from the box, in which there seemed to be a chink, as if it had sprung by reason of the hot and dry weather of the advancing summer season. My fancies about the jewels were again set astir; I supposed that a carbuncle was lying in the box, and I was anxious to make certain of it. I put myself in position, as well as I could, so that my eye was in close contact with the chink. But how great was my astonishment, when I found myself looking in at a room brilliantly illuminated with candles, and furnished with much taste, nay, even magnificence, exactly as if I had been looking down into a royal saloon through an opening in the ceiling. It is true I could see only a part of the room, from which I could infer the rest. An open fire seemed to be burning, near which stood an arm-chair. I held my breath and continued to observe. In the meantime, from the other side of the saloon, came a young lady with a book in her hand, whom I at once recognized as my wife, although her figure was diminished in the minutest proportion. The beautiful creature sat down on the seat by the fireplace to read, and as she arranged the embers with the daintiest pair of tongs, I could plainly observe that this most lovable little being was on the point of becoming a mother. But now I found myself obliged in some measure to change my inconvenient position, and directly afterwards, when I was again going to look in, and convince myself that it had not been a dream, the light vanished, and I looked on empty darkness.

How amazed, how terrified I was, may be imagined. I formed a thousand ideas as to this discovery, and yet could really imagine nothing. Doing this I fell asleep, and when I awoke I fancied that I had just been only dreaming. Yet I felt somewhat estranged from my fair one, and whilst I handled the box only so much the more carefully, I knew not whether I must desire or dread her reappearance in perfect human size.

After some little time, my fair one really did come to me about eventide, clad in white, and as the room was just getting dark, she seemed taller to me than she was wont at other times to appear and I recollected to have heard that all the race of nixies and elves are noticeably increased in height as night approaches. She rushed as usual into my arms, but I could not with a right glad heart press her to my burdened breast.

“My darling,” she said, “I feel too well by your reception, what, alas! I know already. You have seen me in the interval: you are informed of the situation in which I find myself at certain periods. Your happiness and mine is thereby interrupted, nay, is on the point of being utterly annihilated. I must leave you, and know not whether I shall ever see you again.”

Her presence, the grace with which she spoke, immediately banished almost every remembrance of that vision that even before had only hovered over me like a dream. I caught her quickly in my arms, convinced her of my passion, assured her of my innocence, told her the accidental occasion of my discovery; enough, I did enough to make her seem pacified, and try to pacify me.

“Put yourself to a strict proof,” said she, “as to whether this discovery has not been injurious to your love, whether you can forget that I live with you in a twofold form, whether the diminution of my person will not also diminish your affection.”

I looked at her; she was fairer than ever; and I thought to myself, “Is it then so great a misfortune to own a wife who from time to time becomes a dwarf, so that she can be carried about in a case? Would it not be much worse if she became a giantess, and put her husband into the box?” My cheerfulness had come back; I would not have let her go away for everything in the world.

“Sweetheart,” I replied, “let us abide and be as we have been! Could we two be better off? Consult your own convenience, and I promise you to carry the case but so much the more carefully. How should the prettiest thing that I have seen in my whole life make a bad impression upon me? How happy would lovers be could they but possess such miniature pictures! And, after all, it was only such a picture, a little deception of conjuring. You are testing and teasing me; but you shall see how I will behave.”

“The matter is more serious than you think,” said the fair one; “meanwhile I am right well content that you make light of it; for it may still have the happiest consequences for both of us. I will rely upon you, and for my part do what is possible; only promise me never to think of this discovery reproachfully. To this I add most earnestly one more request, beware of wine and of anger more than ever!”

I promised what she begged. I would have gone on promising anything and everything; yet she herself changed the conversation, and all went on smoothly as before. We had no reason to alter our place of residence; the town was large, and the society of many sorts; the time of year gave occasion for many rural and garden entertainments.

In all such amusements my wife was very much in request; nay, eagerly sought after by men and by women. A kindly and engaging manner, combined with a certain dignity, gained her the love and respect of everyone. In addition to this she played splendidly on the lute, and sang to it as well, and all social evenings must needs be made complete by the aid of her talent.

I desire but to confess that I have never been able to make much of music; nay, it rather had an unpleasant effect upon me. My fair one, who had soon noticed this in me, consequently never sought, when we were alone, to divert me in this way. On that account she seemed to indemnify herself in society, where she generally found a crowd of admirers.

And now, why should I deny it? Our last conversation, in spite of my very good intentions, had yet not been sufficient to dismiss the matter entirely. Rather had it attuned most strangely my whole mode of feeling, without my having been perfectly conscious of it. So one evening, at a large party, my smothered ill-humor broke loose, and therefrom ensued for me the most disadvantageous consequences.

When I think over it properly, I loved my fair one much less after the discovery, and now — what had never occurred to me before — I was getting jealous about her. This evening, at the supper-table, where we were sitting diametrically opposite to each other at a considerable distance, I found myself very well off with my two neighbors, a couple of ladies, who had appeared very charming to me for some time. Amid jesting and sentimental talk the wine was not spared. In the meanwhile, on the other side, a pair of musical amateurs had prevailed on my wife, and contrived to encourage and lead on the company to singing both solo and in chorus. This put me in an ill-humor. The two amateurs seem importunate; the singing made me irritable, and when a verse in solo was demanded from me as well, I became really indignant, emptied my glass, and set it roughly down.

My neighbors’ tact soon made me feel soothed again, but it is a bad case for anger if it has once made a start. It simmered away in secret, although everything ought to have disposed me to pleasure and to complaisance. On the contrary, I only grew still more ill-tempered when a lute was brought, and my fair one accompanied her song, to the astonishment of everyone else. As ill-luck would have it, a general silence was requested. So I was not to be allowed to talk any more; and the sounds set my teeth on edge. Was it wonderful, then, that the smallest spark at last set light to the mine?

The songsters had just ended a song amidst the greatest approval, when she looked across towards me, and in truth with a right loving look. Unhappily the glance did not penetrate within me. She noticed that I gulped down a cup of wine, and filled up another. With her right-hand forefinger she made a sign of affectionate threatening.

“Remember that it is wine,” she said, only loud enough for me to hear it.

“Water is for nixies!” I exclaimed.

“Ladies,” said she to my neighbors, “crown the cup with every grace, that it be not so often empty.”

“You surely will not let yourself be domineered over?” said one of them to me.

“What ails the imp?” I exclaimed, gesticulating more wildly, and thereby upsetting the cup.

“It is not little that is overthrown,” cried the wondrous beauty, striking the strings as if to attract the attention of the company from this interruption to herself again. In this she actually succeeded; the more so, as she stood up, but only as if she wished to play with more convenience to herself, and continued her prelude.

As soon as I saw the red wine streaming over the tablecloth I came to my senses. I saw how great a fault I had committed, and was cut to the very heart. For the first time the music spoke to me. The first stanza that she sang was a kindly farewell to the company, whilst as yet they could still feel that they were together. With the next stanza the party seemed as it were to be scattered asunder; each individual felt himself solitary, separated; no one imagined himself to be any longer present. But what should I say of the last stanza? It was addressed to me alone: the voice of injured love bidding farewell to ill-temper and presumption.

Mutely I led her home, expecting naught pleasant to myself. Yet scarcely had we reached our room than she proved to be in the highest degree kind and amiable, nay, even roguish, making me the happiest of men.

The next morning, being completely consoled and full of affection, I said, “You have so often sung, when challenged to it by good company, for instance, that touching farewell-song yesterday evening: sing now, too, for love of me, only this once, a pretty, lively welcome at this morning hour, so that we may be as if we were learning to know each other for the first time!”

“That I may not do, my friend,” she replied, with seriousness; “the song of yesterday evening referred to our parting, which must now take place forthwith; for I can tell you only that the violence done to your word and oath has the evilest consequences for us both: you scoff away a great gift of fortune, and I, too, must forego my dearest wishes.”

When, hereupon, I was urgent with her, and begged that she would explain herself more clearly, she replied, “That, alas, I can easily do, for at all events there is an end of my remaining with you. Hear, then, what I would rather have concealed from you to the last moments! The form in which you beheld me in the box is in reality innate and natural to me, for I am of the race of King Eckwald, the mighty prince of the dwarfs, of whom authentic history tells so much. Our people are still, as of old, active and industrious, and for that reason also easy to govern. But you must not suppose that the dwarfs have remained behindhand in their labors. Else would swords, which followed the enemy when they were thrown after him, invisible and secretly binding fetters, impenetrable shields and the like, be their most famous productions; but now they busy themselves especially with articles of convenience and of adornment, and surpass therein all other people of the earth. You would be astonished if you were to walk through our workshops and warehouses. This would be — this would all be well now, were it not that, with the whole nation in general, but chiefly with the royal family, a special circumstance came into play.”

As she remained silent for a moment, I entreated her for further disclosure of these marvellous secrets, which she forthwith conceded to me.

“It is well known,” she said, “that God, as soon as He had created the world, and the whole earth was dry, and mountains stood there mighty and glorious — God, I say, forthwith created, before anything else, the dwarfs, in order that there might also be rational beings, who in their burrows and clefts might marvel at and adore his wonders in the inner parts of the earth. Furthermore, it is known that this little race later became lifted up, and aspired to gain for themselves the dominion of the earth, wherefore God then created dragons in order to drive the dwarfs back into their mountains. But since the dragons themselves were wont to make their nests in the great holes and caverns, and there to live, many of them, too, spitting fire, and working much other devastation, the dwarfs were thus reduced to great straits and distress, so much so, that no longer knowing where to come or go, they therefore very humbly and imploringly turned themselves to God the Lord, and called to Him in prayer that He would bring to naught again this unclean breed of dragons. But although in his wisdom He could not determine to destroy his own creatures, yet the dire need of the poor dwarfs so went to his heart, that He immediately created the giants, who were to fight the dragons, and, if not root them out, at least diminish their number.

“But no sooner had the giants pretty well done with the dragons, than pride and arrogance arose forthwith within them, and in consequence they perpetrated much evil, especially towards the poor dwarfs, who in their distress turned themselves again to the Lord: He thereupon in the power of his might created knights who were to fight the giants and dragons and live on good terms with the dwarfs. With this the work of creation was completed in this direction, and it has come to pass that henceforth giants and dragons as well as knights and dwarfs have always managed to co-exist. Whereby you may see, my friend, that we belong to the oldest race in the world, which is certainly to our honor, but which also carries with it great disadvantages.

“For since nothing can last forever in the world, but everything that has once been great must become small and decrease, we, too, are in this case, that since the creation of the world we have always been decreasing and getting smaller, and above all the others the royal family, which, on account of the purity of its blood, is the first to be subjected to this destiny. On this account our wise instructors have many years ago devised this expedient, that from time to time a princess of the royal house is sent out into the world to wed herself with some honorable knight, in order that the race of dwarfs may be again invigorated, and saved from total ruin.”

Whilst my fair one uttered these words with thorough simplicity, I looked at her with misgiving, for it seemed as if she had a wish to impose upon me. As far as her pretty pedigree was concerned I had no further doubt, but that she had got hold of me in place of a knight, this caused me some mistrust, inasmuch as I know myself too well to think of supposing that my forefathers were created directly by God.

I concealed my wonder and doubt, and asked her kindly, “But tell me, my dear child, how do you attain to this tall and shapely form? for I know few women that can be compared with you in fineness of figure.”

“That you shall hear,” replied my fair one. “It has been handed down for ages in the council of the dwarf-king that we should beware of taking this extraordinary step as long as possible — which indeed I find quite natural and proper. There would probably have still been much hesitation about sending out a princess into the world again, if my younger brother had not been brought into the world so small, that the nurses actually lost him out of his swaddling clothes and no one knows whither he has gone. At this occurrence, altogether unknown in the annals of the dwarf realm, the wise men were assembled, and without further parley the resolution was taken to send me out to look for a husband.”

“The resolution!” I exclaimed; “this is all very fine: you may take a resolution, you may come to a determination; but to give a dwarf this form divine, how did your wise men bring that about?”

“This was already provided for by our ancestors,” she said. “In the royal treasury lay an immense gold finger-ring. I speak of it now as it appeared to me when it was formerly shown to me as a child, in its place; for it is the same that I have here on my finger. And now the following process was gone through.

“I was informed of all that awaited me, and was instructed as to what I was to do and not to do. A magnificent palace, after the pattern of my parents’ favorite summer-residence, was made ready — a main building, side-wings, and everything that one can but wish for. It stood at the entrance of a great rocky ravine, which it adorned to the utmost. On the appointed day the court withdrew thither, with me and my parents. The army was reviewed, and four and twenty priests, not without difficulty, bore the wondrous ring upon a costly barrow. It was laid upon the threshold of the building just inside where one would step. Many ceremonies were gone through, and after a heartfelt farewell, I advanced to the work. I stepped up to it, laid my hand upon the ring, and forthwith began visibly to increase. In a few moments I had reached my present stature, whereupon I straightway put the ring upon my finger. Then, on the instant, windows, door and gates closed up, the side-wings drew back into the main building: in place of the palace, stood a small box beside me, which I at once lifted up, and carried with me, not without a pleasant feeling in being so large and so strong, though still, it is true, a dwarf compared with trees and mountains, with streams and tracts of land, but yet to all intents a giant compared with grass and herbs, but especially with the ants, with whom we dwarfs are not always on good terms, and by whom consequently we are often annoyed.

“How I fared on my pilgrimage, before I met you — of this I might have a good deal to tell. Enough, I tried many, but no one else but you seemed to me worthy to renovate and perpetuate the line of the princely Eckwald.”

During all these communications my head kept wagging, though I did not actually shake it. I put various questions, to which however I obtained no particular answer; but rather learned, to my very great sorrow, that after what had happened she must of necessity return to her parents. She hoped, indeed, to come back to me, but at present she must inevitably present herself, since otherwise all would be lost for her as well as for me. The purses would soon leave off paying, and all sorts of other consequences would ensue therefrom.

When I heard that our money might run out, I inquired no further what else might happen. I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing, and she seemed to understand me.

We packed up together and took our seats in the carriage, with the box opposite to us, in which however I could not yet see anything like a palace. And so we went on for several stages. Post-money and drink-money were readily and liberally paid from the pockets on the right hand and left, till we came at last to a hilly district, and we had scarcely alighted than my fair one walked on in front and I followed at her bidding with the box. She led me along a tolerably steep path to a narrow plot of meadow-land, through which a clear brook partly rushed down and partly meandered at a quiet pace. There she pointed out to me a raised level plot, bade me set down the box and said “Farewell, you will easily find the way back. Think of me; I hope to see you again.”

At this moment I felt as if I could not leave her. She was just then in one of her good days again, or if you will, her good hours. To be with so lovable a being on the verdant carpet amidst grass and flowers, concealed by rocks, lulled by the rill, what heart could have remained unmoved? I could have seized her hand, clasped her in my arms, but she pressed me back, and threatened me, though still lovingly enough, with great peril if I did not straightway withdraw.

“Is there then no possibility,” I exclaimed, “of my staying with you, of your being able to keep me with you?”

I accompanied these words with gestures and tones so full of sorrow that she seemed touched, and after a little thought admitted to me that a continuance of our union was not utterly impossible. Who was happier than I? My importunity, which grew more and more urgent, at last obliged her to say the word, and disclose to me, that if I would make up my mind to become, together with her, as small as I had already seen her, I could even now stay with her, and enter with her into her dwelling, her kingdom, and her family. This plan did not altogether please me. Yet I could not all at this moment tear myself away from her, and having now for a long time been accustomed to the marvellous, and being bound to a speedy resolution, I agreed, and said that she might do what she liked with me.

I had forthwith to hold out the little finger of my right hand; she set her own against it, with her left hand drew the gold ring quite gently off, and let it slide on to my finger. This was scarcely done than I felt a severe pain in the finger: the ring contracted and tortured me horribly. I gave a loud scream, and involuntarily gazed around me for my beautiful one, who, however, had disappeared. What my state of mind was in the meantime I could find no words to express, nor does aught remain for me to say but that I very soon found myself in diminutive form, close by my fair one in a forest of grass-blades. The delight of meeting again after a short and yet so strange a separation, or if you will, a reunion without separation, transcends all conception. I fell upon her neck: she returned my caresses, and the little couple felt as happy as the big one.

With some trouble we now proceeded to climb up a hill, for the sward had become for us an almost impenetrable forest. Yet at last we reached a clear space, and how astounded was I to see there a large barred and bolted pile, which, however, I was soon forced to recognize as the box in the condition in which I had set it down.

“Go, dear friend, and only knock with the ring. You will see wonders,” said my beloved.

I went up to it, and had hardly knocked when I really witnessed the greatest marvel. Two side-wings came forward, and at the same time, like scales and chips, down fell sundry portions, whereupon doors, windows, arcades and all that pertains to a complete palace, came all at once to view.

Anyone who has seen one of Röntgens’ ingenious writing-tables, in which, by one pull, a number of catches and strings come into play, and desk, writing materials, letter-drawers, and money-drawers are brought out all at once or soon after each other, will be able to form some idea of the unfolding of this palace into which my sweet conductress now introduced me. In the principal saloon I at once recognized the chimney that I had formerly seen from above, and the seat upon which she sat. And when I looked above my head I fancied that I actually still saw something of the rift in the dome through which I had looked in. I spare you a description of the rest: enough, all was spacious, costly and tasteful. I had scarcely recovered from my astonishment, when I heard in the distance a military band. My lovely half jumped for joy, and informed me with delight of the approach of her royal father. We stepped out to the entrance and looked as a brilliant procession defiled out of a beautiful rocky chasm. Soldiers, servants, household officials, and a brilliant array of courtiers followed one behind the other. Finally we beheld a gilded crowd and in it the king himself. When the whole procession was drawn up in front of the palace the king come forward with his most select retinue. His loving daughter ran to meet him, dragging me with her; we threw ourselves at his feet; he raised me very graciously, and only when I came to stand in front of him did I notice that in this miniature world I was actually the most considerable in stature. We walked together towards the palace, when the king, in the presence of his whole court, and in a studied speech, in which he expressed his astonishment at finding us here, was pleased to bid me welcome, acknowledged me as his son-in-law, and fixed the nuptial ceremony for the next day.

In what a terrible state of mind was I, when I heard marriage spoken of! for I had hitherto dreaded this, almost more than music itself, which otherwise seemed to me the most hateful thing upon earth. People that make music, I was accustomed to say, at least fancy that they are at one with each other, and working in unison, for when they have been tuning-up, and rending our ears with all sorts of discords long enough, they fancy, safely and surely, that the matter is now simplified, and that one instrument accords exactly with another. Even the director is under this happy delusion, and now they set off merrily, whilst for the rest of us our ears keep on tingling. In the wedded state, on the other hand, even this is not the case: for although it is only a duet, and one would think that two voices, nay, two instruments, must be able to be brought into some sort of tune, yet this seldom happens: for if the husband emits one note, the wife immediately takes a higher one, and the husband a higher again; then it passes from the chamber-pitch to the choral, and so on, higher and higher, so that at last even wind instruments cannot keep up with it, and thus, seeing that harmonic music continues hateful to me, it is still less to be supposed that I should endure the unharmonic.

Friedrich.

Of all the festivities in which the day was spent I need not and cannot say anything, for I took little heed of them. The sumptuous food, the delicious wine, everything was distasteful to me: I was thinking and considering what I should do. And yet there was not much to be thought of. When night came, I made up my mind, without more ado, to get up and go away and hide myself somewhere or other. Accordingly I got safely to a crevice in the rock into which I squeezed and concealed myself as well as possible. My first anxiety after this was to get the unlucky ring from off my finger, but in this I was by no means successful; rather I was compelled to feel that it always got tighter as soon as I attempted to draw it off, causing me to endure acute pains, which, however, abated as soon as I desisted from my intention.

Early in the morning I woke up — for my little body had slept very well — and was just going to look a little further about me, when it began to rain, as it almost seemed, upon me. For something fell down in large quantities like sand or grit, through grass, leaves and flowers; but how horrified I was, when the whole place round about me seemed to be alive, and an innumerable host of ants rushed down upon me. No sooner did they perceive me than they attacked me on all sides, and although I defended myself vigorously and bravely enough, they at last so overwhelmed, pinched and pricked me, that I was glad when I heard a demand that I should surrender. I, in fact, did surrender on the spot, whereupon an ant of remarkable size approached me with politeness, nay, with reverence, and even recommended himself to my favor. I learned that the ants were allies of my father-in-law, and that he had summoned them to his aid in the present emergency, and enjoined them to fetch me back. Little as I was, I was now in the hands of creatures still less. I had now to look forward to the wedding, and must needs thank God if my father-in-law were not enraged, and my fair one become vexed.

Let me pass over in silence all the ceremonies: enough, we were married; yet, merrily and gayly as the time passed with us, there were nevertheless some lonely hours, when one is led to reflection; and something happened to me which had never happened before. What it was and how it happened you shall hear.

Everything about me was completely proportioned to my present shape and to my requirements; the bottles and glasses were well adapted to a small drinker, nay, if you will, in accordance with a better standard than ours. To my small gums the dainty mouthfuls had an excellent flavor; a kiss from the little mouth of my wife was the most enchanting thing in the world, and I do not deny that novelty made all these circumstances in the highest degree pleasing. Yet at the same time I had unhappily not forgotten my former state of existence. I felt within me a measure of former greatness, which made me restless and unhappy. Now for the first time I saw what the philosophers mean with their ideals, wherewith mankind are said to be so plagued. I had an ideal of myself, and often appeared to myself in dreams as a giant. Enough; the wife, the ring, the diminutive form, and so many other bonds, made me thoroughly and completely miserable, so that I began to think seriously of my deliverance.

As I was persuaded that the whole magic lay in the ring, I determined to file it off. Accordingly I borrowed some files from the court jeweller. Fortunately I was left-handed, and had never in my life done anything in a right-handed way. I kept bravely at the work, which was no trifle, for the golden circle, thin as it appeared, had grown thicker, in proportion, as it had contracted from its former size. All leisure hours I devoted, unobserved, to this task, and was wise enough, when the metal was nearly filed through, to step outside the door. This was well advised, for all at once the golden hoop sprang forcibly from my finger, and my figure shot upwards with such violence, that I fancied I really struck the sky, and in any case would have broken through the dome of our summer palace, nay, would have destroyed the entire pavilion with my rude clumsiness.

So there I stood again, certainly so much the bigger, but, as I considered, also much more foolish and helpless. And when I recovered from my stupefaction, I saw lying near me the case, which I found tolerably heavy when I lifted it up, and took the footpath downwards to the post-house, where I immediately ordered horses and set forth. On the way, I presently made trial of the pockets on both sides. Instead of money, which seemed to be exhausted, I found a little key: it belonged to the box, in which I found a moderate reserve fund. As long as this held out, I made use of the carriage, then this was sold to allow of my going on by the diligence; at length I cast away the box, for I kept thinking that it ought to fill itself once more; and so finally, though by a considerable circuit, I came back to the chimney-corner and the cook, where you first made my acquaintance.

CHAPTER VII.

Hersilia to Wilhelm.

Acquaintanceships, even if they commence as ordinary ones, have often the most important results: and this is certainly the case with yours, which from the very beginning was not an ordinary one. The wonderful key came into my hands as a strange pledge; now I possess the casket as well. Key and casket! What say you to that? What should be said to it? Listen how it happened.

A young man of refined manners calls upon my uncle, and informs him that the skilful dealer in antiquities who had been for some time connected with you had died a short time before, and bequeathed to him the whole of his extraordinary residue, but at the same time had imposed upon him the duty of immediately restoring all alien property, which was, in fact, only on deposit. “No one need be troubled about property of his own, for its loss he alone has to bear; but only in special cases had he allowed himself to take charge of other people’s property. He did not wish him to be burdened with this responsibility, nay, in all fatherly love and authority, he forbade him to meddle therewith.” And hereupon he drew forth the casket, which, though I was already familiar with it by description, still struck me most particularly.

My uncle, after looking at it from every side, gave it back and said that he, too, made a principle of acting in the same way, and burdened himself with no antique object, however beautiful and wonderful it might be, unless he knew to whom it had formerly belonged, and what historical interest might be associated with it. Now this casket exhibited neither letters nor ciphers, neither date nor any other indication, from which the former owner or artist could be guessed; thus to him it was utterly useless and uninteresting.

The youth stood in considerable embarrassment, and after some reflection asked if he would not allow him to leave it with his men of business. My uncle laughed, and turning to me said, “This would be nice matter for you, Hersilia. You have all sorts of other ornaments and pretty trinkets: put this amongst them! for I would lay a wager that our friend, who is still not indifferent to you, will come again, by-and-bye, and take it away.”

This I must write to you, if I am to tell my story truly, and then I must confess that I looked at the casket with envious eyes, and a certain covetousness took possession of me. It was repugnant to me to think of this lordly treasure-casket, assigned by fate to the sweet Felix, in the ancient and rusty iron strong box of the office. Like a magic wand, my hand drew towards it; my little grain of sense held it back. I had the key, verily; that I dared not disclose; how should I inflict on myself the martyrdom of leaving the lock unopened, or allow myself the unwarrantable boldness of unlocking it? But, I know not whether it was longing or presentiment, I imagined that you were coming soon, would be there already when I went to my room: in short, I felt so strange, so queer, so confused, as is always the case when I am forced out of my even-tempered cheerfulness. I say no more, neither by way of description nor apology. Enough; here the casket lies before me in my jewel-case, the key beside it, and if you have any sort of heart or kindliness, think what a state I am in, how many passions contend within me, how I wish for you, and Felix too, that there may be an end of it, at least that some hint may be given of what is the meaning of this marvellous finding, refinding, separating, and re-uniting. And even if I am not to be rescued from all perplexity, at least I wish most earnestly that this may be cleared up and ended, even though something worse, as I fear, should befall me.

CHAPTER VIII.

Amongst the papers which lie before us for editing, we find a conceit, which we insert here without further preliminary, because our affairs are getting more and more urgent, and we may not be able to find a place for such irregularities further on.

On the whole this story may not be unpleasing to the reader, as it was told by St. Christopher in the merry evening hours to a circle of jovial comrades assembled: —

The Hazardous Wager.

It is a well-known fact that people, as soon as they are in any degree getting on well and after their desires, are straightway at a loss to know what, in their pride of heart, they shall lay their hand to. And thus also mettlesome students were accustomed during the vacations to roam in flocks through the country, playing the fool after their kind, which, in fact, was not always followed by the best results. They were of very different sorts, such as student-life brings together and unites: unequal in birth, wealth, intellect and education, but all of them good company, leading and egging-on one another in merry mood. But they would often select me for a companion; for if I carried heavier burdens than any one of them, yet they must needs give me the honorary title of a great jester; and chiefly for this reason, that I played my pranks more seldom but so much the more effectually — to which the following story may bear witness.

We had arrived in our wanderings at a pleasant mountain village, which with an isolated situation had the advantage of a posting station, and a few pretty girls in great solitude, as inhabitants. Our object was to rest, kill time, flirt, live more cheaply for a while, and by that means waste more money.

It was just after dinner, when some were in an elevated, others in a depressed condition; some were lying sleeping away their over-indulgence, others would rather give it vent in some unrestrained way or other. We had a couple of large rooms in a side-wing towards the courtyard. A fine carriage which rattled in with four horses attracted us to the window. The servants jumped down from the box and helped out a gentleman of dignified and distinguished appearance, who notwithstanding his years still walked up vigorously enough.

His large and finely formed nose first caught my eye, and I know not what evil spirit was prompting me that in a moment I hit on the maddest scheme, and without further thought immediately began to put it in practice.

“What is your opinion of this gentleman?” I asked of the company.

“He looks,” said one, “as if he would not stand a joke.”

“Aye, aye,” said another, “he has quite the look of a distinguished ‘Meddle-not-with-me.’ “

“And nevertheless,” said I quite confidently, “what do you bet that I will not tweak him by the nose without getting any harm from it myself! Nay, I will even get him to be a good patron to myself by doing it.”

“If you accomplish that,” said Swagger, “we’ll each give you a louis-d’or.”

“Pay in the money for me,” I exclaimed; “I rely upon you.”

“I had rather pluck a hair from a lion’s muzzle,” said the little one.

“I have no time to lose,” replied I, and rushed down-stairs.

On my first glance at the stranger I had noticed that he had a very strong beard, so I guessed that none of his attendants could shave. I now met the waiter, and asked, “Has not the stranger gentleman asked for a barber?”

“Indeed he has,” replied the waiter, “and with very good reason. The gentleman’s valet stopped behind two days ago. The gentleman wants to be rid absolutely of his beard; and our only barber — who can tell whereabouts in the neighborhood he has gone!”

“Then mention me,” replied I. “Only introduce me as a barber to the gentleman, and you will gain honor together with me.”

I took the shaving-tools that I found in the house, and followed the waiter. The old gentleman received me with great solemnity, and looked at me from top to toe, as if wanting to search out my dexterity from my physiognomy.

“Do you understand your trade?” he said to me.

“I am looking for my equal,” replied I, “without boasting of myself.”

I was also sure of my qualification, for I had at an early age practised the noble art, and was especially noted on this account, that I shaved with the left hand.

The room in which the gentleman made his toilet extended to the courtyard, and was situated exactly in such a manner that our friends could conveniently look in, especially when the windows were open. To the usual preparations nothing more was wanting: my patron had sat down and had had the towel put on.

I stepped very respectfully in front of him, and said: “Your excellency, in the practice of my art I have particularly noticed that I have always shaved common people better and more satisfactorily than the gentry. I have thought over this for a long time, and have tried to find the reason, now in this way, now in that, and at last I have discovered that I work much better in the open air than in closed rooms. Will your excellency allow me, therefore, to open the window, when you will soon experience the effect to your own satisfaction.”

He gave his consent: I opened the window, gave my friends a nod, and fell to lathering the bristly beard with much grace. No less nimbly and lightly I mowed away the stubble from the field, and in doing so did not hesitate, when I came to the upper lip, to grasp my patron by the nose, and palpably bend it up and down, at the same time contriving to put myself in such positions that the wagerers, to their great delight, must needs see and confess that their side had lost.

With great dignity the old gentleman stepped up to the looking-glass: one could see that he looked at himself with some complacency, and in reality he was a very handsome man. Then he turned to me with a dark flashing but kindly look, and said: “You deserve, my friend, to be praised above many of your like, for I notice in you much less clumsiness than in others: you do not travel two or three times over the same place, but do it in one stroke, nor do you wipe the razor as so many do in the open hand, and flourish the wipings under the person’s nose. But your cleverness with your left hand is especially remarkable. Here is something for your trouble,” he resumed, handing me a florin; “only remember one thing — that people of quality are not taken hold of by the nose. If you will avoid this boorish custom for the future, you may yet make your fortune in the world.”

I bowed low, promised to do all I could, begged him, if he should chance to return, to honor me again, and ran as fast as I could to our youngsters, who at the last had caused me a good deal of anxiety. For they raised such roars of laughter and yells, leaped about like maniacs in the room, clapped their hands and shouted, woke the people who were asleep, and kept describing the affair with ever fresh laughter and madness, that I myself, as soon as I got into the room, shut the window at once, and begged them for God’s sake to be quiet; but at last I was forced to laugh with them at the look of an absurd affair that I had carried through with so much gravity.

When, after a time, the raging waves of laughter were somewhat subsided, I considered myself lucky: I had the gold pieces in my pocket, and the well-earned florin into the bargain, and looked upon myself as well provided, which was all the more satisfactory, as the party had decided to separate the next day. But we were not destined to part company with propriety and good order. The story was too taking for them to have been able to keep it to themselves, though I had begged and prayed them only to hold their tongues till the departure of the old gentleman. One of us, called Go-ahead, had a love affair with the daughter of the house. They met, and Heaven knows whether it was that he did not know how to amuse her better, at any rate he told her the joke, and they almost died with laughing together over it. That was not the end of it, for the girl laughingly repeated the story, and so at last, a little before bed-time, it reached the old gentleman.

We were sitting more quietly than usual, for there had been uproar enough all day, when all at once the little waiter, who was very much devoted to us, rushed in, crying, “Save yourselves! — you’ll be beaten to death!”

We jumped to our feet, and would have known more about it, but he was already out of the door again. I sprang up, and pushed-to the bolt, but already we heard a knocking and banging at the door, nay, we thought we heard it being split with an axe. We mechanically retreated into the second room, all struck dumb. “We are betrayed,” I exclaimed; “the devil has us by the nose!”

Swagger grasped at his sword; I however at this point showed my giant strength, and without assistance pushed a heavy chest of drawers before the door, which fortunately opened inwards; yet already we heard the hubbub in the other room, and the most violent blows at our door.

The baron seemed determined to defend himself; but I repeatedly called out to him and the others, “Save yourselves: you have not only blows to fear here, but disgrace, which is worse for noblemen.”

The girl rushed in, the same who had betrayed us, now desperate to find her lover in mortal peril.

“Away, away!” she cried, and seized hold of him; “away, away! I will take you through lofts, barns and passages. Come, all of you; the last must draw the ladder after him.”

They all rushed to the back-door and out of it. I just lifted a box upon the chest, in order to force back and keep firm the already broken lining of the besieged door, but my courage and daring had nearly been my ruin.

When I ran to join the others, I found that the ladder was already drawn up, and saw that all hope of saving myself was completely cut off. There stand I, the actual transgressor, having already resigned the hope of escaping with a whole skin and unbroken bones; and who knows — yet leave me standing there with my thoughts, since after all I am here to tell you the tale. Only hear still how this rash jest was lost in ill consequences.

The old gentleman, deeply hurt by this unavenged indignity, took it to heart, and it is said that this circumstance contributed to, if it did not immediately cause, his death. His son, trying to trace the perpetrators, unfortunately found out the baron’s participation, though only clearly after many years, called him out, and a wound by which the handsome man was disfigured troubled him for his whole life. For his adversary, too, this affair spoiled several fair years, through events accidentally connected with it.

Since every fable should, properly, teach something, what the present one is intended to teach is doubtless perfectly clear and evident to all.

CHAPTER IX.

The day of utmost importance had dawned; to-day were to be taken the first steps towards the general migration, to-day was it to be determined who would actually set forth into the world, or who would rather stay on this side and try his fortune on the undivided surface of the Old World.

A merry burden resounded in all the streets of the cheerful country town. Groups of people gathered together, the individual members of each craft combined, and, singing in unison, filed in an order determined by lot into the hall.

The authorities, as we will designate Lenardo, Friedrich and the Bailiff, were on the point of following them and taking the places due to their position, when a man of attractive appearance came up to them and asked their permission to be able to take part in the meeting. It would have been impossible to refuse him anything, so orderly, prepossessing and amiable was his demeanor, by the aid of which an imposing carriage, which pointed to the army as well as the court and good society, showed itself to the highest advantage. He went in with the others, and a place of honor was accorded to him. All the rest having sat down, Lenardo remained standing, and began to speak as follows:

“If we consider, my friends, the most populous provinces and kingdoms of the Continent, we find all over, wherever available soil occurs, that it is tilled, planted, kept in order and made beautiful, and in like measure sought after, taken possession of, fortified and defended. Thus, accordingly, do we convince ourselves of the high value of landed possession, and are forced to look upon it as the first, the best thing that can be man’s. When we find then on closer inspection the love of parents and children, the close clanship of fellow-countrymen and fellow-townsmen, as well as the general patriotic sentiment based immediately upon the soil, then does this acquisition and retention of area in large or small amount seem ever more important and worthy of respect. Yes, thus has Nature willed it! A man born upon the sod comes by custom to belong to it. The two grow with one another, and forthwith knit for themselves the most pleasing bonds. Who is there then that would lay hostile hands on the groundwork of all existence, or deny worth and dignity to so fair a gift of heaven.

“And yet one might say: If what man possesses is of great worth, to what he does and achieves a still greater must be ascribed. We may therefore, in a complete review, regard land-ownership as a smaller part of the goods that have been granted to us; but the most and the highest of them consist really in what is movable, and that which is gained in a life of movement.

“For such are we younger men especially bound to look round about us; for even if we had a desire to stay and plod on with our fathers’ inheritance, yet do we find ourselves summoned a thousand times by no means to shut our eyes to a wider prospect outwards and round about. Let us therefore hasten quickly to the sea-shore, and convince ourselves in one look what immeasurable spaces stand open for activity, and let us confess that at the mere thought we find ourselves quite differently aroused.

“Yet we will not lose ourselves in such boundless expanses, but turn our attention to the solid, wide, broad soil of so many countries and kingdoms. There we see large tracts of the country overrun by nomads whose towns are removable, whose living, supporting possession of herds should everywhere be introduced. We see them in the midst of the desert, in a large green meadow-plot, lying, as it were, at anchor in a longed-for haven. Such motion, such wandering, becomes a habit to them, a necessity; at last they look upon the surface of the earth as if it were not hemmed-in by mountains, nor penetrated by rivers. Still have we seen the north-east move towards the south-west; one people driving another before it — domination and ownership completely altered.

“From over-peopled countries will the same thing happen again in the great cycle of the earth. What we have to expect from other nations it would be difficult to say; but it is wonderful how, through our own over-population, we cramp each other from within: and without waiting to be driven out, we drive ourselves out; pronouncing of our own accord the sentence of banishment against one another.

“This then is the time and place for giving play, without vexation or downheartedness in our souls, to a certain restlessness, not suppressing the impatient longing which urges us to change our position and place. Yet let not whatsoever we intend and purpose come to pass from hasty feeling, nor from any other sort of compulsion, but from conviction corresponding to the best advice.

“It has been said and repeated, ‘Where I am well off, there is my fatherland;’ yet this comforting proverb would be better expressed if it ran, ‘Where I am useful, there is my fatherland.’ At home a man can be useless, without its being noticed at once: out in the world uselessness is soon evident. If then I say, ‘Let each one try to be useful to himself and others everywhere,’ this is no doctrine or piece of advice, but the declaration of life itself.

“Now let us look at the globe, and for the present leave the sea unregarded. See that you are not carried away by the swarms of ships, but fix your glance upon the mainland, and marvel how it is overspread by a teeming, intercrossing ant-race. This has the Lord God himself allowed, whilst He prevented the building of the tower of Babel, and scattered the human race over all the world. Let us therefor praise Him, for this blessing has gone out upon all generations.

“Observe with pleasure how all youth hastens to set itself in motion. Since instruction is offered to it neither in the house nor at the doors, it forthwith speeds to countries and cities, whither the renown of knowledge and wisdom entices it. After receiving a swift and moderate education it feels itself presently driven to take a further look round in the world to see whether it can thus or anywhere find out and snatch up any useful experience helpful to its ends. May it accordingly light on good luck! But we are thinking of those accomplished and distinguished men, those noble inquirers into nature, who willingly encounter every difficulty, every danger, in order to open out the world to the world, and through the most trackless wastes make a path and road.

“But mark you, too, up the level highways, cloud upon cloud of dust, indicating the track of commodious high-packed vehicles, in which the noble, the rich, and so many others roll along, whose varying way of thought and object Yorick has so gracefully contrasted for us.

“But the sturdy craftsman on foot may look after them reassured; for on him the fatherland has imposed the duty of making foreign ability his own, and of not returning to the native hearth until he has succeeded in this. But more generally we meet upon our road market-folk and pedlers; a small tradesman even dares not omit to leave his stall from time to time, to visit fairs and markets, to visit the wholesale dealer, and augment his scanty profit by the example and participation of the unlimited. But yet more unrestingly, in the shape of individuals on horseback, swarms in all the main and side streets the crowd of those whose occupation it is to make a claim on our purse, even against our will. Samples of all kinds, price-lists pursue us in town and country houses, and, wherever we may flee for refuge, industriously astonish us, offering opportunities which it would never occur to anyone in his senses to seek out for himself. But what shall I say now of the people which before all others appropriates for itself the blessing of eternal wandering, and by its restless activity contrives to outwit those who stand still and outstrip its fellow-wanderers? We need speak neither well nor ill of it. Nothing good, because our association keeps them aloof; nothing evil, because the traveller — mindful of reciprocal advantage — is bound to deal civilly with everyone he meets.

“But, now, before all things we have to think with sympathy of all artists; for they are throughout interconnected in the movement of the world. Does not the painter wander with easel and palette from face to face? and are not his brethren in art summoned, now here, now there — for there is building and modelling to be done everywhere? But more briskly does the musician step onward; for it is he especially who affords new surprise to a new ear — fresh astonishment for a fresh mind. Then the players, though they despise the cart of Thespis, yet still travel about in smaller companies, and their movable world is erected in every spot nimbly enough. Thus, individually, foregoing serious and profitable engagements, they like to change one place for another where their augmented talent with similarly augmented requirements affords opportunity and pretext. Thereby they generally so train themselves beforehand that they leave no important stage in their country untrodden.

“Next are we presently reminded to glance at the teaching class. This likewise you find in perpetual activity; one professional chair after the other is occupied and left in order to scatter richly — yes, in every direction — the seeds of quick culture. But more industrious, and of wider scope, are those pious souls who disperse themselves through all quarters of the world to bring salvation to the nations. Others, again, go as pilgrims to get salvation for themselves; whole hosts of them march to sanctified miraculous places, there to seek and to gain what their souls could not obtain at home.

“If all these, now, do not set us wondering, inasmuch as their doings and abstainings would for the most part be not conceivable without wandering, yet those who devote their industry to the soil we might at least regard as bound to it. By no means! Utilization can be imagined even without possession, and we see the keen cultivator forsaking a plot which has yielded him as a tenant-farmer profit and pleasure for a number of years; he seeks impatiently for the same, or greater profits, be it near or far. Nay, the owner himself leaves his newly-cleared tillage, as soon as he has made it, by his working, acceptable to a less expert settler. Anew he penetrates into the desert, a second time makes for himself a place in the forests; in compensation for his former toil, a double and a threefold larger space — upon which, perhaps, too, he thinks of not remaining.

“Let us leave him there, at war with bears and other beasts, and come back to the civilized world, where we find things in no sense more at rest. Look at any great well-ordered kingdom, where the most apt must suppose himself to be the most easy to move: at the nod of a prince, at the order of the state council, the useful man is conveyed from one place to the other. To him, too, our exhortation applies — ’Try to be of use everywhere, everywhere are you at home.” But let us look at important statesmen, leaving, though unwillingly, their high positions; so have we reason to pity them, since we must require them neither as emigrators nor as travellers; not as emigrators, because they renounce a desirable position without any prospect of a better situation being opened out for them even in appearance only; not as travellers, because to be useful to other places in any way is seldom conceded to them.

“The soldier, however, is called to a peculiarly wandering life: even in peace now one post, now another, is assigned to him. To fight for the fatherland near or far he must always keep himself ready to move, and not only for immediate safety, but also for the purposes of people and rulers, he wends his way to all parts of the world, and to settle in this place or that is granted only to a few. Now, whilst courage always stands out as the first quality in the soldier, yet it is always supposed to be combined with fidelity, on which account we see certain nations, renowned for their trustworthiness, called away from their native lands to serve as bodyguards for secular and spiritual princes.

“One more class, exceedingly migratory, and indispensable to the State, we see in those functionaries who, sent from court to court, encompass ministers and princes, and inweave the whole habitable globe with invisible threads. Not one of these, too, is sure of his position and locality for even one moment only. In time of peace the cleverest are sent from one part of the world to another; in war-time, following the victorious host, making ready the roads for it when fugitive, they are always prepared to exchange one place for another, on which account they always carry with them a large supply of farewell cards.

“If we have hitherto contrived to do ourselves honor at every step in claiming the most distinguished bodies of effective men as our comrades and colleagues in destiny, yet still, dear friends, there stands before you, as a conclusion, the highest honor, in finding yourselves affiliated with emperors, kings and princes. First let us remember, with benedictions, that noble imperial wanderer Hadrian, who marched on foot at the head of his host through the civilized world, made subject to him, thereby first completely taking possession of it. With horror let us remember the conquerors, those armed wanderers, against whom no resistance availed, nor wall and bulwark could protect inoffensive nations. Finally, let us accompany with honest pity those hapless exiled princes, who, falling from the summit of greatness, cannot even be received in the humble guild of effective wanderers.

“Since we have now made all this present and clear to one another, no petty despondency, no murkiness bred of passion, will prevail over us. The time is past when people rushed adventurously into the wide world. Thanks to scientific travellers writing with wisdom, copying artistically, we are everywhere sufficiently well-instructed to know tolerably what we have to expect.

“Yet the individual cannot attain to perfect knowledge. But our association is based on this, that each shall be instructed in his degree according to his aims. If anyone has a land in mind towards which his wishes are directed, we try to make known to him in detail what has floated before his imagination as a whole: to give ourselves, one to the other, a survey of the inhabited and habitable globe is the most agreeable, the most profitable of diversions.

“In such a sense, then, we can look upon ourselves as banded in a world-wide association. Simply grand the idea — easy its realization by reason and strength. Unity is all-powerful; no division, therefore, no strife amongst us. So far as we have principles, they are common to all of us. Let man, we say, learn to think of himself as being without any enduring external relation; let him seek for consistency not in his surroundings but in himself: there he will find it; cherish and foster it with love; he will form and educate himself so as to be everywhere at home. He who devotes himself to what is most necessary, goes everywhere most surely to his goal. Others, on the contrary, seeking what is higher, more subtle, have, even in the choice of their road, to be more circumspect.

“Yet, whatever man lays hold of and deals with, the individual is not enough. Society remains the highest need of any honest man. All useful people ought to stand in relation to each other, as the builder has to look after the architects, and they after masons and carpenters. And thus it is known to all, how and in what manner our association has been fixed and founded. We see no one amongst us who could not, according to his aims, use his effective faculty at any moment; who does not feel assured that everywhere, where chance, inclination, even passion might lead him, he would find himself well recommended, received, and aided on his way, nay, even as far as possible indemnified for accidents.

“Two obligations, moreover, we have most strictly taken upon us: to hold in honor every form of the worship of God; for they are all more or less comprised in the Creed: secondly, to allow all forms of government equally to hold good, since they all demand and promote a systematic activity — to employ ourselves in each, wherever and however long it may be, according to its will and pleasure. In conclusion, we hold it a duty to practise good morals, without pedantry and stringency; even as reverence for ourselves demands, which springs from the three reverences which we profess; all of us having the good fortune, some from youth up, to be initiated in this higher universal wisdom. All this have we, in the solemn hour of parting, once more brought to mind, explained, heard, and acknowledged, and will also seal with a trusting Farewell.

“Stay not fettered in inaction —

Venture briskly, briskly roam!

Head and arm, in glad connection,

Everywhere will be at home.

Where beneath the sun we revel

Care with us will ne’er abide;

Space there is for all to travel,

Therefore is the world so wide.”

CHAPTER X.

During the concluding song a large part of those present arose quickly, and amid the far-resounding din marched in order two by two out of the hall. Lenardo sitting down, asked the guest whether he intended publicly to bring forward his business here, or wished for a special sitting. The stranger stood up, bowed to the company, and began the following speech: —

“It is here especially, in such an assembly, that I wish first to explain myself without further delay. They who have quietly remained here, by their aspect all true men, have already given evidence by such lingering of a plain wish and intention of continuing, for the future, to belong to their native land and soil. I greet them all with friendship, for I venture to affirm that I am in a position to offer them, one and all, as they now present themselves, an adequate daily task for several years. I would desire, however, but only after a brief interval, one more meeting, since it is before all things necessary to reveal my business confidentially to the worthy principals who have hitherto kept these honest people together, and to convince them of the genuiness of my mission. Moreover, it will be fitting that I should speak individually with those who have remained, that I may know with what efforts they propose to respond to my handsome offers.”

Hereupon Lenardo demanded an adjournment, to provide for the most needful business of the moment, and when this was settled, the whole mass of those who were left stood up in an orderly manner, and left the hall, also two by two, with a moderate sort of social glee.

Odoard then imparted to the two leaders, who stayed behind, his designs and proposals, and got his authority made valid. But now, in further conversation with such distinguished men, he could not give an account of the affair without referring to the human foundation upon which the whole veritably rests. Mutual explanations and confessions of deep matters of the heart were disclosed therefrom in the prolonged conversation. They remained together till deep into the night, and involved themselves more and more inextricably in the labyrinth of human theories and destinies. Thus then Odoard found himself led to give a fragmentary account of the conditions of his mind and heart; whereby only an imperfect and unsatisfactory knowledge of this conversation has actually come to us. Yet we must thank, too, Friedrich’s happy talent of seizing and retaining the presentment of various scenes, as well as some explanation of the career of a remarkable man, which begins to interest us, even though it were only indications of what, perhaps, in the sequel must be told more explicitly and in a connected way.

Don’t go too far!

VERYTHING was accordingly ready at the appointed hour as the clock at night struck ten; in the flower-bedecked room an ample and neat table laid for four people, with its dessert and confectionery disposed amidst twinkling lights and flowers. How delighted the children were at this dessert! — for they were to come in for it. Meanwhile they were prowling about in their finery and masks; and as children cannot be disfigured, they looked like the prettiest of twin-genii. The father called them to him, and with little help they repeated the festal verses composed for their mother’s birthday very cleverly.

Time wore on: from quarter to quarter the good old lady forbore not to increase her friend’s impatience. Some of the lamps, she said, on the stairs were on the point of going out; favorite dishes of the fêted one would be over-done, it was to be feared. The children were just beginning to be naughty from weariness, and they would get unbearable with impatience. The father composed himself, and yet his wonted composure would not remain at call: he listened anxiously to the carriages; several rattled by without stopping; a certain ill-humor was about to arise. To pass the time he bade the children once more repeat their verses. They, in their ill-temper, inattentive, absent and careless, said it badly, their gesticulation was no longer correct, they over-did it, like actors, without feeling. The good man’s annoyance increased every moment; it was more than half-past ten. We leave it to himself to describe the rest.

“The clock struck eleven; my impatience was increased to desperation; I no longer hoped, I feared. I was now afraid that she might come in, make her passing excuses with her usual airy grace, declare that she was very tired, and behave as if she were reproaching me for diminishing her pleasure. Within me everything was in a whirl, and much, very much, that I had put up with for years returned and weighed upon my mind. I began to hate her; I could devise no demeanor wherewith to meet her. The good children, dressed out like little angels, were sleeping peacefully upon the sofa. The ground burned under my feet, I could not realize nor collect myself, and nothing remained for me but to retreat until the ensuing minutes were only got over. I ran, lightly and festally clad as I was, to the house-door. I know not what sort of excuse I stammered out to the good old woman. She made me put on an overcoat, and I found myself in the street in a state of mind which I had not experienced for years back. Like the veriest passionate youth, who knows not what to do with himself, I raced up and down the streets. I should have reached the open country, but a cold damp wind blew keenly and repellently enough to put some bounds to my rage.”

We have usurped, as is strikingly noticeable in this scene, the privileges of the epic poet, and have carried the well-disposed reader only too quickly into the midst of passionate representation. We see an important man in domestic confusion, without our having learned anything further from him. On this account, therefore, in order to clear up the situation only in some degree, we join company with the good old woman, listening to what, at all events, in her distress and confusion, she may quietly mutter, or complain of aloud to herself.

“I have expected this a long time, I said it would be so: I have not spared my good lady; I have often warned her, but it is too much for her. If the master tires himself out at the office in town with business, in the country in the evening he finds an empty house, or company which does not suit him. He cannot help it. If she does not continually see people, men, round about her, if she does not drive about hither and thither, and cannot dress and re-dress herself, it is like being without air to breathe. To-day, on her birthday, she sets out early for a drive into the country; good. Meanwhile we arrange everything here: she solemnly promises to be at home at nine o’clock. We are ready: the master hears the children a pretty poem they have learned by heart; they are dressed up; lamps and candles; boiled and roast, not a thing wanting — but she does not come. The master has a great control over himself, he hides his impatience; it bursts forth. He leaves the house, late as it is; why is plain, but where to? I have often threatened her honestly and sincerely with rivals. So far I have seen nothing on the master’s part. A fair one has long had her eye on him, and put herself to trouble about him. Who knows what struggles he has had hitherto? Now it breaks out; at last despair at seeing his good intentions unrecognized drives him out of the house at nighttime. So I give up all for lost. More than once have I said to her she ought not to carry it too far!”

Now let us find out our friend again and hear himself.

“In the most respectable inn I saw lights downstairs, and, knocking at the window, I asked the waiter who looked out, in my usual voice, whether some strangers had not arrived or sent word. He had already opened the door, and saying No to both questions he asked me to come in. I found that it suited my situation, and to continue the adventure I asked him for a room, which he at once gave me on the second story. The first he supposed should be kept for the expected guests. He hurried away to make some arrangements. I made no objection, and pledged myself for the reckoning. Thus much was done; but I relapsed into my low-spirits, recalled each and everything to my mind, waxed wrathful, and relented, blamed myself, and tried to compose and pacify myself. To-morrow morning at any rate I would let everything be reinstated; I already pictured to myself the day, again in its accustomed routine; but then anger again broke forth uncontrollably: I had never thought that I could be so unhappy.”

Our readers have certainly already begun to sympathize so far with the worthy man whom we see here so unexpectedly in passionate emotion about an occurrence apparently trifling, as to wish to receive more detailed information as to his circumstances. We will turn to account the interval which occurs in this nocturnal adventure whilst speechless and angry he continues to pace up and down the room.

We learn to recognize in Odoard the scion of an ancient house to which for a number of generations the noblest qualities had been bequeathed. Trained in the military academy, he had acquired an accomplished manner which, in conjunction with the most praiseworthy capacities, gave a special grace to his demeanor. A short service at court gave him a good insight into the relations of high personages; and when after this he was attached, through the favor that he had speedily gained for himself, to a diplomatic mission, and had an opportunity of seeing the world and making the acquaintance of foreign courts, he at once gave most decided evidence of his clearness of apprehension, and happy powers of memory for past occurrences, but more particularly of good disposition in undertakings of every sort. His facility of expression in many languages, with a frank but not dictatorial manner, brought him on from one step to another. He obtained success in every diplomatic commission, because he won people’s good-will and thereby put himself in an advantageous position for smoothing misunderstandings; and especially he contrived to satisfy opposing interests by a just balancing of the arguments brought forward.

It was the object of the first minister to secure the services of so distinguished a man; he married him to his daughter, a young lady of the most brilliant beauty and trained in all the higher social virtues. But as in the current of human happiness there is ever some barrier opposed which holds it back in one place or another, so was it also here the case. At the court of the sovereign-prince was being brought up, as a ward, the Princess Sophronia, the last scion of her stock. Her fortune and expectations, though lands and people went back to an uncle, were still considerable enough; on which account, to avoid protracted debates, it was proposed to marry her — though he was doubtless much younger — to the crown-prince.

Odoard was suspected of a sentiment for her; it was found that he had sung her praises in a poem, under the name of Aurora, with too much feeling: to this was added an imprudence on her side; for with singular independence she had met certain rallyings of her companions by saying defiantly that “she must have no eyes if she was to be blind to such advantages.” By her marriage now any such suspicion was hushed up; but yet it was quietly cherished by secret adversaries, and again stirred up when opportunity occurred.

Questions relating to the state and succession, though people endeavored to interfere with them as little as possible, came, however, often under discussion. The prince no less than his wise counsellors considered it altogether advantageous to let the matter rest for a time, whilst the secret adherents of the princess would have liked to see them settled, and the noble lady thereby placed in greater freedom, especially since the old king of the adjoining countries, who was related to and well disposed towards Sophronia, was still alive, and had shown himself ready on occasion to exert a fatherly influence.

Odoard came under the suspicion, on the occasion of a purely formal mission to that court, of having again brought into activity the affair that it was desired to put off; the opponents availed themselves of this incident, and the father-in-law, whom he had convinced of his innocence, had to bring all his influence to bear in order to obtain for him a sort of governorship in a distant province. He found himself happy there. He could bring all his forces into play. There were things needful, useful, good, beautiful and great to be done. He could achieve something lasting without sacrificing himself; whilst, in such circumstances as he was in before, a man occupies himself against his convictions with transient matters and occasionally ruins himself.

Not so did his wife find it: she had her being only in larger circles, and only followed him later when forced to do so. He behaved as considerately as possible towards her, and approved of all substitutes for her former enjoyment; in summer, country parties in the neighborhood, in winter an amateur theatre, balls, and whatever else she liked to set on foot: nay, he even put up with an admirer, a stranger who had insinuated himself some time before, though he was by no means pleased with him, believing, with his clear insight into men, that he detected a certain insincerity all through him.

From all that we have said, it may be that in the present anxious moment somewhat of gloom and obscurity, somewhat also that was clear and distinct, passed across his mind. Enough if, after this confidential explanation, for which Friedrich’s good memory has furnished the material, we again turn to him, we find him again pacing excitedly up and down the room, by gestures and frequent exclamations giving evidence of an inner struggle.

“With such thoughts I had been walking hastily up and down the room. The waiter had brought me a bowl of broth, of which I was much in need; for in my careful preparations for the benefit of the birthday treat. I had taken nothing myself, and a luxurious supper was standing untasted at home. At that moment we heard a posthorn sounding very pleasantly up the street. ‘There comes some one from the mountain,’ said the waiter. We went to the window, and by the light of two brilliant carriage-lamps, saw a four-horsed well-loaded gentleman’s carriage drive up. The servants jumped from the box. ‘There they are!’ cried the waiter, and ran to the door. I caught hold of him tightly to impress upon him that he should say nothing of my being there, nor betray the fact that any orders had been given; he promised, and sprang away.

“Meanwhile I had hesitated to see who had got out, and a new impatience took possession of me. I thought that the waiter was delaying too long in bringing me news. At last I was informed by him that the guests were ladies: an elderly lady of dignified aspect, a middleaged one of incredible beauty, and a ladies’-maid, such as anyone might wish for.

“ ‘She began,’ he said, ‘by giving orders, went on with flattery, and when I did what she liked, fell into a merry saucy mood, that was very likely the most natural to her. I very soon noticed,’ he went on, ‘all the general astonishment at finding me so alert, and the house well prepared for their arrival, the room lighted, the fire burning. They made themselves at home; in the saloon they found a cold supper. I offered some broth, and it seemed welcome to them.’

“The ladies now sat down to table; the elder one scarcely ate anything: the dear beauty nothing at all, the maid, whom they called Lucy, made a good meal, and meanwhile sang the praises of the inn; was delighted with the bright wax-candles, the fine table-linen, the porcelain, and all the appointments. She had previously warmed herself at the blazing hearth, and now she asked the waiter when he came in again, whether they were here always so well prepared to entertain guests arriving at every hour of the day and night. The clever young rogue was at this juncture in the same state as children, who certainly say nothing about the secret, but cannot hide the fact that something secret has been intrusted to them. First he answered ambiguously, then more approximately, and at last, driven into a corner by the quick-wittedness of the girl, and by continual talking on one side and the other, he confessed that there had been a servant, that a gentleman had come, had gone away, and come back again; and finally it escaped him that the gentleman was actually up-stairs, and was walking restlessly up and down. The young lady jumped up; the others did the same. It must be an old gentleman, they hurriedly assumed; the waiter assured them that, on the contrary, he was young. Now they were in doubt again; he maintained the truth of what he had said. The confusion, the excitement increased. It must be her uncle, said the beauty. It was not his way, said the elder lady. No one but he could have known that she would arrive at this hour, replied the other persistently. But the waiter declared again and again it was a young handsome vigorous man. Lucy swore, on the other hand, that it must be the uncle; the rogue of a waiter was not to be trusted: he had contradicted himself in the last half-hour.

“After all this, the waiter had to go upstairs and urgently beg the gentleman to be so good as to come downstairs, and at the same time threaten that the ladies would come up and thank him themselves.

“ ‘It is an endless muddle,’ said the waiter: ‘I do not understand why you hesitate to show yourself; they take you for an old uncle, whom they passionately long to embrace once more. Go down, I beg. Are not these the people that you expected? Don’t wantonly despise a most charming adventure! The young beauty is worth seeing and hearing; they are most respectable people. Run down, else they will really forcibly carry you out of the room.’ “

Passion begets passion; excited as he was, he longed for something different, something strange. He went down in the hope of introducing himself and giving explanations to the new-comers in a cheerful conversation, of hearing foreign news and giving himself some distraction: and yet he felt as if he were going to some already known and precarious situation. He now stood before the door; the ladies, who thought that they heard the uncle’s step, ran out to meet him. He entered. What a meeting! what a recognition! The beauty gave a cry, and threw herself round the neck of the elder lady: our friend recognized them both, he shrank backwards, then he started forwards, he lay at her feet and touched her hand, which he immediately let go again with the most deferential kiss: the syllables Au-ro-ra died upon his lips.

If we now take a look at our friend’s house, we find it in a very strange condition. The good old lady knew not what to do, or not do: she kept the lamps in the hall and staircase burning, and had the food taken off the fire — some of it being irretrievably spoiled. The maid had remained with the sleeping children, and had kept up the numerous lights in the room as quietly and patiently as the other had been angrily pacing up and down.

At last the carriage rolled up to the door: the lady got out and was informed that her husband had been called away some hours before — ascending the stairs she appeared to take no notice of the festal illumination. The elder woman now learned from a servant that an accident had happened on the way, the carriage having been upset in a ditch, and all else that had taken place afterwards.

The lady entered the room. “What is this masquerade about?” she said, pointing to the children.

“It would have given you a good deal of pleasure if you had come some hours sooner,” said the maiden lady.

The children, aroused from sleep, jumped up, and as soon as they saw their mother they began their got-off address. With embarrassment on both sides it went on for a while, then in the absence of encouragement and help it began to limp; at last it broke down completely, and the good children were sent with some caresses to bed. The lady found herself alone, threw herself upon the sofa, and burst out into bitter tears.

At this point, however, it becomes necessary to give some more detailed account of the lady herself and of the country party which had ended, as it seems, so badly. Albertina was one of those ladies to whom one would have had nothing to say tête-à-tête, but whom one is very glad to meet in a large party. Then they appear as real adornments of the whole, and as stimulants at every torpid moment. Their charm is of such a kind, that to express itself, to be in its element, it requires a certain amount of space; its operations demand a larger public, they require an element that supports them, that compels them to be charming: towards individuals they scarcely know how to conduct themselves.

Her friend and admirer gained her favor, and maintained himself in it, merely because he was expert at setting on foot one enjoyment after another, at keeping, if not a large circle, at any rate a lively one, continually on the move. In distributing parts, he used to select for himself the tender fathers, and managed by a respectable and sagacious demeanor to give himself an advantage over the younger, first, second and third lovers.

Florina, the owner of an important manorial estate in the neighborhood, and in winter a resident in town, was indebted to Odoard, whose economical management had accidentally though fortunately been of great advantage to her property and gave a prospect ultimately of a largely increased revenue from it. In summer she visited her estate, and made it the theatre of numerous agreeable diversions. Birthdays especially were never neglected, and all sorts of festivities were arranged.

Florina was a lively coquettish creature; attached as it seemed to no one, and neither claiming nor desiring any attachment. A passionate dancer, she only esteemed men in so far as they moved in good time. An everactive woman of society, she considered the man unendurable who even but one moment looked down and seemed to reflect; but in general displaying herself very gracefully as a lively lover such as are necessary in every play or opera — whence it happened that between her and Albertina, who played the dignified parts, no question of precedence ever arose.

To keep the coming birthday in good company, the best society from the town and from the country round about was invited. A dance, begun after breakfast, was continued after dinner; the gathering was protracted to great length; they drove away late, and, overtaken sooner than they expected by night on a bad road, which was doubly bad because it was being mended, the coachman mistook the way and threw them into a ditch. Our beauty with Florina and the gentleman friend felt themselves in a dreadful plight. The latter managed to extricate himself quickly; then stooping down over the carriage, he called. “Florina, where art thou?” Albertina thought she must be dreaming: he grasped something inside, and drew forth Florina, who lay on the top, in a swoon. He attended to her and at last carried her on his strong arm along the recovered road. Albertina was still wedged in the carriage. Coachman and servant helped her out, and supported by the latter she tried to go on. The road was bad, unsuited for dancing shoes; although held up by the boy she stumbled every moment. But within, the prospect was still wilder and more forlorn: how it came to pass she neither knew nor understood.

“But when she entered the inn, and in the little room saw Florina on the bed, with the hostess and Lelio busy about her, she was certain of her unhappiness. A secret understanding between the faithless friend and the treacherous companion was all at once made clear with the speed of lightning. She was forced to see how the latter, opening her eyes, threw herself on her admirer’s neck with the joy of newly awaking most tender affection: how the dark eyes again shone, a fresh color suddenly decked with charms the pale cheeks again: she really looked rejuvenated, charming and most lovely.

Albertina stood there, looking down, lonely and hardly noticed. The other two recovered and composed themselves; but the mischief was done. However, they were obliged to seat themselves again in the carriage, and in hell itself antithetic souls — betrayed and betrayers — could not have been so closely crowded together.

CHAPTER XI.

Lenardo and Odoard also were for some days very busily occupied, the former in providing the emigrants with everything necessary, the latter in making the acquaintance of those who remained at home, and in judging of their capacities, in order to give them adequate information as to his own aims. In the meantime for Friedrich and our friend there was left opportunity and leisure for quiet discourse. Wilhelm got him to describe the plan in general, and when he had been made sufficiently familiar with the country and surroundings, and the hope had been expressed that they should see a large number of inhabitants dispersed in a widely extended domain, the conversation at last turned, as was natural, upon that which in point of fact holds men together — namely, religion and morality. Of this the lively Friedrich was able to give a sufficient account; and we should perhaps earn gratitude if we could give the progress of the conversation, which, by question and answer, objections and corrections, meandered on in a really commendable way, and with sundry deviations made its way pleasantly to the special end in view. In the meantime we must not linger so long, and we give its results at once rather than be obliged to let them come to view only little by little in our readers’ minds. The following was the essence of what was dealt with: —

That man should accommodate himself to the inevitable, all religions require: each one in its fashion attempts to solve this problem. The Christian religion contributes most pleasingly to this by means of faith, love and hope: therefrom ensues patience, a sweet feeling of what a priceless gift existence still is, even though, in place of the desired enjoyment, the most hateful sorrows are laid upon it. To this religion we firmly hold, but in a peculiar way: we teach our children, from youth upwards, the great advantages that it has brought us; on the other hand we ultimately impart knowledge as to its origin and progress; only then does its Founder become dear and precious to us, and all information that relates to Him becomes holy. In this sense, which perhaps may be called pedantic, but yet must be recognized as logical, we endure no Jew amongst us: for how are we to allow him participation in the highest culture, the fountain-head and origin of which he denies?

From this our moral theory is entirely apart: it is purely a matter of deeds, and is comprised in the few commandments — Moderation in what is arbitrary, diligence in what is necessary. Now, everyone in the course of his life may assist himself of these laconic precepts after his own fashion, and he has a fruitful text for unlimited application.

The greatest reverence is impressed on all for Time, as the highest gift of God and Nature, and the most assiduous handmaid of existence. Clocks have been multiplied amongst us, and one and all indicate the quarters with hand and stroke: and in order to multiply such signals to the utmost, telegraphs are created in our country which if they are not deranged give, and truly by a very ingenious contrivance, the course of the hours by day and night.

Our moral theory, which is also quite practical, aims mainly at thoughtfulness; and this is furthered in the highest degree by division of time and attention to every hour. Something must be done at every moment, and how could this be effected if attention were not paid to the work as well as to the time.

Considering that we are only beginning, we lay great stress upon the family circle. On fathers and mothers of families we intend to impose great responsibilities: with us education becomes all the easier, as everyone must provide men and maids, men-servants and women-servants for himself.

It is true that certain things must be taught with a certain uniform sameness. To read, write, and reckon with facility, the abbé undertakes to teach the masses: his method is suggestive of mutual instruction, yet it is more intelligent: but, in fact, it all depends on educating teachers and scholars at the same time.

But there is another form of mutual instruction that I will mention: the practice of attack and self-defence. Here Lothario is in his element. His manœuvres have some similarity to those of our skirmishers, yet he cannot be otherwise than original.

Here I remark that in our civil life we have no bells, in military no drums: in one as in the other the human voice combined with wind instruments suffices. All this has for some time existed and still exists; but its proper application is left to the mind that would probably in any case have originated it.

The first requirement of a State is that of a courageous magistracy, and in that ours is not to be deficient; we are all impatient to approach the business, cheerful and convinced that one must begin simply. So we do not think about justice, but about police. Its fundamental principle is vigorously expressed. No one shall annoy another. Whoever makes himself a nuisance is kept apart, until he understands how a man must conduct himself in order to be endured. If there is anything lifeless, unreasoning, in point, this in like manner is put away.

In every district there are three directors of police, who change with each other every eight hours, shift-wise as in mining, which also must never stand still, and one of our men will especially at night-time be ready.

They have the right to admonish, to blame, to scold and to reconcile. If they find it necessary they call together a larger or smaller number of the confraternity. If the votes are equal the president does not decide, but lots are drawn, because we are convinced that when opinions are directly opposed to each other, it is always a matter of indifference which will be followed. As for the majority we have altogether peculiar opinions: we let it hold good, it is true, in the necessary course of affairs; but in the higher sense we have not much confidence in it. However I must not expatiate further on this point.

If you ask about the higher authority that guides everything, it is never found in one place. It is continually moving about in order to maintain uniformity in the main thing, and in things permissible to grant everyone his will. This is a thing that has already been done once in the course of history: the German emperors travelled about; and this institution is in the closest conformity with the idea of free States. We are afraid of a chief-town, although we already see the point in our possessions where the greatest number of people will collect together. But this we keep to ourselves: this will happen by degrees and will still be soon enough.

These are, in the most general way, the points about which we are for the most part agreed: yet whenever members come together in larger or smaller numbers they are always talked over again anew. But the main thing will be, when shall we find ourselves at the place and spot? The new state of things, which is however to last, is in fact expressed by the law. Our penalties are mild, admonition is allowed to everyone who has a certain age behind him: only the recognized elders may disapprove and blame, only a number convened can punish.

It is noticed that severe laws are very soon blunted, and little by little become laxer, since Nature always asserts her rights. We have indulgent laws, so as to be able to get gradually more severe: our penalties consist first and foremost of a separation from civil society, milder or more vigorous, shorter or longer, as found necessary. If the property of the burgher citizen grows, little by little, something is nipped off here too, less or more as they deserve, so that they may suffer something from this point also.

Information on these points is given to all the members of the association, and in an examination that has been instituted it has been found that they all make the most appropriate application of the main points to themselves. The main thing always is only this, that we retain with ourselves the advantages of culture, and leave behind its disadvantages. Dram-drinking and circulating libraries are not allowed with us, but how we demean ourselves towards bottles and books, I would rather not disclose. Suchlike things will have to be done, if we are to criticise them.

And in just the same sense the collector and editor of these papers keeps back other regulations, which still circulate among the Society itself, as problems which perhaps it is not prudent to attempt at the present time and place; and so much the less approval could one anticipate if one ventured to mention such things circumstantially.

CHAPTER XII.

The hour appointed for Odoard’s address had come, and when all had been assembled, and were waiting quietly, he began to speak as follows: —

“The important work, in which I have invited this assembly of trusty men to take a part, is not quite new to you; for I have already talked with you in a general way about it. It is clear from my explanations that in the old world as well as in the new there are spaces which need better cultivation than has hitherto been bestowed upon them. In the latter, Nature has spread out vast and wide expanses, where she reposes untouched and uncivilized, so that one hardly ventures to attack her or challenge her to a contest. And yet to the resolute it is easy to win the waste places from her, bit by bit, and to make one’s self safe of a part-ownership. In the old world the reverse is the case. Here a part-possession has been established everywhere already; the title thereto, more or less, consecrated from time out of mind; and whilst in the new world the illimitable appears as an insuperable obstacle, here the simply limited opposes hindrance almost more difficult still to be overcome. Nature is to be constrained by the activity of mankind, by force, or by persuasion.

“If individual ownership is regarded as sacred by the whole of society, by the owner himself it is still more so. Custom, youthful impressions, respect for ancestors, liking for one’s neighbor, and a hundred other things, make the owner rigid and disinclined against every alteration. The older such a state of things is, the more complicated and subdivided, so much the more difficult is it to carry out a general plan which, while it took somewhat from individuals, would be of unlooked-for advantage to the whole, and even, by reaction and co-operation, to the individual again.

“For several years I have governed in the name of my sovereign a province that, being divided from his territories, has not been turned to as much account as would be possible. This very exclusion, or seclusion if you will, has hitherto prevented the establishment of any means which would have given the inhabitants opportunity of distributing abroad what they have and of receiving from abroad what they need.

“I governed this country with absolute authority; there was much good to be effected, but still always of a limited sort. Everywhere bars were imposed upon improvement, and what was most desirable seemed to be in another world.

“I had no other obligation but to be economical. What is easier than that! No less easy is it to put down abuses, to avail one’s self of human capabilities, to help, to assist those who aspire. All this could be achieved quite easily with common-sense and authority. All this, in a measure, effected itself. But the direction in which my attention, my anxiety, was especially bestowed, was on the neighbors who, with no similar disposition and with by no means the same conviction, ruled their lands or caused them to be ruled.

“I had almost resigned myself, and kept as well as possible within my own domain, using the traditional state of things as well as might be; but I all at once observed that the age was coming to my assistance. Younger officials were installed in the neighborhood; they cherished similar intentions, though animated, it is true, only with a desire for the general good; and little by little they adopted my schemes for a universal combination, all the more readily because it fell to my lot to make the greater sacrifices, without any of them particularly noticing that the greater advantage also inclined to my side.

“So there are now three of us allied in governing considerable tracts of land; our princes and ministers are convinced of the honesty and utility of our plans; for certainly more is required to view one’s advantage in the whole rather than in detail. In the latter, necessity always indicates to us what to do and what to leave undone, and thus it is quite enough if we apply this standard to existing circumstances; but in the other case we have to create a future; and even if a penetrating mind discover a plan for this, how can it hope to find others concurring in it?

“Nor would the individual succeed in this; time, which emancipates minds, at the same time gives them a wider outlook, and in the wider expanse the greater is more easily recognized, and one of the most powerful obstacles to human enterprises becomes more easily removed. This consists, to wit, in the fact that men may perhaps agree in their objects, but much more rarely in the means whereby they are to be attained. For the truly great raises us above ourselves, and shines before us like a star; but the choice of means calls us back within ourselves, and then the individual becomes just as he was, and feels himself just as isolated as if he had not previously been in accord as to the whole.

“Here then we must repeat — the age must help us; time must take the place of reason, and in a more expanded soul the higher interest must banish the more sordid one.

“Let this be enough; and should it be too much for the moment, I will afterwards recall it to the mind of every participator. Exact measurements have been taken; roads indicated, the positions determined in which inns, and ultimately perhaps villages, will be met with. For all sorts of structures opportunity, nay, necessity exists. First-rate architects and skilled workmen are making everything ready: drawings and plans are prepared. The intention is to settle large and small questions, and thus with strict control to lay out to the astonishment of the mother-country the sums of money lying ready: for we live in the best hope that a united activity will be developed from now onwards on all sides.

“But the point to which I have to draw the attention of all participators, since it may perhaps have an influence upon their decision, is the arrangement, the form in which we associate all the co-operators, and purpose to create for them a worthy position amongst themselves and in relation to the rest of the civic world.

“As soon as we enter the indicated territory the various handicrafts will forthwith be declared to be arts, and definitely divided and set apart, by the denomination strict arts, from those that are free. Here, at present, we can only speak of such occupations as make building their object; all the men here present, young and old, rank themselves in this class.

“Let us here recount in order, how they raise the edifice on high, and step by step make it habitable. First of all name the stone-masons who work into completeness the foundation and corner-stone, which with the help of the masons they settle in the proper place and with the most exact measurement. Then follow the masons, who on the rigidly tested foundation make good assurance of the present and the future. Sooner or later the carpenter brings his contributions, made ready beforehand, and so the intended building gradually mounts on high. We summon the roofer as soon as possible: inside we require the joiner, the glazier, the locksmith, and if I name the whitewasher last it is because he can interpose, with his task, at the most varying season, and give the whole, inside and outside throughout, a pleasing appearance. Many coadjutors I do not mention, following only the principal plan.

“The grades of apprentice, craftsman, and master, must be most strictly observed: also in these there could be many graduations, but tests could not be too carefully imposed. Whosoever comes forward knows that he is devoting himself to strict art, and that he can look for no remissible claims from her. A single link breaking in a long chain spoils the whole: in great undertakings, as in great dangers, triviality must be banished.

“It is in this very aspect that the strict art must serve as a pattern to the free, and try to put her to shame. If we look at these socalled free arts, which yet in point of fact are only to be so taken and named in a higher sense, we find that it is utterly indifferent whether they are pursued well or ill. The worst statue stands on its feet, like the best, a painted figure steps forward briskly enough on its falsely drawn feet, its misshapen arms hold powerfully enough: the figures do not stand in the proper plane, but the ground does not on that account fall in. With music it is still more striking: the shrieking fiddle of a village tavern sets the sturdy limbs astir most potently; and we have listened to the most inept church music by which the faithful man has been edified. But would you wish to reckon poetry also among the free arts, you would verily see that this one hardly knows where it ought to find a limit. And yet every art has its inner laws, the disregard of which, however, inflicts no harm upon humanity; on the other hand, the strict arts can allow themselves no license. The free artist one can praise, and can find pleasure in his merits, even if his work on closer inspection will not hold its own.

“But if we regard the two, the free as well as the strict arts, in their most perfect conditions, the latter must beware of pedantry and prejudice, the former of carelessness and bungling. He who has to guide them will call attention to this. Misapplications and deficiencies will thereby be avoided.

“I do not repeat (for our whole life will be a repetition of what has been said) — I make only the following remark: He who takes to a strict art must devote himself to it for his whole life. Hitherto they have been called handiwork, quite appropriately and correctly: the experts ought to work with the hand, and the hand, if it is to do it, must be animated by a life of its own; it must be a nature for itself, having its own thoughts, its own will, and this cannot be the case in several different ways.”

After the speaker had concluded with some additional good words, those present, one and all, arose; and the operatives, instead of withdrawing, formed an orderly circle in front of the table of the recognized leaders. Odoard handed round to all a printed sheet, from which, with modest liveliness, they sang a cheering song to a well-known melody: —

“Going, staying: staying, going,

Little recks the ready mind;

Wheresoe’er good work is doing

Richest realm he there shall find.

Following thee is little pain,

Whoso hearkens will attain:

Show us an abiding land!

Speed the Leader! Speed the Band!

“Strength and burden thou dost measure,

Weighing each with strictest truth,

Honor to the old, and leisure,

Task and helpmate to the youth,

Faith in others, help compelling,

Will upraise a decent dwelling;

On good neighbors ‘twill depend

Yard and garden to defend.

“Where upon the trodden road

New-built hostels rest allow,

Where wide acres are bestowed,

Tribute to the stranger’s plough,

There a home in common make we.

Hasten, hasten, hence betake ye

To the settled fatherland:

Speed our Leader! Speed our Band!”

CHAPTER XIII.

A perfect rest succeeded all the busy movement of the past day. The three friends remained alone standing facing one another, and it was soon obvious that two of them, Lenardo and Friedrich, were moved by a strange unrest. Neither of them concealed that they were impatient to see themselves hindered from taking their share in the departure from this place; they were expecting a messenger, it appeared, and in the meantime nothing sensible or determinate was discussed.

At last the messenger comes, bringing an important packet, upon which Friedrich at once seizes in order to open it. Lenardo prevents him, and says, “Leave it untouched; lay it down on the table in front of us; we will look at it, think, and guess what it may contain. For our destiny is nearer to its decision, and if we are not ourselves masters of it, if it depends upon the understanding, the feelings of others, whether a yes or no, a thus or thus, is to be awaited, then it behoves us to stand calmly, to contain ourselves, to ask ourselves whether we could endure it — as if it were a so-called judgment of God — in whatever way we are enjoined to make a captive of reason.”

“You are not so cool as you wish to appear,” replied Friedrich; “so remain alone with your secrets, and dispose of them as you like; in any case they do not affect me. But meanwhile let me reveal the contents to this old and tried friend, and explain the ambiguous circumstances which we have so long concealed from him.”

With these words he carried off our friend with him, and even on the way exclaimed, “She is found! — found long ago! and the question only is, what is to be done with her.”

“I have found out that already,” said Wilhelm, “for friends disclose to each other most clearly, exactly what they do not mention to each other; the last passage of the diary, where Lenardo, in the very midst of the mountains, remembers the letter that I wrote to him, summoned up in my imagination that good creature in complete communion of soul and feeling; I saw him the very next morning approach her, recognize her, and all else that would ensue. But then I will frankly confess that no curiosity, but honest sympathy, which I have devoted to her, disquieted me on account of your silence and reserve.”

“And chiefly from this point of view,” cried Friedrich, “you have a joint-interest in this very packet that has arrived. The continuation of the diary was sent to Makaria, and we did not wish to spoil for you, by an account of it, the seriously gratifying incident. Now you shall have it, and at once. Lenardo, in the meantime, has surely opened it, and he does not need it for his enlightenment.”

Friedrich hereupon rushed away, after his old fashion, rushed in again, bringing with him the promised book.

“But now I must also find out what is to become of us.”

Hereupon he was off again, and Wilhelm read —

Lenardo’s Diary — continued.

As there must needs be no diary to-day, in order to reach Frau Susanna’s early, I breakfasted hurriedly with the whole family, returned thanks, with private good wishes, and left with the loomfitter, who remained behind, the presents intended for the young women, somewhat richer and more bridal-like than those of the day before yesterday, handing them over secretly to him, at which the good man seemed to be highly delighted.

This time the road was soon got over: after a few hours we saw, in a peaceful, not too broad and level valley, one rocky side of which was lightly washed by the waves of a most limpid lake in which it was reflected, some respectable well-built houses, round about which a better and carefully tended plot of soil, with a sunny aspect, was favorable to a certain amount of gardening. On being conducted by the yarn-man to the principal house, and introduced to Frau Susanna, I had a quite peculiar feeling, as she spoke to us in a friendly fashion, and assured us that she was very glad that we came on Friday, the quietest day in the week, for on Thursday evening the goods that were ready were taken to the lake, and to the town.

To the yarn-man, who interposed, saying, “I suppose Daniel always takes them down,” she replied, “To be sure; he looks after the business as well and faithfully as if it were his own.”

“However, there is no such great difference either.” answered the other; and having undertaken some commissions from the friendly hostess, he hastened off to finish his business in the side-valleys, promising to come back in a few days and fetch me away.

Meanwhile I felt in quite a strange state of mind. At my first entrance a strange presentiment had come over me that she was the much-desired one: on a longer inspection it was not she again, and could not be, and yet at a side view or when she turned round, it was she again: just as in a dream memory and fancy contend with one another.

Some spinning-girls who were behindhand with their work brought it in: the mistress, with the most kindly warning to be industrious, was bargaining with them, but in order to entertain her guest, she left the matter to two girls whom she called Gretchen and Lieschen, and whom I observed all the more attentively, as I wished to discover in any case how they answered to the description of the loomfitter. These two forms led me quite astray, and destroyed all likeness between the object of my search and the housewife.

But I observed the latter all the more attentively, and in every way she seemed to me the worthiest, most amiable being of all that I had seen in my mountain travels. By this time I was sufficiently well instructed in the trade to be able to talk to her about the business, which she understood well, with knowledge: my intuitive sympathy delighted her, and when I asked her whence she got her supply of cotton, the wholesale transport of which across the mountains I had seen a few days before, she replied that this very consignment had included a considerable supply for her. The situation of her dwelling was also on this account fortunate, because the high road leading down to the lake ran at a distance of only about a quarter of an hour lower down her valley, where she either in person, or through an agent, received the bales which were consigned and addressed to her from Trieste; as had actually been the case the day before yesterday.

She now allowed her new friend to look into a large airy cellar, where the supply is stored, in order that the cotton may not get too dry, lose weight and become less pliable. Here too I found, for the most part, collected together what I had already seen in detail. She pointed out this thing and that, one after another, whilst I showed an intelligent interest. Meanwhile she became less talkative: by her questions I could guess that I was supposed to be connected with the trade. For she said that as the cotton had just arrived she was shortly expecting a clerk or partner from the Trieste firm, who after a discreet inspection of her circumstances would take back with him the sum of money due: that this was lying ready for any one who could show his credentials.

Somewhat embarrassed, I tried to turn it off, and looked after her as she just then walked across the room to arrange something. She seemed to me like Penelope among the maids. She returns, and I fancy that something has struck her.

“Then you are not a business man?” she said; “I do not know whence the confidence comes, and how I venture to inquire about your affairs. I certainly do not wish to be inquisitive, but let me know what your purpose is.”

Therewith a strange face looked at me with such familiar, recognizing eyes that I felt completely penetrated, and hardly managed to control myself. My knees, my thoughts, were on the point of failing me, when fortunately some one called her away very hurriedly. I was able to recover myself, to confirm my intention, and keep it as long as possible to myself. For I had a foreboding as if an unfortunate connection were again threatening me.

Gretchen, a really amiable child, led me off in order to show me the artistic fabrics; she did it sensibly and quietly. In order to show her my attention, I wrote down what she said to me in my pocket-book, where it still stands in witness of a purely mechanical process; for I had something quite different in my mind. It runs as follows: —

“The weft of piled as well as of drawn fabric is made, accordingly as the pattern requires, with white loosely spun so-called muggenyarn, at the same time also colored with Turkey-red, of the same kind as the blue yarn which is also used for stripes and flowers. On being clipped the web is wound on cylinders which form a table-shaped frame, round which several persons sit and work.”

Lieschen, who has been sitting amongst the clippers, stands up, joins us, and is eager to put in her word, and in fact in such a way as only to put the other one out by contradiction; and, when in spite of her, I gave more attention to Gretchen, Lieschen fussed about to fetch or take something, and in doing so she twice very distinctly grazed my arm with her soft elbow, without being forced to do so by the smallness of the room, — which did not particularly please me.

The good fair one (she deserves to be so called in a general way, but particularly when compared with the others) took me out into the garden to enjoy the evening sun, before it hid itself behind the mountain. A smile was hovering round her lips, as is often seen when one is hesitating to say something amusing; and in this hesitation I, too, seemed to feel a pleasure. We were walking side by side. I did not venture to give her my hand, glad as I would have been to do so. We both of us seemed to dread words and gestures through which the happy discovery might too soon become mutually evident. She showed me some flower-clusters, in which I at once recognized budding cotton-plants: —

“This is how we rear and foster the seeds that in our occupation are useless, not to say objectionable, and which come to us from such a long distance with the cotton. It is an act of gratitude, and there is a singular pleasure in seeing the living form whose lifeless remains animate our being. Here you see the beginning — the middle you know, — and this evening, if fortune favors, you shall see a joyful conclusion.

“We, the actual manufacturers, or an agent, on Thursday evening take the goods which have come in during the week to the market-boat, and thus, in company with others who pursue the same trade, we arrive at the earliest hour on Friday morning at the town. Here every one takes his goods to the merchants who deal in wholesale and try to dispose of them as well as possible, and perhaps also take ultimately, instead of payment, as much raw wool as is needed.

“But not only do the market-people in the town take away as much raw material as they require for manufacture, together with the profit in cash — they also provide themselves with many other things for their needs or enjoyment. Wherever one out of the family has gone marketing to the town, there expectations, hopes, wishes, nay, often even anxiety and fear, are rife. Storm or thunder may come on, and there is anxiety lest the boat should come to harm! Those who are eager for profit loiter about, and long to hear how the sale of the goods has turned out, and already reckon in advance the amount of clear profit. The inquisitive wait for news from the town; those fond of dress look for articles of dress or fashions, which the traveller was commissioned to bring back with him; and lastly, the sweet-toothed, and especially the children, look for the eatables, even if they should be only seed-cakes.

“The departure from the town is generally delayed until towards evening; then the lake becomes all alive, and the boats, sailing or propelled by the strength of the rowers, glide across its surface. Everything is eager to outstrip the rest, and those who are successful jokingly banter those whom they see forced to lag behind.

“It is a joyous and pretty spectacle at the embarkation on the lake, when its surface, with the surrounding mountains illuminated by the evening glow, is warmly and more and more deeply shaded, when the stars become visible, the curfew bells are to be heard, candles are lighted in the villages on the bank, shining again in the water; then the moon rises, and scatters its light over the nigh motionless surface; the rich landscape flies by, village after village, homestead after homestead, are left behind. Arriving at last in the neighborhood of home a horn is blown, and lights are immediately seen shining here and there in the mountain, and moving down towards the shore. Every household that has a relative in the boat sends some one to help to carry the parcel. We are situated higher up; but every one of us has often enough taken part in this excursion, and so far as business is concerned we are all similarly interested.”

I had listened to her with astonishment to hear how well and beautifully she told it all, and could not refrain from remarking aloud: How could she, in this wild district with so mechanical an occupation, have attained to so much culture.

She answered, looking down with a most amiable, almost roguish smile, “I was born in a fairer and more kindly neighborhood, where clever men rule and dwell, and although as a child I was wild and unruly, yet the influence of highly gifted landowners in their surroundings was unmistakable; the greatest effect, however, upon a youthful being was due to a pious bringing up, which developed in me a certain sense of the just and proper, as derived from the omnipresence of divine love.

“We emigrated,” she continued — and the pretty smile forsook her lips; a suppressed tear filled her eye — ”we wandered far, far, from one neighborhood to another, guided by religious indications and recommendations: at last we came hither to this most active region. The house in which you find me was occupied by people of like mind; they received us with confidence: my father spoke the same language in the same sense: we soon seemed to belong to the family.

“In all the business of the house and handicraft I took a vigorous part: and all of which you now see me the manager, I gradually learned, practised, and became proficient in. The son of the house, a few years my elder, well-made and handsome in face, fell in love with me, and made me his confidential friend. He was of a strong and at the same time refined nature; piety as it was practised in the house found no acceptance with him: it did not satisfy him. He secretly read books which he managed to buy for himself in the town, of the sort which impart a more general, a freer tenor to the mind, and when he observed in me a similar tendency and a similar disposition, he took pains gradually to impart to me that which so earnestly occupied him. At last, when I entered into it all, he no longer abstained from disclosing to me his whole secret. And we really were a thoroughly wonderful couple, conversing in our lonely walks only on such principles as make people independent, whilst our actual terms of attachment seemed to consist only in mutually confirming one another in ideas of the kind by which people generally become completely alienated from each other.”

Although I did not look closely at her, but only glanced up from time to time as if by accident, yet I observed with astonishment and sympathy that her features immediately and entirely expressed the sense of her words. After a momentary silence her face brightened.

“I must make a confession,” she said, “with regard to your principal question, in order that you may be better able to account for my readiness of speech, which may often seem not quite natural.

“Unfortunately we were obliged to dissemble before the others, and although were closely on our guard against lying, and being deceitful in the vulgar sense, yet we actually were so in a more refined sense, inasmuch as we could not find any excuse for not attending the well-frequented meetings of brethren and sisters. But while we were forced to hear there a good deal against our convictions, still he soon made me see and understand that it did not all come freely from the heart, but that a good deal of verbiage, images, comparisons, traditional forms of speech, and a repetition of similar lines, were forever revolving round as if on a general axis. I now paid better attention, and picked up the language so closely, that I could have delivered a sermon as well, at any rate, as any superintendent. At first the good man was delighted at this: at last he grew impatient from satiety, so that to pacify him I adopted the opposite course, listened to him all the more attentively, and was able a week afterwards to repeat to him his cordially true sermon, with at least approximating freedom, and no very dissimilar spiritual character.

“Thus our connection grew into the most intimate bond, and a passion for any recognizable form of truth and goodness, as well as any practicable exercise of the same, was what actually united us.

“In thinking what it was that occasioned you to ask me for such a narrative as this, I recollect it was my lively description of a happily spent market-day. Do not wonder at this; for indeed it was a joyous, heartfelt contemplation of charming and sublime natural scenery that gave me and my bridegroom in peaceful and unoccupied hours our most charming converse. Excellent national poets had awakened and fostered the feeling in us. Haller’s ‘Alps,’ Gesner’s ‘Idylls,’ Kleist’s ‘Spring,’ were often repeated by us, and we regarded the world that surrounded us, sometimes from its graceful, sometimes from its elevated side.

“I still like to remember how we two, keen and far-sighted, tried to vie, and often hastily, in making each other observe the phenomena in the earth and sky, endeavoring to surpass and overbid each other. This was the finest recreation, not only from the daily task, but also from those serious conversations which often plunged us only too deeply within ourselves, and threatened in that respect to disturb our peace.

“About this time a traveller, probably under a fictitious name, called at our house. We don’t intrude further on him, since his character at once inspires our confidence; he behaves in everything with the greatest propriety, and is becomingly attentive in our assemblies. On being conducted about the mountain-side by my friend, he proved himself serious, observant and full of knowledge. I, too, take part in their moral discussions, in which everything that can be important to a thoughtful man comes by degrees under debate. Here he very soon remarks something uncertain in our mode of thought in reference to things divine. Religious expressions had become trite to us: the kernel which they should have contained had escaped us. So he made us observe the danger of our position, how precarious must be our divergence from the tradition with which, from our youth up, so much had been associated: it was in the highest degree dangerous, particularly in the state of imperfection of our own minds. It was true that religion, practised every day and every hour, at last became only a pastime and acted as a sort of police upon the outward demeanor, but no longer on the depths of the understanding: the only remedy for that was to call forth from our own hearts thoughts equally valid, equally effective, and equally soothing in a moral sense.

“Our parents had silently anticipated our union, and I know not how it was, but the presence of our new friend hastened the betrothal. It seemed to be his wish to celebrate this confirmation of our happiness in our quiet circle, and then too he must needs hear how the superintendent took the opportunity of reminding us of the Bishop of Laodicea, and of the great danger of lukewarmness which they thought that they had observed in us. We spoke of these subjects yet a few times; and he left behind for us a paper relating thereto, which I afterwards often had reason to look at again.

“He then left us, and it seemed as if every good spirit had gone away with him. It is not a new remark how the appearance of a great man in any circle makes an epoch, and on his departure there appears a gap in which a casual misfortune will often penetrate. And now let me cast a veil over what followed: through an accident the precious life of my betrothed, his noble form, was suddenly destroyed. He steadfastly devoted his last hours to seeing himself joined to me, inconsolable as I was, and securing me in the right to his inheritance. But what made this blow still more painful to the parents was that shortly before they had lost a daughter, and thus saw themselves in a most special sense bereaved; whereby their tender souls were so stricken that their lives were not long spared. They soon followed their dear ones; and yet another misfortune overtook me; for my father, struck with apoplexy, has still preserved, it is true, his bodily consciousness of the world, but neither spiritual nor physical activity in it. And thus I really had need of that self-dependence in the greatest stress and isolation, in which I had formerly practised myself when looking forward to a happy union and pleasant companionship in life, and in which but shortly before I had singularly confirmed myself by help of the pure, encouraging precepts of the mysterious traveller.

“Yet I ought not to be ungrateful, since in these circumstances I have still a trusty helper left, who as my agent looks after everything that in such businesses seems to fall to the lot of manly activity. If he comes back from the town this evening and you have been able to make his acquaintance, you will see my wonderful dependence upon him.”

I had said a good deal in the meantime, and by approving and confidential sympathy tried to open out her heart more and more, and keep up the flow of her speech. I did not avoid touching quite closely what as yet had not been fully outspoken: she too was always drawing nearer to it, and we had got so far that on the slightest pretext the open secret would have come forth in words.

She stood up and said, “Let us go to my father.” She hastened on, and I followed slowly. I shook my head over the strange situation in which I found myself. She showed me into a very neat back room, where the good old man sat motionless in the arm-chair. He was little altered. I went up to him: he at first looked at me with a rigid stare, then with more animated eyes; his features grew bright, he tried to move his lips, and when I stretched out my hand to take his as it lay, he grasped mine of his own accord, pressed it, and jumped to his feet, stretching out his arms towards me. “O God!” he exclaimed, “Squire Lenardo! it is he, it is he himself!”

I could not refrain from pressing him to my heart; he sank back into the chair, his daughter ran forward to help him; she too exclaimed, “It is he! It is you, Lenardo!”

The younger niece had come in; they led the father, who all at once was able to walk again, to his bedroom, and turning towards me he said quite distinctly, “How happy! happy! we shall meet again soon!”

I stood still, looking straight before me and thinking; Mariechen came back, and handed me a paper with the information that it was the one referred to. I at once recognized Wilhelm’s hand, even as before his person had occurred to me from the description. Many strange faces crowded round about me; there was a peculiar excitement in the entrance. And what a repelling sensation it is, from the enthusiasm of a genuine recognition, from the assurance of a grateful recollection, the appreciation of a wonderful event in life, and whatever else ardent and beautiful that may arise in us therewith — to be brought back all at once to the uncouth reality of a distracted every-day dulness.

This time Friday evening was not so generally cheerful and merry as it otherwise might have been. The agent had not returned from the town in the market-boat. He would come by another opportunity, and bring with him all that had been ordered and promised. The neighbors, young and old, who as usual had gathered together in expectation, pulled long faces: Lieschen especially, who had gone to meet him, seemed in a very bad humor.

I had taken refuge in my room, keeping the papers in my hand without looking into them: for it had already given me some private vexation to find from her narrative that Wilhelm had accelerated the betrothal. “Thus are all friends, they are all diplomatists: instead of responding honestly to our confidence, they pursue their own plans, thwart our wishes, and lead our destiny astray!” Thus I exclaimed: however, I soon recovered from my injustice, allowed that my friend was right, especially in view of the present situation, and no longer forbore to read what follows.

“Every human being, from the earliest moment of his life, is first unconscious, then half-conscious, and at last wholly so: he finds himself forever controlled, limited in his position; but as no one knows the end and aim of his existence, or rather, as its secret is withheld by the hand of the Most High, he therefore only gropes about, grasps at, leaves hold, stands still, moves, lingers and worries, and so on in so manifold ways, as all the errors which confuse us arise.

“Even the wisest is compelled in daily life to be wise for the moment, and by that means attains no enlightenment in the universal. Seldom does he know for certain whither he has to turn in the future, and what he really has to do and to leave undone.

“Happily all these, and yet a hundred other wondrous questions are answered by your incessantly active course of life. Persevere in direct observance of the day’s duty, and thereby test the purity of your heart, and the safety of your soul. If thus in unoccupied hours you aspire, and find opportunity to elevate yourself, you will so gain a right attitude towards the sublime, to which we must in every way reverently surrender ourselves, regard every occurrence with veneration, and acknowledge therein a higher guidance.”

Saturday, 20th.

Absorbed in thoughts in whose wondrous mazes a feeling soul will gladly accompany me with sympathy, I had with daybreak walked to and from the lake. The housewife (I was glad to be unable to think of her as a widow) showed herself just when she was wanted, first at the window, then at the door: she told me that her father had slept well, had woke up in good spirits, and had declared in distinct words that he desired to remain in bed, and to see me, not to-day, but to-morrow after service, when he would certainly feel well strengthened. She then said to me that to-day she intended to leave me a good deal alone: for her it was a very busy day; she came down-stairs and gave me an account of it.

I listened to her, only for the sake of hearing her; at the same time I satisfied myself that she seemed to be thoroughly penetrated by the business, invested with it, as traditional duty, and was busy by her own consent.

She continued: “It is usual and understood that the web be ready towards the end of the week, and on Saturday afternoon be taken to the contractor, who looks through it, measures and weighs it, in order to ascertain that the work is properly done and free from blemish, and whether the proper amount in weight and measure has been delivered to him; and if all is found to be correct, he then pays the wages agreed upon. He is careful, on his own part, to free the woven piece from all manner of threads and knots that may be attached to it, to lay it down in the neatest way, keeping the side that is finest and most free from blemish upwards to the sight, and thus to make the goods acceptable in the highest degree.”

In the meantime a number of weaving girls were coming in from the mountain, bringing their wares to the house, amongst whom, too, I noticed her who employed our loomfitter. She thanked me very kindly for the present I had left behind me, and prettily told me that the loomfitter was with them, and was working to-day at their loom, and had assured her as she left that what he was doing to it would be seen directly by Frau Susanna in the work. Thereupon she went like the rest into the house, and I could not refrain from asking the dear good-wife, “For Heaven’s sake, how did you come by this extraordinary name?”

“It is the third,” she said, “that they have imposed upon me: I willingly assented, for my father- and mother-in-law wished it. It was the name of their lost daughter, whose place they wished me to take, and the name is ever the best and most living substitute for the person.”

To this I answered, “A fourth has been found already. I would name you Fair-good-one if it depended on me.”

She made a very pretty humble curtsey, and managed to combine and set-off her delight at the recovery of her father with her pleasure at seeing me again, in such a way that I thought I had never heard and felt anything more flattering and delightful in all my life.

The Fair-good-one, summoned twice or thrice into the house, handed me over to a sensible well-informed man, who was told to show me the curiosities of the mountain. We went together, under the finest sky, through richly varied tracts. But it may be taken for granted that neither rock nor wood nor waterfall, still less mills and smithies, or even families who worked cleverly enough in wood, could gain any attention from me. However, the excursion was arranged for the whole day; the porter carried a fine breakfast in his knapsack; at midday we found a good meal in the counting-house of a mine where no one could quite make me out; for to active people nothing is more objectionable than an empty indifference simulating interest.

But least of all did the guide understand me; the yarn-man had recommended me to him with great praise of my fine technical knowledge and special interest in such things. That good man had also told him of my copious writing down and noting, for which his fellow-mountaineer had likewise prepared himself. My guide waited a long time for me to pull out my note-book, which at last he somewhat impatiently inquired after.

Sunday, 21st.

Midday had almost come before I could see my dear friend again. The family service, at which she did not want me to be present, was held in the meantime; the father had taken part in it, and uttering words most edifying, distinctly and intelligently, he had moved her and all who were present to the most heartfelt tears.

“They were,” she said, “familiar proverbs, rhymes, expressions and turns that I had heard a hundred times and been vexed at as hollow sounds: but now they flowed forth so heartily molten together, quietly glowing, and free from slag, just as we see the molten metal flow out into the mould. I was afraid and anxious that he would exhaust himself in these outpourings: however, he let himself be taken quite cheerfully to bed: he wished quietly to collect himself, and to have the guest summoned to him as soon as he felt strong enough.”

After dinner our talk became more animated and confidential: but for this very reason I could the better feel and perceive that she was keeping something back, that she was struggling with disquieting thoughts, so that she did not quite succeed in brightening up her face. After I had tried one way and another to get her to speak out, I frankly said that I fancied I saw in her a certain dulness, an expression of anxiety: whether they were domestic or business troubles, she ought to confide in me. I was rich enough to pay her an old debt in any way.

She denied with a smile that this was the case. “I thought,” she continued, “when you first came, that you were one of the firm who give me credit in Trieste, and I was well pleased that I had my money ready at hand, whether they wanted the whole sum or a part of it. What troubles me is, nevertheless, a business anxiety, unfortunately not for the moment, no! for the whole future. The machinery that is getting the upper-hand frightens me and makes me anxious: it comes rolling on like a thunderstorm, slowly, slowly, but it has taken its direction; it will come, and strike. My husband was penetrated even by this melancholy conviction. People think about it, talk of it, and neither thinking nor talking can be of any use; and who would like to realize such horrors! Only think that there are many valleys winding through the mountain, like that through which you came down; that comely joyous life still flits before you, as you have seen it there during these past days, whereof the gayly dressed crowd thronging from all directions yesterday gave the happiest evidence, bethink you, how this will little by little collapse, die out, and the desert animated and peopled for centuries will again fall back into its primeval solitude.

“There remain only two roads to choose from; one as sad as the other — either to take to the new state of things one’s self and hasten on ruin, or to break up, take the best and worthiest along with us, and seek a better destiny beyond the sea. One as well as the other has its dangers, but who is there to help us to weigh the reasons which should decide us? I know very well that people are going about in the neighborhood with the idea of setting up machines, and taking the bread out of the mouths of the common people. I cannot blame any one for thinking of himself first. But I should think myself despicable if I were to plunder these poor people, and see them go away at last poor and helpless: and go away they must, sooner or later. They forbode it, they know it, they say it, and no one decides to take any saving step. And yet where is the resolution to come from? is it not as difficult to every one as to me?

“My betrothed had made up his mind to emigrate with me: he often communed with himself about the means and ways of getting himself free from here. He looked about for the better men, whom one could gather round one’s self, with whom one could make common cause; whom one could draw to one and take away with one; we longed, with perhaps too youthful hopefulness, for lands where that might count for duty and right that here would be a crime. Now the case is just the opposite. The honest helper, who remained to me after my husband’s death, excellent in every sense, attached to me by friendship and love, is of a quite contrary opinion.

“I must speak of him before you have seen him: I would rather have done it afterwards, because personal presence clears up many a riddle. About the same age as my husband, he attached himself as a poor little boy to his well-to-do, kindly-disposed playmate; to the family, the house, and the business. They grew up together, and held together, and the pair were of quite different natures: the one frank and communicative, the other oppressed in early youth, reserved, holding firmly to the least acquired possession, of pious disposition it is true, but thinking more of himself than of others.

“I know very well that from the first he had turned his eyes towards me (he might well do so, for I was poorer than he), yet he kept himself in the background as soon as he noticed his friend’s attachment to me. By steady industry, energy and trustworthiness, he soon made himself a partner in the business. My husband secretly entertained the thought of settling him here when we emigrated, and intrusting him with everything that was left. Soon after our excellent one’s death he approached me, and before long he did not conceal the fact that he was a suitor for my hand. But now came the doubly wonderful circumstance that he steadfastly declared himself against emigration, and, on the contrary, eagerly urged that we should even set up machines. His reasons are certainly cogent, for on our mountain there lives a man, who, if he liked to abandon our simpler appliances, and construct more complicated ones for himself, could easily bring us to ruin. This — in his own department a very skilful man (we call him the loomfitter) — is a dependent of a well-to-do family in the neighborhood, and one might well believe that he intended to make use of this rising discovery for the benefit of himself and his patrons. There is nothing to be said against my assistant’s arguments, for too much time has in a way been already wasted, and if they get the start, we must, even at a loss, take the same course. This is what frightens me and makes me anxious; it is this, my dearest friend, that makes you seem to me like a guardian angel.”

I had little that was consoling to say in reply; I must needs find the case complicated enough to demand time for me to think over it.

“However,” she continued, “I have still much to disclose, which will make my situation seem yet more wonderful to you. The young man, to whom personally I am not averse, but who would by no means supply the place of my husband, nor win my special affection” (she sighed as she said this), “has lately become decidedly more urgent; his representations are as amiable as they are sensible. The necessity of giving him my hand, the imprudence of thinking of emigration, and thus neglecting the only real means of self-preservation, are not to be denied; and my opposition, my whim of emigrating, seems to him to agree so little with the rest of my disposition to good management, that at our last somewhat hasty conversation I could detect the supposition that my affections must be placed elsewhere.”

She brought out this last sentence with hesitation, and looked down before her. What passed through my soul at these words let anyone imagine, and yet as reflection followed with the speed of lightning, I could not but feel that every word would increase the complication; and yet, at once, as I stood thus before her, I was most distinctly conscious that I had got to love her most profoundly, and I had to employ all that was left me of rational intelligent strength to refrain from offering her my hand forthwith. “Yet she could leave everything behind her,” I thought, “if she follows me.” However, the sorrows of past years held me back. “Shouldst thou cherish a false hope, to repent of it your life long?”

We had both stood for some time in silence, when Lieschen, whom I had not seen enter, surprised us by coming up and asking permission to spend this evening at the neighboring forge. It was granted with hesitation.

I had in the meantime collected myself, and began to tell, in a general way, how in my travels I had long seen all this coming on — how the impulse and necessity for emigration was growing stronger every day; and yet this always involved the greatest risk. To hurry away unprepared brought an unhappy return. No other undertaking demanded so much foresight and guidance as this.

This view was not new to her; she had thought a great deal about all contingencies; but at last she said, with a deep sigh, “During these days of your stay here I have been continually hoping to gain comfort by confidential communication, but I feel in a worse position than before; I feel most deeply how unhappy I am.”

She looked up to me, but to hide the tears welling out of her good and beautiful eyes, turned round and went a few paces apart.

I will not excuse myself; but the wish to distract at least, if not to comfort this noble soul, gave me the idea of speaking to her of the wonderful reunion of several wanderers and parted friends in which I had had a share some time ago. I had unwittingly so far expatiated that I should scarcely have been able to restrain myself, when I became aware of how imprudent my confidence might have been. She calmed herself, wondered, brightened up, disclosed her whole being, and questioned me with such fondness and cleverness, that I was no longer able to avoid confessing everything to her.

Gretchen came in, and said that we might go to her father. The girl seemed very thoughtful and vexed as she went out. Fair-good-one said to her, “Lieschen has leave to go out this evening; you will look after the business.”

“You should not have given it,” replied Gretchen; “she is after no good. You indulge the mischievous thing more than is right, and trust her more than you ought. I have just found out that she wrote a letter to him yesterday evening: she listened to your conversation: now she is going to meet him.”

A child who had in the meantime remained with the father begged me to make haste: the good man was restless. We went in: cheerful, nay, strangely beautiful he was, sitting up in bed.

“Children,” said he, “I have spent these hours in continual prayer; not one of all David’s Psalms of thankfulness and praise has been passed over by me; and to them I add from my own mind, with confirmed faith: Wherefore hopeth man only when near at hand? Then he must act, and help himself; from afar should he hope and trust in God.”

He grasped Lenardo’s hand, and then the hand of his daughter, and laying them one in the other he said, “This must not be an earthly, it must be a heavenly bond: as brother and sister love, trust, serve and help one another, as unselfishly as may God help you;” as he said this he sank back with a heavenly smile, and was gone home. The daughter threw herself down by the bed, Lenardo close by her: their cheeks touched, their tears flowed together upon his hand.

The assistant at this moment runs in, and is transfixed at the scene. With a wild look, shaking his black locks, the handsome young man cries, “He is dead, at the moment when I was about to appeal urgently to his restored speech to decide my fate and his daughter’s — the being whom next to God I love the most, for whom I desired a sound heart, a heart that could feel the worth of my affection! For me she is lost, she kneels near another! Has he given you his blessing? Say only that it is so!”

The noble creature had meanwhile risen to her feet: Lenardo had got up and recovered himself. She said, “I recognize you no longer, the gentle, pious, and all at once so distracted man: yet do you not know how grateful I am to you, what I think of you?”

“It is not a question of thanking and thinking,” replied the other, quieted, “it is a matter of happiness or unhappiness for all my life. This strange man troubles me: as I look at him, I do not trust myself to outweigh him: to push out former rights, to loosen former ties I cannot pretend.”

“As soon as you can come back to yourself,” said my kind one, more beautiful than ever, “when it is possible to talk to you as at other times and always, then I will tell you, will swear to you by the earthly remains of my glorified father, that I have no other relation to this gentleman and friend, than you can recognize, approve and share, and for which you must be glad.”

Lenardo quailed to the depths of his heart: they all three stood for awhile, quite silent and thoughtful. The young man was the first to break the silence: and said, “The moment is one of too great significance to be aught but decisive. It is not upon the spur of the moment that I speak. I have had time to think; do you then listen! Your reason for refusing me your hand was my refusal to follow you, if from necessity or caprice you were to emigrate. Here then I solemnly declare before this competent witness that I will place no obstacle in the way of your departure, rather will I further it, and follow you everywhere. But in return for this declaration, which has not been forced from me, but only accelerated by these strange circumstances, I this moment ask you for your hand.”

He stretched forth his own, and stood there calm and confident. The two others, overcome with surprise, shrank back involuntarily.

“It is decreed,” said the youth, with a certain pious exultation. “It is to happen; it is to the interest of us all: God has willed it! But that you may not think that it is hastiness and caprice, at least learn that for love of you I had renounced mountains and rocks, and have even now been arranging everything, in the town, in order to live according to your wishes. But now I go alone; you will not deny me the means to do so. You would still have enough left to lose here, as you dread, and as you have reason to dread. For I have at last convinced myself also that that skilful, industrious rascal has betaken himself to the upper valley, and is there setting up machinery. You will soon see him drawing to himself all means of support: perhaps you will call back — only too soon — a true friend whom you drove away.”

Three people have seldom stood in a more painful position towards one another: all at the same time in dread of losing one another: and at the moment ignorant of how they should reciprocally retain each other.

The youth with passionate determination rushed out of the door. The Fair-good-one had laid her hand upon her father’s chilled breast. “From near at hand one must not hope,” she exclaimed, “but from afar: that was his last blessing. Let us trust in God: each one in himself and in the other, and so it will be well!”

CHAPTER XIV.

Our friend read what was put before him with great interest, but at the same time he must needs confess that at the end of the preceding portion he had already suspected, nay, supposed, that the good creature had been discovered. The description of the rugged mountain-country had first inspired him with this idea; but he had been especially set upon the track by Lenardo’s presentiment on that moonlight night, as well as by the repetition of the words of his own letter. Friedrich, to whom he told all this circumstantially, quite agreed with his view.

But here the duty of communicating, describing, setting forth and condensing becomes more and more difficult. Who does not feel that we are now approaching the end, where the fear of lingering over details, with the wish to leave nothing incompletely cleared up, places us in a dilemma. It is true that by the despatch just arrived we have been enlightened about a good deal; however, the letters, and the many enclosures, contain various things which are not of general interest. We have accordingly resolved to combine what we then knew and found out, and that too which came to our knowledge later, and with this intent conclude with confidence the serious task that we have taken in hand of a faithful referee.

Before all else then we have to announce that Lothario with Theresa his wife, and Natalia, who did not wish to be parted from her brother, in company with the abbé, were actually already gone to sea. They started under favorable auspices, and it is to be hoped that a favorable wind fills their sails. The only unpleasant sentiment, a real moral grief, that they take with them, is that they were not able first to pay their visit to Makaria. The circuit was too great, the undertaking too important. They already had some delay to blame themselves for, and must sacrifice even a pious duty to necessity.

We, however, on our part as relator and describer, ought not let these beloved persons, who in times past won so much of our affection, depart to so great a distance, without having imparted some more particular information as to their intentions and doings hitherto, especially as it is so long since we have heard anything explicit about them. Nevertheless, we shall omit to do so, because their task hitherto has only referred, as a preparation, to the great undertaking upon which we see them embarking. We live, however, in the hope of satisfactorily meeting them again at some future day in full methodical activity, making manifest the real worth of their several characters.

Julietta, the sensible good one, whom we may still recollect, had married a man after her uncle’s heart, working thoroughly with sympathy and energy in his own direction. Julietta was latterly a good deal with the aunt, where many of those upon whom she had exercised a beneficial influence met together, not only such as remain devoted to the mainland, but those also who intend to go across the sea. Lenardo, on the other hand, had already taken leave of Friedrich. The communication through messengers between them was so much the more active.

If then those worthy people above-mentioned were absent from the catalogue of the guests, still there were to be found amongst them many important persons already intimately known to us. Hilaria came with her husband, who now appeared as a captain and indubitably rich landowner. She, with her great grace and amiability, gained here as always an easy pardon for her too great readiness to change in passing from one source of interest to another, of which in the course of this narrative we have found her guilty. The men especially did not tax her severely for it: a fault of this kind, if it is one, they do not consider objectionable, since each one may wish and hope that he too may have a turn.

Flavio, her husband, vigorous, cheerful and amiable enough, seemed to rivet her affection completely: she might well have forgiven herself for the past; even Makaria found no occasion to refer to it. He, the always passionate poet, begged on parting to be allowed to recite a poem that he had composed in honor of her and her surrounding friends during the few days of his stay here. He had often been seen walking up and down in the open air, after a short pause again walking forwards with excited gestures, writing at the desk, then thinking and writing again. But now he seemed to regard it as finished when he made his wish known through Angela.

The good lady, though unwillingly, gave her consent, and at all events it might be listened to, although one learned nothing more from it than one knew already, felt nothing but what one had already felt. Meanwhile, however, the delivery was easy and pleasing, treatment and rhymes partly new, though on the whole one might have wished it somewhat shorter. At last, he handed it over, very beautifully written on wide-bordered paper, and they separated with perfect mutual satisfaction.

This couple had returned from a notable, well-employed tour to the south in order to release their father, the major, from the house: who with the Irresistible one, who had now become his wife, also wished to inhale a little of the air of Eden for some measure of refreshment.

Thus these two also come in their turn, and so with Makaria as everywhere the Wonderful one found special favor, which was especially shown in this that the lady was received in the inner room and alone, which favor was afterwards accorded to the major also. He proved himself thereupon to be a cultivated military man, a good manager of house and land, a friend of literature, even worthy of praise as a didactic poet; and he experienced a good reception from the astronomer and other intimates of the house.

He was especially distinguished also by our old friend the worthy uncle, who, living at some distance, at this time came over oftener than he was otherwise wont to do, though it were only for a few hours at a time; but he could not be persuaded to stay for a single night, though the best accommodation was offered to him.

Yet at such short meetings his presence was in the highest degree gratifying, for he was then willing as a man of the world and of the court to appear in an indulgent and intermediary character, in which accordingly a trace of aristocratic pedantry was not found unpleasant. Moreover, his good-humor now proceeded from his heart; he was happy, as we all feel when we have to deal with matters of importance with sensible rational people. The comprehensive business was in full course; it went on continuously with carefully fostered collaboration.

To this he gave only his principal moments. He is a landowner, by inheritance from his ancestors, beyond the seas. What that implies, he who understands the position of affairs there may explain more in detail to his friends, for it will of necessity take us too far now. These important possessions had hitherto been let on lease, and under various drawbacks brought in little. The association with which we are sufficiently acquainted is now authorized to take possession there, in the midst of the most perfect civil institutions, from which as an influential link of the State it can look for advantage to itself, and spread itself still further in the uncultivated waste. Here then will Friedrich with Lenardo come especially to the front to show how one can in point of fact begin from the beginning and strike out a natural path.

Hardly had those we have named departed, satisfied in the highest degree with their stay, when there were announced some guests of a very different sort, and yet welcome ones too. We should scarcely have expected to see Philina and Lydia make their appearance in a place of such sanctity, and yet they arrived. Montan, who was still lingering in the mountains, was presently to fetch them, and take them by the nearest road to the lake. Both were very well received by the housekeepers, stewardesses, and other women who had situations or dwelt in the house. Philina brought with her a pair of most lovable children, and while simply and very attractively dressed she distinguished herself by an extraordinary habit. From her flower-embroidered belt she carried, hanging from a long silver chain, a moderately large pair of English scissors, with which she would often snip and snap in the air, just as if she wanted to give emphasis to her conversation, and by doing this she aroused the merriment of all present, whereupon also the question soon followed whether it could be that, in so large a family, there was no cloth to cut. And then it was discovered very fortunately for such energy, that a couple of brides were to be fitted out. Hereupon she looks at the costume of the country, and bids the girls walk up and down before her, whilst she cuts away; in doing which she proceeded with spirit and taste, and, without in any way detracting from the character of such a costume, she managed to soften down its peculiar stiff barbarousness with so soft a grace that the two thus clothed pleased themselves and others better, and overcame their anxiety lest they might have deviated from what was traditional.

Now came Lydia, who was skilful in sewing readily, neatly and swiftly, to their complete assistance, and one might venture to hope to see the brides, with the aid of the rest of the womankind, dressed out more quietly than one would have thought, and in the meantime these girls dared not go far away. Philina busied herself with them down to the minutest details, and treated them as if they were dolls or stage-dummies. Heaps of ribands and other festive array usual in the neighborhood were fittingly distributed, and at last the result was attained that these buxom bodies and neat figures, generally decked out with barbarous formality, now became somewhat conspicuous, but in such a way that all vulgarity seemed in every point toned down into a sort of gracefulness.

But over-busy people, in circumstances restricted by uniform rules, become wearisome. Philina with her voracious scissors had got into the rooms where the stores for the clothing of the large household lay at hand in materials of various kinds. There she experienced, in the prospect of cutting it all up, the greatest delight: it was necessary actually to take her out, and lock the door fast; for she knew neither bounds nor measure. Angela, on this account, really would not be treated as a bride; for she dreaded such a slasher; in general the relations between the two were by no means happily brought out. This however, can only be enlarged on later.

Montan put off coming longer than had been anticipated, and Philina insisted on being presented to Makaria. This was done, for then they hoped that they would get rid of her all the sooner, and it was a sufficiently remarkable sight to see the two sinners at the feet of the Saint. They lay at her knees on either side, Philina between her two children, whom she urged down with demonstrative gracefulness. With her wonted geniality she said — ”I love my husband, my children. I gladly work for them, for others too: forgive the rest.” Makaria saluted and blessed her; she withdrew with a becoming bow.

Lydia lay to the left side of the saintly woman with her face on her breast, weeping bitterly and unable to utter a word. Makaria, interpreting her tears, tapped her on the shoulder as if she would soothe her. Then with pious intent she fervently and repeatedly kissed her head between the parted tresses, as it lay in front of her. Lydia raised herself, first to her knees, then to her feet, and regarded her benefactress with pure joy.

“What has happened to me!” she said; “how do I feel! The heavy painful burden, which deprived me, if not of all consciousness, at least of all reflection, is suddenly lifted from off my head: I can now look upwards freely, direct my thoughts on high, and,” she added after drawing her breath deeply, “I believe my heart will follow.”

At this moment the door opened, and as frequently one too long awaited will suddenly and unexpectedly appear, Montan came in. Lydia stepped gleefully up to him, embraced him joyfully, and as she led him to Makaria, she exclaimed, “He shall know how he is indebted to this divine one, and gratefully kneel down with me.”

Montan, surprised, and contrary to his usual custom somewhat embarrassed, said with a graceful bow towards the worthy lady, “It seems to be a great deal; for I become your debtor. It is the first time that you have come frankly and lovingly to me, the first time that you have pressed me to your heart, although I have long deserved it.”

We must now confidentially disclose that Montan had loved Lydia from her early youth, that the more engaging Lothario had enticed her from him, but that he had remained faithful to her and to his friend, and at last, probably to the no small surprise of our earlier readers, had gained her for his wife.

All these three, who would not have been able to feel quite at ease in European society, scarcely placed limits to the expression of their joy when the expected settlement abroad was spoken of. Philina’s scissors were already snipping; for she was thinking of securing the monopoly of providing this new colony with articles of apparel. Philina described very prettily the large store of cloth and linen, and snipped in the air, “already beholding,” she said, “the harvest for scythe and sickle before her.”

Lydia, on the other hand, only now by that happy blessing awakened again to sympathetic love, saw already in spirit her scholars increasing a hundredfold, and a whole population of housewives led on and stirred up to exactitude and elegance. The earnest Montan too has all the mineral wealth of those regions in lead, copper, iron and coal before his eyes, to such an extent that he is often ready to declare all his knowledge and ability as mere painful groping experiment towards the rich remunerative harvest that he there should first boldly gather in.

That Montan would soon be on good terms with our astronomer was to be foreseen. The discussions which they carried on in Makaria’s presence were attractive in the highest degree. However, we find but little of them to write down, Angela having been for some time less attentive in listening and more careless in writing them out. Much of it too might seem to her too general, and not sufficiently comprehensible for a young lady. We therefore insert in passing only a few of the utterances of those days which have come to us — in no case in her handwriting.

In the study of the sciences, particularly those that deal with nature, it is as necessary as it is difficult to inquire whether that which has been handed down to us from the past, and regarded as valid by our ancestors, is really to be relied on to such a degree that we may continue to build upon it safely in the future; or whether traditionary knowledge has become only stationary, and hence occasions inertia rather than progress. There is one characteristic that furthers this inquiry — whether, namely, the received results are being, and have been, and remain influential in and promotive of active endeavor.

The testing of the new stands in the opposite case — when one has to ask whether what is received is real profit or only fashionable conformity. For an opinion emanating from energetic men spreads like contagion throughout the crowd, and then it is said to be prevalent — an assumption that to the true inquirer expresses no idea. Church and State may at any rate have reasons to declare themselves dominant; for they have to do with the recalcitrant multitude, and if only order is kept, it is all the same by what means; but in the sciences absolute freedom is necessary; for then one is working not for to-day and to-morrow, but for an endlessly progressive succession of years.

But, moreover, if in science the false gets the upper hand, yet there will always remain a minority for the true; and if it should contract into one single spirit it would not matter: he will work his way in silence, in secret, and a time will come when people will inquire about him and his convictions, or when with the general diffusion of enlightenment they will venture to present themselves again.

But a subject less general, though incomprehensible and extraordinary, that came under discussion, was Montan’s casual disclosure that in his mountain and mining investigations he was assisted by a being who displayed the most wonderful qualities, and a quite peculiar relation to everything that one might call stone, mineral — even in general, an element. This being felt not only a great effect from waters flowing underground, from metalliferous layers and veins, as well as coal measures, and aught else of the sort that lay together in masses, but, what was more wonderful, it felt different and again different as soon as it merely changed its soil. The different sorts of mountains exercised a special influence upon it, about which since he had managed to produce a language which was strange enough, but at the same time sufficient, he was able to arrive at a clear understanding with it and test it in details, when it stood the test in a remarkable way, being able as it was to distinguish chemical as well as physical elements by the feeling, nay, even distinguishing by look alone the heavier from the lighter substances. This being, about whose sex he would not disclose himself more plainly, he has sent forward with the departing friends, and he hoped a good deal from it in furtherance of his aims in the unexplored districts.

This confidence on the part of Montan opened the stern heart of the astronomer, who accordingly, with Makaria’s consent, revealed to him in return her relation to the planetary system. By the aid of later communications by the astronomer we are in a position to impart, if not adequately, at any rate the chief point of their conversations on such important subjects.

Let us, in the meanwhile, admire the similarity of the cases here occurring, together with the greatest diversity. One friend, in order not to become a Timon, had plunged himself into the deepest caverns of the earth; and even there he was aware that in human nature there is something analogous to what is most rigid and uncouth. To the other, on the contrary, Makaria’s spirit gave an instance of the fact that as in the former case, tarrying, so in this case distant removal, is the attribute of gifted natures; and that it is necessary neither to penetrate to the centre of the earth, nor to remove beyond the limits of our solar system, but that they are already sufficiently occupied, and in particular made attentive to action and summoned to it. Upon and in the soil is found matter for the highest earthly requirements, a world full of material, handed over to the manipulation of man’s highest faculties; but upon that spiritual road sympathy, love and orderly free activity are always found. To reconcile these two worlds with one another, to make manifest their double-sided peculiarities in the passing phenomenon of life, is the highest form to which man can develop himself.

Hereupon the two friends made a contract, and undertook in any case not to conceal their experiences; for he who could smile at them as tales well suited for a romance, might still continue to regard them as a symbol of all that was most worthy to be desired.

The departure of Montan and his ladies soon followed, and if he and Lydia had been very welcome, yet the too-restless Philina was tiresome to a number of young ladies accustomed to repose and order, but particularly to the noble-minded Angela; moreover, several other circumstances combined to increase the discomfort.

We have already had occasion to remark that Angela did not fulfil as before the duty of attending and taking notes, but seemed to be otherwise occupied. To explain this anomaly in a person so given to order, and moving in the most refined of circles, we are compelled, late as it is, to introduce a new actor in this comprehensive drama.

Our old and tried merchant-friend Werner was compelled, with the growth, nay, with the so-to-say unlimited increase of his business, to look around for other assistants, whom, not without special previous testing, he attached more nearly to himself. Such a one he now sends to Makaria, to treat about the payment of important sums of money which this lady out of her large means determined and promised to devote to the new undertaking, with especial reference to her favorite Lenardo. The above-mentioned young man, now Werner’s assistant and partner, a lively natural youth, and a perfect phenomenon, recommends himself by a singular talent, an unlimited readiness at calculation in every case, and especially with the undertakers as they are now working together, when they must needs occupy themselves closely with calculations in the manifold senses of a business reckoning and ascertain their balance.

Even in daily society where, in discussion about matters of the world, the conversation is of numbers, sums, and balances, such a man must be in the highest degree welcome as a colleague. Moreover, he played the piano very gracefully — in which calculation, united and combined with an amiable natural disposition, is extremely helpful. The tones flow lightly and harmoniously together, but he often hints that he would also be at home in deeper regions; and thus he becomes most highly attractive whilst he says little, and scarcely a symptom of feelings transpires through his conversation. In any case he is younger than his years; something childlike might almost be attributed to him. And whatever else may be said of him, he has gained Angela’s favor, and she his, to Makaria’s great content, for she had long wished to see the noble girl married.

The latter, however, always thoughtful, and feeling how difficult it would be to fill her place, had already declined an offer of love from some one or other, and perhaps even done violence to a secret affection; but since a successor had been contemplated, nay, to some extent already appointed, she seems to have been taken unawares by a favorable impression, and to have resigned herself even passionately to it.

But we now reach the point of disclosing the most important thing, since all that has so long been our theme has little by little been shaped, resolved, and put into form again. Accordingly, it has been determined for the future that the Fair-good-one, otherwise called the Nut-brown Maid, shall attach herself to Makaria. The plan, submitted in a general sense to Lenardo, and also approved by him, is quite near to its execution: all the parties to it are agreed: the Fair-good-one: hands over all her property to her factotum. He marries the second daughter in the industrious family, and becomes the loomfitter’s brother-in-law. By this means the complete establishment of a factory with the aid of local and co-operative effort becomes possible, and the inhabitants of the labor-loving valley are busied in another and more lively fashion. Thus the amiable woman is made free; she comes to Makaria in Angela’s place, who is already betrothed to the young man above mentioned. Thus, for the moment, all is set straight; what cannot be decided remains in suspense.

But now the Fair-good-one desires that Wilhelm shall fetch her away; certain circumstances have still to be adjusted; and she sets a great value simply on this, that that which he in point of fact began, he shall complete. He first found her out, and a wonderful destiny set Lenardo upon his track; and now he — so she wishes — must lighten her departure, and so experience the pleasure, the satisfaction of having himself gathered up and knotted the ravelled threads of fate.

But now, in order to bring the spiritual, the moral, to a sort of completion, we must also reveal something more secret — in fact what follows: Lenardo had never made the slightest utterance about a closer connection with the Fair-good-one; but in the course of the negotiations, during the many messages to and fro, some inquiry had in a delicate way been made of her, as to how she would regard such a connection, and what, at any rate, if it should come to words, she would be inclined to do. From her reply could be gathered thus much, that she did not feel herself worthy to respond to such affection as that of her noble-minded friend by the bestowal of her divided self; kindness of such sort deserved a woman’s whole soul, all her faculties; but that she could not offer. The recollection of her lover, her husband, and the reciprocal union of both, was still so vivid within her, still occupied her whole being so completely, that no space for love and passion was conceivable, and that only the purest good-will, and on this occasion the most perfect gratitude, remained for her. With this they remained content, and as Lenardo had had no hand in the incident, it was not even necessary to give any explanation or answer about it.

A few general considerations will, it may be hoped, be in place here. The relation of all the foregoing personages to Makaria was confidential and reverent. They all felt the presence of a higher being, and yet in this presence every one retained the freedom of appearing quite in his own nature. Every one shows himself as he is, more than ever before parents and friends, with a certain confidence; for he has been enticed and prompted to bring to light only the good, the best that is in him; hence arose an almost general satisfaction.

But we cannot refrain from saying that, throughout these in some measure distracting circumstances, Makaria remained occupied with Lenardo’s position. She expressed herself on the subject to her intimates, to Angela and the astronomer. She believed that she plainly saw Lenardo’s mind before her. For the moment he is satisfied: the object of his solicitude is in the highest degree fortunate; Makaria had provided for the future in any circumstances. He had now to enter boldly upon and begin the great business, and leave the rest to the future and to fate. And here it might be supposed that he was chiefly fortified in this undertaking by the thought of summoning her over, if not even fetching her himself, as soon as ever he had established his footing.

Some general remarks cannot be withheld here. The strange case which here arose — passion developed from conscientiousness — was more closely observed. At the same time other instances of the wonderful transformation of impressions once received, the mysterious development of innate inclination and longing, were recalled: that in such cases there was little to be done was regretted, but it would be found in the highest degree advisable to keep as clear as possible, and not yield unconditionally to this or that connection.

But, this point reached, we cannot resist the temptation to communicate from our archives a paper which concerns Makaria and the special property which was bestowed on her mind. Unfortunately this memorandum was written from memory only some time after it was communicated, and is not, as would be desirable in so remarkable a case, to be looked upon as authentic. Be that as it may, however, so much is imparted here as will arouse reflection and recommend attention as to whether something similar or approximate has not been, somewhere or other, noted and recorded.

CHAPTER XV.

Makaria is found to be in a relation to our solar system which one may hardly venture to express. In the spirit, the soul, the imagination, she cherishes it; she not only contemplates it, but forms as it were a part of it. She sees herself drawn onward in those heavenly orbits, but in a manner quite peculiar; she has revolved round the sun since her childhood, and in fact, as is now discerned, in a spiral continually receding from the central point and circling towards the outer regions.

If it may be assumed that beings in so far as they are corporeal tend towards the centre, in so far as they are spiritual towards the circumference, then our friend belongs to the most spiritual; she seems born only to disengage herself from the earthly, to penetrate to the nearest and most distant spaces of existence. This peculiar quality, glorious as it is, was laid on her, from her earliest years, as a weighty responsibility. From childhood she remembers her innermost self, as penetrated by luminous beings, irradiated by a light with which the brightest sunshine has nothing in common. She often saw two suns, an inward one, and one without in the heavens; two moons, of which the external one retained its size in all its phases, whilst the inner one diminished ever more and more.

This gift drew her sympathy away from common things; but her excellent parents availed themselves of all means of culture for her. All capabilities were active in her, all modes of activities effective; so that she was able to satisfy all external relations; and whilst her heart, her mind was entirely filled with super-mundane vision, her actions and conduct still remained ever conformable to the noblest morality. As she grew up, helpful everywhere, unremitting in great and small services, she moved like an angel of God upon earth, whilst her spiritual whole moved it is true around the natural sun, but with respect to the supernatural one in ever-widening circles.

The excessive plenitude of this condition was in some degree relieved by the fact that there also seemed to be an alternation of day and night in her; for when the inner light was diminished she strove to fulfil her outer duties most faithfully, and on a fresh refulgence within resigned herself to the most blissful repose. Nay, she has remarked that a sort of clouds have from time to time hovered round her, and shared for a period the aspect of her heavenly companions — an epoch which she has always contrived to employ for the benefit or pleasure of her friends.

As long as she kept her visions secret, it was no small matter to support them. What she revealed of them was not acknowledged or was misinterpreted: she therefore allowed it to pass to the outer world as a malady: and it is still always so spoken of in the family. But at last good fortune brought to her the man whom you see with us, equally estimable as physician, mathematician and astronomer, a thoroughly noble man who yet at first really found his way to her from curiosity. But as she gained confidence in him to gradually describe her condition to him, when she had joined the present with the past, and introduced a continuity into the circumstances, he was so possessed by the phenomenon that he could no longer separate from her, but every day tried to penetrate more deeply into the secret.

At first, as he not indistinctly hinted, he held it to be an illusion: for she did not deny that from earliest youth she had diligently occupied herself with the science of stars and sky, that she had become well-informed in that respect, and never lost an opportunity of making, by the aid of instruments and books, the structure of the universe clearer to her senses. He was therefore not to be dissuaded but that it was acquired; the effect of a highly disciplined imagination, the influence of memory, was to be suspected, with the co-operation of discriminating power, but especially of a hidden method of calculation.

He is a mathematician and therefore obstinate; a clear mind and therefore incredulous: he remained long on his guard, noticing accurately, however, what she alleged; tried to anticipate the result of several years, attended particularly to the most recent utterances coinciding with the opposition of the heavenly luminaries, and at last exclaimed, “Now, why should not God and Nature create and arrange a living armillary sphere, a spiritual clockwork, such that it should be able to follow, as our clocks do day by day and hour by hour, the course of the stars of its own accord and in its own way.”

But here we do not venture to go further; for the incredible loses its value if we seek to inspect it in closer detail. Yet thus much we do say: what served as the basis of the calculations to be applied was as follows —

To her, the seeress, our sun seemed in her vision much smaller than she saw it by day: moreover an unusual position of this higher luminary in the zodiac gave occasion to some deductions.

On the other hand doubt and bewilderment arose, because the observer indicated one star or another as likewise appearing in the zodiac, but of which nothing could be perceived in the sky. It might be the small planets at that time still undiscovered: for from other utterances it could be gathered that, having long ago crossed the orbit of Mars she was nearing that of Jupiter. She had manifestly for a long time been contemplating with astonishment, it would be hard to say at what distance, this planet in its tremendous glory, and had beheld the motion of its moons about it, but had afterwards seen him in the strangest guise as a waning moon, and in fact reversed, as the waxing moon appears to us. From this it was concluded that she saw him from the side, and was actually on the point of crossing his orbit, and striving towards Saturn in the illimitable space. Thither no imagination follows her: but we hope that such an entelecheia will not altogether abandon our solar system, but on reaching its boundaries will long to return to influence again the life and well-being of the earth for the benefit of our descendants.

Whilst we herewith conclude, in the hope of pardon, this ethereal poem, let us turn back to that terrestrial fable of which we have given a passing indication above.

Montan had given out with the greatest appearance of truth that that extraordinary person who was able to indicate so well by feeling the differences of the material of the earth, had already gone abroad with the first of the emigrants; a statement, however, which to the thoughtful must have seemed altogether unlikely. For how could Montan and others of his sort have let so handy a divining-rod go from his side? Moreover, soon after his departure, by the aid of gossip and special tales of the under house-servants on the subject, a general suspicion arose. For Philina and Lydia had brought with them a third person under the pretence that she was a servant, for which however she did not seem to be in the least adapted: and besides she was never wanted when the ladies dressed or undressed. Her simple costume clothed the compact, well-knit body very neatly, but like the whole of her person gave an indication of rusticity. Her behavior without being rough showed none of the culture of society, of which ladies’-maids generally offer a caricature. Moreover she soon found her place amongst the servants; she associated herself with the garden and field-servants, laid hold of the spade and worked like two or three. If she got hold of the rake, it flew in the nimblest way over the upturned earth, and the widest space resembled a well-levelled flower-bed. In other respects she kept herself quiet and very soon won universal good-will. They would talk to each other about her, and say that she had often been seen to lay down her implement and run across the fields over stock and stone to a hidden spring where she could quench her thirst. This practice she had repeated daily, contriving, from any point at which she happened to be standing, always to find out some pure running water or other, whenever she had need of it.

And thus a witness to Montan’s statement had remained behind. He, probably in order to avoid troublesome trials and inadequate testings, determined to conceal the presence of so remarkable a person from his noble hosts, who would otherwise have well deserved such confidence. We, however, have wished to communicate, even incompletely as it lies before us, what has come to our knowledge, with the friendly intention of directing the observation of men of research to similar cases, which present themselves, by some sort of indication, perhaps more often than one would think.

CHAPTER XVI.

The steward of the castle which but a short time since we saw enlivened by our travellers, active and dexterous by nature, always keeping before his eyes his employers’ interest and his own, was now sitting contentedly making up accounts and reports, in which he was at pains to bring out and to display separately with some complacency the great advantages that had accrued to his district during the presence of these guests. But this, according to his own persuasion, was only the least: he had remarked what great results emanate from active, able, liberal-minded, and bold men. Some had taken their leave, to settle beyond the seas; others to gain their livelihood upon the mainland: he was now aware of yet a third secret relation, which he at once resolved to turn to account.

At their departure it became evident (as could have been foreseen and known) that many of the stalwart young men had become more or less friendly with the pretty girls of the village and the neighborhood — only a few showed courage enough, when Odoard went away with his followers, to declare definitely that they would remain. Of Lenardo’s emigrants not one stayed, but of these latter several declared that in a short time they would return and settle down, if they could be provided in some measure with a sufficient subsistence, and security for the future.

The steward, who was perfectly well acquainted with every individual and the domestic circumstances of the little population that was subject to him, laughed quietly like a true egoist, at the circumstance that such great preparations and expenses should be incurred for the purpose of showing themselves free and active beyond seas and inland, and yet should thereby bring him, who had sat quite still on his acres, just the greatest advantages to house and home, and give him an opportunity of keeping back and collecting round himself some of the best. His thoughts, enlarged by present circumstances, found nothing more natural than that liberality well applied would have worthy and profitable consequences. He immediately formed the resolution of undertaking something like it in his own little district. Fortunately some well-to-do inhabitants were now as it were compelled to resign their daughters legally to the too premature husbands. The steward made such a social mishap comprehensible to them as a fortunate occurrence: and since it was really fortunate that this lot had fallen upon the artisans who would with this intent be most useful, it was not difficult to make a beginning with a furniture-factory, which needs no wide space or great surroundings, but only requires dexterity and sufficient material. The last the steward promised: wives, space and custom the inhabitants provided, and the immigrants brought dexterity with them.

All this the clever man of business had already well thought over in private during the stay and in the turmoil of the crowd: and therefore, as soon as there was quiet around him, he could immediately proceed to work.

Peace, in truth a sort of death-like peace, had fallen on the village streets, on the castle courtyard, after the rush of this flood, when a horseman galloping in upon our calculating and scheming man of business, called out to him and roused him from his peaceful frame of mind. It is true that the horses’ hoofs did not clatter, for it was not shod, but the rider, who sprang from the saddle-cloth (he rode without saddle and stirrups, and controlled the horse only by a halter) called loudly and impatiently for the inmates, the guests, and was passionately astonished at finding everything so still and dead.

The steward’s servant knew not what to make of this stranger. When a discussion arose the steward himself came forth, and he too was able to say nothing more than that they had all gone away.

“Whither?” was the question of the vivacious young stranger. With composure, the steward indicated the road of Lenardo and Odoard, and of a third problematical person whom they had partly called Wilhelm, partly Meister. He had embarked upon the river at a few miles distance: he was going down, first to visit his son, and then to follow out further some important business.

The youth already had vaulted again upon the horse, and received information as to the nearest road to the river, when he galloped out of the gateway again and sped away so quickly that the steward, who was looking out of his window overhead, scarcely detected by a flying cloud of dust that the mad rider had taken the right track.

The last cloud of dust had just disappeared in the distance, and our steward was about to sit down again to his business, when a messenger on foot came rushing in at the same gate and asked likewise for the party, to whom he had been sent off in haste to deliver something of importance. He had for them a rather large packet, but in addition to this also a single letter addressed to Wilhelm, called Meister, which had been specially commended to the care of the messenger by a young lady; and the speedy delivery of which had been most stringently urged. Unfortunately he too could receive no other answer than that he found the nest empty, and must therefore proceed on his way with all speed to such place where he might hope to light upon them all together or to obtain some further information.

But the letter itself, which also we have found amongst the many papers intrusted to us, being of the greatest importance, we must not withhold. It was from Hersilia, a young lady as wonderful as she was amiable, who appears only seldom in our communications, but who at every appearance must certainly have attracted irresistibly every one of intellect and refinement. The fate, too, that befalls her, is perhaps the most extraordinary that can befall a tender spirit.

CHAPTER XVII.

Hersilia to Wilhelm.

I was sitting thinking, and could not say what I was thinking about. A thoughtful unthinking, however, often comes over me; it is a sort of conscious indifference. A horse gallops into the courtyard, and rouses me from my repose: the door flies open, and Felix enters in all the splendor of youth, like a little idol. He hastens up to me, and is about to embrace me. I sign him back. He seems indifferent, remains at some distance, and with undisturbed cheerfulness begins to praise the horse that brought him here, and to tell me circumstantially and confidentially about his habits and his pleasures. The recollection of former stories brings us upon the ornamental casket; he knows that I have it, and wishes to see it: I acquiesce, it was impossible to refuse. He looks at it, tells circumstantially how he discovered it. I get confused, and betray the fact that I have the key. Now his curiosity rises to the highest pitch; that too he wishes to see, only at a distance. One could never see anyone beg more urgently and lovingly: he begs and prays, kneels and begs with such fiery, winning eyes, such sweet insinuating words, that I was again over-persuaded. I held up the wondrous secret at a distance, but he quickly caught hold of my hand and snatched it away, springing playfully aside, round a table.

“I have nothing to do with the casket, or the key,” he exclaimed. “It was your heart I wished to open, that it should disclose itself to me, come to me, press itself to me, give me leave to press it to my breast.”

He was infinitely beautiful and lovable, and as I was about to run after him, he kept pushing the casket before him on the table: the key was already in the lock: he threatened to turn it, and turned it really; the key broke off, the outer end fell upon the table.

I was more distracted than can be imagined. He takes advantage of my inattention, leaves the casket lying, rushes at me and seizes me in his arms. I struggled in vain; his eyes approached mine; and it is something lovely to see one’s own form in a loving eye. I saw it for the first time, as he pressed his lips passionately on mine. I must confess it, I gave him his kisses back; it is so lovely to make a person happy. I tore myself away; the gulf that separates us appeared only too plainly to me. Instead of collecting myself, I overshot the mark; I pushed him angrily away; my confusion gave me courage and wit; I threatened, scolded, ordered him never to appear before me again; he believed in the genuineness of my expressions.

“Very well,” said he, “then I will ride out into the world until I perish.”

He threw himself on his horse and galloped away. Still half-dreaming I go to take charge of the casket: the half of the key lay broken off. I found myself in double, triple embarrassment.

O men, O mankind, will you never plant out reason? Had we not enough of the father, who was the cause of so much mischief; did we need the son also, to confuse us irretrievably?

These impressions were lying by me a long time; now a strange circumstance intervenes which I must mention: it clears up and obliterates the foregoing.

An old goldsmith and jeweller, esteemed by my uncle, comes in and exhibits some strange antique treasures. I am instigated to bring out the casket; he looks at the broken key and points out what had hitherto been overlooked, that the fracture was not rough, but smooth. By contact the two ends adhere to one another. He pulls out the key entire; they are magnetically united, hold firmly to each other, but lock only for one who is initiated. The man goes a short distance off; the casket flies open, but he shuts it down again at once: such secrets, he opines, it is not good to meddle with.

My inexplicable condition, thank Heaven, you certainly do not realize; for how should one appreciate the embarrassment, whilst outside the embarrassment. The important casket stands before me; the key which turns not I hold in my hand: the former I would willingly leave unopened, if only the latter would unlock for me the future at hand.

Do not trouble yourself about me for awhile: but I pressingly beg, implore, urgently enjoin, inquire after Felix! I have sent round about in vain, to find out the traces of his path. I know not whether I should bless or dread the day which will bring us together again.

At last, at last, the messenger demands his dismissal; he has been kept here long enough: he is to overtake the wanderers with important despatches. In their company he will doubtless find you too, or they will direct him aright. I, in the meantime, shall not be pacified.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Now was the bark gliding down the river, shone on by the hot noonday sun; gentle breezes cooled the heated ether; soft banks on both sides afforded a very simple yet pleasing prospect. The corn-land was not far from the stream, and a rich soil lay so close to it that the rushing water, at any part where it was precipitated against it, had dealt forcibly with the loose earth, and carrying it off, had formed rugged precipices of considerable height.

Right above, on the most broken edge of such a precipice, where in other circumstances the towing-path would have run, our friend saw a young man, well built, of powerful form, approaching at a trot. But scarcely was he about to take a sharper look at him than the overhanging turf broke loose and the unlucky one is precipitately hurled, horse above, rider beneath, into the water. It was no time to think how and wherefore: the sailors rowed, swift as an arrow, to the surging pool, and in a moment had grasped the beautiful prize. To all appearance lifeless, the beautiful youth lay in the boat, and after a short consultation the expert men rowed to a pebbly osier-ground that had formed itself in mid-stream. To land, to lift the body on to the bank, to strip and dry it, was the work of a moment, but as yet no sign of life was to be seen; the fair flower lay prostrate in their arms!

Wilhelm got hold of the lancet at once to open the vein of the arm: the blood gushed out copiously, and mingling with the winding, glancing waves, it followed the rippling stream. Life returned. The loving surgeon had scarcely time to fix the bandages, when the youth had already boldly raised himself upon his feet, and looking keenly at Wilhelm, cried, “If I am to live let it be with thee!”

With these words he fell on the neck of his recognizing and recognized preserver, and wept bitterly. So they stood in close embrace, like Castor and Pollux: brothers meeting at the turning-point between Orkus and Day.

They begged him to quiet himself. The sturdy men had already prepared a comfortable couch, half in the sun, half in shade, amongst light bushes and twigs: here he was now lying, stretched upon his father’s cloak, the comeliest among youths: brown locks, quickly dried, already curled again; he smiled quietly and fell asleep. Our friend as he covered him over looked down at him with pleasure.

“Art thou then ever reproduced, glorious image of God!” he exclaimed, “and art forthwith disfigured again, injured from within or from without.”

The cloak fell over him: a tempered sun-glow gently and deeply warmed his limbs throughout: his cheeks reddened healthily, he seemed already completely restored.

The active men, rejoicing in a good action well sped, and anticipating the liberal recompense that was to be expected, had already as good as dried the youth’s clothing on the hot shingle, so that as soon as he awoke they might reinstate him in the most becoming condition for society.

The Short Stories

Leipzig University, where Goethe studied law from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead the poetry lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert

Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715-1769), a famous poet and one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature, whose teachings greatly inspired the young Goethe

A TALE

The thick fog of an early autumnal morning obscured the extensive courts which surrounded the prince’s castle, but through the mists, which gradually dispersed, a stranger might observe a cavalcade of huntsmen, consisting of horse and foot, already engaged in their early preparations for the field. The active employments of the domestics were already discernible. These latter were engaged in lengthening and shortening stirrup-leathers, preparing the rifles and ammunition, and arranging the game-bags; whilst the dogs, impatient of restraint, threatened to break away from the slips by which they were held. Then the horses became restive, from their own high mettle, or excited by the spur of the rider, who could not resist the temptation to make a vain display of his prowess, even in the obscurity by which he was surrounded. The cavalcade awaited the arrival of the prince, who was detained a little too long by the tender endearments of his young wife.

Lately married, they thoroughly appreciated the happiness of their own congenial dispositions; both were lively and animated, and each shared with delight the pleasures and pursuits of the other. The prince’s father had already survived and enjoyed that period of life when one learns that all the members of a state should spend their time in diligent employments, and that every one should engage in some energetic occupation corresponding with his taste, and should by this means first acquire, and then enjoy, the fruits of his labour.

How far these maxims had proved successful might have been observed on this very day, for it was the anniversary of the great market in the town, a festival which might indeed be considered a species of fair. The prince had on the previous day conducted his wife on horseback through the busy scene, and had caused her to observe what a convenient exchange was carried on between the productions of the mountainous districts and those of the plain, and he took occasion then and there to direct her attention to the industrious character of his subjects.

But whilst the prince was entertaining himself and his courtiers almost exclusively with subjects of this nature, and was perpetually employed with his finance minister, his chief huntsman did not lose sight of his duty, and upon his representation it was impossible, during these favorable autumnal days, any longer to postpone the amusement of the chase, as the promised meeting had already been several times deferred, not only to his own mortification, but to that of many strangers who had arrived to take part in the sport.

The princess remained, reluctantly, at home. It had been determined to hunt over the distant mountains, and to disturb the peaceful inhabitants of the forests in those districts by an unexpected declaration of hostilities.

Upon taking his departure, the prince recommended his wife to seek amusement in equestrian exercise, under the conduct of her uncle Frederick; “and I commend you, moreover,” he said, “to the care of our trusty Honorio, who will act as your esquire, and pay you every attention:” and saying this as he descended the stairs, and gave the proper instructions to a comely youth who stood at hand, the prince quickly disappeared amid the crowd of assembled guests and followers.

The princess, who had continued waving her handkerchief to her husband as long as he remained in the court-yard, now retired to an apartment at the back of the castle, which showed an extensive prospect over the mountain, as the castle itself was situated on the brow of the hill, from which a view at once distant and varied opened in all directions. She found the telescope in the spot where it had been left on the previous evening, when they had amused themselves in surveying the landscape and the extent of mountain and forest amid which the lofty ruins of their ancestral castle were situated. It was a noble relic of ancient times, and shone out gloriously in the evening illumination. A grand but somewhat inadequate idea of its importance was conveyed by the large masses of light and shadow which now fell upon it. Moreover, by the aid of the telescope, the autumnal foliage was seen to lend an indescribable charm to the prospect, as it waved upon trees which had grown up amid the ruins, undisturbed and unmolested for countless years. But the princess soon turned the telescope in the direction of a dry and sandy plain beneath her, across which the hunting cavalcade was expected to bend its course. She patiently surveyed the spot, and was at length rewarded, as the clear magnifying power of the instrument enabled her delighted eyes to recognize the prince and his chief equerry. Upon this she once more waved her handkerchief as she observed, or rather fancied she observed, a momentary pause in the advance of the procession.

Her uncle Frederick was now announced, and he entered the apartment, accompanied by an artist, bearing a large portfolio under his arm.

“Dear cousin,” observed the worthy knight, addressing her, “we have brought some sketches of the ancestral castle for your inspection, to show how the old walls and battlements were calculated to afford defence and protection in stormy seasons and in years gone by, though they have tottered in some places, and in others have covered the plain with their ruins. Our efforts have been unceasing to render the place accessible, since few spots offer more beauty or sublimity to the eye of the astonished traveller.”

The prince continued, as he opened the portfolio containing the different views: “Here, as you ascend the hollow way, through the outer fortifications, you meet the principal tower, and a rock forbids all further progress. It is the firmest of the mountain range. A castle has been erected upon it, so constructed that it is difficult to say where the work of nature ceases and the aid of art begins. At a little distance, side-walls and buttresses have been raised, the whole forming a sort of terrace. The height is surrounded by a wood. For upwards of a century and a half, no sound of an axe has been heard within these precincts, and giant trunks of trees appear on all sides. Close to the very walls spring the glossy maple, the rough oak and the tall pine. They oppose our progress with their boughs and roots, and compel us to make a circuit to secure our advance. See how admirably our artist has sketched all this upon paper; how accurately he has represented the trees as they become entwined amid the masonry of the castle, and thrust their boughs through the opening in the walls. It is a solitude which possesses the indescribable charm of displaying the traces of human power long since passed away, contending with perpetual and still reviving nature.”

Opening a second picture, he continued his discourse: “What say you to this representation of the castle court, which has been rendered impassable for countless years by the falling of the principal tower? We endeavored to approach it from the side, and in order to form a convenient private road were compelled to blow up the old walls and vaults with gunpowder. But there was no necessity for similar operations within the castle walls. Here is a flat rocky surface which has been levelled by the hand of nature, through which, however, mighty trees have here and there been able to strike their roots. They have thriven well, and thrust their branches into the very galleries where the knights of old were wont to exercise, and have forced their way through doors and windows into vaulted halls, from which they are not likely now to be expelled, and whence we, at least, shall not remove them. They have become lords of the territory, and may remain so. Concealed beneath heaps of dried leaves we found a perfectly level floor, which probably cannot be equalled in the world.

“In ascending the steps which lead to the chief tower, it is remarkable to observe, in addition to all that we have mentioned above, how a maple tree has taken root on high, and has grown to a great size, so that in ascending to the highest turret to enjoy the prospect, it is difficult to pass. And here you may refresh yourself beneath the shade, for even at this elevation the tree of which we speak throws its shadows over all around.

“We feel much indebted to the talented artist who, in the course of several views, has brought thus the whole scenery as completely before us as if we had actually witnessed the original scene. He selected the most beautiful hours of the day and the most favorable season of the year for his task, to which he devoted many weeks incessantly. A small dwelling was erected for him and his assistant in a corner of the castle; you can scarcely imagine what a splendid view of the country, of the court, and of the ruins he there enjoyed. We intend these pictures to adorn our country-house, and every one who enjoys a view of our regular parterres, of our bowers and shady walks, will doubtless feel anxious to feed his imagination and his eyes with an actual inspection of these scenes, and so enjoy at once the old and the new, the firm and the pliant, the indestructible and the young, the perishable and the eternal.”

Honorio now entered and announced the arrival of the horses. The princess thereupon addressing her uncle, expressed a wish to ride up to the ruins and examine personally the subjects which he had so graphically described. “Ever since my arrival here,” she said, “this excursion has been intended, and I shall be delighted to accomplish what has been declared almost impracticable, and what the pictures show to be so difficult.”

“Not yet, my dear,” replied the prince; “these pictures only portray what the place will become; but many difficulties impede a commencement of the work.”

“But let us ride a little towards the mountain,” she rejoined, “if only to the beginning of the ascent; I have a great desire to-day to enjoy an extensive prospect.”

“Your desire shall be gratified,” answered the prince.

“But we will first direct our course through the town,” continued the lady, “and across the market-place, where a countless number of booths wear the appearance of a small town, or of an encampment. It seems as if all the wants and occupations of every family in the country were brought together and supplied in this one spot; for the attentive observer may behold here whatever man can produce or require. You would suppose that money was wholly unnecessary, and that business of every kind could be carried on by means of barter; and such in fact is the case. Since the prince directed my attention to this view yesterday, I have felt pleasure in observing the manner in which the inhabitants of the mountain and of the valley mutually comprehend each other, and how both so plainly speak their wants and their wishes in this place. The mountaineer, for example, has cut the timber of his forests into a thousand forms, and applied his iron to multifarious uses, while the inhabitant of the valley meets him with his various wares and merchandise, the very materials and object of which it is difficult to know or to conjecture.”

“I am aware,” observed the prince, “that my nephew devotes his attention wholly to these subjects, for at this particular season of the year he receives more than he expends; and this after all is the object and end of every national financier, and indeed of the pettiest household economist. But excuse me, my dear, I never ride with any pleasure through the market or the fair; obstacles impede one at every step, and my imagination continually recurs to that dreadful calamity which happened before my own eyes, when I witnessed the conflagration of as large a collection of merchandise as is accumulated here. I had scarcely — ”

“Let us not lose our time,” said the princess, interrupting him, as her worthy uncle had more than once tortured her with a literal account of the very same misfortune. It had happened when he was upon a journey, and had retired fatigued to bed, in the best hotel of the town, which was situated in the marketplace. It was the season of the fair, and in the dead of the night he was awakened by screams and by the columns of fire which approached the hotel.

The princess hastened to mount her favorite palfrey, and led the way for her unwilling companion, when she rode through the front gate down the hill, in place of passing through the back gate up the mountain. But who could have felt unwilling to ride at her side or to follow wherever she led? And even Honorio had gladly abandoned the pleasure of his favorite amusement, the chase, in order to officiate as her devoted attendant.

As we have before observed, they could only ride through the market step by step, but the amusing observations of the princess rendered every pause delightful. “I must repeat my lesson of yesterday,” she remarked, “for necessity will try our patience.” And in truth the crowd pressed upon them in such a manner, that they could only continue their progress at a very slow pace. The people testified unbounded joy at beholding the young princess, and the complete satisfaction of many a smiling face evinced the pleasure of the people at finding that the first lady in the land was at once the most lovely and the most gracious.

Mingled together promiscuously were rude mountaineers who inhabited quiet cottages amongst bleak rocks and towering pine trees, lowlanders from the plains and meadows, and manufacturers from the neighboring small towns. After quietly surveying the motley crowd, the princess remarked to her companion that all the people she saw seemed to take delight in using more stuff for their garments than was necessary, whether it consisted of cloth, linen, ribbon or trimming. It seemed as if the wearers, both men and women, thought they would be the better if they looked a little larger.

“We must leave that matter to themselves,” answered the uncle; “every man must dispose of his superfluity as he pleases; well for those who spend it in mere ornament.”

The princess nodded her assent.

They had now arrived at a wide open square which led to one of the suburbs; they there perceived a number of small booths and stalls, and also a large wooden building from whence a most discordant howling issued. It was the feeding hour of the wild animals which were there enclosed for exhibition. The lion roared with that fearful voice with which he was accustomed to terrify both woods and wastes. The horses trembled, and no one could avoid observing how the monarch of the deserts made himself terrible in the tranquil circles of civilized life. Approaching nearer, they remarked the tawdry colossal pictures on which the beasts were painted in the brightest colors, intended to afford irresistible temptation to the busy citizen. The grim and fearful tiger was in the act of springing upon a negro to tear him to pieces. The lion stood in solemn majesty as if he saw no worthy prey before him. Other wonderful creatures in the same group presented inferior attractions.

“Upon our return,” said the princess, “we will alight and take a nearer inspection of these rare creatures.”

“Is it not extraordinary,” replied the prince, “that man takes pleasure in fearful excitements? The tiger, for instance, is lying quietly enough within his cage, and yet here the brute must be painted in the act of springing fiercely on a negro, in order that the public may believe that the same scene is to be witnessed within. Do not murder and death, fire and desolation, sufficiently abound, but that every mountebank must repeat such horrors? The worthy people like to be alarmed, that they may afterwards enjoy the delightful sensation of freedom and security.”

But whatever feelings of terror such frightful representations might have inspired, they disappeared when they reached the gate, and surveyed the cheerful prospects around. The road led down to a river, a narrow brook in truth, and only calculated to bear light skiffs, but destined afterwards, when swelled into a wider stream, to take another name, and to water distant lands. They then bent their course further through carefully cultivated fruit and pleasure gardens, in an orderly and populous neighborhood, until first a copse and then a wood received them as guests, and delighted their eyes with a limited but charming landscape. A green valley leading to the heights above, which had been lately mowed for the second time, and wore the appearance of velvet, having been watered copiously by a rich stream, now received them with a friendly welcome. They then bent their course to a higher and more open spot, which, upon issuing from the wood, they reached after a short ascent, and whence they obtained a distant view of the old castle, the object of their pilgrimage, which shone above the groups of trees, and assumed the appearance of a well-wooded rock. Behind them (for no one ever attained this height without turning to look round) they saw through occasional openings in the lofty trees the prince’s castle on the left, illuminated by the morning sun; the higher portion of the town obscured by a light cloudy mist, and on the right hand, the lower part through which the river flowed in many windings, with its meadows and its mills; whilst straight before them the country extended in a wide productive plain.

After they had satisfied their eyes with the landscape, or rather, as is often the case in surveying an extensive view from an eminence, when they had become desirous of a wider and less circumscribed prospect, they rode slowly along a broad and stony plain, where they saw the mighty ruin standing with its coronet of green, whilst its base was clad with trees of lesser height; and proceeding onwards they encountered the steepest and most impassable side of the ascent. It was defended by enormous rocks which had endured for ages; proof against the ravages of time, they were fast rooted in the earth and towered aloft. One part of the castle had fallen, and lay in huge fragments irregularly massed, and seemed to act as an insurmountable barrier, the mere attempt to overcome which is a delight to youth, as supple limbs ever find it a pleasure to undertake, to combat and to conquer. The princess seemed disposed to make the attempt; Honorio was at hand: her princely uncle assented, unwilling to acknowledge his want of agility. The horses were directed to wait for them under the trees, and it was intended they should make for a certain point where a large rock had been rendered smooth, and from which a prospect was beheld, which, though of the nature of a bird’s-eye view, was sufficiently picturesque.

It was midday; the sun had attained its highest altitude, and shed its clearest rays around; the princely castle in all its parts, battlements, wings, cupolas and towers presented a glorious appearance. The upper part of the town was seen in its full extent, the eye could even penetrate into parts of the lower town, and with the assistance of the telescope distinguish the market-place, and even the very booths. It was Honorio’s invariable custom to sling this indispensable instrument to his side. They took a view of the river, in its course and its descent, and of the sloping plain, and of the luxuriant country with its gentle undulations, and then of the numerous villages, for it had been from time immemorial a subject of contention how many could be counted from this spot.

Over the wide plain there reigned a calm stillness, such as is accustomed to rule at midday — an hour when, according to classical phraseology, the god Pan sleeps, and all nature is breathless, that his repose may be undisturbed.

“It is not the first time,” observed the princess, “that, standing upon an eminence which presents a wide extended view, I have thought how pure and peaceful is the look of holy nature, and the impression comes upon me that the world beneath must be free from strife and care; but returning to the dwellings of man, be they the cottage or the palace, be they wide or circumscribed, we find that there is in truth ever something to subdue, to struggle with, to quiet and allay.”

Honorio, in the meantime, had directed the telescope towards the town, and now exclaimed, “Look, look! the town is on fire in the market-place.”

They looked and saw a column of smoke arising, but the glare of daylight eclipsed the flames. “The fire increases,” they exclaimed, still looking through the instrument. The princess saw the calamity with the naked eye; from time to time they perceived a red flame ascending amid the smoke. Her uncle at length exclaimed, “Let us return; it is calamitous. I have always feared the recurrence of such a misfortune.”

They descended, and having reached the horses, the princess thus addressed her old relative, “Ride forward, sir, hastily with your attendant, but leave Honorio with me, and we will follow.”

Her uncle perceived the prudence and utility of this advice, and riding on as quickly as the nature of the ground would allow, descended to the open plain. The princess mounted her steed, upon which Honorio addressed her thus: “I pray your highness to ride slowly; the fire-engines are in the best order, both in the town and in the castle, there can surely be no mistake or error even in so unexpected an emergency. Here, however, the way is dangerous, and riding is insecure, from the small stones and the smooth grass, and, in addition, the fire will no doubt be extinguished before we reach the town.”

But the princess indulged no such hope; she saw the smoke ascend, and thought she perceived a flash of lightning and heard a thunder-clap, and her mind was filled with the frightful pictures of the conflagration which her uncle’s oft-repeated narrative had impressed upon her.

That calamity had indeed been dreadful, sudden and impressive enough to make one apprehensive for the repetition of a like misfortune. At midnight a fearful fire had broken out in the market-place, which was filled with booths and stalls, before the occupants of those temporary habitations had been roused from their deep slumber. The prince himself, after a weary day’s journey, had retired to rest, but rushing to the window perceived with dismay the flames which raged around on every side and approached the spot where he stood. The houses of the market-place, crimsoned with the reflection, appeared already to burn, and threatened every instant to burst out into a general conflagration. The fierce element raged irresistibly, the beams and rafters crackled, whilst countless pieces of consumed linen flew aloft, and the burnt and shapeless rags sported in the air and looked like foul demons revelling in their congenial element. With loud cries of distress, each individual endeavored to rescue what he could from the flames. Servants and assistants vied with their masters in their efforts to save the huge bales of goods already half consumed, to tear what still remained uninjured from the burning stalls, and to pack it away in chests, although they were even then compelled to abandon their labors and leave the whole to fall a prey to the conflagration. How many wished that the raging blaze would allow but a single moment’s respite, and pausing to consider the possibility of such a mercy, fell victims to their brief hesitation. Many buildings burned on one side, while the other side lay in obscure darkness. A few determined, self-willed characters bent themselves obstinately to the task of saving something from the flames, and suffered for their heroism. The whole scene of misery and devastation was renewed in the mind of the beautiful princess; her countenance was clouded, which had beamed so radiantly in the early morning; her eyes had lost their lustre, and even the beautiful woods and meadows around now looked sad and mournful.

Riding onwards she entered the sweet valley, but she felt uncheered by the refreshing coolness of the place. She had, however, not advanced far, before she observed an unusual appearance in the copse near the meadow where the sparkling brook which flowed through the adjacent country took its rise. She at once recognized a tiger couched in the attitude to spring, as she had seen him represented in the painting. The impression was fearful. “Fly! gracious lady,” cried Honorio, “fly at once!” She turned her horse to mount the steep hill which she had just descended, but her young attendant drew his pistol, and approaching the monster, fired; unfortunately he missed his mark, the tiger leaped aside, the horse started, and the terrified beast pursued his course and followed the princess. The latter urged her horse up the steep stony acclivity, forgetting for a moment that the pampered animal she rode was unused to such exertions. But urged by his impetuous rider the spirited steed made a new effort, till at length, stumbling at an inequality of the ground, after many attempts to recover his footing, he fell exhausted to the ground. The princess released herself from the saddle with great expertness and presence of mind, and brought her horse again to its feet. The tiger was in pursuit at a slow pace. The uneven ground and sharp stones appeared to retard his progress, though as Honorio approached, his speed and strength seemed to be renewed. They now came nearer to the spot where the princess stood by her horse, and Honorio, bending down, discharged a second pistol. This time he was successful and shot the monster through the head. The animal fell, and as he lay stretched upon the ground at full length, gave evidence of that might and terror, which was now reduced to a lifeless form. Honorio had leaped from his horse, and was now kneeling on the body of the huge brute. He had already put an end to his struggles, with the hunting knife which gleamed within his grasp. He looked even more handsome and active than the princess had ever seen him in list or tournament. Thus had he oftentimes driven his bullet through the head of the Turk in the riding-school, piercing his forehead under the turban, and, carried onward by his rapid courser, he had oftentimes struck the Moor’s head to the ground with his shining sabre. In all such knightly feats he was dexterous and successful, and here he had found an opportunity for putting his skill to the test.

“Despatch him quickly,” said the princess faintly, “I fear he may injure you with his claws.”

“There is no danger,” answered the youth, “he is dead enough, and I do not wish to spoil his skin — it shall ornament your sledge next winter.”

“Do not jest at such a time,” continued the princess; “such a moment calls forth every feeling of devotion that can fill the heart.”

“And I never felt more devout than now,” added Honorio, “and therefore are my thoughts cheerful; I only consider how this creature’s skin may serve your pleasure.”

“It would too often remind me of this dreadful moment,” she replied.

“And yet,” answered the youth, with burning cheek, “this triumph is more innocent than that in which the arms of the defeated are borne in proud procession before the conqueror.”

“I shall never forget your courage and skill,” rejoined the princess; “and let me add that you may during your whole life command the gratitude and favor of the prince. But rise, the monster is dead; rise, I say, and let us think what next is to be done.”

“Since I find myself now kneeling before you,” replied Honorio, “let me be assured of a grace, of a favor, which you can bestow upon me. I have oftentimes implored your princely husband for permission to set out upon my travels. He who dares aspire to the good fortune of becoming your guest, should have seen the world. Travellers flock hither from all quarters, and when the conversation turns on some town, or on some peculiar part of the globe, your guests are asked if they have never seen the same. No one can expect confidence who has not seen everything. We must instruct ourselves for the benefit of others.”

“Rise,” repeated the princess; “I can never consent to desire or request anything contrary to the wish of my husband; but, if I mistake not, the cause of your detention here has already been removed. It was the wish of your prince to mark how your character should ripen, and prove worthy of an independent nobleman, who might one day be required to assert his honor abroad, as you have done hitherto here at court, and I doubt not that your present deed of bravery will prove as good a passport as any youth can carry with him through the world.”

The princess had scarcely time to mark that, instead of an expression of youthful delight, a shade of grief now darkened his countenance, and, he could scarcely display his emotion, before a woman approached, climbing the mountain hastily, and leading a boy by the hand. Honorio had just risen from his kneeling posture and seemed lost in thought, when the woman advanced with piercing cries, and immediately flung herself upon the lifeless body of the tiger. Her conduct, no less than her gaudy and peculiar attire, bore evidence that she was the owner and attendant of the animal. The boy by whom she was accompanied was remarkable for his sparkling eyes and jet-black hair. He carried a flute in his hand, and he united his tears to those of his mother, whilst, with a more calm but deep-felt sorrow than she displayed, he knelt quietly at her side.

The violent expression of this wretched woman’s grief was succeeded by a torrent of expostulations, which rushed from her in broken sentences, reminding one of a mountain stream whose course is interrupted by impending rocks. Her natural expressions, short and abrupt, were forcible and pathetic; it would be a vain task to endeavor to translate them into our idiom; we must be satisfied with their general meaning. “They have murdered thee, poor animal, murdered thee without cause. Tamely thou would’st have lain down to await our arrival, for thy feet pained thee, and thy claws were powerless. Thou didst lack thy burning native sun to bring thee to maturity. Thou wert the most beautiful animal of thy kind. Who ever beheld a more noble royal tiger stretched out to sleep, than thou art as thou liest here never to rise again? When in the morning thou awokest at the earliest dawn of day, opening thy wide jaws and stretching out thy ruddy tongue, thou seemedst to us to smile; and even when a growl burst from thee, still didst thou ever playfully take thy food from the hand of a woman, or from the fingers of a child. Long did we accompany thee in thy travels, and long was thy society to us as indispensable as profitable. To us, in very truth, did food come from the ravenous, and sweet refreshment from the strong. But alas! alas! this can never be again!”

She had not quite finished her lamentations, when a troop of horsemen was observed riding in a body over the heights which led from the castle. They were soon recognized as the hunting cavalcade of the prince, and he himself was at their head. Riding amongst the distant hills, they had observed the dark columns of smoke which obscured the atmosphere, and, pushing on over hill and dale, as if in the heat of the chase, they had followed the course indicated by the smoke, which served them as a guide. Rushing forwards, regardless of every obstacle, they had come by surprise upon the astonished group, who presented a remarkable appearance in the opening of the hills. The recognition of each other produced a general surprise, and after a short pause a few words of explanation cleared up the apparent mystery. The prince heard with astonishment the extraordinary occurrence, as he stood surrounded by the crowd of horsemen and pedestrian attendants. There seemed no doubt about the necessary course. Orders and commands were at once issued by the prince.

A stranger now forced his way forward, and appeared within the circle. He was tall in figure, and attired as gaudily as the woman and her child. The members of the family recognized each other with mutual surprise and pain. But the man, collecting himself, stood at a respectful distance from the prince, and addressed him thus: —

“This is not a moment for complaining. My lord and mighty master, the lion has also escaped, and is concealed somewhere here in the mountain; but spare him, I implore you; have mercy upon him, that he may not perish, like this poor animal.”

“The lion escaped!” exclaimed the prince. “Have you found his track?”

“Yes, sire. A peasant in the valley, who needlessly took refuge in a tree, pointed to the direction he had taken — this is the way, to the left; but perceiving a crowd of men and horses before me I became curious to know the occasion of their assembling, and hastened forward to obtain help.”

“Well,” said the prince, “the chase must begin in this direction. Load your rifles; go deliberately to work; no misfortune can happen, if you but drive him into the thick woods below us; but in truth, worthy man, we can scarcely spare your favorite; why were you negligent enough to let him escape?”

“The fire broke out,” replied the other, “and we remained quiet and prepared; it spread quickly round, but raged at a distance from us. We were provided with water in abundance, but suddenly an explosion of gunpowder took place, and the conflagration immediately extended to us and beyond us. We were too precipitate, and are now reduced to ruin.”

The prince was still engaged in issuing his orders, and there was general silence for a moment, when a man was observed flying, rather than running, down from the castle. He was quickly recognized as the watchman of the artist’s studio, whose business it was to occupy the dwelling and to take care of the workmen. Breathless he advanced, and a few words served to announce the nature of his business.

“The lion had taken refuge on the heights, and had lain down in the sunshine behind the lofty walls of the castle. He was reposing at the foot of an old tree in perfect tranquillity. But,” continued the man, in a tone of bitter complaint, “unfortunately, I took my rifle to the town yesterday to have it repaired, or the animal had never risen again; his skin, at least, would have been mine, and I had worn it in triumph for my life.”

The princes whose military experience had often served him in time of need, for he had frequently been in situations where unavoidable danger pressed on every side — observed, in reply to the man, “What pledge can you give that, if we spare your lion, he will do no mischief in the country?”

“My wife and child,” answered the father, hastily, “will quiet him and lead him peacefully along, until I repair his shattered cage, and then we shall keep him harmless and uninjured.”

The child seemed to be looking for his flute. It was that species of instrument which is sometimes called the soft, sweet flute, short in the mouthpiece, like a pipe. Those who understood the art of using it could extract from it the most delicious tones.

In the meantime the prince inquired of the caretaker on which path the lion had ascended the mountain.

“Through the low road,” replied the latter; “it is walled in on both sides, has long been the only passage, and shall continue so. Two footpaths originally led to the same point, but we destroyed them, that there might remain but one way to that castle of enchantment and beauty which is to be formed by the taste and talent of Prince Frederick.”

After a thoughtful pause, during which the prince stood contemplating the child, who continued playing softly on his flute, the former turned towards Honorio, and said:

“Thou hast this day rendered me an essential service; finish the task you have begun. Occupy the narrow road of which we have heard, hold your rifle ready, but do not shoot if you think it likely that the lion may be driven back; but under any circumstances kindle a fire, that he may be afraid to descend in this direction. The man and his wife must answer for the consequences.”

Honorio proceeded without delay to execute the orders he had received.

The child still continued to play upon his flute. He produced no exact melody, as a mere succession of notes followed, without any precise order or artistic arrangement, yet, perhaps for this very reason, the effect seemed replete with enchantment. Every one was delighted with the simple music, when the father, full of a noble enthusiasm, addressed the assembled spectators thus: —

“God has bestowed the gift of wisdom upon the prince, and the power of seeing that all divine works are good, each after its kind. Behold how the rocks stand firm and motionless, proof against the effects of sun and storm. Their summits are crowned with ancient trees, and, elated with the pride of their ornaments, they look round boldly far and wide. But should a part become detached, it no longer appears as before; it breaks into a thousand pieces, and covers the side of the declivity. But even there the pieces find no resting-place; they pursue their course downwards, till the brook receives them, and carries them onward to the river. Thence, unresisting and submissive, their sharp angles having become rounded and smooth, they are borne along with greater velocity from stream to stream, till they finally attain the ocean, in whose mighty depths giants abide and dwarfs abound.

“But who celebrates the praise of the Lord, whom the stars praise from all eternity? Why, however, should we direct our vision so far? Behold the bee, how he makes his provision in harvest time, and constructs a dwelling, rectangular and level, at once the architect and workman. Behold the ant, she knows her way, and loses it not; she builds her habitation of grass and earth and tiny twigs, builds it high and strengthens it with arches, but in vain, — the prancing steed approaches and treads it into nothing, destroying the little rafters and supports of the edifice. He snorts with impatience and with restlessness, for the Lord has formed the horse as companion to the wind, and brother to the storm, that he may carry mankind whither he will. But in the palm forest even he takes to flight. There, in the wilderness, the lion roams in proud majesty; he is monarch of the beasts, and nothing can resist his strength. But man has subdued his valor; the mightiest of animals has respect for the image of God, in which the very angels are formed, and they minister to the Lord and His servants. Daniel trembled not in the lions’ den; he stood full of faith and holy confidence, and the wild roaring of the monsters did not interrupt his pious song.”

This address, which was delivered with an expression of natural enthusiasm, was accompanied by the child’s sweet music. But when his father had concluded, the boy commenced to sing with clear and sonorous voice, and some degree of skill. His parent in the meantime seized his flute, and in soft notes accompanied the child as he sung:

“Hear the Prophet’s song ascending

From the cavern’s dark retreat.

Whilst an Angel, earthward bending,

Cheers his soul with accents sweet.

Fear and terror come not o’er him,

As the lion’s angry brood

Crouch with placid mien before him,

By his holy song subdued.”

The father continued to accompany the verses with his flute, whilst the mother’s voice was occasionally heard to intervene as second.

The effect of the whole was rendered more peculiar and impressive by the child’s frequently inverting the order of the verses. And if he did not, by this artifice, give a new sense and meaning to the whole, he at least highly excited the feelings of his audience:

“Angels o’er us mildly bending,

Cheer us with their voices sweet.

Hark! what strains enchant the ear!

In the cavern’s dark retreat,

Can the Prophet quake with fear?

Holy accents sweetly blending,

Banish ev’ry earthly ill,

Whilst an Angel choir descending

Executes the heavenly will.”

Then all three joined with force and emphasis:

“Since the Eternal eye, far-seeing,

Earth and sea surveys in peace,

Lion shall with lamb agreeing

Live, and angry tempests cease.

Warriors’ sword no more shall lour;

Faith and Hope their fruit shall bear;

Wondrous is the mighty power

Of Love, which pours its soul in prayer.”

The music ceased. Silence reigned around. Each one listened attentively to the dying tones, and now for the first time could one observe and note the general impression. Every listener was overcome, though each was affected in a different manner. The prince looked sorrowfully at his wife, as though he had only just perceived the danger which had lately threatened him, whilst she, leaning upon his arm, did not hesitate to draw forth her embroidered handkerchief to dry the starting tear. It was delightful to relieve her youthful heart from the weight of grief with which she had for some time felt oppressed. A general silence reigned around, and the fears were forgotten which all had experienced both from the conflagration below and the appearance of the formidable lion above.

The repose of the whole company was first interrupted by the prince, who made a signal to lead the horses nearer; he then turned to the woman and addressed her thus: “You think, then, to master the lion wherever you meet him, by the power of your song, assisted by that of the child and the tones of your flute, and believe that you can thus lead him harmless and uninjured to his cage?”

She protested and assured him that she would do so; whereupon a servant was ordered to show her the way to the castle. The prince and a few of his attendants now took their departure hastily, whilst the princess, accompanied by the rest, followed more slowly after. But the mother and the child, accompanied by the servant, who had armed himself with a rifle, hastened to ascend the mountain.

At the very entrance of the narrow road which led to the castle, they found the hunting attendants busily employed in piling together heaps of dry brushwood to kindle a large fire.

“There is no necessity for such precaution,” observed the woman; “all will yet turn out well.”

They perceived Honorio at a little distance from them, sitting upon a fragment of the wall, with his double-barrelled rifle in his lap, prepared as it seemed for every emergency. But he paid little attention to the people who approached; he was absorbed in his own contemplations, and seemed engaged in deepest thought. The woman entreated that he would not permit the fire to be kindled; he, however, paid not the smallest attention to her request. She then raised her voice, and exclaimed with a loud cry: “Thou handsome youth, who killed my tiger, I curse thee not; but spare my lion, and I will bless thee.”

But Honorio was looking upon vacancy; his eyes were bent upon the sun, which had finished its daily course and was now about to set.

“You are looking to the evening,” cried the woman, “and you are right, for there is yet much to do; but hasten, delay not, and you will conquer. But, first of all, conquer yourself.” He seemed to smile a this observation — the woman passed on, but could not avoid looking round to observe him once more. The setting sun had cast a rosy glow upon his countenance; she thought she had never beheld so handsome a youth.

“If your child,” said the attendant, “can, as you imagine, with his fluting and his singing, entice and tranquillize the lion, we shall easily succeed in mastering him; for the ferocious animal has lain down to sleep under the broken arch, through which we have secured a passage into the castle court, as the chief entrance has been long in ruins. Let the child then entice him into the interior, when we can close the gate without difficulty, and the child may, if he please, escape by a small winding staircase, which is situated in one of the corners. We may in the meantime conceal ourselves; but I shall take up a position which will enable me to assist the child at any moment with my rifle.”

“These preparations are all needless; Heaven and our own skill, bravery and good fortune are our best defence.”

“But first let me conduct you by this steep ascent to the top of the tower, right opposite to the entrance of which I have spoken. The child may then descend into the arena, and there he can try to exercise his power over the obedient animal.”

This was done. Concealed above, the attendant and the mother surveyed the proceeding. The child descended the narrow staircase and soon appeared in the wide courtyard. He immediately entered into the narrow opening opposite, when the sweet sounds of his flute were heard, but these gradually diminished till at length they finally ceased. The pause was fearful — the solemnity of the proceeding filled the old attendant with apprehension, accustomed as he was to every sort of danger. He declared that he would rather engage the enraged animal himself. But the mother preserved her cheerful countenance, and, leaning over the parapet in a listening attitude, betrayed no sign of the slightest fear.

At length the flute was heard again. The child had issued from the dark recess, his face beaming with triumph; the lion was slowly following, and seemed to walk with difficulty. Now and then the animal appeared disposed to lie down, but the child continued to lead him quietly along, bending his way through the half-leafless autumn-tinged trees, until he arrived at a spot which was illumined by the last rays of the setting sun. They were shedding their parting glory through the ruins, and in this spot he recommenced his sweet song, which we cannot refrain from repeating:

“Hear the Prophet’s song ascending

From the cavern’s dark retreat,

Whilst an Angel, earthward bending,

Cheers his soul with accents sweet.

Fear and terror come not o’er him,

As the lion’s angry brood

Crouch with placid mien before him,

By his holy song subdued.”

The lion in the meantime had lain quietly down, and raising his heavy paw, had placed it in the lap of the child. The latter stroked it gently and continued his chant, but soon observed that a sharp thorn had penetrated into the ball of the animal’s foot. With great tenderness the child extracted the thorn, and taking his bright-colored silk handkerchief from his neck, bound it round the foot of the huge creature, whilst the attentive mother, still joyfully leaning over the parapet with outstretched arms, would probably have testified her approbation with loud shouts and clapping of hands, if the attendant had not rudely seized her and reminded her that the danger was not yet completely over.

The child now joyfully continued his song, after he had hummed a few notes by way of prelude:

“Since the Eternal eye, far-seeing,

Earth and sea surveys in peace,

Lion shall with lamb agreeing

Live, and angry tempests cease.

Warriors’ sword no more shall lour;

Faith and Hope their fruit shall bear;

Wondious is the mighty power

Of Love, which pours its soul in prayer.”

If it were possible to conceive that the features of so fierce a monster, at once the tyrant of the forest and the despot of the animal kingdom, could display an expression of pleasure and grateful joy, it might have been witnessed upon this occasion; and, in very truth, the child, in the fulness of his beauty, looked like some victorious conqueror, though it could not be said that the lion seemed subdued, for his mighty power was only for a time concealed; he wore the aspect of some domesticated creature, who had been content to make a voluntary surrender of the mighty power with which it was endued. And thus the child continued to play and to sing, transposing his verses or adding to them, as he felt inclined:

“Holy Angels, still untiring,

Aid the good and virtuous child,

Every noble deed inspiring

And restraining actions wild

So the forest king to render

Tame as child at parent’s knee,

Still be gentle, kind, and tender,

Use sweet love and melody.”

THE GOOD WOMEN

Henrietta and Armidoro had been for some time engaged in walking through the garden in which the Summer Club was accustomed to assemble. It had long been their practice to arrive before the other members, for they entertained the warmest attachment to each other, and their pure and virtuous friendship fostered the delightful hope that they would shortly be united in the bonds of unchanging affection.

Henrietta, who was of a lively disposition, no sooner perceived her friend Amelia approach the summer-house from a distance, than she ran to welcome her. The latter was already seated at a table in the ante-chamber, where the newspapers, journals and other recent publications lay displayed.

It was her custom to spend occasional evenings in reading in this apartment, without paying attention to the company who came and went, or suffering herself to be disturbed by the rattling of the dice or the loud conversation which prevailed at the gaming-tables. She spoke little, except for the purpose of rational conversation. Henrietta, on the contrary, was not so sparing of her words, being of an easily satisfied disposition, and ever ready with expressions of commendation. They were soon joined by a third person, whom we shall call Sinclair. “What news do you bring?” exclaimed Henrietta, addressing him as he approached.

“You will scarcely guess,” replied Sinclair, as he opened a portfolio. “And even if I inform you that I have brought for your inspection the engravings intended for the Ladies’ Almanac of this year, you will hardly guess the subjects they portray; but when I tell you that young ladies are represented in a series of twelve engravings — ”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Henrietta, interrupting him, “you have no intention, I perceive, of putting our ingenuity to the test. You jest, if I mistake not; for you know how I delight in riddles and charades, and in guessing my friends’ enigmas. Twelve young ladies, you say — sketches of character, I suppose; some adventures, or situations, or something else that redounds to the honor of the sex.”

Sinclair smiled in silence, whilst Amelia watched him with calm composure, and then remarked, with that fine sarcastic tone which so well became her, “If I read his countenance truly, he has something to produce of which we shall not quite approve. Men are so fond of discovering something which shall have the appearance of turning us into ridicule.”

Sinclair.

You are becoming serious, Amelia, and threaten to grow satirical. I shall scarcely venture to open my little packet.

Henrietta.

Oh! produce it.

Sinclair.

They are caricatures.

Henrietta.

I love them of all things.

Sinclair.

Sketches of naughty ladies.

Henrietta.

So much the better; we do not belong to that class. Their portraits would afford us as little pleasure as their society.

Sinclair.

Shall I show them?

Henrietta.

Do so at once.

So saying, she snatched the portfolio from him, took out the pictures, spread six of them upon the table, glanced over them hastily, and then shuffled them together as if they had been a pack of cards. “Capital!” she exclaimed; “they are done to the very life. This one, for instance, holding a pinch of snuff to her nose, is the very image of Madame S — . whom we shall meet this evening; and this old lady with the cat is not unlike my grand-aunt; — that figure, holding the skein of thread, resembles our old milliner. We can find an original for every one of these ugly figures; and even amongst the men I have somewhere or other seen an old fellow bent double, just like that picture; and also a close resemblance to the figure holding the thread. They are full of fun, these engravings, and admirably executed.”

Amelia, who had glanced carelessly at the pictures, and instantly withdrawn her eyes, inquired how they could look for resemblances in such things. “One deformity is like another, just as the beautiful ever resembles the beautiful. Our minds are irresistibly attracted by the latter, in the same degree as they are repelled by the former.”

Sinclair.

But our fancy and our wit find more amusement in deformity than in beauty. Much can be made of the former, but nothing at all of the latter.

“But beauty exalts, whilst deformity degrades us,” observed Armidoro, who, from his post at the window, had paid silent attention to all that had occurred. Without approaching the table, he then adjourned into the adjoining cabinet.

All clubs have their peculiar epochs. The interest of the various members towards each other, and their friendly harmony together, are of a fluctuating character. The club of which we speak had now attained its zenith. The members were, for the most part, men of refinement, or at least of calm and quiet deportment; they mutually recognized each other’s value, and allowed all want of merit to find its own level. Each one sought his own individual amusement, and the general conversation was often of a nature to attract attention.

At this time a gentleman named Seyton arrived, accompanied by his wife. He was a man who had seen much of the world, first from his engagement in business, and afterwards in political affairs; he was moreover an agreeable companion; although, in mixed society, he was chiefly remarkable for his talent as a card-player. His wife was a worthy woman, kind and faithful, and enjoying the most perfect confidence and esteem of her husband. She felt happy that she could now give uncontrolled indulgence to her taste for pleasure. At home she could not exist without a companion, and she found in amusement and dissipation the only incentive to home enjoyment.

We must treat our readers as strangers, or rather as visitors to the club, and in full confidence we must introduce them speedily to our new society. A poet paints his characters by describing their actions; we must adopt a shorter course, and by a hasty sketch introduce our readers rapidly to the scenes.

Seyton approached the table and looked at the pictures.

“A discussion has arisen,” observed Henrietta, “with respect to caricatures. What side do you take? I am an advocate for them, and wish to know whether all caricatures do not possess something irresistibly attractive.”

Amelia.

And does not every evil calumny, provide it relate to the absent, also possess an incredible charm?

Henrietta.

But does not a sketch of this kind produce an indelible impression?

Amelia.

And that is just the reason why I condemn it. Is not the indelible impression of what is disagreeable precisely the evil which so constantly pursues us in life and destroys our greatest enjoyments?

Henrietta.

Favor us, Seyton, with your opinion.

Seyton.

I should propose a truce to the argument. Why should our pictures be better than ourselves? Our nature seems to have two sides, which cannot exist separately. Light and darkness, good and evil, height and depth, virtue and vice, and a thousand other contradictions unequally distributed, appear to constitute the component parts of human nature; and why, therefore, should I blame an artist who, whilst he paints an angel bright, brilliant and beautiful, on the other hand paints a devil black, ugly and hateful?

Amelia.

There could be no objection to such a course if caricaturists did not introduce within their province subjects which belong to higher spheres.

Seyton.

So far I think you perfectly right. But artists, whose province is the Beautiful alone, also appropriate what does not precisely belong to them.

Amelia.

I have no patience, however, with caricaturists who ridicule the portraits of eminent men. In spite of my better sense, I can never consider that great man Pitt as anything else than a snub-nosed broomstick; and Fox, who was in many respects an estimable character, anything better than a stall-fed swine.

Henrietta.

Precisely my view. Caricatures of such a nature make an indelible impression, and I cannot deny that it often affords amusement to evoke their recollection and pervert them even into worse distortions.

Sinclair.

But, ladies, allow us to revert for a moment from this discussion to a consideration of our engravings.

Seyton.

I observe that a fancy for dogs is here delineated in no very flattering manner.

Amelia.

That I have no objection to, for I detest such animals.

Sinclair.

First an enemy to caricatures, and then unfriendly to the dog tribe.

Amelia.

And why not? What are such animals but caricatures of men?

Seyton.

You remember, probably, what a certain traveller relates of the city of Grätz, “that the place was full of dogs, and of dumb persons half idiotic.” Might it not be possible that the habitual sight of so many barking, senseless animals should have produced an effect upon the human race?

Sinclair.

Our attachment to animals deteriorates our passions and affections.

Amelia.

But if our reason, according to the general expression, is sometimes capable of standing still, it may surely do so in the presence of dogs.

Sinclair.

Fortunately there is no one in our company who cares for dogs but Madame Seyton. She is very much attached to her pretty greyhound.

Seyton.

And that same animal is particularly dear and valuable to her husband.

Madame Seyton, from a distance, raised her finger to her lips in an attitude of playful threatening.

Seyton.

I know a proof that such animals detach our affections from their legitimate objects. May I not, my dear child (addressing his wife), relate our anecdote? We need not be ashamed of it.

Madame Seyton signified her assent by a friendly nod, and he commenced his narration.

“We loved each other and had entered into an engagement to marry before we had well considered the possibility of supporting an establishment. At length better hopes began to dawn, when I was unexpectedly compelled to set out upon a journey which threatened to last longer than I could have wished. On my departure I forgot my favorite greyhound. It had often been in the habit of accompanying me to my intended wife’s house, sometimes returning with me, and occasionally remaining behind. It now became her property, was a cheerful companion, and reminded her of my return. At home the little animal afforded much amusement, and in the promenades, where we had so often walked together, it seemed constantly engaged in looking for me, and barked as if announcing me as it sprang from among the trees. My darling little Meta amused itself thus for a considerable time by fancying me really present, until at length, about the time when I had hoped to return, the period of my absence being again indefinitely prolonged, the poor animal pined away and died.”

Madame Seyton.

Just so, dear husband! And your narrative is sweetly interesting.

Seyton.

You are quite at liberty to interrupt me, my dear, if you think fit. My friend’s house now seemed desolate, her walks had lost all their interest, her favorite dog, which had ever been at her side when she wrote to me, had grown to be an actual necessity of existence, and her letters were now discontinued. But she found, however, some consolation in the company of a handsome youth, who evinced an anxiety to fill the place of her former four-footed companion, both in the house and in the promenades. But without enlarging on this subject, and let me be ever so inimical to rash judgments, I may say that matters began to assume a rather critical appearance.

Madame Seyton.

I must let you continue. A story which is all truth and wholly free from exaggeration is seldom worth hearing.

Seyton.

A mutual friend of ours, who was a prudent man, versed in the world, and acquainted with human nature, continued to reside near my dear friend after my departure. He paid frequent visits at her house, and observed with pain and anxiety the change which she had undergone. He formed his plan in secrecy, and called upon her one day, accompanied by a greyhound which precisely resembled mine. The cordially affectionate and appropriate address with which he accompanied his present, the unexpected appearance of a favorite, which seemed to have risen from the grave, the silent rebuke with which her susceptible heart reproached her at the sight, brought back to her mind a lively recollection of me. My young supplanter accordingly received his congé in the politest manner possible, and the new favorite was retained by the lady as her constant companion. When, upon my return, I held my beloved in my embrace, I thought the greyhound was my own, and wondered not a little that he barked at me as at a stranger. I thought that dogs of the present day had far less faithful memories than those of classical times, and observed that Ulysses had been remembered by his dog after many years’ absence, whilst mine had forgotten me in an incredibly short space of time. “But yet he has taken good care of your Penelope,” she replied, promising at the same time to explain her mysterious speech. This was soon done, and unbroken confidence has ever since been the characteristic of our union.

Madame Seyton.

Well, now, conclude with the anecdote. If you please, I will walk for an hour, for you intend doubtless to sit down to the card-table.

He signified his assent. She took the arm of her companion and went towards the door. “Take the dog with you, my dear!” he exclaimed, as she departed. The entire company smiled, as did Seyton also when he saw the precise point of his unintentional observation, and every one else silently felt a trifling degree of malicious satisfaction.

Sinclair.

You have related an anecdote of a dog which was happily instrumental in promoting a marriage; I can tell another whose influence destroyed one. I was also once in love, and it was also my fate to set out upon a journey, and, moreover, left a dear young friend behind me. But there was this difference between the two cases, my wish to possess my treasure had been as yet undeclared. At length I returned. The many adventures in which I had engaged were imprinted strongly upon my mind. Like all travellers, I was fond of recounting them, and I hoped by this means to win the attention and sympathy of my beloved. I was anxious that she should know all the experience I had acquired and the pleasures I had enjoyed. But I found that her attention was wholly directed to a dog. Whether she so engaged herself from that spirit of opposition which so often characterizes the fair sex, or whether it arose from some unlucky accident, it so happened that the amiable qualities of the dog, their amusements together and her attachment to the little animal were the sole topics of conversation which she could find for a lover who had long been passionately devoted to her. I wondered and felt astonished, and related a thousand circumstances to prove my affection for her. I then felt vexed at her coldness, and took my leave, but soon returned with feelings of self-reproach and became even more unhappy than before. Under these circumstances our attachment cooled and our acquaintance was discontinued, and I felt in my heart that I might attribute the misfortune to a dog.

Armidoro, who had once more joined the company from the cabinet, observed, upon hearing the anecdote, “that it would be interesting to make a collection of stories showing the influence which social animals of the lower order exercise over mankind. In the expectation that such a collection will be one day made, I will relate an ancedote to show how a dog was the cause of a very tragical occurrence.

“Ferdinand and Cardano, two young noblemen, had been attached friends from their very earliest youth. As court pages and as officers in the same regiment they had shared many adventures together, and had become thoroughly acquainted with each other’s dispositions. Cardano’s attraction was the fair sex, whilst Ferdinand had a passion for play. The former was thoughtless and haughty, the latter suspicious and reserved. It happened, at a time when Cardano was accidentally obliged to break off a certain tender attachment, that he left a beautiful little pet spaniel behind him. He soon procured another, which he afterwards presented to a second lady, from whom he was about to separate; and from that time, upon taking leave of every new female friend with whom he had become intimate, he invariably presented her with a similar little spaniel. Ferdinand was aware of Cardano’s peculiar habit in this respect, but he never paid much attention to the circumstance.

“The different pursuits of the two friends at length caused a long separation between them, and, when they next met, Ferdinand had become a married man, and was leading the life of a country gentleman. Cardano spent some time with him, either at his house or in the neighborhood, where, as he had many relations and friends, he resided for nearly a year.

“Upon his departure Ferdinand’s attention was attracted by a very beautiful spaniel of which his wife had lately become possessed. He took it in his arms, admired its beauty, stroked it, praised it and inquired where she had obtained so charming an animal. She replied, ‘from Cardano.’ He was struck at once with the memory of bygone times and events, and with a recollection of the significant memorial with which Cardano was accustomed to mark his insincerity; he felt oppressed with the indignity of an injured husband, raged violently, flung the innocent little animal with fury to the earth and ran from the apartment amid the cries of the spaniel and the supplications of his astonished wife. A fearful dispute and countless disagreeable consequences ensued, which, though they did not produce an actual divorce, ended in a mutual agreement to separate; and a ruined household was the termination of this adventure.”

The story was not quite finished when Eulalia entered the apartment. She was a young lady whose society was universally sought after, and she formed one of the most attractive ornaments of the club — an accomplished woman and a successful authoress.

The female caricatures were laid before her with which the clever artist, before alluded to, had attacked the fair sex, and she was invited to defend her good sisterhood.

“Probably,” said Amelia, “a collection of these charming portraits is intended for the almanac, and possibly some celebrated author will undertake the witty task of explaining in words what the ingenious artist has represented in his pictures.”

Sinclair felt that the pictures were not worthy of utter condemnation, nor could he deny that some sort of explanation of their meaning was necessary, as a caricature which is not understood is worthless, and is in fact only valuable for its application. For however the ingenious artist may endeavor to display his wit, he cannot always succeed, and without a title or an explanation his labor is lost: words alone can give it value.

Amelia.

Then let words bestow a value upon this little picture. A young lady has fallen asleep in an armchair, having been engaged, as it appears, with some sort of writing. Another lady, who stands by weeping, presents a small box, or something else, to her companion. What can it mean?

Sinclair.

Shall I endeavor to explain it, notwithstanding that the ladies seem but ill-disposed both to caricatures and their exposition? I am told that it is intended to represent an authoress who was accustomed to compose at night; she always obliged her maid to hold her inkstand, and forced the poor creature to remain in that posture even when she herself had been overcome by sleep, and the office of her maid had thus been rendered useless. She was desirous, on awaking, to resume the thread of her thoughts and of her composition, and wished to find her pen and ink ready at the same moment.

Arbon, an artist of talent who had accompanied Eulalia, declared war against the picture. He observed that to delineate the situation or circumstance above alluded to another course should have been adopted.

Henrietta.

Let us then compose the picture afresh.

Arbon.

But let us first of all consider the subject attentively. It seems natural enough that a person employed in writing should cause the inkstand to be held, if the circumstances are such that no place can be found to set it down. So Brantome’s grandmother held the inkstand for the Queen of Navarre, when the latter, reposing in her litter, composed the history which we have all read with so much pleasure. Again, that any one who writes in bed should cause his inkstand to be held is quite conceivable. But tell us, pretty Henrietta, you who are so fond of questioning and guessing, tell us what the artist should have done to represent this subject properly.

Henrietta.

He should have put the table away, and have so arranged the sleeper that nothing should appear at hand upon which an inkstand could be placed.

Arbon.

Quite right. I should have drawn her in a well-cushioned easy-chair, of the fashion which, if I mistake not, are called Bergères; she should have been near the fireplace, and presenting a front view to the spectator. I should suppose her to be engaged in writing upon her knee, for usually one becomes uncomfortable in exacting an inconvenience from another. The paper sinks upon her lap, the pen from her hand, and a sweet maiden stands near holding the inkstand with a forlorn look.

Henrietta.

Quite right. But here we have an inkstand upon the table already; and what is to be done, therefore, with the inkstand in the hand of the maiden? It is not easy to conceive why she should be engaged in wiping away her tears.

Sinclair.

Here I defend the artist; he allows scope for the ingenuity of the commentator.

Arbon.

Who will probably be engaged in exercising his wit upon the headless men that hang against the wall. This seems to me a clear proof of the inevitable confusion that arises from uniting arts between which there is no natural connection. If we were not accustomed to see engravings with explanations appended to them, the evil would cease. I have no objection that a clever artist should attempt witty representations; but they are difficult to execute, and he should at all events endeavor to make his subject independent of explanations. I could even tolerate remarks and little sentences issuing from the mouths of his figures, provided he restricted himself to being his own commentator.

Sinclair.

But if you allow such a thing as a witty picture, you must admit that it is intended only for persons of intelligence; it can possess an attraction for none but those conversant with the occurrences of the day; why then should we object to a commentator who enables us to understand the nature of the intellectual amusement prepared for us?

Arbon.

I have no objection to explanations of pictures which fail to explain themselves. But they should be short and to the point. Wit is for the intelligent; they alone can understand a witty work; and the productions of bygone times and foreign lands are completely lost upon us. It is all well enough with the aid of such notes as we find appended to Rabelais and Hudibras, but what should we say of an author who should find it necessary to write one witty work to elucidate another? Wit, even when fresh from its fountain, is oftentimes feeble enough; it will scarcely become stronger by passing through two or three hands.

Sinclair.

How I wish that, instead of thus arguing, we could assist our friend, the owner of these pictures, who would be glad to hear the opinions that have been expressed.

Armidoro.

(Coming from the cabinet.) I perceive that the company is still engaged about these censurable pictures: had they produced a pleasant impression, they would doubtless have been laid aside long ago.

Amelia.

I propose that that be their fate now; the owner must be required to make no use of them. What! a dozen and more hateful, objectionable pictures to appear in a ladies’ almanac! Can the man be blind to his own interest? He will ruin his speculation. What lover will present a copy to his mistress, what husband to his wife, what father to his daughter, when the first glance will display such a libel upon the sex?

Armidoro.

I have a proposal to make. These objectionable pictures are not the first of the kind which have appeared in the best almanacs. Our celebrated Chodoviecki has, in his collection of monthly engravings, already represented scenes not only untrue to nature, but low and devoid of all pretensions to taste; but how did he do it? Opposite the pictures I allude to he delineated others of a most charming character — scenes in perfect harmony with nature, the result of a high education, of long study, and of an innate taste for the Good and Beautiful. Let us go a step beyond the editor of the proposed almanac and act in opposition to his project. If the intelligent artist has chosen to portray the dark side of his subject, let our author or authoress, if I may dare to express my view, choose the bright side to exercise her talents, and so form a complete work. I shall not longer delay, Eulalia, to unite my own wishes to this proposal. Undertake a description of good female characters. Create the opposite to these engravings, and employ the charm of your pen, not to elucidate these pictures, but to annihilate them.

Sinclair.

Promise to comply, Eulalia. Place us under so great an obligation to you.

Eulalia.

Authors are ever apt to promise too easily, because they hope for ability to execute their wishes: but experience has rendered me cautious. And even if I could foresee the necessary leisure, within so short a space of time, I should yet hesitate to undertake the arduous duty. The praises of our sex should be spoken by a man — a young, ardent, loving man. A degree of enthusiasm is requisite for the task, and who has enthusiasm for one’s own sex?

Armidoro.

I should prefer intelligence, justice and delicacy of taste.

Sinclair.

And who can discourse better on the character of good women than the authoress from whose fairy tale of yesterday we all derived such pleasure and so much incomparable instruction?

Eulalia.

The fairy tale was not mine.

Sinclair.

Not yours?

Armidoro.

To that I can bear witness.

Sinclair.

But still it was a lady’s?

Eulalia.

The production of a friend.

Sinclair.

Then there are two Eulalias.

Eulalia.

Many, perhaps; and better than —

Armidoro.

Will you relate to the company what you so lately confided to me? You will all hear with astonishment how this delightful production originated.

Eulalia.

A young lady, with whose great excellence I became accidentally acquainted upon a journey, found herself once in a situation of extreme perplexity, the circumstances of which it would be tedious to narrate. A gentleman to whom she was under many obligations, and who finally offered her his hand, having won her entire esteem and confidence, in a moment of weakness obtained from her the privileges of a husband, before their vows of love had been cemented by marriage. Some peculiar circumstances compelled him to travel, and, in the retirement of a country residence, she anticipated with fear and apprehension the moment when she should become a mother. She used to write to me daily, and informed me of every circumstance that happened. But there was shortly nothing more to fear — she now needed only patience, and I observed, from the tone of her letters, that she began to reflect with a disturbed mind upon all that had already occurred, and upon what was yet to take place in her regard. I determined, therefore, to address her in an earnest tone on the duty which she owed no less to herself than to her infant, whose support, particularly at the commencement of its existence, depended so much upon her mind being free from anxiety. I sought to console and to cheer her, and for this purpose sent her several volumes of fairy tales, which I expressed a wish that she should read. Her own desire to escape from the burden of her melancholy thoughts, and the arrival of these books, formed a remarkable coincidence. She could not help reflecting frequently upon her peculiar fate, and she therefore adopted the expedient of clothing all her past sorrowful adventures, as well as her painful apprehensions for the future, in a garb of romance. The events of her past life — her attachment, her passion, her errors and her sweet maternal cares — no less than her present sad condition, were all embodied by her imagination in forms vivid, though impalpable, and passed before her mind in a varied succession of strange and unearthly fancies. With pen in hand, she spent many a day and night in noting down her reflections.

Amelia.

In which occupation she must have found it difficult to hold her inkstand.

Eulalia.

Thus did I acquire the rare collection of letters which I now possess. They are all picturesque, strange and romantic. I never received from her an account of anything actual, so that I sometimes trembled for her reason. Her own situation, the birth of her infant, her sweet affection for her offspring, her joys, her hopes and her maternal fears, were all treated as events of another world, from which she only expected to be liberated by the arrival of her husband. Upon her nuptial day she concluded the fairy tale, which you heard recited yesterday, almost in her own words, and which derives its chief interest from the unusual circumstances under which it was composed.

The company could not sufficiently express their astonishment at this statement, and Seyton, who had abandoned his place at the gaming-table to another person, now entered the apartment, and made inquiries concerning the subject of conversation. He was briefly informed that it related to a fairy tale, which, partly founded on facts, had been composed by the fantastic imagination of a mind that was diseased.

“It is a great pity,” he remarked, “that private diaries are so completely out of fashion. Twenty years ago they were in general use, and many persons thought they possessed a veritable treasure in the record of their daily thoughts. I recollect a very worthy lady upon whom this custom entailed a sad misfortune. A certain governess had been accustomed from her earliest youth to keep a regular diary, and, in fact, she considered its composition to form an indispensable part of her daily duties. She continued the habit when she grew up, and did not lay it aside even when she married. Her memorandums were not looked upon by her as absolute secrets, she had no occasion for such mystery, and she frequently read passages from it for the amusement of her friends and of her husband. But the book in its entirety was intrusted to nobody. The account of her husband’s attachment had been entered in her diary with the same minuteness with which she had formerly noted down the ordinary occurrences of the day: and the entire history of her own affectionate feelings had been described from their first opening hour until they had ripened into a passion, and become at length a rooted habit. Upon one occasion this diary accidentally fell in her husband’s way, and the perusal afforded him a strange entertainment. He had undesignedly approached the writing-desk upon which the book lay, and, without suspicion or intention, had read through an entire page which was open before him. He took the opportunity of referring to a few previous and subsequent passages, and then retired with the comfortable assurance that it was high time to discontinue the disagreeable amusement.

Henrietta.

But, according to the wish of my friend, our conversation should be confined to good women, and already we are turning to those who can scarcely be counted amongst the best.

Seyton.

Why this constant reference to bad and good? Should we not be quite as well contented with others as with ourselves, either as we have been formed by nature, or improved by education?

Armidoro.

I think it would be at once pleasant and useful to arrange and collect a series of anecdotes such as we have heard narrated, and many of which are founded on real occurrences. Light and delicate traits, which mark the characters of men, are well worthy of our attention, even though they give birth to no extraordinary adventures. They are useless to writers of romance, being devoid of all exciting interest; and worthless to the tribe of anecdote-collectors, for they are for the most part destitute of wit and spirit; but they would always prove entertaining to a reader who, in a mood of quiet contemplation, should wish to study the general characteristics of mankind.

Sinclair.

Well said. And if we had only thought of so praiseworthy a work a little earlier, we might have assisted our friend, the editor of the Ladies’ Calendar, by composing a dozen anecdotes, if not of model women, at least of well-behaved personages, to balance his catalogue of naughty ladies.

Amelia.

I should be particularly pleased with a collection of incidents to show how a woman forms the very soul and existence of a household establishment; and this because the artist has introduced a sketch of a spendthrift and improvident wife, to the defamation of our sex.

Seyton.

I can furnish Amelia with a case precisely in point.

Amelia.

Let us hear it. But do not imitate the usual custom of men who undertake to defend the ladies: they frequently begin with praise and end with censure.

Seyton.

Upon this occasion, however, I do not fear the perversion of my intention through the influence of any evil spirit. A young man once became tenant of a large hotel which was established in a good situation. Amongst the qualities which recommend a host, he possessed a more than ordinary share of good temper, and as he had from his youth been a friend to the ale-house, he was peculiarly fortunate in selecting a pursuit in which he found it necessary to devote a considerable portion of the day to his home duties. He was neither careful nor negligent, and his own good temper exercised a perceptible influence over the numerous guests who assembled around him.

He had married a young person who was of a quiet, passive disposition. She paid punctual attention to her business, was attached to her household pursuits, and loved her husband, though she often found fault with him in secret for his carelessness in money matters. She had a great love for ready money; she thoroughly comprehended its value and understood the advantage of securing a provision for herself. Devoid of all activity of disposition, she had every tendency to avarice. But a small share of avarice becomes a woman, however ill extravagance may suit her. Generosity is a manly virtue, but parsimony is becoming in a woman. This is the rule of nature, and our judgments must be subservient thereto.

Margaret (for such was the name of this prudent personage) was very much dissatisfied with her husband’s carelessness. Upon occasions when large payments were made to him by his customers, it was his habit to leave the money lying for a considerable time upon the table, and then to collect it in a basket, from which he afterwards paid it away, without making it up into packages, and without keeping any account of its application. His wife plainly perceived that, even without actual extravagance, where there was such a total want of system, considerable sums must be wasted. She was above all things anxious to make her husband change his negligent habits, and she became grieved to observe that the small savings which she collected and so carefully retained were as nothing in comparison with the money that was squandered; and she determined, therefore, to adopt a rather dangerous expedient to make her husband open his eyes. She resolved to defraud him of as much money as possible, and for this purpose had recourse to an extraordinary plan. She had observed that when he had once counted his money, which he allowed to remain so long upon the table, he never reckoned it over a second time before putting it away; she therefore rubbed the bottom of a candlestick with tallow, and then, apparently without design, she placed it near the spot where the ducats lay exposed, a species of coin for which she entertained a warm partiality. She thus gained possession of a few pieces, and subsequently of some other coins, and was soon sufficiently well satisfied with her success. She therefore repeated the operation frequently, and entertained no scruple about employing such evil means to effect so praiseworthy an object, and she tranquillized her conscience on the subject by the reflection that such a mode of abstracting her husband’s money could not be termed robbery, as her hands were not employed for the purpose. Her secret treasure increased gradually, and soon became very much greater by the addition of the ready money which she herself received from the customers of the hotel, and of which she invariably retained possession.

She had carried on this practice for a whole year, and, though she carefully watched her husband, she never had reason to believe that his suspicions were awakened, until at length he began to grow discontented and unhappy. She induced him to tell her the cause of his anxiety, and learned that he was grievously perplexed. After the last payment which he had made of a considerable sum of money, he had laid aside the amount of his rent, and not only this had disappeared, but he was unable to meet the demand of his landlord from any other channel; and as he had always been accustomed to keep his accounts in his head, and to write down nothing, he could not possibly understand the cause of the deficiency.

Margaret reminded him of his great carelessness, censured his thoughtless manner of receiving and paying away money, and spoke of his general imprudence. Even his generous disposition did not escape her remarks; and, in truth, he had no excuse to offer for a course of conduct the consequences of which he had so much reason to regret.

But she could not leave her husband long in this state of grievous trouble, more especially as she felt a pride in being able to render him once more happy. Accordingly, to his great astonishment, on his birthday, which she was always accustomed to celebrate by presenting him with something useful, she entered his private apartment with a basket filled with rouleaux of money. The different descriptions of coin were packed together separately, and the contents were carefully indorsed in a handwriting by no means of the best. It would be difficult to describe his astonishment at finding before him the precise sums which he had missed, or at his wife’s assurance that they belonged to him. She thereupon circumstantially described the time and the manner of her abstracting them, confessed the amount which she had taken, and told also how much she had saved by her own careful attention. His despair was now changed into joy, and the result was that he abandoned to his wife all the duty of receiving and paying away money for the future. His business was carried on even more prosperously than before; although from the day of which we have spoken not a farthing ever passed through his hands. His wife discharged the duty of banker with extraordinary credit to herself; no false money was ever taken; and the establishment of her complete authority in the house was the natural and just consequence of her activity and care; and, after the lapse of ten years, she and her husband were in a condition to purchase the hotel for themselves.

Sinclair.

And so all this truth, love and fidelity ended in the wife becoming the veritable mistress. I should like to know how far the opinion is just that women have a tendency to acquire authority.

Amelia.

There it is again. Censure, you observe, is sure to follow in the wake of praise.

Armidoro.

Favor us with your sentiments on this subject, good Eulalia. I think I have observed in your writings no disposition to defend your sex against this imputation.

Eulalia.

In so far as it is a grievous imputation, I should wish it were removed by the conduct of our sex. But where we have a right to authority we can need no excuse. We like authority because we are human. For what else is authority, in the sense in which we use it, than a desire for independence, and for the enjoyment of existence as much as possible. This is a privilege which all men seek with determination; but our ambition appears, perhaps, more objectionable because nature, usage and social regulations place restraints upon our sex, whilst they enlarge the authority of men. What men possess naturally, we have to acquire; and property obtained by a laborious struggle will always be more obstinately held than that which is inherited.

Seyton.

But women, as I think, have no reason to complain on that score. As the world goes, they inherit as much as men, if not more; and in my opinion it is a much more difficult task to become a perfect man than a perfect woman. The phrase, “He shall be thy master,” is a formula characteristic of a barbarous age long since passed away. Men cannot claim a right to become educated and refined without conceding the same privilege to women. As long as the process continues, the balance is even between them; but, as women are more capable of improvement than men, experience shows that the scale soon turns in their favor.

Armidoro.

There is no doubt that in all civilized nations women in general are superior to men, for where the two sexes exert a corresponding influence over each other, man becomes effeminate, and that is a disadvantage; but when a woman acquires any masculine virtue, she is the gainer, for if she can improve her own peculiar qualities by the addition of masculine energy, she becomes an almost perfect being.

Seyton.

I have never considered the subject so deeply. But I think it is generally admitted that women do rule and must continue to do so; and therefore whenever I become acquainted with a young lady, I always inquire upon what subjects she exercises her authority, since it must be exercised somewhere.

Amelia.

And thus you establish the point with which you started?

Seyton.

And why not? Is not my reasoning as good as that of philosophers in general, who are convinced by their experience? Active women, who are given to habits of acquisition and saving, are invariably mistresses at home; pretty women, at once graceful and superficial, rule in large societies, whilst those who possess more sound accomplishments exert their influence in smaller circles.

Amelia.

And thus we are divided into three classes.

Sinclair.

All honorable, in my opinion; and yet those three classes do not include the whole sex. There is still a fourth, to which perhaps we had better not allude, that we may escape the charge of converting our praise into censure.

Henrietta.

Then we must guess the fourth class. Let us see.

Sinclair.

Well, then, the first three classes were those whose activity was displayed at home, in large societies, or in smaller circles.

Henrietta.

What other sphere can there be where we can exercise our activity?

Sinclair.

There may be many. But I am thinking of the reverse of activity.

Henrietta.

Indolence! How could an indolent woman rule?

Sinclair.

Why not?

Henrietta.

In what manner?

Sinclair.

By opposition. Whoever adopts such a course, either from character or principle, acquires more authority than one would readily think.

Amelia.

I fear we are about to fall into the tone of censure so general to men.

Henrietta.

Do not interrupt him, Amelia. Nothing can be more harmless than these mere opinions, and we are the gainers by learning what other persons think of us. Now, then, for the fourth class, what about it?

Sinclair.

I must take the liberty of speaking unreservedly. The class I allude to does not exist in our country, and does not exist in France, because the fair sex, both amongst us and our gallant neighbors, enjoys a proper degree of freedom. But in countries where women are under restraint and debarred from sharing in public amusements, the class I speak of is numerous. In a neighboring country there is a peculiar name by which ladies of this class are invariably designated.

Henrietta.

You must tell us the name; we can never guess names.

Sinclair.

Well, I must tell you, they are called roguish.

Henrietta.

A strange appellation.

Sinclair.

Some time ago you took great interest in reading the speculations of Lavater upon physiognomy; do you remember nothing about roguish countenances in his book?

Henrietta.

It is possible; but it made no impression upon me. I may perhaps have construed the word in its ordinary sense, and read on without noticing it.

Sinclair.

It is true that the word “roguish” in its ordinary sense is usually applied to a person who, with malicious levity, turns another into ridicule; but in its present sense it is meant to describe a young lady, who, by her indifference, coldness and reserve — qualities which attach to her as a disease — destroys the happiness of one upon whom she is dependent. We meet with examples of this everywhere; sometimes even in our own circle. For instance, when I have praised a lady for her beauty, I have heard it said in reply, “Yes, but she is a bit of a rogue.” I even remember a physician saying to a lady who complained of the anxiety she suffered about her maid-servant, “My dear madam, the girl is somewhat of a rogue, and will give a deal of trouble.”

Amelia rose from her seat and left the apartment.

Henrietta.

That seems rather strange.

Sinclair.

I thought so too, and I therefore took a note of the symptoms, which seemed to mark a disease half moral and half physical, and framed an essay which I entitled “A Chapter on Rogues,” and as I meant it to form a portion of a work on general anthropological observations, I have kept it by me hitherto.

Henrietta.

But you must let us see it, and if you know any interesting anecdotes to elucidate your meaning of the word “rogue,” they must find a place in our intended collection of novels.

Sinclair.

This may be all very well, but I find I have failed in the object which brought me hither. I was anxious to find some one in this intelligent assembly to undertake an explanation of these engravings, or who could recommend a talented writer for the purpose; in place of which, the engravings are abused and pronounced worthless, and I must take my leave without having attained my purpose. But if I had only made notes of our conversation and anecdotes this evening, I should almost possess an equivalent.

Armidoro.

(Coming from the cabinet, to which he had frequently retired.) Your wish is accomplished. I know the motive of our friend, the editor of the work. I have taken down the heads of our conversation upon this paper. I will arrange the draft, and if Eulalia will kindly promise to impart to the whole that spirit of charming animation which she possesses, the graceful tone of the work, and perhaps also its contents, will in some measure expiate the offence of the artist for his ungallant attack.

Henrietta.

I cannot blame your officious friendship, Armidoro, but I wish you had not taken notes of our conversation; it is setting a bad example. Our intercourse together has been quite free and unrestrained, and nothing can be worse than that our unguarded conversation should be overheard and written down, perhaps even printed for the amusement of the public.

But Henrietta’s scruples were silenced by a promise that nothing should meet the public eye except the little anecdotes which had been related.

Eulalia, however, could not be persuaded to edit the notes of the short-hand writer. She had no wish to withdraw her attention from the fairy tale with which she was then occupied. The notes remained in possession of the gentlemen of the party, who, with the aid of their own memories, generously afforded their assistance, that they might thereby contribute to the general edification of all “good women.”

The Plays

The garden house that the Duke of Weimar bought for Goethe, after making him a Privy Counsellor, with the second highest wage in the Dukedom in 1776

Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1757-1828). One of his first acts as Grand-Duke was to summon Goethe to Weimar.  The Sturm und Drang spirit descended upon Weimar, and the stiff traditions of the little court dissolved into youthful exuberance.

Goethe with his patron in later years.  The Grand-Duke and Goethe remained close friends throughout their long lives.  Their relationship had a momentous impact on German literature.

THE WAYWARD LOVER

Translated by Edgar A. Bowring

This pastoral play in verse was written in the years 1767 and 1768, whilst Goethe, at the age of eighteen, was still a student at Leipzig University. The play commemorates his attachment to Käthchen Schonkopf, the daughter of a pewterer and wine merchant. Whilst studying law in Leipzig, Goethe met and fell in love with Käthchen in 1766. She was three years older than Goethe, who then decided to move into her parents’ hotel. She reacted reservedly to his declarations of love at first. Her parents, as well as Goethe’s, were kept in the dark about the unfolding love-affair, largely due to her lower birth status compared to his being the son of a Patriarch. During his relationship with Käthchen, he felt strong jealousy of real or imaginary rivals, which he depicts faithfully in what would become his first play.

Käthchen appeared to Goethe as a perfect, charming and elegant young lady, who liked the love poems which he dedicated to her and later published. Goethe introduced Käthchen to Christian Karl Kanne, a jurist and later vice mayor, who was to become her husband. The poet continued their friendship by sending letters to Käthchen until 1770.

The circumstances of Goethe’s first romance are portrayed through the characters of Eridon and Amina.  The Wayward Lover was first performed on 20 May 1779 in Ettersburg, with Goethe playing the role of Eridon and music composed by Karl Siegmund von Seckendorf. The play concerns the theme of jealousy, as Egle and Amina, two maidens admit their love for the same shepherd.

Goethe, aged 23

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

SCENE VII.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

Ettersburg, where Goethe’s first play was performed

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

EGLE.

ERIDON.

AMINA.

LAMON.

SCENE I.

AMINA and EGLE are sitting on one side of the theatre making garlands. LAMON enters, bringing a basket of flowers.

LAMON (putting down the basket).
I’ve brought more flowers.

EGLE.
Oh, thanks!

LAMON.
How fair they are! Just see!
This pink is thine.

EGLE.
The rose? —

LAMON.
Dear child, that’s not for thee!
Amina shall to-day receive this floweret fair;
I think a rose looks best contrasted with black hair.

EGLE.
And this thou callest polite, obliging in a lover?

LAMON.
For one who loves, thou’rt slow my nature to discover.
I’m perfectly aware thou lovest only me,
And my true heart in turn will ever beat for thee;
Thou knowest it. Yet thou seekest still stronger chains than these?
Is it so wrong to think that other muds can please?
I let thee say; that youth is handsome, this one charming,
Or full of wit, and see nothing there alarming,
But say so too.

EGLE
Ne’er lose thy temper, nor will I.
Both make the same mistake. To words of flattery
Oft listen I well pleased; soft words dost thou address,
When I’m not there to hear, to many a shepherdess.
The heart should never deem a little jesting hard;
‘Gainst fickleness a mind that’s cheerful is a guard.
I’m subject less than thou to jealousy’s dominion.
(To AMINA.)
Thou smilest at us? Say, dear friend, what’s thy opinion?

AMINA.
I’ve none.

EGLE.
And yet thou knowest I’m happy whilst thou’rt sad.

AMINA.
How so?

EGLE.
How so! Instead of being, like us, glad,
And making all Love’s sulks before your laughter fly,
Thy pain begins whene’er thy lover meets thine eye.
I never knew a more unpleasant, selfish creature.
Thou think’st he loves thee. No, I better know his nature;
He sees that thou obeyest. The tyrant loves thee solely
Because thou art a maid who will obey him wholly.

AMINA.
He oft obeys me, too.

EGLE.
To be still more thy master.
Thou watchest all his looks, for fear of some disaster;
The power that in our looks Dame Nature has installed,
Whereby mankind are cowed, and charmingly enthralled,
Hast thou to him transferred, and thou art happy now
If he looks only pleased. With deeply wrinkled brow,
Contracted eyebrows, eyes all wild and dark as night,
And tightly fastened lips, a very charming sight
Appears he every day, till kisses, tears, harangues,
Disperse each wintry cloud that o’er his forehead hangs.

AMINA.
Thou knowest him not enough, thou never wert his lover;
It is not selfishness that clouds his forehead over.
A whimsical chagrin upon his bosom preys,
And spoils for both of us the finest summer days:
And yet I’m well content that when my voice he hears,
And all my coaxing words, each whim soon disappears.

EGLE.
A mighty bliss, indeed, which one full well might spare!
But name one single joy that he allowed thee e’er.
How throbbed thy breast, whene’er a dance appeared in view!
Thy lover flies the dance, and takes thee with him, too.
No wonder he can’t bear thy presence at a feast;
He hates the very glass touched by thee in the least.
As rivals deems he e’en the birds that chance to please thee;
How could he happy be, to see another seize thee,
And press thee to his heart, and whisper words of love,
As in the whirling dance before his eyes ye move?

AMINA.
Pray be not so unfair, without the least objection
He let me join this feast, with thee as my protection.

EGLE.
Thou’lt learn the truth soon.

AMINA.
How?

EGLE.
Now, wherefore comes he not?

AMINA.
He little loves the dance.

EGLE.
Tis nothing but a plot.
If thou returnest well pleased, he’ll ask thee in a trice: —
“You had a happy day?” — “Yes.” — “That is very nice.
“You played?” — “At forfeits.” — “Ah! was Damon also there?
“You danced?” — “Yes, round the tree.” — “I fain had seen the pair.
“He danced right well? And what reward received the youth?”

AMINA. (smiling.
Yes.

EGLE.
Smilest thou?

AMINA.
Yes, my friend, that is his tone, in truth. —
More flowers!

LAMON.
The best are these.

AMINA.
It is with joy I see
How he the world doth grudge the slightest look from me;
I in this envy see how deep my lover’s love,
And this proud consciousness doth all my pangs remove.

EGLE.
I pity thee, poor child. No hope for thee remains,
Since thou thy misery lovest; thou dost but shake thy chains;
And makest thyself believe ’tis music.

AMINA.
For this bow
One ribbon still I need.

EGLE (TO LAMON).
A little time ago
Thou stolest one from me, at that last feast in May.

LAMON.
I’ll fetch it.

EGLE.
Make good haste; return without delay.

SCENE II.

EGLE, AMINA.

AMINA.
He sets but little store on what his love presented.

EGLE.
With his demeanor I myself am not contented.
For playful signs of love too little careth he,
Which please a feeling heart, however small they be.
And yet believe me, friend, the torment is far less
To be too little loved, than worshipped to excess.
Fidelity I prize; ’tis that alone can give
With certainty true calm, to last us whilst we live.

AMINA.
Ah, friend! indeed a heart thus tender is a prize.
Tis true he grieves me oft, yet pities he my sighs.
If from his lips a sound of blame or wrath is heard,
I’ve nothing more to do than speak a kindly word,
And straightway he is changed, his anger disappears,
He even weeps with me, when he observes my tears,
Falls humbly at my feet, and begs me to forgive.

EGLE
And thou forgivest him?

AMINA.
Yes.

EGLE.
What a way to live!
The lover who offends to go on pardoning ever!
Take pains to win his love, and be rewarded never!

AMINA.
What cannot e’er be changed —

EGLE.
Not changed? ’Twould easy be
To alter him.

AMINA.
How so?

EGLE.
I’ll teach the way to thee.
The source of all thy griefs, the discontent oppressive
Of Ericdon —

AMINA.
Is what?

EGLE.
Thy tenderness excessive.

AMINA.
I thought my plan would love reciprocal engender.

EGLE.
Thou’rt wrong; be harsh and cold, and thou wilt find him tender.
Just try this course for once, make him some pain endure:
A man prefers to strive, he cares not to be sure.
If Eridon should come to spend with thee an hour,
He knows it but too well, thou’rt wholly in his power.
No rival is at hand, with whom to disagree,
He knows thou lovest him far more than he loves thee.
His bliss is far too great, he well deserves our laughter;
As he no pangs e’er feels, he needs must pangs run after.
He sees that in the world thou lovest him alone,
He doubts, because by thee no doubts are ever shown.
So treat him that he’ll think thou carest little for him;
He’ll storm, indeed, but that will very soon pass o’er him.
One look from thee will then please more than now a kiss;
Make him afraid, and he will then soon know true bliss.

AMINA.
Yes, that is very well; but then I’m quite unable
To carry out thy plan.

EGLE.
Thy courage is unstable.
Go, thou art far too weak. Look there!

AMINA.
My Eridon!

EGLE.
I thought so. Ah, my poor child! he comes, and thou anon
Dost shake with joy: that ne’er will do. To make him change,
Thou must, when he appears, a calmer mien arrange;
That heaving of thy breast! Thy face, too, all aglow!
And then —

AMINA.
O let me be, Amina loves not so.

SCENE III.

ERIDON advances slowly, with his arms crossed. AMINA arises and runs to meet him. EGLE continues sitting over

her work.

AMTNA (taking him by the hand).
My own dear Eridon!

ERIDON (kissing her hand).
My darling!

EGLE (aside).
Ah, how pleasant?

AMINA.
What flowers! Explain my friend, who gave thee such a present?

ERIDON.
Who? My own loved one.

AMINA.
What! my gift of yesterday,
As fresh as they were then?

ERIDON.
Whate’er thou givest, say,
Is it not dear to me? But those I gave thee?

AMINA.
Oh, I in this festal wreath have placed them.

ERIDON.
Be it so!
Love in each young man’s heart, and envy in each maid
Wilt thou excite.

EGLE.
Rejoice to find thy love repaid
By such a maiden’s love, for which so many vie.

ERIDON.
I cannot happy be to hear so many sigh.

EGLE.
Thou shouldst be; few men’s lot with thine could e’er compare.

ERIDON (to AMINA).
Now speak about the fête; will Damon, too, be there?

EGLE (interrupting).
That he would present be, I heard him say by chance.

ERIDON (to AMINA).
My child, and who will be thy partner in the dance?
(As AMINA does not answer he turns to EGLE.)
Take care to choose for her the one she holds most dear.

AMINA.
That cannot be, my friend, since thou wilt not be near!

EGLE.
Now, hear me, Eridon, I cannot bear it more,
Strange pleasure is it thus to plague Amina sore.
Forsake her if thou thinkest that she’s no longer true,
But if thou thinkest she loves, this course no more pursue.

ERIDON.
I never plague her.

EGLE.
No? How strange are all thy measures
From jealousy to cast a gloom upon her pleasures.
To doubt, although the fact is known to thee full clearly,
If she —

ERIDON.
Wilt thou be bail that she doth love me dearly?

AMINA.
I love thee not?

ERIDON.
What proof hast thou at thy command?
Who let bold Damon steal a nosegay from her hand?
Who took that ribbon fair which youthful Thirsis brought?

AMINA.
My Eridon! —

ERIDON.
All this was not a dream, methought.
And what was their reward? Thou kisses canst bestow!

AMINA.
Canst thou not, dearest, too?

EGLE.
Oh, peace, he’ll nothing know I
Whate’er there was to say thou said’st it o’er and o’er,
He listens for a time, and then complains once more.
And what’s the use? If thou his charges shouldst disclaim
He’ll go away in peace, and next time do the same.

ERIDON.
With justice, too, perchance.

AMINA.
What! I unfaithful? oh,
Amina false, my friend? Dost thou believe it?

ERIDON.
No I
I cannot, will not.

AMINA.
Say, in all my life did I
E’er give occasion?

ERIDON.
Thou dost oft a cause supply.

AMINA.
When was I faithless?

ERIDON.
Ne’er! Hence all these cares of mine:
Through levity thou err’st, and never by design.
As trifles thou dost hold the things I weighty deem;
The things that vex me most to thee as nothing seem.

EGLE.
Well! If she deems them naught where is the mischief, pray?

ERIDON.
She often asked the same; it vexes me, I say.

EGLE.
What then? Amina ne’er forgets her own position.

ERIDON.
Too much to deem her true, too little for suspicion.

EGLE.
More than a woman’s heart e’er loved she loveth thee.

ERIDON.
And dances, pleasures, games, she loves as much as me.

EGLE.
Who cannot this endure should only love our mothers!

AMINA.
Peace, Egle! Eridon, my joy thy language smothers.
Our friends will tell thee how I think of thee all day,
E’en when we’re far from thee, and full of mirth and play;
How oft I with chagrin, that spoils my pleasure, cry,
“I wonder where he is!” because thou art not nigh.
If thou believest me not, O come to-day with me,
And settle for thyself if I’m untrue to thee.
I’ll dance with thee alone, I’ll never leave thy side,
This arm shall cling to thine, this hand in thine abide.
If my behavior then the least mistrust should wake —

ERIDON.
To keep oneself in check, no proof of love can make-

EGLE.
Behold her falling tears! they’re flowing in thy honor;
Ne’er thought I that thy heart so basely looked upon her.
The boundless discontent, incessant and diseased,
Which ever asks for more, the more it is appeased, —
The pride which will not let within thy sight appear
The guileless joys of youth her bosom holds so dear, — -
Within thy hateful heart alternately they reign,
Thou heedest not her love, thou heedest not her pain.
She’s dear to me, and thou no more shalt treat her ill;
To fly thee will be hard; to love thee, harder still.

AMINA (aside).
Ah, wherefore must my heart with love be flowing o’er!

ERIDON
(standing still for a moment, and then timidly approaching

AMINA and taking her hand).
Amina, dearest child! Canst thou forgive once more?

AMINA.
Have I not granted oft forgiveness full, complete?

ERIDON.
Thou noble, best of hearts, let me before thy feet —

AMINA.
Arise, my Eridon!

EGLE.
Thy many thanks withhold;
What one too warmly feels, will soon again grow cold.

ERIDON.
And all this warmth of heart with which I honor her —

EGLE.
A greater bliss would be, if somewhat less it were.
More calmly would ye live, and all her pain and thine —

ERIDON.
Forgive me once again, more wisdom shall be mine.

AMINA.
Dear Eridon, now go, a nosegay pick for me;
If gathered by thy hand, how charming it will be I

ERIDON.
Thou hast a rose there now!

AMINA.
Her Lamon gave me this.
It suits me well.

ERIDON (touchily).
Indeed —

AMINA.
O take it not amiss,
And thou shalt have it, dear.

ERIDON (embracing her, and kissing her hand).
I’ll bring thee flowers with speed.
[Exit.

SCENE IV.

AMINA, EGLE. Presently LAMON.

EGLE.
O poor, good-hearted child, this plan will ne’er succeed!
The more that it is fed, more hungry grows his pride.
Take heed, ‘twill rob thee else of all thou lovest beside.

AMINA.
One care alone I have, lest he should not be true.

EGLE.
How charming! One can see thy love is very new.
’Tis always so at first; when once one’s heart is given,
One thinks of nothing else but love from morn till even.
If we then, at this time a touching novel read,
How greatly this one loved, and that one, true indeed,
That hero soft of heart, so bold when dangers hover,
So mighty in the fight, because he was a lover, —
Our head ‘gins whirling round, we deem it our own story.
We fain would wretched be, or covered o’er with glory.
A youthful heart soon takes impressions from a novel;
A loving heart still less inclines on earth to grovel;
And so we long time love, until we find that we,
Instead of being true, were fools to a degree.

AMINA.
Yet that is not my case.

EGLE.
A patient oft will tell
The doctor in a rage that he is sound and well.
Do we believe him? No. Despite his opposition,
His medicine he must take. And that is thy condition.

AMINA.
’Tis true of children, yes; but’ tis not true of me;
Am I a child?

EGLE.
Thou lovest!

AMINA.
Thou, too!

EGLE.
Yes, love as we!
First moderate the storm which hurries thee along!
One can be very calm, although one’s love is strong.

LAMON.
Here is the ribbon!

AMINA.
Thanks!

EGLE.
Thou art a laggard wooer!

LAMON.
I was upon the hill when Chloris called me to her,
And made me deck her hat with dowers ere she dismissed me.

EGLE.
And what was thy reward?

LAMON.
Mine? None; she only kissed me.
Whatever one may do, no maiden can afford
To give a greater prize than kisses in reward.

AMINA (showing EGLE the wreath with the loop).
Is all now right?

EGLE.
Yes, come!
(She hangs the wreath on AMINA, SO that the loop comes on the right shoulder. In the meantime she talks to LAMON.)
To-day right merry be!

LAMON.
Right noisy be to-day. We feel not half the glee
When we demurely meet, discussing in full quorum
Our loved one’s whims, or else the duties of decorum.

EGLE.
Thou’rt very right.

LAMON.
O, yes!

EGLE.
Amina! Sit thou here!
(AMINA sits down. EGLE puts flowers in her hair, while she continues.)
Come, give me back the kiss that Chloris gave thee, dear!

LAMON (kissing her).
Most gladly. Here it is.

AMINA.
How very strange ye are!

EGLE.
Were Eridon the same, thou wouldst be happier far.

AMINA.
He ne’er, instead of me, would kiss another maid.

LAMON.
Where is the rose?

EGLE.
When he attempted to upbraid,
She gave it him for peace.

AMINA.
I wish to be polite.

LAMON.
If thou dost pardon him, he’ll pardon thee. Quite right!
Yes, each the other plagues in turn, I clearly see.

EGLE.
(As a sign that she is ready with the decoration for the head.) There!

LAMON.
Good!

AMINA.
I wish the flowers were ready now for me
That Eridon should bring.

EGLE.
Do thou await him here.
I’ll go and deck myself. Come also, Lamon, dear!
We’ll leave thee here alone, but soon be back again.

SCENE V.

AMINA. (Presently ERIDON.)
What enviable bliss! O, what a tender swain!
How wish I that it but depended upon me
My Eridon content, myself made blest, to see!
Did I not to his hands such influence o’er me give,
Far happier he would be, and I in peace should live.
If to o’ercome this power I seeming coldness try,
At my indifference he’ll into fury fly.
I know his wrath, and dread to feel it; thou, my heart,
Wouldst very badly play so difficult a part.
Yet, if thou wouldst succeed as fully as thy friend,
And ‘stead of serving him, his will to thine wouldst bend,
To-day’s the very time; I never must allow
The chance to p’ass... He comes! My heart, take courage now

ERIDON (giving her flowers)*
They’re not so very good, my child! pray, pardon me,
I gathered them in haste.

AMINA.
Enough, they are from thee.

ERIDON.
They’re not so blooming quite, as those fair roses were
That Damon stole from thee.

AMINA (placing them in her bosom).
I’ll keep them safely there.
There where thou art enshrined, these flowers should also blow.

ERIDON.
If there alone they’re safe —

AMINA.
Hast thou suspicions? —

ERIDON.
No!
I’ve none, my child; ’tis fear alone I feel to-day.
The best of hearts forgets,’ midst merry sport and play,
When happy in the dance, and at the noisy fête,
What duty may enjoin, and wisdom may dictate.
Thou may’st perhaps think of me, when in this joyous vein,
Yet thou dost not attempt the freedom to restrain
Which youths allow themselves to practise, bit by bit,
If maidens but in jest a liberty permit.
Their idle pride presumes to treat as love ere long
A pleasant playful mien.

AMINA.
Enough, if they are wrong.
’Tis true that loving sighs pursue me by the score;
Yet thou dost hold my heart, and say, what wouldst thou more?
Poor fellows! upon me thou mightest let them look;
They think that wonder —

ERIDON.
No, such thou thoughts I will not brook
’Tis that that vexes me. Well know I thou art mine;
Yet one of them perchance the same thing may opine,
And gaze upon thine eyes, and think to give a kiss,
And triumph in the thought that he has spoiled my bliss.

AMINA.
Destroy his triumph, then! Beloved one, with me go;
Let them the preference see which thou —

ERIDON.
I thank thee, no
That sacrifice to claim would show a cruel will;
Thou, child, wouldst be ashamed of one who danced so ill;
I know whom in the dance as partner thou approvest;
The one who dances best, and not the one thou lovest.

AMINA.
That is the truth.

ERIDON (with restrained irony).
Ah, yes, I often have regretted
The gifts of Damaris, so light of foot, and petted!
How well he dances!

AMINA.
Yes, none like him in the dance.

ERIDON.
And each maid —

AMINA.
Prizes him —

ERIDON.
Adores him for’t!

AMINA.
Perchance.

ERIDON.
Perchance? The devil! Yes!

AMINA.
What mean those strange grimaces?

ERIDON.
Thou askest? Thou’lt drive me mad. Thy conduct a disgrace is!

AMINA.
Mine? Art not thou the cause of my and thy great woe?
Oh, cruel Eridon! How canst thou treat me so?

ERIDON,
I must; I love thee well. ’Tis love that makes me vex thee.
Loved I not thee so much I never should perplex thee.
My feeling, tender heart with ecstasy beats high,
When thy hand presses mine, when on me smiles thine eye.
I thank the gods who give such bliss without alloy,
Yet only I demand that none shall share my joy.

AMINA.
Of what dost thou complain! No others snare it now.

ERIDON.
Yet thou endurest them? No hatred feelest thou?

AMINA.
I hate them? Why should I?

ERIDON.
Because they dare to love thee.

AMINA.
A pretty ground!

ERIDON.
I see thou lettest their sighing move thee;
Their feelings thou muse spare; and lessened is thy pleasure,
Unless thou —

AMINA.
Eridon’s injustice knows no measure!
Does love require that we humanity should shun?
A heart that truly loves, can hate no other one.
This tender feeling ne’er with such base thoughts can dwell,
Never at least with me.

ERIDON.
Thou vindicatest well
The gentle sex’s proud and high prerogative,
If twenty blockheads kneel, the twenty to deceive!
To-day’s a day when pride may specially enfold thee.
To-day thou’lt many see, who as a goddess hold thee;
Full many a youthful heart will throb for thee right hard,
Remember me, when swarms of fools around thee run;
I am the greatest! Go!

AMINA aside).
Fly, weak heart, he has won,
Ye gods, lives he for naught but to destroy my peace?
Must my distress still last, and never, never cease? -
(To ERIDON.)
The gentle bonds of love thou turnest to a yoke:
A tyrant thou to me, yet I my love invoke!
With tenderness to all thy wrath have I replied,
I ever yield to thee, yet thou’rt not satisfied.
No sacrifice I’ve spared. Contented ne’er art thou.
My pleasure of to-day thou claimest? Thou hast it now!
(She takes the wreaths out of her hair and from her shoulder, throws them away and continues in a restrained calm voice.)
Now say, dear Eridon? Thou lovest me better so,
Than for the feast arrayed? Thine anger now forego.
Thou wilt not look at me? Remains thy heart still hardened?

ERIDON (falling down before her).
Amina, thee I love! Be my vile conduct pardoned!
Go to the feast.

AMINA.
My friend, with thee I’d sooner stay;
A loving song will serve to while the time away.

ERIDON.
Dear child, now go!

AMTINA.
Go thou, and quickly fetch thy flute.

ERIDON.
Thou will’st it?

SCENE VI.

AMINA.
He seems sad, yet feels rejoicings mute.
In vain wilt thou on him thy tenderness bestow.
He feels my sacrifice? He little heeds it; no,
He deems it but his due. What wouldst thou, ray poor heart?
Thou murmurest in my breast. Deserved I all this smart?
Yes, thou deservest it well! Thou seest he never ceases
To torture thee, and yet thy love for him increases.
I will not bear it more. Hush! Ha, I hear the din
Of music there. My heart doth throb, my foot joins in.
I’ll go! My troubled breast my misery proclaims!
How wretched do I feel! My heart with burning flames
Consumes. Off, to the feast! He will not let me move!
Unhappy maiden! See this is the bliss of love!
(She throws herself on a bank, and weeps; as the others enter, she dries her eyes and rises.)
Alas, they now approach! How can I face their jeers!

SCENE VII.

AMINA, EGLE, LAMON.

EGLE.
Make haste! The march begins! Amina! What! In tears?

LAMON {picking up the wreaths).
The garlands?

EGLE.
What means this? Who tore them off? Confess!

AMINA.
Myself.

EGLE.
Wilt thou not go?

AMINA.
If he will let me, yes.

EGLE.
If who will let thee? Say, why talk in this mysterious
And unaccustomed tone? Be not so shy and serious!
Is’t Eridon?

AMINA.
Yes, he!

EGLE.
I thought that it was so.
Thou fool! and will thy wrongs ne’er make thee wiser grow?
Thou hast a promise made that thou with him wilt stay,
And pass in tears and sighs such a delightful day?
He’s flattered, child, when thou for all his whims thus carest.
(After a pause, whilst she makes signs to LAMON.)
Yet thou far better lookest when thou the garland wearest.
Come, put it on! and hang the other o’er thee thus!
Thou’rt charming now.

AMINA stands with downcast eyes, and lets EGLE have her way. EGLE gives a sign to LAMON.)
But, ah! ’tis fully time for us
To join the march.

LAMON.
Quite right! My dearest child, adieu l

AMINA (sorrowfully).
Farewell!

EGLE (departing).
Amina! now, wilt thou join us, too?
(AMINA looks at her sadly, and is silent.)

LAMON (taking EGLE by the hand to lead her off).
O — leave her to herself! With spite I’m fit to die;
The charming dance she’ll spoil with her perversity!
The dance both right and left, she knows it all by heart;
I — I — fully thought that she would take her proper part.
She’ll stop at home now! Come, I’ve nothing more to say.

EGLE.
Thou dost forego the dance! I pity thee to-day.
He dances well! Good-bye!
(EGLE seeks to kiss AMINA. AMINA. falls on her neck, and weeps.)

AMINA.
Complete is my dismay.

EGLE..
Thou weepest.

AMINA.
My saddened heart in grief despairing sinks!
I fain would... Eridon, I hate thee now, methinks!

EGLE.
He merits it. But no! A lover who e’er hated?
Love him thou shouldst, nor let thyself be subjugated.
I long have told thee this. Come!

LAMON.
Join the dance with me!

AMINA.
And Eridon?

EGLE.
Now go! I’ll stay! He’ll yield, thou’lt see,
And join thee. Say, would this afford thee any pleasure?

AMINA.
Immense I

LAMON.
Now come! Dost hear the shawm’s soft, dulcet measure?
The charming melody?
(He takes AMINA by the hand, and sings and dances.)

EGLE (sings).
If ever a lover with jealousy vile
Annoys thee, complains of a nod or a smile,
Accuses of falsehood or other invention,
Then sing thou, and dance thou, and pay no attention.
(L ELMON carries AMINA off with him to the dance.)

AMINA (as she goes).
Fail not in thy persuasion!

SCENE VIII.

EGLE, and presently ERIDON, with a flute and songs.

EGLE
’Tis well! We soon shall see! I long have sought occasion
This shepherd to convert, and make his ways more courtly.
To-day’s my wish fulfilled; I’ll teach thee manners shortly I’ll show thee who thou art; and at the least suggestion —
He comes! List, Eridon!

ERIDON,
Where is she?

EGLE.
What a question!
With Lamon yonder, where thou hearest the cornets blow.

ERIDON (throwing his flute on the ground and tearing the songs).
Vile infidelity!

EGLE.
Art mad?

ERIDON.
I should be so.
The hypocrite first tears the garland from her brow
With smiling face, and says: I will not dance, dear, now!
Did I insist on that? And... O!
(He stamps with his foot, and throws the torn songs away.)

EGLE (in a composed voice).
Let me inquire
What right hast thou to make her from the dance retire?
Thou wishest that a heart, which with thy love is filled,
Should know no other joys than those by thee instilled?
Dost think all impulses for pleasure are suppressed,
As soon as thoughts of love pervade a maiden’s breast?
Enough, if she to thee her dearest hours will give,
On thee, when absent, think, with thee would ever live.
’Tis folly, then, my friend, in grief to make her dwell;
So let her love the dance, and games, and thee, as well.

ERIDON (dropping his arms and looking up).
Ah!

EGLE.
Tell me, dost thou deem that any love is shown
By keeping her with thee?’ Tis slavery alone.
Thou comest: at the fête no other she may see,
Thou goest: and forthwith she needs must go with thee;
She lingers: straightway thou dost give her looks unkind;
She follows thee, but oft her heart is left behind.

ERIDON.
Perhaps always!

EGLE.
People hear, when bitter words are said,
There where no freedom is, all joys will soon be dead.
Thus are we made. A child a few words may have sung;
You bid him sing away. He starts and holds his tongue.
If thou her freedom leavest, her love thou’st forfeit ne’er;
If thou behavest too ill, she’ll hate thee; so beware!

ERIDON.
She’ll hate me?

EGLE.
Rightly too. Then seize a day like this,
And for thyself procure love’s tenderness and bliss!
None but a tender heart, by its own glow impelled,
Can constant be, by love incessantly upheld.
Confess now, canst thou tell if any bird is true,
When kept within a cage?

ERIDON.
No!

EGLE.
If, with freedom new
It flies o’er gardens, fields, and yet to thee returns?

ERIDON.
Quite right, I understand!

EGLE.
What rapture in thee burns,
To see the little thing, which loves thee tenderly,
Its freedom know, and yet the preference give to thee!
And if thy maiden e’er, excited by the dance,
From any fête comes back, and seeks thee, while each glance
Betrays that all her joys imperfect bliss supply,
While thou, her lover, thou, her own one, art not by;
If she will then declare one kiss of thine to be
More than a thousand fêtes: who would not envy thee?

IDON (moved).
O Egle!

EGLE.
Tremble lest the gods should take amiss
That one so blest as thou so little knows his bliss!
Up! Be contented, friend! Or they’ll the tears that flow
From that poor maid, avenge.

ERIDON.
Could I accustomed grow,
To see how in the dance her hands so many press, —
While this one ogles her, she looks at that one! Yes,
When I on this reflect, my heart feels like to break!

EGLE.
What nonsense! What a fuss for trifles thou dost mate!
Theresa nothing in a kiss!

ERIDON.
A kiss is naught, sayest thou?

EGLE.
Methinks that in his heart there is some feeling now,
If thus he talks. But say, wilt thou forgive her, friend?
For when thou art displeased, her sorrow knows no end.

ERIDON.
Ah, friend!

EGLE (flatteringly).
This will not do! Thou also art a lover
Farewell! (She takes him by the hand).
Thou’rt all aglow!

ERIDON.
My blood is boiling over —

EGLE.
With anger still? Enough! Thy pardon now has she.
I’ll hasten to her straight. She’ll trembling ask for thee;
I’ll tell her: he is kind; composure this will give her,
Her heart will softer beat, she’ll love thee more than ever,
(She looks at him sentimentally.)
She’ll surely seek thee out when ended is the feast,
And by the search itself her love will be increased.
(EGLE affects still more tenderness, and leans upon his shoulder. lie takes her hand and kisses it.)
She’ll find thee presently! O what a moment this!
Press her against thy breast and feel thy perfect bliss!
A maid, when dancing, looks more fair, her cheeks are glowing.
Her mouth is wreathed with smiles, her loosened locks are flowing
Over her heaving breast, more tender charms enhance
The beauties of her form, when whirling in the dance;
Her throbbing pulses glow, and as her body sways,
Each nerve appears to thrill and greater life displays.
(She pretends to feel a tender rapture, and sinks upon hi breast, whilst he places his arm around her waist.)
The bliss of seeing this what rapture can excel?
Thou’lt go not to the fête, and therefore canst not tell.

ERIDON.
Dear friend, upon thy breast I feel it all too well!
He falls upon EGLE’S neck and kisses her, while she offers no resistance. She then steps back a few paces, and asks in an indifferent tone.)
Lovest thou Amina?

ERIDON.
As myself!

EGLE.
Yet darest thou
To kiss me? Thou shalt pay the penalty, I vow!
Thou faithless man!

ERIDON.
But what dost thou suppose that I —  —

EGLE.
Yes, I suppose it all. My friend, right tenderly
Thou kissedst me, ’tis true. Therewith I’m well content.
Was my kiss good? No doubt: thy hot lips prove assent.
And ask for more. Poor child! Amina, wert thou here Î

ERIDON.
I would she were!

EGLE.
How vain! She’d wretched be, poor dear!

ERIDON.
Ay she would scold me well. Thou must betray me not.
I’ve kissed thee, but that kiss will not hurt her a jot;
And if Amina give me kisses most enchanting,
May I not feel that thine in rapture are not wanting?

EGLE.
Best ask herself.

SCENE IX.

AMINA, EGLE, ERIDOX.

ERIDON.
Woe’s me!

AMINA.
I long to see him so!
My own dear Eridon! ’Twas Egle made me go.
Alas, I broke my word; my friend, I’ll go not now.

ERIDON (aside).
Wretch that I am!

AMINA.
Thou’rt wroth? thy face avertest thou?

ERIDON (aside).
What can I say?

AMINA.
Alas! Is all this anger due
For such a little fault? Thou’rt in the right, ’tis true,
And yet —

EGLE.
O let him go! He gave me such a kiss I
And likes it still.

AMINA.
Kissed thee?

EGLE.
Right tenderly!

AMINA.
Ah, this
Too much is for my heart! Thy love is thus unsteady?
Unhappy I! My friend deserteth me already!
Who kisses other maids, his own will shortly fly.
Ah! since I thee have loved, like this ne’er acted I;
To try to reach my lips, no youth has been so daring;
E’en when I forfeits played my kisses have been sparing.
My heart as much as thine is plagued by jealousy,
Yet I’ll forgive thee all, if thou wilt turn to me.
And yet, poor heart, in vain art thou so well protected!
No love for me he feels, since he thy wiles suspected.
The mighty advocate for thee in vain doth plead.

ERIDON.
What long tenderness! How vast my shame, indeed!

AMINA.
My friend, oh, how couldst thou seduce away my lover?

EGLE.
Be comforted, good child! Thy woes will soon be over.
Well know I Eridon, and know that he is true.

AMINA.
And has —

EGLE.
Ay, thou art right, and he has kissed me, too.
I know how it occurred; his fault thou mayest condone.
How deeply he repents!

ERIDON (falling down before AMINA).
Amina! O my own!
Oh, blame her! she appeared so pretty when I kissed
Her mouth was very close, and I could not resist.
Yet, if thou knowest me well, thou pardon must impart;
A little joy like that will not despoil my heart.

EGLE.
Amina, kiss him, since he answers so discreetly!
Despite those little joys, ye love each other sweetly.
To ERIDON.
My friend, thou on thyself must judgment pass this time
Although she loves the dance, thou see’st that is no crime.
(Mocking him.)
If in the dance a youth her hand may chance to press, —
While this one ogles her, she looks at that one, — yes,
Of even this, thou knowest, thou oughtest not to complain
I trust that thou wilt ne’er Amina plague again.
Methinks thou’lt with us go.

AMINA.
Come, join the fête.

ERIDON.
I will;
A kiss has been my cure.

EGLE (to AMINA).
Thou’lt take that kiss not ill.
Should jealousy again his bosom seek to kindle,
Remind him of that kiss, and ‘twill to nothing dwindle. —
And, O ye jealous ones, if maidens plague you e’er,
Recall your own false tricks, and blame them, if ye dare.

THE FELLOW CULPRITS

Translated by Edgar A. Bowring

This one-act comedy was written from November 1768 to February 1769. It premiered on January 9, 1777, with Goethe in the role of Alcest in the Weimar Grosskochberg. The witty play was written during Goethe’s residence at Leipzig; though it was improved at intervals, until it was printed in Goethe’s collected works. That Goethe considered it of some importance is shown by the fact that it was one of the plays he allowed the amateur company at the court of Weimar to perform.

Weimarer Liebhabertheater, where the comedy was first performed

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

SCENE VII.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

SCENE VII.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

SCENE X.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The HOST. — ALCESTES.
SOPHIA, his daughter.
A WAITER.
SOLLER, her husband.
The Scene is in the Inn.
The Fellow Culprits

ACT I.

SCENE I.

The Inn Parlour.

SOLLER, in a domino at a table, with a bottle of wine before him. SOPHIA, opposite him, sewing a white feather on to a hat. The HOST enters. At the back of the stage is a table with pen, ink, and paper. A large easy-chair is near it.

HOST.

ANOTHER ball! My son, I’m sick of all this riot;
I thought that by this time you’d like a little quiet.
I certainly ne’er gave my daughter’s hand to you,
To see my hard-won cash so recklessly run through.
I’m getting old, and sought my forces to recruit;
Assistance wanted I, and so allow’d your suit:
A nice assistance yours, to waste each little earning.
(SOLLER hums a tune to himself)
Yes, sing away! You’ll soon another song be learning.
A good-for-nothing chap, whose folly few men’s matches,
Plays, drinks, tobacco smokes, and plots of all kinds hatches.
You revel all the night, are half the day in bed:
No prince throughout the land an easier life e’er led.
There the adventurer sits, with spreading sleeves.
Ha! ha!
The king of coxcombs he!

SOLLER (drinks).
I drink your health, papa!

HOST.
You drink my health, indeed! Enough to give me fever!

SOPHIA.
My father, pray be kind!

SOLLER (drinks).
Soph, happy be for ever!

SOPHIA.
Be happy! Ah, could I but see you two agree!

HOST.
Unless he changes much, that certainly can’t be.
I’ve long indeed been sick of these disputes eternal;
But while he thus behaves, the nuisance is infernal.
He is a wicked man, cold, thankless to the last;
He sees not what he is, remembers not the past:
The poverty from which I saved him, he forgets,
And my munificence in paying all his debts.
Distress, repentance, time, no change in him have wrought:
The man who’s once a scamp is always good for nought.

SOPHIA.
He’ll surely change some day.

HOST.
He little hurry shows.

SOPHIA.
’Tis but the way of youth.

SOLLER (drinks).
To all we love, here goes!

HOST.
In at one ear, forsooth, and at the other out.
He doesn’t hear me. I a cipher am, no doubt.
I now for twenty years an honour’d life have led:
What I have saved, you hope to make your own instead,
And bit by bit consume? If this is what you’re at,
You’re much mistaken, friend! ’Tis not so bad as that.
Long has endured, and long will still last, my vocation:
The host of the Black Bear is known throughout creation.
No foolish Bear is he, his skin he looks to well:
My house is painted now, I call it a hotel.
Soon cavaliers will come, and gold will fall in showers:
We none must idle be, or waste in drink our hours.
To bed at twelve o’clock, up as soon as it is day,
That’s it!

SOLLER.
All this, just now, is pretty far away.
May things go on as now, and never get less steady!
Where are our many guests? The rooms above are ready.

HOST.
Few travel at this time: the house will fill up soon.
Has Squire Alcestes not two rooms and the saloon?

SOLLER.
That’s nothing, yes: a right good customer is he;
Yet sixty minutes good in ev’ry hour there he,
And Squire Alcestes knows why he is here.

HOST.
Knows why?

SOLLER.
But, apropos, papa! To-day informed was I:
A corps of brave young folks in Germany’s preparing
To help America, both gold and succour bearing.
If they get men enough, and courage for the mission,
Next spring, ’tis said, they’ll start upon their expedition.

HOST.
Yes, oft I’ve heard them boast, as they a bottle share,
What wonders they would do for my compatriots there;
Then freedom was the cry, vast valour they affected,
But when the morning came their vows none recollected.

SOLLER.
Ah, there are chaps enough, who’re always gushing over:
There’s one not far from you who is an ardent lover;
Would he romantic be, or aim at the sublime,
With head well placed in front, he’ll scour the world in time.

HOST.
If from our customers that one would take a hint,
’Twould be so nice, and he could write us, without stint,
Such letters! What a joke!

SOLLER.
’Tis deuced far from here.

HOST.
What matters that? In time the letters would appear.
I’ll go up-stairs at once, and with the map’s assistance,
That’s in the little room, I’ll soon find out the distance.

SCENE II.

SOPHIA, SOLLER.

SOLLER.
One’s pretty well off here, when one can read the papers.

SOPHIA.
Yes, let him have his way.

SOLLER.
I’m calm, and have no vapours:
’Tis well for him, indeed! Was ever such a bully!

SOPHIA.
I pray you —

SOLLER.
No! I needs must speak my mind out fully!
A year ago was I, as I can ne’er forget,
A trav’ller here by chance, head over ears in debt —

SOPHIA.
My dear, be not so cross!

SOLLER.
Those thoughts will still molest ma
And yet Sophia found she didn’t quite detest me.

SOPHIA.
You leave me ne’er in peace, reproaching night and day.

SOLLER.
I don’t reproach you, dear; ’tis but my little way.
A pretty woman ne’er can be by man held hateful,
Whatever may betide! You see I’m not ungrateful.
Sophia pretty is, and I am not of stone:
’Tis my delight that you now me as husband own.
I love you —

SOPHIA.
Yet you ne’er allow a moment’s bliss.

SOLLER.
There’s nothing in it, love! But I can tell you this:
Alcestes loved you well, for you with love did burn;
You long have known him too, and loved him in return.

SOPHIA.
Ah!

SOLLER.
No: don’t be disturb’d. I see no evil there:
If we should plant a tree, it shoots up in the air;
And when it brings forth fruit, who happens to be by
Will eat it, and next year there’s more. Sophia, I
Know you too well to feel the least annoyance after.
I find it laughable.

SOPHIA.
I see no cause for laughter.
‘Alcestes loved me well, for me with love did burn;
I long have known him too, and loved him in return.”
What’s after that?

SOLLER.
Why, nought! I never said, in truth,
That more remains behind. For in her early youth,
When first a maiden blooms, she loves in make-believe:
A something stirs her heart, but what, she can’t conceive.
At forfeits she will kiss: she presently grows bigger;
The kiss still nicer is, impress’d with greater vigour.
She knows not why she now her mother’s blame incurs:
’Tis virtue when she loves, she’s guileless when she errs.
And if experience comes her other gifts to swell,
And makes a prudent wife, her husband likes it well.

SOPHIA.
You understand me not.

SOLLER.
I only meant to quiz;
What drinking is to men, a kiss to maidens is:
One glass, and then one more, till on the ground we sink;
If we would sober keep, the plan is — not to drink.
Enough that you are mine! — Is’t not three years and more
Since Squire Alcestes here was guest and friend before?
How long was he away?

SOPHIA.
Three years, I think.

SOLLER.
And now
He’s been a fortnight here this time —

SOPHIA.
My love, I vow
I know not what you mean.

SOLLER.
’Tis only conversation:
‘Tween man and wife there is so little explanation.
But wherefore is he here?

SOPHIA.
For pleasure, I suppose.

SOLLER.
Perchance his heart for you with love still overflows.
If he still loves, would you still treat him as before?

SOPHIA.
Love’s capable of much, but duty is of more.
You think —

SOLLER.
I nothing think; and understand the saying:
A man’s worth more than fops who live by fiddle-playing.
The sweetest tunes we hear in any shepherd’s song
Are only tunes; and tunes the palate cloy ere long.

SOPHIA.
’Tis well to talk of tunes. Does yours sound much more gaily?
The state of discontent in which you live grows daily.
No moment in the day is from your teasing free:
If folks would be beloved, they lovable must be.
And were you quite the man, happy to make a maiden?
Why should I always be with your reproaches laden
For what is nothing? Yes, the house is near a crash:
You will not do a stroke, and only spend the cash.
You live from hand to mouth; your debts are always many;
And when your wife wants aught, she cannot get a penny,
And you won’t take the pains to earn it for her. Yes:
Be a good man, would you a worthy wife possess.
Help her to pass her time, and what she needs, obtain;
And as concerns the rest, you may in peace remain.

SOLLER.
Speak to your father, then!

SOPHIA.
That’s what I’ve done quite lately.
There’s many a thing we want, and trade has suffer’d greatly.
I asked him yesterday to hand me something over:
“What,” cried he, “you no cash, and Soller there in clover!”
He gave me nothing, swore, with much abuse behind it.
Now tell me, please, where you expect that I shall find it?
You’re not a man who e’er would for his wife feel sorrow.

SOLLER.
Oh, wait, dear child! perchance I shall receive tomorrow
From a good friend —

SOPHIA.
Oh, yes! from one who is a ninny.
I often hear of friends prepared to lend their guinea;
But when we want gold, I never see that friend.
No, Soller, you must know that game is at an end!

SOLLER.
You have what needful is —

SOPHIA.
I know what you are at;
But those who ne’er were poor need something more than that.
The gifts of Fortune oft to spoil us are inclined:
We have what needful is, yet fancy her unkind.
The pleasure maidens love, and women too, — that joy
I neither hunger for, nor do I find it cloy.
Fine dresses, balls! Enough, I am a woman true.

SOLLER.
Then go with me to-day. That’s what I say to you.

SOPHIA.
That like the carnival our mode of life may be,
A revel for a time, that’s ended suddenly.
I’d sooner sit alone whole years together here.
If you will nothing save, your wife must save, — that’s clear.
Enough already is my father’s indignation:
I calm his wrath, and am his only consolation.
No! with my money, sir, you shall not make so free:
A little save yourself, and something spend on me!

SOLLER.
My child, for just this once allow me to be merry:
When comes the time for mass, we’ll then be serious, very.
A WAITER enters.
Squire Soller!

SOLLER.
Well, what now?

WAITER.
Here’s Herr von Tirinette!

SOPHIA.
The gambler?

SOLLER.
Send him off! Could I his name forget!

WAITER.
See you he must, he says.

SOPHIA.
What can he want with you?

SOLLER.
He’s leaving here — (To the WAITER.) — I’ll come!
(To SOPHIA.) He wants to say adieu.
[Exit.

SCENE III.

SOPHIA (alone).
He comes to dun him! Yes, his money’s lost at play:
He’s ruining us all, and I must bear it! Say,
Is this where all thy joys, thy dreams of pleasure, are?
The wife of such a man! Hast thou gone back so far?
Where is the vanished time, in which the youngsters sweet
In troops were wont to pay their homage at thy feet?
When each one sought to read his fate within thine eyes?
In affluence I stood, a goddess from the skies.
The servants of my whims all watchful round me pressed:
It was enough to fill with vanity my breast.
And, ah! a maiden is in evil case, in truth.
If she is pretty, she is ogled by each youth;
All day her head’s confused by praises loud and strong:
What maiden can withstand such fiery trial long?
Ye could so nobly act, one thinks your word enough,
Ye men! But all at once the Devil takes you off:
When ye can taste by stealth, all join the feast instanter;
But if a girl’s in love, ye vanish in a canter.
Thus gentlemen themselves in these hard times amuse,
Some twenty disappear, and half a one then woos.
I found myself at last not utterly passed o’er;
But chances fewer grow, when one is twenty-four.
Then Soller came, and soon accepted was by me:
He’s an unworthy wretch, but still a man is he.
Here sit I now, and might as well be in my grave.
Admirers by the score I still, indeed, might have,
But what would be the use? If haply they are silly,
They would but breed ennui, and bore me, willy-nilly;
And dang’rous ’tis to love, suppose your friend is clever:
He’ll to your detriment his cleverness turn ever.
When love was absent, I for no attentions cared, —
And now, — Oh, my poor heart! wert thou for this prepared?
Alcestes has returned. Ah, what new torment this!
To see him formerly — ay, those were days of bliss.
How loved I him! — And yet — I know not what I will.
I shun him timidly, he is reserved and still;
I am afraid of him; my fear is fully grounded.
Ah, knew he that my heart still throbs with love unbounded!
He comes. I tremble now. My breast feels anguish new:
I know not what I will, still less what I should do.

SCENE IV.

SOPHIA, ALCESTES.

ALCESTES (dressed, but without hat and sword).
Your pardon, ma’am, I pray, if I appear intrusive.

SOPHIA.
You’re joking, sir: you know this room is not exclusive.

ALCESTES.
I feel that you no more to others me prefer.

SOPHIA.
I do not understand how that can hurt you, sir.

ALCESTES.
You do not, cruel one? Can I survive your ire?

SOPHIA.
Excuse me, if you please: I fear I must retire.

ALCESTES.
Oh, where, Sophia, where? — You turn your face away,
Withdraw your hand? Have you no mem’ry left to-day?
Behold. Alcestes ’tis! A hearing he entreats.

SOPHIA.
Alas! how my poor heart with wild excitement beats!

ALCESTES.
If you’re Sophia, stay!

SOPHIA.
In mercy, spare me, spare me!
I must, I must away!

ALCESTES.
Sophia, can’t you bear me?
O — cruel one! Methought, She now is quite alone:
This is the very time to have some kindness shown.
I — I hoped that she could speak one friendly word to me,
But go now, go! ’Twas in this very room that she
The ardour of her love to me discovered first;
’Twas here that into flames our mutual passion burst.
Upon this very spot, — remember you no more? —
Eternal faith you pledged! —

SOPHIA.
Oh, spare me, I implore!

ALCESTES.
I never can forget, — the evening was enchanting:
Your eyes spoke out, and I in ardour was not wanting.
Your lips against my lips you tremblingly did press, —
My heart still deeply feels that utter happiness.
Your only joy was then to see or think of me;
And now, for me not e’en one hour will you keep free.
You see me seek for you; you see how I am sad:
Go, false heart, go! you ne’er for me affection had.

SOPHIA.
You torture me, when now my heart enough oppressed is?
You dare to say that I have never loved Alcestes?
You were my one sole wish, my greatest joy were you;
For you my blood was stirred, for you my heart beat true;
And this good heart which I did then to you surrender,
Must still remember you, can never be untender.
I’m often troubled still with all this recollection:
As fresh as it was then, remaineth my affection.

ALCESTES.
You angel! Dearest heart! (He attempts to embrace her)

SOPHIA.
There’s some one coming now.

ALCESTES.
What, not one single word? I ne’er can this allow.
Thus the whole day is spent. How wretched is my lot!
I’ve been a fortnight here, to you have spoken not.
I know you love me still, but this I painful find:
We never are alone, we ne’er can speak our mind.
Not for one moment e’er this room in peace abides:
Sometimes your father ’tis, your husband then besides.
I shall not stay here long: I can endure it never.
All things are possible to those who will, however.
Once you were always prompt, expedients to devise;
And jealousy was blind, though with a hundred eyes.
And if you only —

SOPHIA.
What?

ALCESTES.
Would bear in mind that ne’er
Alcestes must by you be driven to despair.
Beloved one, do not fail to seek a fitting spot
For private converse, since this place affords it not.
But hark! this very night goes out your worthy spouse.
’Tis thought I, too, shall join a carnival-carouse.
The back door to my stairs is quite adjacent, so
No person in the house of my return will know.
The keys are in my hands, and if you’ll me receive —

SOPHIA.
Alcestes, I’m surprised —

ALCESTES.
And am I to believe
That you’re no woman false? that still your heart is mine?
The only means that yet are left us, you decline?
Know you Alcestes not? And can you still delay
During the night one hour to while with him away?
Enough! Sophia, I to-night may visit you?
Or, if it safer seems, you’ll come to me? Adieu!

SOPHIA.
This is too much!

ALCESTES.
Too much! A pretty way to speak!
The deuce! too much! too much! Am I week after week
To waste for nothing here? — Damnation! why remain
If you don’t care? I’ll go to-morrow off again.

SOPHIA.
Beloved one! Best one!

ALCESTES.
Ay, my grief you see and know,
And you remain unmoved! I’ll hence for ever go.

SCENE V.

THE ABOVE. THE HOST,

HOST.
A letter, sir, — from some great person, I opine.
The seal is very large: the paper, too, is fine.
(ALCESTES tears open the letter).

HOST (aside).
What’s in this letter, I should vastly like to know!

ALCESTES (who has read the letter through hastily).
To-morrow morning hence full early I must go.
The bill!

HOST.
To start off thus, at such a time of rain,
The letter must indeed important news contain.
May I perchance presume to ask your Honour why?

ALCESTES.
No!

HOST (to SOPHIA).
Ask him: he to you will certainly reply.
(He goes to the table at the bottom of the stage, where he takes his books out of the drawer, sits down, and makes out the bill)

SOPHIA.
Alcestes, is it so?

ALCESTES.
Her coaxing face, just see!

SOPHIA.
Alcestes, I entreat, depart not thus from me!

ALCESTES.
Make up your mind at once to see me, then, to-night.

SOPHIA (aside).
What shall — what can I do! He must not leave my sight:
My only joy is he —
(Aloud.) You see, I never can —
Remember, I’m a wife.

ALCESTES.
The Devil take the man!
You’ll be a widow then! These passing hours employ:
Perchance they’ll be the last, as well as first, of joy.
One word. At midnight, then, my love, I shall appear.

SOPHIA.
My father’s chamber is to mine so very near.

ALCESTES.
Well, then, you’ll come to me! Why this consideration?
The moments fly away ‘midst all your hesitation.
Here, take the keys.

SOPHIA.
My key will open ev’ry door.

ALCESTES.
Then come, my darling child! Why trifle any more?
Now, will you?

SOPHIA. will I?

ALCESTES.
Well?

SOPHIA.
Yes, I will come to you.

ALCESTES (to the HOST).
Mine host, I shall not go.

HOST (advancing).
Good!
(To SOPHIA.) Wherefore this ado?

SOPHIA.
Nought will he say.

HOST.
What, nought?

SCENE VI.

THE ABOVE. SOLLER.

ALCESTES.
My hat!

SOPHIA.
There lies it! here!

ALCESTES.
Adieu, I must be off.

SOLLER.
I wish you, sir, good cheer!

ALCESTES.
Fair madam, fare you well!

SOPHIA.
Farewell!

SOLLER.
Your humble servant!

ALCESTES.
I first must go up-stairs.

SOLLER (aside).
Each day he grows more fervent.

HOST (taking a light).
Allow me, sir.

ALCESTES (taking it politely out of his hand).
Good host, indeed I can’t consent!
(Exit.)

SOPHIA.
“Well, Soller, you are off! How if I also went?

SOLLER.
Aha! you now would fain —

SOPHIA.
No, go! I spoke in jest.

SOLLER.
No, no! I understand this longing in your breast.
If one a person sees who’s going to a ball
While one must go to bed, full hard ’tis after all.
There’ll be another soon.

SOPHIA.
Oh, yes, to wait I’m able.
Now, Soller, be discreet, and shun the gaming-table.
(To the HOST, who has meanwhile been standing in deep thought.)
And now, good night, papa. I’m off to bed, you see.

HOST
Good night, Sophia dear.

SOLLER.
Sleep well!
(Looking after her) Eight fair is she!
(He runs after her, and kisses her again at the door.
Sleep well, my lamb!
(To the HOST.) And you will also go to bed!

HOST.
A devil’s letter that! I’d like to hear it read!
(To SOLLER.) Now, Carnival! Good night!

SOLLER.
Thanks! Calm be your repose!

HOST.
Good Soller, when you go, take care the door to close!
(Exit.)

SOLLER.
You needn’t be alarmed!

SCENE VII.

SOLLER (alone).
What song will now be sung?
Oh, that accursed play! I wish the rogue were hung!
His figures were not fair, and I must bear it too!
He storms and fumes away: I know not what to do.
Suppose... Alcestes gold has got... and my false keys —
I’m sure at my expense he fain himself would please.
I long have hated him; around my wife he slinks;
And now, just for this once, I’ll be his guest, methinks.
But then, if it were known, there’d be the deuce to pay —
I’m now in such distress, I know no other way.
The gamester claims his gold, or threatens vengeance deep.
Then, Soller, courage take! The whole house is asleep.
And if it be found out, they’ll find me safely bedded:
Thieves oft escape who are to handsome women wedded.
(Exit)

ACT II.

Alcestes’s Room.
The stage is divided in its length into parlour and alcove.
On one side of the parlour stands a table, on which are papers and a strong box. At the bottom is a large door, and at the side a small one, opposite the alcove.

SCENE I.

SOLLER (in his domino, with a mask on his face, without shoes, a dark lantern in his hand, enters at the little door, and turns the light fearfully round the room: he then advances more boldly, takes off his mask and speaks).

ONE need not valiant be, in following one’s calling:
One through the world may go by cunning and by crawling.
While one, to get a bag of gold, or p’rhaps his death,
With pistols armed, will come and say with bated breath,
“Give up your purse, and lose no time about it, pray,”
As quietly as if he only said, Good day.
Another round you steals, and with his magic passes
And sleight-of-hand your watch soon in his power, alas! is;
And when you seek it, he says boldly to your face,
“I’ll steal it. Take good care;” and that is soon the case.
But Nature gave me ne’er endowments such as that:
My heart too tender is, my fingers are too fat.
Yet, not to be a rogue, is difficult indeed:
Each day the cash grows less, each day the more we need.
You now have made the leap: take care that you don’t fall!
Each person in the house believes I’m at the ball.
Alcestes at the fête is now; my wife’s alone:
Has constellation e’er a better aspect shown?
(Approaching the table)
Oh, come, thou holy one! Thou god in this strong box!
Without thee, e’en a king is scarcely orthodox.
Ye picklocks, many thanks! your merit is untold:
Through you I capture him, the mighty picklock, —
Gold! (Whilst he is trying to open the strong box.)
An extra clerk I once was in a court of justice:
I didn’t stop there long, — so little people’s trust is.
’Twas write, write, write, all day, with trouble still increasing:
The prospects were not good, the drudgery unceasing;
’Twas insupportable. A thief was caught one day:
False keys were on him found, and he was hanged straightway.
Tenacious of her rights is justice known to be:
A subaltern was I, the false keys fell to me.
I picked them up. A thing may seem for little fit,
But there may come a time when you’ll be glad of it.
And now — (The loch springs open).
O lovely coin! I feel like one possessed.
(He puts money in his pocket.)
My pocket swells with cash, with rapture swells my breast —
Unless ’tis fright. But hark! Ye coward limbs!
Pooh, pooh!
Why tremble thus? — Enough!
(He looks into the strong box again, and takes more money.)
Once more! Yes, that will do.
(He closes it and starts.)
Again? There’s something stirs! This house was never haunted —
The devil ’tis, perchance! His presence isn’t wanted.
Is it a cat? But no! Tom-cats walk lighter, rather.
Be quick! They’re at the lock —
(.He springs into the alcove.)

SCENE II.

The HOST (entering at the side door with a wax candle). SOLLER.

SOLLER.
The deuce! It’s my wife’s father!

HOST.
’Tis folly to possess a nervous disposition:
Half guilty only yet, my heart’s in ebullition.
Inquisitive I ne’er in all my life have been,
But in that letter some great secret may be seen.
The papers are so dull, they long have nothing told:
The newest thing one hears is always one month old.
And then, indeed, it is a most excessive bore,
When each one says: “Oh, yes! I’ve read your tale before.”
Were I a cavalier, a minister I’d be;
Then all the couriers needs must bring their news to me.
This letter I can’t find. Perchance he left it not:
If so, confound it all! There’s nothing to be got.

SOLLER (aside).
You good old fool! I see the god of news and thieves
Less worship gets from you than he from me receives.

HOST.
I cannot find it — Hah! — Just hark! What noise is that
In the saloon? —

SOLLER.
Perchance he smells me!

HOST.
By the pat,
It is a woman’s foot.

SOLLER.
That hardly meets my case.

HOST (blows out his candle, and lets it fall, whilst in his confusion he cannot unlock the little door).
This lock still bothers me.
(.Pushes open the door, and exit.)

SCENE III.

SOPHIA, entering at the bottom door with a light. SOLLER.

SOLLER (aside, in the alcove).
It is a woman’s face!
Hell! Devil! ’Tis my wife! What can this indicate?

SOPHIA.
I quake at this bold step.

SOLLER.
’Tis she, as sure as fate!
A pretty rendezvous! But now suppose again
I showed myself! My neck would be in danger then.

SOPHIA.
Just follow in Love’s wake! With friendly mien he first
Allures you on awhile —

SOLLER.
I feel that I shall burst.
But I dare not —

SOPHIA.
But if you ever lose your way,
No ignis fatuus e’en such cruel tricks will play.

SOLLER.
A bog to you would prove less than this room a curse.

SOPHIA.
Matters have long gone ill, but now grow daily worse.
My husband gets quite wild. He always caused me trouble;
But now so bad is he, I hate him nearly double.

SOLLER.
You wretch!

SOPHIA.
He has my hand. Alcestes, as erewhile,
My heart possesses still.

SOLLER.
Enchantment, poison vile
Were not so bad I

SOPHIA.
This heart, which for him fiercely burned,
And which from him alone the art of love first learned —

SOLLER.
The deuce!

SOPHIA.
Was calm and cold, ere softened by Alcestes.

SOLLER.
Ye husbands, hear the tale that now by her confessed is!

SOPHIA.
Alcestes loved me well..

SOLLER.
That’s over long ago.

SOPHIA.
And how I loved him too!

SOLLER.
Mere child’s play, as you know.

SOPHIA.
Fate parted us; and, ah! my sins to expiate,
I needs must wed a brute. — Oh, what a dreadful fate!

SOLLER.
A brute am I? — A brute? A brute with horns, too now.

SOPHIA.
What see I?

SOLLER.
Madam, what?

SOPHIA.
My father’s candle! How
Could it come here? — Suppose.... If so, I needs must fly.
Perchance he’s watching us! —

SOLLER.
Your scourge, O conscience, ply I

SOPHIA.
Yet I can’t understand how he could lose it here.

SOLLER.
Fears she her father not, the devil she won’t fear.

SOPHIA.
Ah, no! all in the house in deepest slumber He.

SOLLER.
Ay, lust more potent is than fear of penalty.

SOPHIA.
My father is in bed. — How ever could it be?
Well, be it so!

SOLLER.
Alas!

SOPHIA.
Alcestes, where is he?

SOLLER.
Oh, could I but —

SOPHIA.
My heart forebodes some coming evil:
I love and fear him too.

SOLLER.
I fear him like the devil,
And more too. If he came, I’d say: “Good king infernal,
If you will take them off, I’ll owe you thanks eternal.”

SOPHIA.
Thou art too honest, heart! What crime committest thou?
Thou vowedst to be true? Why care for such a vow?
True to that man to be, who has no single merit,
Who is so very coarse, false, foolish?

SOLLER.
Thanks, I hear it!

SOPHIA.
If one may not detest such monsters for their pains,
I much prefer the land where devil-worship reigns.
He is a devil!

SOLLER.
What? A devil? Monster? Me!
I cannot bear it more. (He is about to spring out.)

SCENE IV.

ALCESTES (dressed with hat and sword, covered with a cloak, which he immediately takes off). THE ABOVE.

ALCESTES.
You’re waiting, then, I see.

SOPHIA.
Sophia came here first.

ALCESTES.
You fear?

SOPHIA.
I’m fainting nearly.

ALCESTES.
No, dearest, no?

SOLLER.
How fond! Preliminaries merely.

SOPHIA.
You feel how much this heart has suffered for your sake, —
This heart you understand: forgive the step I take!

ALCESTES.
Sophia!

SOPHIA.
Ne’er shall I, if you forgive it, rue.

SOLLER.
You’d better ask of me if I forgive it too.

SOPHIA.
What made me hither come? In truth, I scarce know why.

SOLLER.
I know it but too well.

SOPHIA.
As one that dreams am I.

SOLLER.
Would I were dreaming too!

SOPHIA.
A heart full of distress
I bring to you.

ALCESTES.
To tell one’s trouble makes it less.

SOPHIA.
A sympathetic heart like yours I ne’er did see.

SOLLER.
When you together yawn, you call that sympathy!
Delightful!

SOPHIA.
And when thus a perfect man I’ve found,
Why to your opposite am I for ever bound?
I have a heart which ne’er to virtue said adieu.

ALCESTES.
I know it.

SOLLER.
Yes, and I.

SOPHIA.
Though lovable are you,
One single word from me you never should have guessed,
Unless this hapless heart were hopelessly oppressed.
I day by day behold our house to ruin go.
The life my husband leads! How can we go on so!
I know he loves me not; my tears he never sees:
And when my father storms, him too must I appease.
Each morning with it brings fresh ground for provocation.

SOLLER (touched after a fashion).
Poor woman! I confess there’s cause for her vexation.

SOPHIA.
My husband has no wish to lead a proper life:
In vain I talk; no man has such a yielding wife.
He revels all the day, makes debts on ev’ry side:
At once he plays, fights, sneaks, and quarrels far and wide.
His only wit consists in folly and wild pranks,
His only cleverness is that of mountebanks.
He lies, traduces, cheats.

SOLLER.
She’s gath’ring now, I see,
Materials to compose my fun’ral eulogy.

SOPHIA.
The torments I endure are quite enough to kill,
Did I not know —

SOLLER.
Speak out!

SOPHIA.
Alcestes loves me still.

ALCESTES.
He loves, complains like you.

SOPHIA.
It mitigates my pain,
From one, at least, — from you, — compassion to obtain.
Alcestes, by this hand, this dear hand, I entreat
That you will ever keep your heart unchanged.

SOLLER.
How sweet
Her words are!

SOPHIA.
For this heart, which save for you ne’er glowed,
No other comfort knows than that by you bestowed.

ALCESTES.
I know of nought that’s fit to match your noble heart.
(He takes SOPHIA in his arms and kisses her.)

SOLLER.
Alas! will no kind fate appear, to take my part?
My heart is full of woe.

SOPHIA.
My friend!

SOLLER.
’Tis quite enough.
I’m altogether sick of friendship and such stuff.
And since it seems that they have nothing more to say,
I wish they’d kiss no more, and forthwith go their way!

SOPHIA.
Unkind one, let me go!

SOLLER.
The deuce! What affectation!
“Unkind one, let me go!” that means capitulation.
“You ought to be ashamed!” the stale cry is of many,
As down the hill they fall. I wouldn’t give a penny
Now for her virtue.

SOPHIA (extricating herself).
Friend, one final parting kiss,
And then farewell!

ALCESTES.
You go?

SOPHIA.
I go, for needful ’tis.

ALCESTES.
You love me, and you go?

SOPHIA.
I go, because I love.
I soon should lose a friend, did I not quickly move.
The course of one’s laments to run at night prefers,
In some sure spot, where nought to startle us occurs.
We more confiding grow, when calmly we complain;
But for our weaker sex, the risks increase amain.
In over-confidence too many dangers he:
A sorrow-softened heart the mouth will not deny
At such a happy time to friends for friendship’s kisses.
A friend is still a man —

SOLLER.
She knows full well what this is.

SOPHIA.
Farewell, and be assured that I am still your lover.

SOLLER.
Quite close above my head the storm is passing over.
(Exit SOPHIA. ALCESTES accompanies her through the middle door, which remains open. They are seen to stand together in the distance.
For this once be content. I’ve small time for reflection:
The moment ’tis to fly; I’m off in this direction.
(He quits the alcove, and hastens through the side door.)

SCENE V.

ALCESTES (returning).
What wouldest thou, my heart? Indeed, ’tis passing strange,
How that dear creature has for thee endured no change!
Thy early gratitude for those past hours so bright
Of love’s first happiness, has not departed quite.
What have I purposed not! What feelings have been mine!
Still uneffaced remains that image all divine,
Where love, in glorious wise, its presence first avowed, —
The image at whose shrine my heart with reverence bowed.
How all is altered now! What change comes o’er our lives!
Yet of that sacred glow a something still survives.
If truly thou’lt confess what made thee hither come,
The page will be turned o’er, thy love afresh will bloom.
And thy free-thinking ways, thy distant schemes, the shame
By thee for her devised, the plan which thou didst frame, —
How vile they now appear! Thou art distressed at last?
Before thou snaredst her, she long had held thee fast!
This is the lot of man! We hurry on apace,
And he who thinks the most is in the saddest case.
But now to urgent things: a plan must I invent
Whereby to-morrow she may have some money lent.
It is a cursed mischance: her fate my pity wakes.
Her husband, that vile wretch, her life a burden makes.
I’ve got here just enough. Let’s think! — yes, it will do.
Were I a stranger e’en, her hard lot I must rue.
But, ah! this mournful thought my heart and mind oppresses —
My conduct far too much the cause of her distress is.
I could not hinder it; to happen thus ’twas fated.
What cannot now be changed, may be alleviated.
(He opens the strong box)
The Devil! What is this? My strong box empty nearly?
Of all the silver there, three-fourths have vanished clearly.
I have the gold with me. The keys are in my pocket! —
All since the afternoon! My room — who could unlock it?
Sophia? Pshaw! But yes, — Sophia! Base suspicion!
My servant? No! that’s, too, a foolish supposition.
He’s fast asleep. Good man, his innocence I know.
Who then? By heaven, the thought impatient makes me grow.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

The Inn Parlour.

HOST.
(In a dressing-gown, sitting near the table, on which are a half-burnt candle, coffee-things, pipes and newspapers. After the first few verses he rises, and dresses himself during this scene and the beginning of the next.
That letter, hang the thing! of sleep and rest it robs me.
This comes from doing what I oughtn’t, well I see.
It seems impossible to make this matter out:
When one is doing wrong, the Devil’s there, no doubt.
’Twas my vocation ne’er, and therefore I’m afraid;
And yet of any host it never should be said
He fears, when in the house strange noises he perceives.
For ghosts, as is well known, are close allied with thieves.
No man was in the house, not Soller nor Alcestes;
The waiter it was not; each maiden gone to rest is.
But stop! At early dawn, perchance ‘tween three and four,
I heard a gentle noise: it was Sophia’s door.
She, maybe, was the ghost at whose approach I fled:
It was a woman’s foot, just like Sophia’s tread.
But then, what did she there? One knows that women-kind
To pulling things about and meddling are inclined:
Guests’ clothes and linen they inspect. I wish I first
Had finely frightened her, then into laughter burst.
She would have searched with me — the letter had been found:
My efforts, now in vain, had with success been crowned.
Curse it! One ne’er can think when one is in a strait,
And any plan that’s good is thought of just too late!

SCENE II.

The HOST, SOFIA.

SOPHIA.
My father, only think! —

HOST.
You do not say good-morrow?

SOPHIA.
Oh, pardon me, papa! my head is full of sorrow.

HOST.
And why?

SOPHIA.
Alcestes’ cash, which he received so lately,
Has altogether gone.

HOST.
That comes from gambling greatly.
They can’t restrain themselves.

SOPHIA.
Not so: ’tis stolen!

HOST.
What!

SOPHIA.
Yes, stolen from his room!

HOST.
I wish the thief were shot!
Who is it? Quick!

SOPHIA.
Who knows?

HOST.
What! In this house, you say?

SOPHIA.
Out of the box which on his table stands all day.

HOST.
And when?

SOPHIA.
This night!
(HOST aside).
Since I so curious was, the scandal
Will surely fall on me, for they will find my candle.

SOPHIA (aside).
He mutters, looks confused. Can he the culprit be?
That he was in the room, his candle proves to me.

HOST (aside).
Can she have taken it? The notion makes me swear:
Cash yesterday ran short, and she to-night was there.
(Aloud.) This is a dreadful mess. Who injures us take heed!
Respectable and cheap our watchwords are indeed.

SOPHIA.
Though he may bear the loss,’ tis we who’ll suffer most
The public will be sure to lay it to the host.

HOST.
I know that but too well. A dreadful mess, no doubt.
If ’tis a house-thief, who will find the rascal out?
Much trouble it will give.

SOPHIA.
What shall we do? Good lack!

HOST (aside).
Aha, she’s much disturbed!
(Aloud, in a more peevish tone.) I wish he had it back!
Right glad were I.

SOPHIA (aside).
He now repents, ’tis my belief.
(Aloud) And if it were restored, whoever was the thief,
He need not know, and soon’ twill from his memory pass.

HOST (aside).
If she is not the thief then write me down an ass.
(Aloud) A good child you have been. My confidence in you —
Just wait! — (Re goes to the door to see.)

SOPHIA (aside).
By heaven! he means to make confession true!

HOST.
My child, I know you well. A lie you never told —

SOPHIA.
Sooner from all the world than you I’d aught withhold;
And so I hope that now you’ll also be assured —

HOST.
You are my child: what can’t be cured must be endured.

SOPHIA.
The best of hearts sometimes is subject to temptation.

HOST.
Oh, let the past no more occasion us vexation!
That you were in the room, no mortal knows but I.

SOPHIA (startled).
You know? —

HOST.
Yes, I was there. I heard you passing by.
I knew not who it was, and started off full speed.

SOPHIA (aside).
Yes, he the money has. There’s now no doubt indeed.

HOST.
This morning heard I you, I lately recollected.

SOPHIA.
And, what is best of all, you will not be suspected:
I found the candle —

HOST.
You?

SOPHIA.
Yes, I!

HOST.
’Tis passing strange!
To give it back again, how can we best arrange?

SOPHIA.
You’ll say, “Alcestes, sir, do spare my house, I pray!
Behold your money, I have found the thief to-day.
You know yourself how great we find temptation’s force:
He scarcely had the cash, when vast was his remorse.
He came and gave it me. Here ’tis! Let him be pardoned
For his offence!” — I’m sure Alcestes’ heart’s not hardened.

HOST.
You certainly can use persuasion soft as honey.

SOPHIA.
Yes, that’s the proper way.

HOST.
I first must have the money.

SOPHIA.
You have it not?

HOST.
How I should have it, I can’t see.

SOPHIA.
How have it?

HOST.
Yes! Well, how? Unless you give it me.

SOPHIA.
Who has it?

HOST.
Who?

SOPHIA.
Of course, if ’tis not you?

HOST.
Absurd.

SOPHIA.
Where have you put it?

HOST.
I can’t understand a word.
You haven’t got it?

SOPHIA.
I?

HOST.
Yes!

SOPHIA.
How could that be so?

HOST (making signs as if he were stealing).
Eh!

SOPHIA.
I can’t understand!

HOST.
Quite shameless, child, you grow.
You slip away when comes the time for restitution.
You have confess’d. For shame on such irresolution!

SOPHIA.
This is too much! You now make this vile accusation.
Just now you said that you gave way to the temptation.

HOST.
You toad! I said so? When? Is this the way you love me,
And show me due respect? A thief you try to prove me,
When you’re the thief yourself!

SOPHIA.
Yet you were
My father!

HOST.
This morning in the room?

SOPHIA.
Yes!

HOST.
Yet you still can dare
To say you’ve not the cash?

SOPHIA.
That does not follow.

HOST.
Yes!

SOPHIA.
You, too, were there to-day —

HOST.
I’ll pull your hair, unless
You hold your tongue and go! (Exit SOPHIA crying.)
You take the joke too far,
Unworthy one! — She’s gone! Too impudent you are.
Perchance she thinks that lies will make him overlook it.
Enough, the money’s gone, and she’s the one who took it.

SCENE III.

ALCESTES (in deep thought, in a frock-coat). The HOST.

HOST (in an embarrassed and entreating tone).
Eight sorrowful am I at what I’ve lately heard.
Well understand I, sir, how you by wrath are stirr’d;
And yet I beg that you will nothing say about it,
And I will do what’s right. I pray you do not doubt it.
If in the town ’tis known,’ twill fill my foes with glee,
And their maliciousness will throw the guilt on me.
It was no stranger, sir. The culprit is indoors.
Be calm, and soon again the money shall be yours.
Pray, what was the amount?

ALCESTES.
A hundred dollars!

HOST.
What!

ALCESTES.
A hundred dollars, though —

HOST.
Contemptible are not!

ALCESTES.
Yet I am quite disposed my pardon to bestow,
Could I the culprit’s name, and how he did it, know.

HOST.
Had I the money back, I ne’er would ask, I vow,
If Michael or if Jack had taken it, or how.

ALCESTES (aside).
My old attendant? No, he cannot be the thief.
And from my chamber too — It passes all belief.

HOST.
Why rack your brains like this? The trouble is in vain.
Enough, I’ll find the cash!

ALCESTES.
My cash?

HOST.
I ask again
That none may know of it! We long have known each other:
Enough, I’ll find your cash, so give yourself no bother!

ALCESTES.
You know then? —

HOST.
H’m! The cash you soon shall have, however.

ALCESTES.
But only tell me this —

HOST.
Not for the world, no, never!

ALCESTES.
Just tell me who it was.

HOST.
I say, I dare not say.

ALCESTES.
’Twas some one in the house?

HOST.
Don’t ask me that, I pray!

ALCESTES.
Was it the servant girl?

HOST.
Good Hannah? No, not she.

ALCESTES.
The waiter ’twas, perchance?

HOST.
No, neither was it he.

ALCESTES.
The cook’s a skilful hand —

HOST.
At dishing up a dinner.

ALCESTES.
The scullion Jack?

HOST.
He ne’er would he so great a sinner.

ALCESTES.
The gard’ner it might be?

HOST.
No, wrong again, I guess.

ALCESTES.
The gard’ner’s son?

HOST.
No, no!

ALCESTES.
Perchance —

HOST.
The house-dog? — Yes!

ALCESTES (aside).
Just wait a bit, old fool! I’ll catch you by and by.
(Aloud.) Whoever was the thief, it doesn’t signify,
If I my money get. — (He pretends to be leaving.)

HOST.
True!

ALCESTES (as if a sudden thought struck him).
Host, I see by chance, sir,
My inkstand’s empty. I this letter straight must answer.

HOST.
What! Yesterday it came: to answer it to-day,
Shows that it weighty is.

ALCESTES.
I ought not to delay.

HOST.
It is a charming thing to have to correspond.

ALCESTES.
It is not always so. The time one loses on’t
Is worth more than the game.

HOST.
’Tis like a game of cards:
A single trump turns up, and past ill-luck rewards.
The letter yesterday important news, however,
Contains. Might I inquire —

ALCESTES.
Not for the world, no, never!.

HOST.
Nought from America?

ALCESTES.
I say, I dare not say.

HOST.
Is Frederick ill again?

ALCESTES.
Don’t ask me that, I pray!

HOST.
Are matters changed in Hesse? are people going?

ALCESTES.
No!

HOST.
Perchance the Emperor —

ALCESTES.
Yes, that may well he so.

HOST.
Things in the North go wrong?

ALCESTES.
I cannot swear to that.

HOST.
They secretly conspire?

ALCESTES.
Oh! people love to chat.

HOST.
There’s no disaster, though?

ALCESTES.
Bravo! You soon will guess.

HOST.
Perchance in the late frost —

ALCESTES.
The hares were frozen? — Yes!

HOST.
You don’t appear to place much confidence in me.

ALCESTES.
When folks mistrustful are, we trust them not, you see.

HOST.
What mark of confidence will suit your purpose better?

ALCESTES.
Well, tell me who’s the thief: you then shall read my letter.
Right good the bargain is, which I to you now offer.
Will you the letter have?

HOST (confused and eagerly).
I must accept your proffer!
(Aside) Would it were something else, which he from me would learn!

ALCESTES.
You see that one good turn deserves another turn.
That I’ll the secret keep, I by my honour swear.

HOST (aside).
Would that this letter now less appetising were!
But if Sophia — she should see my tribulation!
No mortal could resist such wonderful temptation.
To master its contents, I all impatience am.

ALCESTES (aside).
No greyhound ever rushed so wildly at a ham.

HOST (ashamed, giving way, and still hesitating).
Well, as you wish it, sir, your great civility —

ALCESTES (aside).
He’s biting now —

HOST.
Demands like confidence from me.
(Doubtfully and half entreatingly.)
You’ll let me see at once the letter, sir, because —

ALCESTES (holding out the letter).
This moment!

HOST (slowly approaching ALCESTES with his eyes fixed on the letter).
Well, the thief —

ALCESTES.
The thief!

HOST.
Who stole it, was —

ALCESTES.
Well, out with it!

HOST.
Was my —

ALCESTES.
Well!

HOST (in a resolute tone, whilst he comes up to ALCESTES, and tears the letter from his hand).
Was my daughter!

ALCESTES (astonished).
What!

HOST (comes forward, tears the cover to pieces in his eagerness to open the letter, and begins to read).
“Eight honourable sir!”

ALCESTES (taking him by the shoulder).
’Twas she? You’re telling not
The truth.

HOST (impatiently).
Yes, it was she! And much distressed am I.
(He reads.) “And also” —

ALCESTES (as above).
No, good host! Sophia! ’Tis a lie Î

HOST (tears himself loose, and continues without answering him).
“My much respected” —

ALCESTES (as above).
What! The guilty one was she?
I’m quite confounded.

HOST.
“Sir” —

ALCESTES (as above).
Now, pray just answer me!
How came it all about?

HOST.
You by and by shall hear.

ALCESTES.
Is it quite sure?

HOST.
Quite sure!

ALCESTES (to himself, as he goes out).
Methinks my course is clear.

SCENE IV.

HOST (reads and speaks between whiles).
“And patron” — Has he gone? — “The very friendly way
In which you view my faults, induces me to-day
Once more to trouble you” — What faults would he confess?
“I feel assured, kind sir, you’ll share my happiness.”
That’s good! — “To-day kind Heaven another joy has brought,
And you’re the first of whom my thankful heart has thought.
My dear wife is confined of her sixth son.” — With rage
I’m fit to die! — “The boy appeared upon the stage
Quite early.” — Hang or drown the brat! the vile invention!
“And I make bold to ask if, in your condescension” —
I feel about to choke! To suffer such a blow,
Just when I’m getting old! I will not bear it, no!
Just wait a bit! Your due reward shall you receive:
Alcestes, you shall see! My house you straight shall leave.
So good a friend as me thus shamefully to treat!
I’d fain inflict on him a retribution meet.
But then my daughter! Oh! in such a scrape to get her!
And I’ve betrayed her for a mere godfather’s letter!
(He seizes hold of his wig.)
Oh, donkey that I am! I’m in my dotage now!
Oh, letter, cash, and trick! I’ll kill myself, I vow!
With what shall I begin? How punish such vile tricks?
(He grasps a stick, and runs round the stage.)
If any one comes near, I’ll thrash him into snicks.
If I but had them here who planned the thing so wisely,
By all the powers that be, I’d currycomb them nicely!
I’ll die unless I can — I’d give a sight of cash
To see the servant now a glass or bottle smash!
I shall devour myself. — Revenge, revenge for me!
(He attacks his armchair and thrashes it.)
Ha! Thou art dusty? Come! I’ll take it out of thee!

SCENE V.

The HOST? continuing to strike. SOLLER enters and is frightened. He is in his domino, with his mask bound to his arm, and is half intoxicated.

SOLLER.
What’s this? Why, is he mad? Methinks I’d best be mute!
I shouldn’t care to be that armchair’s substitute!
Some evil spirit has the old man seized to-day:
‘Twere better I were off. It isn’t safe to stay.

HOST (without seeing SOLLER).
I can no more! Alas! how ache both back and arm!
(He throws himself into the armchair.)
My body’s in a sweat.

SOLLER (aside).
Yes, motion makes us warm.
(He shows himself to the HOST.)
Good father!

HOST.
Oh, the brute! The night in revels spends he:
I vex myself to death, and de’il a bit attends he.
The Shrovetide fool his cash at play and dancing loses,
And laughs, while holding here his carnival the deuce is!

SOLLER.
In such a rage!

HOST.
Just wait! No longer will I call so.

SOLLER.
What now?

HOST.
Alcestes! Child! Shall I inform him also?

SOLLER.
No! no!

HOST.
If you were hanged, ’twould be for me much better;
And that Alcestes, too, with his confounded letter.
(Exit.)

SCENE VI.

SOLLER (the very’ picture of terror).
What’s this? Alas! Perchance, ere many minutes flee —
Take good care of your skull! Your back will cudgelled be.
P’raps all has been found out. I’m in a burning fever,
So dreadful is my fright. Why, Doctor Faustus never
Was in so bad a case, or Richard Crook-back e’en!
Hell here, the gallows there, the cuckold in between!
(He runs about like a madman, and finally recovers himself.)
One’s never happy made by stolen goods, you know.
Go, coward, scoundrel, go! Why are you frightened so?
Perchance ’tis not so bad. I’ll soon know how I’ll fare.
(He sees ALCESTES and runs away.)
Alas! ’tis he!’ tis he! He’ll seize me by the hair!

SCENE VII.

ALCESTES (fully dressed, with hat and sword).
How fearful is the blow by which my heart oppressed is!
That wondrous creature whom the fancy of Alcestes
So tenderly the shrine of ev’ry virtue thought,
Who him the highest grade of fairest love first taught,
In whom god, maiden, friend, in one were all so blended,
And now so much abased! That vision now is ended.
’Tis well p’raps to descend a height so superhuman:
Like other women now, she’s nothing but a woman;
But then, so deep! so deep! That drives me into madness.
My contumacious heart yearns after her with sadness.
How mean? Can’st thou not turn to good account the change?
Seize on the proffer’d bliss that comes in form so strange!
A matchless woman, whom you love so very dearly,
Needs cash. Alcestes, quick! The pence you give her, clearly
Would turn to pounds. But now, the cash herself she takes, —
“Tis well! If she once more parade of virtue makes,
Go! pluck your courage up, and speak thus in cold blood:
You, madam, have perchance the money taken? Good!
I’m heartily rejoiced. Let no reserve be shown
In such a small affair, but treat mine as your own.
A confidential tone, as though ‘tween man and wife, —
And virtue’s self, if you enact it to the life,
Won’t be alarmed, but e’en to yield will soon incline.
She comes! You are confused? ’Tis an unhappy sign!
You guilty deem yourself; you cheat me in addition;
Your heart is ill-disposed, but weak’s your disposition.

SCENE VIII.

ALCESTES, SOPHIA.

SOPHIA.
Alcestes, what means this? My sight you seem to shun —
Has solitude for you such vast attractions won?

ALCESTES.
I know not what it is impels me at this season:
We oft soliloquise without a special reason.

SOPHIA.
Your loss indeed is great, and well may cause vexation.

ALCESTES.
It nothing signifies: I feel no irritation.
To lose a little cash small self-restraint demands:
Who knows but that it may have fallen in good hands?

SOPHIA.
No loss will your kind heart allow on us to fall.

ALCESTES.
A little openness this pain had saved us all.

SOPHIA.
How must I take this?

ALCESTES (smiling).
What?

SOPHIA.
What can your meaning be?

ALCESTES.
Sophia, me you know! Have confidence in me!
The money’s gone, and where ’tis lying, let it lie!
I should have held my tongue, if sooner known had I
That thus the matter stands —

SOPHIA (astonished).
You know, then, all about it?

ALCESTES (with tenderness; he seizes her hand and kisses it).
Your father! Yes, I know: my dearest, do not doubt it!
(SOPHIA surprised and ashamed).
And you forgive?

ALCESTES.
A joke, who’d deem it as a crime?

SOPHIA.
Methinks —

ALCESTES.
Pray suffer me to speak my mind this time.
Alcestes’ heart toward you with love’s still running over.
Pate severed you from me, and yet I am your lover;
Your heart is ever mine, as mine unchanged you find;
My money’s yours as though by law assigned;
You have an equal right to all that I possess;
Take what you will, if with your love you me will bless. (He embraces her, and she is silent)
Command whate’er you want! I’m quite prepared to grant it.

SOPHIA (haughtily, whilst she tears herself away from him).
I prize your money, sir! Indeed, I do not want it.
I scarcely understand a tone so strange and fervent.
Ha? You mistake me —

ALCESTES (piqued).
Oh! your most obedient servant
Knows you indeed too well; and what he wants, he knows,
And sees not why your wrath thus suddenly o’erflows.
When one so far goes wrong —

SOPHIA (astonished).
Goes wrong? Pray, in what sense?

ALCESTES.
Madam!

SOPHIA (angrily).
What mean you, sir?

ALCESTES.
Forgive my diffidence.
I love you far too much to think of telling it.

SOPHIA (with indignation).
Alcestes!

ALCESTES.
Well, then, ask papa, if you think fit!
He knows, so seems it —

SOPHIA (with an outbreak of vehemence as above).
What? Give me an answer true!
I am not joking, sir!

ALCESTES.
He says that it was you —

SOPHIA (as above).
Well, what?

ALCESTES.
That it was you, — by whom the cash was taken.

SOPHIA (with anger and tears, while she turns away).
He dares? O God! By shame so utterly forsaken!

ALCESTES (entreatingly).
Sophia!

SOPHIA (turned away from him).
You’re not worth —

ALCESTES (as above).
Sophia!

SOPHIA.
Leave the place!

ALCESTES.
Pray pardon me!

SOPHIA.
Away! Forgive such conduct base?
My father scruples not to rob me of my honour!
Oh, poor Sophia! Thus Alcestes looks upon her?
Sooner than tell the truth, my life I’d forfeit rather —
But now it must come out! — The robber — was my father! — (Exit hastily.)

SCENE IX.

ALCESTES. Afterward SOLLER.

ALCESTES.
Would I could make it out! Here is a pretty mess!
Only the Devil now this riddle strange can guess!
Two persons who the best of characters have had,
Accuse each other! — ’Tis enough to drive one mad.
No story such as this has ever reached my ears,
And yet I’ve known them both for many, many years.
This is a case where thought no proper clue reveals:
The more one meditates, the greater fool one feels.
Sophia! the old man! Could either of them thieve?
Had Soller been accused, that well could I believe:
On him could but one spark of mere suspicion fall!
But he the livelong night, I know, was at the ball.

SOLLER (in his usual dress and rather intoxicated).
There sits the Devil’s imp, after his night-long revel!
Could I but seize your neck, I’d scrag you, master
Devil!

ALCESTES (aside).
He comes as if bespoke!
(.Aloud.) Well, Soller, what’s the news?

SOLLER.
The noise the music made has given me the blues.
(He rubs his forehead.’)
My headache’s dreadful.

ALCESTES.
You were at the ball: were many
Ladies there too?

SOLLER.
About as usual! When there’s any
Bacon, the mice will seek the trap.

ALCESTES.
Was’t merry?

SOLLER.
Quite!

ALCESTES.
You danced?

SOLLER.
I but looked on.
(Aside) At your fine dance last night!

ALCESTES.
What! Soller did not dance? Why, how came that about?

SOLLER.
I went there with the full intention, there’s no doubt.

ALCESTES.
And yet you didn’t?

SOLLER.
No! My headache was so bad.
And so, for dancing not, a good excuse I had.

ALCESTES.
Indeed!

SOLLER.
And what was worse, I found out to my cost,
The more I heard and saw, I sight and hearing lost.

ALCESTES.
So bad? I’m sorry for’t! ’Twas quite a sudden fit?

SOLLER.
Oh, no! since you first came I’ve twinges had of it,
And longer.

ALCESTES.
That is strange!

SOLLER.
No remedy I know.

ALCESTES.
Your head with warm cloths rub: ‘twill put you in a glow,
And p’raps you’ll then be cured.

SOLLER (aside.)
You’re chaffing me, my friend?
(Aloud) ’Tis not such easy work.

ALCESTES.
‘Twill answer in the end.
And yet you’re rightly served. I’ll one suggestion make:
You ne’er by any chance your poor wife with you take,
When to a ball you go. Small wisdom, sir, is shown,
In leaving a young wife in her cold bed alone.

SOLLER.
She likes to stop at home, and let me masquerade:
Well knows she how to warm herself, without my aid.

ALCESTES.
That’s funny!

SOLLER.
Yes! When one is fond of dainty food,
One doesn’t need a hint to scent out what is good.

ALCESTES (piqued).
Why all this hyperbole?

SOLLER.
My meaning’s plain I think:
Exempli gratid, I vastly like to drink
Father’s old wine: but he my taste for it deplores, —
He spares his own; and so I drink it out of doors.

ALCESTES (with resentment).
You’d best be careful, sir! —

SOLLER.
Most noble squire of ladies,
She’s now my wife: to that, by you no def’rence paid is.
Her husband maybe deems she’s something in addition.

ALCESTES (with suppressed anger).
Fine husband! I defy the slightest admonition;
And if you should presume a single word to say —

SOLLER (frightened. Aside).
How fine! The end will be, that I must ask him,
Pray
How virtuous is she?
(Aloud.) My hearth is still my hearth,
Despite strange cooks!

ALCESTES.
Beside your wife, how small your worth!
So virtuous and fair! A soul of purity!
What matchless dower she brought! A very angel she!

SOLLER.
Her blood, too, as I’ve found, has much expansive power:
Head-ornaments for me were also in her dower.
For such a wife was I predestinated found,
And e’en before my birth was as a cuckold crowned.

ALCESTES (breaking out).
Now, Soller!

SOLLER (‘impertinently).
Well, what now?

ALCESTES (restraining himself).
I tell you, hold your peace!

SOLLER.
I’d like to see the man who’d make my talking cease!

ALCESTES.
If place allowed, you’d get a proper castigation!

SOLLER (half aloud).
He’d fight a duel for my wife’s good reputation!

ALCESTES.
Indeed!

SOLLER (as before).
No mortal knows so well, how lies the land.

ALCESTES.
The deuce!

SOLLER.
Alcestes, we perceive how matters stand.
Now wait! just wait a bit! The subject we’ll pursue;
And we shall understand how gentlemen like you
The corn-fields for themselves will reap, yes, ev’ry one,
And for the husbands leave the gleanings, when they’ve done.

ALCESTES.
I wonder much that you should be so bold, sir, knowing —
 SOLLER.
Full oftentimes my eyes with tears are overflowing:
Each day I feel as though I’m sniffing onions.

ALCESTES (angrily and resolutely).
How?
You go too far! Speak out! Explain your meaning now!
Your tongue to loosen I shall be compelled, I ween.

SOLLER (boldly).
I have a right, methinks, to know what I have seen.

ALCESTES.
Seen? What does seeing mean?

SOLLER.
It means, what we discover
When we both see and hear.

ALCESTES.
Ha!

SOLLER.
Why with wrath boil over?

ALCESTES (with the most determined anger).
What have you heard? What seen? Reply without delay!

SOLLER ((frightened, trying to go away).
Allow me, my good sir!

ALCESTES (holding him back).
Where go you?

SOLLER.
Right away!

ALCESTES.
You shall not leave this spot!

SOLLER (aside).
I would the man were dead!

ALCESTES.
What have you heard?

SOLLER.
I? Nought! ’Twas only what they said!

ALCESTES (with angry impetuosity).
Who was the man?

SOLLER.
The mail? A man —

ALCESTES (more violently and attaching him).
Be quick! Begin!

SOLLER (in anguish).
Who saw it with his eyes.
(.More boldly.) I’ll call the servants in.

ALCESTES (seizing him by the neck).
Who was it?

SOLLER (trying to tear himself loose).
What? The deuce!

ALCESTES (holding him more firmly).
No more my temper try!
(Drawing his sword.)
Who is the wicked wretch? the rogue? the liar?

SOLLER (falling on his knees in his terror).

ALCESTES (threateningly).
What did you see?

SOLLER (timidly).
I saw what proves that we’re but human:
You, sir, are but a man; Sophia is a woman.

ALCESTES (as above).
And then?

SOLLER.
Precisely what we see in each direction,
When men and women have reciprocal affection.

ALCESTES.
And that’s? —

SOLLER.
I should have thought you’d know by intuition.

ALCESTES.
Well?

SOLLER.
Surely you’ll not dare to scout the supposition.

ALCESTES.
Indeed! More plainly speak!

SOLLER.
Release me! Oh, pray do!

ALCESTES (still as above).
It’s called? The Devil!

SOLLER.
Well, it’s called a rendezvous.

ALCESTES (startled).
You lie!

SOLLER (aside).
He’s frightened now.

ALCESTES (aside).
How could he know it e’er?
(He sheathes his sword.)

SOLLER (aside).
Take courage!

ALCESTES (aside).
Who betrayed that we together were?
(Recovering himself.)
What mean you by your words?

SOLLER (insolently).
We’ll now make all things pleasant.
The comedy last night! I happened to be present.

ALCESTES (astonished).
Where?

SOLLER.
In the closet.

ALCESTES.
Oh! you thus were at your ball!

SOLLER.
And you were at your feast! Without one drop of gall,
Two words: though secret plans you gentry may pursue,
Be sure that by and by they’ll be exposed to view.

ALCESTES.
It’s clear that you’re the thief. I’d sooner have a raven
Or jackdaw in my house, than such a wicked craven
As you! For shame, bad man!

SOLLER.
I’m bad, I must confess;
But then you gentlemen are always right, I guess!
Our property you think to handle at your pleasure:
No laws you keep, but deal to us another measure.
The principle’s the same: some woman love, some gold.
If you would hang us, let your passions be controlled!

ALCESTES.
You’re very impudent —

SOLLER.
I’m impudent, no doubt:
In truth, it is no joke with horns to go about.
In short, we mustn’t make the thing a cause of strife:
’Twas I who took your cash, and you who took my wife.

ALCESTES (threateningly).
What took I?

SOLLER.
Nothing, sir! It long had been your own,
Before ’twas mine.

ALCESTES.
If —

SOLLER.
I must leave the thing alone.

ALCESTES.
The gallows for the thief!

SOLLER.
Is it unknown to you
That stringent laws provide for other people too?

ALCESTES.
Soller!

SOLLER (makes a sign of beheading).
Yes: there’s the axe, if you indulge your passions —

ALCESTES.
Are you an expert, then, and understand the fashions?
You’ll certainly be hanged, or flogged in any case.

SOLLER (pointing to his forehead).
I’m branded as it is.

SCENE X.

The Above. The HOST, SOPHIA.

SOPHIA (at the bottom of the stage).
His accusations base
My father still maintains.

HOST (at the bottom of the stage).
My daughter still won’t yield.

SOPHIA.
There is Alcestes!

HOST (seeing ALCESTES).

HA!

SOPHIA.
The truth will be revealed.

HOST (to ALCESTES).
She is the thief, good sir!

SOPHIA (on the other side).
The thief, sir, there you see!

ALCESTES (looks at them both laughingly, and then says in the same tone as they, pointing to SOLLER).
He is the thief!

SOLLER (aside).
Alas for my poor skin!

SOPHIA.
He?

HOST.
He?

ALCESTES.
You are both innocent: ’tis he!

HOST.
I’d run a nail
With pleasure through his head!

SOPHIA.
You?

SOLLER (aside).
Thunderbolts and hail!

HOST.
I’d like —

ALCESTES.
Be patient, sir: your wrath is ill-directed.
Although she guiltless was, Sophia was suspected.
She came to visit me. The step was bold, ’tis true;
Yet for her virtue I —
(To SOLLER.) But you were present too!
(SOPHIA is astonished.)
To us was this unknown: propitious was the night,
Her virtue —

SOLLER.
There it was I had a pretty fright.

ALCESTES (to the HOST).
But you?

HOST.
Sir, I was there from curiosity;
That cursèd letter I so anxious was to see.
I wonder, sir, that you such conduct manifested!
That fine godfather’s trick I have not yet digested.

ALCESTES.
Excuse the jest! And you, Sophia, faithful wife —
Will surely pardon me?

SOPHIA.
Alcestes!

ALCESTES.
Ne’er in life
Your virtue will I doubt. Forgive that rendezvous!
As virtuous as good —

SOLLER.
I half believe it too!

ALCESTES (to SOPHIA).
And also you’ll forgive our Soller?

SOPHIA.
Willingly!
(She gives him her hand.)
There!

ALCESTES (to the HOST).
Allons!

HOST (gives SOLLER his hand).
Steal no more!

SOLLER.
What’s distant, time brings nigh!

ALCESTES.
But where’s my money now?

SOLLER.
I took it in my trouble:
That gamester plagued me till he nearly bent me double.
I knew not what to do; I stole, and paid the debt:
And now I’ll give you back the dollars left me yet.

ALCESTES.
I’ll give you what is spent.

SOLLER.
Now all has come out right.

ALCESTES.
I only hope you’ll grow quite honest, staid, polite!
And if you ever dare again with me to palter! —

SOLLER.
So be it! — For this once, we’ve all escaped the halter.

GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN

Translated by Sir Walter Scott

Goethe’s third drama was his first work in that medium to be successful.  Written in 1773, Goetz von Berlichingen is based on the memoirs of the historical adventurer-poet Götz von Berlichingen (1480–1562). There is much poetic license with regards to Götz’s real life, as Goethe’s protagonist dies young, while the historical Götz died in old age. 

The main character is portrayed by the playwright as a free spirit and a supposed pillar of national integrity against a deceitful and over-refined society.  Nevertheless, when he tragically succumbs to the concepts of law and justice, it reveals the inevitable submission of the individual to society.

Although a great success, the large cast size, frequent scene changes and long running time caused the original version to eventually fall out of favour. The play was then re-arranged and cut several times, occasionally by Goethe himself, in order to suit various venues and theatre companies.  The first version of the drama included a quotation that quickly gained fame. In the third act, Goetz is under siege by the Imperial Army in his castle at Jagsthausen. When the captain of the army asks him to surrender, he gives his answer:

Me, surrender! At mercy! Whom do you speak with? Am I a robber! Tell your captain that for His Imperial Majesty, I have, as always, due respect. But he, tell him that, he can lick me in the arse!

Götz of the Iron Hand, was a German Imperial Knight, infamous for his war-mongering

An illustration of a scene from the play

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

A plaque depicting Goetz’s famous quotation

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

MAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Germany.

GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN, a free knight of the empire.

ELIZABETH, his wife.

MARIA, his sister.

CHARLES, his son — a boy.

GEORGE, his page.

BISHOP OF BAMBERG.

ADELBERT VON WEISLINGEN, a free German knight of the empire.

ADELAIDE VON WALLDORF, widow of the COUNT VON WALLDORF.

LIEBTRAUT, a courtier of the Bishop’s.

ABBOT OF FULDA, residing at the Bishop’s court.

OLEARIUS, a doctor of laws.

BROTHER MARTIN, a monk.

HANS VON SELBITZ, } Free knights, in alliance with GOETZ.

FRANZ VON SICKINGEN, }

LERSE, a trooper.

FRANCIS, esquire to WEISLINGEN.

Female Attendant on ADELAIDE.

President, Accuser and Avenger of the Secret Tribunal.

METZLER, } Leaders of the insurgent peasantry.

SIEVERS, }

LINK, }

KOHL, }

WILD, }

Imperial Commissioners.

Two Merchants of Nuremberg.

Magistrates of Heilbronn.

MAXIMILIAN STUMF, a vassal of the Palsgrave.

An unknown.

Bride’s father, } Peasants.

Bride, }

Bridegroom, }

Gypsy captain.

Gypsy mother and women.

STICKSand WOLF, gypsies.

Imperial captain.

Imperial officers.

Innkeeper.

Sentinel.

Sergeant-at-arms.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

An Inn at Schwarzenberg in Franconia.
[Metzler and Sievers, two Swabian Peasants, are seated at a table — At the fire, at some distance from them, two Troopers from Bamberg — The Innkeeper.

Sievers.
Hänsel! Another cup of brandy — and Christian measure.

Innkeeper.
Thou art a Never-enough.

Metzler.
(Apart to Sievers.) Repeat that again about Berlichingen. — The Bambergers there are so angry they are almost black in the face.

Sievers.
Bambergers! — What are they about here?

Metzler.
Weislingen has been two days up yonder at the castle with the Earl — they are his attendants — they came with him, I know not whence; they are waiting for him — he is going back to Bamberg.

Sievers.
Who is that Weislingen?

Metzler.
The Bishop of Bamberg’s right hand! a powerful lord, who is lying in wait to play Goetz some trick.

Sievers.
He had better take care of himself.

Metzler.
(Aside.) Prithee go on! (Aloud.) How long is it since Goetz had a new dispute with the bishop? I thought all had been agreed and squared between them.

Sievers.
Ay! Agreement with priests! — When the bishop saw he could do no good, and always got the worst of it, he pulled in his horns, and made haste to patch up a truce — and honest Berlichingen yielded to an absurd extent, as he always does when he has the advantage.

Metzler.
God bless him! a worthy nobleman.

Sievers.
Only think! Was it not shameful? They fell upon a page of his, to his no small surprise; but they will soon be mauled for that.

Metzler.
How provoking that his last stroke should have missed. He must have been plaguily annoyed.

Sievers.
I don’t think anything has vexed him so much for a long time. Look you, all had been calculated to a nicety; the time the bishop would come from the bath, with how many attendants, and which road; and had it not been betrayed by some traitor, Goetz would have blessed his bath for him, and rubbed him dry.

First Trooper.
What are you prating there about our bishop; do you want to pick a quarrel?

Sievers.
Mind your own affairs; you have nothing to do with our table.

Second Trooper.
Who taught you to speak disrespectfully of our bishop?

Sievers.
Am I bound to answer your questions? — Look at the fool!
[The first Trooper boxes his ears.

Metzler.
Smash the rascal!
[They attack each other.

Second Trooper.
(To Metzler.) Come on if you dare —

Innkeeper.
(Separating them.) Will you be quiet? Zounds! Take yourself off if you have any scores to settle; in my house I will have order and decency. (He pushes the Troopers out of doors.) — And what are you about, you jackasses?

Metzler.
No bad names, Hänsel! or your sconce shall pay for it. Come, comrade, we’ll go and thrash those blackguards.
 Enter two of Berlichingen’s Troopers.

First Trooper.
What’s the matter?

Sievers.
Ah! Good-day, Peter! — Good-day, Veit! — Whence come you?

Second Trooper.
Mind you don’t let out whom we serve.

Sievers.
(Whispering.) Then your master Goetz isn’t far off?

First Trooper.
Hold your tongue! — Have you had a quarrel?

Sievers.
You must have met the fellows without — they are Bambergers.

First Trooper.
What brings them here?

Sievers.
They escort Weislingen, who is up yonder at the castle with the Earl.

First Trooper.
Weislingen!

Second Trooper.
(Aside to his companion.) Peter, that is grist to our mill. How long has he been here?

Metzler.
Two days — but he is off to-day, as I heard one of his fellows say.

First Trooper.
(Aside.) Did I not tell you he was here? — We might have waited yonder long enough. Come, Veit —

Sievers.
Help us first to drub the Bambergers.

Second Trooper.
There are already two of you — We must away — Farewell!
[Exeunt both Troopers.

Sievers.
Scurvy dogs, these troopers!
They won’t strike a blow without pay.

Metzler.
I could swear they have something in hand. — Whom do they serve?

Sievers.
I am not to tell — they serve Goetz.

Metzler.
So! — Well, now we’ll cudgel those fellows outside. While I have a quarter-staff I care not for their spits.

Sievers.
If we durst but once serve the princes in the same manner, who drag our skins over our ears!
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Cottage in a thick Forest.
[Goetz von Berlichingen discovered walking among the trees before the door.

Goetz.
Where linger my servants? — I must walk up and down, or sleep will overcome me — five days and nights already on the watch. It is hardly earned, this bit of life and freedom. But when I have caught thee, Weislingen, I shall take my ease. (Fills a glass of wine and drinks; looks at the flask.) — Again empty. — George! — While this and my courage last, I can laugh at the ambition and chicanery of princes! — George! — You may send round your obsequious Weislingen to your uncles and cousins to calumniate my character — be it so — I am on the alert. — Thou hast escaped me, bishop; then thy dear Weislingen shall pay the score. — George! — Doesn’t the boy hear? — George! George!

George.
(Entering in the cuirass of a fullgrown man.) Worshipful sir.

Goetz.
What kept you? Were you asleep? — What in the devil’s name means this masquerade? — Come hither; you don’t look amiss. Be not ashamed, boy; you look bravely. Ah! if you could but fill it! — Is it Hans’ cuirass?

George.
He wished to sleep a little, and unbuckled it.

Goetz.
He takes things easier than his master.

George.
Do not be angry! I took it quietly away and put it on, then fetched my father’s old sword from the wall, ran to the meadow, and drew it —

Goetz.
And laid about you, no doubt? — Rare times for the brambles and thorns! — Is Hans asleep?

George.
He started up and cried out to me when you called — I was trying to unbuckle the cuirass when I heard you twice or thrice.

Goetz.
Go take back his cuirass, and tell him to be ready with his horses.

George.
I have fed them well and they are ready bridled; you may mount when you will.

Goetz.
Bring me a stoup of wine. Give Hans a glass too, and tell him to be on the alert — there is good cause; I expect the return of my scouts every moment.

George.
Ah! noble sir!

Goetz.
What’s the matter?

George.
May I not go with you?

Goetz.
Another time, George! when we waylay merchants and seize their wagons —

George.
Another time! — You have said that so often. — Oh, this time, this time! I will only skulk behind; just keep on the lookout — I will gather up all the spent arrows for you.

Goetz.
Next time, George! — You must first have a doublet, a steel cap and a lance.

George.
Take me with you now! — Had I been with you last time, you would not have lost your cross-bow.

Goetz.
Do you know about that?

George.
You threw it at your antagonist’s head; one of his followers picked it up, and off with it he went. — Don’t I know about it?

Goetz.
Did my people tell you?

George.
Oh, yes: and for that I whistle them all sorts of tunes while we dress the horses, and teach them merry songs, too.

Goetz.
Thou art a brave boy.

George.
Take me with you to prove myself so.

Goetz.
The next time, I promise you! You must not go to battle unarmed as you are. There is a time coming which will also require men. I tell thee, boy, it will be a dear time. Princes shall offer their treasures for a man whom they now hate. Go, George, give Hans his cuirass again, and bring me wine. (Exit George.) Where can my people be? It is incomprehensible! — A monk! What brings him here so late?
 Enter Brother Martin.

Goetz.
Good-evening, reverend father! Whence come you so late? Man of holy rest, thou shamest many knights.

Martin.
Thanks, noble sir! I am at present but an unworthy brother, if we come to titles. My cloister name is Augustin, but I like better to be called by my Christian name, Martin.

Goetz.
You are tired, brother Martin, and doubtless thirsty.
 Enter George with wine.

Goetz.
Here, in good time, comes wine!

Martin.
For me a draught of water. I dare not drink wine.

Goetz.
Is it against your vow?

Martin.
Noble sir, to drink wine is not against my vow; but because wine is against my vow, therefore I drink it not.

Goetz.
How am I to understand that?

Martin.
’Tis well for thee that thou dost not understand it. Eating and drinking nourish man’s life.

Goetz.
Well!

Martin.
When thou hast eaten and drunken, thou art as it were new born, stronger, bolder, fitter for action. Wine rejoices the heart of man, and joyousness is the mother of every virtue. When thou hast drunk wine thou art double what thou should’st be! twice as ingenious, twice as enterprising, and twice as active.

Goetz.
As I drink it, what you say is true.

Martin.
’Tis when thus taken in moderation that I speak of it. But we —
[George brings water.

Goetz.
(Aside to George.) Go to the road which leads to Daxbach; lay thine ear close to the earth, and listen for the tread of horses. Return immediately.

Martin.
But we, on the other hand, when we have eaten and drunken, are the reverse of what we should be. Our sluggish digestion depresses our mental powers; and in the indulgence of luxurious ease, desires are generated which grow too strong for our weakness.

Goetz.
One glass, brother Martin, will not disturb your sleep. You have travelled far to-day. (Raises his glass.) Here’s to all fighting men!

Martin.
With all my heart! (They ring their glasses.) I cannot abide idle people — yet will I not say that all monks are idle; they do what they can: I am just come from St. Bede, where I slept last night. The prior took me into the garden; that is their hive. Excellent salad, cabbages in perfection, and such cauliflowers and artichokes as you will hardly find in Europe.

Goetz.
So that is not the life for you?
[Goes out and looks anxiously after the boy. Returns.

Martin.
Would that God had made me a gardener, or day laborer, I might then have been happy! My convent is Erfurt in Saxony; my abbot loves me; he knows I cannot remain idle, and so he sends me round the country, wherever there is business to be done. I am on my way to the Bishop of Constance.

Goetz.
Another glass. Good speed to you!

Martin.
The same to you.

Goetz.
Why do you look at me so steadfastly, brother?

Martin.
I am in love with your armor.

Goetz.
Would you like a suit? It is heavy and toilsome to the wearer.

Martin.
What is not toilsome in this world? — But to me nothing is so much so as to renounce my very nature! Poverty, chastity, obedience — three vows, each of which taken singly seems the most dreadful to humanity — so insupportable are they all; — and to spend a lifetime under this burthen, or to groan despairingly under the still heavier load of an evil conscience — ah! Sir Knight, what are the toils of your life compared to the sorrows of a state which, from a mistaken desire of drawing nearer to the Deity, condemns as crimes the best impulses of our nature, impulses by which we live, grow and prosper!

Goetz.
Were your vow less sacred I would give you a suit of armor and a steed, and we would ride out together.

Martin.
Would to Heaven my shoulders had strength to bear armor, and my arm to unhorse an enemy! — Poor weak hand, accustomed from infancy to swing censers, to bear crosses and banners of peace, how could’st thou manage the lance and falchion? My voice, tuned only to Aves and Halleluiahs, would be a herald of my weakness to the enemy, while yours would overpower him; otherwise no vows should keep me from entering an order founded by the Creator himself.

Goetz.
To your happy return.
[Drinks.

Martin.
I drink that only in compliment to you! A return to my prison must ever be unhappy. When you, Sir Knight, return to your castle, with the consciousness of your courage and strength, which no fatigue can overcome; when you, for the first time, after a long absence, stretch yourself unarmed upon your bed, secure from the attack of enemies, and resign yourself to a sleep sweeter than the draught after a long thirst — then can you speak of happiness.

Goetz.
And accordingly it comes but seldom.

Martin.
(With growing ardor.) But when it does come, it is a foretaste of paradise. When you return home laden with the spoils of your enemies, and, remember, “such a one I struck from his horse ere he could discharge his piece — such another I overthrew, horse and man;” then you ride to your castle, and —

Goetz.
And what?

Martin.
And your wife — (Fills a glass.) To her health! (He wipes his eyes.) You have one?

Goetz.
A virtuous, noble wife!

Martin.
Happy the man who possesses a virtuous wife, his life is doubled. This blessing was denied me, yet was woman the glory or crown of creation.

Goetz.
(Aside.) I grieve for him. The sense of his condition preys upon his heart.
 Enter George, breathless.

George.
My lord, my lord, I hear horses in full gallop! — two of them — ’tis they for certain.

Goetz.
Bring out my steed; let Hans mount. Farewell, dear brother; God be with you. Be cheerful and patient. He will give you ample scope.

Martin.
Let me request your name.

Goetz.
Pardon me — Farewell!
[Gives his left hand.

Martin.
Why do you give the left? — Am I unworthy of the knightly right hand?

Goetz.
Were you the Emperor, you must be satisfied with this. My right hand, though not useless in combat, is unresponsive to the grasp of affection. It is one with its mailed gauntlet — You see, it is iron!

Martin.
Then art thou Goetz of Berlichingen. I thank thee, Heaven, who hast shown me the man whom princes hate, but to whom the oppressed throng! (He takes his right hand.) Withdraw not this hand: let me kiss it.

Goetz.
You must not!

Martin.
Let me, let me — Thou hand, more worthy even than the saintly relic through which the most sacred blood has flowed! lifeless instrument, quickened by the noblest spirit’s faith in God.
[Goetz adjusts his helmet and takes his lance.

Martin.
There was a monk among us about a year ago, who visited you when your hand was shot off at the siege of Landshut. He used to tell us what you suffered, and your grief at being disabled for your profession of arms; till you remembered having heard of one who had also lost a hand, and yet served long as a gallant knight — I shall never forget it.
 Enter the two Troopers. They speak apart with Goetz.

Martin.
(Continuing.) I shall never forget his words uttered in the noblest, the most childlike trust in God: “If I had twelve hands, what would they avail me without thy grace? then may I with only one — ”

Goetz.
In the wood of Haslach then. (Turns to Martin.) Farewell, worthy brother!
[Embraces him.

Martin.
Forget me not, as I shall never forget thee!
[Exeunt Goetz and his Troopers.

Martin.
How my heart beat at the sight of him. He spoke not, yet my spirit recognized his. What rapture to behold a great man!

George.
Reverend sir, you will sleep here?

Martin.
Can I have a bed?

George.
No, sir! I know of beds only by hearsay; in our quarters there is nothing but straw.

Martin.
It will serve. What is thy name?

George.
George, reverend sir.

Martin.
George! Thou hast a gallant patron saint.

George.
They say he was a trooper; that is what I intend to be!

Martin.
Stop! (Takes a picture from his breviary and gives it to him.) There behold him — follow his example; be brave, and fear God.
[Exit into the cottage.

George.
Ah! what a splendid gray horse! If I had but one like that — and the golden armor. There is an ugly dragon. At present I shoot nothing but sparrows. O St. George! make me but tall and strong; give me a lance, armor and such a horse, and then let the dragons come!
[Exit.

 Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
 [Editor: illegible text]
 Elizabeth

SCENE III.

An Apartment in Jaxthausen, the Castle of Goetz von Berlichingen.

Elizabeth, Maria and Charles discovered.

Charles.
Pray now, dear aunt, tell me again that story about the good child; it is so pretty —

Maria.
Do you tell it to me, little rogue! that I may see if you have paid attention.

Charles.
Wait then till I think. — ”There was once upon — ” Yes — ”There was once upon a time a child, and his mother was sick; so the child went — ”

Maria.
No, no! — ”Then his mother said, ‘Dear child — ’ “

Charles.
“ ‘I am sick — ’ “

Maria.
“ ‘And cannot go out.’ “

Charles.
“And gave him money and said, ‘Go and buy yourself a breakfast.’ There came a poor man — ”

Maria.
“The child went. There met him an old man who was — .” Now, Charles!

Charles.
“Who was — old — ”

Maria.
Of course. “Who was hardly able to walk, and said, ‘Dear child — ’ “

Charles.
“ ‘Give me something; I have eaten not a morsel yesterday or to-day.’ Then the child gave him the money — ”

Maria.
“That should have bought his breakfast.”

Charles.
“Then the old man said — ”

Maria.
“Then the old man took the child by the hand — ”

Charles.
“By the hand, and said — and became a fine beautiful saint — and said — ’Dear child, — ’ “

Maria.
“ ‘The holy Virgin rewards thee for thy benevolence through me: whatever sick person thou touchest — ’ “

Charles.
“ ‘With thy hand — .’ “ It was the right hand, I think.

Maria.
Yes.

Charles.
“ ‘He will get well directly.’ “

Maria.
“Then the child ran home, and could not speak for joy — ”

Charles.
“And fell upon his mother’s neck and wept for joy.”

Maria.
“Then the mother cried. ‘What is this?’ and became — ” Now, Charles.

Charles.
“Became — became — ”

Maria.
You do not attend — ”and became well. And the child cured kings and emperors, and became so rich that he built a great abbey.”

Elizabeth.
I cannot understand why my husband stays. He has been away five days and nights, and he hoped to have finished his adventure so quickly.

Maria.
I have long felt uneasy. Were I married to a man who continually incurred such danger, I should die within the first year.

Elizabeth.
I thank God that he has made me of firmer stuff!

Charles.
But must my father ride out if it is so dangerous?

Maria.
Such is his good pleasure.

Elizabeth.
He must indeed, dear Charles!

Charles.
Why?

Elizabeth.
Do you not remember the last time he rode out, when he brought you those nice things?

Charles.
Will he bring me anything now?

Elizabeth.
I believe so. Listen: there was a tailor at Stutgard who was a capital archer, and had gained the prize at Cologne.

Charles.
Was it much?

Elizabeth.
A hundred dollars; and afterwards they would not pay him.

Maria.
That was naughty, eh, Charles?

Charles.
Naughty people!

Elizabeth.
The tailor came to your father and begged him to get his money for him; then your father rode out and intercepted a party of merchants from Cologne, and kept them prisoners till they paid the money. Would you not have ridden out too?

Charles.
No; for one must go through a dark thick wood, where there are gypsies and witches —

Elizabeth.
You’re a fine fellow; afraid of witches!

Maria.
Charles, it is far better to live at home in your castle like a quiet Christian knight. One may find opportunities enough of doing good on one’s own lands. Even the worthiest knights do more harm than good in their excursions.

Elizabeth.
Sister, you know not what you are saying. — God grant our boy may become braver as he grows up, and not take after that Weislingen, who has dealt so faithlessly with my husband.

Maria.
We will not judge, Elizabeth. — My brother is highly incensed, and so are you; I am only a spectator in the matter, and can be more impartial.

Elizabeth.
Weislingen cannot be defended.

Maria.
What I have heard of him has interested me. — Even your husband relates many instances of his former goodness and affection. — How happy was their youth when they were both pages of honor to the margrave!

Elizabeth.
That may be. But only tell me, how can a man ever have been good who lays snares for his best and truest friend? who has sold his services to the enemies of my husband; and who strives, by invidious misrepresentations, to poison the mind of our noble emperor, who is so gracious to us?
[A horn is heard.]

Charles.
Papa! papa! the warder sounds his horn! Joy! joy! Open the gate!

Elizabeth.
There he comes with booty!
 Enter Peter.

Peter.
We have fought — we have conquered! — God save you, noble ladies!

Elizabeth.
Have you captured Weislingen?

Peter.
Himself, and three followers.

Elizabeth.
How came you to stay so long?

Peter.
We lay in wait for him between Nuremberg and Bamberg, but he would not come, though we knew he had set out. At length we heard of his whereabouts; he had struck off sideways, and was staying quietly with the earl at Schwarzenberg.

Elizabeth.
They would also fain make the earl my husband’s enemy.

Peter.
I immediately told my master. — Up and away we rode into the forest of Haslach. And it was curious that while we were riding along that night, a shepherd was watching, and five wolves fell upon the flock and attacked them stoutly. Then my master laughed, and said, “Good luck to us all, dear comrades, both to you and us!” And the good omen overjoyed us. Just then Weislingen came riding towards us with four attendants —

Maria.
How my heart beats!

Peter.
My comrade and I, as our master had commanded, threw ourselves suddenly on him, and clung to him as if we had grown together, so that he could not move, while my master and Hans fell upon the servants and overpowered them. They were all taken, except one who escaped.

Elizabeth.
I am curious to see him. Will he arrive soon?

Peter.
They are riding through the valley, and will be here in a quarter of an hour.

Maria.
He is no doubt cast down and dejected?

Peter.
He looks gloomy enough.

Maria.
It will grieve me to see his distress!

Elizabeth.
Oh, I must get food ready. You are no doubt all hungry?

Peter.
Hungry enough, in truth.

Elizabeth.
(To Maria.) Take the cellar keys and bring the best wine. They have deserved it.
[Exit Elizabeth.

Charles.
I’ll go too, aunt.

Maria.
Come then, boy.
[Exeunt Charles and Maria.

Peter.
He’ll never be his father, else he would have gone with me to the stable.
 Enter Goetz. Weislingen, Hans and other Troopers.

Goetz.
(Laying his helmet and sword on a table.) Unbuckle my armor, and give me my doublet. Ease will refresh me. Brother Martin, thou saidst truly. You have kept us long on the watch, Weislingen!
[Weislingen paces up and down in silence.

Goetz.
Be of good cheer! Come, unarm yourself! Where are your clothes? I hope nothing has been lost. (To the attendants.) Go, ask his servants; open the baggage and see that nothing is missing. Or I can lend you some of mine.

Weislingen.
Let me remain as I am — it is all one.

Goetz.
I can give you a handsome doublet, but it is only of linen; it has grown too tight for me. I wore it at the marriage of my Lord the Palsgrave, when your bishop was so incensed at me. About a fortnight before I had sunk two of his vessels upon the Main. — I was going upstairs in the Stag at Heidelberg, with Franz von Sickingen. Before you get quite to the top there is a landing-place with iron rails — there stood the bishop, and gave his hand to Franz as he passed, and to me also as I followed close behind him. I laughed in my sleeve, and went to the Landgrave of Hanau, who was always a kind friend to me, and said, “The bishop has given me his hand, but I’ll wager he did not know me.” The bishop heard me, for I was speaking loud on purpose. He came to us angrily, and said, “True, I gave thee my hand, because I knew thee not.” To which I answered, “I know that, my lord; and so here you have your shake of the hand back again!” The manikin grew red as a turkey-cock with spite, and he ran up into the room and complained to the Palsgrave Lewis and the Prince of Nassau. We have laughed over the scene again and again.

Weislingen.
I wish you would leave me to myself.

Goetz.
Why so? I entreat you be of good cheer. You are my prisoner, but I will not abuse my power.

Weislingen.
I have no fear of that. That is your duty as a knight.

Goetz.
And you know how sacred it is to me.

Weislingen.
I am your prisoner — the rest matters not.

Goetz.
You should not say so. Had you been taken by a prince, fettered and cast into a dungeon, your gaoler directed to drive sleep from your eyes —
 Enter Servants with clothes. Weislingen unarms himself. Enter Charles.

Charles.
Good-morrow, papa!

Goetz.
(Kisses him.) Good-morrow, boy! How have you been this long time?

Charles.
Very well, father! Aunt says I am a good boy.

Goetz.
Does she?

Charles.
Have you brought me anything?

Goetz.
Nothing this time.

Charles.
I have learned a great deal.

Goetz.
Ay!

Charles.
Shall I tell you about the good child?

Goetz.
After dinner.

Charles.
I know something else, too.

Goetz.
What may that be?

Charles.
“Jaxthausen is a village and castle on the Jaxt, which has appertained in property and heritage for two hundred years to the Lords of Berlichingen — ”

Goetz.
Do you know the Lord of Berlichingen? (Charles stares at him. Aside.) His learning is so abstruse that he does not know his own father. To whom does Jaxthausen belong?

Charles.
“Jaxthausen is a village and castle upon the Jaxt — ”

Goetz.
I did not ask that. I knew every path, pass and ford about the place before ever I knew the name of the village, castle or river. — Is your mother in the kitchen?

Charles.
Yes, papa! They are cooking a lamb and turnips.

Goetz.
Do you know that too. Jack Turnspit?

Charles.
And my aunt is roasting an apple for me to eat after dinner —

Goetz.
Can’t you eat it raw?

Charles.
It tastes better roasted.

Goetz.
You must have a titbit, must you? — Weislingen, I will be with you immediately. I must go and see my wife. — Come, Charles!

Charles.
Who is that man?

Goetz.
Bid him welcome. Tell him to be merry.

Charles.
There’s my hand for you, man! Be merry — for the dinner will soon be ready.

Weislingen.
(Takes up the child and kisses him.) Happy boy! that knowest no worse evil than the delay of dinner. May you live to have much joy in your son, Berlichingen!

Goetz.
Where there is most light the shades are deepest. Yet I should thank God for it. We’ll see what they are about.
[Exit with Charles and Servants.

Weislingen.
Oh, that I could but wake and find this all a dream! In the power of Berlichingen! — from whom I had scarcely detached myself — whose remembrance I shunned like fire — whom I hoped to overpower! and he still the old true-hearted Goetz! Gracious God! what will be the end of it? O Adelbert! Led back to the very hall where we played as children; when thou didst love and prize him as thy soul! Who can know him and hate him? Alas! I am so thoroughly insignificant here. Happy days! ye are gone. There, in his chair by the chimney, sat old Berlichingen, while we played around him, and loved each other like cherubs! How anxious the bishop and all my friends will be! Well, the whole country will sympathize with my misfortune. But what avails it? Can they give me the peace after which I strive?
 Re-enter Goetz with wine and goblets.

Goetz.
We’ll take a glass while dinner is preparing. Come, sit down — think yourself at home! Fancy you’ve come once more to see Goetz. It is long since we have sat and emptied a flagon together. (Lifts his glass.) Come: a light heart!

Weislingen.
Those times are gone by.

Goetz.
God forbid! To be sure, we shall hardly pass more pleasant days than those we spent together at the margrave’s court, when we were inseparable night and day. I think with pleasure on my youth. Do you remember the scuffle I had with the Polander, whose pomaded and frizzled hair I chanced to rub with my sleeve?

Weislingen.
It was at table; and he struck at you with a knife.

Goetz.
I gave it him, however; and you had a quarrel upon that account with his comrades. We always stuck together like brave fellows, and were the admiration of every one. (Raises his glass.) Castor and Pollux! It used to rejoice my heart when the margrave so called us.

Weislingen.
The Bishop of Wurtzburg first gave us the name.

Goetz.
That bishop was a learned man, and withal so kind and gentle. I shall remember as long as I live how he used to caress us, praise our friendship, and say, “Happy is the man who is his friend’s twin-brother.”

Weislingen.
No more of that.

Goetz.
Why not? I know nothing more delightful after fatigue than to talk over old times. Indeed, when I recall to mind how we bore good and bad fortune together, and were all in all to each other, and how I thought this was to continue forever. Was not that my sole comfort when my hand was shot away at Landshut, and you nursed and tended me like a brother? I hoped Adelbert would in future be my right hand. And now —

Weislingen.
Alas!

Goetz.
Hadst thou but listened to me when I begged thee to go with me to Brabant, all would have been well. But then that unhappy turn for court-dangling seized thee, and thy coquetting and flirting with the women. I always told thee, when thou would’st mix with these lounging, vain court sycophants, and entertain them with gossip about unlucky matches and seduced girls, scandal about absent friends, and all such trash as they take interest in — I always said, Adelbert, thou wilt become a rogue!

Weislingen.
To what purpose is all this?

Goetz.
Would to God I could forget it, or that it were otherwise! Art thou not free and nobly born as any in Germany; independent, subject to the emperor alone; and dost thou crouch among vassals? What is the bishop to thee? Granted, he is thy neighbor, and can do thee a shrewd turn; hast thou not power and friends to requite him in kind? Art thou ignorant of the dignity of a free knight, who depends only upon God, the emperor, and himself, that thou degradest thyself to be the courtier of a stubborn, jealous priest?

Weislingen.
Let me speak!

Goetz.
What hast thou to say?

Weislingen.
You look upon the princes as the wolf upon the shepherd. And can you blame them for defending their territories and property? Are they a moment secure from the unruly knights, who plunder their vassals even upon the highroads, and sack their castles and villages? Upon the other hand, our country’s enemies threaten to overrun the lands of our beloved emperor, yet, while he needs the princes’ assistance, they can scarce defend their own lives; is it not our good genius which at this moment leads them to devise means of procuring peace for Germany, of securing the administration of justice, and giving to great and small the blessings of quiet? And can you blame us, Berlichingen, for securing the protection of the powerful princes, our neighbors, whose assistance is at hand, rather than relying on that of the emperor, who is so far removed from us, and is hardly able to protect himself?

Goetz.
Yes, yes, I understand you. Weislingen, were the princes as you paint them, we should all have what we want. Peace and quiet! No doubt! Every bird of prey naturally likes to eat its plunder undisturbed. The general weal! If they would but take the trouble to study that. And they trifle with the emperor shamefully. Every day some new tinker or other comes to give his opinion. The emperor means well, and would gladly put things to rights; but because he happens to understand a thing readily, and by a single word can put a thousand hands into motion, he thinks everything will be as speedily and as easily accomplished. Ordinance upon ordinance is promulgated, each nullifying the last, while the princes obey only those which serve their own interest, and prate of peace and security of the empire, while they are treading under foot their weaker neighbors. I will be sworn, many a one thanks God in his heart that the Turk keeps the emperor fully employed!

Weislingen.
You view things your own way.

Goetz.
So does every one. The question is, which is the right way to view them? And your plans at least shun the day.

Weislingen.
You may say what you will; I am your prisoner.

Goetz.
If your conscience is free, so are you. How was it with the general tranquillity? I remember going as a boy of sixteen with the margrave to the Imperial Diet. What harangues the princes made! And the clergy were the most vociferous of all. Your bishop thundered into the emperor’s ears his regard for justice, till one thought it had become part and parcel of his being. And now he has imprisoned a page of mine, at a time when our quarrels were all accommodated, and I had buried them in oblivion. Is not all settled between us? What does he want with the boy?

Weislingen.
It was done without his knowledge.

Goetz.
Then why does he not release him?

Weislingen.
He did not conduct himself as he ought.

Goetz.
Not conduct himself as he ought? By my honor he performed his duty, as surely as he has been imprisoned both with your knowledge and the bishop’s! Do you think I am come into the world this very day, that I cannot see what all this means?

Weislingen.
You are suspicious, and do us wrong.

Goetz.
Weislingen, shall I deal openly with you? Inconsiderable as I am, I am a thorn in your side, and Selbitz and Sickingen are no less so, because we are firmly resolved to die sooner than to thank any one but God for the air we breathe, or pay homage to any one but the emperor. This is why they worry me in every possible way, blacken my character with the emperor, and among my friends and neighbors, and spy about for advantage over me. They would have me out of the way at any price; that was your reason for imprisoning the page whom you knew I had despatched for intelligence: and now you say he did not conduct himself as he should do, because he would not betray my secrets. And you, Weislingen, are their tool!

Weislingen.
Berlichingen!

Goetz.
Not a word more. I am an enemy to long explanations; they deceive either the maker or the hearer, and generally both.
 Enter Charles.

Charles.
Dinner is ready, father!

Goetz.
Good news! Come, I hope the company of my women folk will amuse you. You always liked the girls. Ay, ay, they can tell many pretty stories about you. Come!
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

TheBishop of Bamberg’sPalace.

[The Bishop, the Abbot of Fulda, Olearius, Liebtraut and Courtiers at table. The dessert and wine before them.

Bishop.
Are there many of the German nobility studying at Bologna?

Olearius.
Both nobles and citizens; and, I do not exaggerate in saying that they acquire the most brilliant reputation. It is a proverb in the university: “As studious as a German noble.” For while the citizens display a laudable diligence, in order to compensate by learning for their want of birth, the nobles strive, with praiseworthy emulation, to enhance their ancestral dignity by superior attainments.

Abbot.
Indeed!

Liebtraut.
What may one not live to hear. We live and learn, as the proverb says. “As studious as a German noble.” I never heard that before.

Olearius.
Yes, they are the admiration of the whole university. Some of the oldest and most learned will soon be coming back with their doctor’s degree. The emperor will doubtless be happy to intrust to them the highest offices.

Bishop.
He cannot fail to do so.

Abbot.
Do you know, for instance, a young man — a Hessian? —

Olearius.
There are many Hessians with us.

Abbot.
His name is — is — . Does nobody remember it? His mother was a Von — . Oh! his father had but one eye, and was a marshal —

Liebtraut.
Von Wildenholz!

Abbot.
Right. Von Wildenholz.

Olearius.
I know him well. A young man of great abilities. He is particularly esteemed for his talent in disputation.

Abbot.
He has that from his mother.

Liebtraut.
Yes; but his father would never praise her for that quality.

Bishop.
How call you the emperor who wrote your Corpus Juris?

Olearius.
Justinian.

Bishop.
A worthy prince: — here’s to his memory!

Olearius.
To his memory!
[They drink.

Abbot.
That must be a fine book.

Olearius.
It may be called a book of books; a digest of all laws; there you find the sentence ready for every case, and where the text is antiquated or obscure, the deficiency is supplied by notes, with which the most learned men have enriched this truly admirable work.

Abbot.
A digest of all laws! — Indeed! — Then the ten commandments must be in it.

Olearius.
Implicitè; not explicitè.

Abbot.
That’s what I mean; plainly set down, without any explication.

Bishop.
But the best is, you tell us that a state can be maintained in the most perfect tranquillity and subordination by receiving and rightly following that statute-book.

Olearius.
Doubtless.

Bishop.
All doctors of laws!
[They drink.

Olearius.
I’ll tell them of this abroad. (They drink.) Would to Heaven that men thought thus in my country.

Abbot.
Whence come you, most learned sir?

Olearius.
From Frankfort, at your eminence’s service!

Bishop.
You gentlemen of the law, then, are not held in high estimation there? — How comes that?

Olearius.
It is strange enough — when I last went there to collect my father’s effects, the mob almost stoned me, when they heard I was a lawyer.

Abbot.
God bless me!

Olearius.
It is because their tribunal, which they hold in great respect, is composed of people totally ignorant of the Roman law. An intimate acquaintance with the internal condition of the town, and also of its foreign relations, acquired through age and experience, is deemed a sufficient qualification. They decide according to certain established edicts of their own, and some old customs recognized in the city and neighborhood.

Abbot.
That’s very right.

Olearius.
But far from sufficient. The life of man is short, and in one generation cases of every description cannot occur; our statute-book is a collection of precedents, furnished by the experience of many centuries. Besides, the wills and opinions of men are variable; one man deems right to-day what another disapproves to-morrow; and confusion and injustice are the inevitable results. Law determines absolutely, and its decrees are immutable.

Abbot.
That’s certainly better.

Olearius.
But the common people won’t acknowledge that; and, eager as they are after novelty, they hate any innovation in their laws which leads them out of the beaten track, be it ever so much for the better. They hate a jurist as if he were a cut-purse or a subverter of the state, and become furious if one attempts to settle among them.

Liebtraut.
You come from Frankfort? — I know the place well — we tasted your good cheer at the emperor’s coronation. You say your name is Olearius — I know no one in the town of your name.

Olearius.
My father’s name was Oilman; but after the example, and with the advice of many jurists, I have Latinized the name to Olearius for the decoration of the title-page of my legal treatises.

Liebtraut.
You did well to translate yourself: a prophet is not honored in his own country — in your native guise you might have shared the same fate.

Olearius.
That was not the reason.

Liebtraut.
All things have two reasons.

Abbot.
A prophet is not honored in his own country.

Liebtraut.
But do you know why, most reverend sir?

Abbot.
Because he was born and bred there.

Liebtraut.
Well, that may be one reason. The other is, because, upon a nearer acquaintance with these gentlemen, the halo of glory and honor shed around them by the distant haze totally disappears; they are then seen to be nothing more than tiny rushlights!

Olearius.
It seems you are placed here to tell pleasant truths.

Liebtraut.
As I have wit enough to discover them, I do not lack courage to utter them.

Olearius.
Yet you lack the art of applying them well.

Liebtraut.
It is no matter where you place a cupping-glass provided it draws blood.

Olearius.
Barbers are known by their dress, and no one takes offence at their scurvy jests. Let me advise you as a precaution to bear the badge of your order — a cap and bells!

Liebtraut.
Where did you take your degree? I only ask, so that, should I ever take a fancy to a fool’s cap, I could at once go to the right shop.

Olearius.
You carry face enough.

Liebtraut.
And you paunch.
[The Bishop and Abbot laugh.

Bishop.
Not so warm, gentlemen! Some other subject. At table all should be fair and quiet. Choose another subject, Liebtraut.

Liebtraut.
Opposite Frankfort lies a village called Sachsenhausen —

Olearius.
(To the Bishop.) What news of the Turkish expedition, your excellency?

Bishop.
The emperor has most at heart, first of all to restore peace to the empire, put an end to feuds, and secure the strict administration of justice: then, according to report, he will go in person against the enemies of his country and of Christendom. At present internal dissensions give him enough to do; and the empire, despite half a hundred treaties of peace, is one scene of murder. Franconia, Swabia, the Upper Rhine and the surrounding countries are laid waste by presumptuous and reckless knights. — And here, at Bamberg, Sickingen, Selbitz with one leg, and Goetz with the iron hand, scoff at the imperial authority.

Abbot.
If his majesty does not exert himself, these fellows will at last thrust us into sacks.

Liebtraut.
He would be a sturdy fellow indeed who should thrust the wine-butt of Fulda into a sack!

Bishop.
Goetz especially has been for many years my mortal foe, and annoys me beyond description. But it will not last long, I hope. The emperor holds his court at Augsburg. We have taken our measures, and cannot fail of success. — Doctor, do you know Adelbert von Weislingen?

Olearius.
No, your eminence.

Bishop.
If you stay till his arrival you will have the pleasure of seeing a most noble, accomplished and gallant knight.

Olearius.
He must be an excellent man indeed to deserve such praises from such a mouth.

Liebtraut.
And yet he was not bred at any university.

Bishop.
We know that. (The attendants throng to the window.) What’s the matter?

Attendant.
Färber, Weislingen’s servant, is riding in at the castle-gate.

Bishop.
See what he brings. He most likely comes to announce his master.
[Exit Liebtraut. They stand up and drink.
Liebtraut re-enters.

Bishop.
What news?

Liebtraut.
I wish another had to tell it — Weislingen is a prisoner.

Bishop.
What?

Liebtraut.
Berlichingen has seized him and three troopers near Haslach. One is escaped to tell you.

Abbot.
A Job’s messenger!

Olearius.
I grieve from my heart.

Bishop.
I will see the servant; bring him up — I will speak with him myself. Conduct him into my cabinet.
[Exit Bishop.

Abbot.
(Sitting down.) Another draught, however.
[The Servants fill round.

Olearius.
Will not your reverence take a turn in the garden? “Post cœnam stabis, seu passus mille meabis.”

Liebtraut.
In truth, sitting is unhealthy for you. You might get an apoplexy. (The Abbot rises. Aside.) Let me but once get him out of doors, I will give him exercise enough!
[Exeunt.

 Fr. Pecht del
published by george barrie
 [Editor: illegible text]
 Maria

SCENE V.

Jaxthausen.

Maria. Weislingen.

Maria.
You love me, you say. I willingly believe it, and hope to be happy with you, and make you happy also.

Weislingen.
I feel nothing but that I am entirely thine.
[Embraces her.

Maria.
Softly! — I gave you one kiss for earnest, but you must not take possession of what is only yours conditionally.

Weislingen.
You are too strict, Maria! Innocent love is pleasing in the sight of Heaven, instead of giving offence.

Maria.
It may be so. But I think differently; for I have been taught that caresses are, like fetters, strong through their union, and that maidens, when they love, are weaker than Samson after the loss of his locks.

Weislingen.
Who taught you so?

Maria.
The abbess of my convent. Till my sixteenth year I was with her — and it is only with you that I enjoy happiness like that her company afforded me. She had loved, and could tell — she had a most affectionate heart. Oh! she was an excellent woman!

Weislingen.
Then you resemble her. (Takes her hand.) What will become of me when I am compelled to leave you?

Maria.
(Withdrawing her hand.) You will feel some regret, I hope, for I know what my feelings will be. But you must away!

Weislingen.
I know it, dearest! and I will — for well I feel what happiness I shall purchase by this sacrifice! Now, blessed be your brother, and the day on which he rode out to capture me!

Maria.
His heart was full of hope for you and himself. Farewell! he said, at his departure, I go to recover my friend.

Weislingen.
That he has done. Would that I had studied the arrangement and security of my property, instead of neglecting it, and dallying at that worthless court! — then could’st thou have been instantly mine.

Maria.
Even delay has its pleasures.

Weislingen.
Say not so, Maria, else I shall fear that thy heart is less warm than mine. True, I deserve punishment, but what hopes will brighten every step of my journey! To be wholly thine, to live only for thee and thy circle of friends — far removed from the world, in the enjoyment of all the raptures which two hearts can mutually bestow. What is the favor of princes, what the applause of the universe, to such simple, yet unequalled felicity? Many have been my hopes and wishes; but this happiness surpasses them all.
 Enter Goetz.

Goetz.
Your page has returned. He can scarcely utter a word for hunger and fatigue. My wife has ordered him some refreshment. Thus much I have gathered: the bishop will not give up my page; imperial commissioners are to be appointed, and a day named upon which the matter may be adjusted. Be that as it may, Adelbert, you are free. Pledge me but your hand that you will for the future give neither open nor secret assistance to my enemies.

Weislingen.
Here I grasp thy hand. From this moment be our friendship and confidence firm and unalterable as a primary law of nature! Let me take this hand also (takes Maria’s hand), and with it the possession of this most noble lady.

Goetz.
May I say yes for you?

Maria.
(Timidly.) If — if it is your wish —

Goetz.
Happily our wishes do not differ on this point. Thou need’st not blush — the glance of thine eye betrays thee. Well then, Weislingen, join hands, and I say Amen! My friend and brother! I thank thee, sister; thou canst do more than spin flax, for thou hast drawn a thread which can fetter this wandering bird of paradise. Yet you look not quite at your ease, Adelbert. What troubles you? I am perfectly happy! What I but hoped in a dream I now see with my eyes, and feel as though I were still dreaming. Now my dream is explained. I thought last night that, in token of reconciliation, I gave you this iron hand, and that you held it so fast that it broke away from my arm; I started, and awoke. Had I but dreamed a little longer I should have seen how you gave me a new living hand. You must away this instant, to put your castle and property in order. That cursed court has made you neglect both. I must call my wife. — Elizabeth!

Maria.
How overjoyed my brother is!

Weislingen.
Yet I am still more so.

Goetz.
(ToMaria.) You will have a pleasant residence.

Maria.
Franconia is a fine country.

Weislingen.
And I may venture to say that my castle lies in the most fertile and delicious part of it.

Goetz.
That you may, and I can confirm it. Look you, here flows the Main, around a hill clothed with cornfields and vineyards, its top crowned with a Gothic castle; then the river makes a sharp turn, and glides round behind the rock on which the castle is built. The windows of the great hall look perpendicularly down upon the river, and command a prospect of many miles in extent.
 EnterElizabeth.

Elizabeth.
What would’st thou?

Goetz.
You too must give your hand, and say, God bless you! They are a pair.

Elizabeth.
So soon?

Goetz.
But not unexpectedly.

Elizabeth.
May you ever adore her as ardently as while you sought her hand. And then, as your love, so be your happiness!

Weislingen.
Amen! I seek no happiness but under this condition.

Goetz.
The bridegroom, my love, must leave us for awhile; for this great change will involve many smaller ones. He must first withdraw himself from the bishop’s court, in order that their friendship may gradually cool. Then he must rescue his property from the hands of selfish stewards, and — but come, sister; come, Elizabeth; let us leave him; his page has no doubt private messages for him.

Weislingen.
Nothing but what you may hear.

Goetz.
’Tis needless. Franconians and Swabians! Ye are now more closely united than ever. Now we shall be able to keep the princes in check.
[ExeuntGoetz, Elizabeth, Maria.

Weislingen.
(Alone.) God in heaven! And canst Thou have reserved such happiness for one so unworthy? It is too much for my heart. How meanly I depended upon wretched fools, whom I thought I was governing, upon the smile of princes, upon the homage of those around me! Goetz, my faithful Goetz, thou hast restored me to myself, and thou, Maria, hast completed my reformation. I feel free, as if brought from a dungeon into the open air. Bamberg will I never see more — will snap all the shameful bonds that have held me beneath myself. My heart expands, and never more will I degrade myself by struggling for a greatness that is denied me. He alone is great and happy who fills his own station of independence, and has neither to command nor to obey.
 EnterFrancis.

Francis.
God save you, noble sir! I bring you so many salutations that I know not where to begin. Bamberg, and ten miles round, cry with a thousand voices, God save you!

Weislingen.
Welcome, Francis! Bring’st thou aught else?

Francis.
You are held in such consideration at court that it cannot be expressed.

Weislingen.
That will not last long.

Francis.
As long as you live; and after your death it will shine with more lustre than the brazen characters on a monument. How they took your misfortune to heart!

Weislingen.
And what said the bishop?

Francis.
His eager curiosity poured out question upon question, without giving me time to answer. He knew of your accident already; for Färber, who escaped from Haslach, had brought him the tidings. But he wished to hear every particular. He asked so anxiously whether you were wounded. I told him you were whole, from the hair of your head to the nail of your little toe.

Weislingen.
And what said he to the proposals?

Francis.
He was ready at first to give up the page and a ransom to boot for your liberty. But when he heard you were to be dismissed without ransom, and merely to give your parole that the boy should be set free, he was for putting off Berlichingen with some pretence. He charged me with a thousand messages to you, more than I can ever utter. Oh, how he harangued! It was a long sermon upon the text, “I cannot live without Weislingen!”

Weislingen.
He must learn to do so.

Francis.
What mean you? He said, “Bid him hasten; all the court waits for him.”

Weislingen.
Let them wait on. I shall not go to court.

Francis.
Not go to court! My gracious lord, how comes that? If you knew what I know; could you but dream what I have seen —

Weislingen.
What ails thee?

Francis.
The bare remembrance takes away my senses. Bamberg is no longer Bamberg. An angel of heaven, in semblance of woman, has taken up her abode there, and has made it a paradise.

Weislingen.
Is that all?

Francis.
May I become a shaven friar if the first glimpse of her does not drive you frantic!

Weislingen.
Who is it, then?

Francis.
Adelaide von Walldorf.

Weislingen.
Indeed! I have heard much of her beauty.

Francis.
Heard! You might as well say I have seen music. So far is the tongue from being able to rehearse the slightest particle of her beauty, that the very eye which beholds her cannot drink it all in.

Weislingen.
You are mad.

Francis.
That may well be. The last time I was in her company I had no more command over my senses than if I had been drunk, or, I may rather say, I felt like a glorified saint enjoying the angelic vision! All my senses exalted, more lively and more perfect than ever, yet not one at its owner’s command.

Weislingen.
That is strange!

Francis.
As I took leave of the bishop, she sat by him; they were playing at chess. He was very gracious; gave me his hand to kiss, and said much, of which I heard not a syllable, for I was looking on his fair antagonist. Her eye was fixed upon the board, as if meditating a bold move. — A touch of subtle watchfulness around the mouth and cheek. — I could have wished to be the ivory king. The mixture of dignity and feeling on her brow — and the dazzling lustre of her face and neck, heightened by her raven tresses —

Weislingen.
The theme has made you quite poetical.

Francis.
I feel at this moment what constitutes poetic inspiration — a heart altogether wrapped in one idea. As the bishop ended, and I made my obeisance, she looked up and said, “Offer to your master the best wishes of an unknown. Tell him he must come soon. New friends await him; he must not despise them, though he is already so rich in old ones.” I would have answered, but the passage betwixt my heart and my tongue was closed, and I only bowed. I would have given all I had for permission to kiss but one of her fingers! As I stood thus, the bishop let fall a pawn, and in stooping to pick it up, I touched the hem of her garment. Transport thrilled through my limbs, and I scarce know how I left the room.

Weislingen.
Is her husband at court?

Francis.
She has been a widow these four months, and is residing at the court of Bamberg to divert her melancholy. You will see her; and to meet her glance is to bask in the sunshine of spring.

Weislingen.
She would not make so strong an impression on me.

Francis.
I hear you are as good as married.

Weislingen.
Would I were really so! My gentle Maria will be the happiness of my life. The sweetness of her soul beams through her mild blue eyes, and, like an angel of innocence and love, she guides my heart to the paths of peace and felicity! Pack up, and then to my castle. I will not to Bamberg, though St. Bede came in person to fetch me.
[ExitWeislingen.

Francis.
(Alone.) Not to Bamberg! Heavens forbid! But let me hope the best. Maria is beautiful and amiable, and a prisoner or an invalid might easily fall in love with her. Her eyes beam with compassion and melancholy sympathy; but in thine, Adelaide, is life, fire, spirit. I would . . . I am a fool; one glance from her has made me so. My master must to Bamberg, and I also, and either recover my senses or gaze them quite away.

 Fr. Pecht del
published by george barrie
 [Editor: illegible text]
 Adelaide

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Bamberg. A Hall.
[TheBishop andAdelaide (playing at chess),Liebtraut (with a guitar),Ladies andCourtiers (standing in groups).

Liebtraut.
(Plays and sings.)
o Armed with quiver and bow,
o With his torch all aglow,
o Young Cupid comes winging his flight.
o Courage glows in his eyes,
o As adown from the skies,
o He rushes, impatient for fight.
o Up! up!
o On! on!
o Hark! the bright quiver rings!
o Hark! the rustle of wings!
o All hail to the delicate sprite!
o They welcome the urchin; —
o Ah, maidens, beware!
o He finds every bosom
o Unguarded and bare.
o In the light of his flambeau
o He kindles his darts; —
o They fondle and hug him
o And press to their hearts.

Adelaide.
Your thoughts are not in your game. Check to the king!

Bishop.
There is still a way of escape.

Adelaide.
You will not be able to hold out long. Check to the king!

Liebtraut.
Were I a great prince, I would not play at this game, and would forbid it at court and throughout the whole land.

Adelaide.
’Tis indeed a touchstone of the brain.

Liebtraut.
Not on that account. I would rather hear a funeral bell, the cry of the ominous bird, the howling of that snarling watch-dog, conscience; rather would I hear these through the deepest sleep, than from bishops, knights and such beasts, the eternal — Check to the king!

Bishop.
Into whose head could such an idea enter?

Liebtraut.
A man’s, for example, endowed with a weak body and a strong conscience, which, for the most part, indeed, accompany each other. Chess is called a royal game, and is said to have been invented for a king, who rewarded the inventor with a mine of wealth. If this be so, I can picture him to myself. He was a minor, either in understanding or in years, under the guardianship of his mother or his wife; had down upon his chin, and flaxen hair around his temples; was pliant as a willow-shoot, and liked to play at draughts with women, not from passion, God forbid! only for pastime. His tutor, too active for a scholar, too intractable for a man of the world, invented the game, in usum Delphini, that was so homogeneous with his majesty — and so on.

Adelaide.
Checkmate! You should fill up the chasms in our histories, Liebtraut.
[They rise.

Liebtraut.
To supply those in our family registers would be more profitable. The merits of our ancestors being available for a common object with their portraits, namely, to cover the naked sides of our chambers and of our characters, one might turn such an occupation to good account.

Bishop.
He will not come, you say!

Adelaide.
I beseech you, banish him from your thoughts.

Bishop.
What can it mean?

Liebtraut.
What! The reasons may be told over like the beads of a rosary. He has been seized with a fit of compunction, of which I could soon cure him.

Bishop.
Do so; ride to him instantly.

Liebtraut.
My commission —

Bishop.
Shall be unlimited. Spare nothing to bring him back.

Liebtraut.
May I venture to use your name, gracious lady?

Adelaide.
With discretion.

Liebtraut.
That’s a vague commission.

Adelaide.
Do you know so little of me, or are you so young as not to understand in what tone you should speak of me to Weislingen?

Liebtraut.
In the tone of a fowler’s whistle, I think.

Adelaide.
You will never be reasonable.

Liebtraut.
Does one ever become so, gracious lady?

Bishop.
Go! go! Take the best horse in my stable; choose your servants, and bring him hither.

Liebtraut.
If I do not conjure him hither, say that an old woman who charms warts and freckles knows more of sympathy than I.

Bishop.
Yet, what will it avail? Berlichingen has wholly gained him over. He will no sooner be here than he will wish to return.

Liebtraut.
He will wish it, doubtless; but can he go? A prince’s squeeze of the hand and the smiles of a beauty, from these no Weislingen can tear himself away. I have the honor to take my leave.

Bishop.
A prosperous journey!

Adelaide.
Adieu!
[ExitLiebtraut.

Bishop.
When he is once here, I must trust to you.

Adelaide.
Would you make me your lime-twig?

Bishop.
By no means.

Adelaide.
Your call-bird then?

Bishop.
No; that is Liebtraut’s part. I beseech you do not refuse to do for me what no other can.

Adelaide.
We shall see.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Jaxthausen. A Hall inGoetz’sCastle.
EnterGoetz andHans von Selbitz.

Selbitz.
Every one will applaud you for declaring feud against the Nurembergers.

Goetz.
It would have eaten my very heart away had I remained longer their debtor. It is clear that they betrayed my page to the Bambergers. They shall have cause to remember me.

Selbitz.
They have an old grudge against you.

Goetz.
And I against them. I am glad they have begun the fray.

Selbitz.
These free towns have always taken part with the priests.

Goetz.
They have good reason.

Selbitz.
But we will cook their porridge for them!

Goetz.
I reckon upon you. Would that the Burgomaster of Nuremberg, with his gold chain round his neck, fell in our way, we’d astonish him with all his cleverness.

Selbitz.
I hear Weislingen is again on your side. Does he really join in our league?

Goetz.
Not immediately. There are reasons which prevent his openly giving us assistance; but for the present it is quite enough that he is not against us. The priest without him is what the stole would be without the priest!

Selbitz.
When do we set forward?

Goetz.
To-morrow or next day. There are merchants of Bamberg and Nuremberg returning from the fair of Frankfort — we may strike a good blow.

Selbitz.
Let us hope so!

SCENE III.

TheBishop’sPalace at Bamberg.
Adelaide and herWaiting-Maid.

Adelaide.
He is here, sayest thou? I can scarcely believe it.

Maid.
Had I not seen him myself, I should have doubted it.

Adelaide.
The bishop should frame Liebtraut in gold for such a masterpiece of skill.

Maid.
I saw him as he was about to enter the palace. He was mounted on a gray charger. The horse started when he came on the bridge, and would not move forward. The populace thronged up the street to see him. They rejoiced at the delay of the unruly horse. He was greeted on all sides, and he thanked them gracefully all round. He sat the curvetting steed with an easy indifference, and by threats and soothing brought him to the gate, followed by Liebtraut and a few servants.

Adelaide.
What do you think of him?

Maid.
I never saw a man who pleased me so well. He is as like that portrait of the emperor as if he were his son (pointing to a picture). His nose is somewhat smaller, but just such gentle light-brown eyes, just such fine light hair, and such a figure! A half melancholy expression on his face; I know not how, but he pleased me so well.

Adelaide.
I am curious to see him.

Maid.
He would be the husband for you!

Adelaide.
Foolish girl!

Maid.
Children and fools —
 EnterLiebtraut.

Liebtraut.
Now, gracious lady, what do I deserve?

Adelaide.
Horns from your wife! — for judging from the present sample of your persuasive powers you have certainly endangered the honor of many a worthy family.

Liebtraut.
Not so, be assured, gracious lady.

Adelaide.
How did you contrive to bring him?

Liebtraut.
You know how they catch snipes, and why should I detail my little stratagems to you? — First, I pretended to have heard nothing, did not understand the reason of his behavior, and put him upon the disadvantage of telling me the whole story at length — then I saw the matter in quite a different light to what he did — could not find — could not see, and so forth — then I gossipped things great and small about Bamberg, and recalled to his memory certain old recollections; and when I had succeeded in occupying his imagination I knitted together many a broken association of ideas. He knew not what to say — felt a new attraction towards Bamberg — he would, and he would not. When I found him begin to waver, and saw him too much occupied with his own feelings to suspect my sincerity, I threw over his head a halter, woven of the three powerful cords, beauty, court-favor and flattery, and dragged him hither in triumph.

Adelaide.
What said you of me?

Liebtraut.
The simple truth — that you were in perplexity about your estates, and had hoped as he had so much influence with the emperor all would be satisfactorily settled.

Adelaide.
’Tis well.

Liebtraut.
The bishop will introduce him to you.

Adelaide.
I expect them. (ExitLiebtraut.) And with such feelings have I seldom expected a visitor.

SCENE IV.

The Spessart.
EnterSelbitz, Goetz andGeorge in the armor and dress of a trooper.

Goetz.
So thou didst not find him, George?

George.
He had ridden to Bamberg the day before with Liebtraut and two servants.

Goetz.
I cannot understand what this means.

Selbitz.
I see it well — your reconciliation was almost too speedy to be lasting — Liebtraut is a cunning fellow, and has no doubt inveigled him over.

Goetz.
Think’st thou he will become a traitor?

Selbitz.
The first step is taken.

Goetz.
I will never believe it. Who knows what he may have to do at court — his affairs are still unarranged. Let us hope for the best.

Selbitz.
Would to Heaven he may deserve of your good opinion, and may act for the best!

Goetz.
A thought strikes me! — We will disguise George in the spoils of the Bamberg trooper, and furnish him with the password — he may then ride to Bamberg, and see how matters stand.

George.
I have long wished to do so.

Goetz.
It is thy first expedition. Be careful, boy; I should be sorry if ill befell thee.

George.
Never fear. I care not how many of them crawl about me; I think no more of them than of rats and mice.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

TheBishop’sPalace. His Cabinet.
TheBishop andWeislingen.

Bishop.
Then thou wilt stay no longer?

Weislingen.
You would not have me break my oath.

Bishop.
I could have wished thou hadst not sworn it. What evil spirit possessed thee? Could I not have procured thy release without that? Is my influence so small in the imperial court?

Weislingen.
The thing is done — excuse it as you can.

Bishop.
I cannot see that there was the least necessity for taking such a step. To renounce me? Were there not a thousand other ways of procuring thy freedom? Had we not his page? And would I not have given gold enough to boot, and thus satisfied Berlichingen? Our operations against him and his confederates could have gone on — But, alas! I do not reflect that I am talking to his friend, who has joined him against me, and can easily counterwork the mines he himself has dug.

Weislingen.
My gracious lord —

Bishop.
And yet — when I again look on thy face, again hear thy voice — it is impossible — impossible!

Weislingen.
Farewell, good my lord!

Bishop.
I give thee my blessing — formerly when we parted I was wont to say “Till we meet again!” Now Heaven grant we meet no more!

Weislingen.
Things may alter.

Bishop.
Perhaps I may live to see thee appear as an enemy before my walls, carrying havoc through the fertile plains which now owe their flourishing condition to thee.

Weislingen.
Never, my gracious lord!

Bishop.
You cannot say so. My temporal neighbors all have a grudge against me — but while thou wert mine — Go, Weislingen! I have no more to say. Thou hast undone much. Go —

Weislingen.
I know not what to answer.
[ExitBishop.
 EnterFrancis.

Francis.
The Lady Adelaide expects you. She is not well, but she will not let you depart without bidding her adieu.

Weislingen.
Come.

Francis.
Do we go then for certain?

Weislingen.
This very night.

Francis.
I feel as if I were about to leave the world —

Weislingen.
I too, and as if besides I knew not whither to go.

SCENE VI.

Adelaide’sApartment.
Adelaide andWaiting-Maid.

Maid.
You are pale, gracious lady!

Adelaide.
I love him not, yet I wish him to stay — for I am fond of his company, though I should dislike him for my husband.

Maid.
Does your ladyship think he will go?

Adelaide.
He is even now bidding the bishop farewell.

Maid.
He has yet a severe struggle to undergo.

Adelaide.
What meanest thou?

Maid.
Why do you ask, gracious lady? The barbed hook is in his heart — ere he tear it away he must bleed to death.
 EnterWeislingen.

Weislingen.
You are not well, gracious lady?

Adelaide.
That must be indifferent to you — you leave us, leave us forever: what matters it to you whether we live or die?

Weislingen.
You do me injustice.

Adelaide.
I judge you as you appear.

Weislingen.
Appearances are deceitful.

Adelaide.
Then you are a chameleon.

Weislingen.
Could you but see my heart —

Adelaide.
I should see fine things there.

Weislingen.
Undoubtedly! — You would find your own image —

Adelaide.
Thrust into some dark corner with the pictures of defunct ancestors! I beseech you, Weislingen, consider with whom you speak — false words are of value only when they serve to veil our actions — a discovered masquerader plays a pitiful part. You do not disown your deeds, yet your words belie them; what are we to think of you?

Weislingen.
What you will — I am so agonized at reflecting on what I am, that I little reck for what I am taken.

Adelaide.
You came to say farewell.

Weislingen.
Permit me to kiss your hand, and I will say adieu! — You remind me — I did not think — but I am troublesome —

Adelaide.
You misinterpret me. Since you will depart, I only wished to assist your resolution.

Weislingen.
Oh, say rather, I must! — were I not compelled by my knightly word — my solemn engagement —

Adelaide.
Go to! Talk of that to maidens who read the tale of Theuerdanck, and wish that they had such a husband. — Knightly word! — Nonsense!

Weislingen.
You do not think so?

Adelaide.
On my honor, you are dissembling. What have you promised? and to whom? You have pledged your alliance to a traitor to the emperor, at the very moment when he incurred the ban of the empire by taking you prisoner. Such an agreement is no more binding than an extorted, unjust oath. And do not our laws release you from such oaths? Go, tell that to children, who believe in Rübezahl. There is something behind all this. — To become an enemy of the empire — a disturber of public happiness and tranquillity, an enemy of the emperor, the associate of a robber! — Thou, Weislingen, with thy gentle soul!

Weislingen.
Did you but know him!

Adelaide.
I would deal justly with Goetz. He has a lofty indomitable spirit, and woe to thee, therefore, Weislingen. Go, and persuade thyself thou art his companion. Go, and receive his commands. Thou art courteous, gentle —

Weislingen.
And he too.

Adelaide.
But thou art yielding, and he is stubborn. Imperceptibly will he draw thee on. Thou wilt become the slave of a baron; thou that mightest command princes! — Yet it is cruel to make you discontented with your future position.

Weislingen.
Did you but know what kindness he showed me.

Adelaide.
Kindness! — Do you make such a merit of that? It was his duty. And what would you have lost had he acted otherwise? I would rather he had done so. An overbearing man like —

Weislingen.
You speak of your enemy.

Adelaide.
I speak for your freedom; yet I know not why I should take so much interest in it. Farewell!

Weislingen.
Permit me, but a moment.
[Takes her hand. A pause.

Adelaide.
Have you aught to say?

Weislingen.
I must hence.

Adelaide.
Then go.

Weislingen.
Gracious lady, I cannot.

Adelaide.
You must.

Weislingen.
And is this your parting look?

Adelaide.
Go, I am unwell, very inopportunely.

Weislingen.
Look not on me thus!

Adelaide.
Wilt thou be our enemy, and yet have us smile upon thee? Go!

Weislingen.
Adelaide!

Adelaide.
I hate thee!
 EnterFrancis.

Francis.
Noble sir, the bishop inquires for you.

Adelaide.
Go! go!

Francis.
He begs you to come instantly.

Adelaide.
Go! go!

Weislingen.
I do not say adieu: I shall see you again.
[ExeuntWeislingen andFrancis.

Adelaide.
Thou wilt see me again? We must provide for that. Margaret, when he comes, refuse him admittance. Say I am ill, have a headache, am asleep, anything. If this does not detain him, nothing will.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

An Ante-room.

Weislingen andFrancis.

Weislingen.
She will not see me!

Francis.
Night draws on; shall we saddle?

Weislingen.
She will not see me!

Francis.
Shall I order the horses?

Weislingen.
It is too late; we stay here.

Francis.
God be praised.
[Exit.

Weislingen.
(Alone.) Thou stayest! Be on thy guard — the temptation is great. My horse started at the castle gate. My good angel stood before him, he knew the danger that awaited me. Yet it would be wrong to leave in confusion the various affairs entrusted to me by the bishop, without at least so arranging them that my successor may be able to continue where I left off. That I can do without breach of faith to Berlichingen, and when it is done no one shall detain me. Yet it would have been better that I had never come. But I will away — to-morrow — or next day: — ’tis decided!
[Exit.

SCENE VIII.

The Spessart.
EnterGoetz, Selbitz andGeorge.

Selbitz.
You see it has turned out as I prophesied.

Goetz.
No, no, no.

George.
I tell you the truth, believe me. I did as you commanded, took the dress and password of the Bamberg trooper, and escorted some peasants of the Lower Rhine, who paid my expenses for my convoy.

Selbitz.
In that disguise? It might have cost thee dear.

George.
So I begin to think, now that it’s over. A trooper who thinks of danger beforehand will never do anything great. I got safely to Bamberg, and in the very first inn I heard them tell how the bishop and Weislingen were reconciled, and how Weislingen was to marry the widow of Von Walldorf.

Goetz.
Mere gossip!

George.
I saw him as he led her to table. She is lovely, by my faith, most lovely! We all bowed — she thanked us all. He nodded, and seemed highly pleased. They passed on, and everybody murmured, “What a handsome pair!”

Goetz.
That may be.

George.
Listen further. The next day as he went to mass, I watched my opportunity; he was attended only by his squire; I stood at the steps, and whispered to him as he passed, “A few words from your friend Berlichingen.” He started — I marked the confession of guilt in his face. He had scarcely the heart to look at me — me, a poor trooper’s boy!

Selbitz.
His evil conscience degrades him more than thy condition does thee.

George.
“Art thou of Bamberg?” said he. “The Knight of Berlichingen greets you,” said I, “and I am to inquire — ” “Come to my apartment to-morrow morning,” quoth he, “and we will speak further.”

Goetz.
And you went?

George.
Yes, certainly, I went, and waited in his ante-chamber a long, long time — and his pages, in their silken doublets, stared at me from head to foot. Stare on, thought I. At length I was admitted. He seemed angry. But what cared I? I gave my message. He began blustering like a coward who wants to look brave. He wondered that you should take him to task through a trooper’s boy. That angered me. “There are but two sorts of people,” said I, “true men and scoundrels, and I serve Goetz of Berlichingen.” Then he began to talk all manner of nonsense, which all tended to one point, namely, that you had hurried him into an agreement, that he owed you no allegiance, and would have nothing to do with you.

Goetz.
Hadst thou that from his own mouth?

George.
That, and yet more. He threatened me —

Goetz.
It is enough. He is lost forever. Faith and confidence, again have ye deceived me. Poor Maria! how am I to break this to you?

Selbitz.
I would rather lose my other leg than be such a rascal.

SCENE IX.

Hall in theBishop’sPalace at Bamberg.
Adelaide andWeislingen discovered.

Adelaide.
Time begins to hang insupportably heavy here. I dare not speak seriously, and I am ashamed to trifle with you. Ennui, thou art worse than a slow fever.

Weislingen.
Are you tired of me already?

Adelaide.
Not so much of you as of your society. I would you had gone when you wished, and that we had not detained you.

Weislingen.
Such is woman’s favor! At first she fosters with maternal warmth our dearest hopes; and then, like an inconstant hen, she forsakes the nest, and abandons the infant brood to death and decay.

Adelaide.
Yes, you may rail at women. The reckless gambler tears and curses the harmless cards which have been the instruments of his loss. But let me tell you something about men. What are you that talk about fickleness? You that are seldom even what you would wish to be, never what you should be. Princes in holiday garb! the envy of the vulgar. Oh, what would a tailor’s wife not give for a necklace of the pearls on the skirt of your robe, which you kick back contemptuously with your heels.

Weislingen.
You are severe.

Adelaide.
It is but the antistrophe to your song. Ere I knew you, Weislingen, I felt like the tailor’s wife. Hundred-tongued rumor, to speak without metaphor, had so extolled you, in quack-doctor fashion, that I was tempted to wish — Oh, that I could but see this quintessence of manhood, this phœnix, Weislingen! My wish was granted.

Weislingen.
And the phœnix turned out a dunghill cock.

Adelaide.
No, Weislingen, I took an interest in you.

Weislingen.
So it appeared.

Adelaide.
So it was — for you really surpassed your reputation. The multitude prize only the reflection of worth. For my part, I do not care to scrutinize the character of those whom I esteem; so we lived on for some time. I felt there was a deficiency in you, but knew not what I missed; at length my eyes were opened — I saw instead of the energetic being who gave impulse to the affairs of a kingdom, and was ever alive to the voice of fame — who was wont to pile princely project on project, till, like the mountains of the Titans, they reached the clouds — instead of all this, I saw a man as querulous as a love-sick poet, as melancholy as a slighted damsel, and more indolent than an old bachelor. I first ascribed it to your misfortune which still lay at your heart, and excused you as well as I could; but now that it daily becomes worse, you must really forgive me if I withdraw my favor from you. You possess it unjustly: I bestowed it for life on a hero who cannot transfer it to you.

Weislingen.
Dismiss me, then.

Adelaide.
Not till all chance of recovery is lost. Solitude is fatal in your distemper. Alas! poor man! you are as dejected as one whose first love has proved false, and therefore I won’t give you up. Give me your hand, and pardon what affection has urged me to say.

Weislingen.
Could’st thou but love me, could’st thou but return the fervor of my passion with the least glow of sympathy. — Adelaide, thy reproaches are most unjust. Could’st thou but guess the hundredth part of my sufferings, thou would’st not have tortured me so unmercifully with encouragement, indifference and contempt. You smile. To be reconciled to myself after the step I have taken must be the work of more than one day. How can I plot against the man who has been so recently and so vividly restored to my affection?

Adelaide.
Strange being! Can you love him whom you envy? It is like sending provisions to an enemy.

Weislingen.
I well know that here there must be no dallying. He is aware that I am again Weislingen; and he will watch his advantage over us. Besides, Adelaide, we are not so sluggish as you think. Our troopers are reinforced and watchful, our schemes are proceeding, and the Diet of Augsburg will, I hope, soon bring them to a favorable issue.

Adelaide.
You go there?

Weislingen.
If I could carry a glimpse of hope with me.
[Kisses her hand.

Adelaide.
O ye infidels! Always signs and wonders required. Go, Weislingen, and accomplish the work! The interest of the bishop, yours and mine, are all so linked together, that were it only for policy’s sake —

Weislingen.
You jest.

Adelaide.
I do not jest. The haughty duke has seized my property. Goetz will not be slow to ravage yours; and if we do not hold together, as our enemies do, and gain over the emperor to our side, we are lost.

Weislingen.
I fear nothing. Most of the princes think with us. The emperor needs assistance against the Turks, and it is therefore just that he should help us in his turn. What rapture for me to rescue your fortune from rapacious enemies; to crush the mutinous chivalry of Swabia; to restore peace to the bishopric, and then —

Adelaide.
One day brings on another, and fate is mistress of the future.

Weislingen.
But we must lend our endeavors.

Adelaide.
We do so.

Weislingen.
But seriously.

Adelaide.
Well, then, seriously. Do but go —

Weislingen.
Enchantress!
[Exeunt.

SCENE X.
An Inn.
The Bridal of aPeasant.
[TheBride’s Father, Bride, Bridegroom and other Country-folks,Goetz of Berlichingen andHans of Selbitz all discovered at table.Troopers andPeasants attend.

Goetz.
It was the best way thus to settle your lawsuit by a merry bridal.

Bride’s Father.
Better than ever I could have dreamed of, noble sir — to spend my days in quiet with my neighbor, and have a daughter provided for to boot.

Bridegroom.
And I to get the bone of contention and a pretty wife into the bargain! Ay, the prettiest in the whole village. Would to Heaven you had consented sooner.

Goetz.
How long have you been at law?

Bride’s Father.
About eight years. I would rather have the fever for twice that time than go through with it again from the beginning. For these periwigged gentry never give a decision till you tear it out of their very hearts; and, after all, what do you get for your pains? The devil fly away with the assessor Sapupi for a damned swarthy Italian!

Bridegroom.
Yes, he’s a pretty fellow; I was before him twice.

Bride’s Father.
And I thrice; and look ye, gentlemen, we got a judgment at last, which set forth that he was as much in the right as I, and I as much as he; so there we stood like a couple of fools, till a good Providence put it into my head to give him my daughter, and the ground besides.

Goetz.
(Drinks.) To your better understanding for the future.

Bride’s Father.
With all my heart! But come what may, I’ll never go to law again as long as I live. What a mint of money it costs! For every bow made to you by a procurator, you must come down with your dollars.

Selbitz.
But there are annual imperial visitations.

Bride’s Father.
I have never heard of them. Many an extra dollar have they contrived to squeeze out of me. The expenses are horrible.

Goetz.
How mean you?

Bride’s Father.
Why, look you, these gentlemen of the law are always holding out their hands. The assessor alone, God forgive him, eased me of eighteen golden guilders.

Bridegroom.
Who?

Bride’s Father.
Why, who else but Sapupi?

Goetz.
That is infamous.

Bride’s Father.
Yes, he asked twenty; and there I had to pay them in the great hall of his fine country-house. I thought my heart would burst with anguish. For look you, my lord, I am well enough off with my house and little farm, but how could I raise the ready cash? I stood there, God knows how it was with me. I had not a single farthing to carry me on my journey. At last I took courage and told him my case: when he saw I was desperate, he flung me back a couple of guilders, and sent me about my business.

Bridegroom.
Impossible! Sapupi?

Bride’s Father.
Ay, he himself! — What do you stare at?

Bridegroom.
Devil take the rascal! He took fifteen guilders from me too?

Bride’s Father.
The deuce he did!

Selbitz.
They call us robbers, Goetz!

Bride’s Father.
Bribed on both sides!
That’s why the judgment fell out so queer.
Oh, the scoundrel!

Goetz.
You must not let this pass unnoticed.

Bride’s Father.
What can we do?

Goetz.
Why — go to Spire where there is an imperial visitation: make your complaint; they must inquire into it, and help you to your own again.

Bridegroom.
Does your honor think we shall succeed?

Goetz.
If I might take him in hand, I could promise it you.

Selbitz.
The sum is worth an attempt.

Goetz.
Ay; many a day have I ridden out for the fourth part of it.

Bride’s Father.
(ToBridegroom.) What think’st thou?

Bridegroom.
We’ll try, come what may.
 EnterGeorge.

George.
The Nurembergers have set out.

Goetz.
Whereabouts are they?

George.
If we ride off quietly we shall just catch them in the wood betwixt Berheim and Mühlbach.

Selbitz.
Excellent!

Goetz.
Well, my children, God bless you, and help every man to his own!

Bride’s Father.
Thanks, gallant sir! Will you not stay to supper?

Goetz.
I cannot. Adieu!
[ExeuntGoetz, Selbitz andTroopers

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A Garden at Augsburg.
Enter twoMerchants of Nuremberg.

First Merchant.
We’ll stand here, for the emperor must pass this way. He is just coming up the long avenue.

Second Merchant.
Who is that with him?

First Merchant.
Adelbert of Weislingen.

Second Merchant.
The bishop’s friend. That’s lucky!

First Merchant.
We’ll throw ourselves at his feet.

Second Merchant.
See! they come.
 Enter theEmperor andWeislingen.

First Merchant.
He looks displeased.

Emperor.
I am disheartened, Weislingen. When I review my past life, I am ready to despair. So many half — ay, and wholly ruined undertakings — and all because the pettiest feudatory of the empire thinks more of gratifying his own whims than of seconding my endeavors.
[TheMerchants throw themselves at his feet.

First Merchant.
Most mighty! Most gracious!

Emperor.
Who are ye? What seek ye?

First Merchant.
Poor merchants of Nuremberg, your majesty’s devoted servants, who implore your aid. Goetz von Berlichingen and Hans von Selbitz fell upon thirty of us as we journeyed from the fair of Frankfort, under an escort from Bamberg; they overpowered and plundered us. We implore your imperial assistance to obtain redress, else we are all ruined men, and shall be compelled to beg our bread.

Emperor.
Good heavens! What is this? The one has but one hand, the other but one leg; if they both had two hands and two legs what would you do then?

First Merchant.
We most humbly beseech your majesty to cast a look of compassion upon our unfortunate condition.

Emperor.
How is this? — If a merchant loses a bag of pepper, all Germany is to rise in arms; but when business is to be done, in which the imperial majesty and the empire are interested, should it concern dukedoms, principalities, or kingdoms, there is no bringing you together.

Weislingen.
You come at an unseasonable time. Go, and stay at Augsburg for a few days.

Merchants.
We make our most humble obeisance.
[ExeuntMerchants.

Emperor.
Again new disturbances; they multiply like the hydra’s heads!

Weislingen.
And can only be extirpated with fire and sword.

Emperor.
Do you think so?

Weislingen.
Nothing seems to me more advisable, could your majesty and the princes but accommodate your other unimportant disputes. It is not the body of the state that complains of this malady — Franconia and Swabia alone glow with the embers of civil discord; and even there many of the nobles and free barons long for quiet. Could we but crush Sickingen, Selbitz — and — and — and Berlichingen, the others would fall asunder; for it is the spirit of these knights which quickens the turbulent multitude.

Emperor.
Fain would I spare them; they are noble and hardy. Should I be engaged in war, they would follow me to the field.

Weislingen.
It is to be wished they had at all times known their duty; moreover it would be dangerous to reward their mutinous bravery by offices of trust. For it is exactly this imperial mercy and forgiveness which they have hitherto so grievously abused, and upon which the hope and confidence of their league rest, and this spirit cannot be quelled till we have wholly destroyed their power in the eyes of the world, and taken from them all hope of ever recovering their lost influence.

Emperor.
You advise severe measures, then?

Weislingen.
I see no other means of quelling the spirit of insurrection which has seized upon whole provinces. Do we not already hear the bitterest complaints from the nobles, that their vassals and serfs rebel against them, question their authority, and threaten to curtail their hereditary prerogatives? A proceeding which would involve the most fearful consequences.

Emperor.
This were a fair occasion for proceeding against Berlichingen and Selbitz; but I will not have them personally injured. Could they be taken prisoners, they should swear to renounce their feuds, and to remain in their own castles and territories upon their knightly parole. At the next session of the Diet we will propose this plan.

Weislingen.
A general exclamation of joyful assent will spare your majesty the trouble of particular detail.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Jaxthausen.
EnterGoetz andFranz von Sickingen.

Sickingen.
Yes, my friend, I come to beg the heart and hand of your noble sister.

Goetz.
I would you had come sooner. Weislingen, during his imprisonment, obtained her affections, proposed for her, and I gave my consent. I let the bird loose, and he now despises the benevolent hand that fed him in his distress. He flutters about to seek his food, God knows upon what hedge.

Sickingen.
Is this so?

Goetz.
Even as I tell you.

Sickingen.
He has broken a double bond. ’Tis well for you that you were not more closely allied with the traitor.

Goetz.
The poor maiden passes her life in lamentation and prayer.

Sickingen.
I will comfort her.

Goetz.
What! Could you make up your mind to marry a forsaken —

Sickingen.
It is to the honor of you both to have been deceived by him. Should the poor girl be caged in a cloister because the first man who gained her love proved a villain? Not so; I insist on it. She shall be mistress of my castles!

Goetz.
I tell you he was not indifferent to her.

Sickingen.
Do you think I cannot efface the recollection of such a wretch? Let us go to her.
[Exeunt.

 Fr. Pecht del
published by george barrie
 [Editor: illegible text]
 Franz von Sickingen

SCENE III.

The Camp of the Party sent to execute the Imperial Mandate.
ImperialCaptain andOfficers discovered.

Captain.
We must be cautious, and spare our people as much as possible. Besides, we have strict orders to overpower and take him alive. It will be difficult to obey; for who will engage with him hand to hand?

First Officer.
’Tis true. And he will fight like a wild boar. Besides, he has never in his whole life injured any of us, so each will be glad to leave to the other the honor of risking life and limb to please the emperor.

Second Officer.
‘Twere shame to us should we not take him. Had I him once by the ears, he should not easily escape.

First Officer.
Don’t seize him with your teeth, however, he might chance to run away with your jaw-bone. My good young sir, such men are not taken like a runaway thief.

Second Officer.
We shall see.

Captain.
By this time he must have had our summons. We must not delay. I mean to despatch a troop to watch his motions.

Second Officer.
Let me lead it.

Captain.
You are unacquainted with the country.

Second Officer.
I have a servant who was born and bred here.

Captain.
That will do.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

Jaxthausen.

Sickingen.
(Alone.) All goes as I wish! She was somewhat startled at my proposal, and looked at me from head to foot; I’ll wager she was comparing me with her gallant. Thank Heaven I can stand the scrutiny! She answered little and confusedly. So much the better! Let it work for a time. A proposal of marriage does not come amiss after such a cruel disappointment.
 EnterGoetz.

Sickingen.
What news, brother?

Goetz.
They have laid me under the ban.

Sickingen.
How?

Goetz.
There, read the edifying epistle. The emperor has issued an edict against me, which gives my body for food to the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the air.

Sickingen.
They shall first furnish them with a dinner themselves. I am here in the very nick of time.

Goetz.
No, Sickingen, you must leave me. Your great undertakings might be ruined should you become the enemy of the emperor at so unseasonable a time. Besides, you can be of more use to me by remaining neutral. The worst that can happen is my being made prisoner; and then your good word with the emperor, who esteems you, may rescue me from the misfortune into which your untimely assistance would irremediably plunge us both. To what purpose should you do otherwise? These troops are marching against me; and if they knew we were united, their numbers would only be increased, and our position would consequently be no better. The emperor is at the fountain-head; and I should be utterly ruined were it as easy to inspire soldiers with courage as to collect them into a body.

Sickingen.
But I can privately reinforce you with a score of troopers.

Goetz.
Good. I have already sent George to Selbitz, and to my people in the neighborhood. My dear brother, when my forces are collected, they will be such a troop as few princes can bring together.

Sickingen.
It will be small against the multitude.

Goetz.
One wolf is too many for a whole flock of sheep.

Sickingen.
But if they have a good shepherd?

Goetz.
Never fear! They are all hirelings; and then even the best knight can do but little if he cannot act as he pleases. It happened once that, to oblige the palsgrave, I went to serve against Conrad Schotten: they then presented me with a paper of instructions from the chancery, which set forth — Thus and thus must you proceed. I threw down the paper before the magistrates, and told them I could not act according to it; that something might happen unprovided for in my instructions, and that I must use my own eyes and judge what was best to be done.

Sickingen.
Good luck, brother! I will hence, and send thee what men I can collect in haste.

Goetz.
Come first to the women. I left them together. I would you had her consent before you depart! Then send me the troopers, and come back in private to carry away my Maria; for my castle, I fear, will shortly be no abode for women.

Sickingen.
We will hope for the best.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

Bamberg.Adelaide’sChamber.
Adelaide andFrancis.

Adelaide.
They have already set out to enforce the ban against both?

Francis.
Yes; and my master has the happiness of marching against your enemies. I would gladly have gone also, however rejoiced I always am at being despatched to you. But I will away instantly, and soon return with good news; my master has allowed me to do so.

Adelaide.
How is he?

Francis.
He is well, and commanded me to kiss your hand.

Adelaide.
There! — Thy lips glow.

Francis.
(Aside, pressing his breast.) Here glows something yet more fiery. (Aloud.) Gracious lady, your servants are the most fortunate of beings!

Adelaide.
Who goes against Berlichingen?

Francis.
The Baron von Sirau. Farewell! Dearest, most gracious lady, I must away. Forget me not!

Adelaide.
Thou must first take some rest and refreshment.

Francis.
I need none, for I have seen you! I am neither weary nor hungry.

Adelaide.
I know thy fidelity.

Francis.
Ah, gracious lady!

Adelaide.
You can never hold out; you must repose and refresh yourself.

Francis.
You are too kind to a poor youth.
[Exit.

Adelaide.
The tears stood in his eyes. I love him from my heart. Never did man attach himself to me with such warmth of affection.
[Exit.

SCENE VI.

Jaxthausen.
Goetz andGeorge.

George.
He wants to speak with you in person. I do not know him — he is a tall, well-made man, with keen dark eyes.

Goetz.
Admit him.
[ExitGeorge.
 EnterLerse.

Goetz.
God save you! What bring you?

Lerse.
Myself: not much, but such as it is, it is at your service.

Goetz.
You are welcome, doubly welcome! A brave man, and at a time when, far from expecting new friends. I was in hourly fear of losing the old. Your name?

Lerse.
Franz Lerse.

Goetz.
I thank you, Franz, for making me acquainted with a brave man!

Lerse.
I made you acquainted with me once before, but then you did not thank me for my pains.

Goetz.
I have no recollection of you.

Lerse.
I should be sorry if you had. Do you recollect when, to please the palsgrave, you rode against Conrad Schotten, and went through Hassfurt on an All-hallow eve?

Goetz.
I remember it well.

Lerse.
And twenty-five troopers encountered you in a village by the way?

Goetz.
Exactly. I at first took them for only twelve. I divided my party, which amounted to but sixteen, and halted in the village behind the barn, intending to let them ride by. Then I thought of falling upon them in the rear, as I had concerted with the other troop.

Lerse.
We saw you, however, and stationed ourselves on a height above the village. You drew up beneath the hill and halted. When we perceived that you did not intend to come up to us we rode down to you.

Goetz.
And then I saw for the first time that I had thrust my hand into the fire. Five-and-twenty against eight is no jesting business. Everard Truchsess killed one of my followers, for which I knocked him off his horse. Had they all behaved like him and one other trooper, it would have been all over with me and my little band.

Lerse.
And that trooper —

Goetz.
Was as gallant a fellow as I ever saw. He attacked me fiercely; and when I thought I had given him enough and was engaged elsewhere, he was upon me again, and laid on like a fury: he cut quite through my armor, and wounded me in the arm.

Lerse.
Have you forgiven him?

Goetz.
He pleased me only too well.

Lerse.
I hope then you have cause to be contented with me, since the proof of my valor was on your own person.

Goetz.
Art thou he? O welcome! welcome! Canst thou boast, Maximilian, that amongst thy followers thou hast gained one after this fashion?

Lerse.
I wonder you did not sooner hit upon me.

Goetz.
How could I think that the man would engage in my service who did his best to overpower me?

Lerse.
Even so, my lord. From my youth upwards I have served as a trooper, and have had a tussle with many a knight. I was overjoyed when we met you; for I had heard of your prowess, and wished to know you. You saw I gave way, and that it was not from cowardice, for I returned to the charge. In short, I learned to know you, and from that hour I resolved to enter your service.

Goetz.
How long wilt thou engage with me?

Lerse.
For a year, without pay.

Goetz.
No; thou shalt have as the others; nay more, as befits him who gave me so much work at Remlin.
 EnterGeorge.

George.
Hans of Selbitz greets you. To-morrow he will be here with fifty men.

Goetz.
’Tis well.

George.
There is a troop of Imperialists riding down the hill, doubtless to reconnoitre.

Goetz.
How many?

George.
About fifty.

Goetz.
Only fifty! Come, Lerse, we’ll have a slash at them, so that when Selbitz comes he may find some work done to his hand.

Lerse.
‘Twill be capital practice.

Goetz.
To horse!
[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

A Wood on the borders of a Morass.

 TwoImperialist Troopers meeting

First Imperialist.
What dost thou here?

Second Imperialist.
I have leave of absence for ten minutes. Ever since our quarters were beat up last night I have had such violent attacks that I can’t sit on horseback for two minutes together.

First Imperialist.
Is the party far advanced?

Second Imperialist.
About three miles into the wood

First Imperialist.
Then why are you playing truant here?

Second Imperialist.
Prithee, betray me not. I am going to the next village to see if I cannot get some warm bandages to relieve my complaint. But whence comest thou?

First Imperialist.
I am bringing our officer some wine and meat from the nearest village.

Second Imperialist.
So, so! he stuffs himself under our very noses, and we must starve; a fine example!

First Imperialist.
Come back with me, rascal!

Second Imperialist.
Call me a fool, if I do! There are plenty in our troop who would gladly fast, to be as far away as I am.
[Tramping of horses heard.

First Imperialist.
Hear’st thou? — Horses!

Second Imperialist.
Oh dear! oh dear!

First Imperialist.
I’ll get up into this tree.

Second Imperialist.
And I’ll hide among the rushes.
[They hide themselves.
 Enter on horseback,Goetz. Lerse. George andTroopers, all completely armed

Goetz.
Away into the wood, by the ditch on the left, — then we have them in the rear.
[They gallop off.

First Imperialist.
(Descending) This is a bad business — Michael! — He answers not — Michael, they are gone! (Goes towards the marsh.) Alas, he is sunk! — Michael! — He hears me not: he is suffocated. — Poor coward, art thou done for? — We are slain. — Enemies! Enemies on all sides!
 Re-enterGoetz andGeorge on horseback.

Goetz.
Yield thee, fellow, or thou diest!

Imperialist.
Spare my life!

Goetz.
Thy sword! — George, lead him to the other prisoners whom Lerse is guarding yonder in the wood. — I must pursue their fugitive leader.
[Exit.

Imperialist.
What has become of the knight, our officer?

George.
My master struck him head over heels from his horse, so that his plume stuck in the mire. His troopers got him up, and off they were as if the devil were behind them.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VIII.

Camp of theImperialists.
Captain andFirst Officer.

First Officer.
They fly from afar towards the camp.

Captain.
He is most likely hard at their heels. Draw out fifty as far as the mill; if he follows up the pursuit too far you may perhaps entrap him.
[ExitOfficer.
 TheSecond Officer is borne in.

Captain.
How now, my young sir — have you got a cracked headpiece?

Officer.
A plague upon you! The stoutest helmet went to shivers like glass. The demon! — he ran upon me as if he would strike me into the earth!

Captain.
Thank God that you have escaped with your life.

Officer.
There is little left to be thankful for; two of my ribs are broken — where’s the surgeon?
[He is carried off.

SCENE IX.

Jaxthausen.
EnterGoetz andSelbitz.

Goetz.
And what say you to the ban, Selbitz?

Selbitz.
’Tis a trick of Weislingen’s.

Goetz.
Do you think so?

Selbitz.
I do not think — I know it.

Goetz.
How so?

Selbitz.
He was at the Diet, I tell thee, and near the emperor’s person.

Goetz.
Well then, we shall frustrate another of his schemes.

Selbitz.
I hope so.

Goetz.
We will away, and course these hares.

SCENE X.

The Imperial Camp.
Captain. Officers andFollowers.

Captain.
We shall gain nothing at this work, sirs! He beats one troop after another; and whoever escapes death or captivity would rather fly to Turkey than return to the camp. Thus our force diminishes daily. We must attack him once for all, and in earnest. I will go myself, and he shall find with whom he has to deal.

Officer.
We are all content; but he is so well acquainted with the country, and knows every path and ravine so thoroughly, that he will be as difficult to find as a rat in a barn.

Captain.
I warrant you we’ll ferret him out. On towards Jaxthausen! Whether he like it or not, he must come to defend his castle.

Officer.
Shall our whole force march?

Captain.
Yes, certainly — do you know that a hundred of us are melted away already?

Officer.
Then let us away with speed, before the whole snowball dissolves; for this is warm work, and we stand here like butter in the sunshine.
[Exeunt — a march sounded.

SCENE XI.

Mountains and a Wood.

Goetz, Selbitz andTroopers.

Goetz.
They are coming in full force. It was high time that Sickingen’s troopers joined us.

Selbitz.
We will divide our party — I will take the left hand by the hill.

Goetz.
Good — and do thou, Lerse, lead fifty men straight through the wood on the right. They are coming across the heath — I will draw up opposite to them. George, stay by me — when you see them attack me, then fall upon their flank: we’ll beat the knaves into a mummy — they little think we can face them.
[Exeunt.

SCENE XII.

A Heath — on one side an Eminence, with a ruined Tower, on the other the Forest.
Enter marching, theCaptain of the Imperialists withOfficers and hisSquadron. Drums and standards.

Captain.
He halts upon the heath! that’s too impudent. He shall smart for it — what! not fear the torrent that threatens to overwhelm him!

Officer.
I had rather you did not head the troops; he looks as if he meant to plant the first that comes upon him in the mire with his head downmost. Prithee, ride in the rear.

Captain.
Not so.

Officer.
I entreat you. You are the knot which unites this bundle of hazel-twigs; loose it, and he will break them separately like so many reeds.

Captain.
Sound, trumpeter — and let us blow him to hell!
[A charge sounded. Exeunt in full career.
Selbitz, with hisTroopers, comes from behind the hill, galloping.

Selbitz.
Follow me! They shall wish that they could multiply their hands.
[They gallop across the stage, et exeunt.
 Loud alarm — Lerse and his party sally from the wood.

Lerse.
Ho! to the rescue! Goetz is almost surrounded. — Gallant Selbitz, thou hast cut thy way — we will sow the heath with these thistle heads.
[Gallop off.
 A loud alarm, with shouting and firing for some minutes.Selbitz is borne in wounded by twoTroopers.

Selbitz.
Leave me here, and hasten to Goetz.

First Trooper.
Let us stay, sir — you need our aid.

Selbitz.
Get one of you on the watchtower, and tell me how it goes.

First Trooper.
How shall I get up?

Second Trooper.
Mount upon my shoulders — you can then reach the ruined part, and thence scramble up to the opening.
[First Trooper gets up into the tower.

First Trooper.
Alas, sir!

Selbitz.
What seest thou?

First Trooper.
Your troopers fly towards the hill.

Selbitz.
Rascally cowards! I would that they stood their ground, and I had a ball through my head! Ride, one of you, full speed! Curse and thunder them back to the field! Seest thou Goetz!
[ExitSecond Trooper.

Trooper.
I see his three black feathers floating in the midst of the wavy tumult.

Selbitz.
Swim, brave swimmer! I lie here.

Trooper.
A white plume — whose is that?

Selbitz.
The captain’s.

Trooper.
Goetz gallops upon him — crash! Down he goes!

Selbitz.
The captain?

Trooper.
Yes, sir.

Selbitz.
Hurrah! hurrah!

Trooper.
Alas! alas! I see Goetz no more.

Selbitz.
Then die, Selbitz!

Trooper.
A dreadful tumult where he stood — George’s blue plume vanishes too.

Selbitz.
Come down! Dost thou not see Lerse?

Trooper.
No. Everything is in confusion.

Selbitz.
No more. Come down. — How do Sickingen’s men bear themselves?

Trooper.
Well — one of them flies to the wood — another — another — a whole troop. Goetz is lost!

Selbitz.
Come down.

Trooper.
I cannot. — Hurrah! hurrah! I see Goetz, I see George.

Selbitz.
On horseback?

Trooper.
Ay, ay, high on horseback! Victory! victory! — they fly.

Selbitz.
The Imperialists?

Trooper.
Yes, standard and all, Goetz behind them. They disperse, — Goetz reaches the ensign — he seizes the standard; he halts. A handful of men rally round him. My comrade reaches him — they come this way.
 EnterGoetz, George, Lerse andTroopers, on horseback.

Selbitz.
Joy to thee, Goetz! Victory! victory!

Goetz.
(Dismounting.) Dearly, dearly bought. Thou art wounded, Selbitz!

Selbitz.
But thou dost live and hast conquered! I have done little; and my dogs of troopers! How hast thou come off?

Goetz.
For the present, well! And here I thank George, and thee, Lerse, for my life. I unhorsed the captain, they stabbed my horse, and pressed me hard. George cut his way to me, and sprang off his horse. I threw myself like lightning upon it, and he appeared suddenly like a thunderbolt upon another, How camest thou by thy steed?

George.
A fellow struck at you from behind: as he raised his cuirass in the act, I stabbed him with my dagger. Down he came; and so I rid you of an enemy, and helped myself to a horse.

Goetz.
There we held together till Francis here came to our help; and thereupon we mowed our way out.

Lerse.
The hounds whom I led were to have mowed their way in, till our scythes met, but they fled like Imperialists.

Goetz.
Friend and foe all fled, except this little band who protected my rear. I had enough to do with the fellows in front, but the fall of their captain dismayed them; they wavered, and fled. I have their banner, and a few prisoners.

Selbitz.
The captain has escaped you?

Goetz.
They rescued him in the scuffle. Come, lads, come, Selbitz — Make a litter of lances and boughs: thou canst not mount a horse, come to my castle. They are scattered, but we are very few; and I know not what troops they may have in reserve. I will be your host, my friends. Wine will taste well after such an action.
[Exeunt, carryingSelbitz.

SCENE XIII.

The Camp.
TheCaptain andImperialists.

Captain.
I could kill you all with my own hand. — What! to turn tail! He had not a handful of men left. To give way before one man! No one will believe it but those who wish to make a jest of us. Ride round the country, you, and you, and you: collect our scattered soldiers, or cut them down wherever you find them. We must grind these notches out of our blades, even should we spoil our swords in the operation.
[Exeunt.

SCENE XIV.

Jaxthausen.
Goetz, Lerse andGeorge.

Goetz.
We must not lose a moment. My poor fellows, I dare allow you no rest. Gallop round and strive to enlist troopers, appoint them to assemble at Weilern, where they will be most secure. Should we delay a moment, they will be before the castle. — (ExeuntLerse andGeorge) — I must send out a scout. This begins to grow warm. — If we had but brave foemen to deal with! But these fellows are only formidable through their number.
[Exit.
 EnterSickingen andMaria.

Maria.
I beseech thee, dear Sickingen, do not leave my brother! His horsemen, your own, and those of Selbitz, all are scattered; he is alone. Selbitz has been carried home to his castle wounded. I fear the worst.

Sickingen.
Be comforted, I will not leave him.
 EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
Come to the chapel; the priest waits; in a few minutes you shall be united.

Sickingen.
Let me remain with you.

Goetz.
You must come now to the chapel.

Sickingen.
Willingly! — and then —

Goetz.
Then you go your way.

Sickingen.
Goetz!

Goetz.
Will you not to the chapel?

Sickingen.
Come, come!
[Exeunt.

SCENE XV.

Camp.
Captain andOfficers.

Captain.
How many are we in all?

Officer.
A hundred and fifty —

Captain.
Out of four hundred. — That is bad. Set out for Jaxthausen at once, before he collects his forces and attacks us on the way.

SCENE XVI.

Jaxthausen.
Goetz, Elizabeth, Maria andSickingen.

Goetz.
God bless you, give you happy days, and keep those for your children which he denies to you!

Elizabeth.
And may they be virtuous as you — then let come what will.

Sickingen.
I thank you. — And you, my Maria! As I led you to the altar, so shall you lead me to happiness.

Maria.
Our pilgrimage will be together towards that distant and promised land.

Goetz.
A prosperous journey.

Maria.
That was not what I meant. — We do not leave you.

Goetz.
You must, sister.

Maria.
You are very harsh, brother.

Goetz.
And you more affectionate than prudent.
 EnterGeorge.

George.
(Aside toGoetz.) I can collect no troopers. One was inclined to come, but he changed his mind and refused.

Goetz.
(ToGeorge.) ’Tis well, George. Fortune begins to look coldly on me. I foreboded it, however. (Aloud.) Sickingen, I entreat you, depart this very evening. Persuade Maria. — You are her husband — let her feel it. — When women come across our undertakings, our enemies are more secure in the open field, than they would else be in their castles.
 Enter aTrooper.

Trooper.
(Aside toGoetz.) The Imperial squadron is in full and rapid march hither.

Goetz.
I have roused them with stripes of the rod! How many are they?

Trooper.
About two hundred. — They can scarcely be six miles from us.

Goetz.
Have they passed the river yet?

Trooper.
No, my lord.

Goetz.
Had I but fifty men, they should not cross it. Hast thou seen Lerse?

Trooper.
No, my lord.

Goetz.
Tell all to hold themselves ready. — We must part, dear friends. Weep on, my gentle Maria; many a moment of happiness is yet in store for thee. It is better thou should’st weep on thy wedding-day than that present joy should be the forerunner of future misery. — Farewell, Maria! — Farewell, brother!

Maria.
I cannot leave you, sister. Dear brother, let us stay. Dost thou value my husband so little as to refuse his help in thy extremity?

Goetz.
Yes — it is gone far with me. Perhaps my fall is near. You are but beginning life, and should separate your lot from mine. I have ordered your horses to be saddled: you must away instantly.

Maria.
Brother! brother!

Elizabeth.
(ToSickingen.) Yield to his wishes. Speak to her.

Sickingen.
Dear Maria! we must go.

Maria.
Thou too? My heart will break!

Goetz.
Then stay. In a few hours my castle will be surrounded.

Maria.
(Weeping bitterly.) Alas! alas!

Goetz.
We will defend ourselves as long as we can.

Maria.
Mother of God, have mercy upon us!

Goetz.
And at last we must die or surrender. Thy tears will then have involved thy noble husband in the same misfortune with me.

Maria.
Thou torturest me!

Goetz.
Remain! remain! We shall be taken together! Sickingen, thou wilt fall into the pit with me, out of which I had hoped thou should’st have helped me.

Maria.
We will away. — Sister — sister!

Goetz.
Place her in safety, and then think of me.

Sickingen.
Never will I repose a night by her side till I know thou art out of danger.

Goetz.
Sister! dear sister!
[Kisses her.

Sickingen.
Away! away!

Goetz.
Yet one moment! I shall see you again. Be comforted, we shall meet again. (ExeuntSickingen andMaria.) I urged her to depart — yet when she leaves me what would I not give to detain her! Elizabeth, thou stayest with me.

Elizabeth.
Till death!
[Exit.

Goetz.
Whom God loves, to him may He give such a wife.
 EnterGeorge.

George.
They are near! I saw them from the tower. The sun is rising, and I perceived their lances glitter. I cared no more for them than a cat would for a whole army of mice. ’Tis true we play the mice at present.

Goetz.
Look to the fastenings of the gates; barricade them with beams and stones. (ExitGeorge.) We’ll exercise their patience, and they may chew away their valor in biting their nails. (A trumpet from without.Goetz goes to the window.) Aha! Here comes a red-coated rascal to ask me whether I will be a scoundrel! What says he? (The voice of theHerald is heard indistinctly, as from a distance.Goetz mutters to himself.) A rope for thy throat! (Voice again.) “Offended majesty!” — Some priest has drawn up that proclamation. (Voice concludes, andGoetz answers from the window.) Surrender — surrender at discretion. With whom speak you? Am I a robber? Tell your captain, that for the emperor I entertain, as I have ever done, all due respect; but as for him, he may —
[Shuts the window with violence.

SCENE XVII.

The kitchen.
Elizabeth preparing food. EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
You have hard work, my poor wife!

Elizabeth.
Would it might last! But you can hardly hold out long.

Goetz.
We have not had time to provide ourselves.

Elizabeth.
And so many people as you have been wont to entertain. The wine is well-nigh finished.

Goetz.
If we can but hold out a certain time, they must propose a capitulation. We are doing them some damage, I promise you. They shoot the whole day, and only wound our walls and break our windows. Lerse is a gallant fellow. He slips about with his gun: if a rogue comes too nigh — Pop! there he lies!
[Firing.

 EnterTrooper.

Trooper.
We want live coals, gracious lady!

Goetz.
For what?

Trooper.
Our bullets are spent; we must cast some new ones.

Goetz.
How goes it with the powder?

Trooper.
There is as yet no want: we save our fire.
[Firing at intervals. ExeuntGoetz andElizabeth.
 EnterLerse with a bullet-mould. Servants with coals.

Lerse.
Set them down, and then go and see for lead about the house; meanwhile I will make shift with this. (Goes to the window, and takes out the leaden frames.) Everything must be turned to account. So it is in this world — no one knows what a thing may come to: the glazier who made these frames little thought that the lead here was to give one of his grandsons his last headache; and the father that begot me little knew whether the fowls of heaven or the worms of the earth would pick my bones.
 EnterGeorge with a leaden spout.

George.
Here’s lead for thee! If you hit with only half of it, not one will return to tell his majesty. “Thy servants have sped ill!”

Lerse.
(Cutting it down.) A famous piece!

George.
The rain must seek some other way. I’m not afraid of it — a brave trooper and a smart shower will always find their road.
[They cast balls.

Lerse.
Hold the ladle. (Goes to the window.) Yonder is a fellow creeping about with his rifle; he thinks our fire is spent. He shall have a bullet warm from the pan.
[He loads his rifle.

George.
(Puts down the mould.) Let me see.

Lerse.
(Fires.) There lies the game!

George.
He fired at me as I stepped out on the roof to get the lead. He killed a pigeon that sat near me; it fell into the spout. I thanked him for my dinner, and went back with the double booty.
[They cast balls.

Lerse.
Now let us load, and go through the castle to earn our dinner.

 EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
Stay, Lerse, I must speak with thee. I will not keep thee, George, from the sport.
[ExitGeorge.

Goetz.
They offer terms.

Lerse.
I will go and hear what they have to say.

Goetz.
They will require me to enter myself into ward in some town on my knightly parole.

Lerse.
That won’t do. Suppose they allow us free liberty of departure? for we can expect no relief from Sickingen. We will bury all the valuables where no divining-rod shall find them; leave them the bare walls, and come out with flying colors.

Goetz.
They will not permit us.

Lerse.
It is worth the asking. We will demand a safe-conduct, and I will sally out.

SCENE XVIII.

A Hall.
Goetz, Elizabeth, George andTroopers at table.

Goetz.
Danger unites us, my friends! Be of good cheer; don’t forget the bottle! The flask is empty. Come, another, dear wife! (Elizabeth shakes her head.) Is there no more?

Elizabeth.
(Aside.) Only one, which I have set apart for you.

Goetz.
Not so, my love! Bring it out; they need strengthening more than I, for it is my quarrel.

Elizabeth.
Fetch it from the cupboard.

Goetz.
It is the last, and I feel as if we need not spare it. It is long since I have been so merry. (They fill.) To the health of the emperor!

All.
Long live the emperor!

Goetz.
Be it our last word when we die! I love him, for our fate is similar; but I am happier than he. To please the princes, he must direct his imperial squadrons against mice, while the rats gnaw his possessions. — I know he often wishes himself dead, rather than to be any longer the soul of such a crippled body. (They fill.) It will just go once more round. And when our blood runs low, like this flask — when we pour out its last ebbing drop (empties the wine drop by drop into his goblet) — what then shall be our cry?

George.
Freedom forever!

Goetz.
Freedom forever!

All.
Freedom forever!

Goetz.
And if that survive us we can die happy; for our spirits shall see our children’s children and their emperor happy! Did the servants of princes show the same filial attachment to their masters as you to me — did their masters serve the emperor as I would serve him —

George.
Things would be widely different.

Goetz.
Not so much so as it would appear. Have I not known worthy men among the princes? And can the race be extinct? Men, happy in their own minds and in their subjects, who could bear a free, noble brother in their neighborhood without harboring either fear or envy; whose hearts expanded when they saw their table surrounded by their free equals, and who did not think the knights unfit companions till they had degraded themselves by courtly homage.

George.
Have you known such princes?

Goetz.
Ay, truly. As long as I live I shall recollect how the Landgrave of Hanau made a grand hunting-party, and the princes and free feudatories dined under the open heaven, and the country-people all thronged to see them; it was no selfish masquerade instituted for his own private pleasure or vanity. To see the great round-headed peasant lads and the pretty brown girls, the sturdy hinds, and the venerable old men, a crowd of happy faces, all as merry as if they rejoiced in the splendor of their master, which he shared with them under God’s free sky!

George.
He must have been as good a master as you.

Goetz.
And may we not hope that many such will rule together some future day, to whom reverence to the emperor, peace and friendship with their neighbors, and the love of their vassals, shall be the best and dearest family treasure handed down to their children’s children? Every one will then keep and improve his own, instead of reckoning nothing as gain that is not stolen from his neighbors.

George.
And should we have no more forays?

Goetz.
Would to God there were no restless spirits in all Germany! — we should still have enough to do! We would clear the mountains of wolves, and bring our peaceable laborious neighbor a dish of game from the wood, and eat it together. Were that not full employment, we would join our brethren, and, like cherubims with flaming swords, defend the frontiers of the empire against those wolves the Turks, and those foxes the French, and guard for our beloved emperor both extremities of his extensive empire. That would be a life, George! To risk one’s head for the safety of all Germany. (George springs up.) Whither away?

George.
Alas! I forgot we were besieged — besieged by the very emperor; and before we can expose our lives in his defence, we must risk them for our liberty.

Goetz.
Be of good cheer.
 EnterLerse.

Lerse.
Freedom! freedom! The cowardly poltroons — the hesitating, irresolute asses! You are to depart with men, weapons, horses and armor; provisions you are to leave behind.

Goetz.
They will hardly find enough to exercise their jaws.

Lerse.
(Aside toGoetz.) Have you hidden the plate and money?

Goetz.
No! Wife, go with Lerse; he has something to tell thee.
[Exeunt.

SCENE XIX.

The Court of the Castle.
George. (In the stable. Sings.)
o An urchin once, as I have heard,
o Ha! ha!
o Had caught and caged a little bird,
o Sa! sa!
o Ha! ha!
o Sa! sa!
o He viewed the prize with heart elate,
o Ha! ha!
o Thrust in his hand — ah, treacherous fate!
o Sa! sa!
o Ha! ha!
o Sa! sa!
o Away the titmouse wing’d its flight,
o Ha! ha!
o And laugh’d to scorn the silly wight,
o Sa! sa!
o Ha! ha!
o Sa! sa!
 EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
How goes it?

George.
(Brings out his horse.) All saddled!

Goetz.
Thou art quick.

George.
As the bird escaped from the cage.
 Enter all the besieged.

Goetz.
Have you all your rifles? Not yet! Go, take the best from the armory, ’tis all one; we’ll ride on in advance.

George.
(Sings.)
• Ha! ha!
• Sa! sa!
• Ha! ha!

SCENE XX.
The Armory.
TwoTroopers choosing guns.

First Trooper.
I’ll have this one.

Second Trooper.
And I this — but yonder’s a better.

First Trooper.
Never mind — make haste.
[Tumult and firing without.

Second Trooper.
Hark!

First Trooper.
(Springs to the window.) Good heavens, they are murdering our master! He is unhorsed! George is down!

Second Trooper.
How shall we get off? Over the wall by the walnut tree, and into the field.
[Exit.

First Trooper.
Lerse keeps his ground; I will to him. If they die, I will not survive them.
[Exit.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

An Inn in the city of Heilbronn

Goetz. (Solus.)

Goetz.
I am like the evil spirit whom the capuchin conjured into a sack. I fret and labor but all in vain. The perjured villains! (EnterElizabeth.) What news, Elizabeth, of my dear, my trusty followers?

Elizabeth.
Nothing certain: some are slain, some are prisoners; no one could or would tell me further particulars.

Goetz.
Is this the reward of fidelity, of filial obedience? — ”That it may be well with thee, and that thy days may be long in the land!”

Elizabeth.
Dear husband, murmur not against our Heavenly Father. They have their reward. It was born with them — a noble and generous heart. Even in the dungeon they are free. Pay attention to the imperial commissioners; their heavy gold chains become them —

Goetz.
As a necklace becomes a sow! I should like to see George and Lerse in fetters!

Elizabeth.
It were a sight to make angels weep.

Goetz.
I would not weep — I would clench my teeth, and gnaw my lip in fury. What! in fetters! Had ye but loved me less, dear lads! I could never look at them enough — What! to break their word pledged in the name of the emperor!

Elizabeth.
Put away these thoughts. Reflect; you must appear before the council — you are in no mood to meet them, and I fear the worst.

Goetz.
What harm can they do me?

Elizabeth.
Here comes the sergeant.

Goetz.
What! the ass of justice that carries the sacks to the mill and the dung to the field? What now?
 EnterSergeant.

Sergeant.
The lords commissioners are at the council-house, and require your presence.

Goetz.
I come.

Sergeant.
I am to escort you.

Goetz.
Too much honor.

Elizabeth.
Be but cool.

Goetz.
Fear nothing.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Council-House at Heilbronn.
TheImperial Commissioners seated at a table. TheCaptain and theMagistrates of the city attending.

Magistrate.
In pursuance of your order we have collected the stoutest and most determined of our citizens. They are at hand, in order, at a nod from you, to seize Berlichingen.

Commissioner.
We shall have much pleasure in communicating to his imperial majesty the zeal with which you have obeyed his illustrious commands. — Are they artisans?

Magistrate.
Smiths, coopers and carpenters, men with hands hardened by labor; and resolute here.
[Points to his breast.

Commissioner.
’Tis well.
 EnterSergeant.

Sergeant.
Goetz von Berlichingen waits without.

Commissioner.
Admit him.
 EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
God save you, sirs! What would you with me?

Commissioner.
First, that you consider where you are; and in whose presence.

Goetz.
By my faith, I know you right well, sirs.

Commissioner.
You acknowledge allegiance.

Goetz.
With all my heart.

Commissioner.
Be seated.
[Points to a stool.

Goetz.
What, down there? I’d rather stand. That stool smells so of poor sinners, as indeed does the whole apartment.

Commissioner.
Stand, then.

Goetz.
To business, if you please.

Commissioner.
We shall proceed in due order.

Goetz.
I am glad to hear it. Would you had always done so.

Commissioner.
You know how you fell into our hands, and are a prisoner at discretion.

Goetz.
What will you give me to forget it?

Commissioner.
Could I give you modesty, I should better your affairs.

Goetz.
Better my affairs! could you but do that? To repair is more difficult than to destroy.

Secretary.
Shall I put all this on record?

Commissioner.
Only what is to the purpose.

Goetz.
As far as I’m concerned you may print every word of it.

Commissioner.
You fell into the power of the emperor whose paternal goodness got the better of his justice, and, instead of throwing you into a dungeon, ordered you to repair to his beloved city of Heilbronn. You gave your knightly parole to appear, and await the termination in all humility.

Goetz.
Well; I am here, and await it.

Commissioner.
And we are here to intimate to you his imperial majesty’s mercy and clemency. He is pleased to forgive your rebellion, to release you from the ban and all well-merited punishment; provided you do, with becoming humility, receive his bounty, and subscribe to the articles which shall be read unto you.

Goetz.
I am his majesty’s faithful servant, as ever. One word ere you proceed. My people — where are they? What will be done with them?

Commissioner.
That concerns you not.

Goetz.
So may the emperor turn his face from you in the hour of your need. They were my comrades, and are so now. What have you done with them?

Commissioner.
We are not bound to account to you.

Goetz.
Ah! I forgot that you are not even pledged to perform what you have promised, much less —

Commissioner.
Our business is to lay the articles before you. Submit yourself to the emperor, and you may find a way to petition for the life and freedom of your comrades.

Goetz.
Your paper.

Commissioner.
Secretary, read it.

Secretary.
(Reads.) “I, Goetz of Berlichingen, make public acknowledgment, by these presents, that I, having lately risen in rebellion against the emperor and empire — ”

Goetz.
’Tis false! I am no rebel, I have committed no offence against the emperor, and with the empire I have no concern.

Commissioner.
Be silent, and hear further.

Goetz.
I will hear no further. Let any one arise and bear witness. Have I ever taken one step against the emperor, or against the House of Austria? Has not the whole tenor of my conduct proved that I feel better than any one else what all Germany owes to its head; and especially what the free knights and feudatories owe to their liege lord the emperor? I should be a villain could I be induced to subscribe that paper.

Commissioner.
Yet we have strict orders to try and persuade you by fair means, or, in case of your refusal, to throw you into prison.

Goetz.
Into prison! — Me?

Commissioner.
Where you may expect your fate from the hands of justice, since you will not take it from those of mercy.

Goetz.
To prison! You abuse the imperial power! To prison! That was not the emperor’s command. What, ye traitors, to dig a pit for me, and hang out your oath, your knightly honor as the bait? To promise me permission to ward myself on parole, and then again to break your treaty!

Commissioner.
We owe no faith to robbers.

Goetz.
Wert thou not the representative of my sovereign, whom I respect even in the vilest counterfeit, thou should’st swallow that word, or choke upon it. I was engaged in an honorable feud. Thou mightest thank God, and magnify thyself before the world, hadst thou ever done as gallant a deed as that with which I now stand charged. (TheCommissioner makes a sign to theMagistrate of Heilbronn, who rings a bell.) Not for the sake of paltry gain, not to wrest followers or lands from the weak and the defenceless, have I sallied forth. To rescue my page and defend my own person — see ye any rebellion in that? The emperor and his magnates, reposing on their pillows, would never have felt our need. I have, God be praised, one hand left, and I have done well to use it.
 Enter a party ofArtisans armed with halberds and swords.

Goetz.
What means this?

Commissioner.
You will not listen. — Seize him!

Goetz.
Let none come near me who is not a very Hungarian ox. One salutation from my iron fist shall cure him of headache, toothache and every other ache under the wide heaven! (They rush upon him. He strikes one down; and snatches a sword from another. They stand aloof.) Come on! come on! I should like to become acquainted with the bravest among you.

Commissioner.
Surrender!

Goetz.
With a sword in my hand! Know ye not that it depends but upon myself to make way through all these hares and gain the open field? But I will teach you how a man should keep his word. Promise me but free ward, and I will give up my sword, and am again your prisoner.

Commissioner.
How! Would you treat with the emperor, sword in hand?

Goetz.
God forbid! — only with you and your worthy fraternity! You may go home, good people; you are only losing your time, and here there is nothing to be got but bruises.

Commissioner.
Seize him! What! does not your love for the emperor supply you with courage?

Goetz.
No more than the emperor supplies them with plaster for the wounds their courage would earn them.
 EnterSergeant hastily.

Officer.
The warder has just discovered from the castle-tower a troop of more than two hundred horsemen hastening towards the town. Unperceived by us, they have pressed forward from behind the hill, and threaten our walls

Commissioner.
Alas! alas! What can this mean?

 ASoldier enters.

Soldier.
Francis of Sickingen waits at the drawbridge, and informs you that he has heard how perfidiously you have broken your word to his brother-in-law, and how the Council of Heilbronn have aided and abetted in the treason. He is now come to insist upon justice, and if refused it, threatens, within an hour, to fire the four quarters of your town, and abandon it to be plundered by his vassals.

Goetz.
My gallant brother!

Commissioner.
Withdraw, Goetz. (ExitGoetz.) What is to be done?

Magistrate.
Have compassion upon us and our town! Sickingen is inexorable in his wrath; he will keep his word.

Commissioner.
Shall we forget what is due to ourselves and the emperor?

Captain.
If we had but men to enforce it; but situated as we are, a show of resistance would only make matters worse. It is better for us to yield.

Magistrate.
Let us apply to Goetz to put in a good word for us. I feel as though I saw the town already in flames.

Commissioner.
Let Goetz approach.
 EnterGoetz.

Goetz.
What now?

Commissioner.
Thou wilt do well to dissuade thy brother-in-law from his rebellious interference. Instead of rescuing thee, he will only plunge thee deeper in destruction, and become the companion of thy fall!

Goetz.
(Sees Elizabeth at the door, and speaks to her aside.) Go; tell him instantly to break in and force his way hither, but to spare the town. As for these rascals, if they offer any resistance, let him use force. I care not if I lose my life, provided they are all knocked on the head at the same time.

SCENE III.

A large Hall in the Council-House, beset bySickingen’sTroops.
EnterSickingen andGoetz.

Goetz.
That was help from heaven. How camest thou so opportunely and unexpectedly, brother?

Sickingen.
Without witchcraft. I had despatched two or three messengers to learn how it fared with thee; when I beard of the perjury of these fellows I set out instantly, and now we have them safe.

Goetz.
I ask nothing but knightly ward upon my parole.

Sickingen.
You are too noble. Not even to avail yourself of the advantage which the honest man has over the perjurer! They are in the wrong, and we will not give them cushions to sit upon. They have shamefully abused the imperial authority, and, if I know anything of the emperor, you might safely insist upon more favorable terms. You ask too little.

Goetz.
I have ever been content with little.

Sickingen.
And therefore that little has always been denied thee. My proposal is, that they shall release your servants, and permit you all to return to your castle on parole — you can promise not to leave it till the emperor’s pleasure be known. You will be safer there than here.

Goetz.
They will say my property is escheated to the emperor.

Sickingen.
Then we will answer thou canst dwell there, and keep it for his service till he restores it to thee again. Let them wriggle like eels in the net, they shall not escape us! They may talk of the imperial dignity — of their commission. We will not mind that. I know the emperor, and have some influence with him. He has ever wished to have thee in his service. You will not be long in your castle without being summoned to serve him.

Goetz.
God grant it, ere I forget the use of arms!

Sickingen.
Valor can never be forgotten, as it can never be learned. Fear nothing! When thy affairs are settled, I will repair to court, where my enterprises begin to ripen. Good fortune seems to smile on them. I want only to sound the emperor’s mind. The towns of Triers and Pfalz as soon expect that the sky should fall, as that I shall come down upon their heads. But I will come like a hailstorm! and if I am successful, thou shalt soon be brother to an elector. I had hoped for thy assistance in this undertaking.

Goetz.
(Looks at his hand.) Oh! that explains the dream I had the night before I promised Maria to Weislingen. I thought he vowed eternal fidelity, and held my iron hand so fast that it loosened from the arm. Alas! I am at this moment more defenceless than when it was shot away. Weislingen! Weislingen!

Sickingen.
Forget the traitor! We will thwart his plans, and undermine his authority, till shame and remorse shall gnaw him to death. I see, I see the downfall of our enemies. — Goetz — only half a year more!

Goetz.
Thy soul soars high! I know not why, but for some time past no fair prospects have dawned upon me. I have been ere now it sore distress — I have been a prisoner before — but never did I experience such a depression.

Sickingen.
Fortune gives courage. Come, let us to the bigwigs. They have had time enough to deliberate, let us take the trouble upon ourselves.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The Castle ofAdelaide.Augsburg.
Adelaide andWeislingen discovered.

Adelaide.
This is detestable.

Weislingen.
I have gnashed my teeth. So good a plan — so well followed out — and after all to leave him in possession of his castle! That cursed Sickingen!

Adelaide.
The council should not have consented.

Weislingen.
They were in the net. What else could they do? Sickingen threatened them with fire and sword, — the haughty, vindictive man! I hate him! His power waxes like a mountain torrent — let it but gain a few brooks, and others come pouring to its aid.

Adelaide.
Have they no emperor?

Weislingen.
My dear wife, he waxes old and feeble; he is only the shadow of what he was. When he heard what had been done, and I and the other counsellors murmured indignantly: “Let them alone!” said he; “I can spare my old Goetz his little fortress, and if he remains quiet there, what have you to say against him?” We spoke of the welfare of the state. “Oh,” said he, “that I had always had counsellors who would have urged my restless spirit to consult more the happiness of individuals?”

Adelaide.
He has lost the spirit of a prince!

Weislingen.
We inveighed against Sickingen! — ”He is my faithful servant,” said he; “and if he has not acted by my express order, he has performed what I wished better than my plenipotentiaries, and I can ratify what he has done as well after as before.”

Adelaide.
’Tis enough to drive one mad.

Weislingen.
Yet I have not given up all hope. Goetz is on parole to remain quiet in his castle. ’Tis impossible for him to keep his promise, and we shall soon have some new cause of complaint.

Adelaide.
That is the more likely, as we may hope that the old emperor will soon leave the world, and Charles, his gallant successor, will display a more princely mind.

Weislingen.
Charles! He is neither chosen nor crowned.

Adelaide.
Who does not expect and hope for that event?

Weislingen.
You have a great idea of his abilities; one might almost think you looked on him with partial eyes.

Adelaide.
You insult me, Weislingen. For what do you take me?

Weislingen.
I do not mean to offend; but I cannot be silent upon the subject. Charles’ marked attentions to you disquiet me.

Adelaide.
And do I receive them as —

Weislingen.
You are a woman; and no woman hates those who pay their court to her.

Adelaide.
This from you?

Weislingen.
It cuts me to the heart — the dreadful thought — Adelaide.

Adelaide.
Can I not cure thee of this folly?

Weislingen.
If thou would’st; thou canst leave the court.

Adelaide.
But upon what pretence? Art thou not here? Must I leave you and all my friends, to shut myself up with the owls in your solitary castle? No, Weislingen, that will never do; be at rest, thou knowest I love thee.

Weislingen.
That is my anchor so long as the cable holds.
[Exit.

Adelaide.
Ah! It is come to this? This was yet wanting. The projects of my bosom are too great to brook the interruption. Charles — the great, the gallant Charles — the future emperor — shall he be the only man unrewarded by my favor? Think not, Weislingen, to hinder me — else shalt thou to earth; my way lies over thee!
 EnterFrancis with a letter.

Francis.
Here, gracious lady.

Adelaide.
Hadst thou it from Charles’ own hand?

Francis.
Yes.

Adelaide.
What ails thee? Thou look’st so mournful!

Francis.
It is your pleasure that I should pine away, and waste my fairest years in agonizing despair.

Adelaide.
(Aside.) I pity him; and how little would it cost me to make him happy. (Aloud.) Be of good courage, youth! I know thy love and fidelity, and will not be ungrateful.

Francis.
(With stifled breath.) If thou wert capable of ingratitude, I could not survive it. There boils not a drop of blood in my veins but what is thine own — I have not a single feeling but to love and to serve thee!

Adelaide.
Dear Francis!

Francis.
You flatter me. (Bursts into tears.) Does my attachment deserve only to be a stepping stool to another — to see all your thoughts fixed upon Charles?

Adelaide.
You know not what you wish, and still less what you say.

Francis.
(Stamping with vexation and rage.) No more will I be your slave, your go-between!

Adelaide.
Francis, you forget yourself.

Francis.
To sacrifice my beloved master and myself —

Adelaide.
Out of my sight!

Francis.
Gracious lady!

Adelaide.
Go, betray to thy beloved master the secret of my soul! Fool that I was to take thee for what thou art not.

Francis.
Dear lady! you know how I love you.

Adelaide.
And thou, who wast my friend — so near my heart — go, betray me.

Francis.
Rather would I tear my heart from my breast! Forgive me, gentle lady! my heart is too full, my senses desert me.

Adelaide.
Thou dear, affectionate boy! (She takes him by both hands, draws him towards her and kisses him. He throws himself weeping upon her neck.) Leave me!

Francis.
(His voice choked by tears.) Heavens!

Adelaide.
Leave me! The walls are traitors. Leave me! (Breaks from him.) Be but steady in fidelity and love, and the fairest reward is thine.
[Exit.

Francis.
The fairest reward! let me but live till that moment — I could murder my father, were he an obstacle to my happiness!
[Exit.

SCENE V.

Jaxthausen.
Goetz seated at a table with writing materials.Elizabeth beside him with her work.

Goetz.
This idle life does not suit me. My confinement becomes more irksome every day; I would I could sleep, or persuade myself that quiet is agreeable.

Elizabeth.
Continue writing the account of thy deeds which thou hast commenced. Give into the hands of thy friends evidence to put thine enemies to shame; make a noble posterity acquainted with thy real character.

Goetz.
Alas! writing is but busy idleness; it wearies me. While I am writing what I have done, I lament the misspent time in which I might do more.

Elizabeth.
(Takes the writing.) Be not impatient. Thou hast come to thy first imprisonment at Heilbronn.

Goetz.
That was always an unlucky place to me.

Elizabeth.
(Reads.) “There were even some of the confederates who told me that I had acted foolishly in appearing before my bitterest enemies, who, as I might suspect, would not deal justly with me.” And what didst thou answer? Write on.

Goetz.
I said, “Have I not often risked life and limb for the welfare and property of others, and shall I not do so for the honor of my knightly word?”

Elizabeth.
Thus does fame speak of thee.

Goetz.
They shall not rob me of my honor. They have taken all else from me — property — liberty — everything.

Elizabeth.
I happened once to stand in an inn near the Lords of Miltenberg and Singlingen, who knew me not. Then I was joyful as at the birth of my first-born; for they extolled thee to each other, and said, — He is the mirror of knighthood, noble and merciful in prosperity, dauntless and true in misfortune.

Goetz.
Let them show me the man to whom I have broken my word. Heaven knows, my ambition has ever been to labor for my neighbor more than for myself, and to acquire the fame of a gallant and irreproachable knight, rather than principalities or power; and, God be praised! I have gained the meed of my labor.
 EnterGeorge andLerse with game.

Goetz.
Good luck to my gallant huntsmen!

George.
Such have we become from gallant troopers. Boots can easily be cut down into buskins.

Lerse.
The chase is always something — ’tis a kind of war.

George.
Yes; if we were not always crossed by these imperial gamekeepers. Don’t you recollect, my lord, how you prophesied we should become huntsmen when the world was turned topsy-turvy? We are become so now without waiting for that.

Goetz.
’Tis all the same, we are pushed out of our sphere.

George.
These are wonderful times! For eight days a dreadful comet has been seen — all Germany fears that it portends the death of the emperor, who is very ill.

Goetz.
Very ill! Then our career draws to a close.

Lerse.
And in the neighborhood there are terrible commotions; the peasants have made a formidable insurrection.

Goetz.
Where?

Lerse.
In the heart of Swabia; they are plundering, burning and slaying. I fear they will sack the whole country.

George.
It is a horrible warfare! They have already risen in a hundred places, and daily increase in number. A hurricane too has lately torn up the whole forests; and in the place where the insurrection began, two fiery swords have been seen in the sky crossing each other.

Goetz.
Then some of my poor friends and neighbors no doubt suffer innocently.

George.
Alas! that we are pent up thus!

ACT V.

SCENE I.

A Village plundered by the insurgent Peasantry. Shrieks and tumult.
Women, Old Men andChildren fly across the Stage.

Old Man.
Away! away! let us fly from the murdering dogs.

Woman.
Sacred heaven! How blood-red is the sky! how blood-red the setting sun!

Another.
That must be fire.

A Third.
My husband! my husband!

Old Man.
Away! away! To the wood!
[Exeunt.
 EnterLink andInsurgents.

Link.
Whoever opposes you, down with him! The village is ours. Let none of the booty be injured, none be left behind. Plunder clean and quickly. We must soon set fire —
 EnterMetzler, coming down the hill.

Metzler.
How do things go with you, Link?

Link.
Merrily enough, as you see; you are just in time for the fun. — Whence come you?

Metzler.
From Weinsberg. There was a jubilee.

Link.
How so?

Metzler.
We stabbed them all, in such heaps it was a joy to see it!

Link.
All whom?

Metzler.
Dietrich von Weiler led up the dance. The fool! We were all raging around the church steeple. He looked out and wished to treat with us. — Baf! A ball through his head! Up we rushed like a tempest, and the fellow soon made his exit by the window.

Link.
Huzza!

Metzler.
(To thePeasants.) Ye dogs, must I find you legs? How they gape and loiter, the asses!

Link.
Set fire! Let them roast in the flames! forward! Push on, ye dolts.

Metzler.
Then we brought out Helfenstein, Eltershofen, thirteen of the nobility — eighty in all. They were led out on the plain before Heilbronn. What a shouting and jubilee among our lads as the long row of miserable sinners passed by! they stared at each other, and, heaven and earth! we surrounded them before they were aware, and then despatched them all with our pikes.

Link.
Why was I not there?

Metzler.
Never in all my life did I see such fun.

Link.
On! on! Bring all out!

Peasant.
All’s clear.

Link.
Then fire the village at the four corners.

Metzler.
‘Twill make a fine bonfire! Hadst thou but seen how the fellows tumbled over one another, and croaked like frogs! It warmed my heart like a cup of brandy. One Rexinger was there, a fellow, with a white plume and flaxen locks, who, when he went out hunting, used to drive us before him like dogs, and with dogs. I had not caught sight of him all the while, when suddenly his fool’s visage looked me full in the face. Push! went the spear between his ribs, and there he lay stretched on all-fours above his companions. The fellows lay kicking in a heap like the hares that used to be driven together at their grand hunting parties.

Link.
It smokes finely already!

Metzler.
Yonder it burns! Come, let us with the booty to the main body.

Link.
Where do they halt?

Metzler.
Between this and Heilbronn. They wish to choose a captain whom every one will respect, for we are after all only their equals; they feel this, and turn restive.

Link.
Whom do they propose?

Metzler.
Maximilian Stumf, or Goetz von Berlichingen.

Link.
That would be well. ’Twould give the thing credit should Goetz accept it. He has ever been held a worthy independent knight. Away, away! We march towards Heilbronn! Pass the word.

Metzler.
The fire will light us a good part of the way. Hast thou seen the great comet?

Link.
Yes. It is a dreadful ghastly sign! As we march by night we can see it well. It rises about one o’clock.

Metzler.
And is visible but for an hour and a quarter, like an arm brandishing a sword, and bloody red!

Link.
Didst thou mark the three stars at the sword’s hilt and point?

Metzler.
And the broad haze-colored stripe illuminated by a thousand streamers like lances, and between them little swords.

Link.
I shuddered with horror. The sky was pale red streaked with ruddy flames, and among them grisly figures with shaggy hair and beards.

Metzler.
Did you see them too? And how they all swam about as though in a sea of blood, and struggled in confusion, enough to turn one’s brain.

Link.
Away! away!
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Open Country. In the distance two Villages and an Abbey are burning.
Kohl, Wild, Maximilian. Stumf. Insurgents.

Stumf.
You cannot ask me to be your leader; it were bad for you and for me: I am a vassal of the palsgrave, and how shall I make war against my liege lord? Besides, you would always suspect I did not act from my heart.

Kohl.
We knew well thou would’st make some excuse.
 EnterGeorge, Lerse andGoetz.

Goetz.
What would you with me?

Kohl.
You must be our captain.

Goetz.
How can I break my knightly word to the emperor. I am under the ban: I cannot quit my territory.

Wild.
That’s no excuse.

Goetz.
And were I free, and you wanted to deal with the lords and nobles as you did at Weinsberg, laying waste the country round with fire and sword, and should wish me to be an abettor of your shameless, barbarous doings, rather than be your captain, you should slay me like a mad dog!

Kohl.
What has been done cannot be undone.

Stumf.
That was just the misfortune, that they had no leader whom they honored, and who could bridle their fury. I beseech thee, Goetz, accept the office! The princes will be grateful; all Germany will thank thee. It will be for the weal and prosperity of all. The country and its inhabitants will be preserved.

Goetz.
Why dost not thou accept it?

Stumf.
I have given them reasons for my refusal.

Kohl.
We have no time to waste in useless speeches. Once for all! Goetz, be our chief, or look to thy castle and thy head! Take two hours to consider of it. Guard him!

Goetz.
To what purpose? I am as resolved now as I shall ever be. Why have ye risen up in arms? If to recover your rights and freedom, why do you plunder and lay waste the land? Will you abstain from such evil doings, and act as true men who know what they want? Then will I be your chief for eight days, and help you in your lawful and orderly demands.

Wild.
What has been done was done in the first heat, and thy interference is not needed to prevent it for the future.

Kohl.
Thou must engage with us at least for a quarter of a year.

Stumf.
Say four weeks, that will satisfy both parties.

Goetz.
Then be it so.

Kohl.
Your hand!

Goetz.
But you must promise to send the treaty you have made with me in writing to all your troops, and to punish severely those who infringe it.

Wild.
Well, it shall be done.

Goetz.
Then I bind myself to you for four weeks.

Stumf.
Good fortune to you! In whatever thou doest, spare our noble lord the palsgrave.

Kohl.
(Aside.) See that none speak to him without our knowledge.

Goetz.
Lerse, go to my wife. Protect her; you shall soon have news of me.
[ExeuntGoetz, Stumf, George, Lerse and somePeasants.
 EnterMetzler, Link and their followers.

Metzler.
Who talks of a treaty? What’s the use of a treaty?

Link.
It is shameful to make any such bargain.

Kohl.
We know as well what we want as you; and we may do or let alone what we please.

Wild.
This raging, and burning, and murdering must have an end some day or other; and by renouncing it just now, we gain a brave leader.

Metzler.
How? An end? Thou traitor! why are we here but to avenge ourselves on our enemies, and enrich ourselves at their expense? Some prince’s slave has been tampering with thee.

Kohl.
Come, Wild, he is like a brute-beast.
[ExeuntWild andKohl.

Metzler.
Ay, go your way; no band will stick by you. The villains! Link, we’ll set on the others to burn Miltenberg yonder; and if they begin a quarrel about the treaty, we’ll cut off the heads of those that made it.

Link.
We have still the greater body of peasants on our side.
[Exeunt withInsurgents.

SCENE III.

A Hill and Prospect of the Country. In the flat scene a Mill. A body of Horsemen.
Weislingen comes out of the Mill, followed byFrancis and aCourier.

Weislingen.
My horse! Have you announced it to the other nobles?

Courier.
At least seven standards will meet you in the wood behind Miltenberg. The peasants are marching in that direction. Couriers are despatched on all sides; the entire confederacy will soon be assembled. Our plan cannot fail; and they say there is dissension among them.

Weislingen.
So much the better. Francis!

Francis.
Gracious sir!

Weislingen.
Discharge thine errand punctually. I bind it upon thy soul. Give her the letter. She shall from the court to my castle instantly. Thou must see her depart, and bring me notice of it.

Francis.
Your commands shall be obeyed.

Weislingen.
Tell her she shall go. (To theCourier.) Lead us by the nearest and best road.

Courier.
We must go round; all the rivers are swollen with the late heavy rains.

SCENE IV.

Jaxthausen.
Elizabeth andLerse.

Lerse.
Gracious lady, be comforted!

Elizabeth.
Alas! Lerse, the tears stood in his eyes when he took leave of me. It is dreadful, dreadful!

Lerse.
He will return.

Elizabeth.
It is not that. When he went forth to gain honorable victories, never did grief sit heavy at my heart. I then rejoiced in the prospect of his return, which I now dread.

Lerse.
So noble a man.

Elizabeth.
Call him not so. There lies the new misery. The miscreants! they threatened to murder his family and burn his castle. Should he return, gloomy, most gloomy shall I see his brow. His enemies will forge scandalous accusations against him, which he will be unable to refute.

Lerse.
He will and can.

Elizabeth.
He has broken his parole — canst thou deny that?

Lerse.
No! he was constrained; what reason is there to condemn him?

Elizabeth.
Malice seeks not reasons, but pretexts. He has become an ally of rebels, malefactors and murderers: he has become their chief. Say No to that.

Lerse.
Cease to torment yourself and me. Have they not solemnly sworn to abjure all such doings as those at Weinsberg? Did I not myself hear them say, in remorse, that, had not that been done already, it never should have been done? Must not the princes and nobles return him their best thanks for having undertaken the dangerous office of leading these unruly people, in order to restrain their rage, and to save so many lives and possessions?

Elizabeth.
Thou art an affectionate advocate. Should they take him prisoner, deal with him as with a rebel, and bring his gray hairs — Lerse, I should go mad!

Lerse.
Send sleep to refresh her body, dear Father of mankind, if Thou deniest comfort to her soul!

Elizabeth.
George has promised to bring news, but he will not be allowed to do so. They are worse than prisoners. Well I know they are watched like enemies. — The gallant boy! he would not leave his master.

Lerse.
The very heart within me bled as I left him. — Had you not needed my help, all the terrors of grisly death should not have separated us.

Elizabeth.
I know not where Sickingen is. — Could I but send a message to Maria!

Lerse.
Write, then. I will take care that she receives it.
[Exit.

SCENE V.

A Village.
EnterGoetz andGeorge.

Goetz.
To horse, George! Quick! I see Miltenberg in flames. — Is it thus they keep the treaty? — Ride to them, tell them my purpose. — The murderous incendiaries — I renounce them. — Let them make a thieving gypsy their captain, not me! — Quick, George! (ExitGeorge.) Would that I were a thousand miles hence, at the bottom of the deepest dungeon in Turkey! — Could I but come off with honor from them! I have thwarted them every day, and told them the bitterest truths, in the hope they might weary of me and let me go.
 Enter anUnknown.

Unknown.
God save you, gallant sir!

Goetz.
I thank you! What is your errand? Your name?

Unknown.
My name does not concern my business. I come to tell you that your life is in danger. The insurgent leaders are weary of hearing from you such harsh language, and are resolved to rid themselves of you. Speak them fair, or endeavor to escape from them; and God be with you!
[Exit.

Goetz.
To quit life in this fashion, Goetz, to end thus? But be it so. My death will be the clearest proof to the world that I have had nothing in common with the miscreants.
 EnterInsurgents.

First Insurgent.
Captain, they are prisoners, they are slain!

Goetz.
Who?

Second Insurgent.
Those who burned Miltenberg; a troop of confederate cavalry suddenly charged upon them from behind the hill.

Goetz.
They have their reward. O George! George! They have taken him prisoner with the caitiffs. — My George! my George!
 EnterInsurgents in confusion.

Link.
Up, sir captain, up! — There is no time to lose — the enemy is at hand, and in force.

Goetz.
Who burned Miltenberg?

Metzler.
If you mean to pick a quarrel, we’ll soon show you how we’ll end it.

Kohl.
Look to your own safety and ours. — Up!

Goetz.
(ToMetzler.) Darest thou threaten me, thou scoundrel? — Thinkest thou to awe me, because thy garments are stained with the Count of Helfenstein’s blood?

Metzler.
Berlichingen!

Goetz.
Thou mayest call me by my name, and my children will not be ashamed to hear it.

Metzler.
Out upon thee, coward! — Prince’s slave!
[Goetz strikes him down. — The others interpose.

Kohl.
Ye are mad! — The enemy are breaking in on all sides, and you quarrel!

Link.
Away! away! [Cries and tumult. — TheInsurgents fly across the stage.
 EnterWeislingen andTroopers.

Weislingen.
Pursue! pursue! they fly! — Stop neither for darkness nor rain. — I hear Goetz is among them; look that he escape you not. Our friends say he is sorely wounded. (ExeuntTroopers.) And when I have caught thee — it will be merciful secretly to execute the sentence of death in prison. Thus he perishes from the memory of man, and then, foolish heart, thou mayest beat more freely.

SCENE VI.

The front of a Gypsy-hut in a wild forest. — Night. — A fire before the hut, at which are seated theMother of the Gypsiesand a girl.

Mother.
Throw some fresh straw upon the thatch, daughter: there’ll be heavy rain again to-night.
 Enter aGypsy-Boy.

Boy.
A dormouse, mother! and look! two field-mice!

Mother.
I’ll skin them and roast them for thee, and thou shalt have a cap of their skins. Thou bleedest!

Boy.
Dormouse bit me.

Mother.
Fetch some dead wood, that the fire may burn bright when thy father comes: he will be wet through and through.
 AnotherGypsy-Woman with a child at her back.

First Woman.
Hast thou had good luck?

Second Woman.
Ill enough. The whole country is in an uproar; one’s life is not safe a moment. Two villages are in a blaze.

First Woman.
Is it fire that glares so yonder? I have been watching it long. One is so accustomed now to fiery signs in the heavens.
 TheCaptain of the Gypsies enters with three of his gang.

Captain.
Heard ye the wild huntsman?

First Woman.
He is passing over us now.

Captain.
How the hounds give tongue! Wow! wow!

Second Man.
How the whips crack!

Third Man.
And the huntsmen cheer them. — Hallo — ho!

Mother.
’Tis the devil’s chase.

Captain.
We have been fishing in troubled waters. The peasants rob each other; there’s no harm in our helping them.

Second Woman.
What hast thou got, Wolf?

Wolf.
A hare and a capon, a spit, a bundle of linen, three spoons and a bridle.

Sticks.
I have a blanket and a pair of boots, also a flint and tinder-box.

Mother.
All wet as mire; I’ll dry them, give them here!
[Tramping without.

Captain.
Hark! — A horse! Go see who it is.
 EnterGoetz on horseback.

Goetz.
I thank thee, God! I see fire — they are gypsies. — My wounds bleed sorely — my foes are close behind me! — Great God, this is a fearful end!

Captain.
Is it in peace thou comest?

Goetz.
I crave help from you — my wounds exhaust me — assist me to dismount!

Captain.
Help him! — A gallant warrior in look and speech.

Wolf.
(Aside.) ’Tis Goetz von Berlichingen!

Captain.
Welcome! welcome! — All that we have is yours.

Goetz.
Thanks, thanks!

Captain.
Come to my hut!
[Exeunt to the hut.

SCENE VII.

Inside the Hut.

Captain, Gypsies andGoetz.

Captain.
Call our mother — tell her to bring bloodwort and bandages. (Goetz unarms himself.) Here is my holiday doublet.

Goetz.
God reward you!
[TheMother binds his wounds.

Captain.
I rejoice that you are come.

Goetz.
Do you know me?

Captain.
Who does not know you, Goetz? Our lives and heart’s blood are yours.
 EnterSticks.

Sticks.
Horsemen are coming through the wood. They are confederates.

Captain.
Your pursuers! They shall not harm you. Away, Sticks, call the others: we know the passes better than they. We shall shoot them ere they are aware of us.
[ExeuntCaptain andMen-Gypsies with their guns.

Goetz.
(Alone.) O Emperor! Emperor! Robbers protect thy children. (A sharp firing.) The wild foresters! Steady and true!
 EnterWomen.

Women.
Flee! flee! The enemy has overpowered us.

Goetz.
Where is my horse?

Women.
Here!

Goetz.
(Girds on his sword and mounts without his armor.) For the last time shall you feel my arm. I am not so weak yet.
[Exit. — Tumult.

Women.
He gallops to join our party.
[Firing.
 EnterWolf.

Wolf.
Away! Away! All is lost. — The captain is shot! — Goetz a prisoner.
[TheWomen scream and fly into the wood.

SCENE VIII.

Adelaide’sBedchamber.
EnterAdelaide with a letter.

Adelaide.
He or I! The tyrant — to threaten me! We will anticipate him. Who glides through the ante-chamber? (A low knock at the door.) Who is there?

Francis.
(In a low voice.) Open, gracious lady!

Adelaide.
Francis! He well deserves that I should admit him.
[Opens the door.

Francis.
(Throws himself on her neck.) My dear, my gracious lady!

Adelaide.
What audacity! If any one should hear you?

Francis.
Oh — all — all are asleep.

Adelaide.
What would’st thou?

Francis.
I cannot rest. The threats of my master. — your fate, — my heart.

Adelaide.
He was incensed against me when you parted from him?

Francis.
He was as I have never seen him. — To my castle, said he, she must — she shall go.

Adelaide.
And shall we obey?

Francis.
I know not, dear lady!

Adelaide.
Thou foolish, infatuated boy! Thou dost not see where this will end. Here he knows I am in safety. He has long had designs on my freedom, and therefore wishes to get me to his castle — there he will have power to use me as his hate shall dictate.

Francis.
He shall not!

Adelaide.
Wilt thou prevent him?

Francis.
He shall not!

Adelaide.
I foresee the whole misery of my fate. He will tear me forcibly from his castle to immure me in a cloister.

Francis.
Hell and damnation!

Adelaide.
Wilt thou rescue me?

Francis.
Anything! Everything!

Adelaide.
(Throws herself weeping upon his neck.) Francis! O save me!

Francis.
He shall fall. I will plant my foot upon his neck.

Adelaide.
No violence! You shall carry a submissive letter to him announcing obedience — then give him this vial in his wine.

Francis.
Give it me! Thou shalt be free!

Adelaide.
Free! — And then no more shalt thou need to come to my chamber trembling and in fear. No more shall I need anxiously to say, “Away, Francis! the morning dawns.”

SCENE IX.

Street before the Prison at Heilbronn.
Elizabeth andLerse.

Lerse.
Heaven relieve your distress, gracious lady! Maria is come.

Elizabeth.
God be praised! Lerse, we have sunk into dreadful misery. My worst forebodings are realized! A prisoner — thrown as an assassin and malefactor into the deepest dungeon.

Lerse.
I know all.

Elizabeth.
Thou knowest nothing. Our distress is too — too great! His age, his wounds, a slow fever — and, more than all, the despondency of his mind to think that this should be his end.

Lerse.
Ay, and that Weislingen should be commissioner!

Elizabeth.
Weislingen?

Lerse.
They have acted with unheard-of severity. Metzler has been burned alive — hundreds of his associates broken upon the wheel, beheaded, quartered and impaled. All the country round looks like a slaughter-house, where human flesh is cheap.

Elizabeth.
Weislingen commissioner! O Heaven! a ray of hope! Maria shall go to him: he cannot refuse her. He had ever a compassionate heart, and when he sees her whom he once loved so much, whom he has made so miserable — where is she?

Lerse.
Still at the inn.

Elizabeth.
Take me to her. She must away instantly. I fear the worst.
[Exeunt.

SCENE X.

An Apartment inWeislingen’sCastle.

Weislingen.
(Alone.) I am so ill, so weak — all my bones are hollow — this wretched fever has consumed their very marrow. No rest, no sleep, by day or night! and when I slumber, such fearful dreams! Last night methought I met Goetz in the forest. He drew his sword, and defied me to combat. I grasped mine, but my hand failed me. He darted on me a look of contempt, sheathed his weapon, and passed on. He is a prisoner; yet I tremble to think of him. Miserable man! Thine own voice has condemned him; yet thou tremblest like a malefactor at his very shadow. And shall he die? Goetz! Goetz! we mortals are not our own masters. Fiends have empire over us, and shape our actions after their own hellish will, to goad us to perdition. (Sits down.) Weak! Weak! Why are my nails so blue? A cold, clammy, wasting sweat drenches every limb. Everything swims before my eyes. Could I but sleep! Alas!
 EnterMaria.

Weislingen.
Mother of God! Leave me in peace — leave me in peace! This spectre was yet wanting. Maria is dead, and she appears to the traitor. Leave me, blessed spirit! I am wretched enough.

Maria.
Weislingen, I am no spirit. I am Maria.

Weislingen.
It is her voice!

Maria.
I came to beg my brother’s life of thee. He is guiltless, however culpable he may appear.

Weislingen.
Hush! Maria — angel of heaven as thou art, thou bringest with thee the torments of hell! Speak no more!

Maria.
And must my brother die? Weislingen, it is horrible that I should have to tell thee he is guiltless; that I should be compelled to come as a suppliant to restrain thee from a most fearful murder. Thy soul to its inmost depths is possessed by evil powers. Can this be Adelbert?

Weislingen.
Thou seest — the consuming breath of the grave hath swept over me — my strength sinks in death — I die in misery, and thou comest to drive me to despair. Could I but tell thee all, thy bitterest hate would melt to sorrow and compassion. O Maria! Maria!

Maria.
Weislingen, my brother is pining in a dungeon — the anguish of his wounds — his age — Oh, hadst thou the heart to bring his gray hairs — Weislingen, we should despair.

Weislingen.
Enough! —
[Rings a hand-bell.
 EnterFrancis, in great agitation.

Francis.
Gracious sir.

Weislingen.
Those papers, Francis. (He gives them.Weislingen tears open a packet and showsMaria a paper.) Here is thy brother’s death-warrant signed!

Maria.
God in heaven!

Weislingen.
And thus I tear it. He shall live! But can I restore what I have destroyed? Weep not so, Francis! Dear youth, my wretchedness lies deeply at thy heart.
[Francis throws himself at his feet, and clasps his knees.

Maria.
(Apart.) He is ill — very ill. The sight of him rends my heart. I loved him! And now that I again approach him, I feel how dearly —

Weislingen.
Francis, arise and cease to weep — I may recover! While there is life there is hope.

Francis.
You cannot! You must die!

Weislingen.
Must?

Francis.
(Beside himself.) Poison! poison! — from your wife! I — I gave it.
[Rushes out.

Weislingen.
Follow him, Maria — he is desperate.
[ExitMaria.
Poison from my wife! Alas! alas! I feel it. Torture and death!

Maria.
(Within.) Help! help!

Weislingen.
(Attempts in vain to rise.) God! I cannot.

Maria.
(Re-entering.) He is gone! He threw himself desperately from a window of the hall into the river.

Weislingen.
It is well with him! — Thy brother is out of danger! The other commissioners, especially Seckendorf, are his friends. They will readily allow him to ward himself upon his knightly word. Farewell, Maria! Now go.

Maria.
I will stay with thee — thou poor forsaken one!

Weislingen.
Poor and forsaken indeed! O God, Thou art a terrible avenger! My wife!

Maria.
Remove from thee that thought. Turn thy soul to the throne of mercy.

Weislingen.
Go, thou gentle spirit! leave me to my misery! Horrible! Even thy presence, Maria, even the attendance of my only comforter, is agony.

Maria.
(Aside.) Strengthen me, Heaven! My soul droops with his.

Weislingen.
Alas! alas! Poison from my wife! My Francis seduced by the wretch! She waits — listens to every horse’s hoof for the messenger who brings her the news of my death. And thou too, Maria, wherefore art thou come to awaken every slumbering recollection of my sins? Leave me, leave me that I may die!

Maria.
Let me stay! Thou art alone: think I am thy nurse. Forget all. May God forgive thee as freely as I do!

Weislingen.
Thou spirit of love! pray for me! pray for me! My heart is seared.

Maria.
There is forgiveness for thee. — Thou art exhausted.

Weislingen.
I die! I die! and yet I cannot die. In the fearful contest between life and death lie the torments of hell.

Maria.
Heavenly Father, have compassion upon him. Grant him but one token of Thy love, that his heart may be opened to comfort, and his soul to the hope of eternal life, even in the agony of death!

SCENE XI.

A narrow Vault dimly illuminated. TheJudges of the Secret Tribunaldiscovered seated, all muffled in black cloaks.

Eldest Judge.
Judges of the Secret Tribunal, sworn by the cord and the steel to be inflexible in justice, to judge in secret, and to avenge in secret, like the Deity! Are your hands clean and your hearts pure? Raise them to heaven and cry, — Woe upon evil-doers!

All.
Woe! woe!

Eldest Judge.
Crier, begin the diet of judgment.

Crier.
I cry, I cry for accusation against evil-doers! He whose heart is pure, whose hands are clean to swear by the cord and the steel, let him lift up his voice and call upon the steel and the cord for vengeance! vengeance! vengeance!

Accuser.
(Comes forward.) My heart is pure from misdeed, and my hands are clean from innocent blood: God pardon my sins of thought, and prevent their execution. I raise my hand on high, and cry for vengeance! vengeance! vengeance!

Eldest Judge.
Vengeance upon whom?

Accuser.
I call upon the cord and the steel for vengeance against Adelaide of Weislingen. She has committed adultery and murder. She has poisoned her husband by the hands of his servant — the servant hath slain himself — the husband is dead.

Eldest Judge.
Dost thou swear by the God of truth, that thy accusation is true?

Accuser.
I swear!

Eldest Judge.
Dost thou invoke upon thine own head the punishment of murder and adultery, should thy accusation be found false?

Accuser.
On my head be it.

Eldest Judge.
Your voices?
[They converse a few minutes in whispers.

Accuser.
Judges of the Secret Tribunal, what is your sentence upon Adelaide of Weislingen, accused of murder and adultery?

Eldest Judge.
She shall die! — she shall die a bitter and twofold death! By the double doom of the steel and the cord shall she expiate the double crime. Raise your hands to heaven and cry, Woe, woe upon her! Be she delivered into the hands of the avenger.

All.
Woe! woe!

Eldest Judge.
Woe! Avenger, come forth.
[A man advances.
Here, take thou the cord and the steel! Within eight days shalt thou blot her out from before the face of heaven: wheresoever thou findest her, down with her into the dust. Judges, ye that judge in secret and avenge in secret like the Deity, keep your hearts from wickedness, and your hands from innocent blood!
[The Scene closes.

SCENE XII.

The Court of an Inn.
Lerse andMaria.

Maria.
The horses have rested long enough: we will away, Lerse.

Lerse.
Stay till to-morrow; this is a dreadful night.

Maria.
Lerse, I cannot rest till I have seen my brother. Let us away: the weather is clearing up — we may expect a fair morning.

Lerse.
Be it as you will.

SCENE XIII.

The Prison at Heilbronn.
Goetz andElizabeth.

Elizabeth.
I entreat thee, dear husband, speak to me. Thy silence alarms me; thy spirit consumes thee, pent up within thy breast. Come, let me see thy wounds; they mend daily. In this desponding melancholy I know thee no longer!

Goetz.
Seekest thou Goetz? He is long since gone! Piece by piece have they robbed me of all I held dear — my hand, my property, my freedom, my good name! My life! of what value is it to me? What news of George? Is Lerse gone to seek him?

Elizabeth.
He is, my love! Be of good cheer; things may yet take a favorable turn.

Goetz.
He whom God hath stricken lifts himself up no more! I best know the load I have to bear. — To misfortune I am inured. — But now it is not Weislingen alone, not the peasants alone, not the death of the emperor, nor my wounds — it is the whole united — . My hour is come! I had hoped it should have been like my life. But His will be done!

Elizabeth.
Wilt thou not eat something?

Goetz.
Nothing, my love! See how the sun shines yonder!

Elizabeth.
It is a fine spring day!

Goetz.
My love, wilt thou ask the keeper’s permission for me to walk in his little garden for half an hour, that I may look upon the clear face of heaven, the pure air, and the blessed sun?

Elizabeth.
I will — and he will readily grant it.

SCENE the Last.
The Prison Garden.
Lerse andMaria.

Maria.
Go in, and see how it stands with them.
[ExitLerse.
 EnterElizabeth andKeeper.

Elizabeth.
(To theKeeper.) God reward your kindness and attention to my husband! (ExitKeeper.) Maria, how hast thou sped?

Maria.
My brother is safe! But my heart is torn asunder. Weislingen is dead! poisoned by his wife. My husband is in danger — the princes are becoming too powerful for him: they say he is surrounded and besieged.

Elizabeth.
Believe not the rumor; and let not Goetz hear it.

Maria.
How is it with him?

Elizabeth.
I feared he would not survive till thy return: the hand of the Lord is heavy on him. And George is dead!

Maria.
George! The gallant boy!

Elizabeth.
When the miscreants were burning Miltenberg his master sent him to check their villany. A body of cavalry charged upon them: had they all behaved as George, they must all have had as clear a conscience. Many were killed, and George among them; he died the death of a warrior.

Maria.
Does Goetz know it?

Elizabeth.
We conceal it from him. He questions me ten times a day concerning him, and sends me as often to see what is become of him. I fear to give his heart this last wound.

Maria.
O God! what are the hopes of this world?
 Enter Goetz, Lerse andKeeper.

Goetz.
Almighty God! how lovely it is beneath Thy heaven! How free! The trees put forth their buds, and all the world awakes to hope. — Farewell, my children! my roots are cut away, my strength totters to the grave.

Elizabeth.
Shall I not send Lerse to the convent for thy son, that thou may’st once more see and bless him?

Goetz.
Let him be; he needs not my blessing, he is holier than I. — Upon our wedding-day, Elizabeth, could I have thought I should die thus! — My old father blessed us, and prayed for a succession of noble and gallant sons — God, Thou hast not heard him. I am the last. — Lerse, thy countenance cheers me in the hour of death more than in our most daring fights: then, my spirit encouraged all of you; now, thine supports me. — Oh, that I could but once more see George, and sun myself in his look! You turn away and weep. He is dead? George is dead? Then die, Goetz! Thou hast outlived thyself, outlived the noblest of thy servants. — How died he? Alas! they took him among the incendiaries, and he has been executed?

Elizabeth.
No! he was slain at Miltenberg! while fighting like a lion for his freedom.

Goetz.
God be praised! He was the kindest youth under the sun, and one of the bravest. — Now release my soul. My poor wife! I leave thee in a wicked world. Lerse, forsake her not! Look your hearts more carefully than your doors. The age of fraud is at hand, treachery will reign unchecked. The worthless will gain the ascendency by cunning, and the noble will fall into their net. Maria, may God restore thy husband to thee! may he not fall the deeper for having risen so high! Selbitz is dead, and the good emperor, and my George — give me a draught of water! — Heavenly air! Freedom! freedom!
[He dies.

Elizabeth.
Freedom is above! above — with thee! The world is a prison-house.

Maria.
Noble man! Woe to this age that rejected thee!

Lerse.
And woe to the future, that shall misjudge thee.

CLAVIGO

Translated by Anna Swanwick

Written in 1774, this five-act tragedy is based on the life of the French dramatist Pierre Beaumarchais. Goethe wrote the play in only eight days in May 1774. Clavigo was published by July 1774 and it is the first printed work that Goethe put his own name to, although the tragedy received negative reviews. The first performance of the play was by the Ackermannschen Gesellschaft in Hamburg on 23 August 1774. The story is based on the offer of marriage that the Canarian writer José Clavijo y Fajardo made to Beaumarchais’ sister.

The playwright Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Clavigo.
Carlos, his friend.
Beaumarchais.
Marie Beaumarchais.
Sophie Guilbert (née Beaumarchais).
Guilbert, her husband.
Buenco.
St. George.

The scene is at Madrid.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Clavigo’s Dwelling.
Enter Clavigo and Carlos.

Clavigo.
(Rising up from the writingtable.) The journal will do a good work, it must charm all women. Tell me, Carlos, do you not think that my weekly periodical is now one of the first in Europe?

Carlos.
We Spaniards, at least, have no modern author who unites such great strength of thought, so much florid imagination, with so brilliant and easy a style.

Clavigo.
Please don’t. I must still be among the people the creator of the good style; people are ready to take all sorts of impressions; I have a reputation among my fellow-citizens, their confidence; and, between ourselves, my acquirements extend daily; my experience widens, and my style becomes ever truer and stronger.

Carlos.
Good, Clavigo! Yet, if you will not take it ill, your paper pleased me far better when you yet wrote it at Marie’s feet, when the lovely cheerful creature had still an influence over you. I know not how, the whole had a more youthful blooming appearance.

Clavigo.
Those were good times, Carlos, which are now gone. I gladly avow to thee, I wrote then with opener heart; and, it is true, she had a large share in the approbation which the public accorded me at the very beginning. But at length, Carlos, one becomes very soon weary of women; and were you not the first to applaud my resolution when I determined to forsake her?

Carlos.
You would have become rusty. Women are far too monotonous. Only, it seems to me, it were again time that you cast about for a new plan, for it is all up when one is so entirely aground.

Clavigo.
My plan is the court; there there is no leisure nor holiday. For a stranger, who, without standing, without name, without fortune, came here, have I not already advanced far enough? Here in a court! amid the throng of men, where it is not easy to attract attention? I do so rejoice, when I look on the road which I have left behind me. Loved by the first in the kingdom! Honored for my attainments, my rank! Recorder of the king! Carlos, all that spurs me on; I were nothing if I remained what I am! Forward! forward! There it costs toil and art! One needs all his wits; and the women! the women! one loses far too much time with them.

Carlos.
Simpleton, that is your fault. I can never live without women, and they are not in my way at all. Moreover, I do not say so very many fine things to them, I do not amuse myself entire months with sentiment and such like; for I do not at all like to have to do with prudish girls. One has soon said his say with them: afterwards, should one pay them attention for a while, scarcely are they a little bit inflamed with one, than straightway — the deuce — you are pestered with thoughts of marriage and promises of marriage, which I fear as the plague. You are pensive, Clavigo?

Clavigo.
I cannot get rid of the recollection that I jilted, deceived Marie, call it as you will.

Carlos.
Wonderful! It seems to me, however, that one lives only once in this world, has only once this power, these prospects, and he who does not make the most of them, and rise as high as possible, is a fool. And to marry! to marry just at the time when life is for the first time about to soar aloft on wide-spread pinions! to bury one’s self in domestic repose, to shut one’s self up when one has not traversed the half of his journey — has not yet achieved the half of his conquests! To love her was natural; to promise her marriage was folly, and if you had kept your word it would have been downright madness.

Clavigo.
Hold! I do not understand men. I loved her truly, she drew me to her, she held me, and as I sat at her feet I vowed to her — I vowed to myself — that it should ever be so, that I would be hers as soon as I had an office, a position — and now, Carlos!

Carlos.
It will be quite time enough when you are a made man, when you have reached the desired goal, if then — to crown and confirm all your happiness — you seek to ally yourself by a prudent marriage with a family of wealth and consequence.

Clavigo.
She has vanished! quite out of my heart vanished, and if her unhappiness does not sometimes remind me — strange that one is so changeable!

Carlos.
If one were constant I would wonder. Look, pray, does not everything in the world change? Why should our passions endure? Be tranquil; she is not the first jilted girl, nor the first that has consoled herself. If I were to advise you, there is the young widow over the way —

Clavigo.
You know I do not set much store on such proposals. A love affair which does not come of its own accord has no charm for me.

Carlos.
So dainty people!

Clavigo.
Be it so, and forget not that our chief work at present is to render ourselves necessary to the new minister. That Whal resigns the government of India is troublesome enough for us. In truth, otherwise it does not disquiet me; his influence abides — Grimaldi and he are friends, and we know how to talk and manœuvre.

Carlos.
And think and do what we will.

Clavigo.
That is the grand point in the world. (Rings for the servant.) Take this sheet to the printing-office.

Carlos.
Are you to be seen in the evening?

Clavigo.
I do not think so. However, you can inquire.

Carlos.
This evening I should like to undertake something which gladdened my heart; all this afternoon I must write again, there is no end of it.

Clavigo.
Have patience. If we did not toil for so many persons, we would not get the ascendency over so many.
[Exit .

SCENE II.

Guilbert’s Dwelling.
Sophie Guilbert, Marie and Don Buenco.

Buenco.
You have had a bad night?

Sophie.
I told her so yesterday evening. She was so foolishly merry and prattled till eleven, then she was overheated, could not sleep, and now again she has no breath and weeps the whole morning.

Marie.
Strange that our brother comes not! It is two days past the time.

Sophie.
Only have patience, he will not fail us.

Marie.
(Rising up.) How anxious am I to see this brother, my avenger and my saviour. I scarcely remember him.

Sophie.
Indeed! Oh, I can well picture him to myself; he was a fiery, open, brave boy of thirteen years, when our father sent us here.

Marie.
A noble great soul. You have read the letter which he wrote when he learned my unhappiness; each letter of it is enshrined in my heart. “If you are guilty,” writes he, “expect no forgiveness; over and above your misery the contempt of a brother will fall heavily upon you, and the curse of a father. If you are innocent, oh, then, all vengeance, all, all glowing vengeance on the traitor!” — I tremble! He will come. I tremble, not for myself, I stand before God in my innocence! You must, my friends — I know not what I want! O Clavigo!

Sophie.
You will not listen! You will kill yourself.

Marie.
I will be still. Yes, I will not weep. It seems to me, however, I could have no more tears. And why tears? I am only sorry that I make my life bitter to you. For when all is said and done, what have I to complain of? I have had much joy as long as our old friend still lived. Clavigo’s love has caused me much joy, perhaps more than mine for him. And now, what is it after all? of what importance am I? What matters it if a girl’s heart is broken? What matters it whether she pines away and torments her poor young heart?

Buenco.
For God’s sake, mademoiselle!

Marie.
Whether it is all one to him — that he loves me no more? Ah! why am I not more amiable? But he should pity, at least pity me! — that the hapless girl, to whom he had made himself so needful, now without him should pine and weep her life away — Pity! I wish not to be pitied by this man.

Sophie.
If I could teach you to despise him — the worthless, detestable man!

Marie.
No, sister, worthless he is not; and must I then despise him whom I hate? Hate! Indeed, sometimes I can hate him — sometimes, when the Spanish spirit possesses me. Lately, oh! lately, when we met him, his look wrought full, warm love in me! And as I again came home, and his manner recurred to me, and the calm, cold glance that he cast over me, while beside the brilliant Donna; then I became a Spaniard in my heart, and seized my dagger and poison, and disguised myself. Are you amazed, Buenco? All in thought only, of course!

Sophie.
Foolish girl!

Marie.
My imagination led me after him. I saw him as he lavished all the tenderness, all the gentleness at the feet of his new love — the charms with which he poisoned me — I aimed at the heart of the traitor! Ah! Buenco! — all at once the good-hearted French girl was again there, who knows of no love-sickness, and no daggers for revenge. We are badly off! Vaudevilles to entertain our lovers, fans to punish them, and, if they are faithless? — Say, sister, what do they do in France when lovers are faithless?

Sophie.
They curse them.

Marie.
And —

Sophie.
And let them go their ways.

Marie.
Go! — and why shall I not let Clavigo go? If that is the French fashion, why shall it not be so in Spain? Why shall a Frenchwoman not be a Frenchwoman in Spain? We will let him go and take to ourselves another; it appears to me they do so with us too.

Buenco.
He has broken a sacred promise, and no light love-affair, no friendly attachment. Mademoiselle, you are pained, hurt even to the depths of your heart. Oh! never was my position of an unknown, peaceful citizen of Madrid so burdensome, so painful as at this moment, in which I feel myself so feeble, so powerless to obtain justice for you against the treacherous courtier!

Marie.
When he was still Clavigo, not yet recorder of the king; when he was the stranger, the guest, the new-comer in our house, how amiable was he, how good! How all his ambition, all his desire to rise, seemed to be a child of his love! For me, he struggled for name, rank, fortune; he has all now, and I! —
Guilbert comes.

Guilbert.
(Privately to his wife.) Our brother is coming!

Marie.
My brother! (She trembles; they conduct her to a seat.) Where? where? Bring him to me! Take me to him!
Beaumarchais comes.

Beaumarchais.
My sister! (Quitting the eldest to rush towards the youngest.) My sister! My friends! Oh, my sister!

Marie.
Is it you indeed? God be thanked it is you!

Beaumarchais.
Let me come to myself.

Marie.
My heart! — my poor heart!

Sophie.
Be calm! Dear brother, I hoped to see you more tranquil.

Beaumarchais.
More tranquil! Are you, then, tranquil? Do I not behold in the wasted figure of this dear one, in your tearful eyes, your sorrowful paleness, in the dead silence of your friends, that you are as wretched as I have imagined you to be during all the long way? and more wretched; for I see you, I hold you in my arms; your presence redoubles my sufferings. Oh, my sister!

Sophie.
And our father?

Beaumarchais.
He blesses you and me, if I save you.

Buenco.
Sir, permit one unknown who, at the first look, recognizes in you a noble, brave man, to bear witness to the deep interest which all this matter inspires in me. Sir, you undertake this long journey to save, to avenge your sister! Welcome! be welcome as a guardian angel, though, at the same time, you put us all to the blush!

Beaumarchais.
I hoped, sir, to find in Spain such hearts as yours; that encouraged me to take this step. Nowhere, nowhere in the world are feeling, congenial souls wanting, if only one steps forward whose circumstances leave him full freedom to carry his courage through. And oh, my friends, I feel full of hope! Everywhere there are men of honor among the powerful and great, and the ear of majesty is rarely deaf; only our voice is almost always too weak to reach to their height.

Sophie.
Come, sister! come, rest a moment. She is quite beside herself.
[They lead her away.

Marie.
My brother!

Beaumarchais.
God willing, if you are innocent, then all, all vengeance on the traitor! (Exeunt Marie and Sophie.) My brother! — my friends! — I see it in your looks that you are so. Let me come to myself, and then! — a pure, impartial recital of the whole story. This must determine my actions. The feeling of a good cause shall confirm my courage; and, believe me, if we are right, we shall get justice.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Clavigo’sHouse.

Clavigo.
Who may these Frenchmen be, who have got themselves announced in my house? Frenchmen! In former days this nation was welcome to me! And why not now? It is singular that a man who sets so much at naught is yet bound with feeble thread to a single point. It is too much! And did I owe more to Marie than to myself? and is it a duty to make myself unhappy because a girl loves me?
A Servant.

Servant.
The foreign gentlemen, sir.

Clavigo.
Bid them enter. Pray, did you tell their servant that I expect them to breakfast?

Servant.
As you ordered.

Clavigo.
I shall be back presently.
[Exit .
Beaumarchais, St. George.
The Servant places chairs for them and withdraws.

Beaumarchais.
I feel myself so much at ease; so content, my friend, to be at length here, to hold him; he shall not escape me. Be calm: at least show him a calm exterior. My sister! my sister! who could believe that you are as innocent as unhappy? It shall come to light; you shall be terribly avenged! And Thou, good God! preserve to me the tranquillity of soul which Thou accordest to me at this moment, that, amid this frightful grief, I may act as prudently as possible and with all moderation.

St. George.
Yes; this wisdom — all, my friend, which you have ever shown of prudence — I claim here. Promise me, once more, dear friend, that you will reflect where you are. In a strange kingdom, where all your protectors, all your money cannot secure you from the secret machinations of worthless foes.

Beaumarchais.
Be tranquil: play your part well; he shall not know with which of us he has to do. I will torture him! Oh! I am just in a fine humor to roast this fellow over a slow fire!
Clavigo returns.

Clavigo.
Gentlemen, it gives me joy to see in my house men of a nation that I have always esteemed.

Beaumarchais.
Sir, I wish that we, too, may be worthy of the honor which you are good enough to confer on our fellow countrymen.

St. George.
The pleasure of making your acquaintance has surmounted the fear of being troublesome to you.

Clavigo.
Persons, whom the first look recommends, should not push modesty so far.

Beaumarchais.
In truth it cannot be a novelty to you to be sought out by strangers; for, by the excellence of your writings, you have made yourself as much known in foreign lands as the important offices which his majesty has intrusted to you distinguish you in your fatherland.

Clavigo.
The king looks with much favor on my humble services, and the public with much indulgence on the trifling essays of my pen; I have wished that I could contribute in some measure to the improvement of taste, to the propagation of the sciences in my country; for they only unite us with other nations, they only make friends of the most distant spirits, and maintain the sweetest union among those even, who, alas! are too often disunited through political interests.

Beaumarchais.
It is captivating to hear a man so speak who has equal influence in the state and in letters. I must also avow you have taken the word out of my mouth and brought me straight to the purpose, on account of which you see me here. A society of learned worthy men has commissioned me, in every place through which I travel and find opportunity, to establish a correspondence between them and the best minds in the kingdom. As no Spaniard writes better than the author of the journal called the Thinker — a man with whom I have the honor to speak (Clavigo makes a polite bow), and who is an especial ornament of learned men, since he has known how to unite with his literary talents so great a capacity for political affairs, he cannot fail to climb the highest steps, of which his character and acquirements render him worthy. I believe I can perform no more acceptable service to my friends than to put them in connection with a man of such merit.

Clavigo.
No proposal in the world could be more agreeable to me, gentlemen; I thereby see fulfilled the sweetest hopes, with which my heart was often occupied without any prospect of their happy accomplishment. Not that I believe I shall be able, through my correspondence, to satisfy the wishes of your learned friends; my vanity does not go so far. But as I have the happiness to be in accordance with the best minds in Spain, as nothing can remain unknown to me which is achieved in our vast kingdom by isolated, often obscure, individuals for the arts and sciences, so I have looked upon myself, till now, as a kind of colporteur, who possesses the feeble merit of rendering the inventions of others generally useful; but now I become, through your intervention, a merchant, happy enough through the exportation of native products to extend the renown of his fatherland and thereby to enrich it with foreign treasures. So then, allow me, sir, to treat as not a stranger a man who, with such frankness, brings such agreeable news; allow me to ask what business — what project made you undertake this long journey? It is not that I would, through this officiousness, gratify vain curiosity; no, believe rather that it is with the purest intention of exerting in your behalf all the resources, all the influence which I may perchance possess; for I tell you beforehand, you have come to a place where countless difficulties encounter a stranger in the prosecution of his business, especially at the court.

Beaumarchais.
I accept so obliging an offer with warmest thanks. I have no secrets with you, sir, and this friend at my statement will not be in the way; he is sufficiently acquainted with what I have to say. (Clavigo regards St. George with attention.) A French merchant, with a large family and a limited fortune, had many business friends in Spain. One of the richest came fifteen years ago to Paris, and made him this proposal: “Give me two of your daughters, and I shall take them with me to Madrid and provide for them. I am an aged bachelor without relatives; they will form the happiness of my declining years, and after my decease I shall leave them one of the most considerable establishments in Spain. The eldest and one of the younger sisters were confided to his care. The father undertook to supply the house with all kinds of French merchandise which could be required, and so all went well, till the friend died without the least mention of the Frenchwomen in his will, who then saw themselves in the embarrassing position of superintending alone a new business. The eldest had meanwhile married, and notwithstanding their moderate fortune, they secured through their good conduct and varied accomplishments a multitude of friends, who were eager to extend their credit and business. (Clavigo becomes more and more attentive.) About the same time, a young man, a native of the Canary Islands, had got himself introduced into the family. (Clavigo’s countenance loses all cheerfulness, and his seriousness changes by-and-by into embarrassment, more and more visible.) Despite his humble standing and fortune, they receive him kindly. The Frenchwomen, who remarked in him a great love of the French language, favored him with every means of making rapid progress in its study. Extremely anxious to make himself known, he forms the design of giving to the city of Madrid the pleasure, hitherto unknown to Spain, of reading a weekly periodical in the style of the English Spectator. His lady friends fail not to aid him in every way; they do not doubt that such an undertaking would meet with great success; in short, animated by the hope of soon becoming a man of some consequence, he ventures to make an offer of marriage to the younger. Hopes are held out to him. “Try to make your fortune,” says the elder, “and if an appointment, the favor of the court, or any other means of subsistence shall have given you a right to think of my sister, if she still prefers you to other suitors, I cannot refuse you my consent.” (Clavigo,covered with confusion, moves uneasily on his seat.) The younger declines several advantageous offers; her fondness for the man increases, and helps her to bear the anxiety of an uncertain expectation; she interests herself for his happiness as for her own, and encourages him to issue the first number of his periodical, which appears under an imposing title. (Clavigo is terribly embarrassed. Beaumarchais,icy cold.) The journal is a great success; the king even, delighted with this charming production, gave the author public tokens of his favor. He was promised the first honorable office that might be vacant. From that moment he removed all rivals from his beloved, while quite openly striving hard to win her good graces. The marriage was delayed only in expectation of the promised situation. At last, after six years’ patient waiting, unbroken friendship, aid and love on the part of the girl; after six years’ devotion, gratitude, attentions, solemn assurances on the part of the man, the office is forthcoming — and he vanishes. (Clavigo utters a deep sigh, which he tries to stifle, and is quite overcome.) The matter had made so great a noise in the world, that the issue could not be regarded with indifference. A house had been rented for two families. The whole town was talking of it. The hearts of all friends were wrung and sought revenge. Application was made to powerful protectors; but the worthless fellow, already initiated in the cabals of the court, knew how to render fruitless all their efforts, and went so far in his insolence as to dare to threaten the unhappy ladies; to dare to say in the very face of those friends, who had gone to find him, that the Frenchwomen should take care; he defied them to injure him, and if they made bold to undertake aught against him, it would be easy for him to ruin them in a foreign land, where they would be without protection and help. At this intelligence the poor girl fell into convulsions, which threatened death. In the depth of her grief the elder wrote to France about the public outrage which had been done to them. The news most powerfully moves her brother; he demands leave of absence to obtain counsel and aid in so complicated an affair, he flies from Paris to Madrid, and the brother — it is I! who have left all — fatherland, duties, family, standing, pleasures, in order to avenge, in Spain, an innocent, unhappy sister. I come, armed with the best cause and firm determination, to unmask a traitor, to mark with bloody strokes his soul on his face, and the traitor — art thou!

Clavigo.
Hear me, sir — I am — I have — I doubt not —

Beaumarchais.
Interrupt me not. You have nothing to say to me and much to hear from me. Now, to make a beginning, have the goodness, in presence of this gentleman, who has come from France expressly with me, to declare: whether my sister has deserved this public outrage from you through any treachery, levity, weakness, rudeness, or any other blemish.

Clavigo.
No, sir. Your sister, Donna Maria, is a lady overflowing with wit, amiability and goodness.

Beaumarchais.
Has she ever during your acquaintance given you any occasion to complain of her, or to esteem her less?

Clavigo.
Never! never!

Beaumarchais.
(Rising up.) And why, monster, had you the barbarity to torture the girl to death? Only because her heart preferred you to ten others, all more honorable and richer than you?

Clavigo.
Ah, sir! If you knew how I have been instigated; how I, through manifold advisers and circumstances —

Beaumarchais.
Enough! (To St. George.) You have heard the vindication of my sister; go and publish it. What I have further to say to the gentleman, needs no witnesses. (Clavigo rises. St. George retires.) Remain! remain! (Both sit down again.) Having now got so far, I shall make a proposal to you, which I hope you will accept. It is equally agreeable to you and me that you do not wed Marie, and you are deeply sensible that I have not come to play the part of a theatrical brother, who will unravel the drama, and present a husband to his sister. You have cast a slur upon an honorable lady in cold blood, because you supposed that in a foreign land she was without prop and avenger. Thus acts a base, worthless fellow. And so, first of all, testify with your own hand, spontaneously, with open doors, in presence of your servants, that you are an abominable man, who have deceived, betrayed my sister without the least cause; and with this declaration I set out for Aranjuez, where our ambassador resides; I show it, I get it printed, and after to-morrow the court and the town are flooded with it. I have powerful friends here, I have time and money, and of all shall I avail myself, to pursue you in the most furious manner possible, till the resentment of my sister is appeased and satisfied, and she herself says, “Stop.”

Clavigo.
I will not make such a declaration.

Beaumarchais.
I believe that, for in your place neither perhaps would I do it. But here is the reverse of the medal. If you do not write it, I remain from this moment beside you, I quit you no more, I follow you everywhere, till you, disgusted with such society, have sought to get rid of me behind Buenretiro. If I am more fortunate than you, without seeing the ambassador, without speaking here with any one, I take my dying sister in my arms, place ner in my carriage, and return to France with her. Should fate favor you, I am played out, and so you may have a laugh at our expense. Meanwhile, the breakfast.
[Beaumarchais rings the bell. An attendant brings the chocolate. Beaumarchais takes a cup, and walks in the adjoining gallery, examining the pictures.

Clavigo.
Air! air! I have been surprised and seized like a boy. Where are you then, Clavigo? How will you end this? How can you end it? Frightful position, into which your folly, your treachery has plunged you! (He seizes his sword on the table.) Ha! short and good! (Lays it down.) And is there no way, no means, but death — or murder? — horrible murder! To deprive the hapless lady of her last solace, her only stay, her brother! To see gushing out the blood of a noble, brave man! And to draw upon yourself the double, insupportable curse of a ruined family! Oh, this was not the prospect when this amiable creature, even from your first meeting, attracted you with so many winsome ways! And when you abandoned her, did you not see the frightful consequences of your crime? What blessedness awaited you in her arms! in the friendship of such a brother! Marie! Marie! Oh, that you could forgive! that at your feet I could atone for all by my tears! — And why not? — My heart overflows; my soul mounts up in hope! Sir!

Beaumarchais.
What is your determination?

Clavigo.
Hear me! My deceit towards your sister is unpardonable. Vanity has misled me. I feared by this marriage to ruin all my plans, all my projects for a world-wide celebrity. Could I have known that she had such a brother, she would have been in my eyes no unimportant stranger; I would have expected from our union very considerable advantages. You inspire me, sir, with the highest esteem, and in making me so keenly sensible of my errors, you impart to me a desire, a power, to make all good again. I throw myself at your feet! Help! help, if it is possible, to efface my guilt and put an end to unhappiness. Give your sister to me again, sir, give me to her! How happy were I to receive from your hand a wife and the forgiveness of all my faults!

Beaumarchais.
It is too late! My sister loves you no more, and I detest you. Write the desired declaration, that is all that I exact from you, and leave me to provide for a choice revenge.

Clavigo.
Your obstinacy is neither right nor prudent. I grant you that it does not depend on me, whether I will make good again so irremediable an evil. Whether I can make it good? That rests with the heart of your excellent sister whether she may again look upon a wretch who does not deserve to see the light of day. Only it is your duty to ascertain that and to conduct yourself accordingly, if your demeanor is not to resemble the inconsiderate passion of a young man. If Donna Maria is immovable! Oh, I know her heart! Oh, her good, her heavenly soul hovers before me quite vividly! If she is inexorable, then it is time, sir.

Beaumarchais.
I insist on the vindication.

Clavigo.
(Approaching the table.) And if I seize the sword?

Beaumarchais.
(Advancing.) Good, sir! Excellent, sir!

Clavigo.
(Holding him back.) One word more! You have the better case; let me have prudence for you. Consider what you are doing. Whether you or I fall, we are irrecoverably lost. Should I not die of pain, of remorse, if your blood should stain my sword, if I, to complete her wretchedness, bereft her of her brother; and on the other hand — the murderer of Clavigo would not recross the Pyrenees.

Beaumarchais.
The vindication, sir, the vindication!

Clavigo.
Well! be it so. I will do all to convince you of the upright feeling with which your presence inspires me. I will write the vindication, I will write it at your dictation. Only promise me not to make use of it till I am able to convince Donna Maria of the change and repentance of my heart, till I have spoken to her elder sister; till she has put in a good word for me with my beloved one. Not before, sir.

Beaumarchais.
I am going to Aranjuez.

Clavigo.
Well then, till your return, let the vindication remain in your portfolio; if I have not been forgiven, then let your vengeance have full swing. This proposal is just, fair and prudent; and if you do not agree to it, let us then play the game of life and death. And whichever of us two become the victim of his own rashness, you and your poor sister will suffer in any case.

Beaumarchais.
It becomes you to pity those whom you have made wretched.

Clavigo.
(Sitting down.) Are you satisfied?

Beaumarchais.
Well, then, I yield the point. But not a moment longer. I come from Aranjuez, I ask, I hear! And if they have not forgiven you, which is what I hope and desire, I am off directly with the paper to the printing-office.

Clavigo.
(Takes paper.) How do you demand it?

Beaumarchais.
Sir! in presence of your attendants.

Clavigo.
Why?

Beaumarchais.
Command only that they are present in the adjoining gallery. It shall not be said that I have constrained you.

Clavigo.
What scruples!

Beaumarchais.
I am in Spain and have to deal with you.

Clavigo.
Now then! (Rings. A servant.) Call my attendants together, and betake yourselves to the gallery there. (The servant retires. The rest come and occupy the gallery.) You allow me to write the vindication?

Beaumarchais.
No, sir! Write it, I beg you — write it, as I dictate it to you. (Clavigo writes.) “I, the undersigned, Joseph Clavigo, recorder of the king” —

Clavigo.
“Of the king.”

Beaumarchais.
“Acknowledge that after I was received into the family of Madame Guilbert as a friend” —

Clavigo.
“As a friend.”

Beaumarchais.
“I made her sister, Mademoiselle de Beaumarchais, a promise of marriage, repeated many times, which I have unscrupulously broken.” Have you written it? —

Clavigo.
My dear sir!

Beaumarchais.
Have you another expression for it?

Clavigo.
I should think —

Beaumarchais.
“Unscrupulously broken.” What you have done you need not hesitate to write. — ”I have abandoned her, without any fault or weakness on her part having suggested a pretext or an excuse for this perfidy.”

Clavigo.
Come!

Beaumarchais.
“On the contrary, the demeanor of the lady has been always pure, blameless, and worthy of all honor.”

Clavigo.
“Worthy of all honor.”

Beaumarchais.
“I confess that, through my deceit, the levity of my conversations, the construction of which they were susceptible, I have publicly humiliated this virtuous lady; and on this account I entreat her forgiveness, although I do not regard myself as worthy of receiving it.” (Clavigo stops.) Write! write! “And this testimony of my own free will, and unforced, I have given, with this especial promise, that if this satisfaction should not please the injured lady, I am ready to afford it in every other way required. Madrid.”

Clavigo.
(Rises, beckons to the servants to withdraw, and hands him the paper.) I have to do with an injured, but a noble man. You will keep your word, and put off your vengeance. Only on this consideration, in this hope, I have granted you the shameful document, to which nothing else would have reduced me. But before I venture to appear before Donna Maria, I have resolved to engage some one to put in a word for me, to speak in my behalf — and you are the man.

Beaumarchais.
Do not reckon on that.

Clavigo.
At least make her aware of the bitter heartfelt repentance which you have seen in me. That is all — all that I beg of you; do not deny me this; I should have to choose another less powerful intercessor, and even you owe her anyhow a faithful account. Do tell her how you have found me!

Beaumarchais.
Well! this I can do, this I shall do. Good-by, then.

Clavigo.
Farewell! (He wishes to take his hand; Beaumarchais draws it back.)

Clavigo.
(Alone.) So unexpectedly from one position into the other. It is an infatuation, a dream! — I should not have given this vindication. — It came so quickly, so suddenly, like a thunder-storm!
Carlos enters.

Carlos.
What visit is this you have had? The whole house is astir. What is the matter?

Clavigo.
Marie’s brother.

Carlos.
I suspected it. This old dog of a servant, who was formerly with Guilbert, and who at present acts the spy for me, knew yesterday that he was expected, and found me only this moment. He was here then?

Clavigo.
An excellent young man.

Carlos.
Of whom we shall soon be rid. Already I have spread nets on his way! — What, then, was the matter? A challenge? An apology? Was he very hot, the fellow?

Clavigo.
He demanded a declaration, that his sister gave me no occasion for the change in my feelings towards her.

Carlos.
And have you granted it?

Clavigo.
I thought it was best.

Carlos.
Well, very well! Was that all?

Clavigo.
He insisted on a duel or the vindication.

Carlos.
The last was the most judicious. Who will risk his life for a boy so romantic? And did he exact the paper with violence?

Clavigo.
He dictated it to me, and I had to call the servants into the gallery.

Carlos.
I understand! ah! now I have you, little master! That will prove his ruin. Call me a scrivener, if I have not in two days the varlet in prison and off for India by the next transport.

Clavigo.
No, Carlos. The matter stands otherwise than as you think.

Carlos.
How?

Clavigo.
I hope through his intervention, through my earnest endeavors, to obtain forgiveness from the unhappy lady.

Carlos.
Clavigo!

Clavigo.
I hope to efface all the past, to heal the breach, and so in my own eyes and in the eyes of the world again to become an honorable man.

Carlos.
The devil! Have you become childish? One can still detect the bookworm in you. — To let yourself be so befooled! Do you not see that that is a stupidly laid plan to entrap you?

Clavigo.
No, Carlos, he does not wish marriage; they are even opposed to it; she will not listen to aught from me.

Carlos.
That is the very point. No, my good friend, take it not ill; I may, perhaps, in plays have seen a country squire thus cheated.

Clavigo.
You pain me. I beg you will reserve your humor for my wedding. I have resolved to marry Marie of my own accord, from the impulse of my heart. All my hope, all my felicity, rests on the thought of procuring her forgiveness. And then away, Pride! Heaven still lies, as before, in the breast of this loved one. All the fame which I acquire, all the greatness to which I rise will fill me with double joy, for it is shared by the lady who makes me twice a man. Farewell! I must hence. I must at least speak with Guilbert.

Carlos.
Wait only till after dinner.

Clavigo.
Not a moment.
[Exit .

Carlos.
(Looking after him after a moment’s silence.) There is some one going to burn his fingers again!

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Guilbert’sabode.
Sophie Guilbert, Marie, Beaumarchais.

Marie.
You have seen him? All my limbs tremble! You have seen him? I had almost fainted when I heard he was come; and you have seen him? No, I can — I will — no — I can never see him again.

Sophie.
I was beside myself when he stepped in. For ah! did I not love him as you, with the fullest, purest, most sisterly love? Has not his estrangement grieved, tortured me? And now, the returning, the repentant one, at my feet! Sister, there is something so charming in his look, in the tone of his voice. He —

Marie.
Never, never more!

Sophie.
He is the same as ever; has still that good, soft, feeling heart; still even that impetuosity of passion. There is still even the desire to be loved, and the excruciatingly painful torture when love is denied him. All! all! and of thee he speaks, Marie! as in those happy days of the most ardent passion. It is as if your good genius had even brought about this interval of infidelity and separation, to break the uniformity and tediousness of a prolonged attachment, and impart to the feeling a fresh vivacity.

Marie.
Do you speak a word for him?

Sophie.
No, sister. Nor have I promised to do so. Only, dearest, I see things as they are. You and your brother see them in a light far too romantic. You have this experience in common with many a very good girl, that your lover became faithless and forsook you. And that he comes again penitent, will amend his fault, revive all old hopes — that is a happiness which another would not lightly reject.

Marie.
My heart would break!

Sophie.
I believe you. The first moment must make a sensible impression on you — and then, my dear, I beseech you, regard not this anxiety, this embarrassment, which seems to overpower all your senses, as a result of hatred and ill-will. Your heart speaks more for him than you suppose, and even on that account you do not trust yourself to see him, because you so anxiously desire his return.

Marie.
Spare me, dearest!

Sophie.
You should be happy. Did I feel that you despised him, that he was indifferent to you, I would not say another word, he should see my face no more. Yet, as it is, my love, you will thank me that I have helped you to overcome this painful irresolution, which is a token of the deepest love.
Guilbert, Buenco.

Sophie.
Come, Buenco! Guilbert, come! Help me to give this darling courage, resolution, now while we may.

Buenco.
Would that I dared say — Receive him again.

Sophie.
Buenco!

Buenco.
The thought makes my blood boil — that he should still possess this angel, whom he has so shamefully injured, whom he has dragged to the grave. He — possess her? Why? How does he repair all that he has violated? He returns; once more it pleases him to return and say: “Now I may; now I will,” just as if this excellent soul were suspected wares, which one after all tosses to the buyer, when he has already tormented you to the marrow by the meanest offers, and haggling like a Jew. No, my voice he will never obtain, not even if the heart of Marie herself should speak for him. To return; and why, then, now? — now? — Must he wait till a valiant brother come, whose vengeance he must fear, and, like a schoolboy, come and crave pardon? Ha! he is as cowardly as he is worthless.

Guilbert.
You speak like a Spaniard, and as if you did not know Spaniards. This moment we are in greater danger than you are aware of.

Marie.
Good Guilbert!

Guilbert.
I honor our brother’s bold soul. In silence I have observed his heroic conduct. That all may turn out well, I wish that Marie could resolve to give Clavigo her hand; for — (smiling) — her heart he has still.

Marie.
You are cruel.

Sophie.
Listen to him, I beseech you, listen to him!

Guilbert.
Your brother has wrung from him a declaration, which will vindicate you in the eyes of the world, and ruin us.

Buenco.
How?

Marie.
O God!

Guilbert.
He gave it in the hope of touching your heart. If you remain unmoved, then he must with might and main destroy the paper. This he can do; this he will do. Your brother will print and publish it immediately after his return from Aranjuez. I fear, if you persist, he will not return.

Sophie.
My dear Guilbert!

Marie.
It is killing me!

Guilbert.
Clavigo cannot let the paper be published. If you reject his offer and he is a man of honor, he goes to meet your brother, and one of them falls; and whether your brother perish or triumph he is lost. A stranger in Spain! The murderer of this beloved courtier! My sister, it is all very well to think and feel nobly, but to ruin yourself and yours —

Marie.
Advise me, Sophie; help me!

Guilbert.
And Buenco, contradict me, if you can.

Buenco.
He dares not; he fears for his life; otherwise he would not have written at all; he would not have offered Marie his hand.

Guilbert.
So much the worse. He will get a hundred to lend him their arm; a hundred to take away our brother’s life on the way. Ha! Buenco, are you then so young? Should not a courtier have assassins in his pay?

Buenco.
The king is great and good.

Guilbert.
Go then, traverse the walls which surround him, the guards, the ceremonial, and all that his courtiers have put between his people and him; press through and save us. Who comes?
Clavigo appears.

Clavigo.
I must! I must!
[Marie utters a shriek, and falls into Sophie’s arms.

Sophie.
Cruel man, in what a position you place us!
[Guilbert and Buenco draw near to her.

Clavigo.
Yes, it is she! it is she! and I am Clavigo! Listen to me, gentle Marie, if you will not look on me. At the time that Guilbert received me as a friend into his house, when I was a poor unknown youth, and when in my heart I felt for you an overpowering passion, was that any merit in me? or was it not rather an inner harmony of characters, a secret union of soul, so that you too could not remain unmoved by me, and I could flatter myself with the sole possession of this heart? And now — am I not even the same? Are you not even the same? Why should I not venture to hope? Why not entreat? Would you not once more take to your bosom a friend, a lover, whom you had long believed lost, if after a perilous, hapless voyage he returned unexpectedly and laid his preserved life at your feet? And have I not also tossed upon a raging sea? Are not our passions, with which we live in perpetual strife, more terrible and indomitable than those waves which drive the unfortunate far from his fatherland? Marie! Marie! How can you hate me when I have never ceased to love you? Amid all infatuation, and in the lap of all the enchanting seductions of vanity and pride, I have ever remembered those happy days of liberty which I spent at your feet in sweet retirement, as we saw lie before us a succession of blooming prospects. — And now, why would you not realize with me all that we hoped? Will you now not enjoy the happiness of life because a gloomy interval has deferred our hopes? No, my love, believe that the best friends in the world are not quite pure; the highest joy is also interrupted through our passions, through fate. Shall we complain that it has happened to us, as to all others, and shall we chastise ourselves in casting away this opportunity of repairing the past, of consoling a ruined family, of rewarding the heroic deed of a noble brother, and of establishing our own happiness forever? My friends! from whom I deserve nothing; my friends, who must be so, because they are the friends of virtue, to which I return, unite your entreaties with mine. Marie! (He falls on his knees.) Marie! Do you recognize my voice no more? Do you no more feel the pulse of my heart? Is it so? Marie! Marie!

Marie.
O Clavigo!

Clavigo.
(Leaps up and kisses her hand with transport.) She forgives me! She loves me! (He embraces Guilbert and Buenco.) She loves me still! O Marie, my heart told me so! I might have thrown myself at your feet, silently uttered with tears my anguish, my penitence; without words you would have understood me, without words I would have received my forgiveness. No, this intimate union of our souls is not destroyed; no, still they understand each other as in the olden time, in which no sound, no sign was needful to impart our deepest emotions. Marie! Marie! Marie!
Beaumarchais advances.

Beaumarchais.
Ha!

Clavigo.
(Rushing towards him.) My brother!

Beaumarchais.
Do you forgive him?

Marie.
No more, no more! my senses abandon me.
[They lead her away.

Beaumarchais.
Has she forgiven him?

Buenco.
It seems so.

Beaumarchais.
You do not deserve your happiness.

Clavigo.
Believe that I feel it.

Sophie.
(Returns.) She forgives him. A stream of tears broke from her eyes. He should withdraw, said she sobbing, till I recover! I forgive him. — ”Ah, my sister!” she exclaimed, and fell upon my neck, “whence knows he that I love him so?”

Clavigo.
(Kissing her hand.) I am the happiest man under the sun. My brother!

Beaumarchais.
(Embraces him.) With all my heart then. Although I must tell you: even yet I cannot be your friend, even yet I cannot love you. So now you are one of us, and let all be forgotten. The paper you gave me — here it is.
[He takes it from his portfolio, tears it, and gives it to him.

Clavigo.
I am yours, ever yours.

Sophie.
I beseech you to retire, that she may not hear your voice, that she may rest.

Clavigo.
(Embracing them in turn.) Farewell! Farewell! A thousand kisses to the angel.
[Exit .

Beaumarchais.
After all, it may be for the best, although I should have preferred it otherwise. (Smiling.) A girl is a good-natured creature, I must say — and, my friends, I should tell you, too, it was truly the thought, the wish of our ambassador, that Marie should forgive him, and that a happy marriage might end this sad story.

Guilbert.
I too am taking heart again.

Buenco.
He is your brother-in-law, and so, good-by! You shall see me in your house no more.

Beaumarchais.
Sir!

Guilbert.
Buenco!

Buenco.
I hate him now and always shall to the day of judgment. And take care with what kind of a man you have to do.
[Exit .

Guilbert.
He is a melancholy bird of ill omen. But yet in time he will be persuaded, when he sees that all goes well.

Beaumarchais.
Yet it was hasty to return him the paper.

Guilbert.
No more! no more! no visionary cares.
[Exit .

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Clavigo’sabode.Carlos,alone.

Carlos.
It is praiseworthy to place under guardianship a man, who, by his dissipation or other follies, shows that his reason is deranged. If the magistrate does that, who otherwise does not much concern himself about us, why should not we do it for a friend? Clavigo, you are in a bad position; but there is still hope. And, provided that you retain a little of your former docility, there is time yet to keep you from a folly which, with your lively and sensitive character, will cause the misery of your life, and lead you to an untimely grave. He comes.

Clavigo.
(Thoughtful.) Good-day, Carlos.

Carlos.
A very sad, dull — . Good-day! Is that the mood in which you come from your bride?

Clavigo.
She is an angel! They are excellent people!

Carlos.
You will not so hasten with the wedding that we cannot get an embroidered dress for the occasion?

Clavigo.
Jest or earnest, at our wedding no embroidered dresses will make a parade.

Carlos.
I believe it indeed.

Clavigo.
Pleasure in each other’s society, friendly harmony shall constitute the splendor of this festival.

Carlos.
You will have a quiet little wedding.

Clavigo.
As those who feel that their happiness rests entirely with themselves.

Carlos.
In those circumstances it is very proper.

Clavigo.
Circumstances! What do you mean by “those circumstances”?

Carlos.
As the matter now stands and remains.

Clavigo.
Listen, Carlos, I cannot bear a tone of reserve between friends. I know you are not in favor of this marriage; notwithstanding, if you have aught to say against it, you may say it. Come, out with it. How then does the matter stand? how goes it?

Carlos.
More unexpected, strange things happen to one in life, and it were not well if all went quite smoothly. One would have nothing to wonder at, nothing to whisper in the ear, nothing to pull to pieces in society.

Clavigo.
It will make some stir.

Carlos.
Clavigo’s wedding! that is clear of course. How many a girl in Madrid waits patiently for thee, hopes for thee, and if you now play them this trick?

Clavigo.
That cannot be helped now.

Carlos.
’Tis strange, I have known few men who make so great and general an impression on women as you. In all ranks there are good girls who occupy their time with plans and projects to become yours. One relies on her beauty, another on her riches, another on her rank, another on her wit, and another on her connections. What compliments have been paid to me on your account! For, indeed, neither my flat nose, nor crisp hair, nor my known contempt for women can bring me such good luck.

Clavigo.
You mock.

Carlos.
As if I have not already had in my hands declarations, offers, written with their own white fond little fingers, as badly spelled as an original love-letter of a girl can only be! How many pretty duennas have come under my thumb on this account!

Clavigo.
And you did not say a word of all this?

Carlos.
I did not wish to trouble you with mere trifles, and I could not have advised you to take any such matter seriously. O Clavigo, my heart has watched over your fate as over my own! I have no other friend but you; all men are not to be tolerated, and you even begin to be unbearable.

Clavigo.
I entreat you, be calm.

Carlos.
Burn the house of a man who has taken ten years to build it, and then send him a confessor to recommend Christian patience! A man ought to look out for no one but himself; people do not deserve —

Clavigo.
Are your misanthropic visions returning?

Carlos.
If I harp anew on that string, who is to blame but you? I said to myself: What would avail him at present the most advantageous marriage? him, who for an ordinary man has doubtless advanced far enough? But with his genius, with his gifts, it is not probable, it is not possible, that he can remain stationary. I concerted my plans. There are so few men at once so enterprising and so supple, so highly gifted and so diligent. He is well qualified in all departments. As recorder, he can rapidly acquire the most important knowledge; he will make himself necessary; and should a change take place, he becomes minister.

Clavigo.
I avow it. Often, too, were these my dreams.

Carlos.
Dreams! As surely as I should succeed in reaching the top of a tower, if I set off with the firm determination not to yield till I had carried my point, so surely would you have overcome all obstacles; and afterwards the rest would have given me no disquietude. You have no fortune from your family, so much the better! You would have become more zealous to acquire, more attentive to preserve. Besides, he who sits at the receipt of custom without enriching himself is a great fool; and I do not see why the country does not owe taxes to the minister as well as to the king. The latter gives his name, and the former the power. When I had arranged all that, I then sought out a fit match for you. I saw many a proud family which would have shut their eyes to your origin, many of the richest who would have gladly supported you in the maintenance of your rank, to share the dignity of the second king — and now —

Clavigo.
You are unjust, you lower my actual condition too much; and do you fancy then that I cannot rise higher, and make still further advances?

Carlos.
My dear friend, if you lop off the heart of a young plant, in vain will it afterwards and incessantly put forth countless shoots; it will form, perhaps, a large bush, but it is all over with the kingly attempt of its first growth. And think not that at the court this marriage is regarded with indifference. Have you forgotten what sort of men disapproved your attachment, your union with Marie? Have you forgotten who inspired you with the wise thought of abandoning her? Must I count them all on my fingers?

Clavigo.
This thought has already distressed me; yes, few will approve this step.

Carlos.
Nobody; and will not your powerful friends be indignant that you, without asking their leave, without consulting them, should have so hastily sacrificed yourself like a thoughtless child, who throws away his money in the market on worm-eaten nuts?

Clavigo.
That is impolite, Carlos, and exaggerated.

Carlos.
Not at all. Let one commit an egregious error through passion, I allow it. To marry a chambermaid because she is as beautiful as an angel! Well, the man is blamed, and yet people envy him.

Clavigo.
People, always the people!

Carlos.
You know I do not inquire very curiously after the success of others; but it is ever true that he who does nothing for others does nothing for himself; and if men do not wonder at or envy you, you too are not happy.

Clavigo.
The world judges by appearances. Oh! he who possesses Marie’s heart is to be envied.

Carlos.
Things appear what they are; but, frankly, I have always thought that there were hidden qualities that render your happiness enviable; for what one sees with his eyes and can comprehend with his understanding —

Clavigo.
You wish to make me desperate.

Carlos.
“How has that happened?” they will ask in the town. “How has that happened?” they will ask in the court. “But, good God! how has that happened? She is poor, without position. If Clavigo had not had an intrigue with her one would not have known that she was in the world; she is said to be well bred, agreeable, witty!” But who takes to himself a wife for that? That passes away in the first years of marriage. “Ah!” says some one, “she must be beautiful, charmingly, ravishingly beautiful.” “That explains the matter,” says another.

Clavigo.
(Troubled, lets a deep sigh escape.) Alas!

Carlos.
“Beautiful? Oh,” says one lady, “very good! I have not seen her for six years.” “She may well be altered,” says another. “One must, however, see her; he will soon take her out,” says a third. People ask, look, are eager, wait, and are impatient; they recall the ever-proud Clavigo, who never let himself be seen in public without leading out in triumph a stately, splendid, haughty Spanish lady, whose full breast, blooming cheeks, impassioned eyes — all, all seemed to ask the world encircling her: “Am I not worthy of my companion?” and who in her pride lets flaunt so widely in the breeze the train of her silken robe, to render her appearance more imposing and remarkable. — And now appears the gentleman — and surprise renders the people dumb — he comes accompanied by his tripping little Frenchwoman, whose hollow eyes, whose whole appearance announces consumption, in spite of the red and white with which she has daubed her death-pale countenance. Yes, brother! I become frantic, I run away, when people stop me now and ask, and question, and say they cannot understand —

Clavigo.
(Seizing his hand.) My friend, my brother, I am in a frightful position. I tell you, I avow I was horror-struck, when I saw Marie again. How changed she is! — how pale and exhausted! Oh! it is my fault, my treacheries! —

Carlos.
Follies! visions! She was in consumption when the romance of your love was still unfolding. I told you a thousand times, and — But you lovers have your eyes, nay, all your senses closed. Clavigo, it is a shame. All, yes, all to forget thus! A sick wife, who will plague all your posterity, so that all your children and grandchildren will in a few years be politely extinguished, like the sorry lamp of a beggar. — A man who could have been the founder of a family, which perhaps in future — Ah! I am becoming a fool, my reason fails me.

Clavigo.
Carlos, what shall I say to thee? When I saw her again, in the first transport, my heart went out towards her; and alas! when that was gone, compassion — a deep, heartfelt pity was breathed into me: but love — Lo! in the warm fulness of joy, I seemed to feel on my neck the cold hand of death. I strove to be cheerful; to play the part of a happy man again, in presence of those who surrounded me: it was all gone, all so stiff, so painfully anxious! Had they not somewhat lost their self-possession, they would have remarked it.

Carlos.
Hell! death and devil! and you are going to marry her! (Clavigo remains absorbed, without giving any answer.) It is all over with thee; lost forever. Farewell, brother, and let me forget all; let me, all the rest of my solitary life, furiously curse your fatal blindness. Ah! to sacrifice all, to render one’s self despicable in the eyes of the world, and not even then satisfy thereby a passion, a desire! To contract a malady voluntarily which, while undermining your inmost strength, will make you hideous in the eyes of men!

Clavigo.
Carlos! Carlos!

Carlos.
Would that you had never been elevated, at least you would never have fallen! With what eyes will they look on all this! “There is the brother,” they will say; “he must be a lad of spirit; he has put to the last shift Clavigo, who dared not draw the sword.” “Ah!” our flaunting courtesans will say, “one saw all along that he was not a gentleman.” “Ah, ah!” exclaims another, while drawing his hat over his eyes, “the Frenchman should have come to me!” And he claps himself on the paunch — a fellow, who perhaps were not worthy of being your groom!

Clavigo.
(Expresses the most acute distress, and falls into the arms of Carlos amid a torrent of tears.) Save me! My friend! my best friend, save me! Save me from a double perjury! from an unutterable disgrace, from myself. I am done for!

Carlos.
Poor, hapless one! I hoped that these youthful furies, these stormy tears, this absorbing melancholy would have been gone; I hoped to behold you, as a man, agitated no more, no more plunged in that overwhelming sorrow, which in other days you so often uttered on my breast with tears. Be a man, Clavigo; quit yourself like a man!

Clavigo.
Let me weep! (Throws himself into a chair.)

Carlos.
Alas for you that you have entered on a career which you will not pursue to the end! With vour heart, with your sentiments, which would make a tranquil citizen happy, you must unite this unhappy hankering after greatness! And what is greatness, Clavigo? To raise one’s self above others in rank and consequence? Believe it not. If your heart is not greater than that of others; if you are not able to place yourself calmly above the circumstances which would embarrass an ordinary man, then with all your ribbons, all your stars, even with the crown itself, you are but an ordinary man. Take heart, compose your mind! (Clavigo rises, looks on Carlos,and holds out his hand, which Carlos eagerly seizes.) Come, come, my friend! make up your mind. Look, I will put everything aside, and will say to you: Here lie two proposals on equal scales; either you marry Marie and find your happiness in a quiet citizen-like life, in tranquil homely joys; or you bend your steps along the path of honor to a near goal. — I will put all aside, and say: The beam of the balance is in equilibrium; your decision will settle which of the two scales will carry the day! Good! But decide! There is nothing in the world so pitiable as an undecided man, who wavers between two feelings, hoping to reconcile them, and does not understand that nothing can unite them except the doubt, the disquietude, which rack him. Go, and give Marie your hand, act as an honorable man, who, to keep his word, sacrifices the happiness of his life, who regards it as a duty to repair the wrong he has committed; but who, too, has never extended the sphere of his passions and activity further than to be in a position to repair the wrong he has committed; and thus enjoy the happiness of a tranquil retirement, the approval of a peaceful conscience, and all the blessedness belonging to those who are able to create their own happiness and provide the joy of their families. Decide, and then shall I say — You are every inch a man.

Clavigo.
Carlos! Oh, for a spark of your strength — of your courage!

Carlos.
It slumbers in thee, and I will blow till it gives vent to flames. Behold on the one side the fortune and the greatness which await you. I shall not set off this future with the variegated hues of poetry; represent it to yourself with such vivacity as it clearly appeared before your mind, till the hot-headed Frenchman made you lose your wits. But there too, Clavigo, be a man thoroughly, and take your way straight, without looking to the right or left. May your soul expand, and this great idea become deeply rooted there, that extraordinary men are extraordinary precisely because their duties differ from the duties of ordinary men; that he, whose task it is to watch over, to govern, to preserve a great whole, needs not reproach himself with having overlooked trifling circumstances, with having sacrificed small matters to the good of the whole. Thus acts the Creator in nature, and the king in the state; why should not we do the same, in order to resemble them?

Clavigo.
Carlos, I am a little man.

Carlos.
We are not little when circumstances trouble us, only when they overpower us. Yet another breath, and you are yourself again. Cast away the remnant of a pitiable passion, which in these days as little becomes you as the little gray jacket and modest mien with which you arrived at Madrid. What the poor girl has done for you, you have long ago returned; and that your first friendly reception was from her hands. — Oh! another, for the pleasure of your acquaintance, would have done as much and more, without putting forth such pretensions. And would you take it into your head to give your schoolmaster the half of your fortune because he taught you the alphabet thirty years ago? What say you, Clavigo!

Clavigo.
That is all very well. On the whole you may be right, it may be so; only how are we to get out of the embarrassment in which we stick fast? Advise me there, help me there, and then lecture.

Carlos.
Good! Do you wish it so?

Clavigo.
Give me the power and I shall exert it. I am not able to think; think for me.

Carlos.
Thus then. First you will go and meet this person, and then you will demand, sword in hand, the vindication which you inconsiderately and involuntarily gave.

Clavigo.
I have it already; he tore it and returned it to me.

Carlos.
Excellent! excellent! That step taken already — and you have let me speak so long? — Your course is so much the shorter! Write him quite coolly: “You find it inconvenient to marry his sister; the reason he can learn if he will repair to-night to a certain place, attended by a friend, and armed with any weapons he likes.” And then follows the signature. — Come, Clavigo, write that; I shall be your second — and the devil is in it if — (Clavigo approaches the table.) Listen! A word! If I think aright of it, it is an extravagant proposal. Who are we to risk our lives with a mad adventurer? Besides, the man’s conduct, his standing, do not deserve that we regard him as an equal. Listen then! Now if I made a criminal charge against him, that he arrived secretly at Madrid, got himself announced under a pseudonym with an accomplice, at first gained your confidence with friendly words, and thereafter fell upon you all of a sudden, forcibly obtained a declaration, and afterwards went off to spread it abroad — that will prove his ruin: he shall learn what that means — to invade the tranquillity of a Spaniard under his own roof.

Clavigo.
You are right.

Carlos.
But till the law-suit has begun, in which interval the gentleman might play all sorts of tricks, if now we could meanwhile play a dead-sure game, and seize him tight by the head.

Clavigo.
I understand, and know you are the man to carry it out.

Carlos.
Ah! well! if I, who have been at it for five-and-twenty years, and have witnessed tears of anguish trickling down the cheeks of the foremost men, if I cannot unravel such child’s play! So then, give me full power; you need do nothing, write nothing. He, who orders the imprisonment of the brother, pantomimically intimates that he will have nothing to do with the sister.

Clavigo.
No, Carlos! Let it go as it may, I cannot, I will not suffer that. Beaumarchais is a worthy man, and he shall not languish in an ignominious prison on account of his righteous cause. Another plan, Carlos, another!

Carlos.
Bah! bah! Stuff and nonsense! We will not devour him. He will be well lodged and well cared for, and thereafter he cannot hold out long: for, observe, when he perceives that it is in earnest, all his theatrical rage will cease; he will come to terms, return smartly to France, and be only too thankful, if we secure a yearly pension for his sister — perhaps the only thing he cared a straw about.

Clavigo.
So be it then! Only let him be kindly dealt with.

Carlos.
Leave that to me. — One precaution more! We cannot know but that it may be blabbed out — that the thing may get wind, and then he gets over you, and all is lost. Therefore, leave your house, so that your very servant does not know where you have gone. Take with you only absolute necessaries. I shall despatch you a fellow who will conduct you and bring you to a place where the holy Hermandad herself will not find you. I have always in readiness a few of these mouseholes. Adieu!

Clavigo.
Good-by!

Carlos.
Cheer up! cheerily! When it is all over, brother, we will enjoy ourselves.
[Exit .

SCENE II.

Guilbert’sabode.

Sophie Guilbert, Marie Beaumarchais at work.

Marie.
With such violence did Buenco depart?

Sophie.
It was natural. He loves you, and how could he endure the sight of the man whom he must doubly hate?

Marie.
He is the best, most upright citizen whom I have ever known. (Showing her work to her sister.) It seems to me I must do it thus. I shall take in that and turn the end up. That will do nicely.

Sophie.
Very well. And I am going to put a straw-colored ribbon on my bonnet; it becomes me best. Do you smile?

Marie.
I am laughing at myself. We girls are wonderful people, I must say: hardly are our spirits but a little raised than straightway we are busy with finery and ribbons.

Sophie.
You cannot find fault with yourself at all; from the moment Clavigo forsook you, nothing could give you the least pleasure. (Marie starts up and looks towards the door.) What is the matter?

Marie.
(Anxious.) I thought some one was coming! My poor heart! Oh, it will destroy me yet! Feel how it beats with groundless terrors!

Sophie.
You look pale. Be calm, I beseech you, my love!

Marie.
(Pointing to her breast.) I feel here an oppression — a sudden pain. It will kill me.

Sophie.
Be careful.

Marie.
I am a foolish, hapless girl. Pain and joy with all their force have undermined my poor life. I tell you, ’tis but half a joy that I have him again. Little shall I enjoy the happiness that awaits me in his arms; perhaps not at all.

Sophie.
My sister, my only love! You are wearing yourself out with these visions.

Marie.
Why shall I deceive myself?

Sophie.
You are young and happy, and can hope for all.

Marie.
Hope! Oh, the only sweet balm of life! How often it charms my soul! Happy youthful dreams hover before me and accompany the beloved form of the peerless one, who now is mine again. O Sophie, he is so winsome! Whilst I saw him not, he has — I know not how I shall express it; — all the qualities, which in former days lay hid in him through his diffidence, have unfolded themselves. He has become a man, and must with this pure feeling of his, with which he advances, that is so entirely devoid of pride and vanity — he must captivate all hearts. — And he shall be mine? No, my sister, I was not worthy of him — and now I am much less so!

Sophie.
Take him, however, and be happy. I hear your brother!
Beaumarchais enters.

Beaumarchais.
Where is Guilbert?

Sophie.
He has been gone some time; he cannot be much longer.

Marie.
What is the matter, brother? (Springing up and falling on his neck.) Dear brother, what is the matter?

Beaumarchais.
Nothing! nothing at all, my Marie!

Marie.
If I am thy Marie, do tell me what is on thy mind!

Sophie.
Let him be. Men often look vexed without having aught particular on their mind.

Marie.
No, no. I see thy face only a little while; but already I read all thy thoughts, all the feelings of thy pure and sincere soul are stamped on thy brow. There is somewhat which makes thee anxious. Speak, what is it?

Beaumarchais.
It is nothing, my love. I hope that at bottom it is nothing. Clavigo —

Marie.
How?

Beaumarchais.
I was at Clavigo’s house. He is not at home.

Sophie.
And does that perplex you?

Beaumarchais.
His hall-servant says he has gone he knows not where; no one knows how long. If he should be hiding himself! If he be really gone! Whither? for what reason?

Marie.
We will wait.

Beaumarchais.
Thy tongue lies. Ah! the paleness of thy cheeks, the trembling of thy limbs, all speak and testify that thou canst not wait. Dear sister! (Clasps her in his arms.) On this beating, painfully trembling heart I vow. — hear me, O God, who art righteous! hear me, all His saints! — thou shalt be avenged, if he — my senses abandon me at the thought — if he fail, if he make himself guilty of a frightful, double perjury; if he mock at our misery — No, it is, it is not possible, not possible — thou shalt be avenged.

Sophie.
All too soon, too precipitate. Be careful of her health. I beseech you, my brother. (Marie sits down.) What ails thee? You are fainting.

Marie.
No, no. You are so anxious.

Sophie.
(Gives her water.) Take this glass.

Marie.
No, no! what avails that? Well, for my own sake, give it me.

Beaumarchais.
Where is Guilbert? Where is Buenco? Send after them, I entreat you. (Sophie exit.) How dost thou feel, Marie?

Marie.
Well, quite well! Think’st thou then, brother —

Beaumarchais.
What, my love?

Marie.
Ah!

Beaumarchais.
Is your breathing painful?

Marie.
The disordered beating of my heart oppresses me.

Beaumarchais.
Have you then no remedy? Do you use no anodyne?

Marie.
I know of only one remedy, and for that I have prayed to God many a time and oft.

Beaumarchais.
Thou shalt have it, and I hope from my hand.

Marie.
That will do well.
Sophie enters.

Sophie.
A courier has just brought this letter; he comes from Aranjuez.

Beaumarchais.
That is the seal and the hand of our ambassador.

Sophie.
I bade him dismount and take some refreshment; he would not, because he had yet more despatches.

Marie.
Will you, my love, send the servant for the physician?

Sophie.
Are you ill? Holy God! what ails thee?

Marie.
You will make me so anxious that at last I shall scarcely dare ask for a glass of water. Sophie! Brother! — What is in the letter? See, how he trembles! how all courage leaves him!

Sophie.
Brother, my brother! (Beaumarchais throws himself speechless into a chair and lets the letter fall.) My brother! (Lifts up the letter and reads it.)

Marie.
Let me see it! I must — (tries to rise.) Alas! I feel it. It is the last. O sister, spare not for mercy’s sake the last quick death-stroke! — He betrays us!

Beaumarchais.
(Springing up.) He betrays us! (Beating on his brow and breast.) Here! here! All is as dumb, as dead before my soul, as if a thunder-clap had disordered my senses. Marie! Marie! thou art betrayed! — and I stand here! Whither? — What? — I see nothing, nothing! no way, no safety! (Throws himself into a seat.)
Guilbert enters.

Sophie.
Guilbert! Counsel! Help! We are lost!

Guilbert.
My wife!

Sophie.
Read! read! The ambassador makes known to our brother: that Clavigo has made a criminal complaint against him, under the pretext that he introduced himself into his house under a false name; and that taking him by surprise in bed and presenting a pistol, he compelled him to sign a disgraceful vindication; and if he do not quickly withdraw from the kingdom, they will get him thrown into prison, from which the ambassador himself perhaps will not be able to deliver him.

Beaumarchais.
(Springing up.) Indeed, they shall do so! they shall do so! shall get me imprisoned; but from his corpse, from the place where I shall have glutted my vengeance with his blood. Ah! the stern, frightful thirst after his blood fills my whole soul. Thanks to Thee, God in heaven, that Thou vouchsafest to man, amid burning, insupportable wrongs, a solace, a refreshment! What a thirst for vengeance I feel in my breast! how the glorious feeling, the lust for his blood, raises me out of my utter dejection, out of my sluggish indecision; raises me above myself! Vengeance! How I rejoice in it! how all within me strives after him, to seize him, to destroy him!

Sophie.
Thou art terrible, brother!

Beaumarchais.
So much the better. — Ah! No sword, no weapon! with these hands will I strangle him, that the triumph may be mine! all my own the feeling: I have destroyed him!

Marie.
My heart! my heart!

Beaumarchais.
I have not been able to save thee, so thou shalt be avenged. I pant after his footsteps, my teeth lust after his flesh, my gums after his blood. Have I become a frantic wild beast! There burns in every vein, there glows in every nerve, the desire after him, after him! — I could hate him forever, who should make away with him by poison, who should rid me of him by assassination. Oh, help me, Guilbert, to seek him out. Where is Buenco? Help me to find him!

Guilbert.
Save yourself! save yourself! you have lost your reason.

Marie.
Flee, my brother!

Sophie.
Take him away; he will cause his sister’s death.
Buenco appears.

Buenco.
Up, sir! away! I saw it before. I gave heed to all. And now they are in hot pursuit; you are lost if you do not leave the town this moment.

Beaumarchais.
Never more! Where is Clavigo?

Buenco.
I do not know.

Beaumarchais.
Thou knowest. I entreat you on my knees, tell me.

Sophie.
For God’s sake, Buenco!

Marie.
Ah! air! air! (Falls back.) Clavigo! —

Buenco.
Help, she is dying!

Sophie.
Forsake us not, God in heaven! Hence! my brother, away!

Beaumarchais.
(Falls down before Marie, who despite every aid does not recover.) To forsake thee! to forsake thee!

Sophie.
Stay, then, and ruin us all, as you have killed Marie. You are gone, then, O my sister, through the heedlessness of your own brother!

Beaumarchais.
Stop, sister!

Sophie.
(Mocking.) Saviour! — Avenger! — help yourself!

Beaumarchais.
Do I deserve this?

Sophie.
Give her to me again! And then go to the prison, to the stake; go, pour forth thy blood and give me her again.

Beaumarchais.
Sophie!

Sophie.
Ha! and she is gone, she is dead — save yourself for us! (Falling on his neck.) My brother, for us! for our father! Haste, haste! That was her fate! she has met it! And there is a God in heaven, to Him leave vengeance.

Buenco.
Hence! away! Come with me; I will hide you till we find means to get you out of the kingdom.

Beaumarchais.
(Falls on Marie and kisses her.) Sister dear! (They tear him away, he clasps Sophie,she disengages herself. They remove Marie,and Buenco and Beaumarchais retire.)
Guilbert,a Physician.

Sophie.
(Returning from the room to which they had taken Marie.) Too late! She is gone! she is dead!

Guilbert.
Come in, sir! See for yourself! It is not possible!
[Exit .

ACT V.

SCENE I.

The street before the house ofGuilbert.Night.
[The house is open, and before the door stand three men clad in black mantles, holding torches. Clavigo enters, wrapped in a cloak, his sword under his arm; a Servant goes before him with a torch.

Clavigo.
I told you to avoid this street.

Servant.
We must have gone a great way round, sir, and you are in such haste. It is not far hence where Don Carlos is lodged.

Clavigo.
Torches there!

Servant.
A funeral. Come on, sir.

Clavigo.
Marie’s abode! A funeral! A death-agony shudders through all my limbs! Go, ask whom they are going to bury.

Servant.
(To the men.) Whom are you going to bury?

The Men.
Marie de Beaumarchais.
[Clavigo sits down on a stone and covers himself with a cloak.

Servant.
(Comes back.) They are going to bury Marie de Beaumarchais.

Clavigo.
(Springing up.) Must thou repeat it? Repeat that word of thunder which strikes all the marrow out of my bones?

Servant.
Peace, sir! Come on, sir. Consider the danger by which you are surrounded.

Clavigo.
To hell with thee, reptile! I remain.

Servant.
O Carlos! Oh, that I could find thee! — Carlos! — he has lost his reason.
[Exit .

SCENE II.

Clavigo.The Mutes in the distance.

Clavigo.
Dead! Marie dead! Torches! her dismal attendants! it is a trick of enchantment, a night vision, which terrifies me; which holds up to me a mirror, in which I may see foreboded the end of all my treacheries. But there is still time. Still! — I tremble — my heart melts with horror! No! no! thou shalt not die — I come, I come! Vanish, ye spirits of the night, who with your horrible terrors set yourselves in my way. (He goes up to them.) Vanish — they remain! Ha! they look round after me! Woe! woe is me! They are men like myself. It is true! true! Canst thou comprehend it? She is dead! It seizes me amid all the horrors of midnight — the feeling — she is dead. There she lies, the flower at your feet! and thou — Oh, have mercy on me, God in heaven — I have not killed her! Hide yourselves, ye stars! look not down! — ye who have so often beheld the villain with feelings of the most heartfelt happiness leave this threshold; through this very street float along in golden dreams with music and song, and enrapture his maiden listening at the secret casement and lingering in transport. And now I fill the house with wailing and sorrow — and this scene of my bliss with the funeral song — Marie! Marie! take me with thee! take me with thee! (Mournful music breathes forth a few sounds from within.) They are setting out on the way to the grave. Stop! stop! Shut not the coffin. Let me see her once more. (He runs up to the house.) Ha! into whose presence am I rushing? Whom to face in his terrible sorrow? Her friends! her brother! whose breast is panting with raving grief! (The music recommences.) She calls me! she calls me! I come! What anguish is this which overwhelms me? What shuddering withholds me?
[The music begins for the third time and continues. The torches move before the door; three others come out to them, who range themselves in order to inclose the funeral procession, which now comes out of the house. Six bearers carry the bier, upon which lies the coffin, covered.

SCENE III.

Guilbert and Buenco (in deep mourning).

Clavigo.
(Coming forward.) Stay!

Guilbert.
What voice is that?

Clavigo.
Stay!
[The bearers stop.

Buenco.
Who dares to interrupt the solemn funeral?

Clavigo.
Set it down.

Guilbert.
Ha!

Buenco.
Wretch! Are thy deeds of shame not yet ended? Is thy victim not safe from thee in the coffin?

Clavigo.
No more! Make me not frantic. The wretched are dangerous; I must see her.
[He tears off the pall and the lid of the coffin. Marie is seen lying within it, clad in white, her hands clasped before her; Clavigo steps back and covers his face.

Buenco.
Wilt thou awake her to murder her again?

Clavigo.
Poor mocker! Marie!
[He falls down before the coffin.

SCENE IV.

Enter Beaumarchais.The preceding.

Beaumarchais.
Buenco has left me. They say she is not dead. I must see, spite of hell, I must see her. Ha! torches! a funeral!
[He runs hastily up to it, gazes on the coffin, and falls down speechless. They raise him up; he is as if deprived of sense; Guilbert holds him.

Clavigo.
(Who is standing on the other side of the coffin.) Marie! Marie!

Beaumarchais.
(Springing up.) That is his voice. Who calls Marie? At the sound of that voice what burning rage starts into my veins!

Clavigo.
It is I. (Beaumarchais staring wildly around and grasping his sword. Guilbert holds him.) I fear not thy blazing eyes, nor the point of thy sword. Oh! look here, here, on these closed eyes — these clasped hands!

Beaumarchais.
Dost thou show me that sight?
[He tears himself loose, runs upon Clavigo.who instantly draws; they fight; Beaumarchais pierces him through the breast.

Clavigo.
(Falling.) I thank thee, brother; thou marriest us.
[He falls upon the coffin.

Beaumarchais.
(Tearing him away.) Hence from this saint, thou fiend!

Clavigo.
Alas!
[The bearers raise up his body and support him.

Beaumarchais.
His blood! Look up, Marie, look upon thy bridal ornaments, and then close thine eyes forever. See how I have consecrated thy place of rest with the blood of thy murderer! Charming! Glorious!

SCENE V.

Enter Sophie.The preceding.

Sophie.
My brother? Oh, my God, what is the matter?

Beaumarchais.
Draw nearer, my love, and see! I hoped to have strewn her bridal bed with roses; see the roses with which I adorn her on her way to heaven!

Sophie.
We are lost!

Clavigo.
Save yourself, rash one! save yourself, ere the dawn of day. May God, who sent you for an avenger, conduct you! Sophie, forgive me. Brothers, friends, forgive me.

Beaumarchais.
How the sight of his gushing blood extinguishes all the glowing vengeance within me! how with his departing life vanishes all my rage! (Going up to him.) Die! I forgive thee.

Clavigo.
Your hand! and yours, Sophie! and yours!
[Buenco hesitates.

Sophie.
Give it him, Buenco.

Clavigo.
I thank you; you are as good as ever; I thank you. And thou, O spirit of my beloved, if thou still hoverest around this place, look down, see these heavenly favors, bestow thy blessing, and do thou too forgive me. I come! I come! Save yourself, my brother. Tell me, did she forgive me? How did she die?

Sophie.
Her last word was thy unhappy name. She departed without taking leave of us.

Clavigo.
I will follow her and bear your farewells to her.

SCENE VI.

Carlos,a Servant.The preceding.

Carlos.
Clavigo! murderers!

Clavigo.
Hear me, Carlos! Thou seest here the victim of thy prudence; and now, I conjure thee, for the sake of that blood, in which my life irrevocably flows away, save my brother.

Carlos.
Oh, my friend! (To the servant.) You standing there? Fly for a surgeon.
[Exit  servant.

Clavigo.
It is in vain; save, save my unhappy brother! thy hand thereon. They have forgiven me, and so forgive I thee. Accompany him to the frontiers, and — oh!

Carlos.
(Stamping with his feet.) Clavigo! Clavigo!

Clavigo.
(Drawing nearer to the coffin, upon which they lay him down.) Marie! Thy hand!
[He unfolds her hands and grasps the right hand.

Sophie.
(To Beaumarchais.) Hence, unhappy one, away!

Clavigo.
I have her hand, her cold, dead hand. Thou art mine. Yet this last bridal kiss! Alas!

Sophie.
He is dying! Save thyself, brother!
[Beaumarchais falls on Sophie’s neck. She returns the embrace and makes a sign for him to withdraw.

EGMONT

Translated by Anna Swanwick

Completed in 1788, Egmont was heavily influenced by Shakespearean tragedy and concerns the downfall of a man who trusts in the goodness of those around him. The tragedy is a political manifesto in which Egmont’s craving for justice and national liberty is opposed to the despotic authority of the Duke of Alba. It is also a drama of destiny in which the Flemish nobleman, with fatalism, accepts the dire consequences of his straightforwardness and honesty.

The play relates the fight of Count Egmont (1522-1568) against the tyrannical Duke of Alba. Egmont is a famous Dutch warrior and the Duke of Alba represents the Spanish invader. Though under threat of arrest, Egmont refuses to run away and give up his ideal of liberty. Imprisoned and abandoned because of the cowardice of his people, and despite the desperate efforts of his mistress Klärchen, he is sentenced to death.

Count of Egmont was a general and statesman in the Habsburg Netherlands just before the start of the Eighty Years’ War, whose execution helped spark the national uprising that eventually led to the independence of the Netherlands.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

ACT V

An original illustration from a scene of the tragedy

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

In 1775, when Goethe was twenty-six, and before he went to Weimar, he began to write “Egmont” After working on it at intervals for twelve years, he finished it at Rome in 1787.

The scene of the drama is laid in the Low Countries at the beginning of the revolt against Spain. In the fifteenth century Philip of Burgundy had usurped dominion over several of the provinces of the Netherlands, and through him they had passed into the power of his descendant, the Emperor Charles V. This powerful ruler abolished the constitutional rights of the provinces, and introduced the Inquisition in order to stamp out Protestantism. Prominent among his officers was the Fleming, Lamoral, Count Egmont, upon whom he lavished honors and opportunities of service — opportunities so well improved that, by his victories over the French at Saint-Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558) Egmont made a reputation as one of the most brilliant generals in Europe, and became the idol of his countrymen. When in 1559 a new Regent of the Netherlands was to be created, the people hoped that Philip II, who had succeeded Charles, would choose Egmont; but instead he appointed his half-sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma. Under the new Regent the persecution of the Protestants was rigorously pressed, and in 1565 Egmont, though a Catholic, was sent to Madrid to plead for clemency. He was received by the King with every appearance of cordiality, but shortly after his return home the Duke of Alva was sent to the Netherlands with instructions to put down with an iron hand all resistance to his master’s will. How terribly he carried out his orders has been told by Prescott and Motley. Egmont was an early victim, but his martyrdom, with that of Count Horn, and later the assassination of William of Orange, roused the Netherlands to a resistance that ended only with the complete throwing off of the Spanish yoke.

Such in outline is the background chosen by Goethe for his tragedy. With many changes in detail, the dramatist has still preserved a picture of a historical situation of absorbing interest, and has painted a group of admirable portraits. The drama has long been a favorite on the stage, where it enjoys the advantage of Beethoven’s musical setting.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Margaret of Parma, (Daughter of Charles V., and Regent of the

  Netherlands)

  Count Egmont, (Prince of Gaure)

  The Duke of Alva

  William of Orange

  Ferdinand, (his natural Son)

  Machiavel, in the service of the Regent

  Richard, (Egmont’s Private Secretary)

  Silva, Gomez, (in the service of Alva)

  Clara, (the Beloved of Egmont)

  Her Mother

  Brackenburg, (a Citizen’s Son), and Vansen, (a Clerk)

  Soest, (a Shopkeeper), Jetter, (a Tailor), A Carpenter, A Soapboiler

  (Citizens of Brussels)

  Buyck, (a Hollander), a Soldier under Egmont

  Ruysum, (a Frieslander), an invalid Soldier, and deaf

  People, Attendants, Guards, &c.

  The Scene is laid in Brussels.

ACT I

SCENE I. — Soldiers and Citizens (with cross-bows)

Soest. Come, shoot away, and have done with it! You won’t beat me! Three black rings, you never made such a shot in all your life. And so I’m master for this year.

Jetter. Master and king to boot; who envies you? You’ll have to pay double reckoning; ’tis only fair you should pay for your dexterity.

Buyck. Jetter, I’ll buy your shot, share the prize, and treat the company. I have already been here so long, and am a debtor for so many civilities. If I miss, then it shall be as if you had shot.

Soest. I ought to have a voice, for in fact I am the loser. No matter! Come, Buyck, shoot away.

Buyck (shoots). Now, corporal, look out! — One! Two! Three! Four!

Soest. Four rings! So be it!

All. Hurrah! Long live the King! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Buyck. Thanks, sirs, master even were too much! Thanks for the honour.

Jetter. You have no one to thank but yourself. Ruysum. Let me tell you —

Soest. How now, grey-beard?

Ruysum. Let me tell you! — He shoots like his master, he shoots like Egmont.

Buyck. Compared with him I am only a bungler. He aims with the rifle as no one else does. Not only when he’s lucky or in the vein; no! he levels, and the bull’s-eye is pierced. I have learned from him. He were indeed a blockhead, who could serve under him and learn nothing! — But, sirs, let us not forget! A king maintains his followers; and so, wine here, at the king’s charge!

Jetter. We have agreed among ourselves that each —

Buyck. I am a foreigner, and a king, and care not a jot for your laws and customs.

Jetter. Why, you are worse than the Spaniard, who has not yet ventured to meddle with them.

Ruysum. What does he say?

Soest (loud to Ruysum). He wants to treat us; he will not hear of our clubbing together, the king paying only a double share.

Ruysum. Let him! under protest, however! ’Tis his master’s fashion, too, to be munificent, and to let the money flow in a good cause. (Wine is brought.)

All. Here’s to his Majesty! Hurrah!

Jetter (to Buyck). That means your Majesty, of course, Buyck. My hearty thanks, if it be so.

Soest. Assuredly! A Netherlander does not find it easy to drink the health of his Spanish majesty from his heart.

Ruysum. Who?

Soest (aloud). Philip the Second, King of Spain.

Ruysum. Our most gracious king and master! Long life to him.

Soest. Did you not like his father, Charles the Fifth, better?

Ruysum. God bless him! He was a king indeed! His hand reached over the whole earth, and he was all in all. Yet, when he met you, he’d greet you just as one neighbour greets another, — and if you were frightened, he knew so well how to put you at your ease — ay, you understand me — he walked out, rode out, just as it came into his head, with very few followers. We all wept when he resigned the government here to his son. You understand me — he is another sort of man, he’s more majestic.

Jetter. When he was here, he never appeared in public, except in pomp and royal state. He speaks little, they say.

Soest. He is no king for us Netherlanders. Our princes must be joyous and free like ourselves, must live and let live. We will neither be despised nor oppressed, good-natured fools though we be.

Jetter. The king, methinks, were a gracious sovereign enough, if he had only better counsellors.

Soest. No, no! He has no affection for us Netherlanders; he has no heart for the people; he loves us not; how then can we love him? Why is everybody so fond of Count Egmont? Why are we all so devoted to him? Why, because one can read in his face that he loves us; because joyousness, open-heartedness, and good-nature, speak in his eyes; because he possesses nothing that he does not share with him who needs it, ay, and with him who needs it not. Long live Count Egmont! Buyck, it is for you to give the first toast; give us your master’s health.

Buyck. With all my heart; here’s to Count Egmont! Hurrah!

Ruysum. Conqueror of St. Quintin.

Buyck. The hero of Gravelines.

All. Hurrah!

Ruysum. St. Quintin was my last battle. I was hardly able to crawl along, and could with difficulty carry my heavy rifle. I managed, notwithstanding, to singe the skin of the French once more, and, as a parting gift, received a grazing shot in my right leg.

Buyck. Gravelines! Ha, my friends, we had sharp work of it there! The victory was all our own. Did not those French dogs carry fire and desolation into the very heart of Flanders? We gave it them, however! The old hard-listed veterans held out bravely for a while, but we pushed on, fired away, and laid about us, till they made wry faces, and their lines gave way. Then Egmont’s horse was shot under him; and for a long time we fought pell-mell, man to man, horse to horse, troop to troop, on the broad, flat, sea-sand. Suddenly, as if from heaven, down came the cannon shot from the mouth of the river, bang, bang, right into the midst of the French. These were English, who, under Admiral Malin, happened to be sailing past from Dunkirk. They did not help us much, ’tis true; they could only approach with their smallest vessels, and that not near enough; — besides, their shot fell sometimes among our troops. It did some good, however! It broke the French lines, and raised our courage. Away it went. Helter-skelter! topsy-turvy! all struck dead, or forced into the water; the fellows were drowned the moment they tasted the water, while we Hollanders dashed in after them. Being amphibious, we were as much in our element as frogs, and hacked away at the enemy, and shot them down as if they had been ducks. The few who struggled through, were struck dead in their flight by the peasant women, armed with hoes and pitchforks. His Gallic majesty was compelled at once to hold out his paw and make peace. And that peace you owe to us, to the great Egmont.

All. Hurrah, for the great Egmont! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Jetter. Had they but appointed him Regent, instead of Margaret of Parma!

Soest. Not so! Truth is truth! I’ll not hear Margaret abused. Now it is my turn. Long live our gracious lady!

All. Long life to her!

Soest. Truly, there are excellent women in that family. Long live the Regent!

Jetter. Prudent is she, and moderate in all she does; if she would only not hold so fast and stiffly with the priests. It is partly her fault, too, that we have the fourteen new mitres in the land. Of what use are they, I should like to know? Why, that foreigners may be shoved into the good benefices, where formerly abbots were chosen out of the chapters! And we’re to believe it’s for the sake of religion. We know better. Three bishops were enough for us; things went on decently and reputably. Now each must busy himself as if he were needed; and this gives rise every moment to dissensions and ill-will. And the more you agitate the matter, so much the worse it grows. (They drink.)

Soest. But it was the will of the king; she cannot alter it, one way or another.

Jetter. Then we may not even sing the new psalms; but ribald songs, as many as we please. And why? There is heresy in them, they say, and heaven knows what. I have sung some of them, however; they are new, to be sure, but I see no harm in them.

Buyck. Ask their leave, forsooth! In our province, we sing just what we please. That’s because Count Egmont is our stadtholder, who does not trouble himself about such matters. In Ghent, Ypres, and throughout the whole of Flanders, anybody sings them that chooses. (Aloud to Ruysum.) There is nothing more harmless than a spiritual song — Is there, father?

Ruysum. What, indeed! It is a godly work, and truly edifying.

Jetter. They say, however, that they are not of the right sort, not of their sort, and, since it is dangerous, we had better leave them alone. The officers of the Inquisition are always lurking and spying about; many an honest fellow has already fallen into their clutches. They had not gone so far as to meddle with conscience! If they will not allow me to do what I like, they might at least let me think and sing as I please.

Soest. The Inquisition won’t do here. We are not made like the Spaniards, to let our consciences be tyrannized over. The nobles must look to it, and clip its wings betimes.

Jetter. It is a great bore. Whenever it comes into their worships’ heads to break into my house, and I am sitting there at my work, humming a French psalm, thinking nothing about it, neither good nor bad — singing it just because it is in my throat; — forthwith I’m a heretic, and am clapped into prison. Or if I am passing through the country, and stand near a crowd listening to a new preacher, one of those who have come from Germany; instantly I’m called a rebel, and am in danger of losing my head! Have you ever heard one of these preachers?

Soest. Brave fellows! Not long ago, I heard one of them preach in a field, before thousands and thousands of people. A different sort of dish he gave us from that of our humdrum preachers, who, from the pulpit, choke their hearers with scraps of Latin. He spoke from his heart; told us how we had till now been led by the nose, how we had been kept in darkness, and how we might procure more light; — ay, and he proved it all out of the Bible.

Jetter. There may be something in it. I always said as much, and have often pondered over the matter. It has long been running in my head.

Buyck. All the people run after them.

Soest. No wonder, since they hear both what is good and what is new.

Jetter. And what is it all about? Surely they might let every one preach after his own fashion.

Buyck. Come, sirs! While you are talking, you; forget the wine and the Prince of Orange.

Jetter. We must not forget him. He’s a very wall of defence. In thinking of him, one fancies, that if one could only hide behind him, the devil himself could not get at one. Here’s to William of Orange! Hurrah!

All. Hurrah! Hurrah!

Soest. Now, grey-heard, let’s have your toast.

Ruysum. Here’s to old soldiers! To all soldiers! War for ever!

Buyck. Bravo, old fellow. Here’s to all soldiers. War for ever!

Jetter. War! War! Do ye know what ye are shouting about? That it should slip glibly from your tongue is natural enough; but what wretched work it is for us, I have not words to tell you. To be stunned the whole year round by the beating of the drum; to hear of nothing except how one troop marched here, and another there; how they came over this height, and halted near that mill; how many were left dead on this field, and how many on that; how they press forward, and how one wins, and another loses, without being able to comprehend what they are fighting about; how a town is taken, how the citizens are put to the sword, and how it fares with the poor women and innocent children. This is a grief and a trouble, and then one thinks every moment, “Here they come! It will be our turn next.”

Soest. Therefore every citizen must be practised in the use of arms.

Jetter. Fine talking, indeed, for him who has a wife and children. And yet I would rather hear of soldiers than see them.

Buyck. I might take offence at that.

Jetter. It was not intended for you, countryman. When we got rid of the Spanish garrison, we breathed freely again.

Soest. Faith! They pressed on you heavily enough.

Jetter. Mind your own business.

Soest. They came to sharp quarters with you.

Jetter. Hold your tongue.

Soest. They drove him out of kitchen, cellar, chamber — and bed. (They laugh.)

Jetter. You are a blockhead.

Buyck. Peace, sirs! Must the soldier cry peace? Since you will not hear anything about us, let us have a toast of your own — a citizen’s toast.

Jetter. We’re all ready for that! Safety and peace!

Soest. Order and freedom!

Buyck. Bravo! That will content us all.

(They ring their glasses together, and joyously repeat the words, but in such a manner that each utters a different sound, and it becomes a kind of chant. The old man listens, and at length joins in.)

All. Safety and peace! Order and freedom!

SCENE II. — -Palace of the Regent

Margaret of Parma (in a hunting dress). Courtiers, Pages, Servants

Regent. Put off the hunt, I shall not ride to-day. Bid Machiavel attend me.

[Exeunt all but the Regent.

The thought of these terrible events leaves me no repose! Nothing can amuse, nothing divert my mind. These images, these cares are always before me. The king will now say that these are the natural fruits of my kindness, of my clemency; yet my conscience assures me that I have adopted the wisest, the most prudent course. Ought I sooner to have kindled, and spread abroad these flames with the breath of wrath? My hope was to keep them in, to let them smoulder in their own ashes. Yes, my inward conviction, and my knowledge of the circumstances, justify my conduct in my own eyes; but in what light will it appear to my brother! For, can it be denied that the insolence of these foreign teachers waxes daily more audacious? They have desecrated our sanctuaries, unsettled the dull minds of the people, and conjured up amongst them a spirit of delusion. Impure spirits have mingled among the insurgents, horrible deeds have been perpetrated, which to think of makes one shudder, and of these a circumstantial account must be transmitted instantly to court. Prompt and minute must be my communication, lest rumour outrun my messenger, and the king suspect that some particulars have been purposely withheld. I can see no means, severe or mild, by which to stem the evil. Oh, what are we great ones on the waves of humanity? We think to control them, and are ourselves driven to and fro, hither and thither.

[Enter Machiavel.

Regent. Are the despatches to the king prepared?

Machiavel. In an hour they will be ready for your signature.

Regent. Have you made the report sufficiently circumstantial?

Machiavel. Full and circumstantial, as the king loves to have it. I relate how the rage of the iconoclasts first broke out at St. Omer. How a furious multitude, with staves, hatchets, hammers, ladders, and cords, accompanied by a few armed men, first assailed the chapels, churches, and convents, drove out the worshippers, forced the barred gates, threw everything into confusion, tore down the altars, destroyed the statues of the saints, defaced the pictures, and dashed to atoms, and trampled under foot, whatever came in their way that was consecrated and holy. How the crowd increased as it advanced, and how the inhabitants of Ypres opened their gates at its approach. How, with incredible rapidity, they demolished the cathedral, and burned the library of the bishop. How a vast multitude, possessed by the like frenzy, dispersed themselves through Menin, Comines, Verviers, Lille, nowhere encountered opposition; and how, through almost the whole of Flanders, in a single moment, the monstrous conspiracy declared itself, and was accomplished.

Regent. Alas! Your recital rends my heart anew; and the fear that the evil will wax greater and greater, adds to my grief. Tell me your thoughts, Machiavel!

Machiavel. Pardon me, your Highness, my thoughts will appear to you but as idle fancies; and though you always seem well satisfied with my services, you have seldom felt inclined to follow my advice. How often have you said in jest: “You see too far, Machiavel! You should be an historian; he who acts, must provide for the exigence of the hour.” And yet have I not predicted this terrible history? Have I not foreseen it all?

Regent. I too foresee many things, without being able to avert them.

Machiavel. In one word, then: — -you will not be able to suppress the new faith. Let it be recognized, separate its votaries from the true believers, give them churches of their own, include them within the pale of social order, subject them to the restraints of law, — do this, and you will at once tranquillize the insurgents. All other measures will prove abortive, and you will depopulate the country.

Regent. Have you forgotten with what aversion the mere suggestion of toleration was rejected by my brother? Know you not, how in every letter he urgently recommends to me the maintenance of the true faith? That he will not hear of tranquility and order being restored at the expense of religion? Even in the provinces, does he not maintain spies, unknown to us, in order to ascertain who inclines to the new doctrines? Has he not, to our astonishment, named to us this or that individual residing in our very neighbourhood, who, without its being known, was obnoxious to the charge of heresy? Does he not enjoin harshness and severity? and am I to be lenient? Am I to recommend for his adoption measures of indulgence and toleration? Should I not thus lose all credit with him, and at once forfeit his confidence?

Machiavel. I know it. The king commands and puts you in full possession of his intentions. You are to restore tranquillity and peace by measures which cannot fail still more to embitter men’s minds, and which must inevitably kindle the flames of war from one extremity of the country to the other. Consider well what you are doing. The principal merchants are infected — nobles, citizens, soldiers. What avails persisting in our opinion, when everything is changing around us? Oh, that some good genius would suggest to Philip that it better becomes a monarch to govern burghers of two different creeds, than to excite them to mutual destruction.

Regent. Never let me hear such words again. Full well I know that the policy of statesmen rarely maintains truth and fidelity; that it excludes from the heart candour, charity, toleration. In secular affairs, this is, alas! only too true; but shall we trifle with God as we do with each other? Shall we be indifferent to our established faith, for the sake of which so many have sacrificed their lives? Shall we abandon it to these far-fetched, uncertain, and self-contradicting heresies?

Machiavel. Think not the worse of me for what I have uttered.

Regent. I know you and your fidelity. I know too that a man may be both honest and sagacious, and yet miss the best and nearest way to the salvation of his soul. There are others, Machiavel, men whom I esteem, yet whom I needs must blame.

Machiavel. To whom do you refer?

Regent. I must confess that Egmont caused me to-day deep and heart-felt annoyance.

Machiavel. How so?

Regent. By his accustomed demeanour, his usual indifference and levity. I received the fatal tidings as I was leaving church, attended by him and several others. I did not restrain my anguish, I broke forth into lamentations, loud and deep, and turning to him, exclaimed, “See what is going on in your province! Do you suffer it, Count, you, in whom the king confided so implicitly?”

Machiavel. And what was his reply?

Regent. As if it were a mere trifle, an affair of no moment, he answered: “Were the Netherlanders but satisfied as to their constitution! The rest would soon follow.”

Machiavel. There was, perhaps, more truth than discretion or piety in his words. How can we hope to acquire and to maintain the confidence of the Netherlander, when he sees that we are more interested in appropriating his possessions, than in promoting his welfare, temporal or spiritual? Does the number of souls saved by the new bishops exceed that of the fat benefices they have swallowed? And are they not for the most part foreigners? As yet, the office of stadtholder has been held by Netherlanders; but do not the Spaniards betray their great and irresistible desire to possess themselves of these places? Will not people prefer being governed by their own countrymen, and according to their ancient customs, rather than by foreigners, who, from their first entrance into the land, endeavour to enrich themselves at the general expense, who measure everything by a foreign standard, and who exercise their authority without cordiality or sympathy?

Regent. You take part with our opponents?

Machiavel. Assuredly not in my heart. Would that with my understanding I could be wholly on our side!

Regent. If such your disposition, it were better I should resign the regency to them; for both Egmont and Orange entertained great hopes of occupying this position. Then they were adversaries, now they are leagued against me, and have become friends — inseparable friends.

Machiavel. A dangerous pair.

Regent. To speak candidly, I fear Orange. — I fear for Egmont. — Orange meditates some dangerous scheme, his thoughts are far-reaching, he is reserved, appears to accede to everything, never contradicts, and while maintaining the show of reverence, with clear foresight accomplishes his own designs.

Machiavel. Egmont, on the contrary, advances with a bold step, as if the world were all his own.

Regent. He bears his head as proudly as if the hand of majesty were not suspended over him.

Machiavel. The eyes of all the people are fixed upon him, and he is the idol of their hearts.

Regent. He has never assumed the least disguise, and carries himself as if no one had a right to call him to account. He still bears the name of Egmont. Count Egmont is the title by which he loves to hear himself addressed, as though he would fain be reminded that his ancestors were masters of Guelderland. Why does he not assume his proper title, — Prince of Gaure? What object has he in view? Would he again revive extinguished claims?

Machiavel. I hold him for a faithful servant of the king.

Regent. Were he so inclined, what important service could he not render to the government? Whereas, now, without benefiting himself, he has caused us unspeakable vexation. His banquets and entertainment have done more to unite the nobles and to knit them together than the most dangerous secret associations. With his toasts, his guests have drunk in a permanent intoxication, a giddy frenzy, that never subsides. How often have his facetious jests stirred up the minds of the populace? and what an excitement was produced among the mob by the new liveries, and the extravagant devices of his followers!

Machiavel. I am convinced he had no design.

Regent. Be that as it may, it is bad enough. As I said before, he injures us without benefiting himself. He treats as a jest matters of serious import; and, not to appear negligent and remiss, we are forced to treat seriously what he intended as a jest. Thus one urges on the other; and what we are endeavouring to avert is actually brought to pass. He is more dangerous than the acknowledged head of a conspiracy; and I am much mistaken if it is not all remembered against him at court. I cannot deny that scarcely a day passes in which he does not wound me — deeply wound me.

Machiavel. He appears to me to act on all occasions, according to the dictates of his conscience. Regent. His conscience has a convenient mirror. His demeanour is often offensive. He carries himself as if he felt he were the master here, and were withheld by courtesy alone from making us feel his supremacy; as if he would not exactly drive us out of the country; there’ll be no need for that.

Machiavel. I entreat you, put not too harsh a construction upon his frank and joyous temper, which treats lightly matters of serious moment. You but injure yourself and him.

Regent. I interpret nothing. I speak only of inevitable consequences, and I know him. His patent of nobility and the Golden Fleece upon his breast strengthen his confidence, his audacity. Both can protect him against any sudden outbreak of royal displeasure. Consider the matter closely, and he is alone responsible for the whole mischief that has broken out in Flanders. From the first, he connived at the proceedings of the foreign teachers, avoided stringent measures, and perhaps rejoiced in secret that they gave us so much to do. Let me alone; on this occasion, I will give utterance to that which weighs upon my heart; I will not shoot my arrow in vain. I know where he is vulnerable. For he is vulnerable.

Machiavel. Have you summoned the council? Will Orange attend?

Regent. I have sent for him to Antwerp. I will lay upon their shoulders the burden of responsibility; they shall either strenuously co-operate with me in quelling the evil, or at once declare themselves rebels. Let the letters be completed without delay, and bring them for my signature. Then hasten to despatch the trusty Vasca to Madrid, he is faithful and indefatigable; let him use all diligence, that he may not be anticipated by common report, that my brother, may receive the intelligence first through him. I will myself speak with him ere he departs.

Machiavel. Your orders shall be promptly and punctually obeyed.

SCENE III. — Citizen’s House

Clara, her Mother, Brackenburg

Clara. Will you not hold the yarn for me, Brackenburg?

Brackenburg. I entreat you, excuse me, Clara.

Clara. What ails you? Why refuse me this trifling service?

Brackenburg. When I hold the yarn, I stand as it were spell-bound before you, and cannot escape your eyes.

Clara. Nonsense! Come and hold!

Mother (knitting in her arm-chair). Give us a song! Brackenburg sings so good a second. You used to be merry once, and I had always something to laugh at.

Brackenburg. Once!

Clara. Well, let us sing.

Brackenburg. As you please.

Clara. Merrily, then, and sing away! ’Tis a soldier’s song, my favourite.

(She winds yarn, and sings with Brackenburg.)

     The drum is resounding,

     And shrill the fife plays;

     My love, for the battle,

     His brave troop arrays;

     He lifts his lance high,

     And the people he sways.

     My blood it is boiling!

     My heart throbs pit-pat!

     Oh, had I a jacket,

     With hose and with hat!

     How boldly I’d follow,

     And march through the gate;

     Through all the wide province

     I’d follow him straight.

     The foe yield, we capture

     Or shoot them! Ah, me!

     What heart-thrilling rapture

     A soldier to be!

(During the song, Brackenburg has frequently looked at Clara; at length his voice falters, his eyes fill with tears, he lets the skein fall, and goes to the window. Clara finishes the song alone, her Mother motions to her, half displeased, she rises, advances a few steps towards him, turns back, as if irresolute, and again sits down.)

Mother. What is going on in the street, Brackenburg? I hear soldiers marching.

Brackenburg. It is the Regent’s body-guard.

Clara. At this hour? What can it mean? (She rises and joins Brackenburg at the window.) That is not the daily guard; it is more numerous! almost all the troops! Oh, Brackenburg, go! Learn what it means. It must be something unusual. Go, good Brackenburg, do me this favour.

Brackenburg. I am going! I will return immediately. (He offers his hand to Clara, and she gives him hers.)

[Exit Brackenburg.

Mother. Thou sendest him away so soon!

Clara. I am curious; and, besides — do not be angry, Mother — his presence pains me. I never know how I ought to behave towards him. I have done him a wrong, and it goes to my very heart to see how deeply he feels it. Well, it can’t be helped now!

Mother. He is such a true-hearted fellow!

Clara. I cannot help it, I must treat him kindly. Often without a thought, I return the gentle, loving pressure of his hand. I reproach myself that I am deceiving him, that I am nourishing in his heart a vain hope. I am in a sad plight! God knows, I do not willingly deceive him. I do not wish him to hope, yet I cannot let him despair!

Mother. That is not as it should be.

Clara. I liked him once, and in my soul I like him still I could have married him; yet I believe I was never really in love with him.

Mother. Thou wouldst always have been happy with him.

Clara. I should have been provided for, and have led a quiet life.

Mother. And through thy fault it has all been trifled away.

Clara, I am in a strange position. When I think how it has come to pass, I know it, indeed, and I know it not. But I have only to look upon Egmont, and I understand it all; ay, and stranger things would seem natural then. Oh, what a man he is! All the provinces worship him. And in his arms, should I not be the happiest creature in the world?

Mother. And how will it be in the future?

Clara. I only ask, does he love me? — does he love me? — as if there were any doubt about it.

Mother. One has nothing but anxiety of heart with one’s children. Always care and sorrow, whatever may be the end of it! It cannot come to good! Thou hast made thyself wretched! Thou hast made thy Mother wretched too.

Clara (quietly). Yet thou didst allow it in the beginning.

Mother. Alas! I was too indulgent; I am always too indulgent.

Clara. When Egmont rode by, and I ran to the window, did you chide me then? Did you not come to the window yourself? When he looked up, smiled, nodded, and greeted me, was it displeasing to you? Did you not feel yourself honoured in your daughter?

Mother. Go on with your reproaches.

Clara (with emotion). Then, when he passed more frequently, and we felt sure that it was on my account that he came this way, did you not remark it yourself with secret joy? Did you call me away when I stood behind the window-pane and awaited him?

Mother. Could I imagine that it would go so far?

Clara (with faltering voice, and repressed tears). And then, one evening, when, enveloped in his mantle, he surprised us as we sat at our lamp, who busied herself in receiving him, while I remained, lost in astonishment, as if fastened to my chair?

Mother. Could I imagine that the prudent Clara would so soon be carried away by this unhappy love? I must now endure that my daughter —

Clara (bursting into tears). Mother! How can you? You take pleasure in tormenting me!

Mother (weeping). Ay, weep away! Make me yet more wretched by thy grief. Is it not misery enough that my only daughter is a castaway?

Clara (rising, and speaking coldly). A castaway! The beloved of Egmont a castaway! — What princess would not envy the poor Clara a place in his heart? Oh, Mother, — my own Mother, you were not wont to speak thus! Dear Mother, be kind! — Let the people think, let the neighbours whisper what they like — this chamber, this lowly house is a paradise, since Egmont’s love dwelt here.

Mother. One cannot help liking him, that is true. He is always so kind, frank, and open-hearted.

Clara. There is not a drop of false blood in his veins. And then, Mother, he is indeed the great Egmont; yet, when he comes to me, how tender he is, how kind! How he tries to conceal from me his rank, his bravery! How anxious he is about me! so entirely the man, the friend, the lover.

Mother. DO you expect him to-day?

Clara. Have you not seen how often I go to the window? Have you not noticed how I listen to every noise at the door? — Though I know that he will not come before night, yet, from the time when I rise in the morning, I keep expecting him every moment. Were I but a boy, to follow him always, to the court and everywhere! Could I but carry his colours in the field — !

Mother. You were always such a lively, restless creature; even as a little child, now wild, now thoughtful. Will you not dress yourself a little better?

Clara. Perhaps, Mother, if I want something to do. — Yesterday, some of his people went by, singing songs in honour. At least his name was in the songs! The rest I could not understand. My heart leaped up into my throat, — I would fain have called them back if I had not felt ashamed.

Mother. Take care! Thy impetuous nature will ruin all. Thou wilt betray thyself before the people; as, not long ago, at thy cousin’s, when thou roundest out the woodcut with the description, and didst exclaim, with a cry: “Count Egmont!” — I grew as red as fire.

Clara. Could I help crying out? It was the battle of Gravelines, and I found in the picture the letter C. and then looked for it in the description below. There it stood, “Count Egmont, with his horse shot under him.” I shuddered, and afterwards I could not help laughing at the woodcut figure of Egmont, as tall as the neighbouring tower of Gravelines, and the English ships at the side. — When I remember how I used to conceive of a battle, and what an idea I had, as a girl, of Count Egmont; when I listened to descriptions of him, and of all the other earls and princes; — and think how it is with me now!

[Enter Brackenburg.

Clara. Well, what is going on?

Brackenburg. Nothing certain is known. It is rumoured that an insurrection has lately broken out in Flanders; the Regent is afraid of its spreading here. The castle is strongly garrisoned, the burghers are crowding to the gates, and the streets are thronged with people. I will hasten at once to my old father. (As if about to go.)

Clara. Shall we see you to-morrow? I must change my dress a little. I am expecting my cousin, and I look too untidy. Come, Mother, help me a moment. Take the book, Brackenburg, and bring me such another story.

Mother. Farewell.

Brackenburg (extending his hand). Your hand.

Clara (refusing hers). When you come next.

[Exeunt Mother and DAUGHTER.

Brackenburg (alone). I had resolved to go away again at once; and yet, when she takes me at my word, and lets me leave her, I feel as if I could go mad, — Wretched man! Does the fate of thy fatherland, does the growing disturbance fail to move thee? — Are countryman and Spaniard the same to thee? and carest thou not who rules, and who is in the right? I wad a different sort of fellow as a schoolboy! — Then, when an exercise in oratory was given; “Brutus’ Speech for Liberty,” for instance, Fritz was ever the first, and the rector would say: “If it were only spoken more deliberately, the words not all huddled together.” — Then my blood boiled, and longed for action. — Now I drag along, bound by the eyes of a maiden. I cannot leave her! yet she, alas, cannot love me! — ah — no — -she — she cannot have entirely rejected me — not entirely — yet half love is no love! — I will endure it no longer! — Can it be true what a friend lately whispered in my ear, that she secretly admits a man into the house by night, when she always sends me away modestly before evening? No, it cannot be true! It is a lie! A base, slanderous lie! Clara is as innocent as I am wretched. — She has rejected me, has thrust me from her heart — and shall I live on thus? I cannot, I will not endure it. Already my native land is convulsed by internal strife, and do I perish abjectly amid the tumult? I will not endure it! When the trumpet sounds, when a shot falls, it thrills through my bone and marrow! But, alas, it does not rouse me! It does not summon me to join the onslaught, to rescue, to dare. — Wretched, degrading position! Better end it at once! Not long ago, I threw myself into the water; I sank — but nature in her agony was too strong for me; I felt that I could swim, and saved myself against my will. Could I but forget the time when she loved me, seemed to love me! — Why has this happiness penetrated my very bone and marrow? Why have these hopes, while disclosing to me a distant paradise, consumed all the enjoyment of life? — And that first, that only kiss! — Here (laying his hand upon the table), here we were alone, — she had always been kind and friendly towards me, — then she seemed to soften, — she looked at me, — my brain reeled, — I felt her lips on mine, — and — and now? — Die, wretch! Why dost thou hesitate? (He draws a phial from his pocket.) Thou healing poison, it shall not have been in vain that I stole thee from my brother’s medicine chest! From this anxious fear, this dizziness, this death-agony, thou shalt deliver me at once.

ACT II

SCENE I. — Square in Brussels

Jetter and a Master Carpenter (meeting)

Carpenter. Did I not tell you beforehand? Eight days ago, at the guild, I said there would be serious disturbances?

Jetter. Is it, then, true that they have plundered the churches in Flanders?

Carpenter. They have utterly destroyed both churches and chapels. They have left nothing standing but the four bare walls. The lowest rabble! And this it is that damages our good cause. We ought rather to have laid our claims before the Regent, formally and decidedly, and then have stood by them. If we speak now, if we assemble now, it will be said that we are joining the insurgents.

Jetter. Ay, so every one thinks at first. Why should you thrust your nose into the mess? The neck is closely connected with it.

Carpenter. I am always uneasy when tumults arise among the mob — among people who have nothing to lose. They use as a pretext that to which we also must appeal, and plunge the country in misery.

[Enter Soest.

Soest. Good day, sirs! What news? Is it true that the image-breakers are coming straight in this direction?

Carpenter. Here they shall touch nothing, at any rate.

Soest. A soldier came into my shop just now to buy tobacco; I questioned him about the matter. The Regent, though so brave and prudent a lady, has for once lost her presence of mind. Things must be bad indeed when she thus takes refuge behind her guards. The castle is strongly garrisoned. It is even rumoured that she means to fly from the town.

Carpenter. Forth she shall not go! Her presence protects us, and we will ensure her safety better than her mustachioed gentry. If she only maintains our rights and privileges, we will stand faithfully by her.

[Enter a Soapboiler.

Soapboiler. An ugly business this! a bad business! Troubles are beginning; all things are going wrong! Mind you keep quiet, or they’ll take you also for rioters.

Soest. Here come the seven wise men of Greece.

Soapboiler. I know there are many who in secret hold with the Calvinists, abuse the bishops, and care not for the king. But a loyal subject, a sincere Catholic — !

(By degrees others join the speakers, and listen.)

[Enter Vansen.

Vansen. God save you, sirs! What news?

Carpenter. Have nothing to do with him, he’s a dangerous fellow.

Jetter. Is he not secretary to Dr. Wiets?

Carpenter. He has already had several masters. First he was a clerk, and as one patron after another turned him off, on account of his roguish tricks, he now dabbles in the business of notary and advocate, and is a brandy-drinker to boot. (More people gather round and stand in groups.)

Vansen. So here you are, putting your heads together. Well, it is worth talking about.

Soest. I think so too.

Vansen. Now if only one of you had heart and another head enough for the work, we might break the Spanish fetters at once.

Soest. Sirs! you must not talk thus. We have taken our oath to the king.

Vansen. And the king to us. Mark that!

Jetter. There’s sense in that? Tell us your opinion.

Others. Hearken to him; he’s a clever fellow. He’s sharp enough. I had an old master once, who possessed a collection of parchments, among which were charters of ancient constitutions, contracts, and privileges. He set great store, too, by the rarest books. One of these contained our whole constitution; how, at first, we Netherlanders had princes of our own, who governed according to hereditary laws, rights, and usages; how our ancestors paid due honour to their sovereign so long as he governed them equitably; and how they were immediately on their guard the moment he was for overstepping his bounds. The states were down upon him at once; for every province, however small, had its own chamber and representatives.

Carpenter. Hold your tongue! We knew that long ago! Every honest citizen learns as much about the constitution as he needs.

Jetter. Let him speak; one may always learn something.

Soest. He is quite right.

Several Citizens. Go on! Go on! One does not hear this every day.

Vansen. You citizens, forsooth! You live only in the present; and as you tamely follow the trade inherited from your fathers, so you let the government do with you just as it pleases. You make no inquiry into the origin, the history, or the rights of a Regent; and in consequence of this negligence, the Spaniard has drawn the net over your ears.

Soest. Who cares for that, if one has only daily bread?

Jetter. The devil! Why did not some one come forward and tell us this in time?

Vansen. I tell it you now. The King of Spain, whose good fortune it is to bear sway over these provinces, has no right to govern them otherwise than the petty princes who formerly possessed them separately. Do you understand that?

Jetter. Explain it to us.

Vansen. Why, it is as dear as the sun. Must you not be governed according to your provincial laws? How comes that?

A Citizen. Certainly!

Vansen. Has not the burgher of Brussels a different law from the burgher of Antwerp? The burgher of Antwerp from the burgher of Ghent? How comes that?

Another Citizen. By heavens!

Vansen. But if you let matters run on thus, they will soon tell you a different story. Fie on you! Philip, through a woman, now ventures to do what neither Charles the Bold, Frederick the Warrior, nor Charles the Fifth could accomplish.

Soest. Yes, yes! The old princes tried it also.

Vansen. Ay! But our ancestors kept a sharp look-out. If they thought themselves aggrieved by their sovereign, they would perhaps get his son and heir into their hands, detain him as a hostage, and surrender him only on the most favourable conditions. Our fathers were men! They knew their own interests! They knew how to lay hold on what they wanted, and to get it established! They were men of the right sort! and hence it is that our privileges are so dearly defined, our liberties so well secured.

Soest. What are you saying about our liberties?

All. Our liberties! our privileges! Tell us about our privileges.

Vansen. All the provinces have their peculiar advantages, but we of Brabant are the most splendidly provided for. I have read it all.

Soest. Say on.

Jetter. Let us hear.

A Citizen. Pray do.

Vansen. First, it stands written: — The Duke of Brabant shall be to us a good and faithful sovereign.

Soest. Good! Stands it so?

Jetter. Faithful? Is that true?

Vansen. As I tell you. He is bound to us as we are to him. Secondly: In the exercise of his authority he shall neither exert arbitrary power, nor exhibit caprice, himself, nor shall he, either directly or indirectly, sanction them in others.

Jetter. Bravo! Bravo! Not exert arbitrary power.

Soest. Nor exhibit caprice.

Another. And not sanction them in others! That is the main point. Not sanction them, either directly or indirectly.

Vansen. In express words.

Jetter. Get us the book.

A Citizen. Yes, we must see it.

Others. The book! The book!

Another. We will to the Regent with the book.

Another. Sir doctor, you shall be spokesman.

Soapboiler. Oh, the dolts!

Others. Something more out of the book!

Soapboiler. I’ll knock his teeth down his throat if he says another word.

People. We’ll see who dares to lay hands upon him. Tell us about our privileges! Have we any more privileges?

Vansen. Many, very good and very wholesome ones too. Thus it stands: The sovereign shall neither benefit the clergy, nor increase their number, without the consent of the nobles and of the states. Mark that! Nor shall he alter the constitution of the country.

Soest. Stands it so?

Vansen. I’ll show it you, as it was written down two or three centuries ago.

A Citizen. And we tolerate the new bishops? The nobles must protect us, we will make a row else!

Others. And we suffer ourselves to be intimidated by the Inquisition?

Vansen. It is your own fault.

People. We have Egmont! We have Orange! They will protect our interests.

Vansen. Your brothers in Flanders are beginning the good work.

Soapboiler. Dog! (Strikes him.)

(Others oppose the Soapboiler, and exclaim,) Are you also a Spaniard?

Another. What! This honourable man?

Another. This learned man?

(They attack the Soapboiler.)

Carpenter. For heaven’s sake, peace!

(Others mingle in the fray.)

Carpenter. Citizens, what means this?

(Boys whistle, throw stones, set on dogs; citizens stand and gape, people come running up, others walk quietly to and fro, others play all sorts of pranks, shout and huzza.)

Others. Freedom and privilege! Privilege and freedom!

[Enter Egmont, with followers.

Egmont. Peace! Peace! good people. What is the matter? Peace, I say! Separate them.

Carpenter. My good lord, you come like an angel from heaven. Hush! See you nothing? Count Egmont! Honour to Count Egmont!

Egmont. Here, too! What are you about? Burgher against burgher! Does not even the neighbourhood of our royal mistress oppose a barrier to this frenzy? Disperse yourselves, and go about your business. ’Tis a bad sign when you thus keep holiday on working days. How did the disturbance begin?

(The tumult gradually subsides, and the people gather around Egmont.)

Carpenter. They are fighting about their privileges.

Egmont. Which they will forfeit through their own folly, — and who are you? You seem honest people.

Carpenter. ’Tis our wish to be so.

Egmont. Your calling?

Carpenter. A Carpenter, and master of the guild.

Egmont. And you?

Soest. A shopkeeper.

Egmont. And you?

Jetter. A tailor.

Egmont. I remember, you were employed upon the liveries of my people. Your name is Jetter.

Jetter. To think of your grace remembering it!

Egmont. I do not easily forget any one whom I have seen or conversed with. Do what you can, good people, to keep the peace; you stand in bad repute enough already. Provoke not the king still farther. The power, after all, is in his hands. An honest burgher, who maintains himself industriously, has everywhere as much freedom as he wants.

Carpenter. That now is just our misfortune! With all due deference, your grace, ’tis the idle portion of the community, your drunkards and vagabonds, who quarrel for want of something to do, and clamour about privilege because they are hungry; they impose upon the curious and the credulous, and, in order to obtain a pot of beer, excite disturbances that will bring misery upon thousands. That is just what they want. We keep our houses and chests too well guarded; they would fain drive us away from them with fire-brands.

Egmont. You shall have all needful assistance; measures have been taken to stem the evil by force. Make a firm stand against the new doctrines, and do not imagine that privileges are secured by sedition, Remain at home; suffer no crowds to assemble in the streets. Sensible people can accomplish much.

(In the meantime the crowd has for the most part dispersed.)

Carpenter. Thanks, your excellency — thanks for your good opinion! We will do what in us lies. (Exit Egmont.) A gracious lord! A true Netherlander! Nothing of the Spaniard about him.

Jetter. If we had only him for a Regent? ’Tis a pleasure to follow him.

Soest. The king won’t hear of that. He takes care to appoint his own people to the place.

Jetter. Did you notice his dress? It was of the newest fashion — after the Spanish cut.

Carpenter. A handsome gentleman.

Jetter. His head now were a dainty morsel for a heads-man.

Soest. Are you mad? What are you thinking about?

Jetter. It is stupid enough that such an idea should come into one’s head! But so it is. Whenever I see a fine long neck, I cannot help thinking how well it would suit the block. These cursed executions! One cannot get them out of one’s head. When the lads are swimming, and I chance to see a naked back, I think forthwith of the dozens I have seen beaten with rods. If I meet a portly gentleman, I fancy I already see him roasting at the stake. At night, in my dreams, I am tortured in every limb; one cannot have a single hour’s enjoyment; all merriment and fun have long been forgotten. These terrible images seem burnt in upon my brain.

SCENE II. — Egmont’s residence

His Secretary (at a desk with papers. He rises impatiently)

Secretary. Still he comes not! And I have been waiting already full two hours, pen in hand, the paper before me; and just to-day I was anxious to be out so early. The floor burns under my feet. I can with difficulty restrain my impatience. “Be punctual to the hour:” Such was his parting injunction; now he comes not. There is so much business to get through, I shall not have finished before midnight. He overlooks one’s faults, it is true; methinks it would be better though, were he more strict, so he dismissed one at the appointed time. One could then arrange one’s plans. It is now full two hours since he left the Regent; who knows whom he may have chanced to meet by the way?

[Enter Egmont.

Egmont. Well, how do matters look?

Secretary. I am ready, and three couriers are waiting.

Egmont. I have detained you too long; you look somewhat out of humour.

Secretary. In obedience to your command I have already been in attendance for some time. Here are the papers!

Egmont. Donna Elvira will be angry with me, when she learns that I have detained you.

Secretary. You are pleased to jest.

Egmont. No, no. Be not ashamed. I admire your taste. She is pretty, and I have no objection that you should have a friend at the castle. What say the letters?

Secretary. Much, my lord, but withal little that is satisfactory.

Egmont. ’Tis well that we have pleasures at home, we have the less occasion to seek them from abroad. Is there much that requires attention?

Secretary. Enough, my lord; three couriers are in attendance.

Egmont. Proceed! The most important.

Secretary. All is important.

Egmont. One after the other; only be prompt.

Secretary. Captain Breda sends an account of the occurrences that have further taken place in Ghent and the surrounding districts. The tumult is for the most part allayed.

Egmont. He doubtless reports individual acts of folly and temerity?

Secretary. He does, my lord.

Egmont. Spare me the recital.

Secretary. Six of the mob who tore down the image of the Virgin at Verviers have been arrested. He inquires whether they are to be hanged like the others.

Egmont. I am weary of hanging; let them be flogged and discharged.

Secretary. There are two women among them; are they to be flogged also?

Egmont. He may admonish them and let them go.

Secretary. Brink, of Breda’s company, wants to marry; the captain hopes you will not allow it. There are so many women among the troops, he writes, that when on the march, they resemble a gang of gypsies rather than regular soldiers.

Egmont. We must overlook it in his case. He is a fine young fellow, and moreover entreated me so earnestly before I came away. This must be the last time, however; though it grieves me to refuse the poor fellows their best pastime; they have enough without that to torment them.

Secretary. Two of your people, Seter and Hart, have ill-treated a damsel, the daughter of an inn-keeper. They got her alone and she could not escape from them.

Egmont. If she be an honest maiden and they used violence, let them be flogged three days in succession; and if they have any property, let him retain as much of it as will portion the girl.

Secretary. One of the foreign preachers has been discovered passing secretly through Comines. He swore that he was on the point of leaving for France. According to orders, he ought to be beheaded.

Egmont. Let him be conducted quietly to the frontier, and there admonished that, the next time, he will not escape so easily.

Secretary. A letter from your steward. He writes that money comes in slowly, he can with difficulty send you the required sum within the week; the late disturbances have thrown everything into the greatest confusion.

Egmont. Money must be had! It is for him to look to the means.

Secretary. He says he will do his utmost, and at length proposes to sue and imprison Raymond, who has been so long in your debt.

Egmont. But he has promised to pay!

Secretary. The last time he fixed a fortnight himself.

Egmont. Well, grant him another fortnight; after that he may proceed against him.

Secretary. You do well. His non-payment of the money proceeds not from inability, but from want of inclination. He will trifle no longer when he sees that you are in earnest. The steward further proposes to withhold, for half a month, the pensions which you allow to the old soldiers, widows, and others. In the meantime some expedient may be devised; they must make their arrangements accordingly.

Egmont. But what arrangements can be made here? These poor people want the money more than I do. He must not think of it.

Secretary. How then, my lord, is he to raise the required sum?

Egmont. It is his business to think of that. He was told so in a former letter.

Secretary. And therefore he makes these proposals.

Egmont. They will never do; — he must think of something else. Let him suggest expedients that are admissible, and, before all, let him procure the money.

Secretary. I have again before me the letter from Count Oliva. Pardon my recalling it to your remembrance. Before all others, the aged count deserves a detailed reply. You proposed writing to him with your own hand. Doubtless, he loves you as a father.

Egmont. I cannot command the time; — and of all detestable things, writing is to me the most detestable. You imitate my hand so admirably, do you write in my name. I am expecting Orange. I cannot do it; — I wish, however, that something soothing should be written, to allay his fears.

Secretary. Just give me a notion of what you wish to communicate; I will at once draw up the answer, and lay it before you. It shall be so written that it might pass for your hand in a court of justice.

Egmont. Give me the letter. (After glancing over it.) Dear, excellent, old man! Wert thou then so cautious in thy youth? Didst thou never mount a breach? Didst thou remain in the rear of battle at the suggestion of prudence? — What affectionate solicitude! He has indeed my safety and happiness at heart, but considers not, that he who lives but to save his life, is already dead. — Charge him not to be anxious on my account; I act as circumstances require, and shall be upon my guard. Let him use his influence at court in my favour, and be assured of my warmest thanks.

Secretary. Is that all? He expects still more.

Egmont. What can I say? If you choose to write more fully, do so. The matter turns upon a single point; he would have me live as I cannot live. That I am joyous, live fast, take matters easily, is my good fortune; nor would! exchange it for the safety of a sepulchre. My blood rebels against the Spanish mode of life, nor have I the least inclination to regulate my movements by the new and cautious measures of the court. Do I live only to think of life? Am I to forego the enjoyment of the present moment in order to secure the next? And must that in its turn be consumed in anxieties and idle fears?

Secretary. I entreat you, my lord, be not so harsh towards the venerable man. You are wont to be friendly towards every one. Say a kindly word to allay the anxiety of your noble friend. See how considerate he is, with what delicacy he warns you.

Egmont. Yet he harps continually on the same string. He knows of old how I detest these admonitions. They serve only to perplex and are of no avail. What if I were a somnambulist, and trod the giddy summit of a lofty house, — were it the part of friendship to call me by my name, to warn me of my danger, to waken, to kill me? Let each choose his own path, and provide for his own safety.

Secretary. It may become you to be without a fear, but those who know and love you —

Egmont (looking over the letter). Then he recalls the old story of our sayings and doings, one evening, in the wantonness of conviviality and wine; and what conclusions and inferences were thence drawn and circulated throughout the whole kingdom! Well, we had a cap and bells embroidered on the sleeves of our servants’ liveries, and afterwards exchanged this senseless device for a bundle of arrows; — a still more dangerous symbol for those who are bent upon discovering a meaning where nothing is meant, These and similar follies were conceived and brought forth in a moment of merriment. It was at our suggestion that a noble troop, with beggars’ wallets, and a self-chosen nickname, with mock humility recalled the King’s duty to his remembrance. It was at our suggestion too — well, what does it signify? Is a carnival jest to be construed into high treason? Are we to be grudged the scanty, variegated rags, wherewith a youthful spirit and heated imagination would adorn the poor nakedness of life? Take life too seriously, and what is it worth? If the morning wake us to no new joys, if in the evening we have no pleasures to hope for, is it worth the trouble of dressing and undressing? Does the sun shine on me to-day, that I may reflect on what happened yesterday? That I may endeavour to foresee and control, what can neither be foreseen nor controlled, — the destiny of the morrow? Spare me these reflections, we will leave them to scholars and courtiers. Let them ponder and contrive, creep hither and thither, and surreptitiously achieve their ends. — If you can make use of these suggestions, without swelling your letter into a volume, it is well. Everything appears of exaggerated importance to the good old man. ’Tis thus the friend, who has long held our hand, grasps it more warmly ere he quits his hold.

Secretary. Pardon me, the pedestrian grows dizzy when he beholds the charioteer drive past with whirling speed.

Egmont. Child! Child! Forbear! As if goaded by invisible spirits, the sun-steeds of time bear onward the light car of our destiny; and nothing remains for us but, with calm self-possession, firmly to grasp the reins, and now right, now left, to steer the wheels here from the precipice and there from the rock. Whither he is hasting, who knows? Does any one consider whence he came?

Secretary. My lord! my lord!

Egmont. I stand high, but I can and must rise yet higher. Courage, strength, and hope possess my soul. Not yet have I attained the height of my ambition; that once achieved, I will stand firmly and without fear. Should I fall, should a thunder-clap, a storm-blast, ay, a false step of my own, precipitate me into the abyss, so be it! I shall lie there with thousands of others. I have never disdained, even for a trifling stake, to throw the bloody die with my gallant comrades; and shall I hesitate now, when all that is most precious in life is set upon the cast?

Secretary. Oh, my lord! you know not what you say! May Heaven protect you!

Egmont Collect your papers. Orange is coming. Dispatch what is most urgent, that the couriers may set forth before the gates are closed. The rest may wait. Leave the Count’s letter till to-morrow. Fail not to visit Elvira, and greet her from me. Inform yourself concerning the Regent’s health. She cannot be well, though she would fain conceal it.

[Exit Secretary.

[Enter Orange.

Egmont. Welcome, Orange; you appear somewhat disturbed.

Orange. What say you to our conference with the Regent?

Egmont. I found nothing extraordinary in her manner of receiving us. I have often seen her thus before. She appeared to me to be somewhat indisposed.

Orange. Marked you not that she was more reserved than usual? She began by cautiously approving our conduct during the late insurrection; glanced at the false light in which, nevertheless, it might be viewed; and finally turned the discourse to her favourite topic — that her gracious demeanour, her friendship for us Netherlanders, had never been sufficiently recognized, never appreciated as it deserved; that nothing came to a prosperous issue; that for her part she was beginning to grow weary of it; that the king must at last resolve upon other measures. Did you hear that?

Egmont. Not all; I was thinking at the time of something else. She is a woman, good Orange, and all women expect that every one shall submit passively to their gentle yoke; that every Hercules shall lay aside his lion’s skin, assume the distaff, and swell their train; and, because they are themselves peaceably inclined, imagine forsooth, that the ferment which seizes a nation, the storm which powerful rivals excite against one another, may be allayed by one soothing word, and the most discordant elements be brought to unite in tranquil harmony at their feet. ’Tis thus with her; and since she cannot accomplish her object, why she has no resource left but to lose her temper, to menace us with direful prospects for the future, and to threaten to take her departure.

Orange. Think you not that this time she will fulfil her threat?

Egmont. Never! How often have I seen her actually prepared for the journey? Whither should she go? Being here a stadtholder, a queen, think you that she could endure to spend her days in insignificance at her brother’s court, or to repair to Italy, and there drag on her existence among her old family connections?

Orange. She is held incapable of this determination, because you have already seen her hesitate and draw back; nevertheless, it lies in her to take this step; new circumstances may impel her to the long-delayed resolve. What if she were to depart, and the king to send another?

Egmont. Why, he would come, and he also would have business enough upon his hands. He would arrive with vast projects and schemes to reduce all things to order, to subjugate and combine; and to-day he would be occupied with this trifle, to-morrow with that, and the day following have to deal with some unexpected hindrance. He would spend one month in forming plans, another in mortification at their failure, and half a year would be consumed in cares for a single province. With him also time would pass, his head grow dizzy, and things hold on their ordinary course, till instead of sailing into the open sea, according to the plan which he had previously marked out, he might thank if, amid the tempest, he were able to keep his vessel off the rocks.

Orange. What if the king were advised to try an experiment?

Egmont. Which should be — ?

Orange. To try how the body would get on without the head.

Egmont. How?

Orange. Egmont, our interests have for years weighed upon my heart; I ever stand as over a chess-board, and regard no move of my adversary as insignificant; and as men of science carefully investigate the secrets of nature, so I hold it to be the duty, ay, the very vocation of a prince, to acquaint himself with the dispositions and intentions of all parties. I have reason to fear an outbreak. The king has long acted according to certain principles; he finds that they do not lead to a prosperous issue; what more probable than that he should seek it some other way?

Egmont. I do not believe it. When a man grows old, has attempted much, and finds that the world cannot be made to move according to his will, he must needs grow weary of it at last.

Orange. One thing has yet to be attempted.

Egmont. What?

Orange. To spare the people, and to put an end to the princes.

Egmont. How many have long been haunted by this dread? There is no cause for such anxiety.

Orange. Once I felt anxious; gradually I became suspicious; suspicion has at length grown into certainty.

Egmont. Has the king more faithful servants than ourselves?

Orange. We serve him after our own fashion; and, between ourselves, it must be confessed that we understand pretty well how to make the interests of the king square with our own.

Egmont. And who does not? He has our duty and submission, in so far as they are his due.

Orange. But what if he should arrogate still more, and regard as disloyalty what we esteem the maintenance of our just rights?

Egmont. We shall know in that case how to defend ourselves. Let him assemble the Knights of the Golden Fleece; we will submit ourselves to their decision.

Orange. What if the sentence were to precede the trial? punishment, the sentence?

Egmont. It were an injustice of which Philip is incapable; a folly which I cannot impute either to him or to his counsellors.

Orange. And how if they were both unjust and foolish?

Egmont. No, Orange, it is impossible. Who would venture to lay hands on us? The attempt to capture us were a vain and fruitless enterprize. No, they dare not raise the standard of tyranny so high. The breeze that should waft these tidings over the land would kindle a mighty conflagration. And what object would they have in view? The king alone has no power either to judge or to condemn us and would they attempt our lives by assassination? They cannot intend it. A terrible league would unite the entire people. Direful hate and eternal separation from the crown of Spain would, on the instant, be forcibly declared.

Orange. The flames would then rage over our grave, and the blood of our enemies flow, a vain oblation. Let us consider, Egmont.

Egmont. But how could they effect this purpose?

Orange. Alva is on the way.

Egmont. I do not believe it.

Orange. I know it.

Egmont. The Regent appeared to know nothing of it.

Orange. And, therefore, the stronger is my conviction. The Regent will give place to him. I know his blood-thirsty disposition, and he brings an army with him.

Egmont. To harass the provinces anew? The people will be exasperated to the last degree.

Orange. Their leaders will be secured.

Egmont. No! No!

Orange. Let us retire, each to his province. There we can strengthen ourselves; the Duke will not begin with open violence.

Egmont. Must we not greet him when he comes?

Orange. We will delay.

Egmont. What if, on his arrival, he should summon us in the king’s name?

Orange. We will answer evasively.

Egmont. And if he is urgent?

Orange. We will excuse ourselves.

Egmont. And if he insist?

Orange. We shall be the less disposed to come.

Egmont. Then war is declared; and we are rebels. Do not suffer prudence to mislead you, Orange. I know it is not fear that makes you yield. Consider this step.

Orange. I have considered it.

Egmont. Consider for what you are answerable if you are wrong. For the most fatal war that ever yet desolated a country. Your refusal is the signal that at once summons the provinces to arms, that justifies every cruelty for which Spain has hitherto so anxiously sought a pretext. With a single nod you will excite to the direst confusion what, with patient effort, we have so long kept in abeyance. Think of the towns, the nobles, the people; think of commerce, agriculture, trade! Realize the murder, the desolation! Calmly the soldier beholds his comrade fall beside him in the battlefield. But towards you, carried downwards by the stream, shall float the corpses of citizens, of children, of maidens, till, aghast with horror, you shall no longer know whose cause you are defending, since you shall see those, for whose liberty you drew the sword, perishing around you. And what will be your emotions when conscience whispers, “It was for my own safety that I drew it “?

Orange. We are not ordinary men, Egmont. If it becomes us to sacrifice ourselves for thousands, it becomes us no less to spare ourselves for thousands.

Egmont. He who spares himself becomes an object of suspicion ever to himself.

Orange. He who is sure of his own motives can, with confidence, advance or retreat.

Egmont. Your own act will render certain the evil that you dread.

Orange. Wisdom and courage alike prompt us to meet an inevitable evil.

Egmont. When the danger is imminent the faintest hope should be taken into account.

Orange We have not the smallest footing left; we are on the very brink of the precipice.

Egmont. Is the king’s favour on ground so narrow?

Orange. Not narrow, perhaps, but slippery.

Egmont. By heavens! he is belied. I cannot endure that he should be so meanly thought of! He is Charles’s son, and incapable of meanness.

Orange. Kings of course do nothing mean.

Egmont. He should be better known.

Orange. Our knowledge counsels us not to await the result of a dangerous experiment.

Egmont. No experiment is dangerous, the result of which we have the courage to meet.

Orange. You are irritated, Egmont.

Egmont. I must see with my own eyes.

Orange. Oh that for once you saw with mine! My friend, because your eyes are open, you imagine that you see. I go! Await Alva’s arrival, and God be with you! My refusal to do so may perhaps save you. The dragon may deem the prey not worth seizing, if he cannot swallow us both. Perhaps he may delay, in order more surely to execute his purpose; in the meantime you may see matters in their true light. But then, be prompt! Lose not a moment! Save, — oh, save yourself! Farewell! — Let nothing escape your vigilance: — how many troops he brings with him; how he garrisons the town; what force the Regent retains; how your friends are prepared. Send me tidings — Egmont — Egmont. What would you?

Orange (grasping his hand). Be persuaded! Go with me!

Egmont. How! Tears, Orange!

Orange. To weep for a lost friend is not unmanly.

Egmont. You deem me lost?

Orange. You are lost! Consider! Only a brief respite is left you. Farewell.

[Exit.

Egmont (alone). Strange that the thoughts of other men should exert such an influence over us. These fears would never have entered my mind; and this man infects me with his solicitude. Away! ’Tis a foreign drop in my blood! Kind nature, cast it forth! And to erase the furrowed lines from my brow there yet remains indeed a friendly means.

ACT III

SCENE I. — Palace of the Regent Margaret of Parma

Regent. I might have expected it. Ha! when we live immersed in anxiety and toil, we imagine that we achieve the utmost that is possible; while he, who, from a distance, looks on and commands, believes that he requires only the possible. O ye kings! I had not thought it could have galled me thus. It is so sweet to reign! — and to abdicate? I know not how my father could do so; but I will also.

Machiavel appears in the back-ground

Regent. Approach, Machiavel. I am thinking over this letter from my brother.

Machiavel. May I know what it contains?

Regent. As much tender consideration for me as anxiety for his states. He extols the firmness, the industry, the fidelity, with which I have hitherto watched over the interests of his Majesty in these provinces. He condoles with me that the unbridled people occasion me so much trouble. He is so thoroughly convinced of the depth of my views, so extraordinarily satisfied with the prudence of my conduct, that I must almost say the letter is too politely written for a king — certainly for a brother.

Machiavel. It is not the first time that he has testified to you his just satisfaction.

Regent. But the first time that it is a mere rhetorical figure.

Machiavel. I do not understand you.

Regent. You soon will. — For after this preamble he is of opinion that without soldiers, without a small army indeed, — -I shall always cut a sorry figure here! We did wrong, he says, to withdraw our troops from the provinces at the remonstrance of the inhabitants; a garrison, he thinks, which shall press upon the neck of the burgher, will prevent him, by its weight, from making any lofty spring.

Machiavel. It would irritate the public mind to the last degree.

Regent. The king thinks, however, do you hear? — he thinks that a clever general, one who never listens to reason, will be able to deal promptly with all parties; — people and nobles, citizens and peasants; he therefore sends, with a powerful army, the Duke of Alva.

Machiavel. Alva?

Regent. You are surprised.

Machiavel. You say, he sends, he asks doubtless whether he should send.

Regent. The king asks not, he sends.

Machiavel. You will then have an experienced warrior in your service.

Regent. In my service? Speak out, Machiavel.

Machiavel. I would not anticipate you.

Regent. And I would I could dissimulate. It wounds me — wounds me to the quick. I had rather my brother would speak his mind than attach his signature to formal epistles drawn up by a Secretary of state.

Machiavel. Can they not comprehend? —

Regent. I know them both within and without. They would fain make a clean sweep; and since they cannot set about it themselves, they give their confidence to any one who comes with a besom in his hand. Oh, it seems to me as if I saw the king and his council worked upon this tapestry.

Machiavel. So distinctly!

Regent. No feature is wanting. There are good men among them. The honest Roderigo, so experienced and so moderate, who does not aim too high, yet lets nothing sink too low; the upright Alonzo, the diligent Freneda, the steadfast Las Vargas, and others who join them when the good party are in power. But there sits the hollow-eyed Toledan, with brazen front and deep fire-glance, muttering between his teeth about womanish softness, ill-timed concession, and that women can ride trained steeds, well enough, but are themselves bad masters of the horse, and the like pleasantries, which, in former times, I have been compelled to hear from political gentlemen.

Machiavel. You have chosen good colours for your picture.

Regent. Confess, Machiavel, among the tints from which I might select, there is no hue so livid, so jaundice-like, as Alva’s complexion, and the colour he is wont to paint with. He regards every one as a blasphemer or traitor, for under this head they can all be racked, impaled, quartered, and burnt at pleasure. The good I have accomplished here appears as nothing seen from a distance, just because it is good. Then he dwells on every outbreak that is past, recalls every disturbance that is quieted, and brings before the king such a picture of mutiny, sedition, and audacity, that we appear to him to be actually devouring one another, when with us the transient explosion of a rude people has long been forgotten. Thus he conceives a cordial hatred for the poor people; he views them with horror, as beasts and monsters; looks around for fire and sword, and imagines that by such means human beings are subdued.

Machiavel. You appear to me too vehement; you take the matter too seriously. Do you not remain Regent?

Regent. I am aware of that. He will bring his instructions. I am old enough in state affairs to understand how people can be supplanted, without being actually deprived of office. First, he will produce a commission, couched in terms somewhat obscure and equivocal; he will stretch his authority, for the power is in his hands; if I complain, he will hint at secret instructions; if I desire to see them, he will answer evasively; if I insist, he will produce a paper of totally different import; and if this fail to satisfy me, he will go on precisely as if I had never interfered. Meanwhile he will have accomplished what I dread, and have frustrated my most cherished schemes.

Machiavel. I wish I could contradict you.

Regent. His harshness and cruelty will again arouse the turbulent spirit, which, with unspeakable patience, I have succeeded in quelling; I shall see my work destroyed before my eyes, and have besides to bear the blame of his wrongdoing.

Machiavel. Await it, your Highness.

Regent. I have sufficient self-command to remain quiet. Let him come; I will make way for him with the best grace ere he pushes me aside.

Machiavel. So important a step thus suddenly? Regent. ’Tis harder than you imagine. He who is accustomed to rule, to hold daily in his hand the destiny of thousands, descends from the throne as into the grave. Better thus, however, than linger a spectre among the living, and with hollow aspect endeavour to maintain a place which another has inherited, and already possesses and enjoys.

SCENE II. — Clara’s dwelling

Clara and her Mother

Mother. Such a love as Brackenburg’s I have never seen; I thought it was to be found only in romance books.

Clara (walking up and down the room, humming a song). With love’s thrilling rapture What joy can compare!

Mother. He suspects thy attachment to Egmont; and yet, if thou wouldst but treat him a little kindly, I do believe he would marry thee still, if thou wouldst have him.

Clara (sings).

     Blissful

     And tearful,

     With thought-teeming brain;

     Hoping

     And fearing

     In passionate pain;

     Now shouting in triumph,

     Now sunk in despair; —

     With love’s thrilling rapture

     What joy can compare!

Mother. Have done with such baby-nonsense!

Clara. Nay, do not abuse it; ’tis a song of marvellous virtue. Many a time have I lulled a grown child to sleep with it.

Mother. Ay! Thou canst think of nothing but thy love. If it only did not put everything else out of thy head. Thou shouldst have more regard for Brackenburg, I tell thee. He may make thee happy yet some day.

Clara. He?

Mother. Oh, yes! A time will come! You children live only in the present, and give no ear to our experience. Youth and happy love, all has an end; and there comes a time when one thanks God if one has any corner to creep into.

Clara (shudders, and after a pause stands up). Mother, let that time come — like death. To think of it beforehand is horrible! And if it come! If we must — then — we will bear ourselves as we may. Live without thee, Egmont! (Weeping.) No! It is impossible.

[Enter Egmont (enveloped in a horseman’s cloak, his hat drawn over his face).

Egmont. Clara!

Clara (utters a cry and starts back). Egmont! (She hastens towards him.) Egmont! (She embraces and leans upon him.) O thou good, kind, sweet Egmont! Art thou come? Art thou here indeed!

Egmont. Good evening, Mother?

Mother. God save you, noble sir! My daughter has well-nigh pined to death, because you have stayed away so long; she talks and sings about you the live-long day.

Egmont. You will give me some supper?

Mother. You do us too much honour. If we only had anything —

Clara. Certainly! Be quiet, Mother; I have provided everything; there is something prepared. Do not betray me, Mother.

Mother. There’s little enough.

Clara. Never mind! And then I think when he is with me I am never hungry; so he cannot, I should think, have any great appetite when I am with him.

Egmont. Do you think so? (Clara stamps with her foot and turns pettishly away.) What ails you?

Clara. How cold you are to-day! You have not yet offered me a kiss. Why do you keep your arms enveloped in your mantle, like a new-born babe? It becomes neither a soldier nor a lover to keep his arms muffled up.

Egmont. Sometimes, dearest, sometimes. When the soldier stands in ambush and would delude the foe, he collects his thoughts, gathers his mantle around him, and matures his plan and a lover —

Mother. Will you not take a seat, and make yourself comfortable? I must to the kitchen, Clara thinks of nothing when you are here. You must put up with what we have.

Egmont. Your good-will is the best seasoning.

[Exit Mother.

Clara. And what then is my love?

Egmont. Just what thou wilt.

Clara. Liken it to anything, if you have the heart.

Egmont. But first. (He flings aside his mantle, and appears arrayed in a magnificent dress.)

Clara. Oh heavens!

Egmont. Now my arms are free! (Embraces her.)

Clara. Don’t! You will spoil your dress. (She steps back.) How magnificent! I dare not touch you.

Egmont. Art thou satisfied? I promised to come once arrayed in Spanish fashion.

Clara. I had ceased to remind you of it; I thought you did not like it — ah, and the Golden Fleece!

Egmont. Thou seest it now.

Clara. And did the emperor really hang it round thy neck!

Egmont. He did, my child! And this chain and Order invest the wearer with the noblest privileges. On earth I acknowledge no judge over my actions, except the grand master of the Order, with the assembled chapter of knights.

Clara. Oh, thou mightest let the whole world sit in judgment over thee. The velvet is too splendid! and the braiding! and the embroidery! One knows not where to begin.

Egmont. There, look thy fill.

Clara. And the Golden Fleece! You told me its history, and said it is the symbol of everything great and precious, of everything that can be merited and won by diligence and toil. It is very precious — I may liken it to thy love; — even so I wear it next my heart; — and then —

Egmont. What wilt thou say?

Clara. And then again it is not like.

Egmont. How so?

Clara. I have not won it by diligence and toil, I have not deserved it.

Egmont. It is otherwise in love. Thou dost deserve it because thou hast not sought it — and, for the most part, those only obtain love who seek it not.

Clara. Is it from thine own experience that thou hast learned this? Didst thou make that proud remark in reference to thyself? Thou, whom all the people love?

Egmont. Would that I had done something for them! That I could do anything for them! It is their own good pleasure to love me.

Clara. Thou hast doubtless been with the Regent to-day?

Egmont. I have.

Clara. Art thou upon good terms with her?

Egmont So it would appear. We are kind and serviceable to each other.

Clara. And in thy heart?

Egmont. I like her. True, we have each our own views; but that is nothing to the purpose. She is an excellent woman, knows with whom she has to deal, and would be penetrating enough were she not quite so suspicious. I give her plenty of employment, because she is always suspecting some secret motive in my conduct when, in fact, I have none.

Clara. Really none?

Egmont. Well, with one little exception, perhaps. All wine deposits lees in the cask in the course of time. Orange furnishes her still better entertainment, and is a perpetual riddle. He has got the credit of harbouring some secret design; and she studies his brow to discover his thoughts, and his steps, to learn in what direction they are bent.

Clara. Does she dissemble?

Egmont. She is Regent — and do you ask?

Clara. Pardon me; I meant to say, is she false?

Egmont. Neither more nor less than everyone who has his own objects to attain.

Clara. I should never feel at home in the world. But she has a masculine spirit, and is another sort of woman from us housewives and sempstresses. She is great, steadfast, resolute.

Egmont. Yes, when matters are not too much involved. For once, however, she is a little disconcerted.

Clara. How so?

Egmont. She has a moustache, too, on her upper lip, and occasionally an attack of the gout. A regular Amazon.

Clara. A majestic woman! I should dread to appear before her.

Egmont. Yet thou art not wont to be timid! It would not be fear, only maidenly bashfulness.

(Clara casts down her eyes, takes his hand, and leans upon him.)

Egmont. I understand thee, dearest! Thou mayst raise thine eyes. (He kisses her eyes.)

Clara. Let me be silent! Let me embrace thee! Let me look into thine eyes, and find there everything — hope and comfort, joy and sorrow! (She embraces and gazes on him.) Tell me! Oh, tell me! It seems so strange — art thou indeed Egmont! Count Egmont! The great Egmont, who makes so much noise in the world, who figures in the newspapers, who is the support and stay of the provinces?

Egmont. No, Clara, I am not he.

Clara. How?

Egmont. Seest thou, Clara? Let me sit down! (He seats himself, she kneels on a footstool before him, rests her arms on his knees and looks up in his face.) That Egmont is a morose, cold, unbending Egmont, obliged to be upon his guard, to assume now this appearance and now that; harassed, misapprehended and perplexed, when the crowd esteem him light-hearted and gay; beloved by a people who do not know their own minds; honoured and extolled by the intractable multitude; surrounded by friends in whom he dares not confide; observed by men who are on the watch to supplant him; toiling and striving, often without an object, generally without a reward. O let me conceal how it fares with him, let me not speak of his feelings! But this Egmont, Clara, is calm, unreserved, happy, beloved and known by the best of hearts, which is also thoroughly known to him, and which he presses to his own with unbounded confidence and love. (He embraces her.) This is thy Egmont.

Clara. So let me die! The world has no joy after this!

ACT IV

SCENE I. — A Street

Jetter, Carpenter

Jetter. Hist! neighbour, — a word!

Carpenter. Go your way and be quiet.

Jetter. Only one word. Is there nothing new?

Carpenter. Nothing, except that we are anew forbidden to speak.

Jetter. How?

Carpenter. Step here, close to this house. Take heed! Immediately on his arrival, the Duke of Alva published a decree, by which two or three, found conversing together in the streets, are without trial, declared guilty of high treason.

Jetter. Alas!

Carpenter. To speak of state affairs is prohibited on pain of perpetual imprisonment.

Jetter. Alas for our liberty!

Carpenter. And no one, on pain of death, shall censure the measures of government.

Jetter. Alas, for our heads!

Carpenter. And fathers, Mothers, children, kindred, friends, and servants, are invited, by the promise of large rewards, to disclose what passes in the privacy of our homes, before an expressly appointed tribunal.

Jetter. Let us go home.

Carpenter. And the obedient are promised that they shall suffer no injury, either in person or estate.

Jetter. How gracious! — -I felt ill at ease the moment the duke entered the town. Since then, it has seemed to me, as though the heavens were covered with black crape, which hangs so low, that one must stoop down to avoid knocking one’s head against it.

Carpenter. And how do you like his soldiers? They are a different sort of crabs from those we have been used to.

Jetter. Faugh! It gives one the cramp at one’s heart to see such a troop march down the street. As straight as tapers, with fixed look, only one step, however many there may be; and when they stand sentinel, and you pass one of them, it seems as though he would look you through and through; and he looks so stiff and morose, that you fancy you see a task-master at every corner. They offend my sight. Our militia were merry fellows; they took liberties, stood their legs astride, their hats over their ears, they lived and let live; these fellows are like machines with a devil inside them.

Carpenter. Were such an one to cry, “Halt!” and level his musket, think you one would stand?

Jetter. I should fall dead upon the spot.

Carpenter. Let us go home!

Jetter No good can come of it. Farewell.

[Enter Soest.

Soest. Friends! Neighbours! Carpenter. Hush! Let us go.

Soest. Have you heard?

Jetter. Only too much!

Soest. The Regent is gone.

Jetter. Then Heaven help us.

Carpenter. She was some stay to us.

Soest. Her departure was sudden and secret. She could not agree with the duke; she has sent word to the nobles that she intends to return. No one believes it, however.

Carpenter. God pardon the nobles for letting this new yoke be laid upon our necks. They might have prevented it. Our privileges are gone.

Jetter. For Heaven’s sake not a word about privileges. I already scent an execution; the sun will not come forth; the fogs are rank.

Soest. Orange, too, is gone.

Carpenter. Then are we quite deserted!

Soest, Count Egmont is still here.

Jetter. God be thanked! Strengthen him, all ye saints, to do his utmost; he is the only one who can help us.

[Enter Vansen.

Vansen. Have I at length found a few brave citizens who have not crept out of sight?

Jetter. Do us the favour to pass on.

Vansen. You are not civil.

Jetter. This is no time for compliments. Does your back itch again? are your wounds already healed?

Vansen. Ask a soldier about his wounds? Had I cared for blows, nothing good would have come of me.

Jetter. Matters may grow more serious.

Vansen. You feel from the gathering storm a pitiful weakness in your limbs, it seems.

Carpenter. Your limbs will soon be in motion elsewhere, if you do not keep quiet.

Vansen. Poor mice! The master of the house procures a new cat, and ye are straight in despair! The difference is very trifling; we shall get on as we did before, only be quiet.

Carpenter. You are an insolent knave.

Vansen. Gossip! Let the duke alone. The old cat looks as though he had swallowed devils, instead of mice, and could not now digest them. Let him alone, I say; he must eat, drink, and sleep, like other men. I am not afraid if we only watch our opportunity, At first he makes quick work Of it; by-and-by, however, he too will find that it is pleasanter to live in the larder, among flitches of bacon, and to rest by night, than to entrap a few solitary mice in the granary. Go to! I know the stadtholders.

Carpenter. What such a fellow can say with impunity! Had I said such a thing, I should not hold myself safe a moment.

Vansen. Do not make yourselves uneasy! God in heaven does not trouble himself about you, poor worms, much less the Regent.

Jetter. Slanderer!

Vansen. I know some for whom it would be better if, instead of their own high spirits, they had a little tailor’s blood in their veins.

Carpenter. What mean you by that?

Vansen. Hum! I mean the count.

Jetter. Egmont! What has he to fear?

Vansen. I’m a poor devil, and could live a whole year round on what he loses in a single night; yet he would do well to give me his revenue for a twelvemonth, to have my head upon his shoulders for one quarter of an hour.

Jetter. You think yourself very clever; yet there is more sense in the hairs of Egmont’s head, than in your brains.

Vansen. Perhaps so! Not more shrewdness, however. These gentry are the most apt to deceive themselves. He should be more chary of his confidence.

Jetter. How his tongue wags! Such a gentleman!

Vansen. Just because he is not a tailor.

Jetter. You audacious scoundrel!

Vansen. I only wish he had your courage in his limbs for an hour to make him uneasy, and plague and torment him, till he were compelled to leave the town.

Jetter. What nonsense you talk; why he’s as safe as a star in heaven.

Vansen. Have you ever seen one snuff itself out? Off it went!

Carpenter. Who would dare to meddle with him?

Vansen. Will you interfere to prevent it? Will you stir up an insurrection if he is arrested?

Jetter. Ah!

Vansen. Will you risk your ribs for his sake?

Soest. Eh!

Vansen (mimicking them). Eh! Oh! Ah! Run through the alphabet in your wonderment. So it is, and so it will remain. Heaven help him!

Jetter. Confound your impudence. Can such a noble, upright man have anything to fear?

Vansen. In this world the rogue has everywhere the advantage. At the bar, he makes a fool of the judge; on the bench, he takes pleasure in convicting the accused. I have had to copy out a protocol, where the commissary was handsomely rewarded by the court, both with praise and money, because through his cross-examination, an honest devil, against whom they had a grudge, was made out to be a rogue.

Carpenter. Why, that again is a downright lie. What can they want to get out of a man if he is innocent?

Vansen. Oh, you blockhead! When nothing can be worked out of a man by cross-examination, they work it into him. Honesty is rash and withal somewhat presumptuous; at first they question quietly enough, and the prisoner, proud of his innocence, as they call it, comes out with much that a sensible man would keep back! then, from these answers the inquisitor proceeds to put new questions, and is on the watch for the slightest contradiction; there he fastens his line; and, let the poor devil lose his self-possession, say too much here, or too little there, or, Heaven knows from what whim or other, let him withhold some trifling circumstance, or at any moment give way to fear — then we’re on the right track, and, I assure you, no beggar-woman seeks for rags among the rubbish with more care than such a fabricator of rogues, from trifling, crooked, disjointed, misplaced, misprinted, and concealed facts and information, acknowledged or denied, endeavours at length to patch up a scarecrow, by means of which he may at least hang his victim in effigy; and the poor devil may thank Heaven if he is in a condition to see himself hanged.

Jetter. He has a ready tongue of his own.

Carpenter. This may serve well enough with flies. Wasps laugh at your cunning web.

Vansen. According to the kind of spider. The tall duke, now, has just the look of your garden spider; not the large-bellied kind, they are less dangerous; but your long-footed, meagre-bodied gentleman, that does not fatten on his diet, and whose threads are slender indeed, but not the less tenacious.

Jetter. Egmont is knight of the Golden Fleece, who dare lay hands on him? He can be tried only by his peers, by the assembled knights of his order. Your own foul tongue and evil conscience betray you into this nonsense.

Vansen. Think you that I wish him ill? I would you were in the right. He is an excellent gentleman. He once let off, with a sound drubbing, some good friends of mine, who would else have been hanged. Now take yourselves off! begone, I advise you! Yonder I see the patrol again commencing their round. They do not look as if they would be willing to fraternize with us over a glass. We must wait, and bide our time. I have a couple of nieces and a gossip of a tapster; if after enjoying themselves in their company, they are not tamed, they are regular wolves.

SCENE II. — The Palace of Eulenberg, Residence of the Duke of Alva

Silva and Gomez (meeting)

Silva. Have you executed the duke’s commands?

Gomez. Punctually. All the day-patrols have received orders to assemble at the appointed time, at the various points that I have indicated. Meanwhile, they march as usual through the town to maintain order. Each is ignorant respecting the movements of the rest, and imagines the command to have reference to himself alone; thus in a moment the cordon can be formed, and all the avenues to the palace occupied. Know you the reason of this command?

Silva. I am accustomed blindly to obey; and to whom can one more easily render obedience than to the duke, since the event always proves the wisdom of his commands?

Gomez. Well! Well! I am not surprised that you are become as reserved and monosyllabic as the duke, since you are obliged to be always about his person; to me, however, who am accustomed to the lighter service of Italy, it seems strange enough. In loyalty and obedience, I am the same old soldier as ever; but I am wont to indulge in gossip and discussion; here, you are all silent, and seem as though you knew not how to enjoy yourselves. The duke, methinks, is like a brazen tower without gates, the garrison of which must be furnished with wings. Not long ago I heard him say at the table of a gay, jovial fellow that he was like a bad spirit-shop, with a brandy sign displayed; to allure idlers, vagabonds, and thieves.

Silva. And has he not brought us hither in silence?

Gomez. Nothing can be said against that. Of a truth, we, who witnessed the address with which he led the troops hither out of Italy, have seen something. How he advanced warily through friends and foes; through the French, both royalists and heretics; through the Swiss and their confederates; maintained the strictest discipline, and accomplished with ease, and without the slightest hindrance, a march that was esteemed so perilous! — We have seen and learned something.

Silva. Here too! Is not everything as still and quiet as though there had been no disturbance?

Gomez. Why, as for that, it was tolerably quiet when we arrived.

Silva. The provinces have become much more tranquil; if there is any movement now, it is only among those who wish to escape; and to them, methinks, the duke will speedily close every outlet.

Gomez. This service cannot fail to win for him the favour of the king.

Silva. And nothing is more expedient for us than to retain his. Should the king come hither, the duke doubtless and all whom he recommends will not go without their reward.

Gomez. Do you really believe then that the king will come?

Silva. So many preparations are being made, that the report appears highly probable.

Gomez. I am not convinced, however.

Silva. Keep your thoughts to yourself then. For if it should not be the king’s intention to come, it is at least, certain that he wishes the rumour to be believed.

[Enter Ferdinand.

Ferdinand. Is my father not yet abroad?

Silva. We are waiting to receive his commands.

Ferdinand. The princes will soon be here.

Gomez. Are they expected to-day?

Ferdinand. Orange and Egmont.

Gomez (aside to Silva). A light breaks in upon me.

Silva. Well, then, say nothing about it.

Enter the Duke of Alva (as he advances the rest draw back)

Alva. Gomez.

Gomez (steps forward). My lord.

Alva. You have distributed the guards and given them their instructions?

Gomez. Most accurately. The day-patrols —

Alva. Enough. Attend in the gallery. Silva will announce to you the moment when you are to draw them together, and to occupy the avenues leading to the palace. The rest you know.

Gomez. I do, my lord.

[Exit. Alva. Silva.

Silva. Here my lord.

Alva. I shall require you to manifest to-day all the qualities which I have hitherto prized in you: courage, resolve, unswerving execution.

Silva. I thank you for affording me an opportunity of showing that your old servant is unchanged.

Alva. The moment the princes enter my cabinet, hasten to arrest Egmont’s private Secretary. You have made all needful preparations for securing the others who are specified?

Silva. Rely upon us. Their doom, like a well-calculated eclipse, will overtake them with terrible certainty.

Alva. Have you had them all narrowly watched?

Silva. All. Egmont especially. He is the only one whose demeanour, since your arrival, remains unchanged. The live-long day he is now on one horse and now on another; he invites guests as usual, is merry and entertaining at table, plays at dice, shoots, and at night steals to his mistress. The others, on the contrary, have made a manifest pause in their mode of life; they remain at home, and, from the outward aspect of their houses, you would imagine that there was a sick man within.

Alva. To work then, ere they recover in spite of us.

Silva. I shall bring them without fail. In obedience to your commands we load them with officious honours; they are alarmed; cautiously, yet anxiously, they tender us their thanks, feel that flight would be the most prudent course, yet none venture to adopt it; they hesitate, are unable to work together, while the bond which unites them prevents their acting boldly as individuals. They are anxious to withdraw themselves from suspicion, and thus only render themselves more obnoxious to it. I already contemplate with joy the successful realization of your scheme.

Alva. I rejoice only over what is accomplished, and not lightly over that; for there ever remains ground for serious and anxious thought. Fortune is capricious; the common, the worthless, she oft-times ennobles, while she dishonours with a contemptible issue the most maturely considered schemes. Await the arrival of the princes, then order Gomez to occupy the streets, and hasten yourself to arrest Egmont’s secretary, and the others who are specified. This done, return, and announce to my son that he may bring me the tidings in the council.

Silva. I trust this evening I shall dare to appear in your presence. (Alva approaches his son who has hitherto been standing in the gallery.) I dare not whisper it even to myself; but my mind misgives me. The event will, I fear, be different from what he anticipates. I see before me spirits, who, still and thoughtful, weigh in ebon scales the doom of princes and of many thousands. Slowly the beam moves up and down; deeply the judges appear to ponder; at length one scale sinks, the other rises, breathed on by the caprice of destiny, and all is decided.

[Exit.

Alva (advancing with his son). How did you find the town?

Ferdinand. All is again quiet. I rode as for pastime, from street to street. Your well-distributed patrols hold Fear so tightly yoked, that she does not venture even to whisper. The town resembles a plain when the lightning’s glare announces the impending storm: no bird, no beast is to be seen, that is not stealing to a place of shelter.

Alva. Has nothing further occurred?

Ferdinand. Egmont, with a few companions, rode into the market-place; we exchanged greetings; he was mounted on an unbroken charger, which excited my admiration, “Let us hasten to break in our steeds,” he exclaimed; “we shall need them ere long!” He said that he should see me again to-day; he is coming here, at your desire, to deliberate with you.

Alva. He will see you again.

Ferdinand. Among all the knights whom I know here, he pleases me the best. I think we shall be friends.

Alva. You are always rash and inconsiderate. I recognize in you the levity of your Mother, which threw her unconditionally into my arms. Appearances have already allured you precipitately into many dangerous connections.

Ferdinand. You will find me ever submissive.

Alva. I pardon this inconsiderate kindness, this heedless gaiety, in consideration of your youthful blood. Only forget not on what mission I am sent, and what part in it I would assign to you.

Ferdinand. Admonish me, and spare me not, when you deem it needful.

Alva (after a pause). My son!

Ferdinand. My father!

Alva. The princes will be here anon; Orange and Egmont. It is not mistrust that has withheld me till now from disclosing to you what is about to take place. They will not depart hence.

Ferdinand. What do you purpose?

Alva. It has been resolved to arrest them. — You are astonished! Learn what you have to do; the reasons you shall know when all is accomplished. Time fails now to unfold them. With you alone I wish to deliberate on the weightiest, the most secret matters; a powerful bond holds us linked together; you are dear and precious to me; on you I would bestow everything. Not the habit of obedience alone would I impress upon you; I desire also to implant within your mind the power to realize, to command, to execute; to you I would bequeath a vast inheritance, to the king a most useful servant; I would endow you with the noblest of my possessions, that you may not be ashamed to appear among your brethren.

Ferdinand. How deeply am I indebted to you for this love, which you manifest for me alone, while a whole kingdom trembles before you!

Alva. Now hear what is to be done. As soon as the princes have entered, every avenue to the palace will be guarded. This duty is confided to Gomez. Silva will hasten to arrest Egmont’s secretary, together with those whom we hold most in suspicion. You, meanwhile, will take the command of the guards stationed at the gates and in the courts. Before all, take care to occupy the adjoining apartment with the trustiest soldiers. Wait in the gallery till Silva returns, then bring me any unimportant paper, as a signal that his commission is executed. Remain in the ante-chamber till Orange retires, follow him; I will detain Egmont here as though I had some further communication to make to him. At the end of the gallery demand Orange’s sword, summon the guards, secure promptly the most dangerous man; I meanwhile will seize Egmont here.

Ferdinand. I obey, my father — for the first time with a heavy and an anxious heart.

Alva. I pardon you; this is the first great day of your life.

[Enter Silva.

Silva. A courier from Antwerp. Here is Orange’s letter. He does not come.

Alva. Says the messenger so?

Silva. No, my own heart tells me.

Alva. In thee speaks my evil genius. (After reading the letter, he makes a sign to the two, and they retire to the gallery. Alva remains alone in front of the stage.) He comes not! Till the last moment he delays declaring himself. He ventures not to come! So then, the cautious man, contrary to all expectations, is for once cautious enough to lay aside his wonted caution. The hour moves on! Let the finger travel but a short space over the dial, and a great work is done or lost — irrevocably lost; for the opportunity can never be retrieved, nor can our intention remain concealed. Long had I maturely weighed everything, foreseen even this contingency, and firmly resolved in my own mind what, in that case, was to be done; and now, when I am called upon to act, I can with difficulty guard my mind from being again distracted by conflicting doubts. Is it expedient to seize the others if he escape me? Shall I delay, and suffer Egmont to elude my grasp, together with his friends, and so many others who now, and perhaps for to-day only, are in my hands? How! Does destiny control even thee — the uncontrollable? How long matured! How well prepared! How great, how admirable the plan! How nearly had hope attained the goal! And now, at the decisive moment, thou art placed between two evils; as in a lottery, thou dost grasp in the dark future; what thou hast drawn remains still unrolled, to thee unknown whether it is a prize or a blank! (He becomes attentive, like one who hears a noise, and steps to the window.) ’Tis he! Egmont! Did thy steed bear thee hither so lightly, and started not at the scent of blood, at the spirit with the naked sword who received thee at the gate? Dismount! Lo, now thou hast one foot in the grave! And now both! Ay, caress him, and for the last time stroke his neck for the gallant service he has rendered thee. And for me no choice is left. The delusion, in which Egmont ventures here to-day, cannot a second time deliver him into my hands! Hark! (Ferdinand and Silva enter hastily.) Obey my orders! I swerve not from my purpose. I shall detain Egmont here as best I may, till you bring me tidings from Silva. Then remain at hand. Thee, too, fate has robbed of the proud honour of arresting with thine own hand the king’s greatest enemy. (To Silva.) Be prompt! (To Ferdinand.) Advance to meet him.

(Alva remains some moments alone, pacing the chamber in silence.)

[Enter Egmont.

Egmont. I come to learn the king’s commands; to hear what service he demands from our loyalty, which remains eternally devoted to him.

Alva. He desires, before all, to hear your counsel.

Egmont. Upon what subject? Does Orange come also? I thought to find him here.

Alva. I regret that he fails us at this important crisis. The king desires your counsel, your opinion as to the best means of tranquillizing these states. He trusts indeed that you will zealously co-operate with him in quelling these disturbances, and in securing to these provinces the benefit of complete and permanent order.

Egmont. You, my lord, should know better than I, that tranquillity is already sufficiently restored, and was still more so, till the appearance of fresh troops again agitated the public mind, and filled it anew with anxiety and alarm.

Alva. You seem to intimate that it would have been more advisable if the king had not placed me in a position to interrogate you.

Egmont. Pardon me! It is not for me to determine whether the king acted advisedly in sending the army hither, whether the might of his royal presence alone would not have operated more powerfully. The army is here, the king is not. But we should be most ungrateful were we to forget what we owe to the Regent. Let it be acknowledged! By her prudence and valour, by her judicious use of authority and force, of persuasion and finesse, she pacified the insurgents, and, to the astonishment of the world, succeeded, in the course of a few months, in bringing a rebellious people back to their duty.

Alva. I deny it not. The insurrection is quelled; and the people appear to be already forced back within the bounds of obedience. But does it not depend upon their caprice alone to overstep these bounds? Who shall prevent them from again breaking loose? Where is the power capable of restraining them? Who will be answerable to us for their future loyalty and submission? Their own goodwill is the sole pledge we have.

Egmont. And is not the good-will of a people the surest, the noblest pledge? By heaven! when can a monarch hold himself more secure, ay, both against foreign and domestic foes, than when all can stand for one, and one for all?

Alva. You would not have us believe, however, that such is the case here at present?

Egmont. Let the king proclaim a general pardon; he will thus tranquillize the public mind; and it will be seen how speedily loyalty and affection will return, when confidence is restored.

Alva. How! And suffer those who have insulted the majesty of the king, who have violated the sanctuaries of our religion, to go abroad unchallenged! living witnesses that enormous crimes may be perpetrated with impunity!

Egmont. And ought not a crime of frenzy, of intoxication, to be excused, rather than horribly chastised? Especially when there is the sure hope, nay, more, where there is positive certainty that the evil will never again recur? Would not sovereigns thus be more secure? Are not those monarchs most extolled by the world and by posterity, who can pardon, pity, despise an offence against their dignity? Are they not on that account likened to God himself, who is far too exalted to be assailed by every idle blasphemy?

Alva. And therefore, should the king contend for the honour of God and of religion, we for the authority of the king. What the supreme power disdains to avert, it is our duty to avenge. Were I to counsel, no guilty person should live to rejoice in his impunity.

Egmont. Think you that you will be able to reach them all? Do we not daily hear that fear is driving them to and fro, and forcing them out of the land? The more wealthy will escape to other countries with their property, their children, and their friends; while the poor will carry their industrious hands to our neighbours.

Alva. They will, if they cannot be prevented. It is on this account that the king desires counsel and aid from every prince, zealous co-operation from every stadtholder; not merely a description of the present posture of affairs, or conjectures as to what might take place were events suffered to hold on their course without interruption. To contemplate a mighty evil, to flatter oneself with hope, to trust to time, to strike a blow, like the clown in a play, so as to make a noise and appear to do something, when in fact one would fain do nothing; is not such conduct calculated to awaken a suspicion that those who act thus contemplate with satisfaction a rebellion, which they would not indeed excite, but which they are by no means unwilling to encourage?

Egmont (about to break forth, restrains himself, and after a brief pause, speaks with composure). Not every design is obvious, and many a man’s design is misconstrued. It is widely rumoured, however, that the object which the king has in view is not so much to govern the provinces according to uniform and dearly defined laws, to maintain the majesty of religion, and to give his people universal peace, as unconditionally to subjugate them, to rob them of their ancient rights, to appropriate their possessions, to curtail the fair privileges of the nobles, for whose sake alone they are ready to serve him with life and limb. Religion, it is said, is merely a splendid device, behind which every dangerous design may be contrived with the greater ease; the prostrate crowds adore the sacred symbols pictured there, while behind lurks the fowler ready to ensnare them.

Alva. This must I hear from you?

Egmont. I speak not my own sentiments! I but repeat what is loudly rumoured, and uttered now here and now there by great and by humble, by wise men and fools. The Netherlanders fear a double yoke, and who will be surety to them for their liberty?

Alva. Liberty! A fair word when rightly understood. What liberty would they have? What is the freedom of the most free? To do right! And in that the monarch will not hinder them. No! No! They imagine themselves enslaved, when they have not the power to injure themselves and others. Would it not be better to abdicate at once, rather than rule such a people? When the country is threatened by foreign invaders, the burghers, occupied only with their immediate interests, bestow no thought upon the advancing foe, and when the king requires their aid, they quarrel among themselves, and thus, as it were, conspire with the enemy. Far better is it to circumscribe their power, to control and guide them for their good, as children are controlled and guided. Trust me, a people grows neither old nor wise, a people remains always in its infancy.

Egmont. How rarely does a king attain wisdom! And is it not fit that the many should confide their interests to the many rather than to the one? And not even to the one, but to the few servants of the one, men who have grown old under the eyes of their master. To grow wise, it seems, is the exclusive privilege of these favoured individuals.

Alva. Perhaps for the very reason that they are not left to themselves.

Egmont. And therefore they would fain leave no one else to his own guidance. Let them do what they like, however; I have replied to your questions, and I repeat, the measures you propose will never succeed! They cannot succeed! I know my countrymen. They are men worthy to tread God’s earth; each complete in himself, a little king, steadfast, active, capable, loyal, attached to ancient customs. It may be difficult to win their confidence, but it is easy to retain it. Firm and unbending! They may be crushed, but not subdued.

Alva (who during this speech has looked round several times). Would you venture to repeat what you have uttered, in the king’s presence?

Egmont. It were the worse, if in his presence I were restrained by fear! The better for him and for his people, if he inspired me with confidence, if he encouraged me to give yet freer utterance to my thoughts.

Alva. What is profitable, I can listen to as well as he.

Egmont. I would say to him — ’Tis easy for the shepherd to drive before him a flock of sheep; the ox draws the plough without opposition; but if you would ride the noble steed, you must study his thoughts, you must require nothing unreasonable, nor unreasonably, from him. The burgher desires to retain his ancient constitution; to be governed by his own countrymen; and why? Because he knows in that case how he shall be ruled, because he can rely upon their disinterestedness, upon their sympathy with his fate.

Alva. And ought not the Regent to be empowered to alter these ancient usages? Should not this constitute his fairest privilege? What is permanent in this world? And shall the constitution of a state alone remain unchanged? Must not every relation alter in the course of time, and on that very account, an ancient constitution become the source of a thousand evils, because not adapted to the present condition of the people? These ancient rights afford, doubtless, convenient loopholes, through which the crafty and the powerful may creep, and wherein they may lie concealed, to the injury of the people and of the entire community; and it is on this account, I fear, that they are held in such high esteem.

Egmont. And these arbitrary changes, these unlimited encroachments of the supreme power, are they not indications that one will permit himself to do what is forbidden to thousands? The monarch would alone be free, that he may have it in his power to gratify his every wish, to realize his every thought. And though we should confide in him as a good and virtuous sovereign, will he be answerable to us for his successor? That none who come after him shall rule without consideration, without forbearance! And who would deliver us from absolute caprice, should he send hither his servants, his minions, who, without knowledge of the country and its requirements, should govern according to their own good pleasure, meet with no opposition, and know themselves exempt from all responsibility?

Alva (who has meanwhile again looked round). There is nothing more natural than that a king should choose to retain the power in his own hands, and that he should select as the instruments of his authority, those who best understand him, who desire to understand him, and who will unconditionally execute his will.

Egmont. And just as natural is it, that the burgher should prefer being governed by one born and reared in the same land, whose notions of right and wrong are in harmony with his own, and whom he can regard as his brother.

Alva. And yet the noble, methinks, has shared rather unequally with these brethren of his.

Egmont. That took place centuries ago, and is now submitted to without envy. But should new men, whose presence is not needed in the country, be sent, to enrich themselves a second time, at the cost of the nation; should the people see themselves exposed to their bold, unscrupulous rapacity, it would excite a ferment that would not soon be quelled.

Alva. You utter words to which I ought not to listen; — I, too, am a foreigner.

Egmont. That they are spoken in your presence is a sufficient proof that they have no reference to you.

Alva. Be that as it may, I would rather not hear them from you. The king sent me here in the hope that I should obtain the support of the nobles. The king wills, and will have his will obeyed. After profound deliberation, the king at length discerns what course will best promote the welfare of the people; matters cannot be permitted to go on as heretofore; it is the king’s intention to limit their power for their own good; if necessary, to force upon them their salvation: to sacrifice the more dangerous burghers in order that the rest may find repose, and enjoy in peace the blessing of a wise government, This is his resolve; this I am commissioned to announce to the nobles; and in his name I require from them advice, not as to the course to be pursued — on that he is resolved — but as to the best means of carrying his purpose into effect.

Egmont. Your words, alas, justify the fears of the people, the universal fear! The king has then resolved as no sovereign ought to resolve. In order to govern his subjects more easily, he would crush, subvert, nay, ruthlessly destroy, their strength, their spirit, and their self-respect! He would violate the inmost core of their individuality, doubtless with the view of promoting their happiness. He would annihilate them, that they may assume a new, a different form. Oh! if his purpose be good, he is fatally misguided! It is not the king whom we resist; — we but place ourselves in the way of the monarch, who, unhappily, is about to take the first rash step in a wrong direction.

Alva. Such being your sentiments, it were a vain attempt for us to endeavour to agree. You must indeed think poorly of the king, and contemptibly of his counsellors, if you imagine that everything has not already been thought of and maturely weighed. I have no commission a second time to balance conflicting arguments. From the people I demand submission; — and from you, their leaders and princes, I demand counsel and support, as pledges of this unconditional duty.

Egmont. Demand our heads, and your object Is attained; to a noble soul it must be indifferent whether he stoop his neck to such a yoke, or lay it upon the block. I have spoken much to little purpose. I have agitated the air, but accomplished nothing.

[Enter Ferdinand.

Ferdinand. Pardon my intrusion. Here is a letter, the bearer of which urgently demands an answer.

Alva. Allow me to peruse its contents. (Steps aside.)

Ferdinand (to Egmont). ’Tis a noble steed that your people have brought, to carry you away.

Egmont. I have seen worse. I have had him some time; I think of parting with him. If he pleases you we shall probably soon agree as to the price.

Ferdinand. We will think about it.

(Alva motions to his son, who retires to the back-ground.)

Egmont. Farewell! Allow me to retire; for, by heaven, I know not what more I can say.

Alva. Fortunately for you, chance prevents you from making a fuller disclosure of your sentiments. You incautiously lay bare the recesses of your heart, and your own lips furnish evidence against you, more fatal than could be produced by your bitterest adversary.

Egmont. This reproach disturbs me not. I know my own heart; I know with what honest zeal I am devoted to the king; I know that my allegiance is more true than that of many who, in his service, seek only to serve themselves. I regret that our discussion should terminate so unsatisfactorily, and trust that in spite of our opposing views, the service of the king, our master, and the welfare of our country, may speedily unite us; another conference, the presence of the princes who to-day are absent, may, perchance, in a more propitious moment, accomplish what at present appears impossible. In this hope I take my leave.

Alva (who at the same time makes a sign to Ferdinand). Hold, Egmont! — Your sword!-(The centre door opens and discloses the gallery, which is occupied with guards, who remain motionless.)

Egmont (after a pause of astonishment). This was the intention? For this thou hast summoned me? (Grasping his sword as if to defend himself.) Am I then weaponless?

Alva. The king commands. Thou art my prisoner. (At the same time guards enter from both sides.)

Egmont (after a pause). The king? — Orange! Orange! (after a pause, resigning his sword). Take it! It has been employed far oftener in defending the cause of my king than in protecting this breast.

(He retires by the centre door, followed by the guard and Alva’s son. Alva remains standing while the curtain falls.)

ACT V

SCENE I. — A Street. Twilight

Clara, Brackenburg, Burghers

Brackenburg. Dearest, for Heaven’s sake, what wouldst thou do?

Clara. Come with me, Brackenburg! Thou canst not know the people, we are certain to rescue him; for what can equal their love for him? Each feels, I could swear it, the burning desire to deliver him, to avert danger from a life so precious, and to restore freedom to the most free. Come! A voice only is wanting to call them together. In their souls the memory is still fresh of all they owe him, and well they know that his mighty arm alone shields them from destruction. For his sake, for their own sake, they must peril everything. And what do we peril? At most, our lives, which if he perish, are not worth preserving.

Brackenburg. Unhappy girl! Thou seest not the power that holds us fettered as with bands of iron.

Clara. To me it does not appear invincible. Let us not lose time in idle words. Here comes some of our old, honest, valiant burghers! Hark ye, friends! Neighbours! Hark! — Say, how fares it with Egmont?

Carpenter. What does the girl want? Tell her to hold her peace.

Clara. Step nearer, that we may speak low, till we are united and more strong. Not a moment is to be lost! Audacious tyranny, that dared to fetter him, already lifts the dagger against his life. Oh, my friends! With the advancing twilight my anxiety grows more intense. I dread this night. Come! Let us disperse; let us hasten from quarter to quarter, and call out the burghers. Let every one grasp his ancient weapons. In the market-place we meet again, and every one will be carried onward by our gathering stream. The enemy will see themselves surrounded, overwhelmed, and be compelled to yield. How can a handful of slaves resist us? And he will return among us, he will see himself rescued, and can for once thank us, us, who are already so deeply in his debt. He will behold, perchance, ay doubtless, he will again behold the morn’s red dawn in the free heavens.

Carpenter. What ails thee, maiden?

Clara. Can ye misunderstand me? I speak of the Count! I speak of Egmont.

Jetter. Speak not the name! ’tis deadly.

Clara. Not speak his name? How? Not Egmont’s name? Is it not on every tongue? Where stands it not inscribed? Often have I read it emblazoned with all its letters among these stars. Not utter it? What mean ye? Friends! good, kind neighbours, ye are dreaming; collect yourselves. Gaze not upon me with those fixed and anxious looks! Cast not such timid glances on every side! I but give utterance to the wish of all. Is not my voice the voice of your own hearts? Who, in this fearful night, ere he seeks his restless couch, but on bended knee will, in earnest prayer, seek to wrest his life as a cherished boon from heaven? Ask each other! Let each ask his own heart! And who but exclaims with me, — ”Egmont’s liberty, or death!”

Jetter. God help us! This is a sad business.

Clara. Stay! Stay! Shrink not away at the sound of his name, to meet whom ye were wont to press forward so joyously! — When rumour announced his approach, when the cry arose, “Egmont comes! He comes from Ghent!” — then happy indeed were those citizens who dwelt in the streets through which he was to pass. And when the neighing of his steed was heard, did not every one throw aside his work, while a ray of hope and joy, like a sunbeam from his countenance, stole over the toil-worn faces that peered from every window. Then, as ye stood in the doorways, ye would lift up your children in your arms, and pointing to him, exclaim: “See, that is Egmont, he who towers above the rest! ’Tis from bird that ye must look for better times than those your poor fathers have known.” Let not your children inquire at some future day, “Where is he? Where are the better times ye promised us?” — Thus we waste the time in idle words! do nothing, — betray him.

Soest. Shame on thee, Brackenburg! Let her not run on thus! Prevent the mischief!

Brackenburg. Dear Clara! Let us go! What will your Mother say? Perchance —

Clara. Thinkest thou I am a child, or frantic? What avails perchance? — With no vain hope canst thou hide from me this dreadful certainty... Ye shall hear me and ye will: for I see it, ye are overwhelmed, ye cannot hearken to the voice of your own hearts. Through the present peril cast but one glance into the past, — the recent past. Send your thoughts forward into the future. Could ye live, would ye live, were he to perish? With him expires the last breath of freedom. What was he not to you? For whose sake did he expose himself to the direst perils? His blood flowed, his wounds were healed for you alone. The mighty spirit, that upheld you all, a dungeon now confines, while the horrors of secret murder are hovering around. Perhaps he thinks of you — perhaps he hopes in you, — he who has been accustomed only to grant favours to others and to fulfil their prayers.

Carpenter. Come, gossip.

Clara. I have neither the arms, nor the vigour of a man; but I have that which ye all lack — courage and contempt of danger. O that my breath could kindle your souls! That, pressing you to this bosom, I could arouse and animate you! Come! I will march in your midst! — As a waving banner, though weaponless, leads on a gallant army of warriors, so shall my spirit hover, like a flame, over your ranks, while love and courage shall unite the dispersed and wavering multitude into a terrible host.

Jetter. Take her away; I pity her, poor thing!

[Exeunt Burgers.

Brackenburg. Clara! Seest thou not where we are?

Clara. Where? Under the dome of heaven, which has so often seemed to arch itself more gloriously as the noble Egmont passed beneath it. From these windows I have seen them look forth, four or five heads one above the other; at these doors the cowards have stood, bowing and scraping, if he but chanced to look down upon them! Oh, how dear they were to me, when they honoured him. Had he been a tyrant they might have turned with indifference from his fall! But they loved him! O ye hands, so prompt to wave caps in his honour, can ye not grasp a sword? Brackenburg, and we? — do we chide them? These arms that have so often embraced him, what do they for him now? Stratagem has accomplished so much in the world. Thou knowest the ancient castle, every passage, every secret way. — Nothing is impossible, — suggest some plan —

Brackenburg. That we might go home!

Clara. Well.

Brackenburg. There at the corner I see Alva’s guard; let the voice of reason penetrate to thy heart! Dost thou deem me a coward? Dost thou doubt that for thy sake I would peril my life? Here we are both mad, I as well as thou. Dost thou not perceive that thy scheme is impracticable? Oh, be calm! Thou art beside thyself.

Clara. Beside myself! Horrible. You, Brackenburg, are beside yourself. When you hailed the hero with loud acclaim, called him your friend, your hope, your refuge, shouted vivats as he passed; — then I stood in my corner, half opened the window, concealed myself while I listened, and my heart beat higher than yours who greeted him so loudly. Now it again beats higher! In the hour of peril you conceal yourselves, deny him, and feel not, that if he perish, you are lost.

Brackenburg. Come home.

Clara. Home?

Brackenburg. Recollect thyself! Look around thee! These are the streets in which thou weft wont to appear only on the Sabbath-day, when thou didst walk modestly to church; where, over-decorous perhaps, thou wert displeased if I but joined thee with a kindly greeting. And now thou dost stand, speak, and act before the eyes of the whole world. Recollect thyself, love! How can this avail us?

Clara. Home! Yes, I remember. Come, Brackenburg, let us go home! Knowest thou where my home lies?

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. — A Prison

Lighted by a lamp, a couch in the background

Egmont (alone). Old friend! Ever faithful sleep, dost thou too forsake me, like my other friends? How wert thou wont of yore to descend unsought upon my free brow, cooling my temples as with a myrtle wreath of love! Amidst the din of battle, on the waves of life, I rested in thine arms, breathing lightly as a growing boy. When tempests whistled through the leaves and boughs, when the summits of the lofty trees swung creaking in the blast, the inmost core of my heart remained unmoved. What agitates thee now? What shakes thy firm and steadfast mind? I feel it, ’tis the sound of the murderous axe, gnawing at thy root. Yet I stand erect, but an inward shudder runs through my frame. Yes, it prevails, this treacherous power; it undermines the firm, the lofty stem, and ere the bark withers, thy verdant crown falls crashing to the earth.

Yet wherefore now, thou who hast so often chased the weightiest cares like bubbles from thy brow, wherefore canst thou not dissipate this dire foreboding which incessantly haunts thee in a thousand different shapes? Since when hast thou trembled at the approach of death, amid whose varying forms, thou weft wont calmly to dwell, as with the other shapes of this familiar earth. But ’tis not he, the sudden foe, to encounter whom the sound bosom emulously pants; — -’tis the dungeon, emblem of the grave, revolting alike to the hero and the coward. How intolerable I used to feel it, in the stately hall, girt round by gloomy walls, when, seated on my cushioned chair, in the solemn assembly of the princes, questions, which scarcely required deliberation, were overlaid with endless discussions, while the rafters of the ceiling seemed to stifle and oppress me. Then I would hurry forth as soon as possible, fling myself upon my horse with deep-drawn breath, and away to the wide champaign, man’s natural element, where, exhaling from the earth, nature’s richest treasures are poured forth around us, while, from the wide heavens, the stars shed down their blessings through the still air; where, like earth-born giants, we spring aloft, invigorated by our Mother’s touch; where our entire humanity and our human desires throb in every vein; where the desire to press forward, to vanquish, to snatch, to use his clenched fist, to possess, to conquer, glows through the soul of the young hunter; where the warrior, with rapid stride, assumes his inborn right to dominion over the world; and, with terrible liberty, sweeps like a desolating hailstorm over the field and grove, knowing no boundaries traced by the hand of man.

Thou art but a shadow, a dream of the happiness I so long possessed; where has treacherous fate conducted thee? Did she deny thee to meet the rapid stroke of never-shunned death, in the open face of day, only to prepare for thee a foretaste of the grave, in the midst of this loathsome corruption? How revolting its rank odour exhales from these damp stones! Life stagnates, and my foot shrinks from the couch as from the grave. Oh care, care! Thou who dost begin prematurely the work of murder, — forbear; — Since when has Egmont been alone, so utterly alone in the world? ’Tis doubt renders thee insensible, not happiness. The justice of the king, in which through life thou hast confided, the friendship of the Regent, which, thou mayst confess it, was akin to love, — have these suddenly vanished, like a meteor of the night, and left thee alone upon thy gloomy path? Will not Orange, at the head of thy friends, contrive some daring scheme? Will not the people assemble, and with gathering might, attempt the rescue of their faithful friend?

Ye walls, which thus gird me round, separate me not from the well-intentioned zeal of so many kindly souls. And may the courage with which my glance was wont to inspire them, now return again from their hearts to mine. Yes! they assemble in thousands! they come! they stand beside me! their pious wish rises urgently to heaven, and implores a miracle; and if no angel stoops for my deliverance, I see them grasp eagerly their lance and sword. The gates are forced, the bolts are riven, the walls fall beneath their conquering hands, and Egmont advances joyously, to hail the freedom of the rising morn. How many well-known faces receive me with loud acclaim! O Clara! wert thou a man, I should see thee here the very first, and thank thee for that which it is galling to owe even to a king — liberty.

SCENE III. — Clara’s House

Clara (enters from her chamber with a lamp and a glass of water; she places the glass upon the table and steps to the window).

Brackenburg, is it you? What noise was that? No one yet? No one! I will set the lamp in the window, that he may see that I am still awake, that I still watch for him. He promised me tidings. Tidings? horrible certainty! — Egmont condemned! — what tribunal has the right to summon him? — And they dare to condemn him! — Does the king condemn him, or the duke? And the Regent withdraws herself! Orange hesitates, and all his friends! — Is this the world, of whose fickleness and treachery I have heard so much, and as yet experienced nothing? Is this the world? — Who could be so base as to hear malice against one so dear? Could villainy itself be audacious enough to overwhelm with sudden destruction the object of a nation’s homage? Yet so it is — it is-O Egmont, I held thee safe before God and man, safe as in my arms! What was I to thee. Thou hast called me thine, my whole being was devoted to thee. What am I now? In vain I stretch out my hand to the toils that environ thee. Thou helpless and I free! — Here is the key that unlocks my chamber door. My going out and my coming in, depend upon my own caprice; yet, alas; to aid thee I am powerless! — Oh, bind me that I may not despair; hurl me into the deepest dungeon, that I may dash my head against the damp walls, groan for freedom, and dream how I would rescue him if fetters did not hold me bound. — Now I am free, and in freedom lies the anguish of impotence. — Conscious of my own existence, yet unable to stir a limb in his behalf, alas! even this insignificant portion of thy being, thy Clara, is, like thee, a captive, and, separated from thee, consumes her expiring energies in the agonies of death. — I hear a stealthy step, — a cough — Brackenburg, — ’tis he! — Kind, unhappy man, thy destiny remains ever the same; thy love opens to thee the door at night, alas! to what a doleful meeting.

(Enter Brackenburg.) Thou com’st so pale, so terrified! Brackenburg! What is it?

Brackenburg. I have sought thee through perils and circuitous paths. The principal streets are occupied with troops; — through lanes and by-ways have I stolen to thee!

Clara. Tell me, how is it?

Brackenburg (seating himself). O Clara, let me weep. I loved him not. He was the rich man who lured to better a pasture the poor man’s solitary lamb. I have never cursed him, God has created me with a true and tender heart. My life was consumed in anguish, and each day I hoped would end my misery.

Clara. Let that be forgotten, Brackenburg! Forget thyself. Speak to me of him! Is it true? Is he condemned?

Brackenburg. He is! I know it.

Clara. And still lives?

Brackenburg. Yes, he still lives.

Clara. How canst thou be sure of that? Tyranny murders the hero in the night! His blood flows concealed from every eye. The people stunned and bewildered, lie buried in sleep, dream of deliverance, dream of the fulfilment of their impotent wishes, while, indignant at our supineness, his spirit abandons the world. He is no more! Deceive me not; deceive not thyself!

Brackenburg. No, — he lives! and the Spaniards, alas, are preparing for the people, on whom they are about to trample, a terrible spectacle, in order to crush for ever, by a violent blow, each heart that yet pants for freedom.

Clara. Proceed! Calmly pronounce my death-warrant also! Near and more near I approach that blessed land, and already from those realms of peace, I feel the breath of consolation say on.

Brackenburg. From casual words, dropped here and there by the guards, I learned that secretly in the market-place they were preparing some terrible spectacle. Through by-ways and familiar lanes I stole to my cousin’s house, and from a back window, looked out upon the market-place. Torches waved to and fro, in the hands of a wide circle of Spanish soldiers. I sharpened my unaccustomed sight, and out of the darkness there arose before me a scaffold, black, spacious, and lofty! The sight filled me with horror. Several persons were employed in covering with black cloth such portions of the wood-work as yet remained white and visible. The steps were covered last, also with black; — I saw it all. They seemed preparing for the celebration of some horrible sacrifice. A white crucifix, that shone like silver through the night, was raised on one side. As I gazed the terrible conviction strengthened in my mind. Scattered torches still gleamed here and there; gradually they flickered and went out. Suddenly the hideous birth of night returned into its Mother’s womb.

Clara. Hush, Brackenburg! Be still! Let this veil rest upon my soul. The spectres are vanished; and thou, gentle night, lend thy mantle to the inwardly fermenting earth, she will no longer endure the loathsome burden, shuddering, she rends open her yawning chasms, and with a crash swallows the murderous scaffold. And that God, whom in their rage they have insulted, sends down His angel from on high; at the hallowed touch of the messenger bolts and bars fly back; he pours around our friend a mild radiance, and leads him gently through the night to liberty. My path leads also through the darkness to meet him.

Brackenburg (detaining her). My child, whither wouldst thou go? What wouldst thou do?

Clara. Softly, my friend, lest some one should awake! Lest we should awake ourselves! Know’st thou this phial, Brackenburg? I took it from thee once in jest, when thou, as was thy wont, didst threaten, in thy impatience, to end thy days. — And now my friend —

Brackenburg. In the name of all the saints!

Clara. Thou canst not hinder me. Death is my portion! Grudge me not the quiet and easy death which thou hadst prepared for thyself. Give me thine hand! — At the moment when I unclose that dismal portal through which there is no return, I may tell thee, with this pressure of the hand, how sincerely I have loved, how deeply I have pitied thee. My brother died young; I chose thee to fill his place; thy heart rebelled, thou didst torment thyself and me, demanding with ever increasing fervour that which fate had not destined for thee. Forgive me and farewell! Let me call thee brother! ’Tis a name that embraces many names. Receive, with a true heart, the last fair token of the departing spirit — take this kiss. Death unites all, Brackenburg — us too it will unite!

Brackenburg. Let me then die with thee! Share it! oh, share it! There is enough to extinguish two lives.

Clara. Hold! Thou must live, thou canst live. — Support my Mother, who, without thee, would be a prey to want. Be to her what I can no longer be, live together, and weep for me. Weep for our fatherland, and for him who could alone have upheld it. The present generation must still endure this bitter woe; vengeance itself could not obliterate it. Poor souls, live on, through this gap in time, which is time no longer. To-day the world suddenly stands still, its course is arrested, and my pulse will beat but for a few minutes longer. Farewell.

Brackenburg. Oh, live with us, as we live only for thy sake! In taking thine own life, thou wilt take ours also; still live and suffer. We will stand by thee, nothing shall sever us from thy side, and love, with ever-watchful solicitude, shall prepare for thee the sweetest consolation in its loving arms. Be ours! Ours! I dare not say, mine.

Clara. Hush, Brackenburg! Thou feelest not what chord thou touchest. Where hope appears to thee, I see only despair.

Brackenburg. Share hope with the living! Pause on the brink of the precipice, cast one glance into the gulf below, and then look back on us.

Clara. I have conquered; call me not back to the struggle.

Brackenburg. Thou art stunned; enveloped in night, thou seekest the abyss. Every light is not yet extinguished, yet many days — !

Clara. Alas! Alas! Cruelly thou dost rend the veil from before mine eyes. Yes, the day will dawn! Despite its misty shroud it needs must dawn. Timidly the burgher razes from his window, night leaves behind an ebon speck; he looks, and the scaffold looms fearfully in the morning light. With re-awakened anguish the desecrated image of the Saviour lifts to the Father its imploring eyes. The sun veils his beams, he will not mark the hero’s death-hour. Slowly the fingers go their round — one hour strikes after another — hold! Now is the time. The thought of the morning scares me into the grave.

(She goes to the window as if to look out, and drinks secretly.)

Brackenburg. Clara! Clara!

Clara (goes to the table, and drinks water). Here is the remainder. I invite thee not to follow me. Do as thou wilt; farewell. Extinguish this lamp silently and without delay; I am going to rest. Steal quietly away, close the door after thee. Be still! Wake not my Mother! Go, save thyself, if thou wouldst not be taken for my murderer. [Exit.

Brackenburg. She leaves me for the last time as she has ever done. What human soul could conceive how cruelly she lacerates the heart that loves her? She leaves me to myself, leaves me to choose between life and death, and both are alike hateful to me. To die alone! Weep, ye tender souls! Fate has no sadder doom than mine. She shares with me the death-potion, yet sends me from her side! She draws me after her, yet thrusts me back into life! Oh, Egmont, how enviable a lot falls to thee! She goes before thee! The crown of victory from her hand is thine, she brings all heaven to meet thee! — And shall I follow? Again to stand aloof? To carry this inextinguishable jealousy even to yon distant realms? Earth is no longer a tarrying place for me, and hell and heaven offer equal torture. Now welcome to the wretched the dread hand of annihilation!

[Exit. (The scene remains some time unchanged. Music sounds, indicating Clara’s death; the lamp, which Brackenburg had forgotten to extinguish, flares up once or twice, and then suddenly expires. The scene changes to.)

SCENE IV. — A Prison

Egmont is discovered sleeping on a couch. A rustling of keys is heard; the door opens; servants enter with torches; Ferdinand and Silva follow, accompanied by soldiers. Egmont starts from his sleep.

Egmont. Who are ye that thus rudely banish slumber from my eyes? What mean these vague and insolent glances? Why this fearful procession? With what dream of horror come ye to delude my half awakened soul?

Silva. The duke sends us to announce your sentence.

Egmont. Do ye also bring the headsman who is to execute it?

Silva. Listen, and you will know the doom that awaits you.

Egmont. It is in keeping with the rest of your infamous proceedings. Hatched in night and in night achieved, so would this audacious act of injustice shroud itself from observation! — Step boldly forth, thou who dost bear the sword concealed beneath thy mantle; here is my head, the freest ever severed by tyranny from the trunk.

Silva. You err! The righteous judges who have condemned you will not conceal their sentence from the light of day.

Egmont. Then does their audacity exceed all imagination and belief. Silva (takes the sentence from an attendant, unfolds it, and reads). “In the King’s name, and invested by his Majesty with authority to judge all his subjects of whatever rank, not excepting the knights of the Golden Fleece, we declare — -”

Egmont. Can the king transfer that authority?

Silva. “We declare, after a strict and legal investigation, thee, Henry, Count Egmont, Prince of Gaure, guilty of high treason, and pronounce thy sentence: — That at early dawn thou be led from this prison to the market-place, and that there, in sight of the people, and as a warning to all traitors, thou with the sword be brought from life to death. Given at Brussels.” (Date and year so indistinctly read as to be imperfectly heard by the audience.) “Ferdinand, Duke of Alva, President of the Tribunal of Twelve.” Thou knowest now thy doom. Brief time remains for thee to prepare for the impending stroke, to arrange thy affairs, and to take leave of thy friends.

[Exit Silva with followers. Ferdinand remains with two torch-bearers. The stage is dimly lighted.

Egmont (stands for a time as if buried in thought, and allows Silva to retire without looking round. He imagines himself alone, and, on raising his eyes, beholds Alva’s son).

Thou tarriest here? Wouldst thou by thy presence augment my amazement, my horror? Wouldst thou carry to thy father the welcome tidings that in unmanly fashion I despair? Go. Tell him that he deceives neither the world nor me. At first it will be whispered cautiously behind his back, then spoken more and more loudly, and when at some future day the ambitious man descends from his proud eminence, a thousand voices will proclaim — that ’twas not the welfare of the state, not the honour of the king, not the tranquillity of the provinces, that brought him hither. For his own selfish ends he, the warrior, has counselled war, that in war the value of his services might be enhanced. He has excited this monstrous insurrection that his presence might be deemed necessary in order to quell it. And I fall a victim to his mean hatred, his contemptible envy. Yes, I know it, dying and mortally wounded I may utter it; long has the proud man envied me, long has he meditated and planned my ruin.

Even then, when still young, we played at dice together, and the heaps of gold, one after the other, passed rapidly from his side to mine; he would look on with affected composure, while inwardly consumed with rage, more at my success than at his own loss. Well do I remember the fiery glance, the treacherous pallor that overspread his features when, at a public festival, we shot for a wager before assembled thousands. He challenged me, and both nations stood by; Spaniards and Netherlanders wagered on either side; I was the victor; his ball missed, mine hit the mark, and the air was rent by acclamations from my friends. His shot now hits me. Tell him that I know this, that I know him, that the world despises every trophy that a paltry spirit erects for itself by base and surreptitious arts. And thou!

If it be possible for a son to swerve from the manners of his father, practise shame betimes, while thou art compelled to feel shame for him whom thou wouldst fain revere with thy whole heart.

Ferdinand. I listen without interrupting thee! Thy reproaches fall like blows upon a helmet. I feel the shock, but I am armed. They strike, they wound me not; I am sensible only to the anguish that lacerates my heart. Alas! Alas! Have I lived to witness such a scene? Am I sent hither to behold a spectacle like this?

Egmont. Dost thou break out into lamentations? What moves, what agitates thee thus? Is it a late remorse at having lent thyself to this infamous conspiracy? Thou art so young, thy exterior is so prepossessing? Thy demeanour towards me was so friendly, so unreserved! So long as I beheld thee, I was reconciled with thy father; and crafty, ay, more crafty than he, thou hast lured me into the toils. Thou art the wretch! The monster! Who so confides in him, does so at his own peril; but who could apprehend danger in trusting thee? Go! Go! rob me not of the few moments that are left me! Go, that I may collect my thoughts, the world forget, and first of all thyself!

Ferdinand. What can I say? I stand and gaze on thee, yet see thee not; I am scarcely conscious of my own existence. Shall I seek to excuse myself? Shall I assure thee that it was not till the last moment that I was made aware of my father’s intentions? That I acted as a constrained, a passive instrument of his will? What signifies now the opinion thou mayst entertain of me? Thou art lost; and I, miserable wretch, stand here only to assure thee of it, only to lament thy doom.

Egmont. What strange voice, what unexpected consolation comes thus to cheer my passage to the grave? Thou, the son of my first, of almost my only enemy, thou dost pity me, thou art not associated with my murderers? Speak! In what light must I regard thee?

Ferdinand. Cruel father! Yes, I recognize thy nature in this command. Thou didst know my heart, my disposition, which thou hast so often censured as the inheritance of a tender-hearted Mother. To mould me into thine own likeness thou hast sent me hither. Thou dost compel me to behold this man on the verge of the yawning grave, in the grasp of an arbitrary doom, that I may experience the profoundest anguish; that thus, rendered callous to every fate, I may henceforth meet every event with a heart unmoved.

Egmont. I am amazed! Be calm! Act, speak like a man.

Ferdinand. Oh, that I were a woman! That they might say — what moves, what agitates thee? Tell me of a greater, a more monstrous crime, make me the spectator of a more direful deed; I will thank thee, I will say: this was nothing.

Egmont. Thou dost forget thyself. Consider where thou art!

Ferdinand. Let this passion rage, let me give vent to my anguish! I will not seem composed when my whole inner being is convulsed. Thee must I behold here? Thee? It is horrible! Thou understandest me not! How shouldst thou understand me? Egmont! Egmont!

(Falling on his neck.)

Egmont. Explain this mystery.

Ferdinand. It is no mystery.

Egmont. How can the fate of a mere stranger thus deeply move thee?

Ferdinand. Not a stranger! Thou art no stranger to me. Thy name it was that, even from my boyhood, shone before me like a star in heaven! How often have I made inquiries concerning thee, and listened to the story of thy deeds! The youth is the hope of the boy, the man of the youth. Thus didst thou walk before me, ever before me; I saw thee without envy, and followed after, step by step; at length I hoped to see thee — I saw thee, and my heart flew to thy embrace. I had destined thee for myself, and when I beheld thee, I made choice of thee anew. I hoped now to know thee, to live with thee, to be thy friend, — thy — ’tis over now and I see thee here!

Egmont. My friend, if it can be any comfort to thee, be assured that the very moment we met my heart was drawn towards thee. Now listen! Let us exchange a few quiet words. Tell me: is it the stern, the settled purpose of thy father to take my life?

Ferdinand. It is.

Egmont. This sentence is not a mere empty scarecrow, designed to terrify me, to punish me through fear and intimidation, to humiliate me, that he may then raise me again by the royal favour?

Ferdinand. Alas, no! At first I flattered myself with this delusive hope; and even then my heart was filled with grief and anguish to behold thee thus. Thy doom is real! Is certain! No, I cannot command myself. Who will counsel, who will aid me, to meet the inevitable?

Egmont. Hearken then to me! If thy heart is impelled so powerfully in my favour, if thou dost abhor the tyranny that holds me fettered, then deliver me! The moments are precious. Thou art the son of the all-powerful, and thou hast power thyself. Let us fly! I know the roads; the means of effecting our escape cannot be unknown to thee. These walls, a few short miles, alone separate me from my friends. Loose these fetters, conduct me to them; be ours. The king, on some future day, will doubtless thank my deliverer. Now he is taken by surprise, or perchance he is ignorant of the whole proceeding. Thy father ventures on this daring step, and majesty, though horror-struck at the deed, must needs sanction the irrevocable. Thou dost deliberate? Oh, contrive for me the way to freedom! Speak; nourish hope in a living soul.

Ferdinand. Cease! Oh, cease! Every word deepens my despair. There is here no outlet, no counsel, no escape. — ’Tis this thought that tortures me, that seizes my heart, and rends it as with talons. I have myself spread the net; I know its firm, inextricable knots; I know that every avenue is barred alike to courage and to stratagem. I feel that I too, like thyself, like all the rest, am fettered. Think’st thou that I should give way to lamentation if any means of safety remained untried? I have thrown myself at his feet, remonstrated, implored. He has sent me hither, in order to blast in this fatal moment, every remnant of joy and happiness that yet survived within my heart.

Egmont. And is there no deliverance?

Ferdinand. None!

Egmont (stamping his foot). No deliverance!-Sweet life! Sweet, pleasant habitude of existence and of activity! from thee must I part! So calmly part! Not in the tumult of battle, amid the din of arms, the excitement of the fray, dost thou send me a hasty farewell; thine is no hurried leave; thou dost not abridge the moment of separation. Once more let me clasp thy hand, gaze once more into thine eyes, feel with keen emotion, thy beauty and thy worth, then resolutely tear myself away, and say; — depart!

Ferdinand. Must I stand by, and look passively on; unable to save thee, or to give thee aid! What voice avails for lamentation! What heart but must break under the pressure of such anguish?

Egmont. Be calm!

Ferdinand. Thou canst be calm, thou canst renounce, led on by necessity, thou canst advance to the direful struggle, with the courage of a hero. What can I do? What ought I to do? Thou dost conquer thyself and us; thou art the victor; I survive both myself and thee. I have lost my light at the banquet, my banner on the field. The future lies before me, dark, desolate, perplexed.

Egmont. Young friend, whom by a strange fatality, at the same moment, I both win and lose, who dost feel for me, who dost suffer for me the agonies of death, — look on me; — thou wilt not lose me. If my life was a mirror in which thou didst love to contemplate thyself, so be also my death. Men are not together only when in each other’s presence; — the distant, the departed, also live for us. I shall live for thee, and for myself I have lived long enough. I have enjoyed each day; each day, I have performed, with prompt activity, the duties enjoined by my conscience. Now my life ends, as it might have ended, long, long, ago, on the sands of Gravelines. I shall cease to live; but I have lived. My friend, follow in my steps, lead a cheerful and a joyous life, and dread not the approach of death.

Ferdinand. Thou shouldst have saved thyself for us, thou couldst have saved thyself. Thou art the cause of thine own destruction. Often have I listened when able men discoursed concerning thee; foes and friends, they would dispute long as to thy worth; but on one point they were agreed, none ventured to deny, every one confessed, that thou wert treading a dangerous path. How often have I longed to warn thee! Hadst thou then no friends?

Egmont. I was warned.

Ferdinand. And when I found all these allegations, point for point, in the indictment, together with thy answers, containing much that might serve to palliate thy conduct, but no evidence weighty enough fully to exculpate thee —

Egmont. No more of this. Man imagines that he directs his life, that he governs his actions, when in fact his existence is irresistibly controlled by his destiny. Let us not dwell upon this subject; these reflections I can dismiss with ease — not so my apprehensions for these provinces; yet they too will be cared for. Could my blood flow for many, bring peace to my people, how freely should it flow! Alas! This may not be. Yet it ill becomes a man idly to speculate, when the power to act is no longer his. If thou canst restrain or guide the fatal power of thy father; do so. Alas, who can? — Farewell!

Ferdinand. I cannot leave thee.

Egmont. Let me urgently recommend my followers to thy care! I have worthy men in my service; let them not be dispersed, let them not become destitute! How fares it with Richard, my secretary?

Ferdinand. He is gone before thee. They have beheaded him, as thy accomplice in high treason.

Egmont. Poor soul! — Yet one word, and then farewell, I can no more. However powerfully the spirit may be stirred, nature at length irresistibly asserts her rights; and like a child, who, enveloped in a serpent’s folds, enjoys refreshing slumber, so the weary one lays himself down to rest before the gates of death, and sleeps soundly, as though a toilsome journey yet lay before him. — One word more, — I know a maiden; thou wilt not despise her because she was mine. Since I can recommend her to thy care, I shall die in peace. Thy soul is noble; in such a man, a woman is sure to find a protector. Lives my old Adolphus? Is he free?

Ferdinand. The active old man, who always attended thee on horseback?

Egmont. The same.

Ferdinand. He lives, he is free.

Egmont. He knows her dwelling; let him guide thy steps thither, and reward him to his dying day, for having shown thee the way to this jewel. — Farewell!

Ferdinand. I cannot leave thee.

Egmont (urging him towards the door). Farewell!

Ferdinand. Oh, let me linger yet a moment!

Egmont. No leave-taking, my friend.

(He accompanies Ferdinand to the door, and then tears himself away; Ferdinand, overwhelmed with grief, hastily retires.)

Egmont (alone)

Egmont. Cruel man! Thou didst not think to render me this service through thy son. He has been the means of relieving my mind from the pressure of care and sorrow, from fear and every anxious feeling. Gently, yet urgently, nature claims her final tribute. ’Tis past! — ’Tis resolved! And the reflections which, in the suspense of last night, kept me wakeful on my couch, now with resistless certainty lull my senses to repose.

(He seats himself upon the couch; music)

Sweet sleep! Like the purest happiness, thou comest most willingly, uninvited, unsought. Thou dost loosen the knots of earnest thoughts, dost mingle all images of joy and of sorrow, unimpeded the circle of inner harmony flows on, and wrapped in fond delusion, we sink into oblivion, and cease to be.

(He sleeps; music accompanies his slumber. Behind his couch the wall appears to open and discovers a brilliant apparition. Freedom, in a celestial garb, surrounded by a glory, reposes on a cloud. Her features are those of Clara and she inclines towards the sleeping hero. Her countenance betokens compassion, she seems to lament his fate. Quickly she recovers herself and with an encouraging gesture exhibits the symbols of freedom, the bundle of arrows, with the staff and cap. She encourages him to be of good cheer, and while she signifies to him that his death will secure the freedom of the provinces, she hails him as a conqueror, and extends to him a laurel crown. As the wreath approaches his head, Egmont moves like one asleep, and reclines with his face towards her. She holds the wreath suspended over his head, — martial music is heard in the distance, at the first sound the vision disappears. The music grows louder and louder. Egmont awakes. The prison is dimly illuminated by the dawn. — His first impulse is to lift his hand to his head, he stands up, and gazes round, his hand still upraised.)

The crown is vanished! Beautiful vision, the light of day has frighted thee! Yes, their revealed themselves to my sight uniting in one radiant form the two sweetest joys of my heart. Divine Liberty borrowed the mien of my beloved one; the lovely maiden arrayed herself in the celestial garb of my friend. In a solemn moment they appeared united, with aspect more earnest than tender. With bloodstained feet the vision approached, the waving folds of her robe also were tinged with blood. It was my blood, and the blood of many brave hearts. No! It shall not be shed in vain! Forward! Brave people! The goddess of liberty leads you on! And as the sea breaks through and destroys the barriers that would oppose its fury, so do ye overwhelm the bulwark of tyranny, and with your impetuous flood sweep it away from the land which it usurps. (Drums.)

Hark! Hark! How often has this sound summoned my joyous steps to the field of battle and of victory! How bravely did I tread, with my gallant comrades, the dangerous path of fame! And now, from this dungeon I shall go forth, to meet a glorious death; I die for freedom, for whose cause I have lived and fought, and for whom I now offer myself up at sorrowing sacrifice.

(The background is occupied by Spanish soldiers with halberts.)

Yes, lead them on! Close your ranks, ye terrify me not. I am accustomed to stand amid the serried ranks of war, and environed by the threatening forms of death, to feel, with double zest, the energy of life. (Drums.)

The foe closes round on every side! Swords are flashing; courage, friends! Behind are your parents, your wives, your children! (Pointing to the guard.)

And these are impelled by the word of their leader, not by their own free will. Protect your homes! And to save those who are most dear to you, be ready to follow my example, and to fall with joy.

(Drums. As he advances through the guards towards the door in the background, the curtain falls. The music joins in,

Jetter (steps forward, and bends his cross-bow). Soest, Buyck, Ruysum

and the scene closes with a symphony of victory.)

THE BROTHER AND SISTER

Translated by Anna Swanwick

This one act, four-man play in prose was written in October 1776 at the Garden House on the Ilm. The premiere took place on 21 November, 1776 and featured the playwright in the role of Wilhelm.  The play did not appear in print until 11 years later.

The Brother and Sister tells the story of Wilhelm’s love for the widow Charlotte. Shortly before her death, Charlotte begs Wilhelm to support her beloved daughter Marianne. William falls in love with the girl, in whom he sees the living image of his former love.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

William,a merchant.
Marian,his sister.
Fabricius.
Postman.

THE BROTHER AND SISTER

William.
(Seated at a desk with account books and papers.) Two new customers again this week! If one lifts his hand, there is always something happens; even if it’s little it counts up in the long run, and a small game gives its own pleasure, though the gain’s small, and little losses can be borne with equanimity. (Enter Postman.) What is it?

Postman.
A registered letter for twenty ducats, half paid.

William.
Good! Very good! Put it down on my account. (Exit Postman.) I didn’t want to keep saying all day long that I was expecting this. (Contemplating the letter.) Now I can pay Fabricius right off, and not abuse his kindness any longer. Yesterday he said to me: “I am coming round to see you to-morrow.” I was sorry to hear it. I knew that he wouldn’t dun me, and for that very reason his presence is a kind of double dun. (He opens the packet and counts.) In the good old times when I kept up a rather gayer establishment than this I couldn’t bear these silent creditors at all. Anyone who importunes me, who bores me, deserves nothing but the cold shoulder and all that that implies; while he who holds his peace touches my heart, and appeals to me in the most importunate way, since he puts it upon me to make his demand for him. (He piles money upon the table.) Good God! how I thank Thee that I am out of my trouble and on my feet again. (He takes up a book.) Thy blessing at retail or me who have wasted Thy gifts wholesale. — And so — can I express it? — Yet ’tis not for me that Thou art doing any more than I am doing for myself. If it were not for that dear good creature, should I be sitting here settling up losses? O Marian! If you only knew that he whom you call your brother is working for you with a very different heart, with very different hopes. — Maybe! — ah! — but it is cruel! — She loves me — certainly — but as a brother. — No! how absurd! This is unbelief, and that has never yet bred any good. Marian! I will be happy; and so shalt thou, Marian!
Enter Marian.

Marian.
What do you want, brother? You called me.

William.
No, I did not. Marian.

Marian.
Did something vex you that you conjured me out of the kitchen?

William.
It was spirits that you heard.

Marian.
Very well, William! Only I know your voice quite too well.

William.
Come, now, what are you doing out there?

Marian.
I’ve only been plucking a couple of pigeons, because Fabricius is going to take supper with us this evening.

William.
Perhaps he will.

Marian.
They’ll be done soon; you must not say anything about it till afterwards. I want him to teach me his new song.

William.
Do you like to study with him?

Marian.
He can sing lovely songs. And when afterwards you sit at table and your head nods, then I will begin. For I know that you laugh at me when I sing any of your favorite songs.

William.
Have you noticed that in me?

Marian.
Certainly; whoever failed to notice what you menfolks do? But if you don’t want me for anything, I’m off again; for I have still all sorts of things to do. Goodby. — Now give me just one kiss.

William.
If the pigeons are well roasted I will give you a kiss for dessert.

Marian.
It’s detestable that brothers should be so cross. If Fabricius or any other nice young man dared to steal a kiss they would jump over high walls for the chance, and that man there scorns the one that I want to give him. — Now I’m going to burn up the pigeons.
[Exit .

William.
The angel, the dear angel! How can I restrain myself from taking her into my arms and telling her everything? — Dost thou look down upon us from heaven, O lady, who didst give this treasure into my keeping? — Yes, those above know about us here, they know about us! — Charlotte, thou could’st not reward my love to thee more gloriously, more sacredly than by leaving thy daughter in my care. Thou gavest me all that I lacked, thou madest life dear to me. I loved her as thy child — and now! Yet it is as though I were deceived. Methinks I see thee again, methinks Fate has given thee back to me again with youth renewed, so that I now may remain and dwell with thee in union as in that first dream of life I was not allowed to do and had no right to do. O joy! joy! Give the whole measure of thy blessing, Father in heaven!
Enter Fabricius.

Fabricius.
Good-evening.

William.
I am very happy, my dear Fabricius; everything good has come to me this evening. However, let us not speak of business now. There lie your three hundred dollars. Pocket ’em quick. My I. O. U. you can return to me at your convenience. And now let us have a little talk.

Fabricius.
If you need the money longer —

William.
If I need it again, well and good; I’m always deeply indebted to you. But now take it. — Listen! The memory of Charlotte came back to me again this evening with eternal freshness and life.

Fabricius.
That is a frequent occurrence.

William.
You ought to have known her. I tell you she was one of the most magnificent of creatures.

Fabricius.
She was a widow; how did you come to know her?

William.
So pure and stately. Yesterday I was reading over one of her letters. You are the only man who has ever known anything about it.
[Goes to the portfolio.

Fabricius.
(Aside.) If he would only spare me this time! I have heard the story so many, many times before. As a general thing I like to hear him tell it, for it always comes from his heart; but to-day I have quite different things on my mind, and yet I want to keep him in good humor.

William.
It was during the early days of our acquaintance. “The world will become dear to me again,” she wrote; “I had cut myself loose from it, but it will be dear to me again through you. My heart reproaches me; I feel that I am going to be a cause of sorrow to you and myself. Six months ago I was ready to die, and now I feel so no longer.”

Fabricius.
A lovely soul.

William.
The earth was not worthy of her. Fabricius, I’ve told you many times before that through her I became quite a different man. I cannot describe the pain that I felt when I looked back and saw how I had squandered my paternal inheritance. I could not offer her my hand, could not make her lot more endurable. I felt then for the first time the necessity to earn a suitable support; to extricate myself from the slothfulness in which I was drifting along day after day. I went to work — but what did that amount to? — I kept at work, and thus a wearisome year passed away; at last came a ray of hope; my pittance increased visibly — then she died. — I could not stay. You have no idea how I suffered. No longer could I behold the region where I had lived with her, or leave the sacred soil where she rested. She wrote me just before she died.
[Taking a letter from the portfolio.

Fabricius.
It is a splendid letter; you read it to me only a short time ago. Hark, William —

William.
I know it by heart, and yet I read it again and again. When I see her writing, the sheet on which her hand rested, it seems to me as if she were here again. She is still here. (The voice of a child crying is heard.) I wonder why Marian can’t be sensible! There, she’s got our neighbor’s youngster again; every day she comes romping round with him and disturbs me just at the wrong moment. (At the door.) Marian, be still with the child, or send him home if he’s naughty. We want to talk.
[He stands, full of emotion.

Fabricius.
You ought not to bring up these recollections so frequently.

William.
These are the very lines; these were the last that she wrote. The farewell sigh of the departing angel. (He folds the letter again.) You are right, it is sinful. How seldom are we worthy of recalling the bitter-sweet moments of our past lives!

Fabricius.
Your story always goes to my heart. You told me that she left a daughter, who shortly afterwards followed her mother. If she had only lived, you would have had at least something of hers, you would have had some interest through which your cares and your grief might have been appeased.

William.
(Turning eagerly to him.) Her daughter? It was an exquisite flower that she intrusted to me. What fate has done for me is beyond words to express. Fabricius — if I could only tell you all —

Fabricius.
If there is anything on thy heart —

William.
Why should I not?

Marian.
(Coming in with a little boy.) He wants to say good-night, brother. You must not scowl at him, nor at me either. You always say that you would like to be married and have lots of children. One couldn’t hold them in such a way that they would never cry and never disturb you.

William.
But they would be my own children.

Marian.
Maybe there would be a difference in that.

Fabricius.
Do you think so, Marian?

Marian.
It would be too lovely for anything. (She kneels before the child and kisses him.) I love little Christopher so dearly! If he were only my own! — He already knows his letters; I have been teaching him.

William.
And so you think that a child of your own at his age would know how to read?

Marian.
Why certainly! for all day long I wouldn’t do anything else but take him out to walk and teach him and feed him and dress him and everything else.

Fabricius.
And your husband?

Marian.
He would have to help; his love for him would be as great as mine. But Christopher has got to go home and wants to say good-night. (She leads him to William.) Here! give your hand like a good little boy; that’s a nice boy!

Fabricius.
(Aside.) She is the loveliest creature; I must tell her my hopes!

Marian.
(Leading the child to Fabricius.) Here! shake hands with this gentleman too!

William.
(Aside.) She shall be mine! I will — no! I do not deserve it! (To Marian.) Marian, take the child away and entertain Fabricius till supper-time. I am going out for a little run: I’ve been sitting all day long. (Exit Marian.) Just one good full breath of the fresh air this lovely star-light night! — My heart is so full! — I shall be back directly
[Exit .

Fabricius.
Make an end to thy suspense, Master Fabricius! If thou bearest it any longer, the matter won’t be any nearer conclusion. Thou hast made up thy mind. Good! Admirable! Thou wilt still help her brother; and she — she does not love me as I love her, that’s certain. But it isn’t in her to love passionately; she isn’t that kind of a woman. Dear girl! She hasn’t the slightest idea that I feel anything else but friendship for her! O Marian, we shall get along famously! This opportunity is just what I should have wished it to be! I must explain to her my intentions! And if her heart does not scorn me — anyway, I am sure of her brother!
Enter Marian.

Fabricius.
Have you sent the little fellow home?

Marian.
I should love to have kept him here; but I know that my brother does not like him, and so I let him go. Many and many a time the little rascal has begged me to let him sleep here all night.

Fabricius.
But don’t you ever get tired of him?

Marian.
Oh, no, indeed! He is as wild as he can be the whole day, but when I go to put him to bed he is as good as a kitten! He’s a little flatterer, and he loves to kiss me; sometimes I can’t get him to sleep at all.

Fabricius.
(Half aside.) What a sweet nature!

Marian.
He loves me even better than his own mother.

Fabricius.
You are also a mother to him. (Marian stands lost in thought; Fabricius gazes at her for some moments.) Does the name of mother make you sad?

Marian.
Not exactly sad; but I was thinking

Fabricius.
What were you thinking about, sweet Marian?

Marian.
I was thinking — oh, nothing, nothing. Sometimes it seems very strange to me.

Fabricius.
Haven’t you ever had any longings to —

Marian.
What were you going to ask?

Fabricius.
Can Fabricius presume so far?

Marian.
No, I have never had any longings, Fabricius. And if ever any such thought flashed through my head, it was gone in an instant. To leave my brother would be unendurable — impossible for me — no matter how attractive any other prospect might be.

Fabricius.
Now that is strange! If you lived near him in the same city, you wouldn’t call that leaving him, would you?

Marian.
Oh, never, never speak of such a thing! Who would keep house for him? Who would take care of him? Let a servant take my place? Or let him get married? No, indeed, that couldn’t be!

Fabricius.
Couldn’t he go and live with you? Mightn’t your husband be his friend? Couldn’t you three live together just as happily as now, even happier? Couldn’t your brother be in this way assisted in his perplexing business cares? Think what such a life might be!

Marian.
It can easily be imagined. And when I think about it, it is quite possible. But then again, it seems to me as though it would never come about.

Fabricius.
I don’t understand you.

Marian.
It is just so now. When I wake in the morning I listen to hear if my brother is up before me: if no one is stirring, quick as a flash I get out of bed and run to the kitchen and build a fire, so that the water is thoroughly heated, and then the maid comes down, and my brother has his coffee as soon as he opens his eyes!

Fabricius.
What an admirable housewife!

Marian.
And then I sit down and knit stockings for him, and keep very happy, and measure a dozen times to see if they are long enough yet and if they set well round the calf, and if the feet are not too short, until he sometimes actually gets vexed. It isn’t that I always want to be trying them on, but it seems to me that I must have something to do near him, as though he ought to see me at least once when he has been writing a couple of hours; he can’t be gloomy with me, for it always brightens him up to see me. I can read it by his eyes if he will not let me know any other way. Often I laugh in my sleeve, because he acts as though he were solemn or angry. He is wise, for if he didn’t I should plague him all day long.

Fabricius.
He is a lucky man.

Marian.
No, I am the lucky one. If I hadn’t him I shouldn’t know what to do in this world. I do everything for myself, however, and it seems to me as if I did everything for him, because even when I am working for myself I am always thinking of him.

Fabricius.
And now if you did everything for a husband, how absolutely happy he would be! How grateful he would be, and what a contented life you would lead!

Marian.
Many times I imagine it to myself, and tell myself a long story, as I sit and knit, or sew, how everything might be and would be! But when I come back to the reality, then I know that it will never come to pass.

Fabricius.
Why not?

Marian.
Where should I find a spouse who would like it if I said “I will love you!” but had to add to it “You cannot be dearer to me than my brother; I must take care of him just as I always have done.” Ah! you see it is impossible.

Fabricius.
You would after a while help your husband in the same way; you would transfer your love to him.

Marian.
Ah! there lies the trouble. Certainly, if love could be taken and exchanged like money, or if you could go to a different lord and master every quarter as servants do, it would be a different thing. But with a husband everything would have to become exactly as it already is here, and that could never be.

Fabricius.
That is a stumbling-block.

Marian.
I don’t know why it is; but when he sits at table and leans his head on his hand and looks down and seems full of anxiety, I could sit for hours and gaze at him. He is not handsome, I say to myself oftentimes, and yet I love to look at him. Of course I feel that it is on my account that he is anxious; the first glance that he gives me when he looks up tells me so, and that is a good deal.

Fabricius.
It’s everything, Marian. And a husband who would care for you —

Marian.
There is one thing more, and that’s moods. William also has his moods; but when he has them they do not trouble me: but in anybody else they would be unendurable. He easily loses his temper; oftentimes it pains me. If in such unhappy moments he repulses a kind, sympathetic, loving effort to cheer him, I confess it touches me, but only for an instant, and if I reprove him it is rather because he does not appreciate my love for him than because I love him the less.

Fabricius.
But suppose there were some one who, in spite of all that, were bold enough to offer you his hand.

Marian.
But there isn’t any such person! And even then the question would arise whether I should be equally daring.

Fabricius.
Why should you not?

Marian.
But there’s no such person.

Fabricius.
Marian, there is.

Marian.
Fabricius!

Fabricius.
You see him before you. Need I make a long defence? Shall I pour out before you what my heart has so long treasured? I love you. You have known it long. I offer you my hand: that you did not expect. Never did I see a maiden who so little as you realized the fact that she moved the hearts of those who see her. Marian, it is not a fiery, impulsive suitor who talks with you; I know you well; I have chosen you deliberately; my house is all in order: will you be mine? I have had many experiences in love, and more than once I have vowed to end my days as an old bachelor. But you have conquered me! Do not stand aloof from me! You know me. I am a friend of your brother; you cannot conceive of a parer union. Open your heart to me! Only one word, Marian!

Marian.
Dear Fabricius, only allow me a little time. I like you.

Fabricius.
Tell me that you love me. I will give your brother his own place; I will be a brother to him; together we will care for him. My property added to his will help him over many an anxious hour; he will gain fresh courage, he will — Marian, don’t let me have to persuade you!
[He seizes her hand.

Marian.
Fabricius, I never thought of such a thing. What an embarrassing dilemma you have brought me into.

Fabricius.
Just one word! may I hope?

Marian.
Speak with my brother!

Fabricius.
(Kneeling.) Angel! darling!

Marian.
(Silent for a moment.) Great heavens! What have I done!
[Exit .

Fabricius.
She is thine! — I can well afford to let the dear little thing caress her brother; that will soon cure itself when we come to get better acquainted, and he won’t lose anything by it. Ah, it does me good to be so in love again and to be loved again so luckily. It is a thing, however, for which one never really loses the taste. We will live together. If it had not been for that, long ago I should have enlarged somewhat the good man’s scrupulous economy. When I am his brother-in-law things will run smoother. He is becoming a regular hypochondriac with his everlasting reminiscences, doubts, business anxieties and mysteries. Everything will be lovely! He shall breathe freely again; the girl will get a husband — that’s no trifle — and I — I shall get a wife honorably — and that’s worth something.
Enter William.

Fabricius.
Did you have a good walk?

William.
I went up along the market and Church Street and back again by the Bourse. It always gives me a wonderful sensation to walk through the city at night. After the toil of the day most men are at rest, but others are hurrying to their night-work, and thus the little wheels of trade are constantly revolving. I took special pleasure in an old cheesemonger who, with her spectacles on her nose, was laying one piece after another on the scales, by the light of a candle end, and trimming off the edges until the purchaser got the quantity she wanted.

Fabricius.
Every one has his own powers of observation. I think that there are few people on the street who would have stopped to gaze at an old cheese-woman and her glasses.

William.
In every one’s business gain is precious, and a small retail trade seems to me respectable since I know how costly a dollar is when it has to be earned a penny at a time. (He stands a few moments lost in thought.) I have had quite a wonderful experience since I have been out. So many things have come into my mind all at once and all in confusion — and that which troubled my heart to its deepest foundations.
[He stops in a brown study.

Fabricius.
(Aside.) I act like a fool. Just as soon as he comes in, the courage leaks out of my fingers’ ends to confess that I love Marian. Yet I must tell him what has happened. (To William.) William, tell me, do you want to move from here? You have too little room and the rent is high. Do you know of any other rooms?

William.
(Absently.) No!

Fabricius.
I thought perhaps we might both help each other. I have my father’s house and occupy only the upper floors; you might take possession of the lower rooms. You are not likely to get married yet awhile. You can use the court and the warerooms for your business and give me a nominal rent, and so it would help both of us.

William.
You are very kind. Truly, I have often thought of this plan after I have been to visit you and seen so much waste room, when I have to put up with such narrow quarters. But there are reasons — we must let it go; it is impossible.

Fabricius.
Why so?

William.
Supposing I were to marry immediately.

Fabricius.
That could be managed. You have plenty of room with your sister, and if you had a wife there would be no trouble.

William.
(Smiling.) And my sister?

Fabricius.
I would take her home with me, in that case. ( William is silent.) And even if you didn’t. Let me speak frankly — I love Marian; let her be my wife!

William.
What?

Fabricius.
Why not? Say yes. Listen to me, brother. I love Marian. I have thought it over this long time. She only, you only can make me as happy as I can possibly be in this world. Give her to me! Give her to me!

William.
(In confusion.) You do not know what you are asking.

Fabricius.
Ah! How could I know? Must I tell you all my wants and what I should have if she became my wife and you my brother-in-law?

William.
(Losing his self-possession.) Never! never!

Fabricius.
What is the reason? I am sorry. — Your aversion! — If you are ever going to have a brother-in-law, as must come sooner or later, why not me? — Me whom you know, whom you love? At least I thought —

artist: max volkhart.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
william and fabricius

William.
Leave me! — I cannot understand it.

Fabricius.
I must tell you all. On you alone depends my fate. Her heart is inclined towards me. You must have seen that. She loves you better than she loves me, but I am content. She will come to love her husband better than her brother; I shall then stand in your place, you in mine, and we shall all be satisfied. I never in my life knew of a union which seemed to promise a more beautiful human relationship. ( William speechless.) To seal the holy compact, best friend, give me thy consent, thy sanction. Tell her that it rejoices you, that it makes you happy. I have her promise.

William.
Her promise!

Fabricius.
She gave it in a parting glance which said more than if she had stayed to speak it. Her embarrassment and her love, her willingness and her hesitation, — it was lovely!

William.
No! no!

Fabricius.
I do not understand you. I am sure that you have no prejudice against me, and yet why are you so opposed to me? Do not be! Do not set yourself against her happiness, against mine. — And I keep thinking that you will be happy with us. Do not refuse thy acquiescence, thy friendly acquiescence in my wishes! ( William still speechless, with contending emotions.) I cannot comprehend you —

William.
Marian? you want to marry her?

Fabricius.
What do you mean?

William.
And she wants you?

Fabricius.
She answered as becomes a modest maiden.

William.
Go! go! — Marian! — I suspected it, I foresaw it!

Fabricius.
Only tell me —

William.
What shall I tell you? It was this that lay on my mind this evening, like a thunder-cloud. The lightning flashed, it struck! — Take her! — take her! — My only treasure — my all! ( Fabricius looks at him with astonishment.) Take her! And that you may know what you have taken from me — (Pause. He collects himself.) I have told you of Charlotte, the angel, who was snatched from my arms and who left me her image, her daughter. — And this daughter — I have deceived you — she is not dead; this daughter is Marian! — Marian is not my sister!

Fabricius.
I was not prepared for this revelation.

William.
This blow I ought to have expected from you! — Why did I not follow the dictates of my heart and shut my house to you as to every one else, in the first days when I came here? To you alone I granted entrance into this sanctuary, and you succeeded in lulling my suspicions by your kindness, your friendliness, your encouragement, your apparent coldness towards women. Just as I was, according to all appearances, her brother, so I considered your feeling for her a genuine brotherly one. And even if sometimes a suspicion arose in my mind, I put it away as ignoble, ascribed her affection for you to her angelic heart, which looks upon all the world with friendly glances. And you! — And she!

Fabricius.
It is not right for me to listen longer and I have nothing to say. So goodby!
[Exit .

William.
Yes, go! — You take all my happiness away with you! So undermined, so hopelessly destroyed are all my prospects — my nearest hopes — suddenly! All precipitated into the abyss — and with them the magic golden bridge that was to bear me over to the bliss of paradise! — and through him, the traitor who has so abused my frankness, my confidence! O William, William! Hast thou gone so far as to be unjust to thy good friend? What sin has he committed? O Fate, thy retribution weighs heavy upon me, and thou art just. — Why am I standing here? Why? Just at this moment? Forgive me! Have I not been punished for it? Forgive me! It is long I have suffered infinitely. I seemed to love you; I believed that I loved you; with inconsiderate amiability, courtesies, I shut fast your heart and brought you pain. Forgive me and let me go! Must I be so punished? — Must I lose Marian? the last hope of my life, the epitome of my solicitude. It cannot be! it cannot be!
[He is silent.

Marian.
(Approaching with embarrassment.) Brother.

William.
Ah!

Marian.
Dear brother, you must forgive me, I bother you about everything. You are vexed; I might have known it. I have done a piece of stupidity. — It is a most extraordinary thing to me.

William.
(Collecting his thoughts.) What is the matter, my girl?

Marian.
I wish that I could tell it to you. Everything is whirling about so in my head. Fabricius wants to marry me and I —

William.
(Half bitterly.) Speak it out, you gave him your promise.

Marian.
No, not for the world! Never will I marry him; I cannot marry him.

William.
How strange that sounds!

Marian.
Strange enough. You are very unkind, my brother; I should be glad to go away and wait a good long hour did not my heart oblige me to say first and last: I cannot marry Fabricius.

William.
(Standing up and taking Marian by the hand.) How so, Marian?

Marian.
He was here and he brought up so many reasons that I imagined that it would be possible. He was so importunate that without due consideration I told him to speak with you. He took this for yes, and in that very instant I felt that it could never be.

William.
He has spoken to me.

Marian.
I beg of you, with all my heart and soul, by all the love which I have for you, by all the love which you feel for me, set it right again, tell him!

William.
(Aside.) Merciful heavens!

Marian.
Do not be angry! He will not be angry either. We will live just as we have always lived. For I could not live with any one besides you. It has always been deep in my soul, and this accident has brought it out, brought it out with emphasis that I love no one besides you!

William.
Marian!

Marian.
Kindest brother, I cannot tell you what has passed through my heart during these last moments. It seemed to me very much as it did lately, when there was a fire in the market, and first there was smoke and steam over everything, until all at once the fire caught the roof and then at last the whole house was one flame. Do not let me go! Do not force me away from thee, my brother!

William.
But it cannot always remain as it is!

Marian.
That is the very thing that troubles me so! I will gladly promise you not to get married; I will always take care of you, always and always. A little distance up the street just such a brother and sister live together; I have often thought of it in fun: “If I should get as old and wrinkled — provided only we still lived together.”

William.
(Mastering his heart, half aside.) If I can withstand this, I will never again get into such a tight place.

Marian.
I know that you do not like it; of course you will marry in time, and I should always be sorry if I could not love her as well as I love you. — No one loves you as well as I; no one could love you so. ( William essays to speak.) You are always so reserved; I always have it on my tongue’s end to tell you just how I feel and I do not dare. Thank God, this accident has unlocked my lips!

William.
Marian, say no more!

Marian.
You must not forbid me! Let me tell you all! Then I will go back to the kitchen and sit for days at a time at my work, seeing you only once in a while, as if to say: “Thou knowest my secret.” (William is speechless in the excess of his joy.) You might have known it long ago, you know how long, ever since our mother’s death, as I grew up out of childhood and was always with you. See! I feel more contented to be near you than gratified by your more than fraternal watchfulness. And gradually you so completely occupied my whole heart, my whole intellect, that now anything else would find it hard to get a resting-place. I know well that you have often laughed at me when I was reading novels: it happened once that I was reading “Julia Mandeville” and I asked if Henry, or whatever his name was, did not look like you. You laughed and I didn’t like it. So the next time I kept quiet. But I was perfectly in earnest about it; for whoever seemed to be the dearest, best men, they all looked to me like you. I saw you walking in the great gardens, and riding and travelling and fighting duels.
[She laughs at the remembrance.

William.
What pleases you?

Marian.
Because I must also confess that if a lady were very beautiful and very good and very much loved — and very much in love — it always seemed to be myself, except at the end when the disentanglement came and they got married after all the hindrances; but I am certainly a very impulsive, fond, talkative creature!

William.
Go on! (Aside.) I must drink the cup of joy to the dregs! God in heaven, keep me in my senses!

Marian.
Least of all could I endure it when I read of a couple of people loving each other, and finally finding out that they were relations, or were brother and sister. That “Miss Fanny” I could have burned alive! I cried so over it! It is such a pathetic story.
[She turns away and weeps bitterly.

William.
(Taking her to his heart with a flood of tears.) Marian! my Marian!

Marian.
William! no! no! never will I let thee go from me! Thou art mine! I will hold thee fast! I will not let thee go!
Enter Fabricius.

Marian.
Ah, Fabricius, you come at the right time! My heart is full and strong, so that I can tell you all. I did not give any promise. Be our friend; but I can never marry you!

Fabricius.
(Cold and bitter.) I foresaw it, William! If you put all your weight on the scale, of course I should be found too light. I come back to put out of my heart what has no right there. I renounce all claims and perceive that things have already accommodated themselves! At least I am glad that I am the innocent cause of it.

William.
Be not petulant at this moment, and still more do not lose a sensation for which you would vainly seek in a pilgrimage around the world! Look at this creature — she is entirely mine — and yet she has not the slightest idea —

Fabricius.
(Half scornfully.) She does not know —

Marian.
What don’t I know?

William.
Could one tell a falsehood thus, Fabricius?

Fabricius.
(Touched.) She does not know?

William.
I assure you.

Fabricius.
Live for each other then! You are worthy of each other!

Marian.
What does this mean?

William.
(Taking her in his arms.) Thou art mine, Marian!

Marian.
Heavens! What does this mean? Can I give thee back this kiss! What a kiss that was, my brother!

William.
Not the kiss of a reserved, apparently cold brother, but the kiss of an eternally happy lover! (Kneeling.) Marian, thou art not my sister. Charlotte was thy mother, not mine.

Marian.
Thou! thou!

William.
Thy lover! — From this moment forth, thy husband, unless thou scornest me.

Marian.
Tell me how it all came about!

Fabricius.
Enjoy what God himself can only give once in a lifetime. Accept it, Marian, and ask no questions! — You will find time enough to make all explanations.

Marian.
(Looking at him.) No, it is impossible!

William.
My sweetheart, my wife!

Marian.
(In his arms.) William! it is impossible!

STELLA

Translated by Anna Swanwick

This five act tragedy was completed by 1805, resulting from a previous version of 1775.  The play premiered on 15 January, 1806 in Weimar.

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

STELLA.

CECILIA. (At first under the name of MADAME SOMMER.)

FERNANDO.

LUCY.

STEWARD.

LANDLADY.

ANNIE.

CARL.

SERVANT.

ACT I.

At the Inn.
The sound of a Post-horn is heard.

Landlady.
Carl! Carl!
[The lad appears.

Carl.
What’s you want?

Landlady.
Where in the name of all that’s holy have you been? Out with you! The stage is coming. Show the passengers in; lug their bags for them! Bestir yourself! Are you making up a face again? (The lad exits; calling after him.) Hold on! I’ll cure you of your surly ways. A tavern-boy has got to be lively, on his taps. By-and-by, when such a rascal gets to be at the head of things, he lets everything go to pieces. If I ever thought of getting married again, it would be just on this account: that it’s too hard for a woman alone to keep things in running order.
Madame Sommer, Lucy (in travelling-dress), Carl.

Lucy.
(Carrying a valise, to Carl.) Just let it be; ’tisn’t heavy; but take my mother’s bandbox.

Landlady.
At your service, ladies! You are in good time. The stage does not usually get in so early.

Lucy.
We had a very young, jolly, handsome postilion, in whose company I wouldn’t object to travel round the world, and besides there were only two of us without much baggage.

Landlady.
If you want something to eat, please be good enough to be patient for a bit; dinner isn’t quite ready yet.

Madame Sommer.
Might I trouble you for just a little lunch?

Lucy.
I am in no hurry at all. Please look out for my mother, however?

Landlady.
Right away.

Lucy.
She wants some real nice broth.

Landlady.
She shall have the best I’ve got.
[Exit .

Madame Sommer.
Strange that you cannot stop giving orders! It seems to me that our journey might have taught you a lesson or two! We have always paid for more than we have eaten; and in our circumstances!

Lucy.
We’ve never yet come out short.

Madame Sommer.
But we’ve been precious near it.
Postilion enters.

Lucy.
Well, my excellent driver, how do you feel? You’d like your fee, wouldn’t you?

Postilion.
Haven’t I driven like a special post?

Lucy.
That means that you have also earned a special fee I suppose! You should be my private coachman, it I only kept horses.

Postilion.
Even if you don’t keep them, I am at your service.

Lucy.
There!

Postilion.
Thank you, miss! Are you not going further?

Lucy.
We stop here for the present.

Postilion.
Good-by!
[Exit .

Madame Sommer.
I see by his face that you gave him too much.

Lucy.
Would you have him leave us discontented? He was so friendly the whole time. You are always saying that I am selfwilled, mamma; but at all events I am not selfish.

Madame Sommer.
I beg of you, Lucy, don’t misunderstand what I say to you. I honor your frankness as well as your good heart and your generosity; but they are virtues only in their proper places.

Lucy.
Mamma, this place pleases me very much. And I suppose that yonder house belongs to the lady whose companion I am going to be.

Madame Sommer.
I am glad if the place of your destination is agreeable to you!

Lucy.
Quiet it may be, that I can see. It’s just like Sunday in the great square. But her ladyship has a fine garden and must be a good woman. We shall see how we get on together. Why are you looking about you, mamma?

Madame Sommer.
Leave me, Lucy! Fortunate girl, in whose heart no recollections are stirred! Alas! it used to be different! There is nothing more painful to me than to come into an inn.

Lucy.
Where don’t you find something to worry about?

Madame Sommer.
And is there ever any lack of reasons for it? My darling, how different it used to be when your father travelled with me, when we enjoyed the happiest years of our lives in the free world, the first years of our married life! Then everything had the charm of novelty for me! And with his arm around me to hasten through so many thousand objects, when every trivial thing was made interesting to me by his intelligence, his love! —

Lucy.
I should like very much to travel.

Madame Sommer.
And when after a hot day, or after some series of accidents, perhaps on account of bad roads in winter, we arrived at much worse inns than this one, and together felt the enjoyment of simple comforts, or sat together on the wooden settle, eating our omelet and boiled potatoes — ah, then it was very different!

Lucy.
But now it is time to forget him.

Madame Sommer.
Do you know what that means? To forget? My dear girl, you have, thank God, never yet lost anything that could not be replaced. But since the moment when I became certain that he had deserted me, all the joy of my life was gone. Despair seized upon me. I had no faith in myself, I did not believe in a God. I can scarcely bear to think of it.

Lucy.
And all I know is that I sat on your bed and cried because you cried. It was in the green room, on the little bed. I felt worse about the room because we had to sell the house.

Madame Sommer.
You were seven years old and couldn’t realize what you were losing.
Annie (with the lunch),the Landlady, Carl.

Annie.
Here is madame’s lunch.

Madame Sommer.
Thank you, my love! Is that your little daughter?

Landlady.
My stepdaughter, madame; but she is so capable that she makes me forget that I have no children of my own.

Madame Sommer.
You are in mourning?

Landlady.
For my husband whom I lost three months ago. We had not lived together quite three years.

Madame Sommer.
Yet you seem somewhat comforted.

Landlady.
We have just as little time to weep as to pray. Alas! so it goes Sundays and work-a-days. If the parson did not come with his text once in a while, or once had a chance to go to a funeral — Carl, bring a couple of napkins! Put ’em here at the end!

Lucy.
Whose house is that over yonder?

Landlady.
It belongs to our gracious baroness. A most lovely woman!

Madame Sommer.
I am glad to have a neighbor confirm the report that was given to us at a distance. My daughter is going to live with her and be her companion.

Landlady.
I wish you the best success, miss.

Lucy.
I hope that she is going to please me.

Landlady.
You must have an extraordinary taste if your intercourse with the gracious lady does not please you.

Lucy.
So much the better! For if I am to get along well with any one my heart and will must be in it; else it does not succeed.

Landlady.
Well! well! we’ll talk some more about this by-and-by, and you shall tell me if I have not spoken the truth. Whoever lives near our gracious ladyship is lucky. When my daughter gets a little bigger, then she is going to serve with her for a few years at least; it’s a good thing for the girl all her life long.

Annie.
Ah! only wait till you see her! She is so sweet, so sweet! You can’t believe how anxiously she has been waiting for you. She likes me too. Will you not go right over to her? I will go with you.

Lucy.
I must set myself to rights first, and I want something to eat too.

Annie.
Then can’t I run over, mamma, and tell her ladyship that the mademoiselle has come?

Landlady.
Well then, run along!

Madame Sommer.
And tell her, little one, that we will wait upon her immediately after dinner.
[Exit Annie.

Landlady.
My daughter has an extraordinary fondness for her. And she is the best soul in the world and her whole heart is with children. She teaches them to do all sorts of work and to sing. She likes to have the peasant girls wait on her until they get some skill and then she gets them good places, and this is the way she spends her time since her husband has been gone. It’s incomprehensible how she can be so unhappy and at the same time so kind and so good.

Madame Sommer.
Isn’t she a widow?

Landlady.
God knows! her husband went away three years ago, and since then nothing has been seen or heard of him. And she loved him above all things. My man could never get done when he began to tell about them. And yet! I myself say it, there is not such a heart as hers in the world. Every year on the day when she saw him for the last time, she will not admit anyone, shuts herself up in her room, and generally when she speaks of him it goes through your very soul!

Madame Sommer.
Poor creature!

Landlady.
There’s been a good deal of talk about it, first and last.

Madame Sommer.
What do you mean?

Landlady.
It is not pleasant to repeat it.

Madame Sommer.
I beg you to tell me.

Landlady.
If you will not abuse my confidence I will tell you the story. It’s about eight years ago since they came here. They bought the barony. No one knew them; the people called him baron and called her my gracious lady, and they thought that he was an officer who had got rich in foreign wars and now wanted to settle down in peace. At that time she was just in the bloom of youth, not more than sixteen years old and handsome as an angel.

Lucy.
Then she can’t be more than twenty-four now?

Landlady.
But she has had trouble enough for her years. She had one child; it did not live long; its grave is in the garden, with only turf over it, and since her husband went away she has had a hermitage built near it, and her own grave is to be made right by it. My blessed man was well along in years and not easy to get stirred up; but he liked to tell nothing better than about the happy lives of those people as long as they lived together. It made quite another man of him, he used to say, only to look on and see how fond they were of each other.

Madame Sommer.
My heart is moved for her.

Landlady.
But this was the way of it: Folk said he had curious principles; leastwise he never went to church; and folks that haven’t any religion haven’t any God, and are apt to get into bad ways. All of a sudden the report got out that the baron was off. He had started on his travels, and since then he has never come back.

Madame Sommer.
(Aside.) The very counterpart of my own fate!

Landlady.
Then all the mouths were full of it! It was just at the time that I came here as a young bride — three years ago St. Michael’s day. And then everybody had a different story, and they went about whispering in their neighbor’s ears that they’d never had any confidence in him. But don’t you betray me. It was said that he was a highborn gentleman who had eloped with her, and all sorts of things were said. Ah, yes, if a young girl makes a false step like that she has to repent of it all her life long.
Enter Annie.

Annie.
Her ladyship begs most earnestly that you will come right over to her; she wants to speak with you just a moment, just to look at you!

Lucy.
It is not suitable to go in these clothes.

Landlady.
Oh, do go! I pledge you my word that she will not care at all.

Lucy.
Will you go with me, little girl?

Annie.
With all my heart.

Madame Sommer.
Lucy, a word with you! (Landlady goes away.) Don’t you commit yourself at all. Don’t speak of our rank, our fate. Meet her deferentially.

Lucy.
(Softly.) Trust it all to me! My father was a merchant, went to America, is dead and hence our circumstances. You just trust it to me; I’ve told the story often enough. (Aloud.) Don’t you want to rest a little while? You need to. The good landlady will show you to a room where there’s a bed.

Landlady.
I have indeed a pretty, quiet chamber looking out into the garden. (To Lucy.) I hope that the gracious lady will please you.
[Exit Lucy with Annie.

Madame Sommer.
My daughter is still a little flighty.

Landlady.
That is the way of youth; but the proud waves get calmed down after a little.

Madame Sommer.
So much the worse.

Landlady.
Come with me, madame, if you like to.
[Exeunt both.
A Post-horn is heard.
Fernando (in officer’s uniform),a Servant.

Servant.
Shall I have the horses harnessed again right away and your things packed?

Fernando.
You’re to fetch them into the inn, I tell you. This is the end of our journey; do you hear?

Servant.
This is? But you said —

Fernando.
I tell you: have a room secured and bring my bags to it.
[Exit Servant.

Fernando.
(Going to the window.) And do I see thee again? Heavenly prospect! Do I see thee again? Scene of all my felicity! How silent is the house! Not a window open! How empty the balcony whereon we so often sat together! Fernando, behold the cloister-like air of her dwelling; how it flatters thy hopes! And can it be that in her loneliness Fernando is the object of her thoughts, of her occupation? And has he deserved it of her? Oh! it seems to me as if I had awakened into life again after a long, cold, joyless death-sleep; so novel, so significant is everything! The trees, the fountains, everything, everything! Even now the water runs from the pipes just as it did when I — ah! how many thousand times, gazed thoughtfully from our window and saw all things silently reflected in the running waters. The voice of the fountain is melody to me, thought-transporting melody! And she? She will be as she used to be! Yes, Stella, thou hast not changed; my heart tells me truly. How it beats in response to thine! How its beating urges me toward thee! But I will not, I dare not! I must first recover, must first persuade myself that I am actually here, that I am not deceived by the dream which so often, when I slept and when I waked, brought me hither from the farthest regions of the earth. Stella! Stella! I am coming! Dost thou not already feel my presence? In thy arms all shall be forgotten! And if thou hoverest about me, beloved shade of my unlucky wife, forgive me, depart from me! Thou art gone; so let me forget thee, forget everything in the arms of this angel — my fate, all my loss, my sorrows and my repentance! I am so near to thee and yet so far! And in a single moment — I cannot, I cannot! I must recover myself or I shall suffocate at her feet!
Enter Landlady.

Landlady.
Would you like something to eat, sir?

Fernando.
Is dinner ready?

Landlady.
Oh, yes! we are only waiting for a young lady who has gone across to the gracious lady’s.

Fernando.
And how is her ladyship?

Landlady.
Do you know her?

Fernando.
A few years ago I used to be there a great deal. How is her husband?

Landlady.
Heaven only knows! He is somewhere in the wide world!

Fernando.
What! gone?

Landlady.
Fact! He has deserted the poor lady! God forgive him!

Fernando.
She will soon learn to console herself.

Landlady.
Do you think so, indeed? Then you can’t know her very well. She lives as close as a nun ever since I’ve known her. Almost no one, nobody in the neighborhood, comes to visit her. She lives with her people, keeps all the children of the village attached to her, and except for her secret sorrow, is always friendly and pleasant.

Fernando.
I am going to see her, however!

Landlady.
I would. Oftentimes she has invited us, that is, the bailiff’s wife and the pastor’s wife and me, and she likes to discuss all sorts of questions with us. But faith, we avoid speaking of her husband, the baron! It happened we reminded her of him one day. God knows how we felt when she fell to and began to speak of him, to praise him and to cry about him. My dear sir, we all wept like children, and we could hardly get over it.

Fernando.
(Aside.) Hast thou deserved this of her! (Aloud.) Does my servant know which my room is?

Landlady.
Up one flight, number two! Carl, show the gentleman his room.
[Exit Fernando with the lad.
Enter Lucy and Annie.

Landlady.
Well, how was it?

Lucy.
She is a lovely little woman and I shall get along with her very well. You have not praised her too highly. She did not want to let me go. She made me promise by all that is holy that I would bring my mother and my things right over after dinner.

Landlady.
I thought it would turn out so. Would you like to dine right away? Only a tall, handsome officer has just come; but you need not be afraid of him.

Lucy.
Not in the least! I like to have soldiers around better than anyone else. At least they don’t set themselves up to know how to read people’s characters at first sight. Is my mother asleep?

Landlady.
I don’t know.

Lucy.
I must go and look after her.
[Exit .

Landlady.
Carl! there you’ve gone and forgotten the saltcellar again. What kind of work do you call that? And just look at the glasses! I’d smash one or two over your head if they didn’t cost more than you are worth.
Enter Fernando.

Landlady.
The young lady has got back. She will be down to dinner right away.

Fernando.
Who is she?

Landlady.
I am not acquainted with her. She seems to be of good birth but without means: she is going to be lady’s companion to the baroness.

Fernando.
She is young?

Landlady.
Very young and pert. Her mother is here too — up stairs.
Enter Lucy.

Lucy.
Your humble servant, sir.

Fernando.
I am fortunate to have such a charming companion at dinner.
[Lucy makes a courtesy.

Landlady.
Sit here, mademoiselle! And will you take this place, sir?

Fernando.
Shall we not have the honor of your company, good mistress?

Landlady.
Ah, no; if I rest, everything rests.
[Exit .

Fernando.
So we shall have a tête-à-tête!

Lucy.
With the table between us, I can endure it.

Fernando.
So you have determined to be companion to the baroness?

Lucy.
I’ve got to be.

Fernando.
It seems to me that you ought to be able to be a companion to some one who would be more entertaining than the baroness.

Lucy.
I have no way of finding such.

Fernando.
But your charming face?

Lucy.
I see that you are like all other men!

Fernando.
That means?

Lucy.
Why just this, you are all very assuming. You think that you are indispensable; but I don’t think so, I grew up without men.

Fernando.
Then your father is dead?

Lucy.
I can scarcely remember that I ever had one. I was young when he left us to undertake a journey to America and the news came that his ship was wrecked.

Fernando.
And you seem to care so little about him.

Lucy.
Why should I care? He never did much to win my love; and even if I forgave him for deserting us, what does a man care for except his freedom? Yet I would not be in my mother’s place, who is dying with grief.

Fernando.
And you are without resources, without protectors?

Lucy.
What is the difference? Our property has grown smaller day after day, and all the time I have been growing larger; and I am not sorry to support my mother.

Fernando.
Your courage astonishes me!

Lucy.
Ah, sir, it comes with trial. When you have several times been threatened with ruin and every time been saved, it inspires confidence.

Fernando.
And can’t you communicate some of it to your dear mother?

Lucy.
Alas! it is she who has met the loss and not I. I thank my father that I was born into the world, for I am happy and contented; but she! — who hoped for nothing in life except from him, and who offered up to him the flower of her youth and was deserted — suddenly deserted! — Oh, it must be something dreadful to feel yourself deserted! — I have never lost anything; I cannot speak about it. — You seem to be pondering.

Fernando.
Yes, my dear, he who lives may lose (standing up); but he may also win. And so may God preserve to you your courage! (He takes her hand.) You have astonished me! Oh, my child, how fortunate you are! — In my experience with the world oftentimes my hopes, my joys have — yet there is — and —

Lucy.
What do you mean?

Fernando.
Everything that is good! the best, the warmest wishes for your happiness!
[Exit .

Lucy.
That is a most extraordinary man! Still he seems to be good!

ACT II.

Stella and Servant.

Stella.
Go right over, go just as quick as you can! Tell her I am waiting for her.

Servant.
She promised to come immediately.

Stella.
But you see she has not come yet. I have taken a great fancy to the young girl. Go! — and have her mother come with her.
[Exit Servant.

Stella.
I can hardly wait till she comes! How one wishes and hopes for a new face such as hers to make its appearance! Stella! thou art a child! And yet why should I not love? I need much, very much to satisfy this heart of mine! Much? Poor Stella! Much? — When in other days, he still loved thee, when his head lay on thy bosom, his glances filled thy whole soul; and — O God in heaven! thy decrees are past finding out! When in the midst of his kisses I turned my eyes to Thee, when my heart glowed as it was pressed against his, and with trembling lips I drank in his great spirit, and then looked up with tears of joy to Thee and from a full heart spoke to Thee, prayed to Thee, saying: “Father, let us be happy still; Thou hast made us so happy!” But it was not Thy will. (For a moment she is lost in thought, then quickly starts up, and presses her hands to her heart.) No! Fernando, no! I did not mean to reproach thee!
Enter Madame Sommer and Lucy.

Stella.
Now I have you! Thou, dear maiden, thou art henceforth mine! Madame, I thank you for the confidence which you have shown in placing in my hands such a treasure! The little witch, the frank, open heart! I have already begun to learn of thee, Lucy!

Madame Sommer.
You appreciate what I bring you and leave with you.

Stella.
(After a pause in which she gazes at Madame Sommer.) Forgive me! I already know your story; I know that I am talking with people of good family; but your presence surprises me. At the first moment I feel confidence and respect toward you.

Madame Sommer.
Gracious lady! —

Stella.
Don’t speak of it! What my heart recognizes, my lips willingly confess. I hear that you are not well; tell me how you are. Do sit down!

Madame Sommer.
But, your ladyship, this journey in the springtime, the changing scenery, and this pure, invigorating air, which has so often before filled me with new and blessed energy — all have worked wonders for me, so that even the memory of departed joys became a pleasure to me, so that I saw a reflection of the golden days of youth and of love kindle in my soul!

Stella.
Yes, the days of love! the first days of love! — No, thou golden age, thou hast not yet gone back to heaven! thou still fillest every heart in those moments when the flower of love unfolds!

Madame Sommer.
(Seizing her hands.) How grand! How charming!

Stella.
Your face glows like the face of an angel, the color mantles in your cheeks!

Madame Sommer.
Ah, and my heart! how it swells! how it yearns toward you!

Stella.
You have loved! Oh, thank God! a creature that understands me! that can have pity upon me, and that looks with sympathy upon my sorrows! It is no fault of ours that we are as we are! Have I not done everything, tried every means? Yes! but what good did it do? It must be this — nothing but this — and no world — and nothing else in the world. — Ah, the loved one is everywhere and all things are for the loved one.

Madame Sommer.
You have a heaven in your soul!

Stella.
Before I am aware, here is his image again! — Thus he stood up in this or that company and looked around for me. — Thus he came galloping across yonder field, and when he reached the garden gate threw himself into my arms. — Out of this door I saw him depart, depart! ah! and he returned again, he returned to his watching love! — If I turn my thoughts to the bustle of the world — he is there! If I sat in the box I was sure, wherever he might be hidden, whether I saw him or not, that he was watching all my motions and loved me! my downsitting and my uprising! I felt that the waving of my feather plumes attracted him more than all the shining eyes around him, and that all the music was only the melody of the everlasting song of his heart: “Stella! Stella! how dear to me thou art!”

Lucy.
Is it possible that people can love each other so?

Stella.
Dost thou ask, little one? Then I cannot answer thee! — But how am I entertaining you? — Trivialities — important trivialities! — Truly I am nothing but a grown up child, and yet it is so enjoyable. Just as children hide their faces behind their aprons and cry “Peek-a-boo,” so that their friends will hunt for them! — How it fills our hearts, if we have had a quarrel and jealously resolve to leave the object of our love, and with what distortions of the strong soul do we come into his presence again! How our bosoms are torn this way and that! and how at last at one glance, at one pressure of the hand everything is all made up again!

Madame Sommer.
How happy you are! You still live in the feeling of the freshest, purest humanity.

Stella.
A millennium of tears and sorrows could not counterbalance the bliss of the first glance, the thrills, the broken words, the presence, the abandonment, the very self forgetfulness, the first timid, fiery kiss, and the first peacefully breathing embrace. — Madame! you are lost in reverie! Why so deeply absorbed?

Madame Sommer.
O men! men!

Stella.
They make us happy and wretched! With what foretaste of bliss do they not fill our hearts! What new, unknown feelings and hopes swell our souls when their stormy passion communicates itself to each of our tingling nerves! How often have I trembled and thrilled all over when with unrestrained tears he filled my heart with a world of sorrows! I besought him for God’s sake to spare himself — to spare me — in vain! Through the inmost marrow he kindled such flames as swept through his being! And thus the maiden from the crown of her head to the sole of her feet became all heart, all feeling! And where is now the zone under heaven suitable for this creature to breathe the vital air and to find nourishment?

Madame Sommer.
We believe in men! In the moment of passion they deceive their own hearts, why then should we not be deceived?

Stella.
Madame! a thought occurs to me! We will be to one another what they ought to have been to us! We will remain together! — Your hand! From this moment I will not let you go!

Lucy.
That will not do at all.

Stella.
Why not, dear Lucy?

Madame Sommer.
My daughter feels that —

Stella.
That this proposition is not a wise one? Oh, just consider what a benefit you would do me if you stayed! Oh, I cannot be alone! My darling, I have done everything, I have kept hens and cattle and dogs; I teach the little girls to sew and to make embroidery, just for the sake of not being alone, just for the sake of seeing something beside my own self, that is alive and growing. And then again, when I am lucky enough, when the gods seem to have relieved my soul of pain, some bright spring morning when I wake up full of peace, and the dear sun shines through my gleaming trees, and amid the duties of the day I feel industrious and joyous, then I spend quite a time ordering and directing things and teaching my servants, and in the freedom of my heart I speak my thanks aloud to Heaven for such happy hours.

Madame Sommer.
Ah, yes, your ladyship, I sympathize with you! Occupation and charity are gifts from heaven, a compensation for loving hearts that are unhappy.

Stella.
Not compensation — makeshift, something instead of what has been lost, but not the lost itself. Lost love! where can a compensation for it be found? Oh, when time and again I sink from thought to thought, bringing up the blissful dreams of the past before my soul, yearning for a future full of hope, and thus in the flooding moonlight wander up and down my garden, then all of a sudden I am seized, seized with the feeling that I am all alone, and I stretch out my arms vainly to the four winds, expressing the magic of love with a force, a fervor so great that it seems to me as if I could drag the moon from the sky — and I am alone, no voice replies to me from the copse, and the stars look down upon my torments with cold, changeless glances! And then with the grave of my baby at my feet! —

Madame Sommer.
You had a baby?

Stella.
Yes, dearest! O God, thou didst allow me only to taste of this felicity in order to prepare for me a bitter cup all my days. When even a peasant child comes running along barefooted on the walk and throws me a kiss and looks at me with her great innocent eyes, it goes to my very soul! I think my Mina was just her age. I lift her with love and anguish and kiss her a hundred times; my heart is torn, the tears gush from my eyes and I hasten away.

Lucy.
But you have so much the less annoyance.

Stella.
(Smiling and patting her shoulder.) How deeply I still feel the pain! Strange that the terrible moments did not kill me! She lay before me! the flower was gathered! and I stood with my heart turned to stone — without pain, without consciousness, I stood! Then the nurse took up the child, pressed it to her heart and suddenly cried: “It lives!” I fell upon her, threw my arms around her neck, and wept a thousand tears upon her face, at her feet. Alas, she was deceived! Dead she lay there, and I close by in maddening, horrible despair!
[She throws herself into a chair.

Madame Sommer.
Turn your thoughts from those melancholy scenes!

Stella.
No, it is good indeed for me to unburden my heart once more, to prattle away the weight of sorrow that has oppressed me so long! Yes, if I am going to speak again of him who used to be all in all to me! — who — you must see his portrait! — his portrait! — Oh, it always seems to me that the form of man is the best text for all that can be felt and said about him!

Lucy.
I am full of curiosity!

Stella.
(Opening her cabinet and leading them in.) Here, my friends! here!

Madame Sommer.
God!

Stella.
Yes, yes! and yet it does not give a thousandth part of an idea of him as he really was. That brow, those black eyes, these brown curls, that earnest face! But alas! the painter could not express the love and the friendliness that he showed when his soul overflowed! Oh, my heart, thou alone canst feel that!

Lucy.
Madame, I am astonished!

Stella.
He was indeed a man!

Lucy.
I must tell you that this very day I ate dinner with an officer over at the inn who was the image of this gentleman. Oh! it must be the same person! I would wager my life that it was!

Stella.
To-day? Thou art deceived! thou art deceiving me!

Lucy.
Yes, to-day! It was the same, only older and more sunburned. Oh, it was! it was!

Stella.
(Pulling the bell-cord.) Lucy! my heart is bursting! I will go right over!

Lucy.
It would not be suitable!

Stella.
Suitable! Oh, my heart!
Enter Servant.

Stella.
Henry, go right over to the inn! Go right away! There is an officer there, who must be — who is — Lucy, tell him — have him come right over!

Lucy.
Did you know the baron?

Servant.
As well as my own self.

Lucy.
Then go over to the inn; there is an officer there who bears an extraordinary resemblance to him. Find out if I have been deceived. I’d take my oath it is he!

Stella.
Tell him that he must come here! come quick! quick! Could I endure this? If in this I have — oh, no, thou hast deceived thyself! It is impossible! — Leave me, my friends! leave me alone.
[She closes the door of the cabinet behind her

Lucy.
What is the matter, mother? how pale you are!

Madame Sommer.
This is the last day of my life! My heart cannot bear this! All, all at once.

Lucy.
Great God!

Madame Sommer.
My husband — the portrait — the long-expected — the long-loved! That is my husband! That is your father!

Lucy.
Mother! dearest mother!

Madame Sommer.
And he is here! — will take her into his arms in a moment or two! — And we? — Lucy, we must hurry away!

Lucy.
Anywhere you wish.

Madame Sommer.
Right away!

Lucy.
Come into the garden! I am going back to the inn. If only the stage has not gone yet, we can get away without the formality of leavetaking. Meantime she is intoxicated with her good fortune.

Madame Sommer.
Embracing him in all the bliss of seeing him again — him! And I in the very moment of finding him again — forever, forever!
Fernando enters with Servant.

Servant.
This way, sir! Do you not recognize your library again? She is beside herself! Ah! to think that you are back!
[Fernando passes without seeing the ladies.

Madame Sommer.
’Tis he! ’tis he! — I am lost!

ACT III.

Stella joyously entering with Fernando.

Stella.
(To the walls.) He is here again! Do ye see him? He is here again! (Coming before the picture of Venus.) Dost thou see him, goddess? He is here again! How many times have I not run up and down before thee like one mad and wept and mourned before thee! He is here again! I do not trust my senses. Goddess! I have looked upon thee so often when he was not here! Now thou art here and he too is here! Dearest! dearest! Thou wert long away, but thou art here now. (Falling into his arms.) Thou art here! I wish to feel nothing, hear nothing, know nothing else except that thou art here again!

Fernando.
Stella! my Stella! (Holding her close.) God in heaven, thou givest me back the power to weep once more!

Stella.
Oh, thou only one!

Fernando.
Stella, let me drink in thy sweet breath again, thy breath — in comparison with which the air of heaven is dull and unrefreshing.

Stella.
Dearest!

Fernando.
Breathe new love into this parched, storm-tossed, ruined heart — new love, new life-enjoyment from the abundance of thy heart!
[He presses a kiss upon her mouth.

Stella.
Best!

Fernando.
How invigorating! how invigorating! Here where thou breathest, everything is imbued with most satisfying young life. Love and abiding troth would here enchain the wasted wanderer.

Stella.
Thou enthusiast!

Fernando.
Thou dost not know what heavenly dew it is to the thirsty one who comes back to thy bosom from the barren, desert world!

Stella.
And the bliss of poor me, Fernando, to press to her heart again her long-lost, wandering, only lamb!

Fernando.
(At her feet.) My Stella!

Stella.
Up, my dearest! arise! I cannot bear to see thee kneel.

Fernando.
Oh, let me! As I bend before thee on my knees, so my heart lies before thee, thou infinite love and goodness!

Stella.
I hold thee again — I do not recognize myself, I do not understand my own heart! What has really happened?

Fernando.
It is to me as it was in the first moments of our bliss. I have thee in my arms, from thy lips I imbibe the reality of thy love! I reel and am drunken with passion, and in amaze I ask myself whether I wake or dream.

Stella.
Now, Fernando, as I can well perceive, thou hast not been wise!

Fernando.
God forefend! — But these moments of bliss in thy arms restore me again to goodness, to virtue. I can pray, Stella, for I am happy!

Stella.
God forgive you that you are such an unsettled and yet such a good man! May the God who made thee forgive thee — that thou art so inconstant and so true! — When I hear the accents of thy voice, then it seems to me that it must be the same Fernando who cared for nothing in all the world but me!

Fernando.
And when I gaze into thy sweet blue eyes and lose myself in their depths, it seems to me as if during all the time of my absence no other image had dwelt there but mine.

Stella.
Thou art not mistaken.

Fernando.
Can it be?

Stella.
I would confess to you! Did I not in the first days of my full love for you make thee my confessor for all the petty griefs that touched my heart? And didst thou not love me all the more for it?

Fernando.
Thou angel!

Stella.
Why dost thou look at me so? I have grown older, have I not? Sorrow has faded the bloom of my cheeks, has it not?

Fernando.
Thou rose! my sweet flower! Stella! Why dost thou shake thy head?

Stella.
How is it that one can love you so? — Why can we not reckon up the pains that you cause our hearts?

Fernando.
(Stroking her curls.) Let us see if we can find a single gray hair! — It is thy fortune that thou art so blonde without turning gray. And, indeed, it seems to be just as thick as ever. (He pulls out the comb and the locks fall in voluminous waves.)

Stella.
Mischievous!

Fernando.
(Twining his arms in them.) Rinaldo again in his ancient chains!
Enter Servant.

Servant.
Your ladyship!

Stella.
What is the matter? Your face looks cross and stern! You know that such expressions are the death of me when I am happy!

Servant.
But excuse me, your ladyship! — The two strangers are preparing to go.

Stella.
To go? Alas!

Servant.
’Tis as I told you! I saw the daughter going over to the inn, and then she came back and spoke to her mother. And then I asked about it over there and they told me that an extra stage had been ordered because the stage had already gone. I then had a talk with them; the mother with tears in her eyes begged me to send their things over to them as secretly as possible and that I should express their best wishes for the gracious lady; they could not remain longer!

Fernando.
Is it the lady who with her daughter came to-day?

Stella.
I was going to take the daughter into my service and keep the mother too! Oh, why should they cause all this worry just at this time, Fernando?

Fernando.
What is the matter with them?

Stella.
Heaven only knows! I don’t know anything about it. I don’t want to lose them! — Yet I have thee, Fernando! — If I had not, I should perish at this dilemma! Speak with them, Fernando; don’t wait a minute! — Persuade the mother to come back, Henry! (Exit Servant.) — Speak with her! She shall have every liberty. — Fernando, I will go into the arboreum! Follow me! follow me! Ye nightingales, ye shall now welcome him!

Fernando.
Loveliest love!

Stella.
(Clinging to him.) And wilt thou come soon?

Fernando.
Immediately! Immediately!
[Exit Stella.

Fernando.
(Alone.) Angel of heaven! How joyous in her presence everything becomes, how free! — Fernando, dost thou know thyself? All that oppressed this heart is gone; every care, every painful recollection of what has been and what might have been! — Will ye return again? — And yet when I see thee, when I hold thy hand, Stella! all vanishes, every other image in my heart is blotted out.
Enter Steward.

Steward.
(Kissing Fernando’s hand.) And have you come back again?

Fernando.
(Withdrawing his hand.) You see me!

Steward.
Let me! let me! O gracious master!

Fernando.
Has all gone well with thee?

Steward.
My wife is still alive, I have two children — and you are home again!

Fernando.
And how hast thou managed the estate?

Steward.
So that I am ready to lay down my reckoning. You will be surprised to see how we have improved the property. — But may I inquire how it has gone with you?

Fernando.
Silence! — But ought I not to tell thee all? Thou art worthy of my confidence, old comrade in my youthful follies.

Steward.
Thank God that you were not a pirate chieftain; at a word from you I would have applied the torch and set the flames!

Fernando.
Thou shalt hear!

Steward.
Your wife? your daughter?

Fernando.
I have failed to find them. I did not dare to go to the city; but from absolutely reliable sources I learn that she placed confidence in a merchant who proved to be a false friend and enticed from her, under the promise of heavier interest, the money which I left her! He deceived her. Making the pretext of going into the country she left the neighborhood and disappeared, and apparently is gaining a precarious livelihood by the labor of her hands and her daughter’s. You know she had courage and character enough to embark in any such enterprise.

Steward.
And you are back again. How can we forgive you for being gone so long!

Fernando.
I have made a long journey of it.

Steward.
If I had not been so happy at home with my wife and children, I should envy you the way that you have travelled about the world. Shall you remain with us now?

Fernando.
God willing!

Steward.
There is after all nothing so satisfactory and nothing so good.

Fernando.
Yes, who could forget the good old times?

Steward.
And yet amid all our pleasure they brought much trouble. I remember perfectly well how lovely we found Cecilia, how we urged our suit upon her, and could not be hasty enough in making way with our youthful freedom!

Fernando.
Yet it was a happy, fortunate epoch in my life!

Steward.
How she brought us a gay, lively little daughter, but at the same time she lost much of her sprightliness and much of her charm.

Fernando.
Pray spare me this biography!

Steward.
How we looked around us here and there and everywhere, and how we at last found this angel, and how there was not any more said about coming and going, but how we had to decide which of the two we would make wretched; and how at last, when it seemed convenient, and the chance offered itself to sell the estates, and how when we got out of it with much loss, we abducted the angel and banished to this spot the beautiful child who did not know herself or the world.

Fernando.
It seems to me that thou art as full of prattle and inclined to preach as thou wert of yore!

Steward.
Have I not had the chance to learn? Have I not been the confidant of your conscience? When you wanted to get away from here — I don’t know whether it was from pure desire to find your wife and daughter again, or because of some mental unrest — how I had to be your assistant in more ways than one.

Fernando.
This time I forgive thee!

Steward.
Only stay with us and all will be well!
[Exit .
Enter Servant.

Servant.
Madame Sommer!

Fernando.
Show her in!
[Exit Servant.

Fernando.
(Alone.) This woman makes me melancholy. How true it is that there is nothing whole, nothing pure in the world! This woman! Her daughter’s courage has disturbed me; what effect will her sorrow have?
Enter Madame Sommer.

Fernando.
(Aside.) O God! and even her figure also must recall my past! O heart! my heart! Oh, when it lies within thee so to feel and so to act, why hast thou not strength also to pardon what has been done to thee? A shade of the image of my wife! — Oh, where do I not see thee! (Aloud.) Madame!

Madame Sommer.
What is your command, sir?

Fernando.
I should like to engage your services as companion to my Stella and to me. Pray take a seat!

Madame Sommer.
The presence of the sorrowful is burdensome to those who are happy, and alas! still more so is the happy to the sorrowful!

Fernando.
I do not understand you. Can you have misjudged Stella? she who is all love, all divine!

Madame Sommer.
Sir, I wish to go away in secrecy! Permit me! I must go! Be persuaded that I have reasons! But I beg of you to let me go!

Fernando.
(Aside.) What voice is that! What form! (To Cecilia.) Madame! (He turns away.) God! it is my wife! (Aloud.) Pardon me!
[Exit  in haste.

Madame Sommer.
(Alone.) He knew me! I thank thee, O God, that thou hast given my heart so much strength at this moment! Is it I, the torn and crushed, who at this critical hour am so full of peace and courage? O Thou kind and infinite Protector, Thou dost take from our hearts nothing except to give it back again at the hour when it is most needed!
Re-enter Fernando.

Fernando.
(Aside.) Can she have recognized me? (Aloud.) I beg you, madame, I implore you to open your heart to me!

Madame Sommer.
You would like me to tell you my story, and how is it possible that you should be disposed to listen to sorrow and lamentation on a day when all the joys of life are given to you again, when you have once again given all the joys of life to the best of women? No, sir, let me go!

Fernando.
I beseech you!

Madame Sommer.
How gladly would I spare yourself and me! The memory of the first happy days of my life gives me deathly pain.

Fernando.
You have not always been unhappy?

Madame Sommer.
No; for then I should not be so unhappy as I am now. (After a pause, with calmness.) My youthful days were bright and joyous. I know not what there was in me that attracted men; a numberous throng wanted to ingratiate themselves with me. For a few I felt friendship, affection; yet was there none with whom I could have brought myself to unite my life. And thus passed the fortunate days of rosy-colored diversions — days of happiness that were seemingly endless. And yet there was something wanting. When I looked deeper into my life, and anticipated the joys and sorrows that must come to men, then I longed for a husband whose hand should lead me through the world, who in return for the love which my young heart could offer him would be in old age my friend, my protector, and take the place of my parents whom for his sake I left.

Fernando.
And now?

Madame Sommer.
Alas! I saw the man! I saw him, on whom in the early days of our acquaintance I concentrated all my hopes. The vivacity of his mind seemed united with such sincerity of heart that my heart quickly disclosed itself to him, that I gave him my friendship, and alas! how quickly followed it with my love. God in heaven, when his head rested on my breast, how did he not seem to thank Thee for the place that Thou hadst prepared for him in my arms! How eagerly he hastened from the tumult of care back to me again, and how in sad hours did I not find consolation on his heart!

Fernando.
What could have destroyed this lovely bond?

Madame Sommer.
Nothing is steadfast! — Alas! he loved, loved me as certainly as I loved him. There was a time when he thought of nothing, dreamed of nothing but to see me happy, to make me happy. That was, alas! the brightest period of my life, the first years of a relationship, when a slight ill-humor, a trifling ennui caused us more sorrow than if they had been real evils. Alas! he led me along the painful path in order to leave me solitary in an empty, fearful wilderness.

Fernando.
(More and more confused.) And how? His feelings, his heart?

Madame Sommer.
Can we know what goes on in the heart of man? I did not notice that little by little everything was growing — how shall I call it? — not more indifferent; that I cannot say. He still loved me, loved me! But he wanted more than my love. I had to share in his wishes, perhaps with a rival. I did not spare him my reproaches, and at last —

Fernando.
Was it possible that he —

Madame Sommer.
He left me. There is no name that befits the grief that I felt! All my hopes annihilated in one moment! in the moment when I was expecting to harvest the fruits of the flowers that I had offered — deserted! — deserted! All the stays of the human heart: love, trust, honor, position, daily increasing property, the charge of a numerous, well cared-for posterity, everything at once fell before me in ruin, and I — and the unfortunate pledge of our love which was left me — a deathlike sorrow followed close upon the raging pain, and the heart which had ceased to weep, given over to despair, sank into apathy. The succession of blows which reduced the estate of a poor deserted creature, I did not perceive, I did not feel, until at last I —

Fernando.
The guilty man!

Madame Sommer.
(With restrained melancholy.) No, he is not! — I commiserate the man who is attached to a maiden.

Fernando.
Madame!

Madame Sommer.
(With mild banter to hide her emotion.) Certainly not! I look upon him as a captive. They always say that it is so. He is removed from his world into ours with which he has nothing in common. He deceives himself for a time, and woe to us if his eyes are opened! After all I could be in his eyes only a blameless housewife who clung to him with the most strenuous endeavor, who tried to be agreeable to him, to be careful for him, who dedicated all her days to the advantage of her house, of her child, and indeed had to devote herself to such petty duties, that her heart and head often grew wild that she could be no entertaining companion, that he with the liveliness of his disposition could not help finding her society stupid. He is not to blame!

Fernando.
(At her feet.) I am he!

Madame Sommer.
(With a torrent of tears, on his neck.) My — !

Fernando.
Cecilia! — My wife! —

Cecilia.
(Turning from him.) Not mine! You would leave me, my heart. (Again on his neck.) Fernando! — Whoever thou art — let these tears of one who sorrows flow on thy bosom! Hold me for this moment and then leave me forever! — It is not thy wife! — Repulse me not!

Fernando.
God! — Cecilia, thy tears on my cheeks — the trembling of thy heart on mine! — Spare me! spare me!

Cecilia.
I ask nothing, Fernando! — Only this moment! — Grant my heart this relief! it will be calm, strong! Thou shalt be free from me —

Fernando.
My life shall be dissevered ere I leave thee!

Cecilia.
I shall see thee again, but not upon this earth! Thou belongest to another from whom I cannot tear thee! — Open, open heaven for me! One glance into that holy distance, into that everlasting abiding place! There alone is consolation at this terrible moment.

Fernando.
(Seizing her by the hand, gazing into her eyes. embracing her.) Nothing, nothing in the world shall separate me from thee. I have found thee again.

Cecilia.
Found what thou didst not seek.

Fernando.
Spare me! spare me! — Yes, I have sought thee; thee, my poor deserted one, my faithful heart! I found even in the arms of this angel here no rest, no joy; everything reminded me of thee, of thy daughter, of my Lucy. Merciful heavens! What joy! Can it be that this lovely creature is my daughter? — I have sought thee everywhere. Three years I wandered from place to place. On the spot where we had lived I found, alas! our dwelling changed, in the hands of strangers, and I learned the sad story of the loss of thy property. Thy disappearance tore my heart; I could find no trace of thee, and weary of myself, of life, I disguised myself in these clothes, took foreign service, helped suppress the dying freedom of the noble Corsicans, and now thou seest me here, after long and wonderful wanderings, on thy heart, my dearest, my best wife.
Enter Lucy.

Fernando.
Oh, my daughter!

Lucy.
Dearest, best father. If you are my father indeed!

Fernando.
Always and ever!

Cecilia.
And Stella?

Fernando.
Herein we must act quickly. The unfortunate soul! Why, Lucy, could we not have recognized each other this morning? — My heart beat fast; thou knowest how moved I was when I left thee. Why was it? why was it? — Stella! we might have spared her all these pangs! — Yet we will away! I will tell her that thou insisted on going away, that thou would’st not pain her with a farewell, and would take thy departure. And thou, Lucy, hasten over! Have a post-chaise for three persons put in readiness. My servant shall pack up my things with thine. Thou shalt stay over here, dearest, most precious wife! And thou, my daughter, when all is arranged, come back and wait in the large room of the summer-house — wait for me! I will free myself from her, tell her that I am going to escort thee over, provide for thy dedeparture and pay the bill for thee. — Poor soul, how could I deceive thee with thy goodness! — We will away! —

Cecilia.
Away? — Just one word of reason!

Fernando.
Away! let it be so! Yes, my dear ones, we will away!
[Exit Cecilia and Lucy.

Fernando.
(Alone.) Away? — Whither? whither? — A dagger stroke would clear the way for all these pains and hurl me into that dull insensibility for which now I would give everything. Art thou here, thou miserable man? Remember the happy days when thou didst stand in strong sufficiency against the wretch who would throw away life’s burden! How didst thou feel in those fortunate days and now? — Yes, the fortunate, the fortunate! Had this discovery come an hour earlier I should have been saved! I should never have seen her again, nor she me; I could have persuaded myself: “She has forgotten thee in these four years, has conquered her sorrow.” But now! How shall I appear before her? what can I tell her? Oh, my sin, my sin weighs heavy upon me at this moment! Both these dear ones deserted! And I, at the moment when I find them again, deserted by myself! wretched! Oh, my heart!

artist: R. Schick.
STELLA.
madame sommer and fernando.

ACT IV.

Hermitage in Stella’s Garden.

Stella.
(Alone.) Beautiful thou bloomest, more beautiful than of yore, dear, dear spot of everlasting rest so oft desired! But thou dost no longer entice me. I tremble before thee — cool, loose earth, I tremble before thee! Ah! how often in hours of fancy would I have wrapped my head and breast resolutely in the mantle of death, and stood calmly on the edge and stepped into thy depths and buried my aching heart under thy living covering. Then should’st thou, Corruption, like a dear child, suckle this overflowing, oppressed bosom, and release my whole being in a kindly dream. And now, sun of the heaven, thou shinest upon me! — It is so light, so open around me, and I rejoice at it! — He is here again! — and in an instant Nature stands full of love around me — and I am all life — and new, warmer, more glowing life will I drink from his lips! — To him — by him — with him to dwell in lasting strength! Fernando! — He comes! Hark! — No, not yet! — Here shall he find me, here at my altar of roses, under my rose arbor. These buds will I pluck for him. — Here! here! And then will I lead him into this bower. Well, well was it that I had it constructed for two, narrow though it be. Here my book was wont to lie, my writing materials to stand! — Get ye gone, book and writing! — Would that he were here. — Again deserted! — Have I him again? Is he here?
Enter Fernando.

Stella.
Where didst thou remain, thou best of men? Where wast thou? I was long, long alone! (Troubled.) What was the matter?

Fernando.
Those women have put me out of humor. — The elder is an excellent woman; but she will not stay, will give no reason, but insists upon hastening away. Let her go, Stella!

Stella.
If she is not to be moved, I do not want to keep her against her will. And, Fernando, I needed companionship — but now (on his neck) now, Fernando, I have thee!

Fernando.
Calm thyself!

Stella.
Let me weep! I would that the day were past. Even now all my limbs are in a tremble! — Joy! — All unexpected, suddenly! — Thee, Fernando! — It is almost too much, too much! I shall die amid it all!

Fernando.
(Aside.) Wretched man that I am! Desert her! (Aloud.) Leave me, Stella!

Stella.
It is thy voice, thy loving voice! Stella, Stella! Thou knowest how gladly I hear thee say that name “Stella!” No one else speaks it as thou dost. The whole soul of love is in the sound! How vivid in me is the remembrance of the day when first I heard thee utter it, when all my happiness in thee began!

Fernando.
Happiness?

Stella.
I believe that thou art beginning to count up and regretfully dwell upon the sad hours that I have spent on account of thee. Let them go, Fernando, let them go! Oh, from the moment when I saw thee for the first time, how everything in my soul was changed! Dost thou remember that afternoon in my uncle’s garden when thou camest to us? We were sitting under the great castania tree behind the summer-house.

Fernando.
(Aside.) She will rend my heart! (Aloud.) I see it yet, my Stella!

Stella.
How thou camest to us? I know not whether thou didst notice that at the very first moment thou didst attract my gaze? I at least soon observed that thine eyes sought me! Ah! Fernando, when my uncle brought the music thou didst take thy violin, and as thou didst play, my eyes rested carelessly on thee; I spied into every feature of thy countenance, and, at an unexpected moment thou didst lift up thine eyes and look — at me! Thine eyes met mine! How I blushed, how I looked away. Thou hadst noticed it, Fernando! for from that time I felt that thou didst often look away from thy notes, didst often get out of the measure, so that my uncle was vexed. Every mistake, Fernando, went through my heart! It was the sweetest confusion that I ever felt in my life! For all the gold of Golconda I could not have looked thee in the face. I made my escape and went away.

Fernando.
Even to the slightest circumstance! (Aside.) Unfortunate remembrance!

Stella.
I am often astonished at myself how I love thee, how at every moment in thy presence I forget myself entirely; yet to have everything as vividly before me as though it were but to-day! Yes, how often have I told it over to myself, Fernando! How thou didst seek me! how thou, hand in hand with a friend whom thou didst learn to know before me, camest sweeping through the bosky dale, and she cried “Stella!” and thou didst cry “Stella! Stella!” I had scarcely heard thee speak and yet I knew thy voice. And when thou overtook’st me and didst take my hand, who was the more confused, thou or I? One thing helped the other, and from that moment on — my good Sara told me that very same evening — it all took place! And what bliss in thy arms! If my Sara could have seen my joy! She was a good creature. She wept much for me when I was so ill, so love-sick! I would gladly have taken her with me when for thy sake I left everything.

Fernando.
Left everything!

Stella.
Does that offend thee? Is it not true? Left everything! Or canst thou interpret the words on Stella’s lips as a reproach? Long is it since I have had a chance to do enough for thee.

Fernando.
Truly! Thy uncle who loved thee like a father, who treated thee with affection, whose will was thy will, was not that much? The estate, the property, all of which were thine, would have been thine; was that nothing? The spot where thou from early youth hadst lived and enjoyed life — thy sports —

Stella.
And all that, Fernando, without thee? What was all that compared with thy love? When thy love first arose in my soul then did I begin to live! Yet I must assure thee that many times I thought in the lonely hours: “Why could I not enjoy all that and have his love besides? Why must we fly? Why not remain in possession of all this? Could my uncle have denied him my hand? — No! — Then why fly?” Oh, I have found excuses enough for thee! for thee! they never failed to suggest themselves to me! Even if it were a caprice, I said — as you then had numberless caprices — if it were a caprice to keep the maiden for yourself secretly as pillage! And if it were pride, to have the maiden so entirely alone without anything as dowry! Thou canst imagine that my pride was in no small degree interested to make out the best case possible! and thus thou didst accomplish thy plan.

Fernando.
I cannot endure it!
Enter Annie.

Annie.
Excuse me, gracious lady. Where are you, captain? Everything is packed and now you only are missing! The young lady has caused so much running and trouble to-day that it was unendurable; and now you are missing!

Stella.
Go, Fernando, bring them over. Pay their bill for them, but come right back again.

Annie.
Are you not going with them? The young lady has ordered a post-chaise for three; your servant has certainly packed up your things!

Stella.
Fernando, this is a mistake! What does the girl know?

Annie.
What do I know? Truly it looks strange that the captain is going off with the young lady away from your ladyship, since she made his acquaintance at table! That was a touching parting, when you pressed her hand and wished a blessing on her!

Stella.
(Constrained.) Fernando!

Fernando.
This is a mere child!

Annie.
Don’t you believe him, gracious lady; everything is all packed up! The gentleman is going with them!

Fernando.
Whither? whither?

Stella.
Leave us, Annie! (Exit Annie.) Save me from this horrible uncertainty. I fear nothing, and yet this child’s chatter troubles me. Thou art moved, Fernando! I am thy Stella!

Fernando.
(Turning about and seizing her hand.) Thou art my Stella!

Stella.
Thou frightenest me, Fernando! Thy face is wild!

Fernando.
Stella, I am a scoundrel and a coward and can hide nothing from thee! Flee! I have not the heart to thrust the dagger into thy breast and would secretly poison thee, murder thee! Stella!

Stella.
For God’s sake!

Fernando.
(Trembling with rage.) I cannot stand thy grief nor hear thy despair! Fly!

Stella.
I cannot endure it!
[She almost sinks but clings to him.

Fernando.
Stella, whom I hold in my arms! Stella, thou who art all to me! Stella! (Coldly.) I leave thee!

Stella.
(Laughing wildly.) Me?

Fernando.
(Gnashing his teeth.) Thee — with the woman whom thou hast seen! with the maiden!

Stella.
It is growing dark!

Fernando.
And that woman is my wife! ( Stella looks at him without comprehending and lets her arms fall.) And the maiden is my daughter! Stella! (He notices for the first time that she has fallen fainting.) Stella! (He lifts her to a sitting posture.) Stella! Help! help!
Enter Cecilia and Lucy.

Fernando.
Behold! behold the angel! she has fled! behold! — help!
[They bestir themselves in her behalf.

Lucy.
She is coming to!

Fernando.
(Looking at her in silence.) Through thee! through thee!
[Exit .

Stella.
Who? who? (Standing up.) Where is he? (She sinks back, looking at those who are assisting her.) Thank you! thank you! — Who are you?

Cecilia.
Calm yourself! It is we!

Stella.
You? — You are not gone? You are — God! who told me? — Who art thou? Art thou — (Seizing Cecilia by the hands.) No, I cannot endure it!

Cecilia.
Best! dearest! I press thee, my angel, to my heart!

Stella.
Tell me — it lies deep in my soul — tell me — art thou —

Cecilia.
I am — I am his wife!

Stella.
(Leaping to her feet, closing her eyes.) And I?
[She walks bewildered up and down.

Cecilia.
Come to your room!

Stella.
Why dost thou remind me of it? What is mine? — Horrible! horrible! — Are these my trees, which I planted, which I watered? Why in an instant has everything become so strange? — Thrust out! — Lost! — Lost forever! Fernando! Fernando!

Cecilia.
Go, Lucy, find thy father!

Stella.
For God’s sake! stop! Away! Let him not come! Away with you! — Father! — Spouse!

Cecilia.
Sweet love!

Stella.
Thou lovest me? Thou pressest me to thy heart? — No, no! — Leave me — thrust me away! (On her neck.) Yet one moment more! It will be all over so far as I am concerned! My heart! my heart!

Lucy.
Thou must rest!

Stella.
I cannot endure to see you! I have poisoned your life! I have robbed you of everything! You in misery! and I — what bliss in his arms! (She throws herself on her knees.) Can ye forgive me?

Cecilia.
Don’t! don’t!
[They try to lift her up.

Stella.
Here will I lie, beg, mourn, before God and you: “Pardon! pardon!” (She springs up.) Pardon? — Ye give me consolation! I am not to blame! — Thou gavest him to me, holy God in heaven! I held him fast as the dearest gift from Thy hand — leave me! My heart is breaking!

Cecilia.
Thou art innocent! Dear one!

Stella.
(On her neck.) I read in thy eyes, on thy lips heavenly words! Hold me! Bear me up! I am undone! She forgives me! She feels for my misery!

Cecilia.
Sister! my sister! Calm thyself! Have faith that He who put these feelings in our bosoms, these feelings that so often make us wretched, can also prepare consolation and help for them.

Stella.
Let me die in thy arms!

Cecilia.
Come!

Stella.
(After a pause, starting up wildly.) Leave me — all of you! See! a whole world of perplexities and pain overwhelms my soul and fills it with unspeakable torments! — It is impossible — impossible! — It is so sudden! It is not to be grasped, not to be borne!
[She stands for a time silently looking down, in deep reflection, then looks up, gazes at both of the women, starts back with a shriek and runs away.

Cecilia.
Follow her, Lucy! Watch her! (Exit Lucy.) Look down upon Thy children and their perplexities, their griefs! — In sorrow, I have learned much! Strengthen [Editor: illegible text] And if the tangle can be unsolved, holy God in heaven, let not violence be done!

ACT V.

Stella’s Library.
In Moonlight.

Stella.
(She has Fernando’s portrait and is about to pluck it from the frame.) Fulness of the night, surround me! possess me! lead me! I know not whither I am going! — I must! I will away into the wide world! Whither? Alas! whither? Banished from Thy creation! Where thou, holy moon, shinest on the tops of my trees, where thou with thy terrible dear shadow surroundest my darling Mina’s grave, shall I no longer wander? Must I go from the spot where all the treasures of my life, all my sacred associations are gathered? — And thou, place of my tomb, whereupon I have rested so often in reverence and tears, which I consecrated to myself, around which all the melancholy, all the joy of my life was dreamed over, where I hoped even after I should be no more to hover and to find enjoyment while yearning for the past, must I be banished from thee? — Be banished! — Thou art dazed, thank God! Thy brain is seared! thou canst not grasp it — the thought of banishment! Thou would’st lose thy senses! Well! — Oh, I am dizzy! — Farewell! — Farewell! — Shall I never see thee again? — There is a death-glance in the feeling! Not see thee again? — Away! Stella! (She seizes the portrait.) And must I leave thee behind? (She takes a knife and begins to pry out the nails.) Oh, would that I could be free from thought! Would that I might breathe out my life in heavy sleep, in rapturous tears! The truth is and must be that thou art wretched! — (Turning the painting into the moonlight.) Ah! Fernando! when thou camest to me, and my heart sprang to meet thee, didst thou not place reliance on thy faith, thy goodness! — Didst thou not feel what a sanctuary was ready for thee, when my heart opened to receive thee? — And thou didst not shrink back at my presence? Thou didst not sink! thou didst not escape? — Thou wast able to pluck my innocence, my happiness, my life, like a flower, for mere pastime, and cast it aside thoughtlessly upon the way? — Noble? ha! noble! My youth — my golden days! — And thou carriedst this deep treachery in thy heart! — Thy wife! thy daughter! — And my soul was free, pure as a spring morning! — All, all, a hope! — Where art thou, Stella? — (Gazing at the portrait.) So great! so flattering! — It was this expression that brought me to ruin! — I hate thee! — Away! turn away! So dreamy! so dear! — No, no! — Spoiler! — Me? — Me? — Thou? — Me? — (She thrusts the dagger at the painting.) Fernando! — (She turns away, drops the knife, and with a torrent of tears kneels before the chair.) Dearest! dearest! ’Tis vain, ’tis vain!
Enter Servant.

Servant.
Your ladyship! According to your command the horses are at the back garden gate. Your linen is packed! Don’t forget to take money.

Stella.
The painting! ( Servant picks up the knife and cuts the painting from the frame and rolls it.) Here is money.

Servant.
But why?

Stella.
(Standing motionless a moment, looking up and around.) Come!
[Exit .
Hall.

Fernando.
(Alone.) Leave me! leave me! Lo! now it seizes me again with all its horrible confusion! — So chill, so fearful lies all before me — as though the world were naught — as though I had committed no wrong therein. — And the world! — Ha! I am no more wretched than you. What have yet to demand of me? — What is the end of the thought? — Here! and here! From one end to the other! Everything thought of! and thought of again and again! and evermore terrifying, more horrible! (Holding his forehead.) It comes to this at last! Nothing before, nothing back of me! Nowhere help, nowhere counsel! — And these two, these three noblest and best of women on the earth — wretched through me! — wretched without thee! — Alas! still more wretched with me — If I could mourn, could doubt, could beg for forgiveness — could in dull hope spend but one hour — could lie at their feet and enjoy the bliss of wretchedness in sympathy! And where are they? Stella! thou liest prone, thou gazest up to heaven and criest in despair: “What crime have I, poor blossom, done, that Thy wrath so crushes me? What was my sin that Thou should’st lead this villain to me?” Cecilia! my wife! oh, my wife! — Misery! misery! deep misery! — What beatitudes united to make me wretched! Husband! Father! Lover! — The noblest and best of women! — Thine! thine! — Canst thou comprehend this, this threefold, unspeakable delight? — And now it is this that affects thee so, that tears thee in pieces! — Each demands me absolutely! And I? — Here it is over! — Deep, unfathomable! — She will be wretched! — Stella! thou art wretched! — Of what have I robbed thee? — The consciousness of thyself, thy young life! Stella! — And I am so cold? (He takes a pistol from the table.) Yet whatever may come! — (He loads.)
Enter Cecilia.

Cecilia.
My best beloved! How is it with us? (She looks at the pistol.) That looks as if thou wert ready for a journey! (Fernando lays it down.) My friend, thou seemest to me serene. Can I speak one word with thee?

Fernando.
What will’st thou, Cecilia? What will’st thou, my wife?

Cecilia.
Call me not so until I have finished speaking. We are now indeed very much perplexed! Cannot this be regulated? I have suffered much, and hence want no violent resolutions! Dost thou understand me, Fernando?

Fernando.
I hear.

Cecilia.
Take it to heart! I am only a woman, a sorrowful, mourning woman; but my soul is full of resolution! — Fernando! — I have resolved! — I leave thee!

Fernando.
(Derisively.) Dost thou mean it?

Cecilia.
Dost thou think that one must go away secretly in order to take leave of what one loves?

Fernando.
Cecilia!

Cecilia.
I am not reproaching thee! and I do not believe that I am sacrificing thee so very much! Till now I mourned the loss of thee; I grieved over what I could not change. Now I find thee again; thy presence gives me new life, new power! Fernando! I feel that my love for thee is not selfish! is not the passion of a mistress who would give everything to get possession of the entreated object. Fernando! my heart is warm and full for thee! It is the feeling that a wife has who from love itself can offer up her love!

Fernando.
Never! never!

Cecilia.
Thou art angry?

Fernando.
Thou torturest me!

Cecilia.
Thou shalt yet be happy! I have my daughter — and a friend in thee! We will part, without a separation. I will live at a distance from thee, and remain a witness of thy happiness. Thy confidante will I be; thou shalt pour thy joy and sadness into my bosom. Thy letters shall be my only life; and mine to thee shall come as a precious visit. And thus thou wilt remain mine, thou wilt not be banished with Stella to a distant corner of the earth; we will love each other, share in each other’s lot! And thus, Fernando, give me thy hand on it!

Fernando.
As a jest this would be too horrible; as meant in earnest, it is incomprehensible! Let it turn as it will, my dearest! Cold reason will not untie this knot. What thou sayest sounds beautiful, tastes sweet. Who would not feel that far more is hidden under what thou sayest than thou dreamest of, that thou deceivest thyself, while thou allayest thy tormenting feelings with a deceptive, chimerical consolation. No, Cecilia! my wife, no! thou art mine — I remain thine! — What effect have words? Why should I lay before thee the whys and wherefores? The reasons are so many lies. I remain thine, or —

Cecilia.
Well, then! — And Stella? (Fernando starts up and walks wildly up and down.) Who deceives himself deafens his torments through a cold, unfeeling, thoughtless, transitory consolation! Yes, you men know yourselves!

Fernando.
Do not boast of thy equanimity. — Stella! she is unhappy! She will weep out her days far from thee and me! Let her! Let me!

Cecilia.
Loneliness, I believe, would do her heart good; the knowledge that we were united would be good for her tender affection. Now she is covering herself with bitter reproaches. She would think if I left thee now that I was more unhappy than I really am; for she judges me by herself! She would not live in peace, she would not be able to love me, angel that she is, if she felt that her happiness was stolen. It is better for her —

Fernando.
Let her go away! let her go into a nunnery!

Cecilia.
Yes; but when that thought comes into my mind, I say: Why should she then be placed within the cloister walls? What is her sin, that she must sacrifice her most blooming years, the years of abundance, of ripening hopes, that she must weep in despair on the edge of the precipice? that she must be separated from her beloved world so dear to her — from him whom she loves so warmly? from him who — for you do love her, do you not, Fernando?

Fernando.
Ha! what dost thou mean? Art thou an evil spirit in the shape of my wife? Why dost thou torment my heart? Why dost thou torture the lacerated? Am I not sufficiently shaken, torn, tossed? God have pity upon thee!
[He throws himself into an arm-chair.

Cecilia.
(Goes to him and takes his hand.) There was once upon a time a count — (Fernando attempts to spring up; Cecilia restrains him) — a German count. Him a feeling of duty drove from his spouse, from his estate to the holy land —

Fernando.
Ha!

Cecilia.
He was a gentleman; he loved his wife, he bade her farewell, intrusted to her care the management of his affairs, embraced her and departed. He journeyed through many lands, fought, and was captured. The daughter of his master had compassion on his slavery; she loosed his bonds, they fled. She was his companion through all the risks of the war, his beloved armor-bearer. Crowned with victory, the time came to return — to his noble wife! And his maiden? He felt the impulse of humanity — he believed in humanity — and took her with him. — Behold, the glorious lady of his home hastens out to meet him, sees all her faithfulness, all her honor rewarded; she holds him in her arms again. And then side by side with him, his knights, with pride and proud respect dismount from their steeds upon the ancestral soil; his servants unpack the booty and lay it at her feet; and she stores it away in all her treasuries, decorates her castle with it, shares it with her friends. — ”Dear, noble wife, the greatest treasure is yet to come!” — Who is it that all veiled steps with the throng anigh? Lightly she dismounts from her palfrey! “Here!” cries the count, taking her by the hand and leading her to his wife, “here! see the whole — and take it from her hands again, take it from her hands again! She hath unloosed the chains from my neck, she hath commanded the winds, she hath gained me, saved me, waited upon me! What is my indebtedness to her? Here she is in your power! Give her her reward!” (Fernando with his arms spread out on the table sobs bitterly.) On her neck the faithful wife cried, amid a thousand tears she cried: “Take all that I can give thee! Take half of him who is wholly thine! Take him absolutely! Leave him absolutely to me! Each of us shall possess him without robbing the other!” “And,” she cried on his neck, at his feet, “we are thine!” They grasped his hands, clung to him — and God in heaven rejoiced in their love and his holy vicar gave his blessing thereunto! And their happiness and their love sanctified one dwelling, one bed and one tomb.

Fernando.
God in heaven! what a ray of hope here is kindled!

Cecilia.
She is here! she is ours! (At the library door.) Stella!

Fernando.
Let her be! let me be!
[About to go away.

Cecilia.
Wait! Listen to me!

Fernando.
We have had enough of words. What can be, will be. Leave me! At this moment I am not yet ready to stand before you both!
[Exit .

Cecilia.
Unhappy man! Always so taciturn, always opposed to the friendly word that would set everything to rights, and she is just the same! Yet I must succeed! (At the door.) Stella! Hear me! Stella!

Enter Lucy.

Lucy.
Call her not! She is resting; after her heavy sorrows she is resting a moment. She suffers terribly: I fear, my mother, lest it be from purpose, I fear that she is dying.

Cecilia.
What dost thou say?

Lucy.
It was not medicament that she swallowed, I am afeared!

Cecilia.
And can I have hoped in vain? Oh, that thou mayest be in error! — Terrible — terrible!

Stella.
(At the door.) Who calls me? Why do ye wake me? What o’clock is’t? Why so early?

Lucy.
It is not early; it is evening!

Stella.
’Tis right, ’tis good: evening for me!

Cecilia.
And dost thou deceive us?

Stella.
Who deceived thee? Thyself!

Cecilia.
I brought thee back, I hoped!

Stella.
For me there is no abiding.

Cecilia.
Alas, I would have sent for thee, would have journeyed, would have hastened to the end of the world!

Stella.
I am at the end!

Cecilia.
(To Lucy,who has meantime been in anguish, hurrying this way and that.) Why dost thou delay? Hasten, call aid!

Stella.
(Holding Lucy back.) Nay! remain! (She leans on both and they come to the front.) On your arm I thought to go through life; thus lead me to the grave!
[They lead her slowly to the foreground and place her in a chair at the right.

Cecilia.
Away, Lucy, away! Help! help!
[Exit Lucy.

Stella.
My help has come!

Cecilia.
How different it is from what I expected, from what I hoped!

Stella.
Thou kind friend, full of patience, full of hope!

Cecilia.
What a horrible fate!

Stella.
Deep wounds are made by the fates, but often they can be healed. Wounds that the heart makes on the heart, that the heart makes on itself are incurable, and so — let me die!
Enter Fernando.

Fernando.
Was Lucy too hasty, or is the tidings true? Oh, let it not be true, or I shall curse thy courage, Cecilia, thy forbearance!

Cecilia.
My heart makes me no reproaches, Good will is higher than all consequences, Hasten for aid! She still lives, is still ours!

Stella.
(Who looks up and seizes Fernando’s hand.) Welcome! Give me thy hand! (To Cecilia.) And also thine! All for love’s sake was the fate of my life. All for love’s sake, and so now my death! In the most sacred moments we are silent and understand each other. (She tries to put the hands of the husband and wife together.) And now let me hold my peace and rest.
[She falls on her left arm which is resting on the table.

Fernando.
Yes, we will keep silence, Stella, and rest!
[He goes slowly towards the door at the left.

Cecilia.
(In impatient excitement.) Lucy does not come! No one comes! Can the house, can the neighborhood be a wilderness? Control thyself, Fernando. She still lives! Hundreds have arisen from the bed of death, have even arisen from the grave! Fernando! She still lives. And even if every earthly means fail us and there is no leech, no medicament here, yet there is One in heaven who hears us. (On her knees, near Stella.) Hear me, oh, hear me, God! Preserve her to us! let her not die! (Fernando has taken a pistol with his left hand and is going slowly away.(Cecilia,as before, holding Stella’s left hand.) Yes, she lives; her hand, her dear hand is still warm. I will not let thee go, I cling to thee with the whole force of faith and love. No, it is no delusion. Instant prayer is stronger than human means! (Standing up and looking around her.) He is gone, the silent man, the hopeless! Whither? Oh, may it be that he has not attempted the step to which his whole stormy life ever pointed! Let me follow him! (She is about to hasten out, but stops and looks back at Stella.) And must she lie helpless here? Great God! And thus at this horrible moment between these two whom I cannot separate and cannot unite!
[A shot is heard in the distance.

Cecilia.
God!
[She wants to go in the direction of the shot.

Stella.
(Painfully lifting herself up.) What was that? Cecilia, thou art standing so far from me! come nearer, do not leave me! I am so timid! Oh, my agony! I see a stream of blood! Is it my blood? It is not my blood! I am not wounded but I am sick unto death! — It is my blood!
Enter Lucy.

Lucy.
Help, mother, help! I am going for help, for the physician; am hurrying messengers away! But alas! quite different aid is needed! My father falls by his own hand! He is lying in his blood! ( Cecilia tries to go, Lucy holds her back.) Not there, my mother! What is done is beyond help, and arouses despair!

Stella.
(Who partially standing has been listening attentively, seizes Cecilia’s hand.) And can it be so? (Standing up and leaning on Cecilia and Lucy.) Come! I feel strong again; let us go to him! There let me die!

Cecilia.
Thou totterest, thy knees do not hold thee. From my limbs also the strength has fled.

Stella.
(Sinks down upon the chair again.) To the purpose then! Go thou then to him, to whom thou belongest! Catch his last sigh, his last death-rattle! He is thy spouse! Dost thou hesitate? I beg, I implore thee! Thy delay makes me restless! (With emotion, but weak.) Remember he is alone, and go!
[Exit Cecilia,hastily.

Lucy.
I will not leave thee, I will remain with thee!

Stella.
No, Lucy, if thou desirest my happiness then hasten! Away! away! let me rest! The wings of love are palsied! they cannot bear me to him. Thou art fresh and young! Let duty be active where love is dumb! Away to him to whom thou belongest! He is thy father! Dost thou know what that means? Away, if thou lovest me, if thou wilt calm me!
[Lucy slowly turns away, and exit.

Stella.
(Sinking.) And I die alone!

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

Translated by Anna Swanwick

This play is based on an ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides. Goethe wrote the first version of his tragedy in six weeks and it was first performed on April 6, 1779, in prose form. Goethe played the part of Orestes to great acclaim.  He later rewrote the tragedy in prose and finally in 1786 in verse form.

According to the myth, Agamemnon, army commander of the Greeks in the Trojan saga, sacrifices his eldest daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Diana to ensure favourable winds for the voyage to Troy. However, Euripides’ play changes the story, so that Diana actually saved Iphigenia and made her a priestess in Tauris, by the Black Sea.  The play concerns her brother Orestes’ adventures as he visits Tauris himself, unaware that Iphigenia is still alive.

A performance of ‘Iphigenia in Tauris’ featuring Goethe as Orestes

CONTENTS

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

The first edition

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.

IPHIGENIA.
THOAS, King of the Taurians.
ORESTES.
PYLADES.
ARKAS.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

A Grove before the Temple of Diana.

IPHIGENIA.
Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs
Of this old, shady, consecrated grove,
As in the goddess’ silent sanctuary,
With the same shudd’ring feeling forth I step,
As when I trod it first, nor ever here
Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home.
Long as the mighty will, to which I bow,
Hath kept me here conceal’d, still, as at first,
I feel myself a stranger. For the sea
Doth sever me, alas! from those I love,
And day by day upon the shore I stand,
My soul still seeking for the land of Greece.
But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding waves
Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply.
Alas for him! who friendless and alone,
Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;
From him grief snatches every coming joy
Ere it doth reach his lip. His restless thoughts
Revert for ever to his father’s halls,
Where first to him the radiant sun unclos’d
The gates of heav’n; where closer, day by day,
Brothers and sisters, leagu’d in pastime sweet,
Around each other twin’d the bonds of love.
I will not judge the counsel of the gods;

Yet, truly, woman’s lot doth merit pity.
Man rules alike at home and in the field,
Nor is in foreign climes without resource;
Possession gladdens him, him conquest crowns,
And him an honourable death awaits.
How circumscrib’d is woman’s destiny!
Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord,
Her duty, and her comfort; sad her fate,
Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote:
Thus I, by noble Thoas, am detain’d,
Bound with a heavy, though a sacred chain.
Oh! with what shame, Diana, I confess
That with repugnance I perform these rites
For thee, divine protectress! unto whom
I would in freedom dedicate my life.
In thee, Diana, I have always hop’d,
And still I hope in thee, who didst infold
Within the holy shelter of thine arm
The outcast daughter of the mighty king.
Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruin’d Troy
Led back in triumph to his native land
The mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict,
His daughter’s life in sacrifice demanding, —
Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon,
Who to thine altar led his darling child,
Preserv’d his wife, Electra, and his son.
His dearest treasures? — then at length restore
Thy suppliant also to her friends and home,
And save her, as thou once from death didst save,
So now, from living here, a second death.

SCENE II.

IPHIGENIA. ARKAS.
ARKAS.
The king hath sent me hither, and commands To hail Diana’s priestess. This the day, On which for new and wonderful success, Tauris her goddess thanks. The king and host Draw near, — I come to herald their approach.

IPHIGENIA.
We are prepar’d to give them worthy greeting; Our goddess doth behold with gracious eye The welcome sacrifice from Thoas’ hand.

ARKAS.
Oh, priestess, that thine eye more mildly beam’d, — Thou much-rever’d one, — that I found thy glance, O consecrated maid, more calm, more bright, To all a happy omen! Still doth grief, With gloom mysterious, shroud thy inner mind; Still, still, through many a year we wait in vain For one confiding utt’rance from thy breast. Long as I’ve known thee in this holy place, That look of thine hath ever made me shudder; And, as with iron bands, thy soul remains Lock’d in the deep recesses of thy breast.

IPHIGENIA.
As doth become the exile and the orphan.

ARKAS.
Dost thou then here seem exil’d and an orphan?

IPHIGENIA.
Can foreign scenes our fatherland replace?

ARKAS.
Thy fatherland is foreign now to thee.

IPHIGENIA.
Hence is it that my bleeding heart ne’er heals. In early youth, when first my soul, in love, Held father, mother, brethren fondly twin’d, A group of tender germs, in union sweet, We sprang in beauty from the parent stem, And heavenward grew. An unrelenting curse Then seiz’d and sever’d me from those I lov’d, And wrench’d with iron grasp the beauteous bands. It vanish’d then, the fairest charm of youth, The simple gladness of life’s early dawn; Though sav’d, I was a shadow of myself, And life’s fresh joyance bloom’d in me no more.

ARKAS.
If thus thou ever dost lament thy fate, I must accuse thee of ingratitude.

IPHIGENIA.
Thanks have you ever.

ARKAS.
Not the honest thanks Which prompt the heart to offices of love; The joyous glance, revealing to the host A grateful spirit, with its lot content. When thee a deep mysterious destiny Brought to this sacred fane, long years ago. To greet thee, as a treasure sent from heaven, With reverence and affection, Thoas came. Benign and friendly was this shore to thee, Which had before each stranger’s heart appall’d, For, till thy coming, none e’er trod our realm But fell, according to an ancient rite, A bloody victim at Diana’s shrine.

IPHIGENIA.
Freely to breathe alone is not to live. Say, is it life, within this holy fane, Like a poor ghost around its sepulchre To linger out my days? Or call you that A life of conscious happiness and joy, When every hour, dream’d listlessly away, Leads to those dark and melancholy days, Which the sad troop of the departed spend In self-forgetfulness on Lethe’s shore? A useless life is but an early death; This, woman’s lot, is eminently mine.

ARKAS.
I can forgive, though I must needs deplore,
The noble pride which underrates itself
It robs thee of the happiness of life.
And hast thou, since thy coming here, done nought?
Who cheer’d the gloomy temper of the king?
Who hath with gentle eloquence annull’d,
From year to year, the usage of our sires,
By which, a victim at Diana’s shrine,
Each stranger perish’d, thus from certain death
Sending so oft the rescued captive home?
Hath not Diana, harbouring no revenge
For this suspension of her bloody rites,

In richest measure heard thy gentle prayer? On joyous pinions o’er the advancing host, Doth not triumphant conquest proudly soar? And feels not every one a happier lot, Since Thoas, who so long hath guided us With wisdom and with valour, sway’d by thee, The joy of mild benignity approves, Which leads him to relax the rigid claims Of mute submission? Call thyself useless! Thou, Thou, from whose being o’er a thousand hearts, A healing balsam flows? when to a race. To whom a god consign’d thee, thou dost prove A fountain of perpetual happiness, And from this dire inhospitable shore Dost to the stranger grant a safe return?

IPHIGENIA.
The little done doth vanish to the mind, Which forward sees how much remains to do.

ARKAS.
Him dost thou praise, who underrates his deeds?

IPHIGENIA.
Who estimates his deeds is justly blam’d.

ARKAS.
We blame alike, who proudly disregard Their genuine merit, and who vainly prize Their spurious worth too highly. Trust me, priestess, And hearken to the counsel of a man With honest zeal devoted to thy service: When Thoas comes to-day to speak with thee, Lend to his purpos’d words a gracious ear.

IPHIGENIA.
The well-intention’d counsel troubles me: His offer studiously I’ve sought to shun.

ARKAS.
Thy duty and thy interest calmly weigh.
Since the king lost his son, he trusts but few,
Nor those as formerly. Each noble’s son
He views with jealous eye as his successor;
He dreads a solitary, helpless age,
Or rash rebellion, or untimely death.
A Scythian studies not the rules of speech,

And least of all the king. He who is used To act and to command, knows not the art, From far, with subtle tact, to guide discourse Through many windings to its destin’d goal. Do not embarrass him with shy reserve And studied misconception: graciously, And with submission, meet the royal wish.

IPHIGENIA.
Shall I then speed the doom that threatens me?

ARKAS.
His gracious offer canst thou call a threat?

IPHIGENIA.
’Tis the most terrible of all to me.

ARKAS.
For his affection grant him confidence.

IPHIGENIA.
If he will first redeem my soul from fear.

ARKAS.
Why dost thou hide from him thy origin?

IPHIGENIA.
A priestess secrecy doth well become.

ARKAS.
Nought to our monarch should a secret be; And, though he doth not seek to fathom thine, His noble nature feels, ay, deeply feels, That studiously thou hid’st thyself from him.

IPHIGENIA.
Displeasure doth he harbour ‘gainst me, then?

ARKAS.
Almost it seems so. True, he speaks not of thee. But casual words have taught me that the wish To call thee his hath firmly seiz’d his soul; Oh, do not leave the monarch to himself! Lest his displeasure, rip’ning in his breast, Should work thee woe, so with repentance thou Too late my faithful counsel shalt recall.

IPHIGENIA.
How! doth the monarch purpose what no man
Of noble mind, who loves his honest name,
Whose bosom reverence for the gods restrains,
Would ever think of? Will he force employ

To tear me from this consecrated fane? Then will I call the gods, and chiefly thee, Diana, goddess resolute, to aid me; Thyself a virgin, thou’lt a virgin shield, And succour to thy priestess gladly yield.

ARKAS.
Be tranquil! Passion, and youth’s fiery blood Impel not Thoas rashly to commit A deed so lawless. In his present mood, I fear from him another harsh resolve, Which (for his soul is steadfast and unmov’d,) He then will execute without delay. Therefore I pray thee, canst thou grant no more, At least be grateful — give thy confidence.

IPHIGENIA.
Oh tell me what is further known to thee.

ARKAS.
Learn it from him. I see the king approach; Thou honour’st him, and thy own heart will prompt thee To meet him kindly and with confidence. A noble man by woman’s gentle word May oft be led.

IPHIGENIA, alone.

I see not how I can Follow the counsel of my faithful friend. But willingly the duty I perform Of giving thanks for benefits receiv’d, And much I wish that to the king my lips With truth could utter what would please his ear.

SCENE III.

IPHIGENIA. THOAS.
IPHIGENIA.
Her royal gifts the goddess shower on thee! Imparting conquest, wealth, and high renown, Dominion, and the welfare of thy house, With the fulfilment of each pious wish, That thou, who over numbers rul’st supreme, Thyself may’st be supreme in happiness!

THOAS.
Contented were I with my people’s praise; My conquests others more than I enjoy. Oh! be he king or subject, he’s most blest, Who in his home finds happiness and peace. Thou shar’dst my sorrow, when a hostile sword Tore from my side my last, my dearest son; Long as fierce vengeance occupied my heart, I did not feel my dwelling’s dreary void; But now, returning home, my rage appeas’d, My foes defeated, and my son aveng’d, I find there nothing left to comfort me. The glad obedience, which I used to see Kindling in every eye, is smother’d now In discontent and gloom; each, pond’ring, weighs The changes which a future day may bring, And serves the childless king, because compell’d. To-day I come within this sacred fane, Which I have often enter’d to implore And thank the gods for conquest. In my breast I bear an old and fondly-cherish’d wish. To which methinks thou canst not be a stranger; Thee, maid, a blessing to myself and realm, I hope, as bride, to carry to my home.

IPHIGENIA.
Too great thine offer, king, to one unknown; Abash’d the fugitive before thee stands, Who on this shore sought only what thou gav’st, Safety and peace.

THOAS.
Thus still to shroud thyself From me, as from the lowest, in the veil Of mystery which wrapp’d thy coming here, Would in no country be deem’d just or right. Strangers this shore appall’d; ’twas so ordain’d Alike by law and stern necessity. From thee alone — a kindly welcom’d guest, Who hast enjoy’d each hallow’d privilege, And spent thy days in freedom unrestrain’d — From thee I hop’d that confidence to gain Which every faithful host may justly claim.

IPHIGENIA.
If I conceal’d, O king, my name, my race, ’Twas fear that prompted me, and not mistrust. For didst thou know who stands before thee now, And what accursed head thy arm protects, A shudd’ring horror would possess thy heart; And, far from wishing me to share thy throne, Thou, ere the time appointed, from thy realm Wouldst banish me perchance, and thrust me forth, Before a glad reunion with my friends And period to my wand’rings is ordain’d, To meet that sorrow, which in every clime, With cold, inhospitable, fearful hand, Awaits the outcast, exil’d from his home.

THOAS.
Whate’er respecting thee the gods decree, Whate’er their doom for thee and for thy house, Since thou hast dwelt amongst us, and enjoy’d The privilege the pious stranger claims, To me hath fail’d no blessing sent from Heaven; And to persuade me, that protecting thee I shield a guilty head, were hard indeed.

IPHIGENIA.
Thy bounty, not the guest, draws blessings down.

THOAS.
The kindness shown the wicked is not blest. End then thy silence, priestess; not unjust Is he who doth demand it. In my hands The goddess plac’d thee; thou hast been to me As sacred as to her, and her behest Shall for the future also be my law. If thou canst hope in safety to return Back to thy kindred, I renounce my claims: But is thy homeward path for ever clos’d — Or doth thy race in hopeless exile rove, Or lie extinguish’d by some mighty woe — Then may I claim thee by more laws than one. Speak openly, thou know’st I keep my word.

IPHIGENIA.
Its ancient bands reluctantly my tongue
Doth loose, a long-hid secret to divulge;

For once imparted, it resumes no more The safe asylum of the inmost heart, But thenceforth, as the powers above decree, Doth work its ministry of weal or woe. Attend! I issue from the Titan’s race.

THOAS.
A word momentous calmly hast thou spoken. Him nam’st thou ancestor whom all the world Knows as a sometime favourite of the gods? Is it that Tantalus, whom Jove himself Drew to his council and his social board? On whose experienc’d words, with wisdom fraught, As on the language of an oracle, E’en gods delighted hung?

IPHIGENIA.
’Tis even he; But gods should not hold intercourse with men As with themselves. Too weak the human race, Not to grow dizzy on unwonted heights. Ignoble was he not, and no betrayer; To be the Thunderer’s slave, he was too great: To be his friend and comrade, — but a man. His crime was human, and their doom severe; For poets sing, that treachery and pride Did from Jove’s table hurl him headlong down, To grovel in the depths of Tartarus. Alas, and his whole race their hate pursues.

THOAS.
Bear they their own guilt, or their ancestors’?

IPHIGENIA.
The Titan’s mighty breast and nervous frame
Was his descendant’s certain heritage;
But round their brow Jove forg’d a band of brass.
Wisdom and patience, prudence and restraint,
He from their gloomy, fearful eye conceal’d;
In them each passion grew to savage rage,
And headlong rush’d uncheck’d. The Titan’s son,
The strong-will’d Pelops, won his beauteous bride,
Hippodamia, child of Œnomaus,
Through treachery and murder; she ere long
Bore him two children, Atreus and Thyestes;

With envy they beheld the growing love Their father cherish’d for a first-born son Sprung from another union. Bound by hate, In secret they contrive their brother’s death. The sire, the crime imputing to his wife, With savage fury claim’d from her his child, And she in terror did destroy herself —

THOAS.
Thou’rt silent? Pause not in thy narrative! Do not repent thy confidence — say on!

IPHIGENIA.
How blest is he who his progenitors
With pride remembers, to the list’ner tells
The story of their greatness, of their deeds,
And, silently rejoicing, sees himself
Link’d to this goodly chain! For the same stock
Bears not the monster and the demigod:
A line, or good or evil, ushers in
The glory or the terror of the world. —
After the death of Pelops, his two sons
Rul’d o’er the city with divided sway.
But such an union could not long endure.
His brother’s honour first Thyestes wounds.
In vengeance Atreus drove him from the realm.
Thyestes, planning horrors, long before
Had stealthily procur’d his brother’s son,
Whom he in secret nurtur’d as his own.
Revenge and fury in his breast he pour’d,
Then to the royal city sent him forth,
That in his uncle he might slay his sire,
The meditated murder was disclos’d,
And by the king most cruelly aveng’d,
Who slaughter’d, as he thought, his brother’s son.
Too late he learn’d whose dying tortures met
His drunken gaze; and seeking to assuage
The insatiate vengeance that possess’d his soul,
He plann’d a deed unheard of. He assum’d
A friendly tone, seem’d reconcil’d, appeas’d.
And lur’d his brother, with his children twain,
Back to his kingdom; these he seiz’d and slew;
Then plac’d the loathsome and abhorrent food

At his first meal before the unconscious sire. And when Thyestes had his hunger still’d With his own flesh, a sadness seiz’d his soul; He for his children ask’d, — their steps, their voice, Fancied he heard already at the door; And Atreus, grinning with malicious joy, Threw in the members of the slaughter’d boys. — Shudd’ring, O king, thou dost avert thy face: So did the sun his radiant visage hide, And swerve his chariot from the eternal path. These, monarch, are thy priestess’ ancestors, And many a dreadful fate of mortal doom, And many a deed of the bewilder’d brain, Dark night doth cover with her sable wing, Or shroud in gloomy twilight.

THOAS.
Hidden there Let them abide. A truce to horror now, And tell me by what miracle thou sprang’st From race so savage.

IPHIGENIA.
Atreus’ eldest son
Was Agamemnon; he, O king, my sire:
But I may say with truth, that, from a child,
In him the model of a perfect man
I witness’d ever. Clytemnestra bore
To him, myself, the firstling of their love,
Electra then. Peaceful the monarch rul’d,
And to the house of Tantalus was given
A long-withheld repose. A son alone
Was wanting to complete my parent’s bliss;
Scarce was this wish fulfill’d, and young Orestes,
The household’s darling, with his sisters grew,
When new misfortunes vex’d our ancient house.
To you hath come the rumour of the war,
Which, to avenge the fairest woman’s wrongs,
The force united of the Grecian kings
Round Ilion’s walls encamp’d. Whether the town
Was humbl’d, and achiev’d their great revenge
I have not heard. My father led the host
In Aulis vainly for a favouring gale

They waited; for, enrag’d against their chief, Diana stay’d their progress, and requir’d, Through Chaleas’ voice, the monarch’s eldest daughter. They lur’d me with my mother to the camp, And at Diana’s altar doom’d this head. — She was appeas’d, she did not wish my blood, And wrapt me in a soft protecting cloud; Within this temple from the dream of death I waken’d first. Yes, I myself am she; Iphigenia, — I who speak to thee Am Atreus’ grandchild, Agamemnon’s child, And great Diana’s consecrated priestess.

THOAS.
I yield no higher honour or regard To the king’s daughter than the maid unknown; Once more my first proposal I repeat; Come, follow me, and share what I possess.

IPHIGENIA.
How dare I venture such a step, O king? Hath not the goddess who protected me Alone a right to my devoted head? ’Twas she who chose for me this sanctuary, Where she perchance reserves me for my sire, By my apparent death enough chastis’d, To be the joy and solace of his age. Perchance my glad return is near; and how If I, unmindful of her purposes, Had here attach’d myself against her will? I ask’d a signal, did she wish my stay.

THOAS.
The signal is that still thou tarriest here. Seek not evasively such vain pretexts. Not many words are needed to refuse, By the refus’d the no alone is heard.

IPHIGENIA.
Mine are not words meant only to deceive;
I have to thee my inmost heart reveal’d.
And doth no inward voice suggest to thee,
How I with yearning soul must pine to see
My father, mother, and my long-lost home?

Oh let thy vessels bear me thither, king! That in the ancient halls, where sorrow still In accents low doth fondly breathe my name, Joy, as in welcome of a new-born child, May round the columns twine the fairest wreath. Thou wouldst to me and mine new life impart.

THOAS.
Then go! the promptings of thy heart obey; Despise the voice of reason and good counsel. Be quite the woman, sway’d by each desire, That bridleless impels her to and fro. When passion rages fiercely in her breast, No sacred tie withholds her from the wretch Who would allure her to forsake for him A husband’s or a father’s guardian arms; Extinct within her heart its fiery glow, The golden tongue of eloquence in vain With words of truth and power assails her ear.

IPHIGENIA.
Remember now, O king, thy noble words! My trust and candour wilt thou thus repay? Thou seem’dst, methought, prepar’d to hear the truth.

THOAS.
For this unlook’d-for answer not prepar’d. Yet ’twas to be expected; knew I not That ’twas with woman I had now to deal?

IPHIGENIA.
Upbraid not thus, O king, our feeble sex! Though not in dignity to match with yours, The weapons woman wields are not ignoble. And trust me, Thoas, in thy happiness I have a deeper insight than thyself. Thou thinkest, ignorant alike of both, A closer union would augment our bliss; Inspir’d with confidence and honest zeal Thou strongly urgest me to yield consent; And here I thank the gods, who give me strength To shun a doom unratified by them.

THOAS.
’Tis not a god, ’tis thine own heart that speaks.

IPHIGENIA.
’Tis through the heart alone they speak to us.

THOAS.
To hear them have I not an equal right?

IPHIGENIA.
The raging tempest drowns the still, small voice.

THOAS.
This voice no doubt the priestess hears alone.

IPHIGENIA.
Before all others should the prince attend it.

THOAS.
Thy sacred office, and ancestral right To Jove’s own table, place thee with the gods In closer union than an earth-born savage.

IPHIGENIA.
Thus must I now the confidence atone Thyself extorted from me!

THOAS.
I’m a man, And better ’tis we end this conference. Hear then my last resolve. Be priestess still Of the great goddess who selected thee; And may she pardon me, that I from her, Unjustly and with secret self-reproach, Her ancient sacrifice so long withheld. From olden times no stranger near’d our shore But fell a victim at her sacred shrine. But thou, with kind affection (which at times Seem’d like a gentle daughter’s tender love, At times assum’d to my enraptur’d heart The modest inclination of a bride), Didst so inthral me, as with magic bonds, That I forgot my duty. Thou didst rock My senses in a dream: I did not hear My people’s murmurs: now they cry aloud, Ascribing my poor son’s untimely death To this my guilt. No longer for thy sake Will I oppose the wishes of the crowd, Who urgently demand the sacrifice.

IPHIGENIA.
For mine own sake I ne’er desired it from thee.

Who to the gods ascribe a thirst for blood Do misconceive their nature, and impute To them their own inhuman dark desires. Did not Diana snatch me from the priest, Preferring my poor service to my death?

THOAS.
’Tis not for us, on reason’s shifting grounds, Lightly to guide and construe rites divine. Perform thy duty; I’ll accomplish mine. Two strangers, whom in caverns of the shore We found conceal’d, and whose arrival here Bodes to my realm no good, are in my power. With them thy goddess may once more resume Her ancient, pious, long-suspended rites! I send them here, — thy duty not unknown.      [Exit.

IPHIGENIA, alone.

Gracious protectress! thou hast clouds To shelter innocence distress’d, And genial gales from Fate’s rude grasp, Safely to waft her o’er the sea, O’er the wide earth’s remotest realms, Where’er it seemeth good to thee. Wise art thou, — thine all-seeing eye The future and the past surveys, And doth on all thy children rest, E’en as thy pure and guardian light Keeps o’er the earth its silent watch, The beauty and the life of night. O Goddess! keep my hands from blood! Blessing it never brings, nor peace; And still in evil hours the form Of the chance-murder’d man appears To fill the unwilling murderer’s soul With horrible and gloomy fears. For fondly the Immortals view Man’s widely-scatter’d, simple race; And the poor mortal’s transient life Gladly prolong, that he may raise Awhile to their eternal heavens His sympathetic joyous gaze.

ACT THE SECOND.

SCENE I.

ORESTES. PYLADES.
ORESTES.
It is the path of death that now we tread: At every step my soul grows more serene. When I implor’d Apollo to remove The grisly band of Furies from my side, He seem’d, with hope-inspiring, godlike words, To promise aid and safety in the fane Of his lov’d sister, who o’er Tauris rules. Thus the prophetic word fulfils itself, That with my life shall terminate my woe. How easy ’tis for me, whose heart is crush’d, Whose sense is deaden’d by a hand divine, Thus to renounce the beauteous light of day! And must the son of Atreus not entwine The wreath of conquest round his dying brow — Must I, as my forefathers, as my sire, Bleed like a victim, — an ignoble death — So be it! Better at the altar here, Than in a nook obscure, where kindred hands Have spread assassination’s wily net. Yield me this brief repose, infernal Powers! Ye, who, like loosen’d hounds, still scent the blood, Which, trickling from my feet, betrays my path. Leave me! ere long I come to you below. Nor you, nor I, should view the light of day. The soft green carpet of the beauteous earth Is no arena for unhallow’d fiends. Below I seek you, where an equal fate Binds all in murky, never-ending night. Thee only, thee, my Pylades, my friend, The guiltless partner of my crime and curse, Thee am I loath, before thy time, to take To yonder cheerless shore! Thy life or death Alone awakens in me hope or fear.

PYLADES.
Like thee, Orestes, I am not prepar’d Downwards to wander to yon realm of shade. I purpose still, through the entangl’d paths, Which seem as they would lead to blackest night, Again to guide our upward way to life. Of death I think not; I observe and mark Whether the gods may not perchance present Means and fit moment for a joyful flight. Dreaded or not, the stroke of death must come; And though the priestess stood with hand uprais’d, Prepar’d to cut our consecrated locks, Our safety still should be my only thought: Uplift thy soul above this weak despair; Desponding doubts but hasten on our peril. Apollo pledg’d to us his sacred word, That in his sister’s’ holy fane for thee Were comfort, aid, and glad return prepar’d. The words of Heaven are not equivocal, As in despair the poor oppress’d one thinks.

ORESTES.
The mystic web of life my mother spread Around my infant head, and so I grew, An image of my sire; and my mute look Was aye a bitter and a keen reproof To her and base Ægisthus. Oh, how oft, When silently within our gloomy hall Electra sat, and mus’d beside the fire, Have I with anguish’d spirit climb’d her knee, And watch’d her bitter tears with sad amaze! Then would she tell me of our noble sire: How much I long’d to see him — be with him! Myself at Troy one moment fondly wish’d, My sire’s return, the next. The day arrived —

PYLADES.
Oh, of that awful hour let fiends of hell
Hold nightly converse! Of a time more fair
May the remembrance animate our hearts
To fresh heroic deeds. The gods require
On this wide earth the service of the good,

To work their pleasure. Still they count on thee; For in thy father’s train they sent thee not, When he to Orcus went unwilling down.

ORESTES.
Would I had seiz’d the border of his robe. And follow’d him!

PYLADES.
They kindly car’d for me Who here detain’d thee; for if thou hadst died I know not what had then become of me; Since I with thee, and for thy sake alone, Have from my childhood liv’d, and wish to live.

ORESTES.
Do not remind me of those tranquil days, When me thy home a safe asylum gave; With fond solicitude thy noble sire The half-nipp’d, tender flow’ret gently rear’d; While thou a friend and playmate always gay, Like to a light and brilliant butterfly Around a dusky flower, didst around me Still with new life thy merry gambols play, And breathe thy joyous spirit in my soul, Until, my cares forgetting, I with thee Was lur’d to snatch the eager joys of youth.

PYLADES.
My very life began when thee I lov’d.

ORESTES.
Say, then thy woes began, and thou speak’st truly. This is the sharpest sorrow of my lot, That, like a plague-infected wretch, I bear Death and destruction hid within my breast; That, where I tread, e’en on the healthiest spot, Ere long the blooming faces round betray The writhing features of a ling’ring death.

PYLADES.
Were thy breath venom, I had been the first To die that death, Orestes. Am I not, As ever, full of courage and of joy? And love and courage are the spirit’s wings Wafting to noble actions.

ORESTES.
Noble actions? Time was, when fancy painted such before us! When oft, the game pursuing, on we roam’d O’er hill and valley; hoping that ere long With club and weapon arm’d, we so might track The robber to his den, or monster huge. And then at twilight, by the glassy sea, We peaceful sat, reclin’d against each other The waves came dancing to our very feet. And all before us lay the wide, wide world. Then on a sudden one would seize his sword, And future deeds shone round us like the stars, Which gemm’d in countless throngs the vault of night.

PYLADES.
Endless, my friend, the projects which the soul Burns to accomplish. We would every deed At once perform as grandly as it shows After long ages, when from land to land The poet’s swelling song hath roll’d it on. It sounds so lovely what our fathers did, When, in the silent evening shade reclin’d, We drink it in with music’s melting tones; And what we do is, as their deeds to them, Toilsome and incomplete! Thus we pursue what always flies before; We disregard the path in which we tread, Scarce see around the footsteps of our sires, Or heed the trace of their career on earth. We ever hasten on to chase their shades, Which godlike, at a distance far remote, On golden clouds reclin’d, the mountains crown. The man I prize not who esteems himself Just as the people’s breath may chance to raise him. But thou, Orestes, to the gods give thanks, That they have done so much through thee already.

ORESTES.
When they ordain a man to noble deeds,
To shield from dire calamity his friends,
Extend his empire, or protect its bounds,
Or put to flight its ancient enemies,

Let him be grateful! For to him a god Imparts the first, the sweetest joy of life. Me have they doom’d to be a slaughterer, To be an honour’d mother’s murderer, And shamefully a deed of shame avenging. Me through their own decree they have o’erwhelm’d. Trust me, the race of Tantalus is doom’d; Nor may his last descendant leave the earth, Or crown’d with honour or unstain’d by crime.

PYLADES.
The gods avenge not on the son the deeds Done by the father. Each, or good or bad, Of his own actions reaps the due reward. The parents’ blessing, not their curse, descends.

ORESTES.
Methinks their blessing did not lead us here.

PYLADES.
It was at least the mighty gods’ decree.

ORESTES.
Then is it their decree which doth destroy us.

PYLADES.
Perform what they command, and wait the event. Do thou Apollo’s sister bear from hence, That they at Delphi may united dwell, Rever’d and honour’d by a noble race: Thee, for this deed, the heav’nly pair will view With gracious eye, and from the hateful grasp Of the infernal Powers will rescue thee. E’en now none dares intrude within this grove.

ORESTES.
So shall I die at least a peaceful death.

PYLADES.
Far other are my thoughts, and not unskill’d Have I the future and the past combin’d In quiet meditation. Long, perchance, Hath ripen’d in the counsel of the gods The great event. Diana wish d to leave This savage region foul with human blood. We were selected for the high emprize; To us it is assign’d, and strangely thus We are conducted to the threshold here.

ORESTES.
My friend, with wondrous skill thou link’st thy wish With the predestin’d purpose of the gods.

PYLADES.
Of what avail is prudence, if it fail Heedful to mark the purposes of Heaven? A noble man, who much hath sinn’d, some god Doth summon to a dangerous enterprize, Which to achieve appears impossible. The hero conquers, and atoning serves Mortals and gods, who thenceforth honour him.

ORESTES.
Am I foredoom’d to action and to life, Would that a god from my distemper’d brain Might chase this dizzy fever, which impels My restless steps along a slipp’ry path, Stain’d with a mother’s blood, to direful death; And pitying, dry the fountain, whence the blood, For ever spouting from a mother’s wounds, Eternally defiles me!

PYLADES.
Wait in peace! Thou dost increase the evil, and dost take The office of the Furies on thyself. Let me contrive, — be still! And when at length The time for action claims our powers combin’d, Then will I summon thee, and on we’ll stride, With cautious boldness to achieve the event.

ORESTES.
I hear Ulysses speak!

PYLADES.
Nay, mock me not. Each must select the hero after whom To climb the steep and difficult ascent Of high Olympus. And to me it seems That him nor stratagem nor art defile Who consecrates himself to noble deeds.

ORESTES.
I most esteem the brave and upright man.

PYLADES.
And therefore have I not desir’d thy counsel. One step is ta’en already: from our guards I have extorted this intelligence. A strange and godlike woman now restrains The execution of that bloody law: Incense, and prayer, and an unsullied heart, These are the gifts she offers to the gods. Her fame is widely spread, and it is thought That from the race of Amazon she springs, And hither fled some great calamity.

ORESTES.
Her gentle sway, it seems, lost all its power At the approach of one so criminal, Whom the dire curse enshrouds in gloomy night. Our doom to seal, the pious thirst for blood Again unchains the ancient cruel rite: The monarch’s savage will decrees our death; A woman cannot save when he condemns.

PYLADES.
That ’tis a woman is a ground for hope! A man, the very best, with cruelty At length may so familiarize his mind, His character through custom so transform, That he shall come to make himself a law Of what at first his very soul abhorr’d. But woman doth retain the stamp of mind She first assum’d. On her we may depend In good or evil with more certainty. She comes; leave us alone. I dare not tell At once our names, nor unreserv’d confide Our fortunes to her. Now retire awhile, And ere she speaks with thee we’ll meet again.

SCENE II.

IPHIGENIA. PYLADES.
IPHIGENIA.
Whence art thou? Stranger, speak! To me thy bearing Stamps thee of Grecian, not of Scythian race.

(She unbinds his chains.)

The freedom that I give is dangerous: The gods avert the doom that threatens you!

PYLADES.
Delicious music! dearly welcome tones Of our own language in a foreign land! With joy my captive eye once more beholds The azure mountains of my native coast. Oh, let this joy that I too am a Greek Convince thee, priestess! How I need thine aid, A moment I forget, my spirit wrapt In contemplation of so fair a vision. If fate’s dread mandate doth not seal thy lips. From which of our illustrious races, say, Dost thou thy godlike origin derive?

IPHIGENIA.
A priestess, by the Goddess’ self ordain’d And consecrated too, doth speak with thee. Let that suffice: but tell me, who art thou, And what unbless’d o’erruling destiny Hath hither led thee with thy friend?

PYLADES.
The woe,
Whose hateful presence ever dogs our steps,
I can with ease relate. Oh, would that thou
Couldst with like ease, divine one, shed on us
One ray of cheering hope! We are from Crete,
Adrastus’ sons, and I, the youngest born,
Named Cephalus; my eldest brother, he,
Laodamus. Between us two a youth
Of savage temper grew, who oft disturb’d
The joy and concord of our youthful sports.
Long as our father led his powers at Troy,

Passive our mother’s mandate we obey’d; But when, enrich’d with booty, he return’d, And shortly after died, a contest fierce For the succession and their father’s wealth, Parted the brothers. I the eldest joined; He slew the second; and the Furies hence For kindred murder dog his restless steps. But to this savage shore the Delphian god Hath sent us, cheer’d by hope, commanding us Within his sister’s temple to await The blessed hand of aid. We have been ta’en, Brought hither, and now stand for sacrifice. My tale is told.

IPHIGENIA.
Tell me, is Troy o’erthrown? Assure me of its fall.

PYLADES.
It lies in ruins. But oh, ensure deliverance to us! Hasten, I pray, the promis’d aid of heav’n. Pity my brother, say a kindly word; But I implore thee, spare him when thou speakest. Too easily his inner mind is torn By joy, or grief, or cruel memory. A feverish madness oft doth seize on him, Yielding his spirit, beautiful and free, A prey to furies.

IPHIGENIA.
Great as is thy woe, Forget it, I conjure thee, for a while, Till I am satisfied.

PYLADES.
The stately town, Which ten long years withstood the Grecian host, Now lies in ruins, ne’er to rise again; Yet many a hero’s grave will oft recall Our sad remembrance to that barbarous shore; There lies Achilles and his noble friend.

IPHIGENIA.
And are ye, godlike forms, reduc’d to dust!

PYLADES.
Nor Palamede, nor Ajax, ere again The daylight of their native land behold.

IPHIGENIA.
He speaks not of my father, doth not name Him with the fallen. He may yet survive! I may behold him! still hope on, my heart!

PYLADES.
Yet happy are the thousands who receiv’d Their bitter death-blow from a hostile hand! For terror wild, and end most tragical, Some hostile, angry, deity prepar’d, Instead of triumph, for the home-returning. Do human voices never reach this shore? Far as their sound extends, they bear the fame Of deeds unparallel’d. And is the woe Which fills Mycene’s halls with ceaseless sighs To thee a secret still? — And know’st thou not That Clytemnestra, with Ægisthus’ aid, Her royal consort artfully ensnar’d, And murder’d on the day of his return? — The monarch’s house thou honourest! I perceive Thy heaving bosom vainly doth contend With tidings fraught with such unlook’d-for woe Art thou the daughter of a friend? or born Within the circuit of Mycene’s walls? Do not conceal it, nor avenge on me That here the horrid crime I first announc’d.

IPHIGENIA.
Proceed, and tell me how the deed was done.

PYLADES.
The day of his return, as from the bath Arose the monarch, tranquil and refresh’d. His robe demanding from his consort’s hand, A tangl’d garment, complicate with folds. She o’er his shoulders flung and noble head; And when, as from a net, he vainly strove To extricate himself, the traitor, base Ægisthus, smote him, and envelop’d thus Great Agamemnon sought the shades below.

IPHIGENIA.
And what reward receiv’d the base accomplice?

PYLADES.
A queen and kingdom he possess’d already.

IPHIGENIA.
Base passion prompted, then, the deed of shame?

PYLADES.
And feelings, cherish’d long, of deep revenge.

IPHIGENIA.
How had the monarch injured Clytemnestra?

PYLADES.
By such a dreadful deed, that if on earth Aught could exculpate murder, it were this. To Aulis he allur’d her, when the fleet With unpropitious winds the goddess stay’d; And there, a victim at Diana’s shrine, The monarch, for the welfare of the Greeks, Her eldest daughter doom’d. And this, ’tis said, Planted such deep abhorrence in her heart, That to Ægisthus she resign’d herself, And round her husband flung the web of death.

IPHIGENIA (veiling herself).

It is enough! Thou wilt again behold me.

PYLADES, alone.

The fortune of this royal house, it seems, Doth move her deeply. Whosoe’er she be, She must herself have known the monarch well; — For our good fortune, from a noble house, She hath been sold to bondage. Peace, my heart! And let us steer our course with prudent zeal Toward the star of hope which gleams upon us.

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.

IPHIGENIA. ORESTES.
IPHIGENIA.
Unhappy man, I only loose thy bonds
In token of a still severer doom.
The freedom which the sanctuary imparts,

Like the last life-gleam o’er the dying face, But heralds death. I cannot, dare not say Your doom is hopeless; for, with murd’rous hand, Could I inflict the fatal blow myself? And while I here am priestess of Diana, None, be he who he may, dare touch your heads. But the incensed king, should I refuse Compliance with the rites himself enjoin’d, Will choose another virgin from my train As my successor. Then, alas! with nought, Save ardent wishes, can I succour you, Much honour’d countryman! The humblest slave, Who had but near’d our sacred household hearth, Is dearly welcome in a foreign land; How with proportion’d joy and blessing, then, Shall I receive the man who doth recall The image of the heroes, whom I learn’d To honour from my parents, and who cheers My inmost heart with flatt’ring gleams of hope!

ORESTES.
Does prudent forethought prompt thee to conceal Thy name and race? or may I hope to know Who, like a heavenly vision, meets me thus?

IPHIGENIA.
Yes, thou shalt know me. Now conclude the tale Of which thy brother only told me half: Relate their end, who coming home from Troy, On their own threshold met a doom severe And most unlook’d for. I, though but a child When first conducted hither, well recall The timid glance of wonder which I cast On those heroic forms. When they went forth, it seem’d as though Olympus from her womb Had cast the heroes of a by-gone world, To frighten Ilion; and, above them all, Great Agamemnon tower’d pre-eminent! Oh tell me! Fell the hero in his home, Though Clytemnestra’s and Ægisthus’ wiles?

ORESTES.
He fell!

IPHIGENIA.
Unblest Mycene! Thus the sons Of Tantalus, with barbarous hands, have sown Curse upon curse; and, as the shaken weed Scatters around a thousand poison-seeds, So they assassins ceaseless generate, Their children’s children ruthless to destroy. — Now tell the remnant of thy brother’s tale, Which horror darkly hid from me before. How did the last descendant of the race, — The gentle child, to whom the Gods assign’d The office of avenger, — how did he Escape that day of blood? Did equal fate Around Orestes throw Avernus’ net? Say, was he saved? and is he still alive? And lives Electra, too?

ORESTES.
They both survive.

IPHIGENIA.
Golden Apollo, lend thy choicest beams! Lay them an offering at the throne of Jove! For I am poor and dumb.

ORESTES.
If social bonds Or ties more close connect thee with this house, As this thy joy evinces, rein thy heart; For insupportable the sudden plunge From happiness to sorrow’s gloomy depth. As yet thou only know’st the hero’s death.

IPHIGENIA.
And is not this intelligence enough?

ORESTES.
Half of the horror yet remains untold,

IPHIGENIA.
Electra and Orestes both survive, What have I then to fear?

ORESTES.
And fear’st thou nought For Clytemnestra?

IPHIGENIA.
Her, nor hope nor fear Have power to save.

ORESTES.
She to the land of hope Hath bid farewell.

IPHIGENIA.
Did her repentant hand Shed her own blood?

ORESTES.
Not so; yet her own blood Inflicted death.

IPHIGENIA.
Speak less ambiguously. Uncertainty around my anxious head Her dusky, thousand-folded, pinion waves.

ORESTES.
Have then the powers above selected me
To be the herald of a dreadful deed,
Which, in the drear and soundless realms of night,
I fain would hide for ever? ‘Gainst my will
Thy gentle voice constrains me; it demands,
And shall receive, a tale of direst woe.
Electra, on the day when fell her sire,
Her brother from impending doom conceal’d;
Him Strophius, his father’s relative,
With kindest care receiv’d, and rear’d the child
With his own son, named Pylades, who soon
Around the stranger twin’d the bonds of love.
And as they grew, within their inmost souls
There sprang the burning longing to revenge
The monarch’s death. Unlookd for, and disguis’d,
They reach Mycene, feigning to have brought
The mournful tidings of Orestes’ death,
Together with his ashes. Them the queen
Gladly receives. Within the house they enter;
Orestes to Electra shows himself:
She fans the fires of vengeance into flame,
Which in the sacred presence of a mother
Had burn’d more dimly. Silently she leads
Her brother to the spot where fell their sire;

Where lurid blood-marks, on the oft-wash’d floor, With pallid streaks, anticipate revenge. With fiery eloquence she pictures forth Each circumstance of that atrocious deed, — Her own oppress’d and miserable life, The prosperous traitor’s insolent demeanour, The perils threat’ning Agamemnon’s race From her who had become their stepmother; Then in his hand the ancient dagger thrusts, Which often in the house of Tantalus With savage fury rag’d, — and by her son Is Clytemnestra slain.

IPHIGENIA.
Immortal powers! Whose pure and blest existence glides away ‘Mid ever shifting clouds, me have ye kept So many years secluded from the world, Retain’d me near yourselves, consign’d to me The childlike task to feed the sacred fire, And taught my spirit, like the hallow’d flame, With never-clouded brightness to aspire To your pure mansions, — but at length to feel With keener woe the misery of my house? Oh tell me of the poor unfortunate! Speak of Orestes!

ORESTES.
Would that he were dead!
Forth from his mother’s blood her ghost arose,
And to the ancient daughters of the night
Cries, — ”Let him not escape, — the matricide!
Pursue the victim, dedicate to you!”
They hear, and glare around with hollow eyes,
Like greedy eagles. In their murky dens
They stir themselves, and from the corners creep
Their comrades, dire Remorse and pallid Fear;
Before them fumes a mist of Acheron;
Perplexingly around the murderer’s brow
The eternal contemplation of the past
Rolls in its cloudy circles. Once again
The grisly band, commissioned to destroy,
Pollute earth’s beautiful and heaven-sown fields,

From which an ancient curse had banish’d them. Their rapid feet the fugitive pursue; They only pause to start a wilder fear.

IPHIGENIA.
Unhappy one; thy lot resembles his, Thou feel’st what he, poor fugitive, must suffer.

ORESTES.
What say’st thou? why presume my fate like his?

IPHIGENIA.
A brother’s murder weighs upon thy soul; Thy younger brother told the mournful tale.

ORESTES.
I cannot suffer that thy noble soul Should be deceiv’d by error. Rich in guile, And practis’d in deceit, a stranger may A web of falsehood cunningly devise To snare a stranger; — between us be truth. I am Orestes! and this guilty head Is stooping to the tomb, and covets death; It will be welcome now in any shape. Whoe’er thou art, for thee and for my friend I wish deliverance; — I desire it not. Thou seem’st to linger here against thy will; Contrive some means of flight, and leave me here: My lifeless corpse hurl’d headlong from the rock, My blood shall mingle with the dashing waves, And bring a curse upon this barbarous shore! Return together home to lovely Greece, With joy a new existence to commence.

[ORESTES retires.

IPHIGENIA.
At length Fulfilment, fairest child of Jove,
Thou dost descend upon me from on high!
How vast thine image! scarce my straining eye
Can reach thy hands, which, fill’d with golden fruit
And wreaths of blessing, from Olympus’ height
Shower treasures down. As by his bounteous gifts
We recognize the monarch (for what seems
To thousands opulence is nought to him),
So you, ye heavenly Powers, are also known
By bounty long withheld, and wisely plann’d.

Ye only know what things are good for us; Ye view the future’s wide-extended realm; While from our eye a dim or starry veil The prospect shrouds. Calmly ye hear our prayers, When we like children sue for greater speed. Not immature ye pluck heaven’s golden fruit; And woe to him, who with impatient hand, His date of joy forestalling, gathers death. Let not this long-awaited happiness, Which yet my heart hath scarcely realiz’d, Like to the shadow of departed friends, Glide vainly by with triple sorrow fraught!

ORESTES, returning.

Dost thou for Pylades and for thyself Implore the gods, blend not my name with yours; Thou wilt not save the wretch whom thou wouldst join, But wilt participate his curse and woe.

IPHIGENIA.
My destiny is firmly bound to thine.

ORESTES.
No, say not so; alone and unattended Let me descend to Hades. Though thou shouldst In thine own veil enwrap the guilty one. Thou couldst not shroud him from his wakeful foes; And e’en thy sacred presence, heavenly maid, Drives them aside, but scares them not away. With brazen impious feet they dare not tread Within the precincts of this sacred grove: Yet in the distance, ever and anon, I hear their horrid laughter, like the howl Of famish’d wolves, beneath the tree wherein The traveller hides. Without, encamp’d they lie, And should I quit this consecrated grove, Shaking their serpent locks, they would arise, And, raising clouds of dust on every side, Ceaseless pursue their miserable prey.

IPHIGENIA.
Orestes, canst thou hear a friendly word?

ORESTES.
Reserve it for one favour’d by the gods.

IPHIGENIA.
To thee they give anew the light of hope.

ORESTES.
Through clouds and smoke I see the feeble gleam Of the death-stream which lights me down to hell.

IPHIGENIA.
Hast thou one sister only, thy Electra?

ORESTES.
I knew but one: yet her kind destiny, Which seem’d to us so terrible, betimes Removed an elder sister from the woe That dogs the race of Pelops. Cease, oh cease Thy questions, maiden, nor thus league thyself With the Eumenides, who blow away, With fiendish joy, the ashes from my soul, Lest the last spark of horror’s fiery brand Should be extinguish’d there. Must then the fire, Deliberately kindl’d and supplied With hellish sulphur, never cease to sear My tortur’d bosom?

IPHIGENIA.
In the flame I throw Sweet incense. Let the gentle breath of love, Low murmuring, cool thy bosom’s fiery glow. Orestes, fondly lov’d, — canst thou not hear me? Hath the terrific Furies’ grisly band Completely dried the life-blood in thy veins? Creeps there, as from the Gorgon’s direful head, A petrifying charm through all thy limbs? If hollow voices, from a mother’s blood, Call thee to hell, may not a sister’s word With benediction pure ascend to heaven, And summon thence some gracious power to aid thee?

ORESTES.
She calls! she calls! — Thou too desir’st my death? Is there a fury shrouded in thy form? Who art thou, that thy voice thus horribly Can harrow up my bosom’s inmost depths?

IPHIGENIA.
Thine inmost heart reveals it. I am she, Iphigenia, — look on me, Orestes!

ORESTES.
Thou!

IPHIGENIA.
My own brother!

ORESTES.
Hence, away, begone! Touch not these locks, I counsel thee; from me, As from Creusa’s bridal robe, proceeds An unextinguishable fire. Depart! Like Hercules, an ignominious death, Unworthy wretch, look’d in myself, I’ll die.

IPHIGENIA.
Thou shalt not perish! Would that I might hear One quiet word from thee! dispel my doubts, Make sure the bliss I have implor’d so long. A wheel of joy and sorrow in my heart Ceaseless revolves. With shy reserve I turn From one unknown; but unto thee, my brother, My inmost heart resistlessly impels me.

ORESTES.
Is this Lyæus’ temple? Doth the glow Of holy rage unbridl’d thus possess The sacred priestess?

IPHIGENIA.
Hear me, oh, look up! See how my heart, which hath been clos’d so long, Doth open to the bliss of seeing thee, The dearest treasure that the world contains, — Of falling on thy neck, and folding thee Within my longing arms, which have till now Met the embraces of the empty wind. Do not repulse me, — the eternal spring, Whose crystal waters from Parnassus flow, Bounds not more gaily on from rock to rock, Down to the golden vale, than from my heart The waters of affection freely gush, And round me form a circling sea of bliss. Orestes! Oh, my brother!

ORESTES.
Lovely nymph!
Nor thy caresses, nor thyself I trust;

Diana claims attendants more severe, And doth avenge her desecrated fane. Remove thy circling arm! and if thou wilt Safety and love upon a youth bestow, Unto my friend, more worthy than myself, Impart thy gifts; among yon rocks he roves; Go seek him, guide him hence, and heed not me.

IPHIGENIA.
Brother, command thyself, and better know Thy new-found sister, nor misconstrue thus Her pure and heav’nly joy. Ye Gods, remove From his fix’d eye delusion, lest this hour Of highest bliss should make us trebly wretched! Oh she is here, thine own, thy long-lost sister, Whom great Diana from the altar snatch’d, And safely plac’d here in her sacred fane. A captive thou, prepar’d for sacrifice, And findest here a sister in the priestess.

ORESTES.
Accursed race! Now may the sun behold
Your final doom. Is not Electra here?
That she with us may perish, nor her life
For heavier doom and deeper woe reserve.
’Tis well, — I follow, priestess! Fratricide
Is an old custom of our ancient house;
And you, ye Gods, I thank, that ye resolve
Childless to root me hence. Thee let me counsel
To view too fondly neither sun nor stars.
Come follow to the gloomy realms below!
As dragons, gender’d in the sulphur pool,
Swallow each other with voracious rage,
So our accurs’d race destroys itself.
Childless and guiltless come below with me!
There’s pity in thy look! oh, gaze not so, —
’Twas with such looks that Clytemnestra sought
An entrance to her son Orestes’ heart,
And yet his uprais’d arm her bosom pierc’d.
His mother fell! — Appear, indignant shade!
Within the circle step, ye fiends of hell,
Be present at the welcome spectacle,
The last, most horrible, that ye prepare!

Nor hate, nor vengeance, whets the poignard now, A sister is constrain’d to deal the blow. Weep not! Thy guiltless soul is free from crime. From earliest infancy I nought have lov’d, As thee I could have lov’d, my sister. Come, The weapon raise, spare not, this bosom rend, And make an outlet for its boiling streams!

(He sinks exhausted.)

IPHIGENIA.
Alone I cannot bear this bliss and woe. Where art thou, Pylades? Thine aid I need.

(Iphigenia retires.)

SCENE II.

ORESTES.
Recovering from his swoon and standing up.

Give yet another! reach from Lethe’s stream
The last reviving draught of cool refreshment!
Soon shall its waters in my bosom still
Life’s fitful fever; and my spirit then
Adown oblivion’s stream shall glide to you,
Ye spirits, shrouded in eternal mist.
With tranquil pleasure in your deep repose
A weary son of earth may lave his soul! —
What whisp’ring sounds pervade the dreary grove?
What hollow murmurs haunt its twilight gloom? —
They gather round to view the stranger guest!
Who are yon troop in high communion met,
Like an assembl’d family of princes?
They mingle peacefully, of every age,
And either sex, yet are their godlike forms
Cast in a kindred mould. ’Tis they, ’tis they,
The fathers of my race! With Atreus,
In friendly converse glides Thyestes’ shade,
And children playfully around them sport.
Is there no enmity among you now?
And is revenge extinguish’d with the sun?
I then am welcome, and may hope to join
Your solemn company. My fathers, hail!
Orestes, last descendant of your race,
Salutes you. What ye sow’d, that hath he reap’d

Laden with curses he descends to you. But burdens here are lighter far to bear. Receive him, oh, receive him in your circle! Thee, Atreus, I revere, and thee, Thyestes: Here all are free from enmity and hate. — Show me my father, whom I only once In life beheld. — Art thou my father, thou, My mother leading thus familiarly? Dares Clytemnestra reach her hand to thee; Then may Orestes also draw near her, And say, behold thy son! — My ancestors, Behold your son, and bid him welcome here, Among the sons of ancient Tantalus, A kind salute on earth was murder’s watchword, And all their joys commence beyond the grave. Ye welcome me! Ye bid me join your circle! Oh, lead me to my honour’d ancestor! Where is the aged hero? that I may Behold the dear, the venerable head, Of him, who with the gods in council sat. You seem to shudder and to turn away? What may this mean? Suffers the godlike man? Alas! the mighty gods, with ruthless hate, To his heroic breast, with brazen chains, Have cruel pangs indissolubly bound.

SCENE III.

ORESTES. IPHIGENIA. PYLADES.
ORESTES.
How! are ye come already? Sister, welcome. Electra still is missing: some kind god With gentle arrow send her quickly hither. Thee, my poor friend, I must compassionate! Come with me, come to Pluto’s gloomy throne. There to salute our hosts like stranger guests.

IPHIGENIA.
Celestial pair, who from the realms above
By night and day shed down the beauteous light
To cheer mankind, but who may not illume
Departed spirits, save a mortal pair!

A brother’s and a sister’s anguish pity! For thou, Diana, lov’st thy gentle brother Beyond what earth and heaven can offer thee And dost, with quiet yearning, ever turn Thy virgin face to his eternal light. Let not my only brother, found so late, Rave in the darkness of insanity! And is thy will, when thou didst here conceal me, At length fulfill’d, — would’st thou to me through him, To him through me, thy gracious aid extend, — Oh, free him from the fetters of this curse, Lest vainly pass the precious hours of safety.

PYLADES.
Dost thou not know us, and this sacred grove, And this blest light, which shines not on the dead? Dost thou not feel thy sister and thy friend, Who hold thee living in their firm embrace? Grasp us! we are not shadows. Mark my words! Collect thyself, — each moment now is precious, And our return hangs on a slender thread, Which, as it seems, some gracious fate doth spin.

ORESTES to IPHIGENIA.
My sister, let me for the first time taste,
With open heart, pure joy within thine arms!
Ye gods, who charge the heavy clouds with dread,
And sternly gracious send the long-sought rain
With thunder and the rush of mighty winds,
A horrid deluge on the trembling earth;
Yet dissipate at length man’s dread suspense,
Exchanging timid wonder’s anxious gaze
For grateful looks and joyous songs of praise,
When in each sparkling drop which gems the leaves,
Apollo, thousand-fold, reflects his beam,
And Iris colours with a magic hand
The dusky texture of the parting clouds;
Oh, let me also in my sister’s arms,
And on the bosom of my friend, enjoy
With grateful thanks the bliss ye now bestow
My heart assures me that your curses cease.
The dread Eumenides at length retire,
The brazen gates of Tartarus I hear

Behind them closing with a thund’ring clang. A quick’ning odour from the earth ascends, Inviting me to chase, upon its plains, The joys of life and deeds of high emprise.

PYLADES.
Lose not the moments which are limited! The favouring gale, which swells our parting sail, Must to Olympus waft our perfect joy. Quick counsel and resolve the time demands.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.

IPHIGENIA.
When the Powers on high decree
For a feeble child of earth
Dire perplexity and woe,
And his spirit doom to pass
With tumult wild from joy to grief,
And back again from grief to joy,
In fearful alternation;
They in mercy then provide,
In the precincts of his home,
Or upon the distant shore,
That to him may never fail
Ready help in hours of need,
A tranquil, faithful friend.
Oh, bless, ye heavenly powers, our Pylades,
And every project that his mind may form!
In combat his the vigorous arm of youth,
And in the counsel his the eye of age.
His soul is tranquil; in his inner mind
He guards a sacred, undisturb’d repose,
And from its silent depths a rich supply
Of aid and counsel draws for the distress’d.
He tore me from my brother, upon whom,
With fond amaze, I gaz’d and gaz’d again;
I could not realize my happiness,
Nor loose him from my arms, and heeded not
The danger’s near approach that threatens us.
To execute their project of escape,

They hasten to the sea, where in a bay Their comrades in the vessel lie conceal’d And wait a signal. Me they have supplied With artful answers, should the monarch send To urge the sacrifice. Alas! I see I must consent to follow like a child. I have not learn’d deception, nor the art To gain with crafty wiles my purposes. Detested falsehood! it doth not relieve The breast like words of truth: it comforts not, But is a torment in the forger’s heart, And, like an arrow which a god directs, Flies back and wounds the archer. Through my heart One fear doth chase another; perhaps with rage, Again on the unconsecrated shore, The Furies’ grisly band my brother seize. Perchance they are surpris’d? Methinks I hear The tread of armed men. A messenger Is coming from the king, with hasty steps. How throbs my heart, how troubl’d is my soul Now that I see the countenance of one, Whom with a word untrue I must encounter!

SCENE II.

IPHIGENIA. ARKAS.
ARKAS.
Priestess, with speed conclude the sacrifice, Impatiently the king and people wait.

IPHIGENIA.
I had perform’d my duty and thy will, Had not an unforeseen impediment The execution of my purpose thwarted.

ARKAS.
What is it that obstructs the king’s commands?

IPHIGENIA.
Chance, which from mortals will not brook control.

ARKAS.
Possess me with the reason, that with speed I may inform the king, who hath decreed The death of both.

IPHIGENIA.
The gods have not decreed it. The elder of these men doth bear the guilt Of kindred murder; on his steps attend The dread Eumenides. They seiz’d their prey Within the inner fane, polluting thus The holy sanctuary. I hasten now, Together with my virgin-train, to bathe Diana’s image in the sea, and there With solemn rites its purity restore. Let none presume our silent march to follow!

ARKAS.
This hindrance to the monarch I’ll announce: Do not commence the rite till he permit.

IPHIGENIA.
The priestess interferes alone in this.

ARKAS.
An incident so strange the king should know.

IPHIGENIA.
Here, nor his counsel nor command avails.

ARKAS.
Oft are the great consulted out of form.

IPHIGENIA.
Do not insist on what I must refuse.

ARKAS.
A needful and a just demand refuse not.

IPHIGENIA.
I yield, if thou delay not.

ARKAS.
I with speed Will bear these tidings to the camp, and soon Acquaint thee, priestess, with the king’s reply. There is a message I would gladly bear him: ’Twould quickly banish all perplexity: Thou didst not heed thy faithful friend’s advice.

IPHIGENIA.
I willingly have done whate’er I could.

ARKAS.
E’en now ’tis not too late to change thy mind.

IPHIGENIA.
To do so is, alas, beyond our power.

ARKAS.
What thou wouldst shun, thou deem’st impossible.

IPHIGENIA.
Thy wish doth make thee deem it possible.

ARKAS.
Wilt thou so calmly venture everything?

IPHIGENIA.
My fate I have committed to the gods.

ARKAS.
The gods are wont to save by human means.

IPHIGENIA.
By their appointment everything is done.

ARKAS.
Believe me, all doth now depend on thee. The irritated temper of the king Alone condemns these men to bitter death. The soldiers from the cruel sacrifice And bloody service long have been disused; Nay, many, whom their adverse fortunes cast In foreign regions, there themselves have felt How godlike to the exil’d wanderer The friendly countenance of man appears. Do not deprive us of thy gentle aid! With ease thou canst thy sacred task fulfil: For nowhere doth benignity, which comes In human form from heaven, so quickly gain An empire o’er the heart, as where a race, Gloomy and savage, full of life and power, Without external guidance, and oppress’d With vague forebodings, bear life’s heavy load.

IPHIGENIA.
Shake not my spirit, which thou canst not bend According to thy will.

ARKAS.
While there is time Nor labour nor persuasion shall be spar’d.

IPHIGENIA.
Thy labour but occasions pain to me; Both are in vain; therefore, I pray, depart.

ARKAS.
I summon pain to aid me. ’tis a friend Who counsels wisely.

IPHIGENIA.
Though it shakes my soul, It doth not banish thence my strong repugnance.

ARKAS.
Can then a gentle soul repugnance feel For benefits bestow’d by one so noble?

IPHIGENIA.
Yes, when the donor, for those benefits, Instead of gratitude, demands myself.

ARKAS.
Who no affection feels doth never want Excuses. To the king I’ll now relate All that has happen’d. Oh, that in thy soul Thou wouldst revolve his noble conduct, priestess, Since thy arrival to the present day!

SCENE III.

IPHIGENIA, alone.

These words at an unseasonable hour
Produce a strong revulsion in my breast;
I am alarm’d! — For as the rushing tide
In rapid currents eddies o’er the rocks
Which lie among the sand upon the shore;
E’en so a stream of joy o’erwhelm’d my soul.
I grasp’d what had appear’d impossible.
It was as though another gentle cloud
Around me lay, to raise me from the earth,
And rock my spirit in the same sweet sleep
Which the kind goddess shed around my brow,
What time her circling arm from danger snatch’d me.
My brother forcibly engross’d my heart;
I listen’d only to his friend’s advice;
My soul rush’d eagerly to rescue them,
And as the mariner with joy surveys
The less’ning breakers of a desert isle,
So Tauris lay behind me. But the voice
Of faithful Arkas wakes me from my dream,

Reminding me that those whom I forsake Are also men. Deceit doth now become Doubly detested. O my soul, be still! Beginn’st thou now to tremble and to doubt? Thy lonely shelter on the firm-set earth Must thou abandon? and, embark’d once more, At random drift upon tumultuous waves, A stranger to thyself and to the world?

SCENE IV.

IPHIGENIA. PYLADES.
PYLADES.
Where is she? that my words with speed may tell The joyful tidings of our near escape!

IPHIGENIA.
Oppress’d with gloomy care, I much require The certain comfort thou dost promise me.

PYLADES.
Thy brother is restor’d! The rocky paths Of this unconsecrated shore we trod In friendly converse, while behind us lay, Unmark’d by us, the consecrated grove; And ever with increasing glory shone The fire of youth around his noble brow. Courage and hope his glowing eye inspir’d; And his free heart exulted with the joy Of saving thee, his sister, and his friend.

IPHIGENIA.
The gods shower blessings on thee, Pylades! And from those lips which breathe such welcome news, Be the sad note of anguish never heard!

PYLADES.
I bring yet more, — for Fortune, like a prince,
Comes not alone, but well accompanied.
Our friends and comrades we have also found.
Within a bay they had conceal’d the ship,
And mournful sat expectant. They beheld
Thy brother, and a joyous shout uprais’d,
Imploring him to haste the parting hour.
Each hand impatient long’d to grasp the oar,

While from the shore a gently murmuring breeze, Perceiv’d by all, unfurl’d its wing auspicious. Let us then hasten; guide me to the fane, That I may tread the sanctuary, and seize With sacred awe the object of our hopes. I can unaided on my shoulder bear Diana’s image: how I long to feel The precious burden!

[While speaking the last words, he approaches
the Temple, without perceiving that he is not
followed by Iphigenia: at length he turns round.]

Why thus ling’ring stand. Why art thou silent? wherefore thus confus’d? Doth some new obstacle oppose our bliss? Inform me, hast thou to the king announc’d The prudent message we agreed upon?

IPHIGENIA.
I have, dear Pylades; yet wilt thou chide. Thy very aspect is a mute reproach. The royal messenger arriv’d, and I, According to thy counsel, fram’d my speech. He seem’d surpris’d, and urgently besought, That to the monarch I should first announce The rite unusual, and attend his will. I now await the messenger’s return.

PYLADES.
Danger again doth hover o’er our heads! O priestess, why neglect to shroud thyself Within the veil of sacerdotal rites?

IPHIGENIA.
I never have employ’d them as a veil.

PYLADES.
Pure soul! thy scruples will destroy alike Thyself and us. Why did I not foresee Such an emergency, and tutor thee This counsel also wisely to elude?

IPHIGENIA.
Chide only me, for mine alone the blame. Yet other answer could I not return To him, who strongly and with reason urg’d What my own heart acknowledg’d to be right.

PYLADES.
The danger thickens; but let us be firm, Nor with incautious haste betray ourselves; Calmly await the messenger’s return, And then stand fast, whatever his reply: For the appointment of such sacred rites Doth to the priestess, not the king belong. Should he demand the stranger to behold Who is by madness heavily oppress’d, Evasively pretend, that in the fane, Securely guarded, thou retain’st us both. Thus you secure us time to fly with speed, Bearing the sacred treasure from this race, Unworthy its possession. Phœbus sends Auspicious omens, and fulfils his word, Ere we the first conditions have perform’d. Free is Orestes, from the curse absolv’d! Oh, with the freed one, to the rocky isle Where dwells the god, waft us, propitious gales! Thence to Mycene, that she may revive; That from the ashes of the extinguish’d hearth, The household gods may joyously arise, And beauteous fire illumine their abode! Thy hand from golden censers first shall strew The fragrant incense. O’er that threshold thou Shalt life and blessing once again dispense, The curse atone, and all thy kindred grace With the fresh bloom of renovated life.

IPHIGENIA.
As doth the flower revolve to meet the sun, Once more my spirit to sweet comfort turns, Struck by thy words’ invigorating ray. How dear the counsel of a present friend, Lacking whose godlike power, the lonely one In silence droops! for, lock’d within his breast, Slowly are ripen’d purpose and resolve, Which friendship’s genial warmth had soon matur’d.

PYLADES.
Farewell! I haste to re-assure our friends,
Who anxiously await us: then with speed
I will return, and, hid within the brake,

Attend thy signal. — Wherefore, all at once, Doth anxious thought o’ercloud thy brow serene?

IPHIGENIA.
Forgive me! As light clouds athwart the sun, So cares and fears float darkling o’er my soul.

PYLADES.
Oh, banish fear! With danger it hath form’d A close alliance, — they are constant friends.

IPHIGENIA.
It is an honest scruple, which forbids That I should cunningly deceive the king, And plunder him who was my second sire.

PYLADES.
Him thou dost fly, who would have slain thy brother.

IPHIGENIA.
To me, at least, he hath been ever kind.

PYLADES.
What Fate commands is not ingratitude.

IPHIGENIA.
Alas! it still remains ingratitude; Necessity alone can justify it.

PYLADES.
Thee, before gods and men it justifies.

IPHIGENIA.
But my own heart is still unsatisfied.

PYLADES.
Scruples too rigid are a cloak for pride.

IPHIGENIA.
I cannot argue, I can only feel.

PYLADES.
Conscious of right, thou shouldst respect thyself.

IPHIGENIA.
Then only doth the heart know perfect ease, When not a stain pollutes it.

PYLADES.
In this fane
Pure hast thou kept thy heart. Life teaches us
To be less strict with others and ourselves;
Thou’lt learn the lesson too. So wonderful
Is human nature, and its varied ties
Are so involv’d and complicate, that none

May hope to keep his inmost spirit pure, And walk without perplexity through life. Nor are we call’d upon to judge ourselves; With circumspection to pursue his path, Is the immediate duty of a man. For seldom can he rightly estimate, Or his past conduct or his present deeds.

IPHIGENIA.
Almost thou dost persuade me to consent.

PYLADES.
Needs there persuasion when no choice is granted? To save thyself, thy brother, and a friend, One path presents itself, and canst thou ask If we shall follow it?

IPHIGENIA.
Still let me pause, For such injustice thou couldst not thyself Calmly return for benefits receiv’d.

PYLADES.
If we should perish, bitter self-reproach, Forerunner of despair, will be thy portion. It seems thou art not used to suffer much, When, to escape so great calamity, Thou canst refuse to utter one false word.

IPHIGENIA.
Oh, that I bore within a manly heart! Which, when it hath conceiv’d a bold resolve, ‘Gainst every other voice doth close itself.

PYLADES.
In vain thou dost refuse; with iron hand Necessity commands; her stern decree Is law supreme, to which the gods themselves Must yield submission. In dread silence rules The uncounsell’d sister of eternal fate. What she appoints thee to endure, — endure; What to perform, — perform. The rest thou know’st. Ere long I will return, and then receive The seal of safety from thy sacred hand.

SCENE V.

IPHIGENIA, alone.

I must obey him, for I see my friends Beset with peril. Yet my own sad fate Doth with increasing anguish move my heart. May I no longer feed the silent hope Which in my solitude I fondly cherish’d? Shall the dire curse eternally endure? And shall our fated race ne’er rise again With blessings crown’d? — All mortal things decay! The noblest powers, the purest joys of life At length subside: then wherefore not the curse? And have I vainly hop’d that, guarded here, Secluded from the fortunes of my race, I, with pure heart and hands, some future day Might cleanse the deep defilement of our house? Scarce was my brother in my circling arms From raging madness suddenly restor’d, Scarce had the ship, long pray’d for, near’d the strand, Once more to waft me to my native shores, When unrelenting fate, with iron hand, A double crime enjoins; commanding me To steal the image, sacred and rever’d, Confided to my care, and him deceive To whom I owe my life and destiny. Let not abhorrence spring within my heart! Nor the old Titan’s hate, toward you, ye gods, Infix its vulture talons in my breast! Save me, and save your image in my soul! An ancient song comes back upon mine ear — I had forgotten it, and willingly — The Parcæ’s song, which horribly they sang, What time, hurl’d headlong from his golden seat, Fell Tantalus. They with their noble friend Keen anguish suffer’d; savage was their breast And horrible their song. In days gone by, When we were children, oft our ancient nurse Would sing it to us, and I mark’d it well.

Oh, fear the immortals, Ye children of men! Eternal dominion They hold in their hands. And o’er their wide empire Wield absolute sway. Whom they have exalted Let him fear them most! Around golden tables, On cliffs and clouds resting The seats are prepar’d. If contest ariseth; The guests are hurl’d headlong, Disgrac’d and dishonour’d, And fetter’d in darkness, Await with vain longing, A juster decree. But in feasts everlasting, Around the gold tables Still dwell the immortals. From mountain to mountain They stride; while ascending From fathomless chasms, The breath of the Titans, Half stifl’d with anguish, Like volumes of incense Fumes up to the skies. From races ill-fated, Their aspect joy-bringing, Oft turn the celestials, And shun in the children To gaze on the features Once lov’d and still speaking Of their mighty sire. Thus sternly the Fates sang Immur’d in his dungeon. The banish’d one listens, The song of the Parcæ, His children’s doom ponders, And boweth his head.

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.

THOAS. ARKAS.
ARKAS.
I own I am perplex’d, and scarcely know ‘Gainst whom to point the shaft of my suspicion, Whether the priestess aids the captives’ flight, Or they themselves clandestinely contrive it. ’Tis rumour’d that the ship which brought them here Is lurking somewhere in a bay conceal’d. This stranger’s madness, these new lustral rites, The specious pretext for delay, excite Mistrust, and call aloud for vigilance.

THOAS.
Summon the priestess to attend me here! Then go with speed, and strictly search the shore, From yon projecting land to Dian’s grove: Forbear to violate its sacred depths; A watchful ambush set, attack and seize, According to your wont, whome’er ye find.

[Arkas retires.

SCENE II.

THOAS, alone.

Fierce anger rages in my riven breast,
First against her, whom I esteem’d so pure;
Then ‘gainst myself, whose foolish lenity
Hath fashion’d her for treason. Man is soon
Inur’d to slavery, and quickly learns
Submission, when of freedom quite depriv’d.
If she had fallen in the savage hands
Of my rude sires, and had their holy rage
Forborne to slay her, grateful for her life,
She would have recogniz’d her destiny.
Have shed before the shrine the stranger’s blood,
And duty nam’d what was necessity.
Now my forbearance in her breast allures
Audacious wishes. Vainly I had hop’d

To bind her to me; rather she contrives To shape an independent destiny. She won my heart through flattery; and now That I oppose her, seeks to gain her ends By fraud and cunning, and my kindness deems A worthless and prescriptive property.

SCENE III.

IPHIGENIA. THOAS.
IPHIGENIA.
Me hast thou summon’d? wherefore art thou here?

THOAS.
Wherefore delay the sacrifice? inform me.

IPHIGENIA.
I have acquainted Arkas with the reasons.

THOAS.
From thee I wish to hear them more at large.

IPHIGENIA.
The goddess for reflection grants thee time.

THOAS.
To thee this time seems also opportune.

IPHIGENIA.
If to this cruel deed thy heart is steel’d, Thou shouldst not come! A king who meditates A deed inhuman, may find slaves enow, Willing for hire to bear one half the curse, And leave the monarch’s presence undefil’d. Enwrapt in gloomy clouds he forges death, Whose flaming arrow on his victim’s head His hirelings hurl; while he above the storm Remains untroubl’d, an impassive god.

THOAS.
A wild song, priestess, issued from thy lips.

IPHIGENIA.
No priestess, king! but Agamemnon’s daughter;
While yet unknown, thou didst respect my words:
A princess now, — and think’st thou to command me
From youth I have been tutor’d to obey,
My parents first, and then the deity;

And thus obeying, ever hath my soul Known sweetest freedom. But nor then nor now Have I been taught compliance with the voice And savage mandates of a man.

THOAS.
Not I, An ancient law doth claim obedience from thee.

IPHIGENIA.
Our passions eagerly catch hold of laws Which they can wield as weapons. But to me Another law, one far more ancient, speaks, And doth command me to withstand thee, king! That law declaring sacred every stranger.

THOAS.
These men, methinks, lie very near thy heart. When sympathy with them can lead thee thus To violate discretion’s primal law, That those in power should never be provok’d.

IPHIGENIA.
Speaking or silent, thou canst always know What is, and ever must be, in my heart. Doth not remembrance of a common doom, To soft compassion melt the hardest heart? How much more mine! in them I see myself. I trembling kneel’d before the altar once. And solemnly the shade of early death Environ’d me. Aloft the knife was rais’d To pierce my bosom, throbbing with warm life; A dizzy horror overwhelm’d my soul; My eyes grew dim; — I found myself in safety. Are we not bound to render the distress’d The gracious kindness from the gods receiv’d? Thou know’st we are, and yet wilt thou compel me?

THOAS.
Obey thine office, priestess, not the king.

IPHIGENIA.
Cease! nor thus seek to cloak the savage force
Which triumphs o’er a woman’s feebleness.
Though woman, I am born as free as man.
Did Agamemnon’s son before thee stand,
And thou requiredst what became him not,

His arm and trusty weapon would defend His bosom’s freedom. I have only words But it becomes a noble-minded man To treat with due respect the words of woman.

THOAS.
I more respect them than a brother’s sword.

IPHIGENIA.
Uncertain ever is the chance of arms, No prudent warrior doth despise his foe; Nor yet defenceless ‘gainst severity Hath nature left the weak; she gives him craft And wily cunning: artful he delays, Evades, eludes, and finally escapes. Such arms are justified by violence.

THOAS.
But circumspection countervails deceit.

IPHIGENIA.
Which a pure spirit doth abhor to use.

THOAS.
Do not incautiously condemn thyself.

IPHIGENIA.
Oh, couldst thou see the struggle of my soul, Courageously to ward the first attack Of an unhappy doom, which threatens me! Do I then stand before thee weaponless? Prayer, lovely prayer, fair branch in woman’s hand, More potent far than instruments of war, Thou dost thrust back. What now remains for me Wherewith my inborn freedom to defend? Must I implore a miracle from heaven? Is there no power within my spirit’s depths?

THOAS.
Extravagant thy interest in the fate Of these two strangers. Tell me who they are, For whom thy heart is thus so deeply mov’d.

IPHIGENIA.
They are — they seem at least — I think them Greeks.

THOAS.
Thy countrymen; no doubt they have renew’d The pleasing picture of return.

IPHIGENIA, after a pause.

Doth man
Lay undisputed claim to noble deeds?
Doth he alone to his heroic breast
Clasp the impossible? What call we great?
What deeds, though oft narrated, still uplift
With shudd’ring horror the narrator’s soul,
But those which, with improbable success,
The valiant have attempted? Shall the man
Who all alone steals on his foes by night,
And raging like an unexpected fire,
Destroys the slumbering host, and press’d at length
By rous’d opponents or his foemen’s steeds,
Retreats with booty — be alone extoll’d?
Or he who, scorning safety, boldly roams
Through woods and dreary wilds, to scour the land
Of thieves and robbers? Is nought left for us?
Must gentle woman quite forego her nature, —
Force against force employ, — like Amazons,
Usurp the sword from man, and bloodily
Revenge oppression? In my heart I feel
The stirrings of a noble enterprize;
But if I fail — severe reproach, alas!
And bitter misery will be my doom.
Thus on my knees I supplicate the gods.
Oh, are ye truthful, as men say ye are,
Now prove it by your countenance and aid;
Honour the truth in me! Attend, O king!
A secret plot is laid; ’tis vain to ask
Touching the captives; they are gone, and seek
Their comrades who await them on the shore.
The eldest, — he whom madness lately seiz’d,
And who is now recover’d, — is Orestes,
My brother, and the other Pylades,
His early friend and faithful confidant.
From Delphi, Phœbus sent them to this shore
With a divine command to steal away
The image of Diana, and to him
Bear back the sister, promising for this
Redemption to the blood-stain’d matricide.
I have deliver’d now into thy hands

The remnants of the house of Tantalus. Destroy us — if thou canst.

THOAS.
And dost thou think The savage Scythian will attend the voice Of truth and of humanity, unheard By the Greek Atreus?

IPHIGENIA.
’Tis heard by all, Whate’er may be their clime, within whose breast Flows pure and free the gushing stream of life. — What silent purpose broods within thy soul? Is it destruction? Let me perish first! For now, deliv’rance hopeless, I perceive The dreadful peril into which I have With rash precipitancy plung’d my friends. Alas! I soon shall see them bound before me! How to my brother shall I say farewell? I, the unhappy author of his death. Ne’er can I gaze again in his dear eyes!

THOAS.
The traitors have contriv’d a cunning web, And cast it round thee, who, secluded long, Giv’st willing credence to thine own desires.

IPHIGENIA.
No, no! I’d pledge my life these men are true.
And shouldst thou find them otherwise, O king,
Then let them perish both, and cast me forth,
That on some rock-girt island’s dreary shore
I may atone my folly. Are they true,
And is this man indeed my dear Orestes,
My brother, long implor’d, — release us both,
And o’er us stretch the kind protecting arm,
Which long hath shelter’d me. My noble sire
Fell through his consort’s guilt, — she by her son;
On him alone the hope of Atreus’ race
Doth now repose. Oh, with pure heart and hands
Let me depart to expiate our house.
Yes, thou wilt keep thy promise; thou didst swear,
That were a safe return provided me,
I should be free to go. The hour is come.

A king doth never grant like common men, Merely to gain a respite from petition; Nor promise what he hopes will ne’er be claim’d. Then first he feels his dignity complete When he can make the long-expecting happy.

THOAS.
As fire opposes water, and doth seek With hissing rage to overcome its foe, So doth my anger strive against thy words.

IPHIGENIA.
Let mercy, like the consecrated flame Of silent sacrifice, encircl’d round With songs of gratitude, and joy, and praise, Above the tumult gently rise to heaven.

THOAS.
How often hath this voice assuag’d my soul!

IPHIGENIA.
Extend thy hand to me in sign of peace.

THOAS.
Large thy demand within so short a time.

IPHIGENIA.
Beneficence doth no reflection need.

THOAS.
’Tis needed oft, for evil springs from good.

IPHIGENIA.
’Tis doubt which good doth oft to evil turn. Consider not: act as thy feelings prompt thee.

SCENE IV.

ORESTES (armed). IPHIGENIA. THOAS.
ORESTES, addressing his followers.

Redouble your exertions! hold them back! Few moments will suffice; retain your ground, And keep a passage open to the ship For me and for my sister.

To IPHIGENIA, without perceiving THOAS.
Come with speed! We are betray’d, — brief time remains for flight.

THOAS.
None in my presence with impunity His naked weapon wears.

IPHIGENIA.
Do not profane Diana’s sanctuary with rage and blood. Command your people to forbear awhile, And listen to the priestess, to the sister.

ORESTES.
Say, who is he that threatens us?

IPHIGENIA.
In him Revere the king, who was my second father. Forgive me, brother, that my childlike heart Hath plac’d our fate thus wholly in his hands. I have betray’d your meditated flight, And thus from treachery redeem’d my soul.

ORESTES.
Will he permit our peaceable return?

IPHIGENIA.
Thy gleaming sword forbids me to reply.

ORESTES, sheathing his sword.

Then speak! thou seest I listen to thy words.

SCENE V.

ORESTES. IPHIGENIA. THOAS.
Enter PYLADES, soon after him ARKAS, both with drawn swords.

PYLADES.
Do not delay! our friends are putting forth Their final strength, and yielding step by step, Are slowly driven backward to the sea. — A conference of princes find I here? Is this the sacred person of the king?

ARKAS.
Calmly, as doth become thee, thou dost stand, O king, surrounded by thine enemies. Soon their temerity shall be chastis’d; Their yielding followers fly. — their ship is ours. Speak but the word, and it is wrapt in flames.

THOAS.
Go, and command my people to forbear! Let none annoy the foe while we confer.    (Arkas retires.)

ORESTES.
I willingly consent. Go, Pylades! Collect the remnant of our friends, and wait The appointed issue of our enterprize.

(Pylades retires.)

SCENE VI.

IPHIGENIA. THOAS. ORESTES.
IPHIGENIA.
Believe my cares ere ye begin to speak. I fear contention, if thou wilt not hear The voice of equity, O king, — if thou Wilt not, my brother, curb thy headstrong youth.

THOAS.
I, as becomes the elder, check my rage. Now answer me: how dost thou prove thyself The priestess’ brother, Agamemnon’s son?

ORESTES.
Behold the sword with which the hero slew The valiant Trojans. From his murderer I took the weapon, and implor’d the Gods To grant me Agamemnon’s mighty arm, Success, and valour, with a death more noble. Select one of the leaders of thy host, And place the best as my opponent here. Where’er on earth the sons of heroes dwell, This boon is to the stranger ne’er refus’d.

THOAS.
This privilege hath ancient custom here To strangers ne’er accorded.

ORESTES.
Then from us
Commence the novel custom! A whole race
In imitation soon will consecrate
Its monarch’s noble action into law.
Nor let me only for our liberty, —
Let me, a stranger, for all strangers fight.

If I should fall, my doom be also theirs; But if kind fortune crown me with success, Let none e’er tread this shore, and fail to meet The beaming eye of sympathy and love, Or unconsol’d depart!

THOAS.
Thou dost not seem Unworthy of thy boasted ancestry. Great is the number of the valiant men Who wait upon me; but I will myself, Although advanc’d in years, oppose the foe, And am prepar’d to try the chance of arms.

IPHIGENIA.
No, no! such bloody proofs are not requir’d. Unhand thy weapon, king! my lot consider; Rash combat oft immortalizes man; If he should fall, he is renown’d in song; But after ages reckon not the tears Which ceaseless the forsaken woman sheds; And poets tell not of the thousand nights Consum’d in weeping, and the dreary days, Wherein her anguish’t soul, a prey to grief, Doth vainly yearn to call her lov’d one back. Fear warn’d me to beware lest robber’s wiles Might lure me from this sanctuary, and then Betray me into bondage. Anxiously I question’d them, each circumstance explor’d, Demanded signs, and now my heart’s assur’d. See here, the mark as of three stars impress’d On his right hand, which on his natal day Were by the priest declar’d to indicate Some dreadful deed by him to be perform’d. And then this scar, which doth his eyebrow cleave, Redoubles my conviction. When a child, Electra, rash and inconsiderate, Such was her nature, loos’d him from her arms. He fell against a tripos. Oh, ’tis he! — Shall I adduce the likeness to his sire, Or the deep rapture of my inmost heart, In further token of assurance, king?

THOAS.
E’en though thy words had banish’d every doubt, And I had curb’d the anger in my breast, Still must our arms decide. I see no peace. Their purpose, as thou didst thyself confess, Was to deprive me of Diana’s image. And think ye that I’ll look contented on? The Greeks are wont to cast a longing eye Upon the treasures of barbarians, A golden fleece, good steeds, or daughters fair; But force and guile not always have avail’d To lead them, with their booty, safely home.

ORESTES.
The image shall not be a cause of strife!
We now perceive the error which the God,
Our journey here commanding, like a veil,
Threw o’er our minds. His counsel I implor’d,
To free me from the Furies’ grisly band.
He answer’d, “Back to Greece the sister bring,
Who in the sanctuary on Tauris’ shore
Unwillingly abides; so ends the curse!”
To Phœbus’ sister we applied the words,
And he referr’d to thee! The bonds severe,
Which held thee from us, holy one, are rent,
And thou art ours once more. At thy blest touch,
I felt myself restor’d. Within thine arms,
Madness once more around me coil’d its folds,
Crushing the marrow in my frame, and then
For ever, like a serpent, fled to hell.
Through thee, the daylight gladdens me anew.
The counsel of the Goddess now shines forth
In all its beauty and beneficence.
Like to a sacred image, unto which
An oracle immutably hath bound
A city’s welfare, thee Diana took,
Protectress of our house, and guarded here
Within this holy stillness, to become
A blessing to thy brother and thy race.
Now when each passage to escape seems clos’d,
And safety hopeless, thou dost give us all.

O king, incline thine heart to thoughts of peace! Let her fulfil her mission, and complete The consecration of our father’s house. Me to their purified abode restore, And place upon my brow the ancient crown! Requite the blessing which her presence brought thee, And let me now my nearer right enjoy! Cunning and force, the proudest boast of man, Fade in the lustre of her perfect truth; Nor unrequited will a noble mind Leave confidence, so childlike and so pure.

IPHIGENIA.
Think on thy promise; let thy heart be mov’d By what a true and honest tongue hath spoken! Look on us, king! an opportunity For such a noble deed not oft occurs. Refuse thou canst not, — give thy quick consent.

THOAS.
Then go!

IPHIGENIA.
Not so, my king! I cannot part
Without thy blessing, or in anger from thee.
Banish us not! the sacred right of guests
Still let us claim: so not eternally
Shall we be sever’d. Honour’d and belov’d
As mine own father was, art thou by me:
And this impression in my soul remains.
Should e’en the meanest peasant of thy land
Bring to my ear the tones I heard from thee
Or should I on the humblest see thy garb,
I will with joy receive him as a god,
Prepare his couch myself, beside our hearth
Invite him to a seat, and only ask
Touching thy fate and thee. Oh, may the gods
To thee the merited reward impart
Of all thy kindness and benignity!
Farewell! Oh, do not turn away, but give
One kindly word of parting in return!
So shall the wind more gently swell our sails,

And from our eyes with soften’d anguish flow The tears of separation. Fare thee well! And graciously extend to me thy hand, In pledge of ancient friendship.

THOAS, extending his hand.

Fare thee well!

TORQUATO TASSO

Translated by Anna Swanwick

This play was first conceived in Weimar in 1780, but the majority of the work was written during Goethe’s two year visit in Italy, between 1786 and 1788. The playwright completed the play in 1790.  It concerns the dramatic life and adventures of Torqato Tasso, an Italian poet, exploring the struggles of the artist. Goethe also composed a cantata text, inspired by Canto Sixteen by Tasso’s famous work Jerusalem Delivered, which was later set to music by Johannes Brahms.

The first edition

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), the 16th century Italian poet, best known for his epic poem ‘Jerusalem Delivered’

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ALPHONSO II.,

Duke of Ferrara.

LEONORA D’ESTE,

Sister to the Duke.

LEONORA SANVITALE,

Countess of Scandiano.

TORQUATO TASSO.

ANTONIO Moniecatino..

Secretary of State.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A garden adorned with busts of the Epic Poets. To the right a bust of Virgil: to the left, one of Ariosto.
Princess and Leonora,habited as shepherdesses

Princess.
Smiling thou dost survey me, Leonora.
And with a smile thou dost survey thyself.
What is it? Let a friend partake thy thought!
Thou seemest pensive, yet thou seemest pleas’d.

Leonora.
Yes, I am pleas’d, my princess, to behold
Us twain in rural fashion thus attir’d.
Two happy shepherd-maidens we appear.
And like the happy we are both employ’d.
Garlands we wreathe; this one, so gay with flowers,
Beneath my hand in varied beauty grows:
Thou hast with higher taste and larger heart
The slender phant laurel made thy choice.

Princess.
The laurel wreath, which aimlessly I twin’d,
Hath found at once a not unworthy head;
I place it gratefully on Virgil’s brow.
[She crowns the bust of Virgil.

Leonora.
With my full joyous wreath the lofty brow
Of Master Ludovico, thus I crown —
[She crowns the bust of Ariosto.
Let him whose sportive sashes never fade.
Receive his tribute from the early spring

Princess.
My brother is most kind to bring us here
In this sweet season to our rural haunts:
Here, by the hour, in freedom unrestrain’d.
We may dream back the poet’s golden age.
I love this Belriguardo; in my youth
Full many a jovous day I linger’d here,
And this bright sunshine, and this verdant green,
Bring back the feelings of that bygone time.

Leonora.
Yes, a new world surrounds us! Grateful now
The cooling shelter of these evergreens.
The tuneful murmur of this gurgling spring
Once more revives us. In the morning wind
The tender branches waver to and fro.
The flowers look upwards from their lowly beds.
And smile upon us with their childlike eves.
The gardener, fearless grown, removes the roof
That screen’d his citron and his orange trees,
The azure dome of heaven above us rests:
And, in the far horizon, from the hills
The snow in balmy vapor melts away.

Princess.
Most welcome were to me the genial spring,
Did it not lead my friend away from me.

Leonora.
My princess, in these sweet and tranquil hours,
Remind me not how soon I must depart.

Princess.
Yon mighty city will restore to thee,
In double measure, what thou leavest here.

Leonora.
The voice of duty and the voice of love
Both call me to my lord, forsaken long;
I bring to him his son, who rapidly
Hath grown in stature and matur’d in mind
Since last they met, — I share his father’s joy.
Florence is great and noble, but the worth
Of all her treasur’d riches doth not reach
The prouder jewels that Ferrara boasts.
That city to her people owes her power;
Ferrara grew to greatness through her princes.

Princess.
More through the noble men whom chance led here,
And who in sweet communion here remain’d.

Leonora.
Chance doth again disperse what chance collects;
A noble nature can alone attract
The noble, and retain them, as ye do.
Around thy brother, and around thyself,
Assemble spirits worthy of you both,
And ye are worthy of your noble sires.
Here the fair light of science and free thought
Was kindled first, while o’er the darken’d world
Still hung barbarian gloom. E’en when a child,
The names resounded loudly in mine ear,
Of Hercules and Hippolyte of Este.
My father oft with Florence and with Rome
Extoll’d Ferrara! Oft in youthful dream
Hither I fondly turn’d; now am I here.
Here was Petrarca kindly entertain’d,
And Ariosto found his models here.
Italia boasts no great, no mighty name,
This princely mansion hath not call’d its guest.
In fostering genius we enrich ourselves:
Dost thou present her with a friendly gift,
One far more beautiful she leaves with thee.
The ground is hallow’d where the good man treads;
When centuries have roll’d, his sons shall hear
The deathless echo of his words and deeds.

Princess.
Yes, if those sons have feelings quick as thine;
This happiness full oft I envy thee.

Leonora.
Which purely and serenely thou, my friend,
As few beside thee, dost thyself enjoy.
When my full heart impels me to express
Promptly and freely what I keenly feel,
Thou feel’st the while more deeply, and — art silent.
Delusive splendor doth not dazzle thee,
Nor wit beguile; and flattery strives in vain
With fawning artifice to win thine ear;
Firm is thy temper, and correct thy taste,
Thy judgment just, and, truly great thyself,
With greatness thou dost ever sympathize.

Princess.
Thou should’st not to this highest flattery
The garment of confiding friendship lend.

Leonora.
Friendship is just; she only estimates
The full extent and measure of thy worth.
Let me ascribe to opportunity,
To fortune too, her portion in thy culture,
Still in the end thou hast it, it is thine,
And all extol thy sister and thyself
Before the noblest women of the age.

Princess.
That can but little move me, Leonora,
When I reflect how poor at best we are,
To others more indebted than ourselves.
My knowledge of the ancient languages,
And of the treasures by the past bequeath’d.
I owe my mother, who, in varied lore
And mental power, her daughters far excell’d.
Might either claim comparison with her,
’Tis undeniably Lucretia’s right.
Besides, what nature and what chance bestow’d
As property or rank I ne’er esteem’d.
’Tis pleasure to me when the wise converse,
That I their scope and meaning comprehend;
Whether they judge a man of bygone times
And weigh his actions, or of science treat,
Which, when extended and applied to life,
At once exalts and benefits mankind.
Where’er the converse of such men may lead,
I follow gladly, for with ease I follow.
Well pleas’d the strife of argument I hear,
When, round the powers that sway the human breast,
Waking alternately delight and fear,
With grace the lip of eloquence doth play:
And listen gladly when the princely thirst
Of fame, of wide dominion, forms the theme.
When of an able man, the thought profound,
Develop’d skilfully with subtle tact,
Doth not perplex and dazzle, but instruct.

Leonora.
And then, this grave and serious converse o’er,
Our ear and inner mind with tranquil joy
Upon the poet’s tuneful verse repose,
Who through the medium of harmonious sounds
Infuses sweet emotions in the soul.
Thy lofty spirit grasps a wide domain;
Content am I to linger in the isle
Of poesy, her laurel groves among.

Princess.
In this fair land, I’m told, the myrtle blooms
In richer beauty than all other trees;
Here, too, the Muses wander, yet we seek
A friend and playmate ‘mong their tuneful choir
Less often than we seek to meet the bard,
Who seems to shun us, nay, appears to flee,
In quest of something that we know not of,
And which perchance is to himself unknown.
How charming were it, if in happy hour
Encountering us, he should with ecstasy
In our fair selves the treasure recognize,
Which in the world he long had sought in vain!

Leonora.
To your light raillery I must submit;
So light its touch it passeth harmless by.
I honor all men after their desert,
And am in truth toward Tasso only just.
His eye scarce lingers on this earthly scene,
To nature’s harmony his ear is tun’d.
What history offers, and what life presents,
His bosom promptly and with joy receives,
The widely scatter’d is by him combin’d,
And his quick feeling animates the dead.
Oft he ennobles what we count for naught;
What others treasure is by him despis’d.
Thus moving in his own enchanted sphere,
The wondrous man doth still allure us on
To wander with him and partake his joy;
Though seeming to approach us, he remains
Remote as ever, and perchance his eye,
Resting on us, sees spirits in our place.

Princess.
Thou hast with taste and truth portray’d the bard,
Who hovers in the shadowy realm of dreams.
And yet reality, it seems to me,
Hath also power to lure him and enchain.
In the sweet sonnets, scatter’d here and there,
With which we sometimes find our trees adorn’d,
Creating like the golden fruit of old
A new Hesperia, perceiv’st thou not
The gentle tokens of a genuine love?

Leonora.
In these fair leaves I also take delight.
With all his rich diversity of thought
He glorifies one form in all his strains.
Now he exalts her to the starry heavens
In radiant glory, and before that form
Bows down, like angels in the realms above.
Then stealing after her through silent fields,
He garlands in his wreath each beauteous flower;
And should the form he worships disappear,
Hallows the path her gentle foot hath trod.
Thus like the nightingale, conceal’d in shade,
From his love-laden breast he fills the air
And neighboring thickets with melodious plaints:
His blissful sadness and his tuneful grief
Charm every ear, enrapture every heart —

Princess.
And Leonora is the favor’d name
Selected for the object of his strains.

Leonora.
Thy name it is, my princess, as ’tis mine.
It would displease me were it otherwise.
Now I rejoice that under this disguise
He can conceal his sentiment for thee,
And am no less contented with the thought
That this sweet name should also picture me.
Here is no question of an ardent love,
Seeking possession, and with jealous care
Screening its object from another’s gaze.
While he enraptur’d contemplates thy worth,
He in my lighter nature may rejoice.
He loves not us, — forgive me what I say, —
His lov’d ideal from the spheres he brings,
And doth invest it with the name we bear;
His feeling we participate; we seem
To love the man, yet only love in him
The highest object that can claim our love.

Princess.
In this deep science thou art deeply vers’d,
My Leonora, and thy words in truth
Play on my ear, yet scarcely reach my soul.

Leonora.
Thou Plato’s pupil! and not comprehend
What a mere novice dares to prattle to thee?
It must be then that I have widely err’d;
Yet well I know I do not wholly err.
For love doth in this graceful school appear
No longer as the spoil’d and wayward child;
He is the youth whom Psyche hath espous’d:
Who sits in council with the assembled gods,
He hath relinquish’d passion’s fickle sway,
He clings no longer with delusion sweet
To outward form and beauty, to atone
For brief excitement by disgust and hate.

Princess.
Here comes my brother! let us not betray
Whither our converse hath conducted us;
Else we shall have his raillery to bear.
As in our dress he found a theme for jest.

SCENE II.

Princess, Leonora, Alphonso.

Alphonso.
Tasso I seek, whom nowhere I can find;
And even here, with you, I meet him not.
Can you inform me where he hides himself?

Princess.
I have scarce seen him for the last two days.

Alphonso.
’Tis his habitual failing that he seeks
Seclusion rather than society.
I can forgive him when the motley crowd
Thus studiously he shuns, and loves to hold
Free converse with himself in solitude;
Yet can I not approve that he should thus
Also the circle of his friends avoid.

Leonora.
If I mistake not, thou wilt soon, O prince,
Convert this censure into joyful praise.
To-day I saw him from afar; he held
A book and scroll, in which at times he wrote,
And then resum’d his walk, then wrote again.
A passing word, which yesterday he spoke,
Seem’d to announce to me his work complete;
His sole anxiety is now to add
A finish’d beauty to minuter parts,
That to your grace, to whom he owes so much,
A worthy offering he at length may bring.

Alphonso.
A welcome, when he brings it, shall be his,
And long immunity from all restraint.
Great, in proportion to the lively joy
And interest which his noble work inspires,
Is my impatience at its long delay.
After each slow advance he leaves his task;
He ever changeth, and can ne’er conclude,
Till baffled hope is weary; for we see
Reluctantly postpon’d to times remote
A pleasure we had fondly deem’d so near.

Princess.
I rather praise the modesty, the care
With which thus, step by step, he nears the goal.
His aim is not to string amusing tales,
Or weave harmonious numbers, which at length,
Like words delusive, die upon the ear.
His numerous rhymes he labors to combine
Into one beautiful, poetic whole;
And he whose soul this lofty aim inspires,
Must pay devoted homage to the Muse.
Disturb him not, my brother, time alone
Is not the measure of a noble work;
And, is the coming age to share our joy,
We of the present must forget ourselves.

Alphonso.
Let us, dear sister, work together here!
As for our mutual good we oft have done.
Am I too eager — thou must then restrain;
Art thou too gentle — I will urge him on.
Then we perchance shall see him at the goal,
Where to behold him we have wish’d in vain.
His fatherland, the world, shall then admire
And view with wonder his completed work.
I shall receive my portion of the fame,
And Tasso will be usher’d into life.
In a contracted sphere, a noble man
Cannot develop all his mental powers.
On him his country and the world must work.
He must endure both censure and applause,
Must be compell’d to estimate aright
Himself and others. Solitude no more
Lulls him delusively with flattering dreams.
Opponents will not, friendship dare not, spare:
Then in the strife the youth puts forth his powers,
Knows what he is, and feels himself a man.

Leonora.
Thus will he, prince, owe everything to thee,
Who hast already done so much for him.
Talents are nurtur’d best in solitude, —
A character on life’s tempestuous sea.
Oh, that according to thy rules he would
Model his temper as he forms his taste,
Cease to avoid mankind, nor in his breast
Nurture suspicion into fear and hate!

Alphonso.
He only fears mankind who knows them not,
And he will soon misjudge them who avoids.
This is his case, and so by slow degrees
His noble mind is trammell’d and perplex’d.
Thus to secure my favor he betrays,
At times, unseemly ardor; against some
Who, I am well assur’d, are not his foes,
He cherishes suspicion; if by chance
A letter go astray, a hireling leave
His service, or a paper be mislaid,
He sees deception, treachery and fraud,
Working insidiously to sap his peace.

Princess.
Let us, beloved brother, not forget
That his own nature none can lay aside.
And should a friend, who with us journeyeth,
Injure by chance his foot, we would in sooth
Rather relax our speed, and lend our hand
Gently to aid the sufferer on his way.

Alphonso.
Better it were to remedy his pain,
With the physician’s aid attempt a cure,
Then with our heal’d and renovated friend
A new career of life with joy pursue.

And yet, dear friends, I hope that I may ne’er
The censure of the cruel leech incur.
I do my utmost to impress his mind
With feelings of security and trust.
Oft purposely in presence of the crowd,
With marks of favor I distinguish him.
Should he complain of aught, I sift it well,
As lately when his chamber he suppos’d
Had been invaded; then, should naught appear,
I calmly show him how I view the affair.
And, as we ought to practise every grace —
With Tasso, seeing he deserves it well,
I practise patience; you I’m sure will aid.
I now have brought, you to your rural haunts,
And must myself at eve return to town.
For a few moments you will see Antonio;
He calls here for me on his way from Rome.
We have important business to discuss,
Resolves to frame, and letters to indite,
All which compels me to return to town.

Princess.
Wilt thou permit that we return with thee?

Alphonso.
Nay, rather linger here in Belriguardo,
Or go together to Consandoli;
Enjoy these lovely days as fancy prompts.

Princess.
Thou canst not stay with us? Not here arrange
All these affairs as well as in the town?

Leonora.
So soon, thou takest hence Antonio, too,
Who hath so much to tell us touching Rome.

Alphonso.
It may not be, ye children; but with him
So soon as possible will I return:
Then shall he tell you all ye wish to hear,
And ye shall help me to reward the man
Who, in my cause, hath labor’d with such zeal.
And when we shall once more have talk’d our fill,
Hither the crowd may come, that mirth and joy
May in our gardens revel, that for me,
As is but meet, some fair one in the shade
May, if I seek her, gladly meet me there.

Leonora.
And we meanwhile will kindly shut our eyes.

Alphonso.
Ye know that I can be forbearing too.

Princess.
(Turned towards the scene.)
I long have notic’d Tasso: hitherward
Slowly he bends his footsteps; suddenly,
As if irresolute, he standeth still;
Anon, with greater speed he draweth near,
Then lingers once again.

Alphonso.
Disturb him not,
Nor when the poet dreams and versifies
Intrude upon his musings, — let him roam.

Leonora.
No, he has seen us, and he comes this way.

SCENE III.

Princess, Leonora, Alphonso, Tasso with a volume bound in parchment.

Tasso.
Slowly I come to bring my work to thee,
And yet I linger ere presenting it.
Although apparently it seem complete,
Too well I know it is unfinish’d still.
But if I cherish’d once an anxious fear
Lest I should bring thee an imperfect work,
A new solicitude constrains me now:
I would not seem ungrateful, nor appear
Unduly anxious; and, as to his friends,
A man can say but simply, “Here I am!”
That they, with kind forbearance, may rejoice.
So I can only say, “Receive my work!”
[He presents the volume.

Alphonso.
Thou hast surpris’d me, Tasso, with thy gift.
And made this lovely day a festival.
I hold it then at length within my hands,
And in a certain sense can call it mine.
Long have I wish’d that thou could’st thus resolve,
And say at length “’Tis finish’d! here it is.”

Tasso.
Are you contented? then it is complete:
For it belongs to you in every sense.
Were I to contemplate the pains bestow’d
Or dwell upon the written character.
I might, perchance, exclaim. “This work is mine.”
But when I mark what ’tis that to my song
Its inner worth and dignity imparts,
I humbly feel I owe it all to you.
If Nature from her liberal stores on me
The genial gift of poesy bestow’d,
Capricious Fortune, with malignant power,
Had thrust me from her; though this beauteous world
With all its varied splendor lur’d the boy,
Too early was his youthful eye bedimm’d
By his lov’d parents’ undeserv’d distress.
Forth from my lips when I essay’d to sing,
There ever flow’d a melancholy song,
And I accompanied, with plaintive tones,
My father’s sorrow and my mother’s grief.
’Twas thou alone, who from this narrow sphere
Rais’d me to glorious liberty, reliev’d
From each depressing care my youthful mind,
And gave me freedom, in whose genial air
My spirit could unfold in harmony;
Then whatsoe’er the merit of the work,
Thine be the praise, for it belongs to thee.

Alphonso.
A second time thou dost deserve applause,
And honorest modestly thyself and us.

Tasso.
Fain would I say how sensibly I feel
That what I bring is all deriv’d from thee!
The inexperienc’d youth — could he produce
The poem from his own unfurnish’d mind?
Could he invent the conduct of the war,
The gallant bearing and the martial skill
Which every hero on the field display’d,
The leader’s prudence, and his followers’ zeal,
How vigilance the arts of cunning foil’d, —
Hadst thou not, valiant prince, infus’d it all,
As if my guardian genius thou hadst been,
Through a mere mortal, deigning to reveal
His nature high and inaccessible?

Princess.
Enjoy the work in which we all rejoice!

Alphonso.
Enjoy the approbation of the good!

Leonora.
Rejoice too in thy universal fame!

Tasso.
This single moment is enough for me.
Of you alone I thought while I compos’d:
You to delight was still my highest wish,
You to enrapture was my final aim.
Who doth not in his friends behold the world,
Deserves not that of him the world should hear.
Here is my fatherland, and here the sphere
In which my spirit fondly loves to dwell:
Here I attend and value every hint;
Here speak experience, knowledge and true taste;
Here stand the present and the future age.
With shy reserve the artist shuns the crowd, —
Its judgment but perplexes. Those alone
With minds like yours can understand and feel.
And such alone should censure and reward!

Alphonso.
If thus the present and the future age
We represent, it is not meet that we
Receive the poet’s song unrecompens’d.
The laurel wreath, fit chaplet for the bard,
Which e’en the hero, who requires his verse

artist: herm. schneider.
TORQUATO TASSO. ACT I, SCENE III.
the princess crowning tasso.
Sees without envy round his temples twin’d,
Adorns, thou seest, thy predecessor’s brow.
[Pointing to the bust of Virgil.
Hath chance, hath some kind genius twin’d the wreath,
And brought it hither? Not in vain it thus
Presents itself: Virgil I hear exclaim,
“Wherefore confer this honor on the dead?
They in their lifetime had reward and joy;
Do ye indeed revere the bards of old?
Then to the living bard accord his due.
My marble statue hath been amply crown’d,
And the green laurel branch belongs to life.”
[Alphonso makes a sign to his sister; she takes the crown from the bust of Virgil, and approaches Tasso:he steps back.

Leonora.
Thou dost refuse? Seest thou what hand the wreath,
The fair, the never-fading wreath, presents?

Tasso.
Oh, let me pause; I scarce can comprehend
How after such an hour I still can live.

Alphonso.
Live in enjoyment of the high reward,
From which thy inexperience shrinks with fear.

Princess.
(Raising the crown.) Thou dost afford me, Tasso, the rare joy
Of giving silent utt’rance to my thought.

Tasso.
The beauteous burden from thy honor’d hands.
On my weak head, thus kneeling, I receive.
[He kneels down; the Princess places the crown upon his head.

Leonora.
(Applauding.) Long live the poet, for the first time crown’d!
How well the crown adorns the modest man!
[Tasso rises.

Alphonso.
It is an emblem only of that crown
Which shall adorn thee on the capitol.

Princess.
There louder voices will salute thine ear;
Friendship with lower tones rewards thee here.

Tasso.
Take it — oh, take it quickly from my brow!
Pray thee remove it! It doth scorch my locks;
And like a sunbeam, that with fervid heat
Falls on my forehead, burneth in my brain
The power of thought; while fever’s fiery glow
Impels my blood. Forgive! it is too much.

Leonora.
This garland rather doth protect the head
Of him who treads the burning realm of fame.
And with its grateful shelter cools his brow.

Tasso.
I am not worthy to receive its shade,
Which only round the hero’s brow should wave.
Ye gods, exalt it high among the clouds.
To float in glory inaccessible.
That, through eternity, my life may be
An endless striving to attain this goal!

Alphonso.
He who in youth acquires life’s noblest gifts,
Learns early to esteem their priceless worth;
He who in youth enjoys, resigneth not
Without reluctance what he once possess’d;
And he who would possess, must still be arm’d.

Tasso.
And who would arm himself, within his breast
A power must feel, that ne’er forsaketh him
Ah, it forsakes me now! In happiness
The inborn power subsides which tutor’d me
To meet injustice with becoming pride,
And steadfastly to face adversity.
Hath the delight, the rapture of this hour.
Dissolv’d the strength and marrow in my limbs?
My knees sink feebly! yet, a second time,
Thou seest me, princess, here before thee bow’d.
Grant my petition, and remove the crown.
That, as awaken’d from a blissful dream.
A new and fresh existence I may feel.

Princess.
If thou with quiet modesty canst wear
The glorious talent from the gods receiv’d,
Learn also now the laurel wreath to wear,
The fairest gift that friendship can bestow,
The brow it once hath worthly adorn’d,
It shall encircle through eternity.

Tasso.
Oh, let me then asham’d from hence retire!
Let me in deepest shades my joy conceal,
As there my sorrow I was wont to shroud
There will I range alone: no eye will there
Remind me of a bliss so undeserv’d.
And if perchance I should behold a youth
In the clear mirror of a crystal spring.
Who, in the imag’d heaven, ‘midst rocks and trees.
Absorb’d in thought appears, his brow adorn’d
With glory’s garland: there, methinks, I see
Elysium mirror’d in the magic flood.
I pause and calmly ask. Who may this be?
What youth of bygone times, so fairly crown’d?
Whence can I learn his name? his high desert?
I linger long, and musing fondly think:
Oh, might there come another, and yet more
To join with him in friendly intercourse!
Oh, could I see assembled round this spring
The bards, the heroes of the olden time!
Could I behold them still united here
As they in life were ever firmly bound!
As with mysterious power the magnet binds
Iron with iron, so do kindred aims
Unite the souls of heroes and of bards.
Himself forgetting, Homer spent his life
In contemplation of two mighty men;
And Alexander in the Elysian fields
Doth Homer and Achilles haste to seek.
Oh, would that I were present to behold
Those mighty spirits in communion met.

Leonora.
Awake! awake! let us not feel that thou
The present quite forgettest in the past.

Tasso.
It is the present that inspireth me;
Absent I seem alone, I am entranc’d!

Princess.
When thou dost speak with spirits, I rejoice
The voice is human, and I gladly hear.
[A Page steps to the Prince.

Alphonso.
He is arriv’d! and in a happy hour;
Antonio! Bring him hither; — here he comes!

SCENE IV.

Princess, Leonora, Alphonso, Tasso, Antonio.

Alphonso.
Thou’rt doubly welcome! thou who bring’st at once
Thyself and welcome tidings.

Princess.
Welcome here!

Antonio.
Scarce dare I venture to express the joy
Which in your presence quickens me anew.
In your society I find restor’d
What I have miss’d so long. You seem content
With what I have accomplish’d, what achiev’d;
So am I recompens’d for every care,
For many days impatiently endur’d,
And many others wasted purposely.
At length our wish is gain’d, — the strife is o’er.

Leonora.
I also greet thee, though in sooth displeas’d;
Thou dost arrive when I must hence depart.

Antonio.
As if to mar my perfect happiness,
One lovely part forthwith thou takest hence.

Tasso.
My greetings too! I also shall rejoice
In converse with the much experience’d man.

Antonio.
Thou’lt find me true, whenever thou wilt deign
To glance awhile from thy world into mine.

Alphonso.
Though thou by letter hast announc’d to me
The progress and the issue of our cause,
Full many questions I have yet to ask
Touching the course thou hast pursu’d therein.
In that strange region a well-measur’d step
Alone conducts us to our destin’d goal.
Who doth his sovereign’s interest purely seek,
In Rome a hard position must maintain;
For Rome gives nothing, while she grasps at all;
Let him who thither goes some boon to claim,
Go well provided, and esteem himself
Most happy, if e’en then he gaineth aught.

Antonio.
’Tis neither my demeanor nor my art
By which thy will hath been accomplish’d, prince.
For where the skill which at the Vatican
Would not be over-master’d? Much conspir’d
Which I could use in furth’rance of our cause.
Pope Gregory salutes and blesses thee.
That aged man, that sovereign most august,
Who on his brow the load of empire bears,
Recalls the time when he embrac’d thee last
With pleasure. He who can distinguish men
Knows and extols thee highly. For thy sake
He hath done much.

Alphonso.
So far as ’tis sincere,
His good opinion cannot but rejoice me.
But well thou knowest, from the Vatican
The pope sees empires dwindled at his feet;
Princes and men must needs seem small indeed.
Confess what was it most assisted thee.

Antonio.
Good! if thou will’st: the pope’s exalted mind.
To him the small seems small, the great seems great.
That he may wield the empire of the world,
He to his neighbor yields with kind goodwill.
The strip of land, which he resigns to thee,
He knoweth, like thy friendship, well to prize.

Italia must be tranquil, friends alone
Will he behold around him, peace must reign
Upon his borders, that of Christendom
The might which he so potently directs
May smite at once the Heretic and Turk.

Princess.
And is it known what men he most esteems,
And who approach him confidentially?

Antonio.
The experienc’d man alone can win his ear,
The active man his favor and esteem.
He, who from early youth has serv’d the state,
Commands it now, ruling those very courts
Which, in his office of ambassador,
He had observ’d and guided years before.
The world lies spread before his searching gaze,
Clear as the interests of his own domain.
In action we must yield him our applause,
And mark with joy, when time unfolds the plans
Which his deep forethought fashion’d long before.
There is no fairer prospect in the world
Than to behold a prince who wisely rules;
A realm where every one obeys with pride,
Where each imagines that he serves himself,
Because ’tis justice only that commands.

Leonora.
How ardently I long to view that realm!

Alphonso.
Doubtless that thou may’st play thy part therein;
For Leonora never could remain
A mere spectator: meet it were, fair friend,
If now and then we let your gentle hands
Join in the mighty game — Say, is’t not so?

Leonora.
(To Alphonso.) Thou would’st provoke me, — thou shalt not succeed.

Alphonso.
I am already deeply in thy debt.

Leonora.
Good; then to-day I will remain in thine!
Forgive, and do not interrupt me now.
(To Antonio.)
Say, hath he for his relatives done much?

Antonio.
No more nor less than equity allows.
The potentate, who doth neglect his friends,
Is even by the people justly blam’d.
With wise discretion Gregory employs
His friends as trusty servants of the state,
And thus fulfils at once two kindred claims.

Tasso.
Doth science, do the liberal arts enjoy
His fostering care? and doth he emulate
The glorious princes of the olden time?

Antonio.
He honors science when it is of use, —
Teaching to govern states, to know mankind;
He prizes art when it embellishes, —
When it exalts and beautifies his Rome,
Erecting palaces and temples there,
Which rank among the marvels of this earth.
Within his sphere of influence he admits
Naught inefficient, and alone esteems
The active cause and instrument of good.

Alphonso.
Thou thinkest, then, that we may soon conclude
The whole affair? that no impediments
Will finally be scatter’d in our way?

Antonio.
Unless I greatly err, ‘twill but require
A few brief letters and thy signature
To bring this contest to a final close.

Alphonso.
This day with justice then I may proclaim
A season of prosperity and joy.
My frontiers are enlarg’d and made secure;
Thou hast accomplish’d all without the sword,
And hence deservest well a civic crown.
Our ladies on some beauteous morn shall twine
A wreath of oak to bind around thy brow.
Meanwhile our poet hath enrich’d us too;
He, by his conquest of Jerusalem,
Hath put our modern Christendom to shame.
With joyous spirit and unwearied zeal,
A high and distant goal he had attain’d;
For his achievement thou behold’st him crown’d.

Antonio.
Thou solvest an enigma. Two crown’d heads
I saw with wonder on arriving here.

Tasso.
While thou dost gaze upon my happiness,
With the same glance, oh, could’st thou view my heart,
And witness there my deep humility!

Antonio.
How lavishly Alphonso can reward
I long have known; thou only provest now
What all enjoy who come within its sphere.

Princess.
When thou shalt see the work he hath achiev’d,
Thou wilt esteem us moderate and just.
The first, the silent, witnesses are we,
Of praises, which the world and future years
In tenfold measure will accord to him.

Antonio.
Through you his fame is certain. Who so bold
To entertain a doubt when you commend?
But tell me, who on Ariosto’s brow
Hath plac’d this wreath?

Leonora.
This hand.

Antonio.
It hath done well.
It more becomes him than a laurel crown.
As o’er her fruitful bosom Nature throws
Her variegated robe of beauteous green,
So he enshrouds in Fable’s flowery garb,
Whatever can conspire to render man
Worthy of love and honor. Power and taste.
Experience, understanding, and content,
And a pure feeling for the good and true,
Pervade the spirit of his every song,
And there appear in person, to repose
‘Neath blossoming trees, besprinkled by the snow
Of lightly-falling flowers, their heads entwin’d
With rosy garlands, while the sportive Loves
With frolic humor weave their magic spells.
A copious fountain, gurgling near, displays
Strange variegated fish, and all the air
Is vocal with the song of wondrous birds;
Strange cattle pasture in the bowers and glades;
Half hid in verdure, Folly slyly lurks:
At times, resounding from a golden cloud.
The voice of Wisdom utters lofty truth,
While Madness, from a wild harmonious lute,
Scatters forth bursts of fitful harmony,
Yet all the while the justest measure holds.
He who aspires to emulate this man,
E’en for his boldness well deserves a crown.
Forgive me if I feel myself inspir’d,
Like one entranc’d forget both time and place,
And fail to weigh my words; for all these crowns,
These poets, and the festival attire
Of these fair ladies, have transported me
Out of myself into a foreign land.

Princess.
Who thus can prize one species of desert,
Will not misjudge another. Thou to us
Some future day shalt show in Tasso’s song
What we can feel, and thou canst comprehend.

Alphonso.
Come now, Antonio! many things remain
Whereof I am desirous to inquire.
Then till the setting of the sun thou shalt
Attend the ladies. Follow me. Farewell!
[Antonio follows the Prince. Tasso the ladies.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

A Room.
Princess, Tasso.

Tasso.
I with uncertain footsteps follow thee.
O princess; there arise within my soul
Thoughts without rule and measure. Solitude
Appears to beckon me; complaisantly
She whispers: “Hither come, I will allay,
Within thy breast, the newly-waken’d doubt.”
Yet catch I but a glimpse of thee, or takes
My listening ear one utterance from thy lip,
At once a new-born day around me shines,
And all the fetters vanish from my soul.
To thee I freely will confess, the man
Who unexpectedly appear’d among us
Hath rudely wak’d me from a beauteous dream;
So strangely have his nature and his words
Affected me, that more than ever now
A want of inward harmony I feel,
And a distracting conflict with myself.

Princess.
’Tis not to be expected that a friend,
Who long hath sojourn’d in a foreign land,
Should in the moment of his first return
The tone of former times at once resume;
He in his inner mind is still unchang’d,
And a few days of intercourse will tune
The jarring strings, until they blend once more
In perfect harmony. When he shall know
The greatness of the work thou hast achiev’d
Believe me, he will place thee by the bard,
Whom as a giant now he sets before thee.

Tasso.
My princess, Ariosto’s praise from him
Has more delighted than offended me.
Consoling ’tis to know the man renown’d,
Whom as our model we have plac’d before us;
An inward voice then whispers to the heart
“Canst thou obtain a portion of his worth,
A portion of his fame is also thine.”
No, that which hath most deeply mov’d my heart,
Which even now completely fills my soul,
Was the majestic picture of that world,
Which, with its living, restless, mighty forms
Around one great and prudent man revolves.
And runs with measur’d steps the destin’d course
Prescrib’d beforehand by the demigod.
I listen’d eagerly, and heard with joy
The wise discourse of the experienc’d man;
But ah! the more I heard, the more I felt
Mine own unworthiness, and fear’d that I
Like empty sound, might dissipate in air,
Or vanish like an echo or a dream.

Princess.
And yet erewhile thou didst so truly feel
How bard and hero for each other live,
How bard and hero to each other tend,
And toward each other know no envious thought.
Noble in truth are deeds deserving fame,
But it is also noble to transmit
The lofty grandeur of heroic deeds,
Through worthy song, to our posterity.
Be satisfied to contemplate in peace,
From a small, shelt’ring state, as from the shore,
The wild and stormy current of the world.

Tasso.
Was it not here, amaz’d, I first beheld
The high reward on valiant deeds bestow’d?
An inexperienc’d youth I here arriv’d,
When festival on festival conspir’d
To render this the centre of renown.
Oh, what a scene Ferrara then display’d!
The wide arena, where in all its pomp
Accomplish’d valor should its skill display,
Was bounded by a circle, whose high worth
The sun might seek to parallel in vain.
The fairest women sat assembled there,
And men the most distinguish’d of the age.
Amaz’d the eye ran o’er the noble throng;
Proudly I cried, “And ’tis our Fatherland,
That small, sea-girded land, hath sen; them here.
They constitute the noblest court that e’er
On honor, worth, or virtue, judgment pass’d.
Survey them singly, thou wilt not find one
Of whom his neighbor needs to feel asham’d!”
And then the lists were open’d, chargers pranc’d,
Esquires press’d forward, helmets brightly gleam’d,
The trumpet sounded, shivering lances split,
The din of clanging helm and shield was heard,
And for a moment eddying dust conceal’d
The victor’s honor and the vanquisa’d’s shame.
Oh, let me draw a curtain o’er the scene,
The all too brilliant spectacle conceal,
That in this tranquil hour I may not feel
Too painfully mine own unworthiness!

Princess.
If that bright circle and those noble deeds
Arous’d thee then to enterprise and toil,
I could the while, young friend, have tutor’d thee
In the still lesson of calm sufferance.
The brilliant festival thou dost extol,
Which then and since a hundred voices prais’d,
I did not witness. In a lonely spot,
So tranquil that unbroken on the ear
Joy’s lightest echo faintly died away,
A prey to pain and melancholy thoughts,
I was compell’d to pass the tedious hours.
Before me hover’d on extended wing
Death’s awful form, concealing from my view
The prospect of this ever-changing world.
Slowly it disappear’d, and I beheld,
As through a veil, the varied hues of life,
Pleasing but indistinct: while living forms
Began once more to flicker through the gloom.
Still feeble, and supported by my women,
For the first time my silent room I left,
When hither, full of happiness and life,
Thee leading by the hand, Lucretta came.
A stranger then, thou, Tasso, wast the first
To welcome me on my return to life.
Much then I hop’d for both of us, and hope
Hath not, methinks, deceiv’d us hitherto.

Tasso.
Stunn’d by the tumult, dazzled by the glare,
Impetuous passions stirring in my breast,
I by thy sister’s side pursu’d my way
In silence through the stately corridors,
Then in the chamber enter’d, where ere long
Thou didst appear supported by thy women.
Oh, what a moment! Princess, pardon me!
As in the presence of a deity
The victim of enchantment feels with joy
His frenzied spirit from delusion freed,
So was my soul from every phantasy,
From every passion, every false desire
Restor’d at once by one calm glance of thine.
And if, before, my inexperienc’d mind
Had lost itself in infinite desires,
I then, with shame, first turn’d my gaze within,
And recogniz’d the truly valuable.
Thus on the wide sea-shore we seek in vain
The pearl, reposing in its silent shell.

Princess.
’Twas the commencement of a happy time.
And had Urbino’s duke not led away
My sister from us, many years had pass’d
For us is calm, unclouded happiness
But now, alas! we miss her all too much.
Miss her free spirit, buoyancy and ire.
And the rich war of the accomplish’d woman.

Tasso.
Too well I know since she departed hence
None hath been able to supply to thee
The pure enjoyment which her presence gave.
Alas, how often hath it griev’d my soul!
How often have I in the silent grove
Pour’d forth my lamentation! How! I cried.
Is it her sister’s right and joy alone
To be a treasure to the dear one’s heart?
Does then no other soul respond to hers,
No other heart her confidence deserve?
Are soul and wit extinguish’d? and should one,
How great soe’er her worth, engross her love?
Forgive me, princess! Often I have wish’d
I could be something to thee, — little, perhaps,
But something; not with words alone, with deeds
I wish’d to be so, and in life to prove
How I had worshipp’d thee in solitude,
But I could ne’er succeed, and but too oft
In error wounded thee, offending one
By thee protected, or perplexing more
What thou didst wish to solve, and thus, alas!
E’en in the moment when I fondly strove
To draw more near thee, felt more distant still.

Princess.
Thy wish I never have misconstru’d, Tasso;
How thou dost prejudice thyself I know;
Unlike my sister, who possess’d the art
Of living happily with every one,
After so many years, thou art in sooth
Thyself well nigh unfriended.

Tasso.
Censure me!
But after say, where shall I find the man,
The woman where, to whom as unto thee
I freely can unbosom every thought?

Princess.
Thou should’st in my brother more confide.

Tasso.
He is my Prince! — Yet do not hence suppose
That freedom’s lawless impulse swells my breast.
Man is not born for freedom, and to serve
A prince deserving honor and esteem
Is a pure pleasure to a noble mind.
He is my sovereign, of that great word
I deeply feel the full significance.
I must be silent when he speaks, and learn
To do what he commandeth, though perchance
My heart and understanding both rebel.

Princess.
That with my brother never can befall.
And in Antonio, who is now return’d,
Thou wilt possess another prudent friend.

Tasso.
I hop’d it once, now almost I despair.
His converse how instructive, and his words
How useful in a thousand instances!
For he possesses, I may truly say.
All that in me is wanting. But, alas!
When round his cradle all the gods assembled
To bring their gifts, the Graces were not there;
And he who lacks what these fair powers impart,
May much possess, may much communicate,
But on his bosom we can ne’er repose.

Princess.
But we can trust in him, and that is much.
Thou should’st not, Tasso, in one man expect
All qualities combin’d; Antonio
What he hath promis’d surely will perform.
If he have once declar’d himself thy friend,
He’ll care for thee, where thou dost fail thyself
Ye must be friends! I cherish the fond hope
Ere long this gracious work to consummate.
Only oppose me not, as is thy wont.
Then, Leonora long hath sojourn’d here,
Who is at once refin’d and elegant;
Her easy manners banish all restraint,
Yet thou hast ne’er approach’d her as she wish’d.

Tasso.
To thee I hearken’d, or believe me, princess,
I should have rather shunn’d her than approach’d,
Though she appear so kind, I know not why,
I can but rarely feel at ease with her;
E’en when her purpose is to aid her friends,
They feel the purpose, and are thence constrain’d.

Princess.
Upon this pathway, Tasso, nevermore
Will glad companionship be ours! This track
Leadeth us on through solitary groves
And silent vales to wander; more and more
The spirit is untun’d, and fondly strives
The golden age, that from the outer world
For aye hath vanish’d, to restore within,
How vain soever the attempt may prove.

Tasso.
Oh, what a word, my princess, hast thou spoken!
The golden age, ah, whither is it flown,
For which in secret every heart repines?
When o’er the yet unsubjugated earth
Men roam’d, like herds, in joyous liberty;
When on the flowery lawn an ancient tree
Lent to the shepherd and the shepherdess
Its grateful shadow, and the leafy grove
Its tender branches lovingly entwin’d
Around confiding love; when still and clear,
O’er sands forever pure, the pearly stream
The nymph’s fair form encircled; when the snake
Glided innoxious through the verdant grass,
And the bold youth pursu’d the daring faun;
When every bird winging the limpid air,
And every living thing o’er hill and dale
Proclaim’d to man, — What pleases is allow’d.

Princess.
My friend, the golden age hath pass’d away;
Only the good have power to bring it back;
Shall I confess to thee my secret thought?
The golden age, wherewith the bard is wont
Our spirits to beguile, that lovely prime,
Existed in the past no more than now;
And did it e’er exist, believe me, Tasso,
As then it was, it now may be restor’d.
Still meet congenial spirits, and enhance
Each other’s pleasure in this beauteous world;
But in the motto change one single word,
And say, my friend: — What’s fitting is allow’d.

Tasso.
Would that of good and noble men were form’d
A great tribunal, to decide for all
What is befitting! then no more would each
Esteem that right which benefits himself.
The man of power acts ever as he lists,
And whatsoe’er he doth is fitting deem’d.

Princess.
Would’st thou define exactly what is fitting,
Thou should’st apply, methinks, to noble women;
For them it most behoveth that in life
Naught should be done unseemly or unfit;
Propriety encircles with a wall
The tender, weak, and vulnerable sex.
Where moral order reigneth, women reign,
They only are despis’d where rudeness triumphs;
And would’st thou touching either sex inquire,
’Tis order woman seeketh; freedom, man.

Tasso.
Thou thinkest us unfeeling, wild and rude?

Princess.
Not so! but ye with violence pursue
A multitude of objects far remote.
Ye venture for eternity to act,
While we, with views more narrow, on this earth
Seek only one possession, well content
If that with constancy remain our own.
For we, alas! are of no heart secure,
Whate’er the ardor of its first devotion.
Beauty is transient, which alone ye seem
To hold in honor; what beside remains
No longer charms, — what doth not charm is dead.
If among men there were who knew to prize
The heart of woman, who could recognize
What treasures of fidelity and love
Are garner’d safely in a woman’s breast
If the remembrance of bright single hours
Could vividly abide within your souls;
If your so searching glance could pierce the veil
Which age and wasting sickness o’er us fling;
If the possession which should satisfy
Waken’d no restless cravings in your hearts:
Then were our happy days indeed arriv’d,
We then should celebrate our golden age.

Tasso.
Thy words, my princess, in my breast awake
An old anxiety half lull’d to sleep.

Princess.
What mean’st thou, Tasso? Freely speak with me.

Tasso.
I oft before have heard, and recently
Again it hath been rumor’d, — had I not
Been told, I might have known it, — princes strive
To win thy hand. What we must needs expect
We view with dread, nay, almost with despair.
Thou wilt forsake us, — it is natural:
Yet how we shall endure it, know I not.

Princess.
Be for the present moment unconcern’d!
Almost, I might say, unconcern’d forever.
I am contented still to tarry here,
Nor know I any tie to lure me hence.
And if thou would’st indeed detain me, Tasso,
Live peaceably with all, so shalt thou lead
A happy life thyself, and I through thee.

Tasso.
Teach me to do whate’er is possible!
My life itself is consecrate to thee.
When to extol thee and to give thee thanks
My heart unfolded, I experienc’d first
The purest happiness that man can feel.
My soul’s ideal I first found in thee.
As destiny supreme is rais’d above
The wile and counsel of the wisest men,
So tower the gods of earth o’er common mortals.
The rolling surge which we behold with dread
Doth all unheeded murmur at their feet
Lake gentle billows; they hear not the storm
Which blusters round us, scarcely heed our prayers,
And treat us as we helpless children treat.
Letting us fill the air with sighs and plaints.
Thou hast, divine one! often borne with me,
And like the radiant sun, thy pitying glance
Hath from mine eyelid dried the dew of sorrow.

Princess.
’Tis only just that women cordially
Should meet the poet, whose heroic song
In strains so varied glorifies the sex.
Tender or valiant, thou hast ever known
To represent them amiable and noble;
And if Armida is deserving hate,
Her love and beauty reconcile us to her.

Tasso.
Whatever in my song doth reach the heart
And find an echo there, I owe to one,
And one alone! No image undefin’d
Hover’d before my soul, approaching now
In radiant glory, to retire again.
I have myself, with mine own eyes, beheld
The type of every virtue, every grace;
What I have copied thence will aye endure;
The heroic love of Tancred to Clorinda,
Erminia’s silent and unnotic’d truth,
Sophronia’s greatness and Olinda’s woe;
These are not shadows by illusion bred;
I know they are eternal, for they are.
And what is more deserving to survive,
And silently to work for centuries,
Than the confession of a noble love
Confided modestly to gentle song?

Princess.
And shall I name to thee another charm
Which, all unconsciously, this song may claim?
It doth allure us still to listen to it:
We listen, and we think we understand;
We understand, and yet we censure not,
So with thy song, thou winnest us at last.

Tasso.
Oh, what a heaven thou dost open to me,
My princess! if this radiance blinds me not,
I see unhop’d-for and eternal bliss
Descending gloriously on golden beams.

Princess.
No further, Tasso! many things there are
That we may hope to win with violence;
While others only can become our own
Through moderation and wise self-restraint.
Such, it is said, is virtue, such is love,
Which is allied to her. Think well of this!

artist: herm. schneider.
TORQUATO TASSO. ACT II, SCENE I.
the princess and tasso.

SCENE II.

Tasso.
And art thou then allow’d to raise thine eyes?
Around thee dar’st thou gaze? Thou art alone!
O’erheard these pillars what the princess spake?
And hast thou witnesses, dumb witnesses
Of thine exalted happiness to fear?
The sun arises of a new life-day,
Whose splendor dims the light of former days.
The goddess, downward stooping, swiftly bears
Aloft the mortal. What a wide expanse
Is to mine eye discover’d, what a realm!
How richly recompens’d my burning wish!
In dreams the highest happiness seem’d near,
This happiness surpasses all my dreams.
The man born blind conceiveth as he may
Of light and color; when upon his eye
The daylight pours, he hails a new-born sense.
Full of vague hope and courage, drunk with joy,
Reeling I tread this path. Thou giv’st me much;
Thou givest lavishly, as earth and heaven,
With bounteous hand, dispense their costly gifts,
Demanding in return what such a boon
Alone empowers thee to demand from me.
I must be moderate, I must forbear,
And thus deserve thy cherish’d confidence,
What have I ever done that she should choose me?
What can I do to merit her regard?
Her very confidence doth prove thy worth.
Yes, princess, to thine every word and look,
Be my whole soul forever consecrate!
Ask what thou wilt, for I am wholly thine!
To distant regions let her send me forth
In quest of toil, and danger, and renown;
Or in the grove, present the golden lyre,
Devoting me to quiet and her praise.
Hers am I, me possessing, she shall mould!
For her my heart hath garner’d every treasure.
Oh, had some heavenly power bestow’d on me
An organ thousandfold, I scarcely then
Could utter forth my speechless reverence.
The painter’s pencil, and the poet’s lip,
The sweetest that e’er sipp’d the vernal honey,
I covet now. No! Tasso shall henceforth
Wander no more forlorn, ‘mong trees, ‘mong men,
Lonely and weak, oppress’d with gloomy care!
He is no more alone, he is with thee.
Oh, would that visibly the noblest deed
Were present here before me, circled round
With grisly danger! Onward I would rush,
And with a joyous spirit risk the life
Now from her hand receiv’d — the choicest men
As comrades I would hail, a noble band,
To execute her will and high behest,
And consummate what seem’d impossible.
Rash mortal! wherefore did thy lip not hide
What thou didst feel, till thou could’st lay thyself
Worthy, and ever worthier, at her feet?
Such was thy purpose, such thy prudent wish!
Yet be it so! ’Tis sweeter to receive,
Free, and unmerited, so fair a boon,
Than, with self-flatt’ry, dream one might perchance
Successfully have claim’d it. Gaze with joy!
So vast, so boundless, all before thee lies!
And youth, with hope inspir’d, allures thee on
Towards the future’s unknown, sunny realms!
My bosom, heave! propitious seasons smile
Once more with genial influence on this plant!
It springeth heavenward, and shooteth out
A thousand branches that unfold in bloom.
Oh, may it bring forth fruit, — ambrosial fruit!
And may a hand belov’d the golden spoil
Cull from its verdant and luxuriant boughs!

SCENE III.

Tasso, Antonio.

Tasso.
Gladly I welcome thee, it seems indeed
As though I saw thee for the first time now!
Ne’er was arrival more auspicious. Welcome!
I know thee now, and all thy varied worth.
Promptly I offer thee my heart and hand.
And trust that thou wilt not despise my love.

Antonio.
Freely thou offerest a precious gift;
Its worth I duly estimate, and hence
Would pause awhile before accepting it.
I know not yet if I can render thee
A full equivalent. Not willingly
Would I o’erhasty or unthankful seem;
Let then my sober caution serve for both.

Tasso.
What man would censure caution? Every step
Of life doth prove that ’tis most requisite;
Yet nobler is it, when the soul reveals,
Where we, with prudent foresight, may dispense.

Antonio.
The heart of each be here his oracle,
Since each his error must himself atone.

Tasso.
So let it be! My duty I’ve perform’d.
It is the princess’ wish we should be friends,
Her words I honor’d and thy friendship sought.
I wish’d not to hold back, Antonio,
But I will never be importunate.
Time and more near acquaintance may induce thee
To give a warmer welcome to the gift,
Which now thou dost reject, almost with scorn.

Antonio.
Oft is the moderate man nam’d cold by those
Who think themselves more warm than other men,
Because a transient glow comes over them.

Tasso.
Thou blamest what I blame, — what I avoid.
Young as I am I ever must prefer
Unshaken constancy to vehemence.

Antonio.
Most wisely said! Keep ever in this mind.

Tasso.
Thou’rt authoriz’d to counsel and to warn,
For, like a faithful, time-approved friend,
Experience holds her station at thy side.
But trust me, sir, the meditative heart
Attends the warning of each day and hour,
And practises in secret every virtue,
Which in thy rigor thou would’st teach anew.

Antonio.
‘Twere well to be thus occupied with self,
If it were only profitable too.
His inmost nature no man learns to know
By introspection; still he rates himself,
Sometimes too low, but oft, alas! too high.
Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men;
’Tis life reveals to each his genuine worth.

Tasso.
I listen with applause and reverence.

Antonio.
Yet to my words I know thou dost attach
A meaning wholly foreign to my thought.

Tasso.
Proceeding thus, we ne’er shall draw more near.
It is not prudent, ’tis not well, to meet
With purpos’d misconception any man,
Let him be who he may! The princess’ word
I scarcely needed; — I have read thy soul:
Good thou dost purpose and accomplish too.
Thine own immediate fate concerns thee not;
Thou think’st of others, others thou dost aid,
And on life’s sea, vex’d by each passing gale,
Thou hold’st a heart unmov’d. I view thee thus;
What then were I, did I not draw tow’rds thee?
Did I not even keenly seek a share
Of the lock’d treasure which thy bosom guards?
Open thine heart to me, thou’lt not repent;
Know me, and I sure am thou’lt be my friend:
Of such a friend I long have felt the need.
My inexperience, my ungovern’d youth
Cause me no shame; for still around my brow
The future’s golden clouds in brightness rest.
Oh! to thy bosom take me, noble man;
Into the wise, the temperate use of life
Initiate my rash, my unfledg’d youth.

Antonio.
Thou in a single moment would’st demand
What time and circumspection only yield.

Tasso.
In one brief moment love has power to give
What anxious toil wins not in lengthen’d years.
I do not ask it from thee, I demand.
I summon thee in Virtue’s sacred name,
For she is zealous to unite the good;
And shall I name to thee another name?
The princess, she doth wish it. — Leonora.
Me she would lead to thee, and thee to me.
Oh, let us meet her wish with kindred hearts!
United let us to the goddess haste,
To offer her our service, our whole souls,
Leagu’d to achieve for her the noblest aims.
Yet once again! — Here is my hand! Give thine!
I do entreat, hold thyself back no longer,
O noble man, and grudge me not the joy.
The good man’s fairest joy, without reserve,
Freely to yield himself to nobler men!

Antonio.
Thou goest with full sail! It would appear
Thou’rt wont to conquer, everywhere to find
The pathways spacious and the portals wide.
I grudge thee not or merit or success, —
Only I see indeed, too plainly see,
We from each other stand too far apart.

Tasso.
It may be so in years and timetried worth; —
In courage and good-will I yield to none.

Antonio.
Good-will doth oft prove deedless; courage still
Pictures the goal less distant than it is.
His brow alone is crown’d who reaches it,
And oft a worthier must forego the crown.
Yet wreaths there are of very different fashion:
Light, worthless wreaths, which, idly strolling on,
The loiterer oft without the toil obtains.

Tasso.
What a divinity to one accords,
And from another sternly doth withhold,
Is not obtain’d by each man as he lists.

Antonio.
To Fortune before other gods ascribe it;
I’ll hear thee gladly, for her choice is blind.

Tasso.
Impartial Justice also wears a band,
And to each bright illusion shuts her eyes.

Antonio.
Fortune ’tis for the fortunate to praise!
Let him ascribe to her a hundred eyes
To scan desert, — stern judgment, and wise choice.
Call her Minerva, call her what he will,
He holds as just reward her golden gifts,
Chance ornament as symbol of desert.

Tasso.
Thou need’st not speak more plainly. ’Tis enough!
Deeply I see into thine inmost heart,
And know thee now for life. Oh, would that so
My princess knew thee also! Lavish not
The arrows of thine eyes and of thy tongue!
In vain thou aimest at the fadeless wreath
Entwin’d around my brow. First be so great
As not to envy me the laurel wreath!
And then perchance thou may’st dispute the prize.
I deem it sacred, yea, the highest good;
Yet only show me him, who hath attain’d
That after which I strive; show me the nero,
Of whom on history’s ample page I read;
The poet place before me, who himself
With Homer or with Virgil may compare;
Ay, what is more, let me behold the man
Who hath deserv’d threefold this recompense,
And yet can wear the laurel round his brow
With modesty thrice greater than my own. —
Then at the feet of the divinity
Who thus endow’d me, thou should’st see me kneel,
Nor would I stand erect, till from my brow,
She had to his the ornament transferi’d.

Antonio.
Till then thou’rt doubtless worthy of the crown.

Tasso.
Let me be justly weigh’d: I shun it not:
But your contempt I never have deserv’d.
The wreath consider’d by my prince my due.
Which for my brow my princess’ hand entwin’d,
None shall dispute with me, and none asperse!

Antonio.
This haughty tone, methinks, becomes thee not,
Nor this rash glow, unseemly in this place.

Tasso.
The tone thou takest here becomes me too.
Say, from these precincts is the truth exil’d?
Within the palace is free thought imprison’d?
Here must the noble spirit be oppress’d?
This is nobility’s appropriate seat,
The soul’s nobility! and may she not
In presence of earth’s mighty ones rejoice?
She may and shall. Nobles draw near the prince
In virtue of the rank their sires bequeath’d;
Why should not genius then, which partial Nature
Grants, like a glorious ancestry, to few?
Here littleness alone should feel confus’d,
And envy shun to manifest its shame:
As no insidious spider should attach
Its noisome fabric to these marble walls.

Antonio.
Thyself dost show that my contempt is just!
The impetuous youth, forsooth, would seize by force
The confidence and friendship of the man!
Rude as thou art, dost think thyself of worth?

Tasso.
I’d rather be what thou esteemest rude,
Than what I must myself esteem ignoble.

Antonio.
Thou’rt still so young that wholesome chastisement
May tutor thee to hold a better course.

Tasso.
Not young enough to bow to idols down,
Yet old enough to conquer scorn with scorn.

Antonio.
From contests of the lip and of the lyre,
A conquering hero, thou may’st issue forth.

Tasso.
It were presumptuous to extol my arm;
As yet ’tis deedless; still I’ll trust to it.

Antonio.
Thou trustest to forbearance, which too long
Hath spoil’d thee in thine insolent career.

Tasso.
That I am grown to manhood, now I feel:
It would have been the farthest from my wish
To try with thee the doubtful game of arms:
But thou dost stir the inward fire; my blood,
My inmost marrow boils; the fierce desire
Of vengeance seethes and foams within my breast.
Art thou the man thou boast’st thyself, — then stand.

Antonio.
Thou know’st as little who, as where thou art,

Tasso.
No fane so sacred as to shield contempt.

Thou dost blaspheme, thou dost profane this spot,
Not I, who fairest offerings, — confidence,
Respect and love, for thine acceptance brought.
Thy spirit desecrates this paradise;
And thy injurious words this sacred hall;
Not the indignant heaving of my breast,
Which boils to wipe away the slightest stain.

Antonio.
What a high spirit in a narrow breast!

Tasso.
Here there is space to vent the bosom’s rage.

Antonio.
The rabble also vent their rage in words.

Tasso.
Art thou of noble blood as I am, draw!

Antonio.
I am, but I remember where I stand.

Tasso.
Come then below, where weapons may avail.

Antonio.
Thou should’st not challenge, therefore I’ll not follow.

Tasso.
To cowards welcome such impediments.

Antonio.
The coward only threats where he’s secure.

Tasso.
With joy would I relinquish this defence.

Antonio.
Degrade thyself: degrade the place thou canst not.

Tasso.
The place forgive me that I suffer’d it!
[He draws his sword.
Or draw or follow, if, as now I hate,
I’m not to scorn thee to eternity!

SCENE IV.

Tasso, Antonio, Alphonso.

Alphonso.
In what unlook’d-for strife I find you both?

Antonio.
Calm and unmov’d, O prince, thou find’st me here,
Before a man whom passion’s rage hath seiz’d.

Tasso.
As a divinity I worship thee
That thus thou tam’st me with one warning look.

Alphonso.
Relate, Antonio, Tasso, tell me straight; —
Say, why doth discord thus invade my house?
How hath it seiz’d you both, and hurried you
Confus’d and reeling from the beaten track
Of decency and law? I stand amaz’d.

Tasso.
I feel it, thou dost know nor him, nor me.
This man, reputed temperate and wise,
Hath tow’rds me, like a rude, ill-manner’d churl,
Behav’d himself with spiteful insolence.
I sought him trustfully, he thrust me back;
With constancy I press’d myself on him,
And still, with growing bitterness imbu’d,
He rested not till he had turn’d to gall
My blood’s pure current. Pardon! Thou, my prince,
Hast found me here, possess’d with furious rage.
If guilty, to this man the guilt is due;
With violence he fann’d the fiery glow
Which, seizing me, hath injur’d both of us.

Antonio.
Poetic frenzy hurried him away!
Thou hast, O prince, address’d thyself to me,
Hast question’d me: be it to me allow’d
After this rapid orator to speak.

Tasso.
Oh, yes, repeat again each several word;
And if before this judge thou canst recall
Each syllable, each look, — then dare to do so!
Disgrace thyself a second time, and bear
Witness against thyself! I’ll not disown
A single pulse-throb, nor a single breath.

Antonio.
If thou hast somewhat more to say, proceed;
If not, forbear, and interrupt me not.
Whether at first his fiery youth or I
Began this quarrel, whether he or I
Must bear the blame, is a wide question, prince,
Which stands apart, and need not be discuss’d.

Tasso.
How so? The primal question seems to me,
Which of the two is right and which is wrong.

Antonio.
Not so precisely, as the ungovern’d mind
Might first suppose.

Alphonso.
Antonio!

Antonio.
Gracious prince!
Thy hint I honor; but let him forbear:
When I have spoken he may then proceed:
Thy voice must then decide. I’ve but to say,
I can no longer with this man contend:
Can nor accuse him, nor defend myself,
Nor give the satisfaction he desires;
For as he stands, he is no longer free.
There hangeth over him a heavy law,
Which, at the most, thy favor may relax.
Here hath he dar’d to threat, to challenge me,
Scarce in thy presence, sheath’d his naked sword;

And if between us, prince, thou hadst not stopp’d,
Obnoxious to reproof I now had stood,
Before thy sight, the partner of his fault.

Alphonso.
(To Tasso.) Thou hast not acted well.

Tasso.
Mine own heart, prince,
And surely thine, doth speak me wholly free.
Yes, true it is, I threaten’d, challeng’d, drew;
But how maliciously his guileful tongue,
With words well chosen, pierc’d me to the quick;
How sharp and rapidly his biting tooth
The subtle venom in my blood infus’d;
How more and more the fever he inflam’d —
Thou thinkest not! cold and unmov’d himself,
He to the highest pitch excited me.
Thou know’st him not, and thou wilt never know him!
Warmly I tender’d him the fairest friendship;
Down at my feet he flung the proffer’d gift;
And had my spirit not with anger glow’d,
Of thy fair service and thy princely grace
I were for aye unworthy. If the law
I have forgotten, and this place, forgive!
The spot exists not where I dare be base,
Nor yet where I debasement dare endure.
But if this heart in any place be false,
Or to itself or thee, — condemn, reject, —
And let me ne’er again behold thy face.

Antonio.
How easily the youth bears heavy loads,
And shaketh misdemeanors off like dust!
It were indeed a marvel, knew I not
Of magic poesy the wondrous power,
Which loveth still with the impossible
In frolic mood to sport. I almost doubt
Whether to thee, and to thy ministers,
This deed will seem so insignificant.
For Majesty extends its shield o’er all
Who draw near its inviolate abode,
And bow before it as a deity;
As at the altar’s consecrated foot,
So on its sacred threshold rage subsides;
No sword there gleams, no threat’ning word resounds.
E’en injur’d innocence seeks no revenge.
The common earth affordeth ample scope
For bitter hate, and rage implacable.
There will no coward threat, no true man flee;
Thy ancestors, on sure foundations bas’d
These walls, fit shelter for their dignity;
And, with wise forecast, hedg’d the palace round
With fearful penalties. Of all transgressors,
Exile, confinement, death, the certain doom.
Respect of persons was not, nor did mercy
The arm of justice venture to restrain.
The boldest culprit felt himself o’eraw’d.
And now, after a lengthen’d reign of peace,
We must behold unlicens’d rage invade
The realm of sacred order. Judge, O prince,
And punish! for unguarded by the law,
Unshielded by his sov’reign, who will dare
To keep the narrow path that duty bounds.

Alphonso.
More than your words, or aught that ye could say,
My own impartial feelings let me heed.
If that your duty ye had both fulfill’d,
I should not have this judgment to pronounce;
For here the right and wrong are near allied.
If that Antonio hath offended thee,
Due satisfaction he must doubtless give,
In such a sort as thou shalt chose to ask.
I gladly would be chosen arbiter.
(To Tasso.)
Meanwhile thy misdemeanor subjects thee
To brief confinement. Tasso. I forgive thee,
And therefore, for thy sake, relax the law.
Now leave us, and within thy chamber bide,
Thyself thy sole companion, thy sole guard.

Tasso.
Is this, then, thy judicial sentence, prince?

Antonio.
Discern’st thou not a father’s lenity?

Tasso.
(To Antonio.) With thee, henceforth, I have no more to say.
(To Alphonso.)
Thine earnest word, O prince, delivers me,
A freeman, to captivity. So be it!
Thou deem’st it right. Thy sacred word I hear
And counsel silence to mine inmost heart.
It seems so strange, so strange, — myself and thee,
This sacred spot, I scarce can recognize.
Yet him I know full well. — Oh, there is much
I might and ought to say, yet I submit.
My lips are mute. Was it indeed a crime?
At least, they treat me as a criminal.
Howe’er my heart rebel, I’m captive now.

Alphonso.
Thou tak’st it, Tasso, more to heart than I.

Tasso.
To me it still is inconceivable;
And yet not so, I am no child. Methinks
I should be able to unravel it.
A sudden light breaks in upon my soul; —
As suddenly it leaves me in the dark: —
I only hear my sentence and submit.
These are, indeed, superfluous, idle words!
Henceforth inure thy spirit to obey.
Weak mortal! To forget where thou didst stand!
Thou didst forget how high the abode of gods,
And now art stagger’d by the sudden fall.
Promptly obey, for it becomes a man
Each painful duty to perform with joy.
Take back the sword thou gavest me, what time
The cardinal I follow’d into France.
Though not with glory, not with shame I word it. —
No, not to-day. The bright auspicious gift,
With heart sore troubled, I relinquish now.

Alphonso.
Thou know’st not, Tasso. how I feel towards thee.

Tasso.
My lot is to obey, and not to think!
And destiny, alas! demands from me
Renunciation of this precious gift
Ill doth a crown become a captive’s brow.
I from my head myself remove the wreath
Which seem’d accorded for eternity.
Too early was the dearest bliss bestow’d,
And is, alas, as if I had been boastful,
Too early taken away.
Thou takest back what none beside could take,
And what no God a second time accords,
We mortals are most wonderfully tried;
We could not bear it, were we not endow’d,
By Nature, with a kindly levity,
Calmly necessity doth tutor us
With priceless treasures lavishly to sport;
Our hands we open of our own free will —
The prize escapes us, ne’er to be recall’d.
A tear doth mingle with this parting kiss,
Devoting thee to mutability!
This tender sign of weakness may be pardon’d!
Who would not weep when what was deem’d immortal
Yields to destruction’s power! Now to this sword
(Alas, it won thee not!) ally thyself,
And round it twin’d, as on a hero’s bier
Reposing, mark the grave where buried lie
My short-liv’d happiness, my wither’d hopes!
Here at thy feet, O prince, I lay them down;
For who is justly arm’d if thou art wroth?
Who justly crown’d, on whom thy brow is bent?
I go a captive, and await my doom.
[Exit .
[On a sign from the Prince,a page raises the sword and wreath and bears them away.

SCENE V.

Alphonso, Antonio.

Antonio.
Whither doth frenzied fancy lead the boy?
And in what colors doth he picture forth
His high desert and glorious destiny?
Rash, inexperienc’d, youth esteems itself
A chosen instrument, and arrogates
Unbounded license. He has been chastis’d,
And chastisement is profit to the boy.
For which the man will render cordial thanks.

Alphonso.
He is chastis’d too painfully I fear.

Antonio.
Art thou dispos’d to practise lenity,
Restore to him his liberty, O prince,
And then the sword may arbitrate our strife.

Alphonso.
So be it, if the public voice demands.
But tell me, how didst thou provoke his ire?

Antonio.
In sooth, I scarce can say how it befell.
As man, I may perchance have wounded him;
As nobleman, I gave him no offence.
And in the very tempest of his rage
No word unseemly hath escap’d this lip.

Alphonso.
Of such a sort your quarrel seem’d to me;
And your own word confirms me in my thought.
When men dispute we justly may esteem
The wiser the offender. Thou with Tasso
Should’st not contend, but rather guide his steps;
It would become thee more. ’Tis not too late
The sword’s decision is not call’d for here.
So long as I am bless’d with peace abroad,
So long would I enjoy it in my house.
Restore tranquillity, thou canst with ease.
Leonora Sanvitale may at first
Attempt to soothe him with her honey’d lip;
Then go thou to him; in my name restore
His liberty; with true and noble words
Endeavor to obtain his confidence.
Accomplish this with all the speed thou canst;
As a kind friend and father speak with him.
Peace I would know restor’d ere I depart;
All if thou wilt — is possible to thee.
We gladly will remain another hour,
Then leave it to the ladies’ gentle tact
To consummate the work commenc’d by thee.
So when we come again, the last faint trace
Of this rash quarrel will be quite effac’d.
It seems thy talents will not rust, Antonio!
Scarcely hast thou concluded one affair,
And on thy first return thou seek’st another.
In this new mission may success be thine!

Antonio.
I am asham’d; my error in thy words,
As in the clearest mirror, I discern!
How easy to obey a noble prince
Who doth convince us while he doth command!

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Princess.
(Alone.) Where tarries Leonora? Anxious fear,
Augmenting every moment, agitates
My inmost heart. Scarce know I what befell;
Which party is to blame I scarcely know.
Oh, that she would return! I would not yet
Speak with my brother, with Antonio,
Till I am more compos’d, till I have heard
How matters stand, and what may be the issue.

SCENE II.

Princess, Leonora.

Princess.
What tidings, Leonora? Tell me all:
How stands it with our friends? Say, what befell?

Leonora.
More than I knew before I have not learn’d.
Contention rose between them; Tasso drew;
Thy brother parted them: yet it would seem
That it was Tasso who began the fray.
Antonio is at large, and with his prince
Converses freely. Tasso, in his chamber,
Abides meanwhile, a captive and alone.

Princess.
Doubtless Antonio irritated him,
And met with cold disdain the high-ton’d youth.

Leonora.
I do believe it, when he join’d us first
A cloud already brooded o’er his brow.

Princess.
Alas, that we so often disregard
The pure and silent warnings of the heart!
Softly a God doth whisper in our breast,
Softly, yet audibly, doth counsel us,
Both what we ought to seek and what to shun
This morn Antonio hath appear’d to me
E’en more abrupt than ever — more reserv’d.
When at his side I saw our youthful bard,
My spirit warn’d me. Only mark of each
The outward aspect — countenance and tone,
Look, gesture, bearing! Everything oppos’d;
Affection they can never interchange.
Yet Hope persuaded me, the flatterer:
They both are sensible, she fondly urg’d,
Both noble, gently nurtur’d, and thy friends.
What bond more sure than that which links the good?
I urg’d the youth; with what devoted zeal,
How ardently he gave himself to me!
Would I had spoken to Antonio then!
But I delay’d: so recent his return,
That I felt shy, at once and urgently,
To recommend the youth to his regard;
On custom I relied and courtesy,
And on the common usage of the world,
E’en between foes which smoothly intervenes.
I dreaded not from the experienc’d man
The rash impetuosity of youth.
The ill seem’d distant; now, alas, ’tis here!
Oh, give me counsel! What is to be done?

Leonora.
Thy words, my princess, show that thou dost feel
How hard it is to counsel. ’Tis not here
Between congenial minds a misconception;
A word, if needful an appeal to arms,
Peace in such case might happily restore.
Two men they are, who therefore are oppos’d,
I’ve felt it long, because by Nature cast
In moulds so opposite that she the twain
Could never weld into a single man.
And were they to consult their common weal,
A league of closest friendship they would form,
Then as one man their path they would pursue,
With power, and joy and happiness through life.
I hop’d it once, I now perceive in vain.
To-day’s contention, whatsoe’er the cause,
Might be appeas’d, but this assures us not,
Or for the morrow, or for future time.
Methinks ‘twere best that Tasso for awhile
Should journey hence. To Rome he might repair.
To Florence also bend forthwith his course;
A few weeks later I should meet him there,
And as a friend could work upon his mind;
Thou couldest here meanwhile Antonio,
Who has become almost a stranger to us,
Once more within thy friendly circle bring;
And thus benignant time, that grants so much,
Might grant, perchance, what seems impossible.

Princess.
A happiness will thus, my friend, be thine,
Which I must needs forego. Say, is that right?

Leonora.
Thou only would’st forego what thou thyself,
As things at present stand, could’st not enjoy.

Princess.
So calmly shall I banish hence a friend?

Leonora.
Rather retain whom thou dost seem to banish.

Princess.
The duke will ne’er consent to part with him.

Leonora.
When he shall see as we do, he will yield.

Princess.
’Tis painful in one’s friend to doom oneself.

Leonora.
Yet with thy friend thou’lt also save thyself.

Princess.
I cannot give my voice that this shall be.

Leonora.
An evil still more grievous then expect.

Princess.
Thou giv’st me pain, — uncertain thy success.

Leonora.
Ere long we shall discover who doth err.

Princess.
Well, if it needs must be so, say no more.

Leonora.
He conquers grief who firmly can resolve.

Princess.
Resolv’d I am not; nathless let it be,
If he for long doth not absent himself.
And let us, Leonora, care for him,
That he may never be oppress’d by want,
But that the duke, e’en in a distant land,
May graciously assign him maintenance.
Speak with Antonio: with my brother he
Can much accomplish, and will not remember
The recent strife against our friend or us.

Leonora.
Princess, a word from thee would more avail.

Princess.
I cannot, well thou knowest, Leonora,
Solicit favors for myself and friends,
As my dear sister of Urbino can.
A calm, secluded life I’m fain to lead,
And from my brother gratefully accept
Whate’er his princely bounty freely grants.
For this reluctance once I blam’d myself;
I’ve conquer’d now, and blame myself no more.
A friend full oft would censure me, and say,
Unselfish art thou, and unselfishness
Is good, but thou dost carry it so far,
That even the requirements of a friend
Thou canst not rightly feel. I let it pass,
And even this reproach must also bear.
It doth the more rejoice me that I now
Can be in truth of service to our friend;
My mother’s heritage descends to me,
And to his need I’ll gladly minister.

Leonora.
Princess, I too can show myself his friend.
In truth he is no thrifty manager;
My skilful aid shall help him where he fails.

Princess.
Well, take him then, — if part with him I must,
To thee before all others be he given:
I now perceive, it will be better so.
This sorrow also must my spirit hail
As good and wholesome? Such my doom from youth;
I am inur’d to it. But half we feel
Renunciation of a precious joy,
When we have deem’d its tenure insecure.

Leonora.
Happy according to thy high desert
I hope to see thee.

Princess.
Leonora! Happy?
Who then is happy? — So indeed I might
Esteem my brother, for his constant mind
Still with unswerving temper meets his fate;
Yet even he ne’er reap’d as he deserv’d.
My sister of Urbino, is she happy?
With beauty gifted and a noble heart!
Childless she’s doom’d to live; her younger lord
Values her highly and upbraids her not;
But happiness is stranger to their home.
Of what avail our mother’s prudent skill,
Her varied knowledge and her ample mind?
Her could they shield from foreign heresy?
They took us from her: now she is no more,
And dying, left us not the soothing thought,
That reconcil’d with God, her spirit pass’d.

Leonora.
Oh, mark not only that which fails to each;
Consider rather what to each remains!
And, princess, what doth not remain to thee?

Princess.
What doth remain to me, Leonora? Patience!
Which I have learn’d to practise from my youth.
When friends and kindred, knit in social love,
In joyous pastime whil’d the hours away,
Sickness held me a captive in my chamber;
And in the sad companionship of pain
I early learn’d the lesson — to endure!
One pleasure cheer’d me in my solitude,
The joy of song. I commun’d with myself,
And lull’d with soothing tones the sense of pain,
The restless longing, the unquiet wish; —
Till sorrow oft would grow to ravishment,
And sadness’ self to harmony divine.
Not long, alas! this comfort was allow’d,
The leech’s stern monition silenc’d me;
I was condemn’d to live and to endure,
E’en of this sole remaining joy bereft.

Leonora.
Yet many friends attach’d themselves to thee,
And now thou art in health, art joyous too.

Princess.
I am in health; that is, I am not sick;
And many friends I have, whose constancy
Doth cheer my heart; and ah, I had a friend —

Leonora.
Thou hast him still.

Princess.
But soon must part with him.
That moment was of deep significance
When first I saw him. Scarce was I restor’d
From many sorrows; sickness and dull pain
Were scarce subdued; with shy and timid glance
I gaz’d once more on life, once more rejoic’d
In the glad sunshine, and my kindred’s love,
And hope’s delicious balm inhal’d anew;
Forwards I ventur’d into life to gaze,
And friendly forms saluted me from far:
Then was it, Leonora, that my sister
First introduc’d to me the vouthful bard,
She led him hither, and, shall I confess? —
My heart embrac’d him, and will hold for aye.

Leonora.
My princess! Let it not repent thee now!
To apprehend the noble is a gain
Of which the soul can never be bereft.

Princess.
The fair, the excellent we needs must fear;
’Tis like a flame, which nobly serveth us
So long as on our household hearth it burns.
Or sheds its lustre from the friendly torch.
How lovely then! Who can dispense with it?
But if unwatch’d it spreads destruction round.
What anguish it occasions! Leave me now;
I babble, and ‘twere better to conceal,
Even from thee, how weak I am and sick.

Leonora.
The sickness of the heart doth soonest yield
To tender plaints and soothing confidence.

Princess.
If in confiding love a cure be found,
I’m whole, so strong my confidence in thee
Alas! my friend. I am indeed resolv’d:
Let him depart! But ah! I feel already
The long protracted anguish of the day
When I must all forego that glads me now
His beauteous form, transfigur’d in my dream,
The morning sun will dissipate no more;
No more the blissful hope of seeing him,
With jovous longing, fill my waking sense;
Nor to discover him, my timid glance
Search wistfully our garden’s dewy shade.
How sweetly was the tender hope fulfill’d
To spend each eve in intercourse with him!
How, while conversing, the desire increas’d,
To know each other ever more and more;
And still our souls, in sweet communion join’d,
Were daily tun’d to purer harmonies.
What twilight-gloom now falls around my path!
The gorgeous sun, the genial light of day,
Of this fair world the splendors manifold,
Shorn of their lustre, are envelop’d all
In the dark mist, which now environs me.
In bygone times, each day compris’d a life;
Hush’d was each care, mute each foreboding voice.
And happily embark’d, we drifted on
Without a rudder o’er life’s lucid wave.
Now, in the darkness of the present hour,
Futurity’s vague terrors seize my soul.

Leonora.
The future will restore to thee thy friend,
And bring to thee new happiness, new joy.

Princess.
What I possess, that would I gladly hold;
Change may divert the mind, but profits not.
With youthful longing I have never join’d
The motley throng who strive from fortune’s urn
To snatch an object for their craving hearts.
I honor’d him, and could not choose but love him,
For that with him my life was life indeed,
Fill’d with a joy I never knew before.
At first I whisper’d to my heart, beware!
Shrinking I shunn’d, yet ever drew more near.
So gently lur’d, so cruelly chastis’d!
A pure substantial blessing glides away,
And for the joy that fill’d my yearning heart
Some demon substitutes a kindred pain.

Leonora.
If friendship’s soothing words console thee not,
This beauteous world’s calm power and healing time
Will imperceptibly restore thy heart.

Princess.
Ay, beauteous is the world, and many a joy
Floats through its wide dominion here and there.
Alas! that ever, by a single step,
As we advance, it seemeth to retreat,
Our yearning souls along the path of life
Thus step by step alluring to the grave!
To mortal man so seldom is it given
To find what seem’d his heaven-appointed bliss;
Alas, so seldom he retains the good
Which, in auspicious hour, his hand had grasp’d;
The treasure to our heart that came unsought
Doth tear itself away, and we ourselves
Yield that which once with eagerness we seiz’d.
There is a bliss, but ah! we know it not;
We know it, but we know not how to prize.

SCENE III.

Leonora.
(Alone.) The good and noble heart my pity moves;
How sad a lot attends her lofty rank!
Alas, she loses, — thinkest thou to win?
Is his departure hence so requisite?
Or dost thou urge it for thyself alone, —
To make the heart and lofty genius thine,
Which now thou sharest, — and unequally?
Is’t honest so to act? What lack’st thou yet?
Art thou not rich enough? Husband and son,
Possessions, beauty, rank — all these thou hast,
And him would’st have beside? What! Lov’st thou him?
How comes it else that thou canst not endure
To live without him? This thou dar’st confess!
How charming is it in his mind’s clear depths
One’s self to mirror. Doth not every joy
Seem doubly great and noble, when his song
Wafts us aloft as on the clouds of heaven?
Then first thy lot is worthy to be envied!
Not only hast thou what the many crave,
But each one knoweth what thou art and hast!
Thy fatherland doth proudly speak thy name;
This is the pinnacle of earthly bliss.
Is Laura’s then the only favor’d name
That aye from gentle lips shall sweetly flow?
Is it Petrarca’s privilege alone,
To deify an unknown beauty’s charms?
Who is there that with Tasso can compare?
As now the world exalts him, future time
With honor due shall magnify his name.
What rapture, in the golden prime of life,
To feel his presence, and with him to near,
With airy tread, the future’s hidden realm!
Thus should old age and time their influence lose,
And powerless be the voice of rumor bold,
Whose breath controls the billows of applause.
All that is transient in his song survives;
Still art thou young, still happy, when the round
Of changeful time shall long have borne thee on.
Him thou must have, yet takest naught from her.
For her affection to the gifted man
Doth take the hue her other passions wear;

artist: herm. schneider.
TORQUATO TASSO. ACT III, SCENE II.
leonora and the princess
Pale as the tranquil moon, whose feeble rays
Dimly illumine the night-wanderer’s path;
They gleam, but warm not, and diffuse around
No blissful rapture, no keen sense of joy.
If she but know him happy, though afar,
She will rejoice, as when she saw him daily.
And then, ’tis not my purpose from this court,
From her, to banish both myself and friend.
I will return, will bring him here again.
So let it be! — My rugged friend draws near;
We soon shall see if we have power to tame him.

SCENE IV.

Leonora, Antonio.

Leonora.
War and not peace thou bringest: it would seem
As cam’st thou from a battle, from a camp,
Where violence bears sway, and force decides,
And not from Rome, where solemn policy
Uplifts the hand to bless a prostrate world,
Which she beholds obedient at her feet.

Antonio.
I must admit the censure, my fair friend,
But my apology lies close at hand;
’Tis dangerous to be compell’d so long
To wear the show of prudence and restraint.
Still at our side an evil genius lurks,
And with stern voice demands from time to time
A sacrifice, which I, alas, to-day
Have offer’d, to the peril of my friends.

Leonora.
Thou hast so long with strangers been concern’d,
And to their humors hast conform’d thine own,
That once more with thy friends thou dost their aims
Mistake, and as with strangers dost contend.

Antonio.
Herein, beloved friend, the danger lies!
With strangers we are ever on our guard,
Still are we aiming with observance due
To win their favor, which may profit us;
But with our friends we throw off all restraint;
Reposing in their love, we give the rein
To peevish humor; passion uncontroll’d
Doth break its bounds; and those we hold most dear
Are thus amongst the first whom we offend.

Leonora.
In this calm utterance of a thoughtful mind
I gladly recognize my friend again.

Antonio.
Yes, it has much annoy’d me, I confess —
That I to-day so far forgot myself.
But yet admit, that when a valiant man
From irksome labor comes with heated brow,
Thinking to rest himself for further toil
In the cool eve beneath the long’d-for shade,
And finds it, in its length and breadth, possess’d
Already, by some idler, he may well
Feel something human stirring in his breast.

Leonora.
If he is truly human, then, methinks,
He gladly will partake the shade with one
Who lightens toil, and cheers the hour of rest,
With sweet discourse and soothing melodies.
Ample, my friend, the tree that casts the shade,
Nor either needs the other dispossess.

Antonio.
We will not bandy similes, fair friend.
Full many a treasure doth the world contain,
Which we to others yield and with them share;
But there exists one prize, which we resign
With willing hearts to high desert alone;
Another, that without a secret grudge,
We share not even with the highest worth —
And would’st thou touching these two treasures ask —
They are the laurel and fair woman’s smile.

Leonora.
How! Hath yon chaplet round our stripling’s brow
Given umbrage to the grave, experienc’d man?
Say, for his toil divine, his lofty verse,
Could’st thou thyself a juster meed select?
A ministration in itself divine,
That floateth in the air in tuneful tones,
Evoking airy forms to charm our soul —
Such ministration, in expressive form,
Or graceful symbol, finds its fit reward.
As doth the bard scarce deign to touch the earth,
So doth the laurel lightly touch his brow.
His worshippers, with barren homage, bring
As tribute meet a fruitless branch, that thus
They may with ease acquit them of their debt.
Thou dost not grudge the martyr’s effigy,
The golden radiance round the naked head;
And, certes, where it rests, the laurel crown
Is more a sign of sorrow than of joy.

Antonio.
How, Leonora! Would thy lovely lips
Teach me to scorn the world’s poor vanities?

Leonora.
There is no need, my friend, to tutor thee
To prize each good according to its worth.
Yet it would seem that, e’en like common men,
The sage philosopher, from time to time,
Needs that the treasures he is bless’d withal,
In their true light before him be display’d.
Thou, noble man, wilt not assert thy claim
To a mere empty phantom of renown.
The service that doth bind thy prince to thee,
By means of which thou dost attach thy friends,
Is true, is living service, hence the meed
Which doth reward it must be living too.
Thy laurel is thy sovereign’s confidence,
Which, like a cherish’d burden, gracefully
Reposes on thy shoulders, — thy renown,
Thy crown of glory, is the general trust.

Antonio.
Thou speakest not of woman’s smile, that, surely,
Thou wilt not tell me is superfluous.

Leonora.
As people take it. Thou dost lack it not:
And lighter far, were ye depriv’d of it,

To thee would be the loss than to our friend.
For say, a woman were in thy behalf
To task her skill, and in her fashion strive
To care for thee, dost think she would succeed?
With thee security and order dwell;
And as for others, for thyself thou carest;
Thou dost possess what friendship fain would give;
Whilst in our province he requires our aid.
A thousand things he needs, which to supply
Is to a woman no unwelcome task.
The fine-spun linen, the embroider’d vest,
He weareth gladly, and endureth not,
Upon his person, aught of texture rude,
Such as befits the menial. For with him
All must be rich and noble, fair and good;
And yet all this to win he lacks the skill;
Nor even when possess’d, can he retain;
Improvident, he’s still in want of gold;
Nor from a journey e’er returneth home,
But a third portion of his goods is lost.
His valet plunders him, and thus, Antonio,
The whole year round one has to care for him.

Antonio.
And these same cares endear him more and more.
Much-favor’d youth, to whom his very faults
As virtues count, to whom it is allow’d
As man to play the boy, and who forsooth
May proudly boast his charming weaknesses!
Thou must forgive me, my fair friend, if here
Some little touch of bitterness I feel.
Thou say’st not all, say’st not how he presumes,
And proves himself far shrewder than he seems.
He boasts two tender flames! The knots of love,
As fancy prompts him, he doth bind and loose.
And wins with such devices two such hearts!
Is’t credible?

Leonora.
Well! Well! This only proves
That ’tis but friendship that inspires our hearts.
And e’en if we return’d him love for love,
Should we not well reward his noble heart,
Who, self-oblivious, dreams his life away
In lovely visions to enchant his friends?

Antonio.
Go on! Go on! Spoil him yet more and more,
Account his selfish vanity for love;
Offend all other friends with honest zeal
Devoted to your service; to his pride
Pay voluntary tribute; quite destroy
The beauteous sphere of social confidence!

Leonora.
We are not quite so partial as thou think’st;
In many cases we exhort our friend.
We wish to mould his mind, that he may know
More happiness himself, and be a source
Of purer joy to others. What in him
Doth merit blame is not conceal’d from us.

Antonio.
Yet much that’s blamable in him ye praise.
I’ve known him long, so easy ’tis to know him,
Too proud he is to wear the least disguise.
We see him now retire into himself.
As if the world were rounded in his breast;
Lost in the working of that inner world,
The outward universe he casts aside,
And his rapt spirit, self-included, rests.
Anon, as when a spark doth fire a mine,
Upon a touch of sorrow or of joy,
Anger or whim, he breaks impetuous forth.
Now he must compass all things, all retain,
All his caprices must be realiz’d;
What should have ripen’d slowly through long years.
Must, in a moment, reach maturity;
And obstacles, which years of patient toil
Could scarce remove, be levell’d in a trice.
He from himself th’ impossible demands,
That he from others may demand it too;
Th’ extreniest limits of existing things
His soul would hold in contiguity,
This one man in a million scarce achieves,
And he is not that man; at length he falls,
No whit the better, back into himself.

Leonora.
Others he injures not, himself he injures.

Antonio.
Yet others he doth outrage grievously.
Canst thou deny that in his passion’s height.
Which o’er his spirit oft usurps control,
The prince and e’en the princess he contemns,
And dares at whom he may to hurl abuse?
True, for a moment only it endures;
But then the moment quickly comes again.
His tongue, as little as his breast, he rules.

Leonora.
To me, indeed, it seems advisable
That he should leave Ferrara for awhile; —
Himself would benefit, and others too.

Antonio.
Perchance, — perchance too not. But now, my friend,
It is not to be thought of. For myself.
I will not on my shoulders bear the blame.
It might appear as if I drove him hence.
I drive him not. As far as I’m concern’d,
He at the court may tarry undisturb’d:
And if with me he will be reconcil’d,
And to my counsel if he will give heed,
We may live peaceably enough together.

Leonora.
Now thou dost hope to work upon a mind
Which lately thou didst look upon as lost.

Antonio.
We always hope, and still in every case
’Tis better far to hope than to despair;
For who can calculate the possible?
Our prince esteems him; he must stay with us;
And if we strive to fashion him in vain,
He’s not the only one we must endure.

Leonora.
So free from passion and from prejudice
I had not thought thee; — thy conversion’s sudden.

Antonio.
Age must, my friend, this one advantage claim,
That, though from error it be not exempt,
Its balance it recovers speedily.
Thou didst at first essay to heal the breach
Between thy friend and me. I urge it now.
Do what thou canst to bring him to himself,
And to restore things to their wonted calm.
Myself will visit him, when I shall know
From thee that he is tranquil, when thou thinkest
My presence will not aggravate the evil.
But what thou dost, that do within the hour;
Alphonso will return to town ere night;
I must attend him there. Meanwhile, farewell!

SCENE V.

Leonora.
(Alone.) For once, dear friend, we are not of one mind,
Our separate interests go not hand in hand.
I’ll use the time to compass my design,
And will endeavor to win Tasso. Quick!

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

A
Chamber.

Tasso.
(Alone.) Art thou awaken’d from a dream, and is
The fair delusion suddenly dissolv’d?
Thee, in fruition of the highest joy,
Hath sleep o’ermaster’d, and now holds thy soul
Tortur’d and bound with heavy fetters? Ay,
Thou art awake, and dreamest? Where the hours
That round thy head with flowery garlands play’d?
The days, when unrestrain’d thy yearning soul
Freely explor’d the heaven’s o’erarching blue?
Thou’rt living still, art sensible to touch,
Feelest, yet know’st not if thou livest still.
Say, for mine own, or for another’s fault,
Am I, as criminal, thus captive here?
Have I been guilty that I suffer thus?
Is not my fancied crime a merit rather?
With kindly feeling I encounter’d him,
Persuaded, by the heart’s delusive hope,
He must be man who bears a mortal form:
With open arms I sped to his embrace,
And felt no human breast, but bolts and bars.
Oh, had I but with prudent forecast weigh’d.
How I most fitly could receive the man.
Who from the first inspir’d me with mistrust!
Let me, however, whatsoe’er betide,
Forever to this one assurance cling: —
’Twas she herself! She stood before my view!
She spoke to me! I hearken’d to her voice!
Her look, her tone, her words’ sweet import, these,
These are forever mine; nor time nor fate,
Nor ruthless chance can plunder me of these!
And if my spirit hath too swiftly soar’d,
If all too promptiv in my breast I gave
Vent to the flame, which now consumes my heart,
So let it be, — I never can repeat,
E’en though my fortune were forever wreck’d
To her devoted, I obey’d with joy
The hand that beckon’d me to ruin’s brink.
So let it be! Thus have I prov’d myself
Deserving of the precious confidence
That cheers my soul, — ay, cheers it in this hour,
When cruel fate unlocks the sable gates
Of long-protracted woe. — Yes, now ’tis done!
For me the sun of gracious favor sets,
Never to rise again; his glance benign
The prince withdraws, and leaves me standing here,
Abandon’d on this narrow, gloomy path.
The bateful and ill-boding feather’d throng,
Obscene attendants upon ancient night,
Swarm forth and whirl round my devoted head.
Whither, oh, whither, shall I bend my steps,
To shun the loathsome brood that round me flit,
And ‘scape the dread abyss that yawns before?

SCENE II.

Leonora, Tasso.

Leonora.
Dear Tasso, what hath chanc’d? Hath passion’s glow,
Hath thy suspicious temper urg’d thee thus?
How hath it happen’d? We are all amaz’d.
Where now thy gentleness, thy suavity,
Thy rapid insight, thy discernment just,
Which doth award to every man his due;
Thine even mind, which beareth, what to bear
The wise are prompt, the vain are slow, to learn;
The prudent mastery over lip and tongue?
I scarcely recognize thee now, dear friend.

Tasso.
And what if all were gone, forever gone!
If as a beggar thou should’st meet the friend
Whom just before thou hadst deem’d opulent!
Thou speakest truth, I am no more myself.
Yet am I now as much so as I was.
It seems a riddle, yet it is not one.
The tranquil moon, that cheers thee through the night,
Whose gentle radiance, with resistless power,
Allures thine eye, thy soul, doth float by day
An insignificant and pallid cloud.
In the bright glare of daylight I am lost,
Ye know me not, I scarcely know myself.

Leonora.
Such words, dear friend, as thou hast utter’d them,
I cannot comprehend. Explain thyself.
Say, hath that rugged man’s offensive speech
So deeply wounded thee, that now thou dost
Misjudge thyself and us? Confide in me.

Tasso.
I’m not the one offended. Me thou seest
Thus punish’d here because I gave offence.
The knot of many words the sword would loose
With promptitude and ease, but I’m not free.
Thou’rt scarce aware, — nay, start not, gentle friend, —
’Tis in a prison thou dost meet me here.
Me, as a schoolboy, doth the prince chastise. —
His right I neither can, nor will dispute.

Leonora.
Thou seemest mov’d beyond what reason warrants.

Tasso.
Dost deem me then so weak, so much a child,
That this occurrence could o’erwhelm me thus?
Not what has happen’d wounds me to the quick,
’Tis what it doth portend that troubles me.
Now let my foes conspire! The field is clear.

Leonora.
Many thou holdest falsely in suspect;
Of this, dear friend, I have convinc’d myself.
Even Antonio bears thee no ill-will,
As thou presum’st. The quarrel of to-day —

Tasso.
Let that be set aside: I only view
Antonio as he was and yet remains.
Still hath his formal prudence fretted me,
His proud assumption of the master’s tone.
Careless to learn whether the listener’s mind
Doth not itself the better track pursue,
He tutors thee in much which thou thyself
More truly, deeply feelest; gives no heed
To what thou sayest, and perverts thy words.
Misconstru’d thus, by a proud man, forsooth,
Who smiles superior from his fancied height!
I am not yet or old or wise enough
To answer meekly with a patient smile.
It could not hold, we must at last have broken;
The evil greater had it been postpon’d.
One lord I recognize, who fosters me,
Him I obey, but own no master else.
In poesy and thought I will be free,
In act the world doth limit us enough.

Leonora.
Yet often with respect he speaks of thee.

Tasso.
Thou meanest with forbearance, prudent, subtle.
’Tis that annoys me; for he knows to use
Language so smooth and so conditional,
That seeming praise from him is actual blame,
And there is nothing so offends my soul,
As words of commendation from his lip.

Leonora.
Thou should’st have heard but lately how he spoke
Of thee and of the gift which bounteous nature
So largely hath conferr’d on thee. He feels
Thy genius, Tasso, and esteems thy worth.

Tasso.
Trust me, no selfish spirit can escape
The torment of base envy. Such a man
Pardons in others honor, rank and wealth;
For thus he argues, these thou hast thyself,
Or thou canst have them, if thou persevere,
Or if propitious fortune smile on thee.
But that which Nature can alone bestow,
Which aye remaineth inaccessible
To toil and patient effort, which nor gold,
Nor yet the sword, nor stern persistency
Hath power to wrest, — that he will ne’er forgive.
Not envy me? The pedant who aspires
To seize by force the favor of the muse?
Who, when he strings the thoughts of other bards,
Fondly presumes he is a bard himself?
The prince’s favor he would rather yield,
Though that he fain would limit to himself,
Than the rare gift which the celestial powers
Have granted to the poor, the orphan’d youth.

Leonora.
Oh, that thy vision were as clear as mine!
Thou read’st him wrongly, thou’rt deceiv’d in him.

Tasso.
And if I err, I err with right good will!
I count him for my most inveterate foe,
And should be inconsolable, were I
Compell’d to think of him more leniently.
’Tis foolish in all cases to be just;
It is to wrong one’s self. Are other men
Towards us so equitable? No, ah, no!
Man’s nature, in its narrow scope, demands
The twofold sentiment of love and hate.
Requires he not the grateful interchange
Of day and night, of wakefulness and sleep?
No, from henceforward I do hold this man
The object of my direst enmity;
And naught can snatch from me the cherish’d joy
Of thinking of him ever worse and worse.

Leonora.
Dear friend, I see not if this feeling last,
How thou canst longer tarry at the court.
Thou know’st the just esteem in which he’s held.

Tasso.
I’m fully sensible, fair friend, how long
I have already been superfluous here.

Leonora.
That thou art not, that thou canst never be!
Thou rather knowest how both prince and princess
Rejoice to have thee in their company.
The sister of Urbino, comes she not,
As much for thine as for her kindred’s sake?
They all esteem thee, recognize thy worth.
And each confides in thee without reserve.

Tasso.
O Leonora! Call that confidence!
Of state affairs has he one single word.
One earnest word, vouchsaf’d to speak with me?
In special cases, when he has advis’d
Both with the princess, and with others too,
To me, though present, no appeal was made.
The cry was ever then. Antonio comes!
Consult Antonio! To Antonio write!

Leonora.
Thanks here, methinks, were juster than complaint.
Thus in unchalleng’d freedom leaving thee,
He to thy genius fitting homage pays.

Tasso.
He lets me rest, because he deems me useless.

Leonora.
Thou art not useless, e’en because thou restest.
Care and vexation, like a child belov’d.
Thou still dost cherish, Tasso, in thy breast.
It oft has struck me, and the more I think,
The more convinc’d I feel: on this fair soil,
Where fate auspicious seem’d to plant thy lot,
Thou dost not flourish. — May I speak, my friend?
May I advise thee? — Thou should’st hence depart.

Tasso.
Spare not thy patient, gentle leech! Extend
The draught medicinal, nor think thereon
If it is bitier. — This consider well,
Kind, prudent friend, if he can yet be cur’d!
I see it all myself, ’tis over now!
Him I indeed could pardon, he not me;
He’s needful to them, I, alas! am not.
And he has prudence, I, alas! have none.
He worketh to my injury, and I
Cannot and will not counterwork. My friends
Leave things to chance, they see things otherwise,
They scarcely struggle, who should stoutly fight.
Thou think’st I should depart, I think so too: —
Then farewell, friends! — This, too, I must endure.
You’re parted from me. — Oh, to me be given
The courage and the strength to part from you!

Leonora.
Seen from a distance things show less confus’d,
That in the present serve but to perplex.
Perchance, when absent, thou wilt recognize
The love which here environs thee, wilt learn
The worth of friends, and feel how the wide world
Cannot replace those dearest to the heart.

Tasso.
I shall experience this! Alas! I’ve known,
The world from early youth, how, pressing on,
She lightly leaves us, helpless and forlorn,
Like sun and moon and other deities.

Leonora.
Dear friend, if thou wilt lend an ear to me,
This sad experience thou wilt not repeat.
If I may counsel thee, thou wilt at first
Repair to Florence, — there thou’lt find a friend
Will cherish thee most kindly — ’tis myself!
Thither I travel soon to meet my lord,
And there is nothing would afford us, Tasso,
A richer pleasure than thy company.
I need not tell thee, for thyself dost know,
How noble is the prince who ruleth there;
What men, what women, too, our favor’d town
Doth cherish in her bosom. Thou art silent!
Consider well my counsel, and resolve!

Tasso.
Full of sweet promise are thy words, dear friend,
And in accordance with my secret wish.
But ’tis too sudden; let me pause awhile, —
Let me consider! I will soon resolve!

Leonora.
I leave thee now, and with the fairest hope
For thee, for us, and also for this house.
Only reflect, and weigh the matter well;
Thou scarcely wilt devise a better plan.

Tasso.
Yet one thing more, tell me, beloved friend,
How is the princess minded towards me? Speak!
Was she displeas’d with me? Give me her words. —
Hath she severely blam’d me? Tell me all!

Leonora.
She knows thee well, and therefore has excus’d thee.

Tasso.
Say, have I lost her friendship? Flatter not.

Leonora.
A woman’s friendship is not lightly lost.

Tasso.
Without reluctance will she let me go?

Leonora.
If ‘twill promote thy welfare, certainly.

Tasso.
Shall I not lose the favor of the prince?

Leonora.
His nature’s noble, thou may’st trust in him.

Tasso.
And shall we leave the princess all alone?
Thou leavest her; and though perhaps not much,
I know full well that I was something to her.

Leonora.
An absent friend is sweet society,
When of his welfare we are well assur’d.
My plan succeeds, I see thee happy now;
Thou wilt not hence depart unsatisfied.
The prince commands; Antonio seeks thee, Tasso.
He censures in himself the bitterness
With which he wounded thee. I do entreat.
Receive him with forbearance, when he comes.

Tasso.
I have no cause to shun the interview.

Leonora.
And oh! dear friend, that Heaven would grant me this:
To make it clear to thee ere thou departest.
That in thy fatherland there is not one
Pursues thee, hates, or covertly molests.
Thou art deceiv’d, and as for others’ pleasure
Wont art thou still to poetize, alas!
Thou in this case dost weave a cunning web
To blind thyself, the which to rend asunder,
I’ll do mine utmost, that with vision clear
Thou may’st pursue life’s glad career untrammel’d.
Farewell! I hope for happy words ere long.

SCENE III.

Tasso.
(Alone.) I must believe, forsooth, that no one hates me, —
That no one persecutes, that all the guile,
The subtle malice that environs me,
Is but the coinage of my own sick brain!
I must acknowledge that myself am wrong!
And am unjust to many, who in sooth
Deserve it not! What! This confess e’en now,
When clearly in the open face of day
Appear their malice and my rectitude!
I ought to feel most deeply, how the prince
To me with generous breast his grace imparts.
And in rich measure loads me with his gifts,
E’en at the time when he is weak enough
To let his eyes be blinded by my foes,
Yea, doubtless, and his hand be fetter’d too!
His own delusion he cannot perceive,
That they deluders are, I may not prove;
And that uncheck’d he may delude himself.
And they delude him whensoe’er they please,
I still must hold my peace, — must yield forsooth!
And who thus counsels me? With prudent zeal.
And thoughtful kindness, who doth urge me thus?
Leonora’s self, Leonora Santivale.
Considerate friend! Ha, ha, I know thee now!
Oh, wherefore did I ever trust her words?
She was not honest, when she utter’d forth
To me her favor and her tenderness,
With honey’d words! No, hers hath ever been
And still remains a crafty heart, she turns
With cautious, prudent step where fortune smiles.
How often have I willingly deceiv’d
Myself, in her! And yet it was in truth
But mine own vanity deluded me!
I knew her, but self-flatter’d, argu’d thus: —
True, she is so towards others, but towards thee
Her heart is honest, her intention pure.
Mine eyes are open now, — alas, too late!
I was in favor — on the favorite
How tenderly she fawn’d! I’m fallen now,
And she, like fortune, turns her back on me.
Yes, now she comes, the agent of my foe,
She glides along, the little artful snake,
Hissing, with slipp’ry tongue, her magic tones.
How gracious seem’d she! More than ever gracious!
How soothingly her honey’d accents flow’d!
Yet could the flattery not long conceal
The false intention; on her brow appear’d
Too legibly inscrib’d the opposite
Of all she utter’d. Quick I am to feel
Whene’er the entrance to my heart is sought
With a dishonest purpose. I should hence!
Should hie to Florence, with convenient speed.
And why to Florence? Ah, I see it all,
There reigns the rising house of Medici;
True, with Ferrara not in open feud,
But secret rivalry, with chilling hand,
Doth hold asunder e’en the noblest hearts.
If from those noble princes I should reap
Distinguish’d marks of favor, as indeed
I may anticipate, the courtier here
Would soon impugn my gratitude and truth;
And would, with easy wile, achieve his purpose.
Yes, I will go, but not as ye desire;
I will away, and farther than ye think.
Why should I linger? Who detains me here?
Too well I understood each several word
That I drew forth from Leonora’s lips!
With anxious heed each syllable I caught;
And now I fully know the princess’ mind —
That too is certain; let me not despair!
“Without reluctance she will let me go,
If it promote my welfare.” Would her heart
Were master’d by a passion that would whelm
Me and my welfare! Oh, more welcome far
The grasp of death than of the frigid hand
That passively resigns me! — Yes, I go! —
Now be upon thy guard, and let no show
Of love or friendship bind thee! None hath power
Now to deceive thee, if not self-deceiv’d.

SCENE IV.

Antonio, Tasso.

Antonio.
Tasso, I come to say a word to thee,
If thou’rt dispos’d to hear me tranquilly.

Tasso.
I am denied, thou know’st, the power to act;
It well becomes me to attend and listen.

Antonio.
Tranquil I find thee, as I hop’d to find,
And speak to thee in all sincerity.
But in the prince’s name I first dissolve
The slender band, that seem’d to fetter thee.

Tasso.
Caprice dissolves it, as caprice impos’d;
I yield, and no judicial sentence claim.

Antonio.
Next, Tasso, on my own behalf I speak.
I have, it seems, more deeply wounded thee,
Than I, — myself by divers passions mov’d, —
Was conscious of. But no insulting word
Hath from my lip incautiously escap’d.
Naught hast thou, as a noble, to avenge,
And, as a man, wilt not refuse thy pardon.

Tasso.
Whether contempt or insult galls the most,
I will not now determine; that doth pierce
The inmost marrow, this but frets the skin.
The shaft of insult back returns to him
Who wing’d the missile, and the practis’d sword
Soon reconciles the opinion of the world —
A wounded heart is difficult to cure.

Antonio.
’Tis now my turn to press thee urgently;
Oh, step not back, yield to mine earnest wish,
The prince’s wish, who sends me unto thee.

Tasso.
I know the claims of duty, and submit.
Be it, as far as possible, forgiven!
The poets tell us of a magic spear,
Which could a wound, inflicted by itself
Through friendly contact, once again restore,
The human tongue hath also such a power;
I will not peevishly resist it now.

Antonio.
I thank thee, and desire that thou at once
Would’st put my wish to serve thee to the proof.
Then say if I in aught can pleasure thee; —
Most gladly will I do so; therefore speak.

Tasso.
Thine offer tallies with my secret wish.
But now thou hast restor’d my liberty,
Procure for me, I pray, the use of it.

Antonio.
What meanest thou? More plainly state thy wish.

Tasso.
My poem, as thou knowest, I have ended;
Yet much it wants to render it complete.
To-day I gave it to the prince, and hop’d
At the same time to proffer my request.
Full many of my friends I now should find
In Rome assembled; they have writ to me
Their judgments touching divers passages;
By many I could profit; others still
Require consideration; and some lines
I should be loath to alter, till at least
My judgment has been better satisfied.
All this by letter cannot be arrang’d,
While intercourse would soon untie the knots.
I thought myself to ask the prince to-day:
Th’ occasion fail’d; I dare not venture now,
And must for this permission trust to thee.

Antonio.
It seems imprudent to absent thyself
Just at the moment when thy finish’d work
Commends thee to the princess and the prince.
A day of favor is a day of harvest:
We should be busy when the corn is ripe.
Naught wilt thou win if thou departest hence,
Perchance thou’lt lose what thou hast won already.
Presence is still a powerful deity, —
Learn to respect her influence, — tarry here!

Tasso.
I nothing have to fear; Alphons is noble,
Such hath he always prov’d himself tow’rds me; —
To his heart only will I owe the boon
Which now I crave. By no mean, servile arts
Will I obtain his favor. Naught will I receive
Which it can e’er repent him to have given.

Antonio.
Then do not now solicit leave to go;
He will not willingly accord thy suit,
And much I fear he will reject it, Tasso.

Tasso.
Duly entreated, he will grant my prayer;
Thou hast the power to move him, if thou wilt.

Antonio.
But what sufficient reason shall I urge?

Tasso.
Let every stanza of my poem speak!
The scope was lofty that I aim’d to reach,
Though to my genius inaccessible.
Labor and strenuous effort have not fail’d;
The cheerful stroll of many a lovely day,
The silent watch of many a solemn night,
Have to this pious lay been consecrate.
With modest daring I aspir’d to near
The mighty masters of the olden time;
With lofty courage plann’d to rouse our age
From lengthen’d sleep to deeds of high emprise;
Then with a Christian host I hop’d to share
The toil and glory of a holy war,
And that my song may rouse the noblest men
It must be worthy of its lofty aim.
What worth it hath is to Alphonso due;
For its completion I would owe him thanks.

Antonio.
The prince himself is here, with other men,
Able as those of Rome to be thy guides.
Here is thy station, here complete thy work;
Then haste to Rome to carry out thy plan.

Tasso.
Alphonso first inspir’d my muse, and he
Will be the list to counsel me. Thy judgment,
The judgment also of the learned men
Assembled at our court, I highly value;
Ye shall determine when my friends at Rome
Fail to produce conviction in my mind.
But them I must consult. Gonzaga there
Hath summon’d a tribunal before which
I must present myself. I scarce can wait.
Flaminio de’ Nobili, Angelio
Da Barga, Antoniano, and Speron Speroni!
To thee they must be known. — What names they are!
They in my soul, to worth which gladly yields,
Inspire at once both confidence and fear.

Antonio.
Self-occupied, thou think’st not of the prince.
I tell thee that he will not let thee go;
And if he does, ‘twill be against his wish.
Thou wilt not surely urge what he to thee
Unwillingly would grant. And shall I here
Still mediate what I cannot approve?

Tasso.
Dost thou refuse me then my first request
When I would put thy friendship to the proof?

Antonio.
Timely denial is the surest test
Of genuine friendship; love doth oft confer
A baneful good when it consults the wish,
And not the happiness of him who sues.
Thou in this moment dost appear to me
To overprize the object of thy wish,
Which, on the instant, thou would’st have fulfill’d.
The erring man would oft by vehemence
Compensate what he lacks in truth and power.
Duty enjoins me now, with all my might,
To check the rashness that would lead thee wrong.

Tasso.
I long have known this tyranny of friendship,
Which of all tyrannies appears to me
The least endurable. Because forsooth
Our judgments differ, thine must needs be right.
I gladly own that thou dost wish my welfare;
Require me not to seek it in thy way.

Antonio.
And would’st thou have me, Tasso, in cold blood,
With full and clear conviction, injure thee?

Tasso.
I will at once absolve thee from this care!
Thou hast no power to hold me with thy words.
Thou hast declar’d me free; these doors, which lead
Straight to the prince, stand open to me now.
The choice I leave to thee. Or thou or I!
The prince goes forth, no time is to be lost;
Determine promptly! Dost thou still refuse,
I go myself, let come of it what will.

Antonio.
A little respite grant me; not to-day;
Wait, I beseech thee, till the prince returns!

Tasso.
If it were possible, this very hour!
My soles are scorch’d upon this marble floor,
Nor can my spirit rest until the dust
Of the free highway shrouds the fugitive.
I do not entreat thee! How unfit I am
Now to appear before the prince, thou seest,
And thou must see, how can I hide from thee,
That I’m no longer master of myself;
No power on earth can sway my energies;
Fetters alone can hold me in control!
No tyrant is the prince; he spake me free.
Once to his words how gladly I gave ear!
To-day to hearken is impossible.
Oh, let me have my freedom but to-day,
That my vex’d spirit may regain its peace!
Back to my duty I will soon return.

Antonio.
Thou mak’st me dubious. How shall I resolve?
That error is contagious, I perceive.

Tasso.
If thy professions I’m to count sincere,
Perform what I desire, as well as thou canst.
Then will the prince release me; and I lose
Neither his favor nor his gracious aid.
For that I’ll thank thee, ay, with cordial thanks.
But if thy bosom bear an ancient grudge,
Would’st thou forever banish me this court,
Forever would’st thou mar my destiny,
And drive me friendless forth into the world,
Then hold thy purpose and resist my prayer!

Antonio.
O Tasso! — for I’m doom’d to injure thee —
I choose the way which thou thyself dost choose;
The issue will determine who doth err!
Thou wilt away! I warn thee ere thou goest:
Scarce shalt thou turn thy back upon this house,
Ere thou shalt yearn in spirit to return,
While wilful humor still shall urge thee on.
Sorrow, distraction and desponding gloom
In Rome await thee. There as well as here
Thou’lt miss thine aim. But this I do not say
To counsel thee. Alas! I but predict
What soon will happen, and invite thee, Tasso,
In the worst exigence to trust to me.
I now, at thy desire, will seek the prince.

SCENE V.

Tasso.
(Alone.) Ay, go, and in the fond assurance go,
That thou hast power to bend me to thy will.
I learn dissimulation, for thou art
An able master, and I prompt to learn.
Thus life full oft compels us to appear,
Yea, e’en to be like those, whom in our hearts
We haughtily despise. How clearly now
I see the subtle web of court intrigue!
Antonio desires to drive me hence,
Yet would not seem to drive me. He doth play
The kind, considerate friend, that I may seem
Incapable and weak; installs himself
My guardian too, degrading to a child,
Him whom he could not bend to be a slave.
With clouds of error thus he darkens truth,
And blinds alike the princess and the prince.
They should indeed retain me, so he counsels,
For with fair talents Nature has endow’d me;
Although, alas, she has accompanied
Her lofty gifts with many weaknesses,
With a foreboding spirit, boundless pride,
And sensibility too exquisite.
It cannot now be otherwise, since Fate,
In her caprice, has fashion’d such a man;
We must consent to take him as he is,
Be patient, bear with him, and then, perchance,
On days auspicious, as an unsought good,
Find pleasure in his joy-diffusing gift;
While for the rest, why e’en as he was born,
He must have license both to live and die.

artist: herm. schneider.
TORQUATO TASSO. ACT IV. SCENE IV.
[Editor: illegible text]
Where now Alphonso’s firm and constant mind?
The man who braves his foe, who shields his friend,
In him who treats me thus can I discover?
Now I discern the measure of my woe!
This is my destiny, — towards me alone
All change their nature, — ay, the very men,
Who are with others steadfast, firm and true,
In one brief moment, for an idle breath,
Swerve lightly from their constant quality.
Has not this man’s arrival here, alone,
And in a single hour, my fortune marr’d?
Has he not, even to its very base,
Laid low the structure of my happiness?
This, too, must I endure, — even to-day!
Yea, as before all press’d around me, now
I am by all abandon’d; as before
Each strove to seize, to win me for himself,
All thrust me from them, and avoid me now.
And wherefore? My desert and all the love,
Wherewith I was so bounteously endow’d,
Does he alone in equal balance weigh?
Yes! all forsake me now. Thou too! Thou too!
Beloved princess, thou too leavest me!
Hath she, to cheer me in this dismal hour,
A single token of her favor sent?
Have I deserv’d this from her? — Thou, poor heart,
Whose very nature was to honor her! —
How, when her gentle accents touch’d mine ear,
Feelings unutterable thrill’d my breast!
When she appear’d, a more ethereal light
Outshone the light of day. Her eyes, her lips
Drew me resistlessly, my very knees
Trembled beneath me, and my spirit’s strength
Was all requir’d to hold myself erect
And curb the strong desire to throw myself
Prostrate before her. Scarcely could I quell
The giddy rapture. Be thou firm, my heart
No cloud obscure thee, thou clear mind! She, too,
Dare I pronounce what yet I scarce believe?
I must believe, yet dread to utter it.
She too! She too! Think not the slightest blame,
Only conceal it not. She too! She too!
Alas! This word, whose truth I ought to doubt
Long as a breath of faith sarviv’d in me;
This word, like fate’s decree, doth now at last.
Engrave itself upon the brazen rim
That rounds the full-scroll’d tablet of my woe
Now first, mine enemies are strong indeed;
Forever now I am of strength bereft.
How shall I combat when she stands oppos’d
Amidst the hostile army? How endure
If she no more reach forth her hand to me?
If her kind glance the suppliant meet no more?
Ay, thou hast dar’d to think, to utter it,
And ere thou could’st have fear’d, — behold ’tis true!
And now, ere yet despair, with brazen talons,
Doth rend asunder thy bewilder’d brain,
Lament thy bitter doom, and utter torth
The unavailing cry — She too! She too!

ACT V.

SCENE I.

A
Garden.
Alphonso, Antonio.

Antonio.
Obedient to thy wish, I went to Tasso
A second time: I come from him but now.
I sought to move him, yea, I strongly urg’d;
But from his fix’d resolve he swerveth not;
He earnestly entreats that for a time
Thou would’st permit him to repair to Rome.

Alphonso.
His purpose much annoys me, I confess; —
I rather tell thee my vexation now,
Than let it strengthen, smother’d in my breast.
He fain would travel, good! I hold him not.
He will depart, he will to Rome; so be it!
Let not the crafty Medici, nor yet
Scipio Gonzaga wrest him from me though!
’Tis this hath made our Italy so great,
That rival neighbors zealously contend
To foster and employ the ablest men.
Like chief without an army, shows a prince
Who round him gathers not superior minds;
And who the voice of Poesy disdains
Is a barbarian, be he who he may.
Tasso I found, I chose him for myself,
I number him with pride among my train;
And having done so much for him already,
I should be loath to lose him without cause.

Antonio.
I feel embarrass’d, prince, for in thy sight
I bear the blame of what to-day befell;
That I was in the wrong. I frankly own,
And look for pardon to thy clemency:
But I were inconsolable could’st thou,
E’en for a moment, doubt my honest zeal
In seeking to appease him. Speak to me
With gracious look, that so I may regain
My self-reliance and my wonted calm.

Alphonso.
Feel no disquietude, Antonio; —
In no wise do I count the blame as thine;
Too well I know the temper of the man,
Know all too well what I have done for him,
How often I have spar’d him, and how oft
Towards him I have o’erlook’d my rightful claims.
O’er many things we gain the mastery,
But stern necessity and lengthen’d time
Scarce give a man dominion o’er himself.

Antonio.
When other men toil in behalf of one,
’Tis fit this one with diligence inquire
How he may profit others in return.
He who hath fashion’d his own mind so well,
Who hath aspir’d to make each several science
And the whole range of human lore, his own,
Is he not doubly bound to rule himself?
Yet doth he ever give it e’en a thought?

Alphonso.
Continu’d rest is not ordain’d for man!
Still, when we purpose to enjoy ourselves,
To try our valor, fortune sends a foe,
To try our equanimity, a friend.

Antonio.
Does Tasso e’en fulfil man’s primal duty,
To regulate his appetite, in which
He is not, like the brute, restrain’d by nature?
Does he not rather, like a child, indulge
In all that charms and gratifies his taste?
When has he mingled water with his wine?
Comfits and condiments, and potent drinks,
One with another still he swallows down,
And then complains of his bewilder’d brain,
His hasty temper, and his fever’d blood,
Railing at nature and at destiny.
How oft I’ve heard him in a bitter style
With childish folly argue with his leech!
’Twould raise a laugh, if aught were laughable
Which teases others and torments one’s self.
“Oh, this is torture!” anxiously he cries,
Then in splenetic mood, “Why boast your art?
Prescribe a cure!” “Good!” then exclaims the leech.
“Abstain from this or that.” “That can I not.”
“Then take this potion.” “No, it nauseates me;
The taste is horrid, nature doth rebel.” —
“Well then, drink water.” “Water! never more!
Like hydrophobia is my dread of it.”
“Then your disease is hopeless.” “Why, I pray?”
“One evil symptom will succeed another,
And though your ailment should not fatal prove,
‘Twill daily more torment you.” “Fine, indeed;
Then wherefore play the leech? You know my case,
You should devise a remedy, and one
That’s palatable too, that I may not
First suffer pain before reliev’d from it.”
I see thee smile, my prince, ’tis but the truth;
Doubtless thyself hast heard it from his lips.

Alphonso.
Oft I have heard, and have as oft excus’d.

Antonio.
It is most certain, an intemperate life.
As it engenders wild, distemper’d dreams,
At length doth make us dream in open day.
What’s his suspicion but a troubled dream?
He thinks himself environ’d still by foes.
None can discern his gift who envy not,
And all who envy, hate and persecute.
Oft with complaints he has molested thee:
Notes intercepted, violated locks,
Poison, the dagger! All before him float!
Thou dost investigate his grievance, — well,
Doth aught appear? Why, scarcely a pretext.
No sovereign’s shelter gives him confidence.
The bosom of no friend can comfort him.
Would’st promise happiness to such a man,
Or look to him for joy unto thyself?

Alphonso.
Thou would’st be right, Antonio, if from him
I sought my own immediate benefit.
But I have learn’d no longer to expect
Service direct and unconditional.
All do not serve us in the selfsame way;
Who needeth much, according to his gifts
Must each employ, so is he ably serv’d.
This lesson from the Medici we learn’d;
’Tis practis’d even by the popes themselves.
With what forbearance, magnanimity
And princely patience, have they not endur’d
Full many a genius, who seem’d not to need
Their ample favor, yet who needed it!

Antonio.
Who knows not this, my prince? The toil of life
Alone can tutor us life’s gifts to prize.
In youth he hath already won so much;
He cannot relish aught in quietness.
Oh, that he were compell’d to earn the blessings
Which now with liberal hand are thrust upon him!
With manly courage he would brace his strength,
And at each onward step feel new content.
The needy noble has attain’d the height
Of his ambition, it his gracious prince
Raise him, with hand benign, from poverty,
And choose him as an inmate of the court.
Should he then honor him with confidence,
And before others raise him to his side,
Consulting him in war, or state affairs,
Why then methinks, with silent gratitude,
The modest man may bless his lucky fate.
And with all this, Tasso enjoys besides
Youth’s purest happiness: — his fatherland
Esteems him highly, looks to him with hope.
Trust me for this, — his peevish discontent
On the broad pillow of his fortune rests.
He comes, dismiss him kindly, give him time
In Rome, in Naples, wheresoe’er he will,
To search in vain for what he misses here,
Yet here alone can ever hope to find.

Alphonso.
Back to Ferrara will he first return?

Antonio.
He rather would remain in Belriguardo.
And, for his journey, what he may require,
He will request a friend to forward to him.

Alphonso.
I am content. My sister, with her friend,
Return immediately to town, and I,
Riding with speed, hope to reach home before them.
Thou’lt follow straight when thou for him hast car’d;
Give needful orders to the castellan,
That in the castle he may here abide
So long as he desires, until his friend
Forward his equipage, and till the letters,
Which we shall give him to our friends at Rome,
Have been transmitted. Here he comes. Farewell!

SCENE II.

Alphonso, Tasso.

Tasso.
(With embarrassment.) The favor thou so oft has shown me, prince,
Is manifest, in clearest light, to-day.
The deed which, in the precincts of thy palace,
I lawlessly committed, thou hast pardon’d;
Thou hast appeas’d and reconcil’d my foe;
Thou dost permit me for a time to leave
The shelter of thy side, and rich in bounty.
Wilt not withdraw from me thy generous aid.
Inspir’d with confidence, I now depart,
And trust that this brief absence will dispel
The heavy gloom that now oppresses me.
My renovated soul shall plume her wing.
And pressing forward on the bright career,
Which, glad and bold, encourag’d by thy glance,
I enter’d first, deserve thy grace anew.

Alphonso.
Prosperity attend thee on thy way!
With joyous spirit, and to health restor’d,
Return again amongst us. Thus thou shalt
To us, in double measure, for each hour
Thou now depriv’st us of, requital bring.
Letters I give thee to my friends at Rome,
And also to my kinsmen, and desire
That to my people everywhere thou should’st
Confidingly attach thyself; — though absent,
Thee I shall certainly regard as mine.

Tasso.
Thou dost, O prince, o’erwhelm with favors one
Who feels himself unworthy, who e’en wants
Ability to render fitting thanks.
Instead of thanks I proffer a request!
My poem now lies nearest to my heart.
My labors have been strenuous, yet I feel
That I am far from having reach’d my aim.
Fain would I there resort, where hovers yet
The inspiring genius of the mighty dead,
Still raining influence; there would I become
Once more a learner, then more worthily
My poem might rejoice in thine applause.
Oh, give me back the manuscript, which now
I feel asham’d to know within thy hand.

Alphonso.
Thou wilt not surely take from me to-day
What but to-day to me thou hast consign’d.
Between thy poem, Tasso, and thyself
Let me now stand as arbiter. Beware —
Nor, through assiduous diligence, impair
The genial nature that pervades thy rhymes:
And give not ear to every critic’s word!
With nicest tact the poet reconciles
The judgments thousandfold of different men,
In thoughts and life at variance with each other;
And fears not numbers to displease, that he
Still greater numbers may enchant the more.
And yet I say not but that here and there
Thou may’st, with modest care, employ the file.
I promise thee at once, that in brief space,
Thou shalt receive a copy of thy poem.
Meanwhile I will retain it in my hands,
That I may first enjoy it with my sisters.
Then, if thou bring’st it back more perfect still,
Our joy will be enhanc’d, and here and there,
We’ll hint corrections, only as thy friends.

Tasso.
I can but modestly repeat my prayer;
Let me receive the copy with all speed.
My spirit resteth solely on this work,
Its full completion it must now attain.

Alphonso.
I praise the ardor that inspires thee, Tasso!
Yet, were it possible, thou for awhile
Should’st rest thy mind, seek pleasure in the world,
And find some means to cool thy heated blood.
Then would thy mental powers restor’d to health,

Through their sweet harmony, spontaneous yield,
What now, with anxious toil, in vain thou seekest.

Tasso.
My prince, it seems so, but I am in health
When I can yield myself to strenuous toil,
And this my toil again restores my health.
Long hast thou known me, thou must long have seen
I thrive not in luxurious indolence.
Rest brings no rest to me. Alas, I feel it;
My mind, by nature, never was ordain’d,
Borne on the yielding billows of the hour,
To float in pleasure o’er time’s ample sea.

Alphonso.
Thine aims, thy dreams, all whelm thee in thyself.
Around us there doth yawn full many a gulf,
Scoop’d by the hand of destiny; but here,
In our own bosoms, lies the deepest; — ay!
And tempting ’tis to hurl one’s self therein!
I charge thee, Tasso, snatch thee from thyself!
The man will profit, though the bard may lose.

Tasso.
To quell the impulse I should vainly strive,
Which ceaseless in my bosom, day and night
Alternates ever. Life were life no more
Were I to cease to poetize, to dream.
Would’st thou forbid the cunning worm to spin,
For that to nearer death he spins himself?
From his own being he unfoldeth still
The costly texture, nor suspends his toil,
Till in his shroud he hath immur’d himself.
Oh, to us mortals may some gracious power
Accord the insect’s enviable doom,
In some new sunny vale, with sudden joy,
To spread our eager pinions!

Alphonso.
List to me!
Thou givest still to others to enjoy
Life with a twofold relish. Learn thyself
To know the worth of life, whose richest boon
In tenfold measure is bestow’d on thee.
Now fare thee well! The sooner thou returnest
All the more cordial will thy welcome be.

SCENE III.

Tasso.
(Alone.) Hold fast, my heart, thy work has been well done!
The task was arduous, for ne’er before
Didst thou or wish or venture to dissemble.
Ay, thou didst hear it, that was not his mind,
Nor his the words; to me it still appear’d,
As if I heard again Antonio’s voice.
Only give heed! Henceforth on every side
Thou’lt hear that voice. Be firm, my heart, be firm!
’Tis only for a moment. He who learns
The trick of simulation late in life,
Doth outwardly the natural semblance wear
Of honest faith; practise, and thou’lt succeed.
(After a pause.)
Too soon thou triumphest, for lo! she comes!
The gentle princess comes! Oh, what a feeling!
She enters now, suspicion in my breast
And angry sullenness dissolve in grief.

SCENE IV.

Princess, Tasso.
(Towards the end of the Scene the others.)

Princess.
Thou thinkest to forsake us, or remainest
Rather behind in Belriguardo, Tasso.
And then thou wilt withdraw thyself from us?
I trust thine absence will not be for long.
To Rome thou goest?

Tasso.
Thither first I wend,
And if, as I have reason to expect,
I from my friends kind welcome there receive,
With care and patient toil I may, at length,
Impart its highest finish to my poem.
Full many men I find assembled there,
Masters who may be styl’d in every art.
Ay, and in that first city of the world.
Hath not each site, yea, every stone a tongue?
How many thousand silent monitors,
With earnest men, majestic, beckon us!
There if I fail to make my work complete,
I never shall complete it. Ah, I feel it —
Success doth wait on no attempt of mine!
Still altering, I ne’er shall perfect it.
I feel, yea, deeply feel, the noble art
That quickens others, and does strength infuse
Into the healthy soul, will drive me forth,
And bring me to destruction. Forth I haste!
I will to Naples first.

Princess.
Darest thou venture?
Still is the rigid sentence unrepeal’d
Which banish’d thee, together with thy father.

Tasso.
I know the danger, and have ponder’d it.
Disguis’d I go, in tatter’d garb, perchance
Of shepherd, or of pilgrim, meanly clad.
Unseen I wander through the city, where
The movements of the many shroud the one.
Thee to the shore I hasten, find a bark,
With people of Sorrento, peasant folk,
Returning home from market, for I too
Must hasten to Sorrento. There resides
My sister, ever to my parents’ heart,
Together with myself, a mournful joy.
I speak not in the bark, I step ashore
Also in silence, slowly I ascend
The upward path, and at the gate inquire:
Where may she dwell, Cornelia Sersale?
With friendly mien, a woman at her wheel
Shows me the street, the house; I hasten on;
The children run beside me, and survey
The gloomy stranger, with the shaggy locks.
Thus I approach the threshold. Open stands
The cottage door; I step into the house —

Princess.
O Tasso! if ’tis possible, look up,
And see the danger that environs thee!
I spare thy feelings, else I well might ask,
Is’t noble so to speak as now thou speakest?
Is’t noble of thyself alone to think,
As if thou didst not wound the heart of friends?
My brother’s sentiments, are they conceal’d?
And how we sisters prize and honor thee, —
Hast thou not known and felt it? Can it be
That a few moments should have alter’d all?
O Tasso, if thou wilt indeed depart,
Yet do not leave behind thee grief and care.
[Tasso turns away.
How soothing to the sorrowing heart to give,
To the dear friend who leaves us for a season,
Some trifling present, though ‘twere nothing more
Than a new mantle, or a sword perchance!
There’s naught, alas, that we can offer thee,
For thou ungraciously dost fling aside
E’en what thou hast. Thou choosest for thyself
The pilgrim’s scallop shell, his sombre weeds.
His staff to lean on, and departing thus,
In willing poverty, from us thou takest
The only pleasure we could share with thee.

Tasso.
Then thou wilt not reject me utterly?
O precious words! O comfort dear and sweet!
Do thou defend me! Shield me with thy care! —
Oh, send me to Consandoli, or here,
Keep me in Belriguardo, where thou wilt!
The prince is lord of many a pleasant seat,
Of many a garden, which the whole year round
Is duly kept, whose paths ye scarcely tread
A single day, perchance but for an hour.
Then, choose among them all the most remote
Which through long years ye have not visited.
And which perchance e’en now untended lies.
Oh, send me thither! There let me be yours!
And I will tend thy trees! With screen and tile
Will shield thy citrons from autumnal blasts,
Fencing them round with interwoven reeds!
Flowers of the fairest hue shall in the beds
Strike deep their spreading roots; with nicest care
Each pathway, every corner shall be kept.
And of the palace also give me charge!
At proper times the windows I will open,
Lest noxious vapor should the pictures mar;
The walls, with choicest stucco-work adorn’d,
I with light feather-work will free from dust;

artist: herm. schneider.
TORQUATO TASSO. ACT V, SCENE IV.
tasso and the princess
There shall the polish’d pavement brightly shine,
There shall no stone, no tiling be misplac’d;
There shall no weeds sprout from the crevices!

Princess.
I find no counsel in my troubled breast,
And find no comfort for thyself and — us.
Around I look to see if some kind god
Will haply grant us succor, and reveal
Some healing plant, or potion, to restore
Peace to thy ‘wilder’d senses, peace to us!
The truest word that floweth from the lip,
The surest remedy hath lost its power.
Leave thee I must, — yet doth my heart refuse
From thee to part.

Tasso.
Ye gods! And is it she?
She who thus pities, who thus speaks with thee?
And could’st thou e’er mistake that noble heart?
And in her presence, was it possible,
That thee despondency could seize, could master?
No, no, ’tis thou! I am myself again!
Oh, speak once more! Sweet comfort let me hear
Again from thy dear lips! Speak, nor withdraw
Thy counsel from me. — Say, what must I do,
That I may win the pardon of the prince,
That thou thyself may’st freely pardon me,
That ye may both with pleasure take me back
Into your princely service? Speak to me.

Princess.
It is but little we require from thee.
And yet that little seemeth all too much.
Freely should’st thou resign thyself to us.
We wish not from thee aught but what thou art,
If only with thyself thou wert at peace.
When joy thou feelest, thou dost cause us joy,
When thou dost fly from it, thou grievest us;
And if sometimes we are impatient with thee,
’Tis only that we fain would succor thee,
And feel, alas, our succor all in vain,
If thou the friendly hand forbear to grasp,
Stretch’d longingly, which yet doth reach thee not.

Tasso.
’Tis thou thyself, a holy angel still,
As when at first thou didst appear to me!
The mortal’s darken’d vision, oh, forgive,
If while he gaz’d, he for a moment err’d;
Now he again discerns thee, and his soul
Aspires to honor thee eternally.
A flood of tenderness o’erwhelms my heart —
She stands before me! She! What feeling this?
Is it distraction draws me unto thee?
Or is it madness? or a sense sublime
Which apprehends the purest, loftiest truth?
Yes, ’tis the only feeling that on earth
Hath power to make and keep me truly bless’d,
Or that could overwhelm me with despair,
What time I wrestled with it, and resolv’d
To banish it forever from my heart.
This fiery passion I had thought to quell,
Still with mine inmost being strove and strove,
And in the strife my very self destroy’d,
Which is to thee indissolubly bound.

Princess.
If thou would’st have me, Tasso, listen to thee,
Restrain this fervid glow, which frightens me.

Tasso.
Restrains the goblet’s rim the bubbling wine
That sparkling foams, and overflows its bounds?
Thine every word doth elevate my bliss,
With every word more brightly gleams thine eye,
Over my spirit’s depths there comes a change;
Reliev’d from dark perplexity I feel
Free as a god, and all I owe to thee!
A charm unspeakable, which masters me,
Flows from thy lips. Thou makest me all thine.
Of mine own being naught belongs to me.
Mine eye grows dim in happiness and light,
My senses fail; no more my foot sustains me,
Thou draw’st me to thee with resistless might,
And my heart rushes self-impell’d to thee.
Me hast thou won for all eternity,
Then take my whole of being to thyself.
[He throws himself into her arms, and clasps her to his bosom.

Princess.
(Throwing him from her and retiring in haste.) Away!

Leonora.
(Who has for some time appeared in the background, hastening forward.) What hath befallen? Tasso! Tasso!
[She follows the Princess.

Tasso.
(About to follow her.) O God!

Alphonso.
(Who has for some time been approaching with Antonio.) He is distracted, hold him fast.
[Exit .

SCENE V.

Tasso, Antonio.

Antonio.
If that a foeman — as thou deem’st thyself
Environ’d by a multitude of foes —
Beside thee stood, how would he triumph now!
Unhappy man! I am not yet myself!
When something quite unparallel’d occurs,
When something monstrous first arrests our sight,
The stagger’d spirit stands a moment still,
For we know nothing to compare it with.

Tasso.
(After a long pause.) Fulfil thine office, I perceive ’tis thou!
Ay, thou deserv’st the prince’s confidence.
Fulfil thine office, since my doom is seal’d.
With ling’ring tortures, torture me to death!
Draw! draw the shaft, that I may feel the barb
That lacerates, with cruel pangs, my heart!
The tyrant’s precious instrument art thou;
Be thou his gaoler, — executioner, —
For these are offices become thee well!
(Towards the scene.)
Yes, tyrant, go! Thou could’st not to the last
Thy wonted mask retain; in triumph go!
Thy slave thou hast well pinion’d, hast reserv’d
For predetermin’d and protracted pangs:
Yes, go! I hate thee. In my heart I feel
The horror which despotic power excites,
When it is grasping, cruel and unjust.
(After a pause.)
Thus, then, at last I see myself exil’d,
Turn’d off, and thrust forth like a mendicant!
Thus they with garlands wreath’d me, but to lead
The victim to the shrine of sacrifice!
Thus, at the very last, with cunning words,
They drew from me my only property,
My poem, — ay, and they retain it too!
Now is my one possession in your hands,
My bright credential wheresoe’er I went;
My sole resource ‘gainst biting poverty!
Ay, now I see why I must take mine ease.
’Tis a conspiracy, and thou the head.
Thus that my song may not be perfected,
That my renown may ne’er be spread abroad,
That envy still a thousand faults may find,
And my unhonor’d name forgotten die;
Therefore I must consent to idleness,
Therefore must spare my faculties, myself.
O precious friendship! Dear solicitude!
Odious appear’d the dark conspiracy
Which ceaseless round me wove its viewless web,
But still more odious does it now appear!
And, thou too, Siren! who so tenderly
Didst lead me on with thy celestial mien,
Thee now I know! Wherefore, O God, so late!
But we so willingly deceive ourselves,
We honor reprobates, who honor us.
True men are never to each other known;
Such knowledge is reserv’d for galley-slaves,
Chain’d to a narrow plank, who gasp for breath,
Where none hath aught to ask, nor aught to lose,
Where for a rascal each avows himself,
And holds his neighbor for a rascal too, —
Such men as these perchance may know each other.
But for the rest, we courteously misjudge them,
Hoping they may misjudge us in return.
How long thine hallow’d image from my gaze
Veil’d the coquette, working, with paltry arts!
The mask has fallen! — Now I see Armida
Denuded of her charms, — yes, thou art she,
Of whom my bodeful verse prophetic sang!
And then the little, cunning go-between!
With what profound contempt I view her now!
I hear the rustling of her stealthy step,
As round me still she spreads her artful toils.
Ay, now I know you! And let that suffice!
And misery, though it beggar me of all,
I honor still, — for it hath taught me truth.

Antonio.
I hear thee with amazement, though I know
How thy rash humor, Tasso, urges thee
To rush in haste to opposite extremes.
Collect thy spirit and command thy rage!
Thou speakest slander, dost indulge in words
Which to thine anguish though they be forgiven,
Yet thou canst ne’er forgive unto thyself.

Tasso.
Oh, speak not to me with a gentle lip,
Let me not hear one prudent word from thee!
Leave me my sullen happiness, that I
May not regain my senses, but to lose them.
My very bones are crush’d, yet do I live; —
Ay! live to feel the agonizing pain.
Despair enfolds me in its ruthless grasp,
And, in the hell-pang that annihilates,
These sland’rous words are but the feeble cry,
Wrung from the depth of my sore agony.
I will away! If honest, point the path,
And suffer me at once to fly from hence.

Antonio.
In thine extremity I will not leave thee;
And should’st thou wholly lose thy self-control,
My patience shall not fail.

Tasso.
And must I then
Yield myself up a prisoner to thee?
Resign’d I yield myself, and it is done;
I cease to struggle, and ’tis well with me —
Now let mine anguish’d heart recall how fair
What, as in sport, I madly flung away.
They hence depart — O God! I there behold
The dust, ascending from their chariot wheels —
The riders in advance — ay, there they go,
E’en to the very place from whence I came!
Now they are gone — they are estrang’d from me.
Oh, that I once again had kiss’d his hand!
Oh, that I once again might say farewell!
Once only might I falter: O forgive!
Once only hear the word: Go, thou’rt forgiven!
Alas! I hear it not; — I ne’er shall hear it —
Yes, I will go! Let me but say farewell,
Only farewell! Give me, oh, give me back
Their long’d-for presence for a single moment!
Perchance I might recover! Never more!
I am rejected, doom’d to banishment!
Alas! I am self-banish’d, never more
To hear that gentle voice, that tender glance
To meet no more —

Antonio.
Yet hear the voice of one
Who, not without emotion, stands beside thee!
Thou’rt not so wretched, Tasso, as thou thinkest.
Collect thyself! Too much thou art unmann’d.

Tasso.
And am I then as wretched as I seem?
Am I as weak as I do show myself?
Say, is all lost? Has sorrow’s direful stroke,
As with an earthquake’s sudden shock, transform’d
The stately pile into a ruin’d heap?
Is all the genius flown that did erewhile
So richly charm, and so exalt my soul?
Is all the power extinguish’d which of yore
Stirr’d in my bosom’s depths? Am I become
A nothing? A mere nothing? No, all’s here!
I have it still, and yet myself am nothing!
I from myself am sever’d, she from me!

Antonio.
Though to thyself thou seemest so forlorn,
Be calm, and bear in mind what still thou art!

Tasso.
Ay, in due season thou remindest me! —
Hath history no example for mine aid?
Before me doth there rise no man of worth
Who more hath borne than I, that with his fate,
Mine own comparing, I may gather strength.
No, all is gone! — But one thing still remains;
Tears, balmy tears, kind nature has bestow’d.
The cry of anguish, when the man at length
Can bear no more — yea, and to me beside,
She leaves in sorrow melody and speech,
To utter forth the fulness of my woe:
Though in their mortal anguish men are dumb,
To me a God hath given to tell my grief.
[Antonio approaches him and takes his hand.
O noble man! thou standest firm and calm,
While I am like the tempest-driven wave.
But be not boastful of thy strength. Reflect!
Nature, whose mighty power hath fix’d the rock,
Gives to the wave its instability.
She sends her storm, the passive wave is driven,
And rolls, and swells, and falls in billowy foam.
Yet in this very wave the glorious sun
Mirrors his splendor, and the quiet stars
Upon its heaving bosom gently rest.
Dimm’d is the splendor, vanish’d is the calm!
In danger’s hour I know myself no longer,
Nor am I now asham’d of the confession.
The helm is broken, and on every side
The reeling vessel splits. The riven planks,
Bursting asunder, yawn beneath my feet!
Thus with my outstretch’d arms I cling to thee!
So doth the shipwreck’d mariner at last
Cling to the rock, whereon his vessel struck.

FAUST: PART ONE

Translated by Anna Swanwick and Illustrated by Abraham Hayward

Goethe’s Faust in two parts is the author’s most famous work and the tragedy is considered by many to be the greatest work in all of German literature.  Goethe completed a preliminary version of Part One in 1806, which he published later in 1808.  The tragedy concerns the traditional story of Doctor Faust, who makes a compact with the devil (Mephistopheles). Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal to exchange his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust’s tale is the basis for many literary, artistic and musical works.

Goethe’s first part is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theatre, the plot opens with a prologue in Heaven, where the Lord challenges Mephistopheles, the Devil, that Mephistopheles cannot lead astray the Lord’s favourite striving scholar, Dr. Faust. Faust is presented in his study, attempting and failing to gain knowledge of nature and the universe by magic means. The depressed Faust contemplates suicide, but is held back by the sounds of Easter celebrations. He joins his assistant Wagner for a walk in the countryside, among the celebrating people, and is followed home by a poodle. Back in the study, the poodle transforms itself into Mephistopheles, who offers Faust an iniquitous contract for his soul.

Faust remains a resonant parable on scientific learning, religion, independence and love, in which Goethe places science and power in the context of a morally interested metaphysics, raising probing questions about the purpose of life altogether.

The first edition

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

NIGHT

BEFORE THE GATE

STUDY

STUDY

AUERBACH’S CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

WITCHES’ KITCHEN

A STREET

EVENING. A SMALL AND NEAT ROOM

PROMENADE

THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE

A STREET

GARDEN

A SUMMER-HOUSE

FOREST AND CAVERN

MARGARET’S ROOM

MARTHA’S GARDEN

AT THE WELL

ZWINGER

NIGHT. STREET BEFORE MARGARET’S DOOR

CATHEDRAL

WALPURGIS-NIGHT

INTERMEZZO: WALPURGIS-NIGHT’S DREAM

A GLOOMY DAY. A PLAIN

NIGHT. OPEN COUNTRY

DUNGEON

An early etching of Faust by the Dutch artist Rembrandt

The 1994 Czech film adaptation

The 2011 Russian film adaptation

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Characters in the Prologue for the Theatre.

THE MANAGER. THE DRAMATIC POET. MERRYMAN.

Characters in the Prologue in Heaven.

THE LORD.
RAPHAEL}
GABRIEL} The Heavenly Host.
MICHAEL}
MEPHISTOPHELES.

Characters in the Tragedy.

FAUST.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
WAGNER, a Student.
MARGARET.
MARTHA, Margaret’s Neighbor.
VALENTINE, Margaret’s Brother.
OLD PEASANT.
A STUDENT.
ELIZABETH, an Acquaintance of Margaret’s.
FROSCH }
BRANDER } Guests in Auerbach’s Wine Cellar.
SIEBEL }
ALTMAYER }

Witches, old and young; Wizards, Will-o’-the-Wisp, Witch Peddler,
Protophantasmist, Servibilis, Monkeys, Spirits, Journeymen,
Country-folk, Citizens, Beggar, Old Fortune-teller, Shepherd, Soldier,
Students, etc.

In the Intermezzo.

OBERON. TITANIA. ARIEL. PUCK, ETC., ETC.

DEDICATION

Ye wavering shapes, again ye do enfold me,
As erst upon my troubled sight ye stole;
Shall I this time attempt to clasp, to hold ye?
Still for the fond illusion yearns my soul?
Ye press around! Come then, your captive hold me,
As upward from the vapory mist ye roll;
Within my breast youth’s throbbing pulse is bounding,
Fann’d by the magic breath your march surrounding.

Shades fondly loved appear, your train attending,
And visions fair of many a blissful day;
First-love and friendship their fond accents blending,
Like to some ancient, half-expiring lay;
Sorrow revives, her wail of anguish sending
Back o’er life’s devious labyrinthine way,
And names the dear ones, they whom Fate bereaving
Of life’s fair hours, left me behind them grieving.

They hear me not my later cadence singing,
The souls to whom my earlier lays I sang;
Dispersed the throng, their severed flight now winging;
Mute are the voices that responsive rang.
For stranger crowds the Orphean lyre now stringing,
E’en their applause is to my heart a pang;
Of old who listened to my song, glad hearted,
If yet they live, now wander widely parted.

A yearning long unfelt, each impulse swaying,
To yon calm spirit-realm uplifts my soul;
In faltering cadence, as when Zephyr playing,
Fans the Æolian harp, my numbers roll;
Tear follows tear, my steadfast heart obeying
The tender impulse, loses its control;
What I possess as from afar I see;
Those I have lost become realities to me.

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

MANAGER. DRAMATIC POET. MERRYMAN
MANAGER
Ye twain, in trouble and distress
True friends whom I so oft have found,
Say, for our scheme on German ground,
What prospect have we of success?
Fain would I please the public, win their thanks;
They live and let live, hence it is but meet.
The posts are now erected, and the planks,
And all look forward to a festal treat.
Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais’d,
Sit patiently, and fain would be amaz’d.
I know the art to hit the public taste,
Yet ne’er of failure felt so keen a dread;
True, they are not accustomed to the best,
But then appalling the amount they’ve read.
How make our entertainment striking, new,
And yet significant and pleasing too?
For to be plain, I love to see the throng,
As to our booth the living tide progresses;
As wave on wave successive rolls along,
And through heaven’s narrow portal forceful presses;
Still in broad daylight, ere the clock strikes four,
With blows their way toward the box they take;
And, as for bread in famine, at the baker’s door,
For tickets are content their necks to break.
Such various minds the bard alone can sway,
My friend, oh work this miracle today!

POET
Oh of the motley throng speak not before me,
At whose aspect the Spirit wings its flight!
Conceal the surging concourse, I implore thee,
Whose vortex draws us with resistless might.
No, to some peaceful heavenly nook restore me,
Where only for the bard blooms pure delight,
Where love and friendship yield their choicest blessing,
Our heart’s true bliss, with godlike hand caressing.

What in the spirit’s depths was there created,
What shyly there the lip shaped forth in sound;
A failure now, with words now fitly mated,
In the wild tumult of the hour is drown’d;
Full oft the poet’s thought for years hath waited
Until at length with perfect form ’tis crowned;
What dazzles, for the moment born, must perish;
What genuine is posterity will cherish.

MERRYMAN
This cant about posterity I hate;
About posterity were I to prate,
Who then the living would amuse? For they
Will have diversion, ay, and ’tis their due.
A sprightly fellow’s presence at your play,
Methinks should also count for something too;
Whose genial wit the audience still inspires,
Knows from their changeful mood no angry feeling;
A wider circle he desires,
To their heart’s depths more surely thus appealing.
To work, then! Give a master-piece, my friend;
Bring Fancy with her choral trains before us,
Sense, reason, feeling, passion, but attend!
Let folly also swell the tragic chorus.

MANAGER
In chief, of incident enough prepare!
A show they want, they come to gape and stare.
Spin for their eyes abundant occupation,
So that the multitude may wondering gaze,
You by sheer bulk have won your reputation,
The man you are all love to praise.
By mass alone can you subdue the masses,
Each then selects in time what suits his bent.
Bring much, you something bring for various classes,
And from the house goes every one content.
You give a piece, abroad in pieces send it!
’Tis a ragout — success must needs attend it;
’Tis easy to serve up, as easy to invent.
A finish’d whole what boots it to present!
Full soon the public will in pieces rend it.

POET
How mean such handicraft as this you cannot feel!
How it revolts the genuine artist’s mind!
The sorry trash in which these coxcombs deal,
Is here approved on principle, I find.

MANAGER
Such a reproof disturbs me not a whit!
Who on efficient work is bent,
Must choose the fittest instrument.
Consider! ’tis soft wood you have to split;
Think too for whom you write, I pray!
One comes to while an hour away;
One from the festive board, a sated guest;
Others, more dreaded than the rest,
From journal-reading hurry to the play.
As to a masquerade, with absent minds, they press,
Sheer curiosity their footsteps winging;
Ladies display their persons and their dress,
Actors unpaid their service bringing.
What dreams beguile you on your poet’s height?
What puts a full house in a merry mood?
More closely view your patrons of the night!
The half are cold, the half are rude.
One, the play over, craves a game of cards;
Another a wild night in wanton joy would spend.
Poor fools the muses’ fair regards
Why court for such a paltry end?
I tell you, give them more, still more, ’tis all I ask,
Thus you will ne’er stray widely from the goal;
Your audience seek to mystify, cajole; —
To satisfy them — that’s a harder task.
What ails thee? art enraptured or distressed?

POET
Depart! elsewhere another servant choose.
What! shall the bard his godlike power abuse?
Man’s loftiest right, kind nature’s high bequest,
For your mean purpose basely sport away?
Whence comes his mastery o’er the human breast,
Whence o’er the elements his sway,
But from the harmony that, gushing from his soul,
Draws back into his heart the wondrous whole?
With careless hand when round her spindle, Nature
Winds the interminable thread of life;
When ‘mid the clash of Being every creature
Mingles in harsh inextricable strife;
Who deals their course unvaried till it falleth,
In rhythmic flow to music’s measur’d tone?
Each solitary note whose genius calleth,
To swell the mighty choir in unison?
Who in the raging storm sees passion low’ring?
Or flush of earnest thought in evening’s glow?
Who every blossom in sweet spring-time flowering
Along the loved one’s path would strow?
Who, Nature’s green familiar leaves entwining,
Wreathes glory’s garland, won on every field?
Makes sure Olympus, heavenly powers combining?
Man’s mighty spirit, in the bard reveal’d!

MERRYMAN
Come then, employ your lofty inspiration,
And carry on the poet’s avocation,
Just as we carry on a love affair.
Two meet by chance, are pleased, they linger there,
Insensibly are link’d, they scarce know how;
Fortune seems now propitious, adverse now,
Then come alternate rapture and despair;
And ’tis a true romance ere one’s aware.
Just such a drama let us now compose.
Plunge boldly into life-its, depths disclose!
Each lives it, not to many is it known,
‘Twill interest wheresoever seiz’d and shown;
Bright pictures, but obscure their meaning:
A ray of truth through error gleaming,
Thus you the best elixir brew,
To charm mankind, and edify them too.
Then youth’s fair blossoms crowd to view your play,
And wait as on an oracle; while they,
The tender souls, who love the melting mood,
Suck from your work their melancholy food;
Now this one, and now that, you deeply stir,
Each sees the working of his heart laid bare.
Their tears, their laughter, you command with ease,
The lofty still they honor, the illusive love.
Your finish’d gentlemen you ne’er can please;
A growing mind alone will grateful prove.

POET
Then give me back youth’s golden prime,
When my own spirit too was growing,
When from my heart th’ unbidden rhyme
Gush’d forth, a fount for ever flowing;
Then shadowy mist the world conceal’d,
And every bud sweet promise made,
Of wonders yet to be reveal’d,
As through the vales, with blooms inlaid,
Culling a thousand flowers I stray’d.
Naught had I, yet a rich profusion!
The thirst for truth, joy in each fond illusion.
Give me unquell’d those impulses to prove; —
Rapture so deep, its ecstasy was pain,
The power of hate, the energy of love,
Give me, oh give me back my youth again!

MERRYMAN
Youth, my good friend, you certainly require
When foes in battle round are pressing,
When a fair maid, her heart on fire,
Hangs on your neck with fond caressing,
When from afar, the victor’s crown,
To reach the hard-won goal inciteth;
When from the whirling dance, to drown
Your sense, the nights carouse inviteth.
But the familiar chords among
Boldly to sweep, with graceful cunning,
While to its goal, the verse along
Its winding path is sweetly running;
This task is yours, old gentlemen, today;
Nor are you therefore less in reverence held;
Age does not make us childish, as folk say,
It finds us genuine children e’en in eld.

MANAGER
A truce to words, mere empty sound,
Let deeds at length appear, my friends!
While idle compliments you round,
You might achieve some useful ends.
Why talk of the poetic vein?
Who hesitates will never know it;
If bards ye are, as ye maintain,
Now let your inspiration show it.
To you is known what we require,
Strong drink to sip is our desire;
Come, brew me such without delay!
Tomorrow sees undone, what happens not today;
Still forward press, nor ever tire!
The possible, with steadfast trust,
Resolve should by the forelock grasp;
Then she will never let go her clasp,
And labors on, because she must.
On German boards, you’re well aware,
The taste of each may have full sway;
Therefore in bringing out your play,
Nor scenes nor mechanism spare!
Heaven’s lamps employ, the greatest and the least,
Be lavish of the stellar lights,
Water, and fire, and rocky heights,
Spare not at all, nor birds, nor beast.
Thus let creation’s ample sphere
Forthwith in this our narrow booth appear,
And with considerate speed, through fancy’s spell,
Journey from heaven, thence through the world, to hell!

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

THE LORD. THE HEAVENLY HOSTS. Afterward MEPHISTOPHELES
The three Archangels come forward

RAPHAEL
The Sun, in ancient guise, competing
With brother spheres in rival song,
With thunder-march, his orb completing,
Moves his predestin’d course along;
His aspect to the powers supernal
Gives strength, though fathom him none may;
Transcending thought, the works eternal
Are fair as on the primal day.

GABRIEL
With speed, thought baffling, unabating,
Earth’s splendor whirls in circling flight;
Its Eden-brightness alternating
With solemn, awe-inspiring night;
Ocean’s broad waves in wild commotion,
Against the rocks’ deep base are hurled;
And with the spheres, both rock and ocean
Eternally are swiftly whirled.

MICHAEL
And tempests roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And raging form, without cessation,
A chain of wondrous agency,
Full in the thunder’s path careering,
Flaring the swift destructions play;
But, Lord, Thy servants are revering
The mild procession of thy day.

THE THREE
Thine aspect to the powers supernal
Gives strength, though fathom thee none may;
And all thy works, sublime, eternal,
Are fair as on the primal day.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Since thou, O Lord, approachest us once more,
And how it fares with us, to ask art fain,
Since thou hast kindly welcom’d me of yore,
Thou see’st me also now among thy train.
Excuse me, fine harangues I cannot make,
Though all the circle look on me with scorn;
My pathos soon thy laughter would awake,
Hadst thou the laughing mood not long forsworn.
Of suns and worlds I nothing have to say,
I see alone mankind’s self-torturing pains.
The little world-god still the self-same stamp retains,
And is as wondrous now as on the primal day.
Better he might have fared, poor wight,
Hadst thou not given him a gleam of heavenly light;
Reason he names it, and doth so
Use it, than brutes more brutish still to grow.
With deference to your grace, he seems to me
Like any long-legged grasshopper to be,
Which ever flies, and flying springs,
And in the grass its ancient ditty sings.
Would he but always in the grass repose!
In every heap of dung he thrusts his nose.

THE LORD
Hast thou naught else to say? Is blame
In coming here, as ever, thy sole aim?
Does nothing on the earth to thee seem right?

MEPHISTOPHELES
No, Lord! I find things there, as ever, in sad plight.
Men, in their evil days, move my compassion;
Such sorry things to plague is nothing worth.

THE LORD
Know’st thou my servant, Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES
The doctor?

THE LORD
Right.

MEPHISTOPHELES
He serves thee truly in a wondrous fashion.
Poor fool! His food and drink are not of earth.
An inward impulse hurries him afar,
Himself half conscious of his frenzied mood;
From heaven claimeth he the fairest star,
And from the earth craves every highest good,
And all that’s near, and all that’s far,
Fails to allay the tumult in his blood.

THE LORD
Though in perplexity he serves me now,
I soon will lead him where more light appears;
When buds the sapling, doth the gardener know
That flowers and fruit will deck the coming years!

MEPHISTOPHELES
What wilt thou wager? Him thou yet shall lose,
If leave to me thou wilt but give,
Gently to lead him as I choose!

THE LORD
So long as he on earth doth live,
So long ’tis not forbidden thee.
Man still must err, while he doth strive.

MEPHISTOPHELES
I thank you; for not willingly
I traffic with the dead, and still aver
That youth’s plump blooming cheek I very much prefer.
I’m not at home to corpses; ’tis my way,
Like cats with captive mice to toy and play.

THE LORD
Enough! ’tis granted thee! Divert
This mortal spirit from his primal source;
Him, canst thou seize, thy power exert
And lead him on thy downward course,
Then stand abash’d, when thou perforce must own,
A good man in his darkest aberration,
Of the right path is conscious still.

MEPHISTOPHELES
’Tis done! Full soon thou’lt see my exultation;
As for my bet no fears I entertain.
And if my end I finally should gain,
Excuse my triumphing with all my soul.
Dust he shall eat, ay, and with relish take,
As did my cousin, the renownèd snake.

THE LORD
Here too thou’rt free to act without control;
I ne’er have cherished hate for such as thee.
Of all the spirits who deny,
The scoffer is least wearisome to me.
Ever too prone is man activity to shirk,
In unconditioned rest he fain would live;
Hence this companion purposely I give,
Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work.
But ye, the genuine sons of heaven, rejoice!
In the full living beauty still rejoice!
May that which works and lives, the ever-growing,
In bonds of love enfold you, mercy-fraught,
And Seeming’s changeful forms, around you flowing,
Do ye arrest, in ever-during thought!

[Heaven closes, the, Archangels disperse.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (alone)
The ancient one I like sometimes to see,
And not to break with him am always civil;
’Tis courteous in so great a lord as he,
To speak so kindly even to the devil.

NIGHT

A high vaulted narrow Gothic chamber.

FAUST, restless, seated at his desk.

FAUST
I have, alas! Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
And to my cost Theology,
With ardent labor, studied through.
And here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before.
Magister, doctor styled, indeed,
Already these ten years I lead,
Up, down, across, and to and fro,
My pupils by the nose, — and learn,
That we in truth can nothing know!
That in my heart like fire doth burn.
’Tis true, I’ve more cunning than all your dull tribe,
Magister and doctor, priest, parson, and scribe;
Scruple or doubt comes not to enthrall me,
Neither can devil nor hell now appal me —
Hence also my heart must all pleasure forego!
I may not pretend aught rightly to know,
I may not pretend, through teaching, to find
A means to improve or convert mankind.
Then I have neither goods nor treasure,
No worldly honor, rank, or pleasure;
No dog in such fashion would longer live!
Therefore myself to magic I give,
In hope, through spirit-voice and might,
Secrets now veiled to bring to light,
That I no more, with aching brow,
Need speak of what I nothing know;
That I the force may recognize
That binds creation’s inmost energies;
Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey,
And fling the trade in empty words away.
O full-orb’d moon, did but thy rays
Their last upon mine anguish gaze!
Beside this desk, at dead of night,
Oft have I watched to hail thy light:
Then, pensive friend! o’er book and scroll,
With soothing power, thy radiance stole!
In thy dear light, ah, might I climb,
Freely, some mountain height sublime,
Round mountain caves with spirits ride,
In thy mild haze o’er meadows glide,
And, purged from knowledge-fumes, renew
My spirit, in thy healing dew!

Woe’s me! still prison’d in the gloom
Of this abhorr’d and musty room!
Where heaven’s dear light itself doth pass
But dimly through the painted glass!
Hemmed in by book-heaps, piled around,
Worm-eaten, hid ‘neath dust and mold,
Which to the high vault’s topmast bound,
A smoke-stained paper doth enfold;
With boxes round thee piled, and glass,
And many a useless instrument,
With old ancestral lumber blent —
This is thy world! a world! alas!
And dost thou ask why heaves thy heart,
With tighten’d pressure in thy breast?
Why the dull ache will not depart,
By which thy life-pulse is oppress’d?
Instead of nature’s living sphere,
Created for mankind of old,
Brute skeletons surround thee here,
And dead men’s bones in smoke and mold.
Up! Forth into the distant land!
Is not this book of mystery
By Nostradamus’ proper hand,
An all-sufficient guide? Thou’lt see
The courses of the stars unroll’d;
When nature doth her thoughts unfold
To thee, thy-soul shall rise, and seek
Communion high with her to hold,
As spirit cloth with spirit speak!
Vain by dull poring to divine
The meaning of each hallow’d sign.
Spirits! I feel you hov’ring near;
Make answer, if my voice ye hear!

[He opens the book and perceives the sign of the Macrocosmos.]

Ah! at this spectacle through every sense,
What sudden ecstasy of joy is flowing!
I feel new rapture, hallow’d and intense,
Through every nerve and vein with ardor glowing.
Was it a god who character’d this scroll,
The tumult in my-spirit healing,
O’er my sad heart with rapture stealing,
And by a mystic impulse, to my soul,
The powers of nature all around revealing.
Am I a god? What light intense
In these pure symbols do I see
Nature exert her vital energy?
Now of the wise man’s words I learn the sense;
 ”Unlock’d the spirit-world is lying,
 Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead!
 Up scholar, lave, with zeal undying,
 Thine earthly breast in the morning-red!”

[He contemplates the sign.]

How all things live and work, and ever blending,
Weave one vast whole from Being’s ample range!
How powers celestial, rising and descending,
Their golden buckets ceaseless interchange!
Their flight on rapture-breathing pinions winging,
From heaven to earth their genial influence bringing.
Through the wild sphere their chimes melodious ringing!

A wondrous show! but ah! a show alone!
Where shall I grasp thee, infinite nature, where?
Ye breasts, ye fountains of all life, whereon
Hang heaven and earth, from which the withered heart
For solace yearns, ye still impart
Your sweet and fostering tides-where are ye-where?
Ye gush, and must I languish in despair?

[He turns over the leaves of the book impatiently, and perceives the sign of the Earth-spirit.]

How all unlike the influence of this sign!
Earth-spirit, thou to me art nigher,
E’en now my strength is rising higher,
E’en now I glow as with new wine;
Courage I feel, abroad the world to dare,
The woe of earth, the bliss of earth to bear,
With storms to wrestle, brave the lightning’s glare,
And mid the crashing shipwreck not despair.

Clouds gather over me —
The moon conceals her light —
The lamp is quench’d —
Vapors are arising — Quiv’ring round my head
Flash the red beams — Down from the vaulted roof
A shuddering horror floats,
And seizes me!
I feel it, spirit, prayer-compell’d, ’tis thou
Art hovering near!
Unveil thyself!
Ha! How my heart is riven now!
Each sense, with eager palpitation,
Is strain’d to catch some new sensation!
I feel my heart surrender’d unto thee!
Thou must! Thou must! Though life should be the fee!

[He seizes the book, and pronounces mysteriously the sign of the spirit. A ruddy flame flashes up; the spirit appears in the flame.]

SPIRIT
Who calls me?

FAUST (turning aside)
Dreadful shape!

SPIRIT
With might,
Thou hast compell’d me to appear,
Long hast been sucking at my sphere,
And now —

FAUST
Woe’s me! I cannot bear thy sight!

SPIRIT
To see me thou dost breathe thine invocation,
My voice to hear, to gaze upon my brow;
Me doth thy strong entreaty bow —
Lo! I am here! — What cowering agitation
Grasps thee, the demigod! Where’s now the soul’s deep cry?
Where is the breast, which in its depths a world conceiv’d,
And bore and cherished? which, with ecstasy,
To rank itself with us, the spirits, heaved?
Where art thou, Faust? Whose voice heard I resound
Who toward me press’d with energy profound?
Art thou he? Thou, — who by my breath art blighted,
Who, in his spirit’s depths affrighted,
Trembles, a crush’d and writhing worm!

FAUST
Shall I yield, thing of flame, to thee?
Faust, and thine equal, I am he!

SPIRIT
In the currents of life, in action’s storm,
I float and I wave
With billowy motion!
Birth and the grave,
O limitless ocean,
A constant weaving
With change still rife,
A restless heaving,
A glowing life — -
Thus time’s whirring loom unceasing I ply,
And weave the life-garment of deity.

FAUST
Thou, restless spirit, dost from end to end
O’ersweep the world; how near I feel to thee!

SPIRIT
Thou’rt like the spirit, thou dost comprehend,
Not me! [Vanishes.]

FAUST (deeply moved)
Not thee
Whom then?
I, God’s own image!
And not rank with thee! [A knock.]
Oh death! I know it-’tis my famulus —
My fairest fortune now escapes!
That all these visionary shapes
A soulless groveller should banish thus!

[WAGNER in his dressing gown and night-cap, a lamp in his hand. FAUST turns round reluctantly.]

WAGNER
Pardon! I heard you here declaim;
A Grecian tragedy you doubtless read?
Improvement in this art is now my aim,
For now-a-days it much avails. Indeed
An actor, oft I’ve heard it said, as teacher,
May give instruction to a preacher.

FAUST
Ay, if your priest should be an actor too,
As not improbably may come to pass.

WAGNER
When in his study pent the whole year through,
Man views the world, as through an optic glass,
On a chance holiday, and scarcely then,
How by persuasion can he govern men?

FAUST
If feeling prompt not, if it doth not flow
Fresh from the spirit’s depths, with strong control
Swaying to rapture every listener’s soul,
Idle your toil; the chase you may forego!
Brood o’er your task! Together glue,
Cook from another’s feast your own ragout,
Still prosecute your paltry game,
And fan your ash-heaps into flame!
Thus children’s wonder you’ll excite,
And apes’, if such your appetite;
But that which issues from the heart alone,
Will bend the hearts of others to your own.

WAGNER
The speaker in delivery, will find
Success alone; I still am far behind.

FAUST
A worthy object still pursue!
Be not a hollow tinkling fool!
Sound understanding, judgment true,
Find utterance without art or rule;
And when in earnest you are moved to speak,
Then is it needful cunning words to seek?
Your fine harangues, so polish’d in their kind,
Wherein the shreds of human thought ye twist,
Are unrefreshing as the empty wind,
Whistling through wither’d leaves and autumn mist!

WAGNER
Oh God! How long is art,
Our life how short! With earnest zeal
Still as I ply the critic’s task, I feel
A strange oppression both of head and heart.
The very means — how hardly are they won,
By which we to the fountains rise!
And, haply, ere one half the course is run,
Check’d in his progress, the poor devil dies.

FAUST
Parchment, is that the sacred fount whence roll
Waters he thirsteth not who once hath quaffed?
Oh, if it gush not from thine inmost soul,
Thou hast not won the life-restoring draught.

WAGNER
Your pardon! ’tis delightful to transport
Oneself into the spirit of the past,
To see in times before us how a wise man thought,
And what a glorious height we have achieved at last.

FAUST
Ay, truly! even to the loftiest star!
To us, my friend, the ages that are pass’d
A book with seven seals, close-fasten’d, are;
And what the spirit of the times men call,
Is merely their own spirit after all,
Wherein, distorted oft, the times are glass’d.
Then truly, ’tis a sight to grieve the soul!
At the first glance we fly it in dismay;
A very lumber-room, a rubbish-hole;
At best a sort of mock-heroic play,
With saws pragmatical, and maxims sage,
To suit the puppets and their mimic stage.

WAGNER
But then the world and man, his heart and brain!
Touching these things all men would something know.

FAUST
Ay! what ‘mong men as knowledge doth obtain!
Who on the child its true name dares bestow?
The few who somewhat of these things have known,
Who their full hearts unguardedly reveal’d,
Nor thoughts, nor feelings, from the mob conceal’d,
Have died on crosses, or in flames been thrown. —
Excuse me, friend, far now the night is spent,
For this time we must say adieu.

WAGNER
Still to watch on I had been well content,
Thus to converse so learnedly with you.
But as tomorrow will be Easter-day,
Some further questions grant, I pray;
With diligence to study still I fondly cling;
Already I know much, but would know everything. [Exit.]

FAUST (alone)
How him alone all hope abandons never,
To empty trash who clings, with zeal untired,
With greed for treasure gropes, and, joy-inspir’d,
Exults if earth-worms second his endeavor.

And dare a voice of merely human birth,
E’en here, where shapes immortal throng’d, intrude?
Yet ah! thou poorest of the sons of earth,
For once, I e’en to thee feel gratitude.
Despair the power of sense did well-nigh blast,
And thou didst save me ere I sank dismay’d;
So giant-like the vision seem’d, so vast,
I felt myself shrink dwarf’d as I survey’d!

I, God’s own image, from this toil of clay
Already freed, with eager joy who hail’d
The mirror of eternal truth unveil’d,
Mid light effulgent and celestial day
I, more than cherub, whose unfetter’d soul
With penetrative glance aspir’d to flow
Through nature’s veins, and, still creating, know
The life of gods, — how am I punish’d now!
One thunder-word hath hurl’d me from the goal!

Spirit! I dare not lift me to thy sphere.
What though my power compell’d thee to appear,
My art was powerless to detain thee here.
In that great moment, rapture-fraught,
I felt myself so small, so great;
Fiercely didst thrust me from the realm of thought
Back on humanity’s uncertain fate!
Who’ll teach me now? What ought I to forego?
Ought I that impulse to obey?
Alas! our every deed, as well as every woe,
Impedes the tenor of life’s onward way!

E’en to the noblest by the soul conceiv’d,
Some feelings cling of baser quality;
And when the goods of this world are achiev’d,
Each nobler aim is term’d a cheat, a lie.
Our aspirations, our soul’s genuine life,
Grow torpid in the din of earthly strife.

Though youthful phantasy, while hope inspires,
Stretch o’er the infinite her wing sublime,
A narrow compass limits her desires,
When wreck’d our fortunes in the gulf of time.
In the deep heart of man care builds her nest,
O’er secret woes she broodeth there,
Sleepless she rocks herself and scareth joy and rest;
Still is she wont some new disguise to wear —
She may as house and court, as wife and child appear,
As dagger, poison, fire and flood;
Imagined evils chill thy blood,
And what thou ne’er shalt lose, o’er that dost shed the tear.

I am not like the gods! Feel it I must;
I’m like the earth-worm, writhing in the dust,
Which, as on dust it feeds, its native fare,
Crushed ‘neath the passer’s tread, lies buried there.

Is it not dust, wherewith this lofty wall,
With hundred shelves, confines me round;
Rubbish, in thousand shapes, may I not call
What in this moth-world doth my being bound?
Here, what doth fail me, shall I find?
Read in a thousand tomes that, everywhere,
Self-torture is the lot of human-kind,
With but one mortal happy, here and there
Thou hollow skull, that grin, what should it say,
But that thy brain, like mine, of old perplexed,
Still yearning for the truth, hath sought the light of day,
And in the twilight wandered, sorely vexed?
Ye instruments, forsooth, ye mock at me, —
With wheel, and cog, and ring, and cylinder;
To nature’s portals ye should be the key;
Cunning your wards, and yet the bolts ye fail to stir.
Inscrutable in broadest light,
To be unveil’d by force she doth refuse,
What she reveals not to thy mental sight
Thou wilt not wrest from her with levers and with screws.
Old useless furnitures, yet stand ye here,
Because my sire ye served, now dead and gone.
Old scroll, the smoke of years dost wear,
So long as o’er this desk the sorry lamp hath shone.
Better my little means hath squandered quite away
Than burden’d by that little here to sweat and groan!
Wouldst thou possess thy heritage, essay
By use to render it thine own!
What we employ not but impedes our way;
That which the hour creates, that can it use alone!

But wherefore to yon spot is riveted my gaze?
Is yonder flasket there a magnet to my sight?
Whence this mild radiance that around me plays,
As when, ‘mid forest gloom, reigneth the moon’s soft light?
Hail, precious phial! Thee, with reverent awe,
Down from thine old receptacle I draw!
Science in thee I hail and human art.

Essence of deadliest powers, refin’d and sure,
Of soothing anodynes abstraction pure,
Now in thy master’s need thy grace impart!
I gaze on thee, my pain is lull’d to rest;
I grasp thee, calm’d the tumult in my breast;
The flood-tide of my spirit ebbs away;
Onward I’m summon’d o’er a boundless main,
Calm at my feet expands the glassy plain,
To shores unknown allures a brighter day.

Lo, where a car of fire, on airy pinion,
Comes floating towards me! I’m prepar’d to fly
By a new track through ether’s wide dominion,
To distant spheres of pure activity.
This life intense, this godlike ecstasy —
Worm that thou art such rapture canst thou earn!
Only resolve, with courage stern and high,
Thy visage from the radiant sun to turn!
Dare with determin’d will to burst the portals
Past which in terror others fain would steal!
Now is the time, through deeds, to show that mortals
The calm sublimity of gods can feel;
To shudder not at yonder dark abyss
Where phantasy creates her own self-torturing brood;
Right onward to the yawning gulf to press,
Around whose narrow jaws rolleth hell’s fiery flood;
With glad resolve to take the fatal leap,
Though danger threaten thee, to sink in endless sleep!

Pure crystal goblet! forth I draw thee now
From out thine antiquated case, where thou
Forgotten hast reposed for many a year!
Oft at my father’s revels thou didst shine;
To glad the earnest guests was thine,
As each to other passed the generous cheer.
The gorgeous brede of figures, quaintly wrought,
Which he who quaff’d must first in rhyme expound,
Then drain the goblet at one draught profound,
Hath nights of boyhood to fond memory brought.
I to my neighbor shall not reach thee now,
Nor on thy rich device shall I my cunning show.
Here is a juice, makes drunk without delay;
Its dark brown flood thy crystal round doth fill;
Let this last draught, the product of my skill,
My own free choice, be quaff’d with resolute will,
A solemn festive greeting, to the coming day!
           [He places the goblet to his mouth.]

[The ringing of bells, and choral voices.]

CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen!
Mortal, all hail to thee,
Thou whom mortality,
Earth’s sad reality,
Held as in prison.

FAUST
What hum melodious, what clear silvery chime,
Thus draws the goblet from my lips away?
Ye deep-ton’d bells, do ye, with voice sublime,
Announce the solemn dawn of Easter-day?
Sweet choir! are ye the hymn of comfort singing,
Which once around the darkness of the grave,
From seraph-voices, in glad triumph ringing,
Of a new covenant assurance gave?

CHORUS OF WOMEN
We, his true-hearted,
With spices and myrrh.
Embalmed the departed,
And swathed Him with care;
Here we conveyed Him,
Our Master, so dear;
Alas! Where we laid Him,
The Christ is not here.

CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen!
Blessed the loving one,
Who from earth’s trial-throes,
Healing and strengthening woes,
Soars as from prison.

FAUST
Wherefore, ye tones celestial, sweet and strong,
Come ye a dweller in the dust to seek?
Ring out your chimes believing crowds among,
The message well I hear, my faith alone is weak;
From faith her darling, miracle, hath sprung.
Aloft to yonder spheres I dare not soar,
Whence sound the tidings of great joy;
And yet, with this sweet strain familiar when a boy,
Back it recalleth me to life once more.
Then would celestial love, with holy kiss,
Come o’er me in the Sabbath’s stilly hour,
While, fraught with solemn meaning and mysterious power,
Chim’d the deep-sounding bell, and prayer was bliss;
A yearning impulse, undefin’d yet dear,
Drove me to wander on through wood and field;
With heaving breast and many a burning tear,
I felt with holy joy a world reveal’d.
Gay sports and festive hours proclaim’d with joyous pealing
This Easter hymn in days of old;
And fond remembrance now doth me, with childlike feeling,
Back from the last, the solemn step, withhold.
O still sound on, thou sweet celestial strain!
The tear-drop flows — Earth, I am thine again!

CHORUS OF DISCIPLES
He whom we mourned as dead,
Living and glorious,

From the dark grave hath fled,
O’er death victorious;
Almost creative bliss
Waits on His growing powers;
Ah! Him on earth we miss;
Sorrow and grief are ours.
Yearning He left His own,
Mid sore annoy;
Ah! we must needs bemoan,
Master, thy joy!

CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen,
Redeem’d from decay.
The bonds which imprison
Your souls, rend away!
Praising the Lord with zeal,
By deeds that love reveal,
Like brethren true and leal
Sharing the daily meal,
To all that sorrow feel
Whisp’ring of heaven’s weal,
Still is the Master near,
Still is He here!

BEFORE THE GATE

Promenaders of all sorts pass out.

ARTISANS
Why choose ye that direction, pray?

OTHERS
To the hunting-lodge we’re on our way.

THE FIRST
We toward the mill are strolling on.

A MECHANIC
A walk to Wasserhof were best.

A SECOND
The road is not a pleasant one.

THE OTHERS
What will you do?

A THIRD
I’ll join the rest.

A FOURTH
Let’s up to Burghof, there you’ll find good cheer,
The prettiest maidens and the best of beer,
And brawls of a prime sort.

A FIFTH
You scapegrace! How?
Your skin still itching for a row?
Thither I will not go, I loathe the place.

SERVANT GIRL
No, no! I to the town my steps retrace.

ANOTHER
Near yonder poplars he is sure to be.

THE FIRST
And if he is, what matters it to me!
With you he’ll walk, he’ll dance with none but you,
And with your pleasures what have I to do?

THE SECOND
Today he will not be alone, he said
His friend would be with him, the curly-head.

STUDENT
Why how those buxom girls step on!
Come, brother, we will follow them anon.
Strong beer, a damsel smartly dress’d,
Stinging tobacco — these I love the best.

BURGHER’S DAUGHTER
Look at those handsome fellows there!
’Tis really shameful, I declare;
The very best society they shun,
After those servant-girls forsooth, to run.

SECOND STUDENT (to the first)
Not quite so fast! for in our rear,
Two girls, well-dress’d, are drawing near;
Not far from us the one doth dwell,
And, sooth to say, I like her well.
They walk demurely, yet you’ll see,
That they will let us join them presently.

THE FIRST
Not I! restraints of all kinds I detest.
Quick! let us catch the wild-game ere it flies;
The hand on Saturday the mop that plies
Will on the Sunday fondle you the best.

BURGHER
No, this new Burgomaster; I like him not, God knows;
No, he’s in office; daily more arrogant he grows;
And for the town, what doth he do for it?
Are not things worse from day to day?
To more restraints we must submit;
And taxes more than ever pay.

BEGGAR (sings)
Kind gentlemen and ladies fair,
So rosy-cheek’d and trimly dress’d,
Be pleas’d to listen to my prayer;
Relieve and pity the distress’d.
Let me not vainly sing my lay!
His heart’s most glad whose hand is free.
Now when all men keep holiday,
Should be a harvest-day to me.

OTHER BURGHER
On holidays and Sundays naught know I more inviting
Than chatting about war and war’s alarms,
When folk in Turkey, up in arms,
Far off, are ‘gainst each other fighting.
We at the window stand, our glasses drain
And watch adown the stream the painted vessels gliding;
Then joyful we at eve come home again,
And peaceful times we bless, peace long-abiding.

THIRD BURGHER
Ay, neighbor! So let matters stand for me!
There they may scatter one another’s brains,
And wild confusion round them see —
So here at home in quiet all remains!

OLD WOMAN (to the BURGHERS’ DAUGHTERS)
Heyday! How smart! The fresh young blood!
Who would not fall in love with you?
Not quite so proud! ’Tis well and good!
And what you wish, that I could help you to.

BURGHER’S DAUGHTER
Come, Agatha! I care not to be seen
Walking in public with these witches. True,
My future lover, last St. Andrew’s E’en,
In flesh and blood she brought before my view.

ANOTHER
And mine she show’d me also in the glass.
A soldier’s figure, with companions bold;
I look around, I seek him as I pass —
In vain, his form I nowhere can behold.

SOLDIERS
Fortress with turrets
And walls high in air,
Damsel disdainful,
Haughty and fair —
These be my prey!
Bold is the venture,
Costly the pay!

Hark, how the trumpet
Thither doth call us
Where either pleasure
Or death may befall us!
Hail to the tumult!
Life’s in the field!
Damsel and fortress
To us must yield.
Bold is the venture,
Costly the pay!
Gaily the soldier
Marches away.

FAUST and WAGNER
FAUST
Loosed from their fetters are streams and rills
Through the gracious spring-tide’s all-quickening glow;
Hope’s budding joy in the vale doth blow;
Old Winter back to the savage hills
Withdraweth his force, decrepid now.
Thence only impotent icy grains
Scatters he as he wings his flight,
Striping with sleet the verdant plains;
But the sun endureth no trace of white;
Everywhere growth and movement are rife,
All things investing with hues of life
Though flowers are lacking, varied of dye,
Their colors the motley throng supply.
Turn thee around, and, from this height,
Back to the town direct thy sight.
Forth from the hollow, gloomy gate,
Stream forth the masses, in bright array.
Gladly seek they the sun today;

The Lord’s Resurrection they celebrate:
For they themselves have risen, with joy,
From tenement sordid, from cheerless room,
From bonds of toil, from care and annoy,
From gable and roof’s o’erhanging gloom,
From crowded alley and narrow street,
And from the churches’ awe-breathing night
All now have come forth into the light.
Look, only look, on nimble feet,
Through garden and field how spread the throng,
How o’er the river’s ample sheet
Many a gay wherry glides along;
And see, deep sinking in the tide,
Pushes the last boat now away.
E’en from yon far hill’s path-worn side,
Flash the bright hues of garments gay.
Hark! Sounds of village mirth arise;
This is the people’s paradise.
Both great and small send up a cheer;
Here am I man, I feel it here.

WAGNER
Sir Doctor, in a walk with you
There’s honor and instruction too;
Yet here alone I care not to resort,
Because I coarseness hate of every sort.
This fiddling, shouting, skittling, I detest;
I hate the tumult of the vulgar throng;
They roar as by the evil one possess’d,
And call it pleasure, call it song.

PEASANTS (under the linden-tree)
Dance and Sing.

  The shepherd for the dance was dress’d,
  With ribbon, wreath, and colored vest,
  A gallant show displaying.
  And round about the linden-tree,

  They footed it right merrily.
   Juchhe! Juchhe!
   Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
  So fiddle-bow was braying.
  Our swain amidst the circle press’d,
  He push’d a maiden trimly dress’d,
  And jogg’d her with his elbow;
  The buxom damsel turn’d her head,
  ”Now that’s a stupid trick!” she said,
   Juchhe! Juchhe!
   Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
  Don’t be so rude, good fellow!

  Swift in the circle they advanced,
  They danced to right, to left they danced,
  And all the skirts were swinging.
  And they grew red, and they grew warm,
  Panting, they rested arm in arm,
   Juchhe! Juchhe!
   Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
  To hip their elbow bringing.

  Don’t make so free! How many a maid
  Has been betroth’d and then betray’d;
  And has repented after!
  Yet still he flatter’d her aside,
  And from the linden, far and wide,
   Juchhe! Juchhe!
   Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
  Rang fiddle-bow and laughter.

OLD PEASANT
Doctor, ’tis really kind of you,
To condescend to come this way,
A highly learned man like you,
To join our mirthful throng today.
Our fairest cup I offer you,
Which we with sparkling drink have crown’d,
And pledging you, I pray aloud,
That every drop within its round,
While it your present thirst allays,
May swell the number of your days.

FAUST
I take the cup you kindly reach, Thanks and prosperity to each! [The crowd gather round in a circle.]

OLD PEASANT
Ay, truly! ’tis well done, that you
Our festive meeting thus attend;
You, who in evil days of yore,
So often show’d yourself our friend!
Full many a one stands living here,
Who from the fever’s deadly blast
Your father rescu’d, when his skill
The fatal sickness stay’d at last.
A young man then, each house you sought,
Where reign’d the mortal pestilence.
Corpse after corpse was carried forth,
But still unscath’d you issued thence.
Sore then your trials and severe;
The Helper yonder aids the helper here.

ALL
Heaven bless the trusty friend, and long
To help the poor his life prolong!

FAUST
To Him above in homage bend, Who prompts the helper and Who help doth send. [He proceeds with WAGNER.]

WAGNER
What feelings, great man, must thy breast inspire,
At homage paid thee by this crowd! Thrice blest
Who from the gifts by him possessed
Such benefit can draw! The sire
Thee to his boy with reverence shows,

They press around, inquire, advance,
Hush’d is the fiddle, check’d the dance.
Where thou dost pass they stand in rows,
And each aloft his bonnet throws,
But little fails and they to thee,
As though the Host came by, would bend the knee.

FAUST
A few steps further, up to yonder stone!
Here rest we from our walk. In times long past,
Absorb’d in thought, here oft I sat alone,
And disciplin’d myself with prayer and fast.
Then rich in hope, with faith sincere,
With sighs, and hands in anguish press’d,
The end of that sore plague, with many a tear,
From heaven’s dread Lord, I sought to wrest.
The crowd’s applause assumes a scornful tone.
Oh, could’st thou in my inner being read
How little either sire or son
Of such renown deserves the meed!

My sire, of good repute, and sombre mood,
O’er nature’s powers and every mystic zone,
With honest zeal, but methods of his own,
With toil fantastic loved to brood;

His time in dark alchemic cell,
With brother-adepts he would spend,
And there antagonists compel
Through numberless receipts to blend.
A ruddy lion there, a suitor bold,
In tepid bath was with the lily wed.
Thence both, while open flames around them roll’d,
Were tortur’d to another bridal bed.

Was then the youthful queen descried
With varied colors in the flask —
This was our medicine; the patients died;
“Who were restored?” none cared to ask.
With our infernal mixture thus, ere long.
These hills and peaceful vales among
We rag’d more fiercely than the pest;
Myself the deadly poison did to thousands give;
They pined away, I yet must live
To hear the reckless murderers blest.

WAGNER
Why let this thought your soul o’ercast?
Can man do more than with nice skill,
With firm and conscientious will,
Practise the art transmitted from the past?
If thou thy sire dost honor in thy youth,
His lore thou gladly wilt receive;
In manhood, dost thou spread the bounds of truth,
Then may thy son a higher goal achieve.

FAUST
How blest, in whom the fond desire
From error’s sea to rise, hope still renews!
What a man knows not, that he doth require,
And what he knoweth, that he cannot use.
But let not moody thoughts their shadow throw
O’er the calm beauty of this hour serene!
In the rich sunset see how brightly glow
Yon cottage homes, girt round with verdant green!
Slow sinks the orb, the day is now no more;
Yonder he hastens to diffuse new life.
Oh for a pinion from the earth to soar,
And after, ever after him to strive!
Then should I see the world below,
Bathed in the deathless evening-beams,
The vales reposing, every height a-glow,
The silver brooklets meeting golden streams.
The savage mountain, with its cavern’d side,
Bars not my godlike progress. Lo, the ocean,
Its warm bays heaving with a tranquil motion,
To my rapt vision opes its ample tide!
But now at length the god appears to sink
A new-born impulse wings my flight,
Onward I press, his quenchless light to drink,
The day before me, and behind the night,
The pathless waves beneath, and over me the skies.
Fair dream, it vanish’d with the parting day!
Alas! that when on spirit-wing we rise,
No wing material lifts our mortal clay.
But ’tis our inborn impulse, deep and strong,
Upwards and onwards still to urge our flight,
When far above us pours its thrilling song
The sky-lark, lost in azure light;
When on extended wing amain
O’er pine-crown’d height the eagle soars;
And over moor and lake, the crane
Still striveth toward its native shores.

WAGNER
To strange conceits oft I myself must own,
But impulse such as this I ne’er have known
Nor woods, nor fields, can long our thoughts engage;
Their wings I envy not the feather’d kind;
Far otherwise the pleasures of the mind
Bear us from book to book, from page to page I
Then winter nights grow cheerful; keen delight
Warms every limb; and ah! when we unroll
Some old and precious parchment, at the sight
All heaven itself descends upon the soul.

FAUST
Thy heart by one sole impulse is possess’d;
Unconscious of the other still remain!
Two souls, alas! are lodg’d within my breast,
Which struggle there for undivided reign
One to the world, with obstinate desire,
And closely-cleaving organs, still adheres;
Above the mist, the other doth aspire,
With sacred vehemence, to purer spheres.
Oh, are there spirits in the air
Who float ‘twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding,
Stoop hither from your golden atmosphere,

Lead me to scenes, new life and fuller yielding!
A magic mantle did I but possess,
Abroad to waft me as on viewless wings,
I’d prize it far beyond the costliest dress,
Nor would I change it for the robe of kings.

WAGNER
Call not the spirits who on mischief wait!
Their troop familiar, streaming through the air,
From every quarter threaten man’s estate,
And danger in a thousand forms prepare!
They drive impetuous from the frozen north,
With fangs sharp-piercing, and keen arrowy tongues;
From the ungenial east they issue forth,
And prey, with parching breath, upon thy lungs;
If, waft’d on the desert’s flaming wing,
They from the south heap fire upon the brain,
Refreshment from the west at first they bring,
Anon to drown thyself and field and plain.
In wait for mischief, they are prompt to hear;
With guileful purpose our behests obey;
Like ministers of grace they oft appear,
And lisp like angels, to betray.
But let us hence! Gray eve doth all things blend,
The air grows chill, the mists descend!
’Tis in the evening first our home we prize —
Why stand you thus, and gaze with wondering eyes?
What in the gloom thus moves you?

FAUST
           Yon black hound
See ‘st thou, through corn and stubble scampering round?

WAGNER
I’ve mark’d him long, naught strange in him I see!

FAUST
Note him! What takest thou the brute to be?

WAGNER
But for a poodle, whom his instinct serves
His master’s track to find once more.

FAUST
Dost mark how round us, with wide spiral curves,
He wheels, each circle closer than before?
And, if I err not, he appears to me
A line of ‘fire upon his track to leave.

WAGNER
Naught but a poodle black of hue I see;
’Tis some illusion doth your sight deceive.

FAUST
Methinks a magic coil our feet around,
He for a future snare doth lightly spread.

WAGNER
Around us as in doubt I see him shyly bound,
Since he two strangers seeth in his master’s stead.

FAUST
The circle narrows, he’s already near!

WAGNER
A dog dost see, no spectre have we here;
He growls, doubts, lays him on his belly too,
And wags his tail-as dogs are wont to do.

FAUST
Come hither, Sirrah! join our company!

WAGNER
A very poodle, he appears to be!
Thou standest still, for thee he’ll wait;
Thou speak’st to him, he fawns upon thee straight;
Aught thou mayst lose, again he’ll bring,
And for thy stick will into water spring.

FAUST
Thou’rt right indeed; no traces now I see
Whatever of a spirit’s agency,
’Tis training — nothing more.

WAGNER
                   A dog well taught
E’en by the wisest of us may be sought.
Ay, to your favor he’s entitled too,
Apt scholar of the students, ’tis his due!

[They enter the gate of the town.]

STUDY

FAUST (entering with, the poodle)
Now field and meadow I’ve forsaken;
O’er them deep night her veil doth draw;
In us the better soul doth waken,
With feelings of foreboding awe.
All lawless promptings, deeds unholy,
Now slumber, and all wild desires;
The love of man doth sway us wholly,
And love to God the soul inspires.

Peace, poodle, peace! Scamper not thus; obey me!
Why at the threshold snuffest thou so?
Behind the stove now quietly lay thee,
My softest cushion to thee I’ll throw.
As thou, without, didst please and amuse me,
Running and frisking about on the hill,
So tendance now I will not refuse thee;
A welcome guest, if thou’lt be still.

Ah! when the friendly taper gloweth,
Once more within our narrow cell,
Then in the heart itself that knoweth,
A light the darkness doth dispel.
Reason her voice resumes; returneth
Hope’s gracious bloom, with promise rife;
For streams of life the spirit yearneth,
Ah! for the very fount of life.
Poodle, snarl not! with the tone that arises,
Hallow’d and peaceful, my soul within,
Accords not thy growl, thy bestial din.
We find it not strange, that man despises
What he conceives not;
That he the good and fair misprizes —
Finding them often beyond his ken;
Will the dog snarl at them like men?

But ah! Despite my will, it stands confessed;
Contentment welleth up no longer in my breast.
Yet wherefore must the stream, alas, so soon be dry,
That we once more athirst should lie?
Full oft this sad experience hath been mine;
Nathless the want admits of compensation;
For things above the earth we learn to pine,
Our spirits yearn for revelation,
Which nowhere burns with purer beauty blent,
Than here in the New Testament.
To ope the ancient text an impulse strong
Impels me, and its sacred lore,
With honest purpose to explore,
And render into my loved German tongue.

[He opens a volume and applies himself to it.]

’Tis writ, “In the beginning was the Word!”
I pause, perplex’d! Who now will help afford?
I cannot the mere Word so highly prize;
I must translate it otherwise,
If by the spirit guided as I read.
“In the beginning was the Sense!” Take heed,
The import of this primal sentence weigh,
Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray!
Is force creative then of Sense the dower?
“In the beginning was the Power!”
Thus should it stand: yet, while the line I trace,
A something warns me, once more to efface.
The spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed,
I write, “In the beginning was the Deed!”

Am I with thee my room to share,
Poodle, thy barking now forbear,
Forbear thy howling!
Comrade so noisy, ever growling,
I cannot suffer here to dwell.
One or the other, mark me well,
Forthwith must leave the cell.
I’m loath the guest-right to withhold;
The door’s ajar, the passage clear;
But what must now mine eyes behold!
Are nature’s laws suspended here?
Real is it, or a phantom show?
In length and breadth how doth my poodle grow!
He lifts himself with threat’ning mien,
In likeness of a dog no longer seen!
What spectre have I harbor’d thus!
Huge as a hippopotamus,
With fiery eye, terrific tooth!
Ah! now I know thee, sure enough!
For such a base, half-hellish brood,
The key of Solomon is good.

SPIRITS (without)
Captur’d there within is one!
Stay without and follow none!
Like a fox in iron snare,
Hell’s old lynx is quaking there,
 But take heed’!
Hover round, above, below,
 To and fro,
Then from durance is he freed!
Can ye aid him, spirits all,
Leave him not in mortal thrall!
Many a time and oft hath he
Served us, when at liberty.

FAUST
The monster to confront, at first,
The spell of Four must be rehears’d;

 Salamander shall kindle,
 Writhe nymph of the wave,
 In air sylph shall dwindle,
 And Kobold shall slave.

Who doth ignore
The primal Four,
Nor knows aright
Their use and might,
O’er spirits will he
Ne’er master be!

 Vanish in the fiery glow,
 Salamander!
 Rushingly together flow,
 Undine!
 Shimmer in the meteor’s gleam,
 Sylphide!
 Hither bring thine homely aid,
 Incubus! Incubus!
 Step forth! I do adjure thee thus!

None of the Four
Lurks in the beast;
He grins at me, untroubled as before;
I have not hurt him in the least.
A spell of fear
Thou now shalt hear.

 Art thou, comrade fell,
 Fugitive from Hell?
 See then this sign,
 Before which incline
 The murky troops of Hell!
With bristling hair now doth the creature swell.

 Canst thou, reprobate,
 Read the uncreate,
 Unspeakable, diffused
 Throughout the heavenly sphere,
 Shamefully abused,
 Transpierced with nail and spear!

Behind the stove, tam’d by my spells,
Like an elephant he swells;
Wholly now he fills the room,
He into mist will melt away.
Ascend not to the ceiling! Come,
Thyself at the master’s feet now lay!
Thou seest that mine is no idle threat.
With holy fire I will scorch thee yet!
Wait not the might
That lies in the triple-glowing light!
Wait not the might
Of all my arts in fullest measure!

MEPHISTOPHELES (as the mist sinks, comes forward from behind the stove, in the dress of a traveling scholar)
Why all this uproar? What’s the master’s pleasure?

FAUST
This then the kernel of the brute!
A traveling scholar? Why I needs must smile.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Your learned reverence humbly I salute!
You’ve made me swelter in a pretty style.

FAUST
Thy name?

MEPHISTOPHELES
         The question trifling seems from one,
Who it appears the Word doth rate so low;
Who, undeluded by mere outward show,
To Being’s depths would penetrate alone.

FAUST
With gentlemen like you indeed
The inward essence from the name we read,
As all too plainly it doth appear,
When Beelzebub, Destroyer, Liar, meets the ear.
Who then art thou?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Part of that power which still Produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill.

FAUST
What hidden mystery in this riddle lies?

MEPHISTOPHELES
The spirit I, which evermore denies!
And justly; for whate’er to light is brought
Deserves again to be reduced to naught;
Then better ‘twere that naught should be.
Thus all the elements which ye
Destruction, Sin, or briefly, Evil, name,
As my peculiar element I claim.

FAUST
Thou nam’st thyself a part, and yet a whole I see.

MEPHISTOPHELES
The modest truth I speak to thee.
Though folly’s microcosm, man, it seems,
Himself to be a perfect whole esteems:
Part of the part am I, which at the first was all,
A part of darkness, which gave birth to light —
Proud light, who now his mother would enthrall,
Contesting space and ancient rank with night.
Yet he succeedeth not, for struggle as he will,
To forms material he adhereth still;
From them he streameth, them he maketh fair,
And still the progress of his beams they check;
And so, I trust, when comes the final wreck,
Light will, ere long, the doom of matter share.

FAUST
Thy worthy avocation now I guess!
Wholesale annihilation won’t prevail,
So thou’rt beginning on a smaller scale.

MEPHISTOPHELES
And, to say truth, as yet with small success.
Oppos’d to naught, this clumsy world,
The something — it subsisteth still;
Not yet is it to ruin hurl’d,
Despite the efforts of my will.
Tempests and earthquakes, fire and flood, I’ve tried;
Yet land and ocean still unchang’d abide!
And then of humankind and beasts, the accursed brood, —
Neither o’er them can I extend my sway.
What countless myriads have I swept away!
Yet ever circulates the fresh young blood.
It is enough to drive me to despair!
As in the earth, in water, and in air,
A thousand germs burst forth spontaneously;
In moisture, drought, heat, cold, they still appear!
Had I not flame selected as my sphere,
Nothing apart had been reserved for me.

FAUST
So thou with thy cold devil’s fist,
Still clench’d in malice impotent,
Dost the creative power resist,
The active, the beneficent!
Henceforth some other task essay,
Of Chaos thou the wondrous son!

MEPHISTOPHELES
We will consider what you say,
And talk about it more anon!
For this time have I leave to go?

FAUST
Why thou shouldst ask, I cannot see.
Since thee I now have learned to know,

At thy good pleasure, visit me.
Here is the window, here the door,
The chimney, too, may serve thy need.

MEPHISTOPHELES
I must confess, my stepping o’er
Thy threshold a slight hindrance doth impede;
The wizard-foot doth me retain.

FAUST
The pentagram thy peace doth mart
To me, thou son of hell, explain,
How camest thou in, if this thine exit bar?
Could such a spirit aught ensnare?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Observe it well, it is not drawn with care;
One of the angles, that which points without,
Is, as thou seest, not quite closed.

FAUST
Chance hath the matter happily dispos’d!
So thou my captive art? No doubt!
By accident thou thus art caught!

MEPHISTOPHELES
In sprang the dog, indeed, observing naught;
Things now assume another shape,
The devil’s in the house and can’t escape.

FAUST
Why through the window not withdraw?

MEPHISTOPHELES
For ghosts and for the devil ’tis a law,
Where they stole in, there they must forth. We’re free
The first to choose; as to the second, slaves are we.

FAUST
E’en hell hath its peculiar laws, I see!
I’m glad of that! a pact may then be made,
The which you gentlemen will surely keep?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Whate’er therein is promised thou shalt reap,
No tittle shall remain unpaid.
But such arrangements time require;
We’ll speak of them when next we meet;
Most earnestly I now entreat,
This once permission to retire.

FAUST
Another moment prithee here remain,
Me with some happy word to pleasure.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now let me go! Ere long I’ll come again;
Then thou may’st question at thy leisure.

FAUST
’Twas not my purpose thee to lime;
The snare hast entered of thine own free will:
Let him who holds the devil, hold him still!
So soon he’ll catch him not a second time.

MEPHISTOPHELES
If it so please thee, I’m at thy command;
Only on this condition, understand;
That worthily thy leisure to beguile,
I here may exercise my arts awhile.

FAUST
Thou’rt free to do so! Gladly I’ll attend;
But be thine art a pleasant one!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 My friend,
This hour enjoyment more intense
Shall captivate each ravish’d sense,
Than thou could’st compass in the bound
Of the whole year’s unvarying round;
And what the dainty spirits sing,
The lovely images they bring,
Are no fantastic sorcery.
Rich odors shall regale your smell,
On choicest sweets your palate dwell,
Your feelings thrill with ecstasy.
No preparation do we need,
Here we together are. Proceed.

SPIRITS
 Hence overshadowing gloom,
 Vanish from sight!
 O’er us thine azure dome,
 Bend, beauteous light!
 Dark clouds that o’er us spread,
 Melt in thin air!
 Stars, your soft radiance shed,
 Tender and fair!
 Girt with celestial might,
 Winging their airy flight,
 Spirits are thronging.
 Follows their forms of light
 Infinite longing!
 Flutter their vestures bright
 O’er field and grove!
 Where in their leafy bower
 Lovers the livelong hour
 Vow deathless love.
 Soft bloometh bud and bower!
 Bloometh the grove!
 Grapes from the spreading vine
 Crown the full measure;
 Fountains of foaming wine
 Gush from the pressure.
 Still where the currents wind,
 Gems brightly gleam;
 Leaving the hills behind
 On rolls the stream;
 Now into ample seas,

 Spreadeth the flood —
 Laving the sunny leas,
 Mantled with wood.

 Rapture the feather’d throng,
 Gaily careering,
 Sip as they float along;
 Sunward they’re steering;
 On toward the isles of light
 Winging their way,
 That on the waters bright
 Dancingly play.
 Hark to the choral strain,
 Joyfully ringing!
 While on the grassy plain
 Dancers are springing;
 Climbing the steep hill’s side,
 Skimming the glassy tide,
 Wander they there;
 Others on pinions wide
 Wing the blue air;
 All lifeward tending, upward still wending,
 Toward yonder stars that gleam,
 Far, far above;
 Stars from whose tender beam
 Rains blissful love.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Well done, my dainty spirits! now he slumbers!
Ye have entranc’d him fairly with your numbers!
This minstrelsy of yours I must repay. —
Thou art not yet the man to hold the devil fast! —
With fairest shapes your spells around him cast,
And plunge him in a sea of dreams!
But that this charm be rent, the threshold passed,
Tooth of rat the way must clear.
I need not conjure long it seems,
One rustles hitherward, and soon my voice will hear.
The master of the rats and mice,
Of flies and frogs, of bugs and lice,
Commands thy presence; without fear
Come forth and gnaw the threshold here,
Where he with oil has smear’d it. — Thou
Com’st hopping forth already! Now
To work! The point that holds me bound
Is in the outer angle found.
Another bite — so — now ’tis done —
Now, Faustus, till we meet again, dream on.

FAUST (awaking)
Am I once more deluded! must I deem
That thus the throng of spirits disappear?
The devil’s presence — was it but a dream?
Hath but a poodle scap’d and left me here?

STUDY

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
A knock? Come in! Who now would break my rest?

MEPHISTOPHELES
’Tis I!

FAUST
Come in!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Thrice be the words express’d.

FAUST
Then I repeat, Come in!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 ’Tis well,
I hope that we shall soon agree!
For now your fancies to expel,
Here, as a youth of high degree,
I come in gold-lac’d scarlet vest,
And stiff-silk mantle richly dress’d,
A cock’s gay feather for a plume,
A long and pointed rapier, too;
And briefly I would counsel you
To don at once the same costume,
And, free from trammels, speed away,
That what life is you may essay.

FAUST
In every garb I needs must feel oppress’d,
My heart to earth’s low cares a prey.
Too old the trifler’s part to play,
Too young to live by no desire possess’d.
What can the world to me afford?
Renounce! renounce! is still the word;
This is the everlasting song
In every ear that ceaseless rings,
And which, alas, our whole life long,
Hoarsely each passing moment sings.
But to new horror I awake each morn,
And I could weep hot tears, to see the sun
Dawn on another day, whose round forlorn
Accomplishes no wish of mine — not one.
Which still, with froward captiousness, impains
E’en the presentiment of every joy,
While low realities and paltry cares
The spirit’s fond imaginings destroy.
Then must I too, when falls the veil of night,
Stretch’d on my pallet languish in despair.
Appalling dreams my soul affright;
No rest vouchsafed me even there.
The god, who throned within my breast resides,
Deep in my soul can stir the springs;
With sovereign sway my energies he guides,
He cannot move external things;
And so existence is to me a weight,
Death fondly I desire, and life I hate.

MEPHISTOPHELES
And yet, methinks, by most ‘twill be confess’d
That Death is never quite a welcome guest.

FAUST
Happy the man around whose brow he binds
The bloodstain’d wreath in conquest’s dazzling hour;
Or whom, excited by the dance, he finds
Dissolv’d in bliss, in love’s delicious bower!
O that before the lofty spirit’s might,
Enraptured, I had rendered up my soul!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Yet did a certain man refrain one night
Of its brown juice to drain the crystal bowl.

FAUST
To play the spy diverts you then?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 I own,
Though not omniscient, much to me is known.

FAUST
If o’er my soul the tone familiar, stealing,
Drew me from harrowing thought’s bewild’ring maze,
Touching the ling’ring chords of childlike feeling,
With the sweet harmonies of happier days:
So curse I all, around the soul that windeth
Its magic and alluring spell,
And with delusive flattery bindeth
Its victim to this dreary cell!
Curs’d before all things be the high opinion
Wherewith the spirit girds itself around!
Of shows delusive curs’d be the dominion,
Within whose mocking sphere our sense is bound!
Accurs’d of dreams the treacherous wiles,
The cheat of glory, deathless fame!
Accurs’d what each as property beguiles,
Wife, child, slave, plough, whate’er its name!
Accurs’d be mammon, when with treasure
He doth to daring deeds incite:
Or when to steep the soul in pleasure,
He spreads the couch of soft delight!
Curs’d be the grape’s balsamic juice!
Accurs’d love’s dream, of joys the first!
Accurs’d be hope! accurs’d be faith!
And more than all, be patience curs’d!

CHORUS OF SPIRITS (invisible)

 Woe! woe!
 Thou hast destroy’d
 The beautiful world
 With violent blow;
 ’Tis shiver’d! ’tis shatter’d!
 The fragments abroad by a demigod scatter’d!
 Now we sweep
 The wrecks into nothingness!
 Fondly we weep
 The beauty that’s gone!
 Thou, ‘mongst the sons of earth,
 Lofty and mighty one,
 Build it once more!
 In thine own bosom the lost world restore!
 Now with unclouded sense
 Enter a new career;
 Songs shall salute thine ear,
 Ne’er heard before!

MEPHISTOPHELES
My little ones these spirits be.
Hark! with shrewd intelligence,
How they recommend to thee
Action, and the joys of sense!
In the busy world to dwell,
Fain they would allure thee hence
For within this lonely cell,
Stagnate sap of life and sense.
Forbear to trifle longer with thy grief,
Which, vulture-like, consumes thee in this den.
The worst society is some relief,
Making thee feel thyself a man with men.
Nathless, it is not meant, I trow,
To thrust thee ‘mid the vulgar throng.
I to the upper ranks do not belong;
Yet if, by me companion’d, thou
Thy steps through life forthwith wilt take,
Upon the spot myself I’ll make
Thy comrade; — Should it suit thy need,
I am thy servant, am thy slave indeed!

FAUST
And how must I thy services repay?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Thereto thou lengthen’d respite hast!

FAUST
 No! no!
The devil is an egoist I know
And, for Heaven’s sake, ’tis not his way
Kindness to any one to show.
Let the condition plainly be exprest!
Such a domestic is a dangerous guest.

MEPHISTOPHELES
I’ll pledge myself to be thy servant here,
Still at thy back alert and prompt to be;
But when together yonder we appear,
Then shalt thou do the same for me.

FAUST
But small concern I feel for yonder world;
Hast thou this system into ruin hurl’d,
Another may arise the void to fill.
This earth the fountain whence my pleasures flow,
This sun doth daily shine upon my woe,
And if this world I must forego,
Let happen then, — what can and will.
I to this theme will close mine ears,
If men hereafter hate and love,
And if there be in yonder spheres
A depth below or height above.

MEPHISTOPHELES
In this mood thou mayst venture it. But make
The compact! I at once will undertake
To charm thee with mine arts. I’ll give thee more
Than mortal eve hath e’er beheld before.

FAUST
What, sorry Devil, hast thou to bestow?
Was ever mortal spirit, in its high endeavor,
Fathom’d by Being such as thou?
Yet food thou least which satisfieth never;
Hast ruddy gold, that still doth flow
Like restless quicksilver away;
A game thou hast, at which none win who play —
A girl who would, with amorous eyen,
E’en from my breast a neighbor snare,
Lofty ambition’s joy divine,
That, meteor-like, dissolves in air.
Show me the fruit that, ere ’tis pluck’d, doth rot,
And trees, whose verdure daily buds anew!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Such a commission scares me not;
I can provide such treasures, it is true.
But, my good friend, a season will come round
When on what’s good we may regale in peace.

FAUST
If e’er upon my couch, stretched at my ease, I’m found,
Then may my life that instant cease!
Me canst thou cheat with glozing wile
Till self-reproach away I cast, —
Me with joy’s lure canst thou beguile; —
Let that day be for me the last!
Be this our wager!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Settled!

FAUST
 Sure and fast!
When to the moment I shall say,
“Linger awhile! so fair thou art!”
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway,
Then to the abyss will I depart!
Then may the solemn death-bell sound,
Then from thy service thou art free,
The index then may cease its round,
And time be never more for me!

MEPHISTOPHELES
I shall remember: pause, ere ’tis too late.

FAUST
Thereto a perfect right hast thou.
My strength I do not rashly overrate.
Slave am I here, at any rate,
If thine, or whose, it matters not, I trow.

MEPHISTOPHELES
At thine inaugural feast I will this day
Attend, my duties to commence. — But one thing! —
Accidents may happen, hence
A line or two in writing grant, I pray.

FAUST
A writing, Pedant! dost demand from me?
Man, and man’s plighted word, are these unknown to thee?
Is’t not enough, that by the word I gave,
My doom for evermore is cast?
Doth not the world in all its currents rave,
And must a promise hold me fast?
Yet fixed is this delusion in our heart;
Who, of his own free will, therefrom would part?
How blest within whose breast truth reigneth pure!
No sacrifice will he repent when made!
A formal deed, with seal and signature,
A spectre this from which all shrink afraid.
The word its life resigneth in the pen,
Leather and wax usurp the mastery then.
Spirits of evil! what dost thou require?
Brass, marble, parchment, paper, dost desire?
Shall I with chisel, pen, or graver write?
Thy choice is free; to me ’tis all the same.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Wherefore thy passion so excite,
And thus thine eloquence inflame?
A scrap is for our compact good.
Thou under-signest merely with a drop of blood.

FAUST
If this will satisfy thy mind,
Thy whim I’ll gratify, howe’er absurd.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Blood is a juice of very special kind.

FAUST
Be not afraid that I shall break my word!
The scope of all my energy
Is in exact accordance with my vow.
Vainly I have aspired too high;
I’m on a level but with such as thou;
Me the great spirit scorn’d, defied;
Nature from me herself doth hide;
Rent is the web of thought; my mind
Doth knowledge loathe of every kind.
In depths of sensual pleasure drown’d,
Let us our fiery passions still!
Enwrapp’d in magic’s veil profound,
Let wondrous charms our senses thrill!
Plunge we in time’s tempestuous flow,
Stem we the rolling surge of chance!
There may alternate weal and woe,
Success and failure, as they can,
Mingle and shift in changeful dance!
Excitement is the sphere for man.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Nor goal, nor measure is prescrib’d to you,
If you desire to taste of every thing,
To snatch at joy while on the wing,
May your career amuse and profit too!
Only fall to and don’t be over coy!

FAUST
Hearken! The end I aim at is not joy;
I crave excitement, agonizing bliss,
Enamor’d hatred, quickening vexation.
Purg’d from the love of knowledge, my vocation,
The scope of all my powers henceforth be this,
To bare my breast to every pang, — to know
In my heart’s core all human weal and woe,
To grasp in thought the lofty and the deep,
Men’s various fortunes on my breast to heap,
And thus to theirs dilate my individual mind,
And share at length with them the shipwreck of mankind.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Oh, credit me, who still as ages roll,
Have chew’d this bitter fare from year to year,
No mortal, from the cradle to the bier,
Digests the ancient leaven! Know, this Whole
Doth for the Deity alone subsist!
He in eternal brightness doth exist;
Us unto darkness he hath brought, and here,
Where day and night alternate, is your sphere.

FAUST
But ’tis my will!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 Well spoken, I admit!
But one thing puzzles me, my friend;
Time’s short, art long; methinks ‘twere fit
That you to friendly counsel should attend.
A poet choose as your ally!
Let him thought’s wide dominion sweep,
Each good and noble quality
Upon your honored brow to heap;
The lion’s magnanimity,
The fleetness of the hind,
The fiery blood of Italy,
The Northern’s stedfast mind.
Let him to you the mystery show
To blend high aims and cunning low;
And while youth’s passions are aflame
To fall in love by rule and plan!
I fain would meet with such a man;
Would him Sir Microcosmus name.

FAUST
What then am I, if I aspire in vain
The crown of our humanity to gain,
Toward which my every sense doth strain?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Thou’rt after all — just what thou art.
Put on thy head a wig with countless locks,
And to a cubit’s height upraise thy socks,
Still thou remainest ever, what thou art.

FAUST
I feel it, I have heap’d upon my brain
The gather’d treasure of man’s thought in vain;
And when at length from studious toil I rest,
No power, new-born, springs up within my breast;
A hair’s breadth is not added to my height;
I am no nearer to the infinite.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Good sir, these things you view indeed,
Just as by other men they’re view’d;
We must more cleverly proceed,
Before life’s joys our grasp elude.
The devil! thou hast hands and feet,
And head and heart are also thine;
What I enjoy with relish sweet —
Is it on that account less mine?
If for six stallions I can pay,
Do I not own their strength and speed?
A proper man I dash away,
As their two dozen legs were mine indeed.
Up then, from idle pondering free,
And forth into the world with me!
I tell you what; — your speculative churl
Is like a beast which some ill spirit leads,
On barren wilderness, in ceaseless whirl,
While all around lie fair and verdant meads.

FAUST
But how shall we begin?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 We will go hence with speed,
A place of torment this indeed!
A precious life, thyself to bore,
And some few youngsters evermore!
Leave that to neighbor Paunch! Withdraw?
Why wilt thou plague thyself with thrashing straw?
The very best that thou dost know
Thou dar’st not to the striplings show.
One in the passage now doth wait!

FAUST
I’m in no mood to see him now.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Poor lad! He must be tired, I trow;
He must not go disconsolate.
Hand me thy cap and gown; the mask
Is for my purpose quite first rate.

[He changes his dress.]

Now leave it to my wit! I ask
But quarter of an hour; meanwhile equip,
And make all ready for our pleasant trip!

[Exit FAUST.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (in FAUST’S long gown)
Mortal! the loftiest attributes of men,
Reason and Knowledge, only thus contemn;
Still let the Prince of lies, without control,
With shows, and mocking charms delude thy soul,
I have thee unconditionally then! —
Fate hath endow’d him with an ardent mind,
Which unrestrain’d still presses on forever,
And whose precipitate endeavor
Earth’s joys o’erleaping, leaveth them behind.
Him will I drag through life’s wild waste,
Through scenes of vapid dulness, where at last
Bewilder’d, he shall falter, and stick fast;
And, still to mock his greedy haste,
Viands and drink shall float his craving lips beyond —
Vainly he’ll seek refreshment, anguish-tost,
And were he not the devil’s by his bond,
Yet must his soul infallibly be lost!

A STUDENT enters.

STUDENT
But recently I’ve quitted home,
Full of devotion am I come
A man to know and hear, whose name
With reverence is known to fame.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Your courtesy much flatters me!
A man like other men you see;
Pray have you yet applied elsewhere?

STUDENT
I would entreat your friendly care!
I’ve youthful blood and courage high;
Of gold I bring a fair supply;
To let me go my mother was not fain;
But here I longed true knowledge to attain.

MEPHISTOPHELES
You’ve hit upon the very place.

STUDENT
And yet my steps I would retrace.
These walls, this melancholy room,
O’erpower me with a sense of gloom;
The space is narrow, nothing green,
No friendly tree is to be seen
And in these halls, with benches filled, distraught,
Sight, hearing fail me, and the power of thought.

MEPHISTOPHELES
It all depends on habit. Thus at first
The infant takes not kindly to the breast,
But before long, its eager thirst
Is fain to slake with hearty zest:
Thus at the breasts of wisdom day by day
With keener relish you’ll your thirst allay.

STUDENT
Upon her neck I fain would hang with joy;
To reach it, say, what means must I employ?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Explain, ere further time we lose,
What special faculty you choose?

STUDENT
Profoundly learned I would grow,
What heaven contains would comprehend,
O’er earth’s wide realm my gaze extend,
Nature and science I desire to know.

MEPHISTOPHELES
You are upon the proper track, I find;
Take heed, let nothing dissipate your mind.

STUDENT
My heart and soul are in the chase!
Though, to be sure, I fain would seize,
On pleasant summer holidays,
A little liberty and careless ease.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Use well your time, so rapidly it flies;
Method will teach you time to win;
Hence, my young friend, I would advise,
With college logic to begin!
Then will your mind be so well braced,
In Spanish boots so tightly laced,
That on ‘twill circumspectly creep,
Thought’s beaten track securely keep,
Nor will it, ignis-fatuus like,
Into the path of error strike.
Then many a day they’ll teach you how
The mind’s spontaneous acts, till now
As eating and as drinking free,
Require a process; — one! two! three!
In truth the subtle web of thought
Is like the weaver’s fabric wrought:
One treadle moves a thousand lines,
Swift dart the shuttles to and fro,
Unseen the threads together flow,
A thousand knots one stroke combines.
Then forward steps your sage to show,
And prove to you, it must be so;
The first being so, and so the second,
The third and fourth deduc’d we see;
And if there were no first and second,
Nor third nor fourth would ever be.
This, scholars of all countries prize, —
Yet ‘mong themselves no weavers rise.
He who would know and treat of aught alive,
Seeks first the living spirit thence to drive:
Then are the lifeless fragments in his hand,
There only fails, alas! the spirit-band.
This process, chemists name, in learned thesis,
Mocking themselves, Naturæ encheiresis.

STUDENT
Your words I cannot fully comprehend.

MEPHISTOPHELES
In a short time you will improve, my friend,
When of scholastic forms you learn the use;
And how by method all things to reduce.

STUDENT
So doth all this my brain confound,
As if a mill-wheel there were turning round.

MEPHISTOPHELES
And next, before aught else you learn,
You must with zeal to metaphysics turn!
There see that you profoundly comprehend
What doth the limit of man’s brain transcend;
For that which is or is not in the head
A sounding phrase will serve you in good stead.
But before all strive this half year
From one fix’d order ne’er to swerve!
Five lectures daily you must hear;
The hour still punctually observe!
Yourself with studious zeal prepare,
And closely in your manual look,
Hereby may you be quite aware
That all he utters standeth in the book;
Yet write away without cessation,
As at the Holy Ghost’s dictation!

STUDENT
This, Sir, a second time you need not say!
Your counsel I appreciate quite;
What we possess in black and white
We can in peace and comfort bear away.

MEPHISTOPHELES
A faculty I pray you name.

STUDENT
For jurisprudence some distaste I own.

MEPHISTOPHELES
To me this branch of science is well known,
And hence I cannot your repugnance blame.
Customs and laws in every place,
Like a disease, and heir-loom dread,
Still trail their curse from race to race,
And furtively abroad they spread.
To nonsense, reason’s self they turn;
Beneficence becomes a pest;
Woe unto thee, that thou’rt a grandson born!
As for the law born with us, unexpressed; —
That law, alas, none careth to discern.

STUDENT
You deepen my dislike. The youth
Whom you instruct, is blest in sooth!
To try theology I feel inclined.

MEPHISTOPHELES
I would not lead you willingly astray,
But as regards this science, you will find
So hard it is to shun the erring way,
And so much hidden poison lies therein
Which scarce can you discern from medicine.
Here too it is the best, to listen but to one,
And by the master’s words to swear alone.
To sum up all — To words hold fast!
Then the safe gate securely pass’d,
You’ll reach the fane of certainty at last.

STUDENT
But then some meaning must the words convey.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Right! But o’er-anxious thought you’ll find of no avail;
For there precisely where ideas fail,
A word comes opportunely into play;
Most admirable weapons words are found,
On words a system we securely ground,
In words we can conveniently believe,
Nor of a single jot can we a word bereave.

STUDENT
Your pardon for my importunity;
Yet once more must I trouble you:
On medicine, I’ll thank you to supply
A pregnant utterance or two!
Three years! how brief the appointed tide!
The field, heaven knows, is all too wide!
If but a friendly hint be thrown,
’Tis easier than to feel one’s way.

MEPHISTOPHELES (aside)

I’m weary of the dry pedantic tone,
And must again the genuine devil play.

(Aloud)
Of medicine the spirit’s caught with ease,
The great and little world you study through,
That things may then their course pursue,
As heaven may please.
In vain abroad you range through science’s ample space,
Each man learns only that which learn he can;
Who knows the moment to embrace,
He is your proper man.
In person you are tolerably made,
Nor in assurance will you be deficient:
Self-confidence acquire, be not afraid,
Others will then esteem you a proficient.
Learn chiefly with the sex to deal!
Their thousand ahs and ohs,
These the sage doctor knows,
He only from one point can heal.
Assume a decent tone of courteous ease,
You have them then to humor as you please.
First a diploma must belief infuse,
That you in your profession take the lead:
You then at once those easy freedoms use
For which another many a year must plead;
Learn how to feel with nice address
The dainty wrist; — and how to press,
With ardent, furtive glance, the slender waist,
To feel how tightly it is laced.

STUDENT
There is some sense in that! one sees the how and why.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Gray is, young friend, all theory:
And green of life the golden tree.

STUDENT
I swear it seemeth like a dream to me.
May I some future time repeat my visit,
To hear on what your wisdom grounds your views?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Command my humble service when you choose.

STUDENT
Ere I retire, one boon I must solicit:
Here is my album; do not, Sir, deny
This token of your favor!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Willingly!

[He writes and returns the book.]

STUDENT (reads)

ERITIS SICUT DEUS, SCIENTES BONUM ET MALUM
[He reverently closes the book and retires.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Let but this ancient proverb be your rule,
My cousin follow still, the wily snake,
And with your likeness to the gods, poor fool,
Ere long be sure your poor sick heart will quake!

FAUST (enters)
Whither away?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 ’Tis thine our course to steer.
The little world, and then the great we’ll view.
With what delight, what profit too,
Thou’lt revel through thy gay career!

FAUST
Despite my length of beard I need
The easy manners that insure success;
Th’ attempt I fear can ne’er succeed;
To mingle in the world I want address;
I still have an embarrass’d air, and then
I feel myself so small with other men.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Time, my good friend, will all that’s needful give;
Be only self-possessed, and thou hast learn’d to live.

FAUST
But how are we to start, I pray?
Steeds, servants, carriage, where are they?

MEPHISTOPHELES
We’ve but to spread this mantle wide,
‘Twill serve whereon through air to ride;
No heavy baggage need you take,
When we our bold excursion make.
A little gas, which I will soon prepare,
Lifts us from earth; aloft through air,
Light-laden, we shall swiftly steer; —
I wish you joy of your new life-career.

AUERBACH’S CELLAR IN LEIPZIG

A Drinking Party

FROSCH
No drinking? Naught a laugh to raise?
None of your gloomy looks, I pray!
You, who so bright were wont to blaze,
Are dull as wetted straw today.

BRANDER
’Tis all your fault; your part you do not bear,
No beastliness, no folly.

FROSCH (pours a glass of wine over his head)

 There,
You have them both!

BRANDER
You double beast!

FROSCH
’Tis what you ask’d me for, at least!

SIEBEL
Whoever quarrels, turn him out!
With open throat drink, roar, and shout.
Hollo! Hollo! Ho!

ALTMAYER
Zounds, fellow, cease your deaf’ning cheers!
Bring cotton-wool! He splits my ears.

SIEBEL
’Tis when the roof rings back the tone,
Then first the full power of the bass is known.

FROSCH
Right! out with him who takes offence!
A! tara lara da!

ALTMAYER
A! tara lara da!

FROSCH
Our throats are tuned. Come, let’s commence!

(Sings)

 The holy Roman empire now,
 How holds it still together?

BRANDER
An ugly song! a song political!
A song offensive! Thank God, every morn,
To rule the Roman empire that you were not born!
I bless my stars at least that mine is not
Either a kaiser’s or a chancellor’s lot.
Yet, ‘among ourselves, should one still lord it o’er the rest;
That we elect a pope I now suggest.
Ye know what quality insures
A man’s success, his rise secures.

FROSCH (sings)

 Bear, lady nightingale above,
 Ten thousand greetings to my love.

SIEBEL
No greetings to a sweetheart! No love-songs shall there be!

FROSCH
Love-greetings and love-kisses! Thou shalt not hinder me!

(Sings)

 Undo the bolt! in stilly night,
 Undo the bolt! the lover wakes.
 Shut to the bolt! when morning breaks.

SIEBEL
Ay, sing, sing on, praise her with all thy might!
My turn to laugh will come some day.
Me hath she jilted once, you the same trick she’ll play.
Some gnome her lover be! where cross-roads meet,
With her to play the fool; or old he-goat,
From Blocksberg coming in swift gallop, bleat
A good night to her from his hairy throat!
A proper lad of genuine flesh and blood,
Is for the damsel far too good;
The greeting she shall have from me,
To smash her window-panes will be!

BRANDER (striking on the table)
Silence! Attend! to me give ear!
Confess, sirs, I know how to live:
Some love-sick folk are sitting here!
Hence, ’tis but fit, their hearts to cheer,
That I a good-night strain to them should give.
Hark! of the newest fashion is my song!
Strike boldly in the chorus, clear and strong!

(He sings)

 Once in a cellar lived a rat,
 He feasted there on butter,
 Until his paunch became as fat
 As that of Doctor Luther.
 The cook laid poison for the guest,
 Then was his heart with pangs oppress’d,
 As if his frame love wasted.

CHORUS (shouting)
As if his frame love wasted.

BRANDER
 He ran around, he ran abroad,
 Of every puddle drinking.
 The house with rage he scratch’d and gnaw’d,
 In vain, — he fast was sinking;
 Full many an anguish’d bound he gave,
 Nothing the hapless brute could save,
 As if his frame love wasted.

CHORUS
As if his frame love wasted.

BRANDER
 By torture driven, in open day,
 The kitchen he invaded,
 Convulsed upon the hearth he lay,
 With anguish sorely jaded;
 The poisoner laugh’d; Ha! ha! quoth she,
 His life is ebbing fast, I see,
 As if his frame love wasted.

CHORUS
As if his frame love wasted.

SIEBEL
How the dull boors exulting shout!
Poison for the poor rats to strew
A fine exploit it is no doubt.

BRANDER
They, as it seems, stand well with you!

ALTMAYER
Old bald-pate! with the paunch profound!
The rat’s mishap hath tamed his nature;
For he his counterpart hath found
Depicted in the swollen creature.

FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
I now must introduce to you
Before aught else, this jovial crew,
To show how lightly life may glide away;
With the folk here each day’s a holiday.
With little wit and much content,
Each on his own small round intent,
Like sportive kitten with its tail;
While no sick-headache they bewail,
And while their host will credit give,
Joyous and free from care they live.

BRANDER
They’re off a journey, that is clear, —
From their strange manners; they have scarce been here
An hour.

FROSCH
 You’re right! Leipzig’s the place for me!
’Tis quite a little Paris; people there
Acquire a certain easy, finish’d air.

SIEBEL
What take you now these travelers to be?

FROSCH
Let me alone! O’er a full glass you’ll see,
As easily I’ll worm their secret out
As draw an infant’s tooth. I’ve not a doubt
That my two gentlemen are nobly born;
They look dissatisfied and full of scorn.

BRANDER
They are but mountebanks, I’ll lay a bet!

ALTMAYER
Most like.

FROSCH
Mark me, I’ll screw it from them yet!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
These fellows would not scent the devil out,
E’en though he had them by the very throat!

FAUST
Good-morrow, gentlemen!

STEBEL
Thanks for your fair salute.

[Aside, glancing at MEPHISTOPHELES.]

How! goes the fellow on a halting foot?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Is it permitted here with you to sit?
Then, though good wine is not forthcoming here,
Good company at least our hearts will cheer.

ALTMAYER
A dainty gentleman, no doubt of it!

FROSCH
You’re doubtless recently from Rippach? Pray,
Did you with Master Hans there chance to sup?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Today we pass’d him, but we did not stop!
When last we met him he had much to say
Touching his cousins, and to each he sent
Full many a greeting and kind compliment.

[With an inclination toward FROSCH.]

ALTMAYER (aside to Frosch)
You have it there!

SIEBEL
Faith! he’s a knowing one!

FROSCH
Have patience! I will show him up anon!

MEPHISTOPHELES
We heard erewhile, unless I’m wrong,
Voices well trained in chorus pealing?
Certes, most choicely here must song
Re-echo from this vaulted ceiling!

FROSCH
That you’re an amateur one plainly sees!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Oh no, though strong the love, I cannot boast much skill.

ALTMAYER
Give us a song!

MEPHISTOPHELES
As many as you will.

SIEBEL
But be it a brand new one, if you please!

MEPHISTOPHELES
But recently returned from Spain are we,
The pleasant land of wine and minstrelsy.

(Sings)

  A king there was once reigning,
  Who had a goodly flea —

FROSCH
Hark! did you rightly catch the words? a flea!
An odd sort of a guest he needs must be.

MEPHISTOPHELES (sings)

 A king there was once reigning,
 Who had a goodly flea,
 Him loved he without feigning,
 As his own son were he!
 His tailor then he summon’d —
 The tailor to him goes:
 Now measure me the youngster
 For jerkin and for hose!

BRANDER
Take proper heed, the tailor strictly charge,
The nicest measurement to take,
And as he loves his head, to make
The hose quite smooth and not too large!

MEPHISTOPHELES
In satin and in velvet,
Behold the younker dressed:
Bedizen’d o’er with ribbons,
A cross upon his breast.
Prime minister they made him;
He wore a star of state;
And all his poor relations
Were courtiers, rich and great.

The gentlemen and ladies
At court were sore distressed;
The queen and all her maidens
Were bitten by the pest,
And yet they dared not scratch them
Or chase the fleas away.
If we are bit, we catch them,
And crack without delay.

CHORUS (shouting)
If we are bit, etc.

FROSCH
Bravo! That’s the song for me!

SIEBEL
Such be the fate of every flea!

BRANDER
With clever finger catch and kill!

ALTMAYER
Hurrah for wine and freedom still!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Were but your wine a trifle better, friend,
A glass to freedom I would gladly drain.

SIEBEL
You’d better not repeat those words again!

MEPHISTOPHELES
I am afraid the landlord to offend;
Else freely would I treat each worthy guest
From our own cellar to the very best.

SIEBEL
Out with it then! Your doings I’ll defend.

FROSCH
Give a good glass, and straight we’ll praise you, one and all.
Only let not your samples be too small;
For if my judgment you desire,
Certes, an ample mouthful I require.

ALTMAYER (aside)

I guess, they’re from the Rhenish land.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Fetch me a gimlet here!

BRANDER
Say, what therewith to bore?
You cannot have the wine-casks at the door?

ALTMAYER
Our landlord’s tool-basket behind doth yonder stand.

MEPHISTOPHELES (takes the gimlet) (To FROSCH)
Now only say! what liquor will you take?

FROSCH
How mean you that? Have you of every sort?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Each may his own selection make.

ALTMAYER (to FROSCH)
Ha! Ha! You lick your lips already at the thought.

FROSCH
Good, if I have my choice, the Rhenish I propose;
For still the fairest gifts the fatherland bestows.

MEPHISTOPHELES (boring a hole in the edge of the table opposite to where FROSCH is sitting)
Get me a little wax — and make some stoppers — quick!

ALTMAYER
Why, this is nothing but a juggler’s trick!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to BRANDER)
And you?

BRANDER
 Champagne’s the wine for me;
Right brisk, and sparkling let it be!

[MEPHISTOPHELES bores, one of the party has in the meantime prepared the, wax-stoppers and stopped the holes.]

BRANDER
What foreign is one always can’t decline,
What’s good is often scatter’d far apart.
The French your genuine German hates with all his heart,
Yet has a relish for their wine.

SIEBEL (as MEPHISTOPHELES approaches him)

I like not acid wine, I must allow,
Give me a glass of genuine sweet!

MEPHISTOPHELES (bores)

 Tokay
Shall, if you wish it, flow without delay.

ALTMAYER
Come! look me in the face! no fooling now!
You are but making fun of us, I trow.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ah! ah! that would indeed be making free
With such distinguished guests. Come, no delay;
What liquor can I serve you with, I pray?

ALTMAYER
Only be quick, it matters not to me.

[After the holes are all bored and, stopped.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (with strange gestures)
Grapes the vine-stock bears,
Horns the buck-goat wears!
Wine is sap, the vine is wood,
The wooden board yields wine as good.
With a deeper glance and true
The mysteries of nature view!
Have faith and here’s a miracle!
Your stoppers draw and drink your fill!

ALL (as they draw the stoppers and the wine chosen by each runs into his glass)
Oh beauteous spring, which flows so far!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Spill not a single drop, of this beware!

[They drink repeatedly.]

ALL (sing)
Happy as cannibals are we,
Or as five hundred swine.

MEPHISTOPHELES
They’re in their glory, mark their elevation!

FAUST
Let’s hence, nor here our stay prolong.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Attend, of brutishness ere long
You’ll see a glorious revelation.

SIEBEL (drinks carelessly; the wine is spilt upon the ground, and turns to fame)
Help! fire! help! Hell is burning!

MEPHISTOPHELES (addressing the flames)
Stop,
Kind element, be still, I say!
(To the Company)
Of purgatorial fire as yet ’tis but a drop.

SIEBEL
What means the knave! For this you’ll dearly pay!
Us, it appears, you do not know.

FROSCH
Such tricks a second time he’d better show!

ALTMAYER
Methinks ‘twere well we pack’d him quietly away.

SIEBEL
What, sir! with us your hocus-pocus play!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Silence, old wine-cask!

SIEBEL
How! add insult, too!
Vile broomstick!

BRANDER
Hold! or blows shall rain on you!

ALTMAYER (draws a stopper out of the table; fire springs
out against him)
I burn! I burn!

SIEBEL
’Tis sorcery, I vow! Strike home! The fellow is fair game, I trow! [They draw their knives and attack MEPHISTOPHELES.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (with solemn gestures)
Visionary scenes appear!
Words delusive cheat the ear!
Be ye there, and be ye here!
[They stand amazed and gale at one another.]

ALTMAYER
Where am I? What a beauteous land!

FROSCH
Vineyards! unless my sight deceives?

SIEBEL
And clust’ring grapes too, close at hand!

BRANDER
And underneath the spreading leaves,
What stems there be! What grapes I see!

[He seizes SIEBEL by the nose. The others reciprocally do the same, and raise, their knives.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (as above)
Delusion, from their eyes the bandage take!
Note how the devil loves a jest to break!

[He disappears with FAUST; the fellows draw back from one another.]

SIEBEL
What was it?

ALTMAYER
How?

FROSCH
Was that your nose?

BRANDER (to SIEBEL)
And look, my hand doth thine inclose!

ALTMAYER
I felt a shock, it went through every limb!
A chair! I’m fainting! All things swim!

FROSCH
Say! What has happened? What’s it all about?

SIEBEL
Where is the fellow? Could I scent him out,
His body from his soul I’d soon divide!

ALTMAYER
With my own eyes, upon a cask astride,
Forth through the cellar-door I saw him ride —
Heavy as lead my feet are growing.

[Turning to the table.]

I wonder is the wine still flowing!

SIEBEL
’Twas all delusion, cheat and lie.

FROSCH
’Twas wine I drank, most certainly.

BRANDER
But with the grapes how was it, pray?

ALTMAYER
That none may miracles believe, who now will say?

WITCHES’ KITCHEN

A large caldron hangs over the fire on a low hearth; various figures appear in the vapor rising from it. A FEMALE MONKEY sits beside the caldron to skim it, and watch that it does not boil over. The MALE MONKEY with the young ones is seated near, warming himself. The walls and ceiling are adorned with the strangest articles of witch-furniture.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
This senseless, juggling witchcraft I detest!
Dost promise that in this foul nest
Of madness I shall be restored?
Must I seek counsel from an ancient dame?
And can she, by these rites abhorred,
Take thirty winters from my frame?
Woe’s me, if thou naught better canst suggest!
Hope has already fled my breast.
Has neither nature nor a noble mind
A balsam yet devis’d of any kind?

MEPHISTOPHELES
My friend, you now speak sensibly. In truth,
Nature a method giveth to renew thy youth:
But in another book the lesson’s writ; —
It forms a curious chapter, I admit.

FAUST
I fain would know it.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Good! A remedy
Without physician, gold, or sorcery:
Away forthwith, and to the fields repair;
Begin to delve, to cultivate the ground;
Thy senses and thyself confine
Within the very narrowest round;
Support thyself upon the simplest fare;
Live like a very brute the brutes among;
Neither esteem it robbery
The acre thou dost reap, thyself to dung.
This the best method, credit me,
Again at eighty to grow hale and young.

FAUST
I am not used to it, nor can myself degrade
So far, as in my hand to take the spade.
This narrow life would suit me not at all.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Then we the witch must summon after all.

FAUST
Will none but this old beldame do?
Canst not thyself the potion brew?

MEPHISTOPHELES
A pretty play our leisure to beguile!
A thousand bridges I could build meanwhile.
Not science only and consummate art —
Patience must also bear her part.
A quiet spirit worketh whole years long;
Time only makes the subtle ferment strong.
And all things that belong thereto,
Are wondrous and exceeding rare!
The devil taught her, it is true;
But yet the draught the devil can’t prepare.

[Perceiving the beasts.]

Look yonder, what a dainty pair!
Here is the maid! the knave is there!

(To the beasts)
It seems your dame is not at home?

THE MONKEYS
Gone to carouse,
Out of the house,
Thro’ the chimney and away!

MEPHISTOPHELES
How long is it her wont to roam?

THE MONKEYS
While we can warm our paws she’ll stay.

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
What think you of the charming creatures?

FAUST
I loathe alike their form and features!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Nay, such discourse, be it confessed,
Is just the thing that pleases me the best.
(To the MONKEYS)
Tell me, ye whelps, accursed crew!
What stir ye in the broth about?

MONKEYS
Coarse beggar’s gruel here we stew.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Of customers you’ll have a rout.

THE HE-MONKEY (approaching and fawning on MEPHISTOPHELES)
Quick! quick! throw the dice,
Make me rich in a trice,
Oh give me the prize!
Alas, for myself,
Had I plenty of pelf,
I then should be wise.

MEPHISTOPHELES
How blest the ape would think himself, if he
Could only put into the lottery!

[In the meantime the young MONKEYS have been playing with a large globe, which they roll forward.]

THE HE-MONKEY
The world behold;
Unceasingly roll’d,
It riseth and falleth ever;
It ringeth like glass!
How brittle, alas!
’Tis hollow, and resteth never.
How bright the sphere,
Still brighter here!
Now living am I!
Dear son, beware!
Nor venture there!
Thou too must die!
It is of clay;
‘Twill crumble away;
There fragments lie.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Of what use is the sieve

THE HE-MONKEY (taking it down)
The sieve would show, If thou wert a thief or no? [He runs to the SHE-MONKEY, and makes her look through it.]

Look through the sieve!
Dost know him the thief,
And dar’st thou not call him so?

MEPHISTOPHELES (approaching the fire)
And then this pot?

THE MONKEYS
The half-witted sot!
He knows not the pot!
He knows not the kettle!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Unmannerly beast!
Be civil at least!

THE HE-MONKEY
Take the whisk and sit down in the settle!

[He makes MEPHISTOPHELES sit down.]

FAUST (who all this time has been standing before a looking-glass, now approaching, and now retiring front it)
What do I see? What form, whose charms transcend
The loveliness of earth, is mirror’d here!
O Love, to waft me to her sphere,
To me the swiftest of thy pinions lend!
Alas! If I remain not rooted to this place,
If to approach more near I’m fondly lur’d,
Her image fades, in veiling mist obscur’d! —
Model of beauty both in form and face!
Is’t possible? Hath woman charms so rare?
In this recumbent form, supremely fair,
The essence must I see of heavenly grace?
Can aught so exquisite on earth be found?

MEPHISTOPHELES
The six days’ labor of a god, my friend,
Who doth himself cry bravo, at the end,
By something clever doubtless should be crown’d.
For this time gaze your fill, and when you please
just such a prize for you I can provide;
How blest is he to whom kind fate decrees,
To take her to his home, a lovely bride!

[FAUST continues to gaze into the mirror.]

MEPHISTOPHELES [stretching himself on the settle and playing with the whisk, continues to speak.]

Here sit I, like a king upon his throne;
My sceptre this; — the crown I want alone.

THE MONKEYS (who have hitherto been making all sorts of strange gestures, bring MEPHISTOPHELES a crown, with loud cries)
Oh, be so good,
With sweat and with blood
The crown to lime!

[They handle the crown awkwardly and break it in two pieces, with which they skip about.]

’Twas fate’s decree!
We speak and see!
We hear and rhyme.

FAUST (before the mirror)
Woe’s me! well-nigh distraught I feel!

MEPHISTOPHELES (pointing to the beasts)
And even my own head almost begins to reel.

THE MONKEYS
If good luck attend,
If fitly things blend,
Our jargon with thought
And with reason is fraught!

FAUST (as above)

A flame is kindled in my breast!
Let us begone! nor linger here!

MEPHISTOPHELES (in the same position)
It now at least must be confessed,
That poets sometimes are sincere.

[The caldron which the SHE-MONKEY has neglected begins to boil over; a great flame arises, which streams up the chimney. The WITCH comes down the chimney with horrible cries.]

THE WITCH
Ough! ough! ough! ough!
Accursed brute! accursed sow!
The caldron dost neglect, for shame!
Accursed brute to scorch the dame!

(Perceiving FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES.)
Whom have we here?
Who’s sneaking here?
Whence are ye come?
With what desire?
The plague of fire
Your bones consume!

[She dips the skimming-ladle into the caldron and throws flames at FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, and the MONKEYS. The MONKEYS whimper.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (twirling the whisk which he holds in his hand, and striking among the glasses and pots)
Dash! Smash!
There lies the glass!
There lies the slime!
’Tis but a jest;
I but keep time,
Thou hellish pest,
To thine own chime!
[While the WITCH steps back in rage and astonishment.]
Dost know me! Skeleton! Vile scarecrow, thou!
Thy lord and master dost thou know?
What holds me, that I deal not now
Thee and thine apes a stunning blow?
No more respect to my red vest dost pay?
Does my cock’s feather no allegiance claim?
Have I my visage masked today?
Must I be forced myself to name?

THE WITCH
Master, forgive this rude salute!
But I perceive no cloven foot.
And your two ravens, where are they?

MEPHISTOPHELES
This once I must admit your plea; —
For truly I must own that we
Each other have not seen for many a day.
The culture, too, that shapes the world, at last
Hath e’en the devil in its sphere embraced;
The northern phantom from the scene hath pass’d;
Tail, talons, horns, are nowhere to be traced!
As for the foot, with which I can’t dispense,
’Twould injure me in company, and hence,
Like many a youthful cavalier,
False calves I now have worn for many a year.

THE WITCH (dancing)

I am beside myself with joy,
To see once more the gallant Satan here!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Woman, no more that name employ!

THE WITCH
But why? what mischief hath it done?

MEPHISTOPHELES
To fable-books it now doth appertain;
But people from the change have nothing won.
Rid of the evil one, the evil ones remain.
Lord Baron call thou me, so is the matter good;
Of other cavaliers the mien I wear.
Dost make no question of my gentle blood;
See here, this is the scutcheon that I bear!

[He makes an unseemly gesture.]

THE WITCH (laughing immoderately)
Ha! Ha! Just like yourself! You are, I ween,
The same mad wag that you have ever been!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
My friend, learn this to understand, I pray!
To deal with witches this is still the way.

THE WITCH
Now tell me, gentlemen, what you desire?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Of your known juice a goblet we require.
But for the very oldest let me ask;
Double its strength with years doth grow.

THE WITCH
Most willingly! And here I have a flask,
From which I’ve sipp’d myself ere now;
What’s more, it doth no longer stink;
To you a glass I joyfully will give.

(Aside.)
If unprepar’d, however, this man drink,
He hath not, as you know, an hour to live.

MEPHISTOPHELES
He’s my good friend, with whom ‘twill prosper well;
I grudge him not the choicest of thy store.
Now draw thy circle, speak thy spell,
And straight a bumper for him pour!

[The WITCH, with extraordinary gestures, describes a circle, and places strange things within it. The glasses meanwhile begin to ring, and the caldron to sound and make music. Lastly, she brings a great book; places the MONKEYS in the circle to serve her as a desk, and to hold the torches. She beckons FAUST to approach.]

FAUST (to MEPHISTOPHELES)
Tell me, to what doth all this tend?
Where will these frantic gestures end?
This loathsome cheat, this senseless stuff
I’ve known and hated long enough.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Mere mummery, a laugh to raise!
Pray don’t be so fastidious! She
But as a leech, her hocus-pocus plays,
That well with you her potion may agree.
[He compels FAUST to enter the circle.]

[The, WITCH, with great emphasis, begins to declaim from the book.]

This must thou ken:
Of one make ten,
Pass two, and then
Make square the three,
So rich thou’lt be.
Drop out the four!
From five and six,
Thus says the witch,
Make seven and eight.
So all is straight!
And nine is one,
And ten is none,
This is the witch’s one-time-one!

FAUST
The hag doth as in fever rave.

MEPHISTOPHELES
To these will follow many a stave.
I know it well, so rings the book throughout;
Much time I’ve lost in puzzling o’er its pages,
For downright paradox, no doubt,
A mystery remains alike to fools and sages.
Ancient the art and modern too, my friend.
’Tis still the fashion as it used to be,
Error instead of truth abroad to send
By means of three and one, and one and three.
’Tis ever taught and babbled in the schools.
Who’d take the trouble to dispute with fools?
When words men hear, in sooth, they usually believe,
That there must needs therein be something to conceive.

THE WITCH (continues)

 The lofty power
 Of wisdom’s dower,
 From all the world conceal’d!
 Who thinketh not,
 To him I wot,
 Unsought it is reveal’d.

FAUST
What nonsense doth the hag propound?
My brain it doth well-nigh confound.
A hundred thousand fools or more,
Methinks I hear in chorus roar.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Incomparable Sibyl cease, I pray!
Hand us thy liquor without more delay.
And to the very brim the goblet crown!
My friend he is, and need not be afraid;
Besides, he is a man of many a grade,
Who hath drunk deep already.

[The WITCH, with many ceremonies, pours the liquor into a cup; as FAUST lifts it to his mouth, a light flame arises.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Gulp it down!
No hesitation! It will prove
A cordial, and your heart inspire!
What! with the devil hand and glove,
And yet shrink back afraid of fire?
[The WITCH dissolves the circle. FAUST steps out.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now forth at once! thou dar’st not rest.

WITCH
And much, sir, may the liquor profit you!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to the WITCH)
And if to pleasure thee I aught can do,
Pray on Walpurgis mention thy request.

WITCH
Here is a song, sung o’er, sometimes you’ll see,
That ‘twill a singular effect produce.

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
Come, quick, and let thyself be led by me;
Thou must perspire, in order that the juice
Thy frame may penetrate through every part.
Then noble idleness I thee will teach to prize,
And soon with ecstasy thou’lt recognize
How Cupid stirs and gambols in thy heart.

FAUST
Let me but gaze one moment in the glass!
Too lovely was that female form!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Nay! nay!
A model which all women shall surpass,
In flesh and blood ere long thou shalt survey.
(Aside.)
As works the draught, thou presently shalt greet
A Helen in each woman thou dost meet.

A STREET

FAUST (MARGARET passing by).

FAUST
Fair lady, may I thus make free
To offer you my arm and company?

MARGARET
I am no lady, am not fair, Can without escort home repair. [She disengages herself and exit.]

FAUST
By heaven! This girl is fair indeed!
No form like hers can I recall.
Virtue she hath, and modest heed,
Is piquant too, and sharp withal.
Her cheek’s soft light, her rosy lips,
No length of time will e’er eclipse!
Her downward glance in passing by,
Deep in my heart is stamp’d for aye;
How curt and sharp her answer too,
To ecstasy the feeling grew!

[MEPHISTOPHELES enters.]

FAUST
This girl must win for me! Dost hear?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Which?

FAUST
She who but now passed.

MEPHISTOPHELES
What! She?
She from confession cometh here,
From every sin absolved and free;
I crept near the confessor’s chair.
All innocence her virgin soul,
For next to nothing went she there;
O’er such as she I’ve no control!

FAUST
She’s past fourteen.

MEPHISTOPHELES
 You really talk
Like any gay Lothario,
Who every floweret from its stalk
Would pluck, and deems nor grace, nor truth,
Secure against his arts, forsooth!
This ne’er the less won’t always do.

FAUST
Sir Moralizer, prithee, pause;
Nor plague me with your tiresome laws!
To cut the matter short, my friend,
She must this very night be mine, —
And if to help me you decline,
Midnight shall see our compact end.

MEPHISTOPHELES
What may occur just bear in mind!
A fortnight’s space, at least, I need,
A fit occasion but to find.

FAUST
With but seven hours I could succeed;
Nor should I want the devil’s wile,
So young a creature to beguile.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Like any Frenchman now you speak,
But do not fret, I pray; why seek
To hurry to enjoyment straight?
The pleasure is not half so great,
As when at first, around, above,
With all the fooleries of love,
The puppet you can knead and mold
As in Italian story oft is told.

FAUST
No such incentives, do I need.

MEPHISTOPHELES
But now, without offence or jest!
You cannot quickly, I protest,
In winning this sweet child succeed.
By storm we cannot take the fort,
To stratagem we must resort.

FAUST
Conduct me to her place of rest!
Some token of the angel bring!
A kerchief from her snowy breast,
A garter bring me — any thing!

MEPHISTOPHELES
That I my anxious zeal may prove,
Your pangs to soothe and aid your love,
A single moment will we not delay,
Will lead you to her room this very day.

FAUST
And shall I see her? — Have her?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 No!
She to a neighbor’s house will go;
But in her atmosphere alone
The tedious hours meanwhile you may employ
In blissful dreams of future joy.

FAUST
Can we go now?

MEPHISTOPHELES
’Tis yet too soon.

FAUST
Some present for my love procure! [Exit.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Presents so soon! ’tis well! success is sure!
Full many a goodly place I know,
And treasures buried long ago;
I must a bit o’erlook them now. [Exit.]

EVENING. A SMALL AND NEAT ROOM

MARGARET (braiding and binding up her hair)

I would give something now to know
Who yonder gentleman could be!
He had a gallant air, I trow,
And doubtless was of high degree:
That written on his brow was seen —
Nor else would he so bold have been.

[Exit]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Come in! tread softly! be discreet!

FAUST (after a pause)
Begone and leave me, I entreat!

MEPHISTOPHELES (looking round)
Not every maiden is so neat.

[Exit]

FAUST (gazing round)
Welcome sweet twilight, calm and blest,
That in this hallow’d precinct reigns!
Fond yearning love, inspire my breast,
Feeding on hope’s sweet dew thy blissful pains!
What stillness here environs me!
Content and order brood around.
What fulness in this poverty!
In this small cell what bliss profound!

[He throws himself on the leather arm-chair beside the bed.]

Receive me thou, who hast in thine embrace,
Welcom’d in joy and grief the ages flown!
How oft the children of a by-gone race
Have cluster’d round this patriarchal throne!
Haply she, also, whom I hold so dear,
For Christmas gift, with grateful joy possess’d,
Hath with the full round cheek of childhood, here,
Her grandsire’s wither’d hand devoutly press’d.
Maiden! I feel thy spirit haunt the place,
Breathing of order and abounding grace.
As with a mother’s voice it prompteth thee
The pure white cover o’er the board to spread,
To stew the crisping sand beneath thy tread.
Dear hand! so godlike in its ministry!
The hut becomes a paradise through thee!
And here —

[He raises the bed curtain.]

How thrills my pulse with strange delight!
Here could I linger hours untold;
Thou, Nature, didst in vision bright,
The embryo angel here unfold.
Here lay the child, her bosom warm
With life; while steeped in slumber’s dew,
To perfect grace, her godlike form,
With pure and hallow’d weavings grew!

And thou! ah here what seekest thou?
How quails mine inmost being now!
What wouldst thou here? what makes thy heart so sore?
Unhappy Faust! I know thee now no more.

Do I a magic atmosphere inhale?
Erewhile, my passion would not brook delay!
Now in a pure love-dream I melt away.
Are we the sport of every passing gale?

Should she return and enter now,
How wouldst thou rue thy guilty flame!
Proud vaunter — thou wouldst hide thy brow —
And at her feet sink down with shame.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Quick! quick! below I see her there.

FAUST
Away! I will return no more!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Here is a casket, with a store
Of jewels, which I got elsewhere.
Just lay it in the press; make haste!
I swear to you, ‘twill turn her brain;
Therein some trifles I have placed,
Wherewith another to obtain.
But child is child, and play is play.

FAUST
I know not — shall I?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 Do you ask?
Perchance you would retain the treasure?
If such your wish, why then, I say,
Henceforth absolve me from my task,
Nor longer waste your hours of leisure.
I trust you’re not by avarice led!
I rub my hands, I scratch my head, —

[He places the casket in the press and closes the lock.]

Now quick! Away!
That soon the sweet young creature may
The wish and purpose of your heart obey;
Yet stand you there
As would you to the lecture-room repair,
As if before you stood,
Arrayed in flesh and blood,
Physics and metaphysics weird and gray! —
Away!
                          [Exeunt.]

MARGARET (with a lamp)
Here ’tis so close, so sultry now,

[She opens the window.]

Yet out of doors ’tis not so warm.
I feel so strange, I know not how —
I wish my mother would come home.
Through me there runs a shuddering —
I’m but a foolish timid thing!

[While undressing herself she begins to sing.]

 There was a king in Thule,
 True even to the grave;
 To whom his dying mistress
 A golden beaker gave.

 At every feast he drained it,
 Naught was to him so dear,
 And often as he drained it,
 Gush’d from his eyes the tear.

 When death came, unrepining
 His cities o’er he told;
 All to his heir resigning,
 Except his cup of gold.

 With many a knightly vassal
 At a royal feast sat he,
 In yon proud hall ancestral,
 In his castle o’er the sea.

 Up stood the jovial monarch,
 And quaff’d his last life’s glow,
 Then hurled the hallow’d goblet
 Into the flood below.

 He saw it splashing, drinking,
 And plunging in the sea;
 His eyes meanwhile were sinking,
 And never again drank he.

[She opens the press to put away her clothes, and perceives the casket.]

How comes this lovely casket here? The press
I locked, of that I’m confident.
’Tis very wonderful! What’s in it I can’t guess;
Perhaps ’twas brought by some one in distress,
And left in pledge for loan my mother lent.
Here by a ribbon hangs a little key!
I have a mind to open it and see!
Heavens! only look! what have we here!
In all my days ne’er saw I such a sight!
Jewels! which any noble dame might wear,
For some high pageant richly dight
This chain — how would it look on me!
These splendid gems, whose may they be?

[She puts them on and steps before the glass.]

Were but the earrings only mine!
Thus one has quite another air.
What boots it to be young and fair?
It doubtless may be very fine;
But then, alas, none cares for you,
And praise sounds half like pity too.

Gold all doth lure,
Gold doth secure
All things. Alas, we poor!

PROMENADE

FAUST walking thoughtfully up and down. To him MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
By all rejected love! By hellish fire I curse,
Would I knew aught to make my imprecation worse!

FAUST
What aileth thee? what chafes thee now so sore?
A face like that I never saw before!

MEPHISTOPHELES
I’d yield me to the devil instantly,
Did it not happen that myself am he!

FAUST
There must be some disorder in thy wit!
To rave thus like a madman, is it fit?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Think! only think! The gems for Gretchen brought,
Them hath a priest now made his own! —
A glimpse of them the mother caught,
And ‘gan with secret fear to groan.
The woman’s scent is keen enough;
Doth ever in the prayer-book snuff;
Smells every article to ascertain
Whether the thing is holy or profane,
And scented in the jewels rare,
That there was not much blessing there.
“My child,” she cries; “ill-gotten good
Ensnares the soul, consumes the blood;
With them we’ll deck our Lady shrine,
She’ll cheer our souls with bread divine!”
At this poor Gretchen ‘gan to pout;
’Tis a gift-horse, at least, she thought,
And sure, he godless cannot be,
Who brought them here so cleverly.
Straight for a priest the mother sent,
Who, when he understood the jest,
With what he saw was well content.
“This shows a pious mind!” Quoth he:
“Self-conquest is true victory.
The Church hath a good stomach, she, with zest,
Whole countries hath swallow’d down,
And never yet a surfeit known.
The Church alone, be it confessed,
Daughters, can ill-got wealth digest.”

FAUST
It is a general custom, too,
Practised alike by king and jew.

MEPHISTOPHELES
With that, clasp, chain, and ring, he swept
As they were mushrooms; and the casket,
Without one word of thanks, he kept,
As if of nuts it were a basket.
Promised reward in heaven, then forth he hied —
And greatly they were edified.

FAUST
And Gretchen!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 In unquiet mood
Knows neither what she would or should;
The trinkets night and day thinks o’er;
On him who brought them, dwells still more.

FAUST
The darling’s sorrow grieves me, bring
Another set without delay!
The first, methinks, was no great thing.

MEPHISTOPHELES
All’s to my gentleman child’s play!

FAUST
Plan all things to achieve my end!
Engage the attention of her friend!
No milk-and-water devil be,
And bring fresh jewels instantly!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ay, sir! Most gladly I’ll obey.

[FAUST exit.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Your doting love-sick fool, with ease,
Merely his lady-love to please,
Sun, moon, and stars in sport would puff away.

[Exit.]

THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE

MARTHA (alone)
God pardon my dear husband, he
Doth not in truth act well by me!
Forth in the world abroad to roam,
And leave me on the straw at home.
And yet his will I ne’er did thwart,
God knows, I lov’d him from my heart.

[She weeps.]

Perchance he’s dead! — oh wretched state! —
Had I but a certificate!

(MARGARET comes.)

MARGARET
Dame Martha!

MARTHA
Gretchen?

MARGARET
 Only think!
My knees beneath me well-nigh sink!
Within my press I’ve found today
Another case, of ebony.
And things — magnificent they are,
More costly than the first, by far.

MARTHA
You must not name it to your mother!
It would to shrift, just like the other.

MARGARET
Nay look at them! now only see!

MARTHA (dresses her up)
Thou happy creature!

MARGARET
 Woe is me!
Them in the street I cannot wear,
Or in the church, or anywhere.

MARTHA
Come often over here to me,
The gems put on quite privately;
And then before the mirror walk an hour or so,
Thus we shall have our pleasure too.
Then suitable occasions we must seize,
As at a feast, to show them by degrees:
A chain at first, pearl ear-drops then, — your mother
Won’t see them, or we’ll coin some tale or other.

MARGARET
But, who, I wonder, could the caskets bring?
I fear there’s something wrong about the thing!

[A knock.]

Good heavens! can that my mother be?

MARTHA (peering through the blind)

’Tis a strange gentleman, I see.
Come in!

[MEPHISTOPHELES enters.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
 I’ve ventur’d to intrude today.
Ladies, excuse the liberty, I pray.

[He steps back respectfully before MARGARET.]

After dame Martha Schwerdtlein I inquire!

MARTHA
’Tis I. Pray what have you to say to me?

MEPHISTOPHELES (aside to her)

I know you now, — and therefore will retire;
At present you’ve distinguished company.
Pardon the freedom, Madam, with your leave,
I will make free to call again at eve.

MARTHA (aloud)
Why, child, of all strange notions, he
For some grand lady taketh thee!

MARGARET
I am, in truth, of humble blood —
The gentleman is far too good —
Nor gems nor trinkets are my own.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Oh ’tis not the mere ornaments alone;
Her glance and mien far more betray.
Rejoiced I am that I may stay.

MARTHA
Your business, Sir? I long to know —

MEPHISTOPHELES
Would I could happier tidings show!
I trust mine errand you’ll not let me rue;
Your husband’s dead, and greeteth you.

MARTHA
Is dead? True heart! Oh misery!
My husband dead! Oh, I shall die!

MARGARET
Alas! good Martha! don’t despair!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now listen to the sad affair!

MARGARET
I for this cause should fear to love.
The loss my certain death would prove.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Joy still must sorrow, sorrow joy attend.

MARTHA
Proceed, and tell the story of his end!

MEPHISTOPHELES
At Padua, in St. Anthony’s,
In holy ground his body lies;
Quiet and cool his place of rest,
With pious ceremonials blest.

MARTHA
And had you naught besides to bring?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Oh yes! one grave and solemn prayer;
Let them for him three hundred masses sing!
But in my pockets, I have nothing there.

MARTHA
No trinket! no love-token did he send!
What every journeyman safe in his pouch will hoard
There for remembrance fondly stored,
And rather hungers, rather begs than spend!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Madam, in truth, it grieves me sore,
But he his gold not lavishly hath spent.
His failings too he deeply did repent,
Ay! and his evil plight bewail’d still more.

MARGARET
Alas! That men should thus be doomed to woe!
I for his soul will many a requiem pray.

MEPHISTOPHELES
A husband you deserve this very day;
A child so worthy to be loved.

MARGARET
 Ah no,
That time hath not yet come for me.

MEPHISTOPHELES
If not a spouse, a gallant let it be.
Among heaven’s choicest gifts, I place,
So sweet a darling to embrace.

MARGARET
Our land doth no such usage know.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Usage or not, it happens so.

MARTHA
Go on, I pray!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 I stood by his bedside.
Something less foul it was than dung;
’Twas straw half rotten; yet, he as a Christian died.
And sorely hath remorse his conscience wrung.
“Wretch that I was,” quoth he, with parting breath,
“So to forsake my business and my wife!
Ah! the remembrance is my death.
Could I but have her pardon in this life!” —

MARTHA (weeping)
Dear soul! I’ve long forgiven him, indeed!

MEPHISTOPHELES
“Though she, God knows, was more to blame than I.”

MARTHA
He lied! What, on the brink of death to lie!

MEPHISTOPHELES
If I am skill’d the countenance to read,
He doubtless fabled as he parted hence. —
“No time had I to gape, or take my ease,” he said,
“First to get children, and then get them bread;
And bread, too, in the very widest sense;
Nor could I eat in peace even my proper share.”

MARTHA
What, all my truth, my love forgotten quite?
My weary drudgery by day and night!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Not so! He thought of you with tender care.
Quoth he: “Heaven knows how fervently I prayed,
For wife and children when from Malta bound; —
The prayer hath heaven with favor crowned;
We took a Turkish vessel which conveyed
Rich store of treasure for the Sultan’s court;
Its own reward our gallant action brought;
The captur’d prize was shared among the crew,
And of the treasure I received my due.”

MARTHA
How? Where? The treasure hath he buried, pray?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Where the four winds have blown it, who can say?
In Naples as he stroll’d, a stranger there, —
A comely maid took pity on my friend:
And gave such tokens of her love and care,
That he retained them to his blessed end.

MARTHA
Scoundrel! to rob his children of their bread!
And all this misery, this bitter need,
Could not his course of recklessness impede!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Well, he hath paid the forfeit, and is dead.
Now were I in your place, my counsel hear;
My weeds I’d wear for one chaste year,
And for another lover meanwhile would look out.

MARTHA
Alas, I might search far and near,
Not quickly should I find another like my first!
There could not be a fonder fool than mine,
Only he loved too well abroad to roam;
Loved foreign women too, and foreign wine,
And loved besides the dice accurs’d.

MEPHISTOPHELES
All had gone swimmingly, no doubt,
Had he but given you at home,
On his side, just as wide a range.
Upon such terms, to you I swear,
Myself with you would gladly rings exchange!

MARTHA
The gentleman is surely pleas’d to jest!

MEPHISTOPHELES (aside)
Now to be off in time, were best!
She’d make the very devil marry her.

(To MARGARET)
How fares it with your heart?

MARGARET
How mean you, Sir?

MEPHISTOPHELES (aside)
The sweet young innocent!

(aloud)
Ladies, farewell!

MARGARET
Farewell!

MARTHA
 But ere you leave us, quickly tell!
I from a witness fain had heard,
Where, how, and when my husband died and was interr’d.
To forms I’ve always been attached indeed,
His death I fain would in the journals read.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ay, madam, what two witnesses declare
Is held as valid everywhere;
A gallant friend I have, not far from here,
Who will for you before the judge appear.
I’ll bring him straight.

MARTHA
I pray you do!

MEPHISTOPHELES
And this young lady, we shall find her too?
A noble youth, far traveled, he
Shows to the sex all courtesy.

MARGARET
I in his presence needs must blush for shame.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Not in the presence of a crownèd king!

MARTHA
The garden, then, behind my house, we’ll name,
There we’ll await you both this evening.

A STREET

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
How is it now? How speeds it? Is’t in train?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Bravo! I find you all aflame!
Gretchen full soon your own you’ll name.
This eve, at neighbor Martha’s, her you’ll meet again;
The woman seems expressly made
To drive the pimp and gipsy’s trade.

FAUST
Good!

MEPHISTOPHELES
But from us she something would request.

FAUST
A favor claims return, as this world goes.

MEPHISTOPHELES
We have on oath but duly to attest
That her dead husband’s limbs, outstretch’d, repose
In holy ground at Padua.

FAUST
 Sage indeed!
So I suppose we straight must journey there!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Sancta simplicitas! For that no need! Without much knowledge we have but to swear.

FAUST
If you have nothing better to suggest,
Against your plan I must at once protest.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Oh, holy man! methinks I have you there!
In all your life, say, have you ne’er
False witness borne, until this hour?
Have you of God, the world, and all it doth contain,
Of man, and that which worketh in his heart and brain,
Not definitions given, in words of weight and power,
With front unblushing, and a dauntless breast?
Yet, if into the depth of things you go,
Touching these matters, it must be confess’d,
As much as of Herr Schwerdtlein’s death you know!

FAUST
Thou art and dost remain liar and sophist too.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ay, if one did not take a somewhat deeper view!
Tomorrow, in all honor, thou
Poor Gretchen wilt befool, and vow
Thy soul’s deep love, in lover’s fashion.

FAUST
And from my heart.

MEPHISTOPHELES
 All good and fair!
Then deathless constancy thou’lt swear;
Speak of one all o’ermastering passion —
Will that too issue from the heart?

FAUST
 Forbear!
When passion sways me, and I seek to frame
Fit utterance for feeling, deep, intense,
And for my frenzy finding no fit name,
Sweep round the ample world with every sense,
Grasp at the loftiest words to speak my flame,
And call the glow, wherewith I burn,
Quenchless, eternal, yea, eterne —
Is that of sophistry a devilish play?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Yet am I right!

FAUST
 Mark this, my friend,
And spare my lungs; who would the right maintain,
And hath a tongue wherewith his point to gain,
Will gain it in the end.
But come, of gossip I am weary quite;
Because I’ve no resource, thou’rt in the right.

GARDEN

MARGARET on FAUST’s arm. MARTHA with MEPHISTOPHELES walking up and down.

MARGARET
I feel it, you but spare my ignorance,
The gentleman to blame me stoops thus low.

A traveler from complaisance
Still makes the best of things; I know
Too well, my humble prattle never can
Have power to entertain so wise a man.

FAUST
One glance, one word from thee doth charm me more
Than the world’s wisdom or the sage’s lore.

[He kisses her hand.]

MARGARET
Nay! trouble not yourself! A hand so coarse,
So rude as mine, how can you kiss!
What constant work at home must I not do perforce!
My mother too exacting is.

[They pass on.]

MARTHA
Thus, sir, unceasing travel is your lot?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Traffic and duty urge us! With what pain
Are we compelled to leave full many a spot,
Where yet we dare not once remain!

MARTHA
In youth’s wild years, with vigor crown’d,
’Tis not amiss thus through the world to sweep;
But ah, the evil days come round!
And to a lonely grave as bachelor to creep
A pleasant thing has no one found.

MEPHISTOPHELES
The prospect fills me with dismay.

MARTHA
Therefore in time, dear sir, reflect, I pray.

[They pass on.]

MARGARET
Ay, out of sight is out of mind!
Politeness easy is to you;
Friends everywhere, and not a few,
Wiser than I am, you will find.

FAUST
O dearest, trust me, what doth pass for sense
Full oft is self-conceit and blindness!

MARGARET
How?

FAUST
Simplicity and holy innocence —
When will ye learn your hallow’d worth to know!
Ah, when will meekness and humility,
Kind and all-bounteous nature’s loftiest dower —

MARGARET
Only one little moment think of me!
To think of you I shall have many an hour.

FAUST
You are perhaps much alone?

MARGARET
Yes, small our household is, I own,
Yet must I see to it. No maid we keep,
And I must cook, sew, knit, and sweep,
Still early on my feet and late;
My mother is in all things, great and small,
So accurate!
Not that for thrift there is such pressing need,
Than others we might make more show indeed;
My father left behind a small estate,
A house and garden near the city-wall.
But fairly quiet now my days, I own;
As soldier is my brother gone;
My little sister’s dead; the babe to rear
Occasion’d me some care and fond annoy;
But I would go through all again with joy,
The darling was to me so dear.

FAUST
An angel, sweet, if it resembled thee!

MARGARET
I reared it up, and it grew fond of me.
After my father’s death it saw the day;
We gave my mother up for lost, she lay
In such a wretched plight, and then at length
So very slowly she regain’d her strength.
Weak as she was, ’twas vain for her to try
Herself to suckle the poor babe, so I
Reared it on milk and water all alone;
And thus the child became as ‘twere my own;
Within my arms it stretched itself and grew,
And smiling, nestled in my bosom too.

FAUST
Doubtless the purest happiness was thine.

MARGARET
But many weary hours, in sooth, were also mine.
At night its little cradle stood
Close to my bed; so was I wide awake
If it but stirred;
One while I was obliged to give it food,
Or to my arms the darling take;
From bed full oft must rise, whene’er its cry I heard,
And, dancing it, must pace the chamber to and fro;
Stand at the wash-tub early; forthwith go
To market, and then mind the cooking too —
Tomorrow like today, the whole year through.
Ah, sir, thus living, it must be confess’d
One’s spirits are not always of the best;
Yet it a relish gives to food and rest.

[They pass on.]

MARTHA
Poor women! we are badly off, I own;
A bachelor’s conversion’s hard, indeed!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Madam, with one like you it rests alone,
To tutor me a better course to lead.

MARTHA
Speak frankly, sir, none is there you have met?
Has your heart ne’er attach’d itself as yet?

MEPHISTOPHELES
One’s own fire-side and a good wife are gold
And pearls of price, so says the proverb old.

MARTHA
I mean, has passion never stirred your breast?

MEPHISTOPHELES
I’ve everywhere been well received, I own.

MARTHA
Yet hath your heart no earnest preference known?

MEPHISTOPHELES
With ladies one should ne’er presume to jest.

MARTHA
Ah! you mistake!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 I’m sorry I’m so blind!
But this I know — that you are very kind.

[They pass on.]

FAUST
Me, little angel, didst thou recognize,
When in the garden first I came?

MARGARET
Did you not see it? I cast down my eyes.

FAUST
Thou dost forgive my boldness, dost not blame
The liberty I took that day,
When thou from church didst lately wend thy way?

MARGARET
I was confused. So had it never been;
No one of me could any evil say.
Alas, thought I, he doubtless in thy mien,
Something unmaidenly or bold hath seen?
It seemed as if it struck him suddenly,
Here’s just a girl with whom one may make free!
Yet I must own that then I scarcely knew
What in your favor here began at once to plead;
Yet I was angry with myself indeed
That I more angry could not feel with you.

FAUST
Sweet love!

MARGARET
Just wait awhile! [She gathers a star-flower and plucks off the leaves one after another.]

FAUST
A nosegay may that be?

MARGARET
No! It is but a game.

FAUST
How?

MARGARET
Go, you’ll laugh at me!

[She plucks off the leaves and murmurs to herself.]

FAUST
What murmurest thou?

MARGARET (half aloud)
He loves me — loves me not.

FAUST
Sweet angel, with thy face of heavenly bliss!

MARGARET (continues)
He loves me — not — he loves me — not — [plucking off the last leaf with fond joy.
He loves me!

FAUST
                                 Yes!
And this flower-language, darling, let it be
A heavenly oracle! He loveth thee!
Know’st thou the meaning of, He loveth thee?
                     [He seizes both her hands.]

MARGARET
I tremble so!

FAUST
 Nay! do not tremble, love!
Let this hand-pressure, let this glance reveal
Feelings, all power of speech above;
To give oneself up wholly and to feel
A joy that must eternal prove!
Eternal! — Yes, its end would be despair,
No end! — It cannot end!

[MARGARET presses his hand, extricates herself, and runs away. He stands a moment in thought, and then follows her.]

MARTHA (approaching)
Night’s closing.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Yes, we’ll presently away.

MARTHA
I would entreat you longer yet to stay;
But ’tis a wicked place, just here about;
It is as if the folk had nothing else to do,
Nothing to think of too,
But gaping watch their neighbors, who goes in and out;
And scandal’s busy still, do whatsoe’er one may.
And our young couple?

MEPHISTOPHELES
 They have flown up there,
The wanton butterflies!

MARTHA
 He seems to take to her.
And she to him. ’Tis of the world the way!

A SUMMER-HOUSE

[MARGARET runs in, hides behind the door, holds the tip of her finger to her lip, and peeps through the crevice.]

MARGARET
He comes!

FAUST
 Ah, little rogue, so thou
Think’st to provoke me! I have caught thee now!

[He kisses her.]

MARGARET (embracing him, and returning the kiss)
Dearest of men! I love thee from my heart!

[MEPHISTOPHELES knocks.]

FAUST (stamping)
Who’s there?

MEPHISTOPHELES
A friend!

FAUST
A brute!

MEPHISTOPHELES
’Tis time to part.

MARTHA (comes)
Ay, it is late, good sir.

FAUST
Mayn’t I attend you, then?

MARGARET
Oh no — my mother would — adieu, adieu!

FAUST
And must I really then take leave of you?
Farewell!

MARTHA
Good-bye!

MARGARET
Ere long to meet again!

[Exeunt FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES.]

MARGARET
Good heavens! how all things far and near
Must fill his mind — a man like this!
Abash’d before him I appear,
And say to all things only, yes.
Poor simple child, I cannot see
What ’tis that he can find in me.

[Exit.]

FOREST AND CAVERN

FAUST (alone)
Spirit sublime! Thou gav’st me, gav’st me all
For which I prayed! Not vainly hast thou turn’d
To me thy countenance in flaming fire:
Gavest me glorious nature for my realm,
And also power to feel her and enjoy;
Not merely with a cold and wondering glance,
Thou dost permit me in her depths profound,
As in the bosom of a friend to gaze.
Before me thou dost lead her living tribes,
And dost in silent grove, in air and stream
Teach me to know my kindred. And when roars
The howling storm-blast through the groaning wood,
Wrenching the giant pine, which in its fall
Crashing sweeps down its neighbor trunks and boughs,
While hollow thunder from the hill resounds:
Then thou dost lead me to some shelter’d cave,
Dost there reveal me to myself, and show
Of my own bosom the mysterious depths.
And when with soothing beam, the moon’s pale orb
Full in my view climbs up the pathless sky,
From crag and dewy grove, the silvery forms
Of by-gone ages hover, and assuage
The joy austere of contemplative thought.

Oh, that naught perfect is assign’d to man,
I feel, alas! With this exalted joy,
Which lifts me near, and nearer to the gods,
Thou gav’st me this companion, unto whom
I needs must cling, though cold and insolent,
He still degrades me to myself, and turns
Thy glorious gifts to nothing, with a breath.
He in my bosom with malicious zeal
For that fair image fans a raging fire;
From craving to enjoyment thus I reel,
And in enjoyment languish for desire.

[MEPHISTOPHELES enters.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
Of this lone life have you not had your fill?
How for so long can it have charms for you?
’Tis well enough to try it if you will;
But then away again to something new!

FAUST
Would you could better occupy your leisure,
Than in disturbing thus my hours of joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Well! Well! I’ll leave you to yourself with pleasure,
A serious tone you hardly dare employ.
To part from one so crazy, harsh, and cross,
Were not in truth a grievous loss.
The live-long day, for you I toil and fret;
Ne’er from his worship’s face a hint I get,
What pleases him, or what to let alone.

FAUST
Ay truly! that is just the proper tone!
He wearies me, and would with thanks be paid!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Poor Son of Earth, without my aid,
How would thy weary days have flown?
Thee of thy foolish whims I’ve cured,
Thy vain imaginations banished.
And but for me, be well assured,
Thou from this sphere must soon have vanished.
In rocky hollows and in caverns drear,
Why like an owl sit moping here?
Wherefore from dripping stones and moss with ooze embued,
Dost suck, like any toad, thy food?
A rare, sweet pastime. Verily!
The doctor cleaveth still to thee.

FAUST
Dost comprehend what bliss without alloy
From this wild wand’ring in the desert springs? —
Couldst thou but guess the new life-power it brings,
Thou wouldst be fiend enough to envy me my joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES
What super-earthly ecstasy! at night,
To lie in darkness on the dewy height,
Embracing heaven and earth in rapture high,
The soul dilating to a deity;
With prescient yearnings pierce the core of earth,
Feel in your laboring breast the six-days’ birth,
Enjoy, in proud delight what no one knows,
While your love-rapture o’er creation flows —
The earthly lost in beatific vision,
And then the lofty intuition —

(with a gesture)

I need not tell you how — to close!

FAUST
Fie on you!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 This displeases you? “For shame!”
You are forsooth entitled to exclaim;
We to chaste ears it seems must not pronounce
What, nathless, the chaste heart cannot renounce.
Well, to be brief, the joy as fit occasions rise,
I grudge you not, of specious lies.
But long this mood thou’lt not retain.
Already thou’rt again outworn,
And should this last, thou wilt be torn
By frenzy or remorse and pain.
Enough of this! Thy true love dwells apart,
And all to her seems flat and tame;
Alone thine image fills her heart,
She loves thee with an all-devouring flame.
First came thy passion with o’erpowering rush,
Like mountain torrent, swollen by the melted snow;
Full in her heart didst pour the sudden gush,
Now has thy brooklet ceased to flow.
Instead of sitting throned midst forests wild,
It would become so great a lord
To comfort the enamor’d child,
And the young monkey for her love reward.
To her the hours seem miserably long;
She from the window sees the clouds float by
As o’er the lofty city-walls they fly.
“If I a birdie were!” so runs her song,
Half through the night and all day long.
Cheerful sometimes, more oft at heart full sore;
Fairly outwept seem now her tears,
Anon she tranquil is, or so appears,
And love-sick evermore.

FAUST
Snake! Serpent vile!

MEPHISTOPHELES (aside)
Good! If I catch thee with my guile!

FAUST
Vile reprobate! go get thee hence;
Forbear the lovely girl to name!
Nor in my half-distracted sense
Kindle anew the smouldering flame!

MEPHISTOPHELES
What wouldest thou! She thinks you’ve taken flight;
It seems, she’s partly in the right.

FAUST
I’m near her still — and should I distant rove,
Her I can ne’er forget, ne’er lose her love;
And all things touch’d by those sweet lips of hers,
Even the very Host, my envy stirs.

MEPHISTOPHELES
’Tis well! I oft have envied you indeed,
The twin-pair that among the roses feed.

FAUST
Pander, avaunt!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 Go to! I laugh, the while you rail;
The power which fashion’d youth and maid
Well understood the noble trade;
So neither shall occasion fail.
But hence! — A mighty grief I trow!
Unto thy lov’d one’s chamber thou
And not to death shouldst go.

FAUST
What is to me heaven’s joy within her arms?
What though my life her bosom warms! —
Do I not ever feel her woe?
The outcast am I not, unhoused, unblest,
Inhuman monster, without aim or rest,
Who, like the greedy surge, from rock to rock,
Sweeps down the dread abyss with desperate shock?
While she, within her lowly cot, which graced
The Alpine slope, beside the waters wild,
Her homely cares in that small world embraced,
Secluded lived, a simple artless child.
Was’t not enough, in thy delirious whirl
To blast the stedfast rocks!
Her, and her peace as well,
Must I, God-hated one, to ruin hurl!
Dost claim this holocaust, remorseless Hell!
Fiend, help me to cut short the hours of dread!
Let what must happen, happen speedily!
Her direful doom fall crushing on my head,
And into ruin let her plunge with me!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Why how again it seethes and glows!
Away, thou fool! Her torment ease!
When such a head no issue sees,
It pictures straight the final close.
Long life to him who boldly dares!
A devil’s pluck thou’rt wont to show;
As for a devil who despairs —
Nothing I find so mawkish here below.

MARGARET’S ROOM

MARGARET (alone at her spinning wheel)

   My peace is gone,
      My heart is sore,
    I find it never,
      And nevermore!

    Where him I have not,
      Is the grave; and all
    The world to me
      Is turned to gall.

    My wilder’d brain
      Is overwrought;
    My feeble senses
      Are distraught.

    My peace is gone,
      My heart is sore,
    I find it never,
      And nevermore!

    For him from the window
      I gaze, at home;
    For him and him only
      Abroad I roam.
    His lofty step,
       His bearing high,
    The smile of his lip,
       The power of his eye,

    His witching words,
      Their tones of bliss,
    His hand’s fond pressure,
      And ah — his kiss!

    My peace is gone,
      My heart is sore,
    I find it never,
      And nevermore.

    My bosom aches
      To feel him near;
    Ah, could I clasp
      And fold him here!

   Kiss him and kiss him
     Again would I,
   And on his kisses
    I fain would die.

MARTHA’S GARDEN

MARGARET and FAUST
MARGARET
Promise me, Henry!

FAUST
What I can!

MARGARET
How thy religion fares, I fain would hear.
Thou art a good kind-hearted man,
Only that way not well-disposed, I fear.

FAUST
Forbear, my child! Thou feelest thee I love;
My heart, my blood I’d give, my love to prove,
And none would of their faith or church bereave.

MARGARET
That’s not enough, we must ourselves believe!

FAUST
Must we?

MARGARET
 Ah, could I but thy soul inspire!
Thou honorest not the sacraments, alas!

FAUST
I honor them.

MARGARET
 But yet without desire;
’Tis long since thou hast been either to shrift or mass.
Dost thou believe in God?

FAUST
 My darling, who dares say?
Yes, I in God believe.
Question or priest or sage, and they
Seem, in the answer you receive,
To mock the questioner.

MARGARET
Then thou dost not believe?

FAUST
Sweet one! my meaning do not misconceive!
Him who dare name,
And who proclaim —
Him I believe?
Who that can feel,
His heart can steel,
To say: I believe him not?
The All-embracer,
All-sustainer,
Holds and sustains he not
Thee, me, himself?
Lifts not the Heaven its dome above?
Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us lie?
And, beaming tenderly with looks of love,
Climb not the everlasting stars on high?
Do we not gaze into each other’s eyes?
Nature’s impenetrable agencies,
Are they not thronging on thy heart and brain,
Viewless, or visible to mortal ken,
Around thee weaving their mysterious chain?
Fill thence thy heart, how large soe’er it be;
And in the feeling when thou utterly art blest,
Then call it, what thou wilt —
Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God!
I have no name for it!
’Tis feeling all;
Name is but sound and smoke
Shrouding the glow of heaven.

MARGARET
All this is doubtless good and fair;
Almost the same the parson says,
Only in slightly different phrase.

FAUST
Beneath Heaven’s sunshine, everywhere,
This is the utterance of the human heart;
Each in his language doth the like impart;
Then why not I in mine?

MARGARET
 What thus I hear
Sounds plausible, yet I’m not reconciled;
There’s something wrong about it; much I fear
That thou art not a Christian.

FAUST
My sweet child!

MARGARET
Alas! it long hath sorely troubled me,
To see thee in such odious company.

FAUST
How so?

MARGARET
 The man who comes with thee, I hate,
Yea, in my spirit’s inmost depths abhor;
As his loath’d visage, in my life before,
Naught to my heart e’er gave a pang so great.

FAUST
Him fear not, my sweet love!

MARGARET
 His presence chills my blood.
Toward all beside I have a kindly mood;
Yet, though I yearn to gaze on thee, I feel
At sight of him strange horror o’er me steal;
That he’s a villain my conviction’s strong.
May Heaven forgive me, if I do him wrong!

FAUST
Yet such strange fellows in the world must be!

MARGARET
I would not live with such an one as he.
If for a moment he but enter here,
He looks around him with a mocking sneer,
And malice ill-conceal’d;
That he with naught on earth can sympathize is clear;
Upon his brow ’tis legibly revealed
That to his heart no living soul is dear.
So blest I feel, within thine arms,
So warm and happy — free from all alarms;
And still my heart doth close when he comes near.

FAUST
Foreboding angel! check thy fear!

MARGARET
It so o’ermasters me that when,
Or wheresoe’er, his step I hear,
I almost think, no more I love thee then.
Besides, when he is near, I ne’er could pray.
This eats into my heart; with thee
The same, my Henry, it must be.

FAUST
This is antipathy!

MARGARET
I must away.

FAUST
For one brief hour then may I never rest,
And heart to heart, and soul to soul be pressed?

MARGARET
Ah, if I slept alone! Tonight
The bolt I fain would leave undrawn for thee;
But then my mother’s sleep is light,
Were we surprised by her, ah me!
Upon the spot I should be dead.

FAUST
Dear angel! there’s no cause for dread.
Here is a little phial — if she take
Mixed in her drink three drops, ‘twill steep
Her nature in a deep and soothing sleep.

MARGARET
What do I not for thy dear sake!
To her it will not harmful prove?

FAUST
Should I advise it else, sweet love?

MARGARET
I know not, dearest, when thy face I see,
What doth my spirit to thy will constrain;
Already I have done so much for thee,
That scarcely more to do doth now remain. [Exit.]

(MEPHISTOPHELES enters)

MEPHISTOPHELES
The monkey! Is she gone?

FAUST
Again hast played the spy?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Of all that pass’d I’m well apprized,
I heard the doctor catechized,
And trust he’ll profit much thereby!
Fain would the girls inquire indeed
Touching their lover’s faith and creed,
And whether pious in the good old way;
They think, if pliant there, us too he will obey.

FAUST
Thou monster, dost not see that this
Pure soul, possessed by ardent love,
Full of the living faith,
To her of bliss
The only pledge, must holy anguish prove,
Holding the man she loves fore-doomed to endless death!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Most sensual, supersensualist! The while
A damsel leads thee by the nose!

FAUST
Of filth and fire abortion vile!

MEPHISTOPHELES
In physiognomy strange skill she shows;
She in my presence feels she knows not how;
My mask it seems a hidden sense reveals;
That I’m a genius she must needs allow,
That I’m the very devil perhaps she feels.
So then tonight —

FAUST
What’s that to you?

MEPHISTOPHELES
I’ve my amusement in it too!

AT THE WELL

MARGARET and BESSY, with pitchers

BESSY
Of Barbara hast nothing heard?

MARGARET
I rarely go from home — no, not a word.

BESSY
’Tis true: Sybilla told me so today!
That comes of being proud, methinks;
She played the fool at last.

MARGARET
How so?

BESSY
 They say
That two she feedeth when she eats and drinks.

MARGARET
Alas!

BESSY
 She’s rightly served, in sooth.
How long she hung upon the youth!
What promenades, what jaunts there were
To dancing booth and village fair!
The first she everywhere must shine,
He always treating her to pastry and to wine.
Of her good looks she was so vain,
So shameless too, that to retain
His presents, she did not disdain;
Sweet words and kisses came anon —
And then the virgin flower was gone.

MARGARET
Poor thing!

BESSY
 Forsooth dost pity her?
At night, when at our wheels we sat,
Abroad our mothers ne’er would let us stir.
Then with her lover she must chat,
Or on the bench, or in the dusky walk,
Thinking the hours too brief for their sweet talk;
Her proud head she will have to bow,
And in white sheet do penance now!

MARGARET
But he will surely marry her?

BESSY
 Not he!
He won’t be such a fool! a gallant lad
Like him can roam o’er land and sea;
Besides, he’s off.

MARGARET
That is not fair!

BESSY
If she should get him, ‘twere almost as bad!
Her myrtle wreath the boys would tear;
And then we girls would plague her too,
For we chopp’d straw before her door would strew!

[Exit.]

MARGARET (walking toward home)
How stoutly once I could inveigh,
If a poor maiden went astray;
Not words enough my tongue could find,
‘Gainst others’ sin to speak my mind!
Black as it seemed, I blacken’d it still more,
And strove to make it blacker than before.
And did myself securely bless —
Now my own trespass doth appear!
Yet ah! — what urg’d me to transgress,
God knows, it was so sweet, so dear!

ZWINGER

Inclosure between the City-wall and the Gate. (In the niche of the wall a devotional image of the Mater dolorosa, with flower-pots before it.)

MARGARET (putting fresh flowers in the pots)

 Ah, rich in sorrow, thou,
 Stoop thy maternal brow,
 And mark with pitying eye my misery!
 The sword in thy pierced heart,
 Thou dost with bitter smart
 Gaze upwards on thy Son’s death agony.
 To the dear God on high
 Ascends thy piteous sigh,
 Pleading for his and thy sore misery.

 Ah, who can know
 The torturing woe,
 The pangs that rack me to the bone?
 How my poor heart, without relief,
 Trembles and throbs, its yearning grief
 Thou knowest, thou alone!

 Ah, wheresoe’er I go,
 With woe, with woe, with woe,
 My anguish’d breast is aching!
 When all alone I creep,
 I weep, I weep, I weep,
 Alas! my heart is breaking!

 The flower-pots at my window
 Were wet with tears of mine,
 The while I pluck’d these blossoms
 At dawn to deck thy shrine!

 When early in my chamber
 Shone bright the rising morn,
 I sat there on my pallet,
 My heart with anguish torn.

 Help! from disgrace and death deliver me!
 Ah! rich in sorrow, thou,
 Stoop thy maternal brow,
 And mark with pitying eye my misery!

NIGHT. STREET BEFORE MARGARET’S DOOR

VALENTINE (a soldier, MARGARET’s brother)
When seated ‘mong the jovial crowd,
Where merry comrades boasting loud
Each named with pride his favorite lass,
And in her honor drain’d his glass;
Upon my elbows I would lean,
With easy quiet view the scene,
Nor give my tongue the rein, until
Each swaggering blade had talked his fill.
Then smiling I my beard would stroke,
The while, with brimming glass, I spoke;
“Each to his taste! — but to my mind,
Where in the country will you find,
A maid, as my dear Gretchen fair,
Who with my sister can compare?”
Cling! clang! so rang the jovial sound!
Shouts of assent went circling round;
Pride of her sex is she! — cried some;
Then were the noisy boasters dumb.

And now! — I could tear out my hair,
Or dash my brains out in despair! —
Me every scurvy knave may twit,
With stinging jest and taunting sneer!
Like skulking debtor I must sit,
And sweat each casual word to hear!
And though I smash’d them one and all, —
Yet them I could not liars call.
 Who comes this way? who’s sneaking here?
 If I mistake not, two draw near.
 If he be one, have at him; — well I wot
 Alive he shall not leave this spot!

FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
How far from yon sacristy, athwart the night,
Its beams the ever-burning taper throws,
While ever waning, fades the glimmering light,
As gathering darkness doth around it close!
So night like gloom doth in my bosom reign.

MEPHISTOPHELES
I’m like a tom-cat in a thievish vein
That up fire-ladders tall and steep
And round the walls doth slyly creep;
Virtuous withal I feel, with, I confess.
A touch of thievish joy and wantonness.
Thus through my limbs already burns
The glorious Walpurgis night!
After tomorrow it returns;
Then why one wakes, one knows aright!

FAUST
Meanwhile, the treasure I see glimmering there.
Will it ascend into the open air?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ere long thou wilt proceed with pleasure
To raise the casket with its treasure;
I took a peep, therein are stored
Of lion-dollars a rich hoard.

FAUST
And not a trinket? not a ring?
Wherewith my lovely girl to deck?

MEPHISTOPHELES
I saw among them some such thing,
A string of pearls to grace her neck.

FAUST
’Tis well! I’m always loath to go,
Without some gift my love to show.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Some pleasures gratis to enjoy
Should surely cause you no annoy.
While bright with stars the heavens appear,
I’ll sing a masterpiece of art:
A moral song shall charm her ear,
More surely to beguile her heart.

(Sings to the guitar.)

 Kathrina, say,
 Why lingering stay
 At dawn of day
 Before your lover’s door?
 Maiden, beware,
 Nor enter there,
 Lest forth you fare,
 A maiden never more.

 Maiden take heed!
 Reck well my rede!
 Is’t done, the deed?
 Good night, you poor, poor thing!
 The spoiler’s lies,
 His arts despise,
 Nor yield your prize,
 Without the marriage ring!

VALENTINE (steps forward)
Whom are you luring here? I’ll give it you!
Accursed rat-catchers, your strains I’ll end!
First, to the devil the guitar I’ll send!
Then to the devil with the singer too!

MEPHISTOPHELES
The poor guitar! ’tis done for now.

VALENTINE
Your skull shall follow next, I trow!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
Doctor, stand fast! your strength collect!
Be prompt, and do as I direct.
Out with your whisk! keep close, I pray,
I’ll parry! do you thrust away!

VALENTINE
Then parry that!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Why not?

VALENTINE
That too!

MEPHISTOPHELES
With ease!

VALENTINE
 The devil fights for you!
Why how is this? my hand’s already lamed!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
Thrust home!

VALENTINE (falls)
Alas!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 There! Now the lubber’s tamed!
But quick, away! We must at once take wing;
A cry of murder strikes upon the ear;
With the police I know my course to steer,
But with the blood-ban ’tis another thing.

MARTHA (at the window)
Without! without!

MARGARET (at the window)
Quick, bring a light!

MARTHA (as above)
They rail and scuffle, scream and fight!

PEOPLE
One lieth here already dead!

MARTHA (coming out)
Where are the murderers? are they fled?

MARGARET (coming out)
Who lieth here?

PEOPLE
Thy mother’s son.

MARGARET
Almighty God! I am undone!

VALENTINE
I’m dying — ’tis a soon-told tale,
And sooner done the deed.
Why, women, do ye howl and wail?
To my last words give heed!

[All gather round him.]

My Gretchen, see! still young art thou,
Art not discreet enough, I trow,
Thou dost thy matters ill;
Let this in confidence be said:
Since thou the path of shame dost tread,
Tread it with right good will!

MARGARET
My brother! God! what can this mean?

VALENTINE
 Abstain,
Nor dare God’s holy name profane!
What’s done, alas, is done and past!
Matters will take their course at last;
By stealth thou dost begin with one,
Others will follow him anon;
And when a dozen thee have known,
Thou’lt common be to all the town.
When infamy is newly born,
In secret she is brought to light,
And the mysterious veil of night
O’er head and ears is drawn;
The loathsome birth men fain would slay;
But soon, full grown, she waxes bold,
And though not fairer to behold,
With brazen front insults the day:
The more abhorrent to the sight,
The more she courts the day’s pure light,
The time already I discern,
When thee all honest folk will spurn,
And shun thy hated form to meet,
As when a corpse infects the street.
Thy heart will sink in blank despair,
When they shall look thee in the face!
A golden chain no more thou’lt wear!
Nor near the altar take in church thy place!
In fair lace collar simply dight
Thou’lt dance no more with spirits light!
In darksome corners thou wilt bide,
Where beggars vile and cripples hide,
And e’en though God thy crime forgive,
On earth, a thing accursed, thou’lt live!

MARTHA
Your parting soul to God commend!
Your dying breath in slander will you spend?

VALENTINE
Could I but reach thy wither’d frame,
Thou wretched beldame, void of shame!
Full measure I might hope to win
Of pardon then for every sin.

MARGARET
Brother! what agonizing pain!

VALENTINE
I tell thee, from vain tears abstain!
’Twas thy dishonor pierced my heart,
Thy fall the fatal death-stab gave.
Through the death-sleep I now depart
To God, a soldier true and brave.

[Dies.]

CATHEDRAL

Service, Organ, and Anthem.

MARGARET amongst a number of people

EVIL-SPIRIT behind MARGARET
EVIL-SPIRIT

How different, Gretchen, was it once with thee,
When thou, still full of innocence,
Here to the altar camest,
And from the small and well-con’d book
Didst lisp thy prayer,
Half childish sport,
Half God in thy young heart!
Gretchen!
What thoughts are thine?
What deed of shame
Lurks in thy sinful heart?
Is thy prayer utter’d for thy mother’s soul,
Who into long, long torment slept through thee?
Whose blood is on thy threshold? —
And stirs there not already ‘neath thy heart
Another quick’ning pulse, that even now
Tortures itself and thee
With its foreboding presence?

MARGARET
Woe! Woe!
Oh, could I free me from the thoughts
That hither, thither, crowd upon my brain,
Against my will!

CHORUS
Dies irae, dies illa, Solvet sæclum in favilla.

[The organ sounds.]

EVIL-SPIRIT
 Grim horror seizes thee!
 The trumpet sounds!
 The graves are shaken!
 And thy heart
 From ashy rest
 For torturing flames
 Anew created,
 Trembles into life!

MARGARET
 Would I were hence!
 It is as if the organ
 Choked my breath,
 As if the choir
 Melted my inmost heart!

CHORUS
Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet adparebit, Nil inultum remanebit.

MARGARET
 I feel oppressed!
 The pillars of the wall
 Imprison me!
 The vaulted roof
 Weighs down upon me! — air!

EVIL-SPIRIT
 Wouldst hide thee? sin and shame
 Remain not hidden!
 Air! light!
 Woe’s thee!

CHORUS
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus! Cum vix justus sit securus.

EVIL-SPIRIT
 The glorified their faces turn
 Away from thee!
 Shudder the pure to reach
 Their hands to thee!
 Woe!

CHORUS
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus —

MARGARET
Neighbor! your smelling bottle!

[She swoons away.]

WALPURGIS-NIGHT

THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS. DISTRICT OF SCHIERKE AND ELEND

FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES

MEPHISTOPHELES
A broomstick dost thou not at least desire?
The roughest he-goat fain would I bestride,
By this road from our goal we’re still far wide.

FAUST
While fresh upon my legs, so long I naught require,
Except this knotty staff. Beside,
What boots it to abridge a pleasant way?
Along the labyrinth of these vales to creep,
Then scale these rocks, whence, in eternal spray,
Adown the cliffs the silvery fountains leap:
Such is the joy that seasons paths like these!
Spring weaves already in the birchen trees;
E’en the late pine-grove feels her quickening powers;
Should she not work within these limbs of ours?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Naught of this genial influence do I know!
Within me all is wintry. Frost and snow
I should prefer my dismal path to bound.
How sadly, yonder, with belated glow
Rises the ruddy moon’s imperfect round,
Shedding so faint a light, at every tread
One’s sure to stumble ‘gainst a rock or tree!
An Ignis Fatuus I must call instead.
Yonder one burning merrily, I see.
Holla! my friend! may I request your light?
Why should you flare away so uselessly?
Be kind enough to show us up the height!

IGNIS FATUUS
Through reverence, I hope I may subdue
The lightness of my nature; true,
Our course is but a zigzag one.

MEPHISTOPHELES
 Ho! ho!
So men, forsooth, he thinks to imitate!
Now, in the devil’s name, for once go straight!
Or out at once your flickering life I’ll blow.

IGNIS FATUUS
That you are master here is obvious quite;
To do your will, I’ll cordially essay;
Only reflect! The hill is magic-mad tonight;
And if to show the path you choose a meteor’s light,
You must not wonder should we go astray.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, IGNIS FATUUS (in alternate song)

 Through the dream and magic-sphere,
 As it seems, we now are speeding;
 Honor win, us rightly leading,
 That betimes we may appear
 In yon wide and desert region!

 Trees on trees, a stalwart legion,
 Swiftly past us are retreating,
 And the cliffs with lowly greeting;
 Rocks long-snouted, row on row,
 How they snort, and how they blow!

 Through the stones and heather springing,
 Brook and brooklet haste below;
 Hark the rustling! Hark the singing!
 Hearken to love’s plaintive lays;
 Voices of those heavenly days —
 What we hope, and what we love!
 Like a tale of olden time,
 Echo’s voice prolongs the chime.
 To-whit! To-who! It sounds more near;
 Plover, owl, and jay appear,
 All awake, around, above?
 Paunchy salamanders too
 Peer, long-limbed, the bushes through!
 And, like snakes, the roots of trees
 Coil themselves from rock and sand,
 Stretching many a wondrous band,
 Us to frighten, us to seize;
 From rude knots with life embued,
 Polyp-fangs abroad they spread,
 To snare the wanderer! ‘Neath our tread,
 Mice, in myriads, thousand-hued,
 Through the heath and through the moss!
 And the fire-flies’ glittering throng,
 Wildering escort, whirls along,
 Here and there, our path across.

 Tell me, stand we motionless,
 Or still forward do we press?
 All things round us whirl and fly,
 Rocks and trees make strange grimaces,
 Dazzling meteors change their places —
 How they puff and multiply!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now grasp my doublet — we at last
A central peak have reached, which shows,
If round a wondering glance we cast,
How in the mountain Mammon glows.

FAUST
How through the chasms strangely gleams,
A lurid light, like dawn’s red glow,
Pervading with its quivering beams,
The gorges of the gulf below!
Here vapors rise, there clouds float by,
Here through the mist the light doth shine;
Now, like a fount, it bursts on high,
Meanders now, a slender line;
Far reaching, with a hundred veins,
Here through the valley see it glide;
Here, where its force the gorge restrains,
At once it scatters, far and wide;
Anear, like showers of golden sand
Strewn broadcast, sputter sparks of light:
And mark yon rocky walls that stand
Ablaze, in all their towering height!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Doth not Sir Mammon for this fête
Grandly illume his palace! Thou
Art lucky to have seen it; now,
The boisterous guests, I feel, are coming straight.

FAUST
How through the air the storm doth whirl!
Upon my neck it strikes with sudden shock.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Cling to these ancient ribs of granite rock,
Else to yon depths profound it you will hurl.
A murky vapor thickens night.
Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar!
The owlets flit in wild affright.
Hark! Splinter’d are the columns that upbore
The leafy palace, green for aye:
The shivered branches whirr and sigh,
Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan,
The roots, upriven, creak and moan!
In fearful and entangled fall,
One crashing ruin whelms them all,
While through the desolate abyss,
Sweeping the wreck-strewn precipice,
The raging storm-blasts howl and hiss!
Aloft strange voices dost thou hear?
Distant now and now more near?
Hark! the mountain ridge along,
Streameth a raving magic-song!

WITCHES (in chorus)

 Now to the Brocken the witches hie,
 The stubble is yellow, the corn is green;
 Thither the gathering legions fly,
 And sitting aloft is Sir Urian seen:
 O’er stick and o’er stone they go whirling along,
 Witches and he-goats, a motley throng.

VOICES
 Alone old Baubo’s coming now;
 She rides upon a farrow sow.

CHORUS
 Honor to her, to whom honor is due!
 Forward, Dame Baubo! Honor to you!
 A goodly sow and mother thereon,
 The whole witch chorus follows anon.

VOICE
Which way didst come?

VOICE
 O’er Ilsenstein!
There I peep’d in an owlet’s nest.
With her broad eye she gazed in mine!

VOICE
Drive to the devil, thou hellish pest!
Why ride so hard?

VOICE
 She has graz’d my side,
Look at the wounds, how deep and how wide!

WITCHES (in chorus)

 The way is broad, the way is long;
 What mad pursuit! What tumult wild!
 Scratches the besom and sticks the prong;
 Crush’d is the mother, and stifled the child.

WIZARDS (half chorus)

 Like house-encumber’d snail we creep;
 While far ahead the women keep,
 For when to the devil’s house we speed,
 By a thousand steps they take the lead.

THE OTHER HALF
 Not so, precisely do we view it;
 They with a thousand steps may do it;
 But let them hasten as they can,
 With one long bound ’tis clear’d by man.

VOICES (above)
Come with us, come with us from Felsensee.

VOICES (from below)
Aloft to you we would mount with glee!
We wash, and free from all stain are we,
Yet barren evermore must be!

BOTH CHORUSES
 The wind is hushed, the stars grow pale,
 The pensive moon her light doth veil;
 And whirling on, the magic choir
 Sputters forth sparks of drizzling fire.

VOICE (from below)
Stay! stay!

VOICE (from above)

 What voice of woe
Calls from the cavern’d depths below?

VOICE (from below)
Take me with you! Oh take me too!
Three centuries I climb in vain,
And yet can ne’er the summit gain!
To be with my kindred I am fain.

BOTH CHORUSES
 Broom and pitch-fork, goat and prong,
 Mounted on these we whirl along;
 Who vainly strives to climb tonight,
 Is evermore a luckless wight!

DEMI-WITCH (below)

I hobble after, many a day;
Already the others are far away!
No rest at home can I obtain —
Here too my efforts are in vain!

CHORUS OF WITCHES
 Salve gives the witches strength to rise;
 A rag for a sail does well enough;
 A goodly ship is every trough;
 Tonight who flies not, never flies.

BOTH CHORUSES
 And when the topmost peak we round,
 Then alight ye on the ground;
 The heath’s wide regions cover ye
 With your mad swarms of witchery!

[They let themselves down.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
They crowd and jostle, whirl and flutter!
They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter!
They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare —
A true witch-element! Beware!
Stick close! else we shall severed be.
Where art thou?

FAUST (in the distance)
Here!

MEPHISTOPHELES
 Already, whirl’d so far away!
The master then indeed I needs must play.
Give ground! Squire Voland comes! Sweet folk, give ground!
Here, doctor, grasp me! With a single bound
Let us escape this ceaseless jar;
Even for me too mad these people are.
Hard by there shineth something with peculiar glare,
Yon brake allureth me; it is not far;
Come, come along with me! we’ll slip in there.

FAUST
Spirit of contradiction! Lead! I’ll follow straight!
’Twas wisely done, however, to repair
On May-night to the Brocken, and when there,
By our own choice ourselves to isolate!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Mark, of those flames the motley glare!
A merry club assembles there.
In a small circle one is not alone.

FAUST
I’d rather be above, though, I must own!
Already fire and eddying smoke I view;
The impetuous millions to the devil ride;
Full many a riddle will be there untied.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Ay! and full many a riddle tied anew.
But let the great world rave and riot!
Here will we house ourselves in quiet.
A custom ’tis of ancient date,
Our lesser worlds within the great world to create!
Young witches there I see, naked and bare,
And old ones, veil’d more prudently.
For my sake only courteous be!
The trouble small, the sport is rare.
Of instruments I hear the cursed din —
One must get used to it. Come in! come in!
There’s now no help for it. I’ll step before,
And introducing you as my good friend,
Confer on you one obligation more.
How say you now? ’Tis no such paltry room;
Why only look, you scarce can see the end.
A hundred fires in rows disperse the gloom;
They dance, they talk, they cook, make love, and drink:
Where could we find aught better, do you think?

FAUST
To introduce us, do you purpose here
As devil or as wizard to appear?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Though I am wont indeed to strict incognito,
Yet upon gala-days one must one’s orders show.
No garter have I to distinguish me,
Nathless the cloven foot doth here give dignity.
Seest thou yonder snail? Crawling this way she hies;
With searching feelers, she, no doubt,
Hath me already scented out;
Here, even if I would, for me there’s no disguise.
From fire to fire, we’ll saunter at our leisure,
The gallant you, I’ll cater for your pleasure.

(To a party seated round, some expiring embers)
Old gentleman, apart, why sit ye moping here?
Ye in the midst should be of all this jovial cheer,
Girt round with noise and youthful riot;
At home one surely has enough of quiet.

GENERAL
In nations put his trust, who may,
Whate’er for them one may have done;
For with the people, as with women, they
Honor your rising stars alone!

MINISTER
Now all too far they wander from the right;
I praise the good old ways, to them I hold,
Then was the genuine age of gold,
When we ourselves were foremost in men’s sight.

PARVENU
Ne’er were we ‘mong your dullards found,
And what we ought not, that to do were fair;
Yet now are all things turning round and round,
When on firm basis we would them maintain.

AUTHOR
Who, as a rule, a treatise now would care
To read, of even moderate sense?
As for the rising generation, ne’er
Has youth displayed such arrogant pretense.

MEPHISTOPHELES (suddenly appearing very old)
Since for the last time I the Brocken scale,
That folk are ripe for doomsday, now one sees;
And just because my cask begins to fail,
So the whole world is also on the lees.

HUCKSTER-WITCH
Stop, gentlemen, nor pass me by,
Of wares I have a choice collection:
Pray honor them with your inspection.
Lose not this opportunity!
Yet nothing in my booth you’ll find
Without its counterpart on earth; there’s naught,
Which to the world, and to mankind,
Hath not some direful mischief wrought.
No dagger here, which hath not flow’d with blood,
No chalice, whence, into some healthy frame
Hath not been poured hot poison’s wasting flood.
No trinket, but hath wrought some woman’s shame,
No weapon but hath cut some sacred tie,
Or from behind hath stabb’d an enemy.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Gossip! For wares like these the time’s gone by,
What’s done is past! what’s past is done!
With novelties your booth supply;
Us novelties attract alone.

FAUST
May this wild scene my senses spare!
This, may in truth be called a fair!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Upward the eddying concourse throng;
Thinking to push, thyself art push’d along.

FAUST
Who’s that, pray?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Mark her well! That’s Lilith.

FAUST
Who?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Adam’s first wife. Of her rich locks beware!
That charm in which she’s parallel’d by few,
When in its toils a youth she doth ensnare
He will not soon escape, I promise you.

FAUST
There sit a pair, the old one with the young;
Already they have bravely danced and sprung!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Here there is no repose today.
Another dance begins; we’ll join it, come away!

FAUST (dancing with the young one)

 Once a fair vision came to me;
 Therein I saw an apple-tree,
 Two beauteous apples charmed mine eyes;
 I climb’d forthwith to reach the prize.

THE FAIR ONE
 Apples still fondly ye desire,
 From paradise it hath been so.
 Feelings of joy my breast inspire
 That such too in my garden grow.

MEPHISTOPHELES (with the old one)

 Once a weird vision came to me;
 Therein I saw a rifted tree.
 It had a…..;
 But as it was it pleased me too.

THE OLD ONE
 I beg most humbly to salute
 The gallant with the cloven foot!
 Let him … have ready here,
 If he a … does not fear.

PROCTOPHANTASMIST
Accursed mob! How dare ye thus to meet?
Have I not shown and demonstrated too,
That ghosts stand not on ordinary feet?
Yet here ye dance, as other mortals do!

THE FAIR ONE (dancing)
Then at our ball, what doth he here?

FAUST (dancing)
Oh! He must everywhere appear.
He must adjudge, when others dance;
If on each step his say’s not said,
So is that step as good as never made.
He’s most annoyed, so soon as we advance;
If ye would circle in one narrow round.
As he in his old mill, then doubtless he
Your dancing would approve, — especially
If ye forthwith salute him with respect profound!

PROCTOPHANTASMIST
Still here! what arrogance! unheard of quite!
Vanish; we now have fill’d the world with light!
Laws are unheeded by the devil’s host;
Wise as we are, yet Tegel hath its ghost!
How long at this conceit I’ve swept with all my might,
Lost is the labor: ’tis unheard of quite!

THE FAIR ONE
Cease here to tease us any more, I pray.

PROCTOPHANTASMIST
Spirits, I plainly to your face declare:
No spiritual control myself will bear,
Since my own spirit can exert no sway.

[The dancing continues.]

Tonight, I see, I shall in naught succeed;
But I’m prepar’d my travels to pursue,
And hope, before my final step indeed,
To triumph over bards and devils too.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now in some puddle will he take his station,
Such is his mode of seeking consolation;
Where leeches, feasting on his rump, will drain
Spirits alike and spirit from his brain.

(To FAUST, who has left the dance)
But why the charming damsel leave, I pray,
Who to you in the dance so sweetly sang?

FAUST
Ah! in the very middle of her lay,
Out of her mouth a small red mouse there sprang.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Suppose there did! One must not be too nice.
’Twas well it was not gray, let that suffice.
Who ‘mid his pleasures for a trifle cares?

FAUST
Then saw I —

MEPHISTOPHELES
What?

FAUST
 Mephisto, seest thou there
Standing far off, a lone child, pale and fair!
Slow from the spot her drooping form she tears,
And seems with shackled feet to move along;
I own, within me the delusion’s strong,
That she the likeness of my Gretchen wears.

MEPHISTOPHELES
Gaze not upon her! ’Tis not good! Forbear!
’Tis lifeless, magical, a shape of air,
An idol. Such to meet with, bodes no good;
That rigid look of hers doth freeze man’s blood,
And well-nigh petrifies his heart to stone: —
The story of Medusa thou hast known.

FAUST
Ay, verily! a corpse’s eyes are those,
Which there was no fond loving hand to close.
That is the bosom I so fondly press’d,
That my sweet Gretchen’s form, so oft caress’d!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Deluded fool! ’Tis magic, I declare!
To each she doth his lov’d one’s image wear.

FAUST
What bliss! what torture! vainly I essay
To turn me from that piteous look away.
How strangely doth a single crimson line
Around that lovely neck its coil entwine,
It shows no broader than a knife’s blunt edge!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Quite right. I see it also, and allege
That she beneath her arm her head can bear,
Since Perseus cut it off. — But you I swear
Are craving for illusions still!
Come then, ascend yon little hill!
As on the Prater all is gay,
And if my senses are not gone,
I see a theatre, — what’s going on?

SERVIBILIS
They are about to recommence; — the play,
Will be the last of seven, and spick-span new —
’Tis usual here that number to present.
A dilettante did the piece invent,
And dilettanti will enact it too.
Excuse me, gentlemen; to me’s assign’d,
As dilettante to uplift the curtain.

MEPHISTOPHELES
You on the Blocksberg I’m rejoiced to find,
That ’tis your most appropriate sphere is certain.

INTERMEZZO: WALPURGIS-NIGHT’S DREAM

OR, OBERON AND TITANIA’S GOLDEN WEDDING-FEAST

* * * * *

THEATRE
MANAGER
  Vales, where mists still shift and play,
   To ancient hill succeeding, —
  These our scenes; — so we, today,
   May rest, brave sons of Mieding.

HERALD
  That the marriage golden be,
   Must fifty years be ended;
  More dear this feast of gold to me,
   Contention now suspended.

OBERON
  Spirits, if present, grace the scene,
   And if with me united,
  Then gratulate the king and queen,
   Their troth thus newly plighted!

PUCK
  Puck draws near and wheels about,
   In mazy circles dancing!
  Hundreds swell his joyous shout,
   Behind him still advancing.

ARIEL
  Ariel wakes his dainty air,
   His lyre celestial stringing. —
  Fools he lureth, and the fair,
   With his celestial singing.

OBERON
  Wedded ones, would ye agree,
   We court your imitation:
  Would ye fondly love as we,
   We counsel separation.

TITANIA
  If husband scold and wife retort,
   Then bear them far asunder;
  Her to the burning south transport,
   And him the North Pole under.

THE WHOLE ORCHESTRA (fortissimo)

  Flies and midges all unite
   With frog and chirping cricket,
  Our orchestra throughout the night,
   Resounding in the thicket!

(Solo)

  Yonder doth the bagpipe come!
   Its sack an airy bubble.
  Schnick, schnick, schnack, with nasal hum,
   Its notes it doth redouble.

EMBRYO SPIRIT
  Spider’s foot and midge’s wing,
   A toad in form and feature;
  Together verses it can string,
   Though scarce a living creature.

A LITTLE PAIR
  Tiny step and lofty bound,
   Through dew and exhalation;
  Ye trip it deftly on the ground,
   But gain no elevation.

INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
  Can I indeed believe my eyes?
   Is’t not mere masquerading?
  What! Oberon in beauteous guise,
   Among the groups parading!

ORTHODOX
  No claws, no tail to whisk about,
   To fright us at our revel;
  Yet like the gods of Greece, no doubt,
   He too’s a genuine devil.

NORTHERN ARTIST
  These that I’m hitting off today
   Are sketches unpretending;
  Toward Italy without delay,
   My steps I think of bending.

PURIST
  Alas! ill-fortune leads me here,
   Where riot still grows louder;
  And ‘mong the witches gather’d here,
   But two alone wear powder!

YOUNG WITCH
  Your powder and your petticoat,
   Suit hags, there’s no gainsaying;
  Hence I sit fearless on my goat,
   My naked charms displaying.

MATRON
  We’re too well-bred to squabble here,
   Or insult back to render;
  But may you wither soon, my dear,
   Although so young and tender.

LEADER OF THE BAND
  Nose of fly and gnat’s proboscis,
   Throng not the naked beauty!
  Frogs and crickets in the mosses,
   Keep time and do your duty!

WEATHERCOCK (toward one side)

  What charming company I view
   Together here collected!
  Gay bachelors, a hopeful crew,
   And brides so unaffected!

WEATHERCOCK (toward the other side)

  Unless indeed the yawning ground
   Should open to receive them,
  From this vile crew, with sudden bound,
   To Hell I’d jump and leave them.

XENIEN
  With small sharp shears, in insect guise,
   Behold us at your revel!
  That we may tender, filial-wise,
   Our homage to the devil.

HENNINGS
  Look now at yonder eager crew,
   How naïvely they’re jesting!
  That they have tender hearts and true,
   They stoutly keep protesting!

MUSAGET
  Oneself amid this witchery
   How pleasantly one loses;
  For witches easier are to me
   To govern than the Muses!

CI-DEVANT GENIUS OF THE AGE
  With proper folks when we appear,
   No one can then surpass us!
  Keep close, wide is the Blocksberg here
   As Germany’s Parnassus.

INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
  How name ye that stiff formal man,
   Who strides with lofty paces?
  He tracks the game where’er he can,
   ”He scents the Jesuits’ traces.”

CRANE
  Where waters troubled are or clear,
   To fish I am delighted;
  Thus pious gentlemen appear
   With devils here united.

WORLDLING
  By pious people, it is true,
   No medium is rejected;
  Conventicles, and not a few,
   On Blocksberg are erected.

DANCER
  Another chorus now succeeds,
   Far off the drums are beating.
  Be still! The bitterns ‘mong the reeds
   Their one note are repeating.

DANCING MASTER
  Each twirls about and never stops,
   And as he can he fareth.
  The crooked leaps, the clumsy hops,
   Nor for appearance careth.

FIDDLER
  To take each other’s life, I trow,
   Would cordially delight them!
  As Orpheus’ lyre the beasts, so now
   The bagpipe doth unite them.

DOGMATIST
  My views, in spite of doubt and sneer,
   I hold with stout persistence,
  Inferring from the devils here,
   The evil one’s existence.

IDEALIST
  My every sense rules Phantasy
   With sway quite too potential;
  Sure I’m demented if the I
   Alone is the essential.

REALIST
  This entity’s a dreadful bore,
   And cannot choose but vex me;
  The ground beneath me ne’er before
   Thus totter’d to perplex me.

SUPERNATURALIST
  Well pleased assembled here I view
   Of spirits this profusion;
  From devils, touching angels too,
   I gather some conclusion.

SCEPTIC
  The ignis fatuus they track out,
   And think they’re near the treasure.
  Devil alliterates with doubt,
   Here I abide with pleasure.

LEADER OF THE BAND
  Frog and cricket in the mosses, —
  Confound your gasconading!
  Nose of fly and gnat’s proboscis; —
  Most tuneful serenading!

THE KNOWING ONES
  Sans souci, so this host we greet,
   Their jovial humor showing;
  There’s now no walking on our feet,
   So on our heads we’re going.

THE AWKWARD ONES
  In seasons past we snatch’d, ’tis true,
   Some tit-bits by our cunning;
  Our shoes, alas, are now danced through,
   On our bare soles we’re running.

WILL-O’-THE-WISPS
  From marshy bogs we sprang to light,
   Yet here behold us dancing;
  The gayest gallants of the night,
   In glitt’ring rows advancing.

SHOOTING STAR
  With rapid motion from on high,
   I shot in starry splendor;
  Now prostrate on the grass I lie; —
   Who aid will kindly render?

THE MASSIVE ONES
  Room! wheel round! They’re coming! lo!
   Down sink the bending grasses.
  Though spirits, yet their limbs, we know,
   Are huge substantial masses.

PUCK
  Don’t stamp so heavily, I pray;
   Like elephants you’re treading!
  And ‘mong the elves be Puck today,
   The stoutest at the wedding!

ARIEL
  If nature boon, or subtle sprite,
   Endow your soul with pinions; —
  Then follow to you rosy height,
   Through ether’s calm dominions!

ORCHESTRA (pianissimo)

  Drifting cloud and misty wreathes
   Are fill’d with light elysian;
  O’er reed and leaf the zephyr breathes —
   So fades the fairy vision!

A GLOOMY DAY. A PLAIN

FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
In misery! despairing! long wandering pitifully on the face of the earth and now imprisoned! This gentle hapless creature, immured in the dungeon as a malefactor and reserved for horrid tortures! That it should come to this! To this! — Perfidious, worthless spirit, and this thou hast concealed from me! — Stand! ay, stand! roll in malicious rage thy fiendish eyes! Stand and brave me with thine insupportable presence! Imprisoned! In hopeless misery! Delivered over to the power of evil spirits and the judgment of unpitying humanity! — And me, the while, thou went lulling with tasteless dissipations, concealing from me her growing anguish, and leaving her to perish without help!

MEPHISTOPHELES
She is not the first.

FAUST
Hound! Execrable monster! — Back with him, oh thou infinite spirit! back with the reptile into his dog’s shape, in which it was his wont to scamper before me at eventide, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer, and to fasten on his shoulders when he fell! Change him again into his favorite shape, that he may crouch on his belly before me in the dust, whilst I spurn him with my foot, the reprobate! — Not the first! — Woe! Woe! By no human soul is it conceivable, that more than one human creature has ever sunk into a depth of wretchedness like this, or that the first in her writhing death-agony should not have atoned in the sight of all-pardoning Heaven for the guilt of all the rest! The misery of this one pierces me to the very marrow, and harrows up my soul; thou art grinning calmly over the doom of thousands!

MEPHISTOPHELES
Now we are once again at our wit’s end, just where the reason of you mortals snaps! Why dost thou seek our fellowship, if thou canst not go through with it? Wilt fly, and art not proof against dizziness? Did we force ourselves on thee, or thou on us?

FAUST
Cease thus to gnash thy ravenous fangs at me! I loathe thee! — Great and glorious spirit, thou who didst vouchsafe to reveal thyself unto me, thou who dost know my very heart and soul, why hast thou linked me with this base associate, who feeds on mischief and revels in destruction?

MEPHISTOPHELES
Hast done?

FAUST
Save her! — or woe to thee! The direst of curses on thee for thousands of years!

MEPHISTOPHELES
I cannot loose the bands of the avenger, nor withdraw his bolts. — Save her! — Who was it plunged her into perdition? I or thou?

FAUST (looks wildly around)

MEPHISTOPHELES
Would’st grasp the thunder? Well for you, poor mortals, that ’tis not yours to wield! To smite to atoms the being, however innocent, who obstructs his path, such is the tyrant’s fashion of relieving himself in difficulties!

FAUST
Convey me thither! She shall be free!

MEPHISTOPHELES
And the danger to which thou dost expose thyself? Know, the guilt of blood, shed by thy hand, lies yet upon the town. Over the place where fell the murdered one, avenging spirits hover and watch for the returning murderer.

FAUST
This too from thee? The death and downfall of a world be on thee, monster! Conduct me thither, I say and set her free!

MEPHISTOPHELES
I will conduct thee. And what I can do, — hear! Have I all power in heaven and upon earth? I’ll cloud the senses of the warder, — do thou possess thyself of the keys and lead her forth with human hand! I will keep watch! The magic steeds are waiting, I bear thee off. Thus much is in my power.

FAUST
Up and away!

NIGHT. OPEN COUNTRY

FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES
(Rushing along on black horses)

FAUST
What weave they yonder round the Ravenstone?

MEPHISTOPHELES
I know not what they shape and brew.

FAUST
They’re soaring, swooping, bending, stooping.

MEPHISTOPHELES
A witches’ pack.

FAUST
They charm, they strew.

MEPHISTOPHELES
On! On!

DUNGEON

FAUST (with a bunch of keys and a lamp before a small iron door)

A fear unwonted o’er my spirit falls;
Man’s concentrated woe o’erwhelms me here!
She dwells immur’d within these dripping walls;
Her only trespass a delusion dear!
Thou lingerest at the fatal door?
Thou dread’st to see her face once more?
On! While thou dalliest, draws her death-hour near.

[He seizes the lock. Singing within.]

 My mother, the harlot,
 She took me and slew!
 My father, the scoundrel,
 Hath eaten me too!
 My sweet little sister
 Hath all my bones laid,
 Where soft breezes whisper
 All in the cool shade!
 Then became I a wood-bird, and sang on the spray,
 Fly away! little bird, fly away! fly away!

FAUST (opening the lock)
Ah! she forebodes not that her lover’s near, The clanking chains, the rustling straw, to hear. [He enters.]

MARGARET (hiding her face in the bed of straw)
Woe! woe! they come! oh bitter ’tis to die!

FAUST (Softly)
Hush! hush! be still! I come to set thee free.

MARGARET (throwing herself at his feet)
If thou art human, feel my misery!

FAUST
Thou wilt awake the jailer with thy cry!

[He grasps the chains to unlock them.]

MARGARET (on her knees)
Who, headsman, unto thee this power
O’er me could give?
Thou com’st for me at midnight-hour.
Be merciful, and let me live!
Is morrow’s dawn not time enough?
                   [She stands up.]

I’m still so young, so young —
And must so early die!
Fair was I too, and that was my undoing.
My love is now afar, he then was nigh;
Tom lies the garland, the fair blossoms strew’d.
Nay, seize me not with hand so rude!
Spare me! What harm have I e’er done to thee?
Oh let me not in vain implore!
I ne’er have seen thee in my life before!

FAUST
Can I endure this bitter agony?

MARGARET
I now am at thy mercy quite.
Let me my babe but suckle once again!
I fondled it the live-long night;
They took it from me but to give me pain,
And now, they say that I my child have slain.
Gladness I ne’er again shall know.
Then they sing songs about me, — ’tis wicked of the throng —
An ancient ballad endeth so;
Who bade them thus apply the song?

FAUST (throwing himself on the ground)

A lover at thy feet bends low,
To loose the bonds of wretchedness and woe.

MARGARET (throws herself beside him)
Oh, let us kneel and move the saints by prayer!
Look! look! yon stairs below,
Under the threshold there,
Hell’s flames are all aglow!
Beneath the floor,
With hideous noise,
The devils roar!

FAUST (aloud)
Gretchen! Gretchen!

MARGARET (listening)
That was my lov’d one’s voice!

[She springs up, the chains fall off.]

Where is he? I heard him calling me.
Free am I! There’s none shall hinder me.
To his neck will I fly,
On his bosom will lie!
Gretchen, he called! — On yon threshold he stood;
Amidst all the howling of hell’s fiery flood,
The scoff and the scorn of its devilish crew,
The tones of his voice, sweet and loving, I knew.

FAUST
’Tis I!

MARGARET
 ’Tis thou! O say so once again!
                                    [embracing him.]
’Tis he! ’Tis he! where’s now the torturing pain?
Where are the fetters? where the dungeon’s gloom?
’Tis thou! To save me thou art come!
And I am sav’d! —
Already now the street I see
Where the first time I caught a glimpse of thee.
There to the pleasant garden shade,
Where I and Martha for thy coming stay’d.

FAUST (endeavoring to lead her away)
Come! come away!

MARGARET
 Oh do not haste!
I love to linger where thou stayest. [caressing him.]

FAUST
Ah haste! For if thou still delayest,
Our lingering we shall both deplore.

MARGARET
How, dearest? canst thou kiss no more!
So short a time away from me, and yet,
To kiss thou couldst so soon forget!
Why on thy neck so anxious do I feel —
When formerly a perfect heaven of bliss
From thy dear looks and words would o’er me steal?
As thou wouldst stifle me thou then didst kiss! —
Kiss me!
Or I’ll kiss thee! [She embraces him.]
Woe! woe! Thy lips are cold, —
Are dumb!
Thy love where hast thou left?
Who hath me of thy love bereft?

[She turns away from him.]

FAUST
Come! Follow me, my dearest love, be bold!
I’ll cherish thee with ardor thousand-fold;
I but entreat thee now to follow me!

MARGARET (turning toward him)
And art thou he? and art thou really he?

FAUST
’Tis I! Oh come!

MARGARET
 Thou wilt strike off my chain,
And thou wilt take me to thine arms again.
How comes it that thou dost not shrink from me? —
And dost thou know, love, whom thou wouldst set free?

FAUST
Come! come! already night begins to wane.

MARGARET
I sent my mother to her grave,
I drown’d my child beneath the wave.
Was it not given to thee and me — thee too?
’Tis thou thyself! I scarce believe it yet.
Give me thy hand! It is no dream! ’Tis true!
Thine own dear hand! — But how is this? ’Tis wet!
Quick, wipe it off! Meseems that yet
There’s blood thereon.
Ah God! what hast thou done?
Put up thy sword,
I beg of thee!

FAUST
Oh, dearest, let the past forgotten be!
Death is in every word.

MARGARET
No, thou must linger here in sorrow!
The graves I will describe to thee,
And thou to them must see
Tomorrow:
The best place give to my mother,
Close at her side my brother,
Me at some distance lay —
But not too far away!
And the little one place on my right breast.
Nobody else will near me lie!
To nestle beside thee so lovingly,
That was a rapture, gracious and sweet!
A rapture I never again shall prove;
Methinks I would force myself on thee, love,
And thou dost spurn me, and back retreat —
Yet ’tis thyself, thy fond kind looks I see.

FAUST
If thou dost feel ’tis I, then come with me!

MARGARET
What, there? without?

FAUST
Yes, forth in the free air.

MARGARET
Ay, if the grave’s without, — If death lurk there!
Hence to the everlasting resting-place,
And not one step beyond! — Thou’rt leaving me?
Oh Henry! would that I could go with thee!

FAUST
Thou canst! But will it! Open stands the door.

MARGARET
I dare not go! I’ve naught to hope for more.
What boots it to escape? They lurk for me!
’Tis wretched to beg, as I must do,
And with an evil conscience thereto!
’Tis wretched, in foreign lands to stray;
And me they will catch, do what I may!

FAUST
With thee will I abide.

MARGARET
 Quick! Quick!
 Save thy poor child!
 Keep to the path
 The brook along,
 Over the bridge
 To the wood beyond,
 To the left, where the plank is,
 In the pond.
 Seize it at once!
 It fain would rise,
 It struggles still!
 Save it. Oh save!

FAUST
Dear Gretchen, more collected be!
One little step, and thou art free!

MARGARET
Were we but only past the hill
There sits my mother upon a stone —
My brain, alas, is cold with dread! —
There sits my mother upon a stone,
And to and fro she shakes her head;
She winks not, she nods not, her head it droops sore;
She slept so long, she waked no more;
She slept, that we might taste of bliss:
Ah I those were happy times, I wis!

FAUST
Since here avails nor argument nor prayer,
Thee hence by force I needs must bear.

MARGARET
Loose me! I will not suffer violence!
With murderous hand hold not so fast!
I have done all to please thee in the past!

FAUST
Day dawns! My love! My love!

MARGARET
 Yes! day draws near,
The day of judgment too will soon appear!
It should have been my bridal! No one tell,
That thy poor Gretchen thou hast known too well.
Woe to my garland!
Its bloom is o’er!
Though not at the dance —
We shall meet once more.
The crowd doth gather, in silence it rolls;
The squares, the streets,
Scarce hold the throng.
The staff is broken, — the death-bell tolls, —
They bind and seize me! I’m hurried along,
To the seat of blood already I’m bound!
Quivers each neck as the naked steel
Quivers on mine the blow to deal —
The silence of the grave now broods around!

FAUST
Would I had ne’er been born!

MEPHISTOPHELES (appears without)
Up! or you’re lost.
Vain hesitation! Babbling, quaking!
My steeds are shivering,
Morn is breaking.

MARGARET
What from the floor ascendeth like a ghost?
’Tis he! ’Tis he! Him from my presence chase!
What would he in this holy place?
It is for me he cometh!

FAUST
Thou shalt live!

MARGARET
Judgment of God! To thee my soul I give!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
Come, come! With her I’ll else abandon thee!

MARGARET
Father, I’m thine! Do thou deliver me!
Ye angels! Ye angelic hosts! descend,
Encamp around to guard me and defend! —
Henry! I shudder now to look on thee!

MEPHISTOPHELES
She now is judged!

VOICES (from above)
Is saved!

MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST)
Come thou with me!

[vanishes with FAUST.]

VOICE (from within, dying away)
Henry! Henry!

THE NATURAL DAUGHTER

Translated by Anna Swanwick

This is the last of Goethe’s three verse dramas in the classical style, after Iphigenia in Tauris and Torquato Tasso. It tells the story of Eugenia, a young woman caught in the troubles of the French Revolution, exploring the impact of uncontrollable events on ordinary people’s lives. Goethe intended for there to be a second part, but as with many of the works he wrote, the play was left unfisished on his death.

The Natural Daughter opens with the beautiful and talented Duke’s daughter, Eugenia, whose only drawback appears to be her illegitimacy. A riding accident in the countryside brings her face to face with the King, who offers to recognise her formally at court in return for her father’s support against a rumoured republican conspiracy. Despite the prospect of political turmoil, the Duke and his daughter seem confident of a future full of promise…

The first edition

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

SCENE VII.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

King.
Duke.
Count.
Eugenie.
Governess.
Secretary.
Secular Priest.
Counsellor.
Governor.
Abbess.
Monk.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Thick Wood.
King. Duke.

King.
Our fleeting goal attracting dogs and man
To follow swift along the winding course —
The noble stag has led us far astray
O’er vales and mountains, till I needs must own
That I myself, although so country-wise,
Am quite at loss. Where are we, uncle? Duke,
Pray tell me what these hills are that we cross’d!

Duke.
The brook that babbles past us, Sire, arises
Upon thy servant’s near domain, for which
He has to thank the generous grace bestow’d
By thee and by thy royal ancestors
Upon him, as first vassal of the realm.
Beyond the rocks of yonder eminence
A pleasant house stands hid by veils of green,
Not built at all for housing royalty,
But ready to receive thee, if thou wilt.

King.
Nay! let the lofty arches of these trees
Give shelter for the moment that we rest,
And let the gentle stirring of the breeze
Weave round us, while the joy of peaceful scenes
Succeeds the joy of dashing o’er the course.

Duke.
The pleasure that thou feelest here, O King,
Behind this lovely screen of Nature’s work,
In absolute seclusion, I also feel.
Here comes not nigh the voice of discontent,
Nor yet the hand of shameless violence.
Here in the freedom born of loneliness
Thou seest not the ungrateful slink away.
The restless world, which ever makes demand
And never lends its aid, is vanish’d now.

King.
If I shall e’er forget what once oppress’d me
Then let no word recall me to its trials.
Ye echoes of the distant world’s commotion,
Little by little vanish from my ears!
Yea, prithee, uncle, suit thy fair discourse
To circumstances fitter for this spot.
Here wife and husband, hand-in-hand, should roam,
Rejoicing in the sight of comely children,
The highest reach of joy; here friend with friend
Draw nigh, disclosing every secret pleasure.
And didst not thou erewhile drop gentle hints
That when a quiet moment could be ours
Thou hadst some weighty secret to confess,
Some contemplated favor to demand,
Which, granted, would rejoice your faithful heart?

Duke.
O Sire, no greater kindness could’st thou show me
Than setting free the fountain of my speech.
And what I fain would tell who else could hear
More fitly than my King, among whose treasures
None shine with such a lustre as his children, —
Who, I am sure, will give his sympathy
In all the father’s joy his servant feels?

King.
Of father’s joy thou speakest! Know’st thou then
Its heavenly rapture? Has thy only son
Not torn thy loving heart by lawless actions,
By disobedience, by unfilial scorn,
Until thy sadden’d life reach’d bitter age?
Has he then lately chang’d his evil ways?

Duke.
From him I have no hope of happier days,
His idle mind gives birth to clouds alone
Which ever gloom the horizon of my life.
A different star it is that sheds its light
Upon me. As in cheerless caverns shine,
Mysterious with their wonder-working rays,
Bright precious stones (so fairy legends say),
And gleam across the murky night which reigns,
So in my gloomy life a magic gift
Was granted, blessing me beyond all words —
A gift I cherish more than lands and gold
Inherited or won by deeds of war,
Yea, more than sight, more than the light of life,
And guard with joy and fear, with pain and pleasure.

King.
Speak not so darkly of the mystery dark.

Duke.
’Twould not be easy to confess our faults
In ears of royalty, were royalty
Alone not able to convert their harm
To fair results of right and good report.

King.
The treasure guarded with such watchful love?

Duke.
That treasure is a daughter.

King.
What! a daughter?
And like the gods in fable, uncle, stole
In secret hither to earth’s lower circles
To take delight in earthly love and bliss?

Duke.
Small things as well as great compell’d us, Sire,
To hide our actions from the world’s dispraise.
The lady, bound to me by wondrous Fate
In secret union, stood so high in rank: —
And even now thy court wears mourning garb
And secret sorrow gnaws my heart for her.

King.
The Princess? She who lately died
So honor’d and so mourn’d?

Duke.
She was the mother.
But let me speak of her alone — my child,
Who, living better than her parents liv’d,
Rejoices in the noble joys of life —
And all the rest leave buried in the grave
Of her the gifted, lofty-minded woman.
Her death at last unseals my lips. I dare
Before my King to name my daughter now —
I dare demand of him to lift her up
Upon a level with me and her peers,
To recognize her right to princely birth
Before his court, his kingdom and the world,
So sure am I of favor in his heart!

King.
If all the virtues of her noble parents
Are found united in this niece whom thou
Preparest to present me ready grown,
Then must the court, then must our royal house,
From which a brilliant star set all too soon,
Give welcome to the new star rising fair.

Duke.
Oh, learn to know her ere thou judgest her
With prejudice. Let not a father’s pride
Pervert thee. Much has Nature done for her
Which I with rarest pleasure contemplate.
And all the culture which our rank demands
Has, since her babyhood, been warmly foster’d.
Her steps were guided from her earliest days
By a skilful governess, a wise professor.
With what light-heartedness and pleasant wit
She makes the present serve her ready mind,
While poet Fancy paints with flattering hues
The fortune which she waits with eager joy!
Her gentle heart clings to her loving father,
Although her spirit willingly gives heed
To wise discourse of noble-thinking men,
Leading her slowly up the hill of learning.
And all the exercise of princely virtues
Is manifest in her fair graceful form.
Sire! thou thyself hast seen her unbeknown,
While round thee whirl’d the tumult of the chase.
To-day a daughter of the Amazons
She first upon the traces of the stag
Dash’d gallantly across the swelling stream.

King.
We trembled when we saw the noble maid.
I am rejoic’d to know she is my kin.

Duke.
And not to-day alone I learn’d to know
How pride and apprehension, joy and trouble
Commingle in a father’s yearning breast.

King.
With mighty force and panting strove the steed
To land his rider on the farther shore,
Where thick-grown bushes hide the dusky hill,
And thus she vanish’d from my sight.

Duke.
Once more
My eyes beheld her ere the labyrinth
Of bosky forest led us thus astray.
Who knows what distant field she now explores
With heart on fire because she miss’d the goal,
Where now alone it is permitted her
To approach the presence of her King revered,
And humbly wait until with royal favor
She is acknowledg’d as his kith and kin —
The latest blossom of his ancient line.

King.
But what is yonder tumult that I see?
What means the running towards the precipice?

SCENE II.

The Same.
Count.

King.
Why are the people gathering with such haste?

Count.
The eager huntress whom we all admir’d
Has fallen headlong from yon rocky height.

Duke.
My God!

King.
And are her wounds severe?

Count.
In haste
They sent away to call thy surgeon, Sire.

Duke.
Why do I linger? If she’s dead, then naught
Remains for me to live for in the world.

SCENE III.

King. Count.

King.
What was it caus’d the accident, Sir Count?

Count.
It happen’d right before my very eyes:
A band of many riders found themselves
By fortune separated from the hunt,
And, led by that fair lady, prick’d their way
Upon the wood-crown’d summit of yon height.
They hear, they see below them in the valley
That all is over, see the noble stag
Succumb before the pack of yelping hounds,
And quickly then the company disbands,
Each seeking by the path where each may best, —
One here, one there, — a prosperous exit down.
But she alone no instant hesitates,
But spurs her steed from crag to crag sheer down;
We marvel at the luck of recklessness.
Bravely it goes with her awhile; at last
When she has reach’d the ultimate descent,
A steep bold cliff, the horse mistakes his steps
So insecure, and down he goes with her.
Thus much I saw and then the hurrying throng
Hid her from sight. I heard them call the surgeon;
And so I now am here to tell thee, Sire.

King.
Oh, that she may be spar’d him! Dangerous
Is that man who has nothing more to lose.

Count.
Has then this sudden fright compell’d the secret,
Which, until now, he strove so hard to hide?

King.
His confidence was freely given ere now.

Count.
The Princess’s death remov’d the seal of silence
From lips which tell a history long disclos’d —
An open secret unto court and city.
It is a curious and absurd conceit
That we through silence can annihilate
For others or ourselves the deeds we do.

King.
Oh, leave to man this noble touch of pride!
He can, he must do many, many things
Which are not suitable to put in words.

Count.
They bring her hither, lifeless I’m afraid.

King.
Oh, what an unexpected, sad event!

SCENE IV.

The Same.
Eugenie laid apparently dead on woven boughs of pine.
Duke. Surgeon. Attendants.

Duke.
(To the Surgeon.) Oh, if thy art and skill have any power,
Experienc’d sir, to whom our monarch’s life,
A priceless treasure, is entrusted, let
Her bright eyes once more open to the day,
That hope may shine upon me in her glance,
That from the depths of grief I may be sav’d,
If only for a fleeting moment now.
And then if nothing more, if thou canst keep her
Only a fleeting moment for me, then,
Oh, let me haste and pass away before her,
That in the very article of death
I still may say, consol’d, “My daughter lives.”

King.
Pray, leave us, uncle! Let me undertake
The faithful service of a father’s love.
This worthy man will nothing leave undone;
As though myself lay wounded sore, he will —
Doubt not — exert his skill upon thy daughter.

Duke.
She moves!

King.
Art thou assur’d of it?

Duke.
She moves!
Her eyes are open wide; she glances round!
She lives! She lives!

King.
(Stepping back a little.) Redouble your exertions!

Duke.
She lives! She lives! Again the light of day
Her eyes behold. Yes! soon she’ll recognize
Her loving father and her friends once more!
My darling child, gaze not so wild around
As though uncertain: towards me turn thy face,
Oh, turn thy face upon thy father first.
Dost thou not know me? Let thy father’s voice
Be first to reach thy ear, as thou returnest
From gloomy shades of everlasting night!

Eugenie.
(Who little by little has returned to consciousness and sits up.) Where am I? What has happen’d to me?

Duke.
First,
Oh, speak to me! Dost thou not know me?

Eugenie.
Father!

Duke.
Yes, ’tis thy father whom with these sweet tones
Thou savest from the arms of grim despair!

Eugenie.
Who brought me here among these trees?

Duke.
(To whom the surgeon has handed a white handkerchief.) Be calm,
My daughter! Take this strengthening draught,
Take it with confidence, with quiet soul.

Eugenie.
(Takes the handkerchief from her father as he holds it in his hands, and buries her face in it; then suddenly gets to her feet, taking the handkerchief from her face.)
There! I’m myself again! Now I remember!
On yonder height I rein’d my horse and dar’d
Ride down, sheer down the rocky side. Forgive me —
I stumbled, did I not? Canst thou forgive me?
They took me up for dead? My darling father!
And canst thou ever love thy child again,
Who caus’d such bitter anguish to thy heart?

Duke.
I thought I knew how precious was the treasure
God granted when he gave me thee, my daughter!
But now the loss I fear’d has caused my gain
To rise to estimation infinite.

King.
(Who till now has remained in the background conversing with the Surgeon and the Count — to the others.)
Let all withdraw! I wish to speak with them.

SCENE V.

King. Duke. Eugenie.

King.
(Approaching.) And is the gallant huntress quite recover’d?
Has she escap’d unharm’d?

Duke.
Yes! quite, my King!
And all the sad remains of fright and woe,
Thou, Sire, dispellest by thy gentle glance,
And by the magic of thy tender tones.

King.
Pray tell me who the lovely maiden is.

Duke.
(After a pause.) Since thou art pleas’d to ask, I will confess —
Since thou demandest, I will solve my pledge,
And introduce my daughter.

King.
What! thy daughter?
Then, uncle, Fortune has been kinder to thee,
Yea, infinitely kinder than the law.

Eugenie.
Am I indeed brought back to life again?
Has that strange deathlike faintness pass’d away?
And is this scene no fiction of a dream?
My father in the presence of his King
Declares his daughter! Nay! I do not dream.
The uncle of a monarch recognizes
That I’m his child. So then am I the niece —
The niece of the great King! Oh, pardon me,
Your Majesty, if brought so suddenly
From out the mystery of my dark retreat,
Expos’d to all the blinding light of day,
I totter, and cannot control myself.
[She throws herself at the feet of the King.

King.
May reverence mark thy life from youth to age.
The reverence symboliz’d before me now!
And sweet humility whose narrow duties
Thou, fully conscious of thy lofty birth,
Hast practis’d many a year far from the world.
[He raises her and presses her gently to his heart.

artist: otto seitz
THE NATURAL DAUGHTER. ACT I, SCENE IV.
eugenia recognizes her father.
And now if from before my feet I lift thee
And take thee to my heart, if on thy brow
I print the fond kiss of paternal love,
Let this be also as a seal, a symbol:
Thee my relation do I recognize;
And soon what I have done in secret here,
Before my courtiers’ eyes will I repeat.

Duke.
Such splendid grace demands a life of thanks,
Of undivided boundless loyalty.

Eugenie.
From noble teachers many things I’ve learn’d,
And much instruction from my heart have gain’d,
Yet when it comes to speaking to my King
I find the preparation sadly lacking.
Yet if I cannot speak as I would wish,
Expressing all my duty, still thy presence
Forbids me awkwardly to stand in silence.
What could I give thee? What return devise?
The abundance ever flowing to thy hands,
For good of others streams away again.
Here thousands stand to give their lives for thine,
Here thousands work obedient to thy orders,
And if a single subject freely offers
His heart and soul, his arm and life for thee,
Among such numbers he is lost from sight,
Forgot by thee and by himself forgot.

King.
If unto thee the masses seem o’erwhelming,
Thou lovely child, it is not strange indeed.
They are o’erwhelming, yet the noble few,
By Nature made to stand above the masses
Through skill and culture and the power to rule,
Are more imposing. If the King thereto
Was call’d by birth, then are his next of kin
Born counsellors, who, closely knit to him,
Are bound to guard the realm and foster it.
Oh, never let dissension mask’d come in,
With dark insidious working, to these regions
Where stand this band of patriotic watchmen.
To thee, my noble cousin, I give a father
By virtue of our royal power supreme.
Preserve him to me, use thy winsome ways
To keep my kinsman’s heart and voice in faith,
For many enemies oppose a prince;
Oh, let him stand aloof from treacherous paths.

Duke.
Why dost thou pain my heart with such reproaches?

Eugenie.
Incomprehensible are these thy words!

King.
May fortune keep thee long from comprehending!
The portals of our royal house I open,
Inviting thee to enter. By the hand
I lead thee in o’er slippery marble pavements.
Thou art amaz’d; thyself and all thou seest
Are strange to thee. Thou thinkest here within
To find sure worth and perfect peace united —
Thou art deceiv’d! Thou comest at a time
Not mark’d by joyous bright festivities,
E’en though the King invite thee to partake
In welcoming the day that gave him birth.
Yet shall the day for thy sake have its joy;
There shall I see thee in the merry throng,
The cynosure of every wondering eye.
Right royally has Nature fashion’d thee;
And that thy jewels meet thy princely rank
Thy father and thy monarch will provide.

Eugenie.
How could the sudden cry of pleas’d surprise,
The eager gesture’s quick significance,
Express the language of the beating heart,
Rejoic’d by such high generosity?
Sire, let me kneel in silence at thy feet!
[She offers to kneel.

King.
Thou must not kneel!

Eugenie.
Oh, let me here enjoy
The pleasant fortune of complete submission!
If we in tense and sudden moments stand
Erect upon our feet and boldly wage
To bear the earnest of our own support,
We seem the owners of the earth and heaven.
Yet what in moments of keen ravishment
Causes the knee to bend is also joy.
And all of sweet thanksgiving, love unmeasur’d,
Which we might bring as purest offering
To father, monarch, God. is best express’d
In such an humble attitude as this.
[Again kneeling before the King.

Duke.
Renew’d allegiance would I offer thee!

Eugenie.
As ever-faithful vassals look upon us!

King.
Up! then! arise and take thy place beside me,
Within the circle of those trusty few
Sworn to defend the right and reasonable!
Oh, fearful are the portents of these days.
The dregs boil up, the high-born sink below
As though each in the other’s place might find
Fulfilment of his unrestrain’d desires,
As though enjoyment only were in store
When class distinctions were all wash’d away,
And when we all commingl’d in one stream
Were hurl’d unnotic’d to the boundless ocean.
Oh, let us fight against it, let us boldly
With new-united double might hold fast
To what may hold us and the people fast.
And lastly let us heal the ancient strife
That stirs the great against the great, within
The ship of State makes weak the walls protecting
The battling crew against the angry waves without.

Eugenie.
What clear beneficent rays enlighten me
And stir to deeds instead of blinding me!
What! does our King so highly honor us
That he confesses that he needs our aid?
We are not only kinsfolk to him, we
Are rais’d to loftiest station by his trust.
And if the nobles of his kingdom press
Around him to protect his royal breast,
Of us he asks a nobler service yet.
The highest duty of the well dispos’d
Is ever to uphold the monarch’s heart.
For if he flinch, then flinches all the State,
And if he fall, then all things fall with him.
Youth, people say, has too much confidence
In its own strength, and in its will to do,
Yet all this will, this strength, and their endeavor
Is dedicate to thee, O King, forever.

Duke.
The child’s assurance, Highness, thou wilt honor,
And thou wilt pardon for its kind intent.
And if her father, taught by many years,
Appreciates and treasures the full worth
Of this day’s gift and of the future promise,
Then art thou sure of his recognizance.

King.
‘Twill not be long before we meet again.

Upon my birthday when my faithful friends
Unite to celebrate the festal season,
That day, O noble maid, I will present thee
Before the wondering world, the court, thy father,
Myself. The glory of the throne will shield thee.
But till that hour let both of you keep counsel,
Let no one know the history of this day.
Distrustful jealousy is lurking round.
Wave follows wave; storm treads the heel of storm.
Our journey trends along the jagged shore
Where e’en the helmsman scarcely knows the course.
Close secrecy alone secures our acts.
A plan disclos’d has pass’d beyond thy power.
This very moment chance makes sport of will.
E’en he who can command must work in secret.
Yea! with the best will in the world we fail
Accomplishment, a thousand crossing ours.
Oh, if my honest wishes had the aid
Of perfect power for but a little time,
The meanest hearthstone in my kingdom’s bounds
Should feel a father’s warm solicitude,
Content should dwell beneath the humblest roof,
Content should dwell in ev’ry stately palace,
And when I once had tasted this delight,
I’d gladly yield my crown, renounce the world.

SCENE VI.

Duke. Eugenie.

Eugenie.
Oh, what a day of jubilant surprises!

Duke.
Oh, might I live from day to day like this!

Eugenie.
What wealth of fortune has the King bestow’d!

Duke.
Take pure delight in his unlook’d-for favor.

Eugenie.
He seems unhappy, and he is so good.

Duke.
Goodness itself oft rouses opposition.

Eugenie.
Who is so hateful as to set against him?

Duke.
The advantage of the whole needs strenuous vigor.

Eugenie.
The mildness of the King should breed like mildness.

Duke.
The mildness of the King breeds insolence.

Eugenie.
With what nobility has Nature form’d him!

Duke.
Yet far too high in station has she plac’d him.

Eugenie.
With what consummate virtues rich endow’d!

Duke.
Domestic virtues not the gift of ruling.

Eugenie.
The blossom of an ancient stock of heroes!

Duke.
Perchance the vigor fails in later scions.

Eugenie.
It is our duty to defend all weakness.

Duke.
Unless our greater strength he should suspect.

Eugenie.
(Aside.) His subtile reasoning fills me with suspicion.

Duke.
What are thy thoughts? Hide not thy heart from me!

Eugenie.
(After a pause.) Thou art then one of those whom he distrusts.

Duke.
Let him distrust those worthy of distrust.

Eugenie.
Shall we see secret foes invest his throne?

Duke.
He who conceals a danger is a foe.
But whither do our counsels lead us, daughter?
How has the most extraordinary fortune
Brought us, short cut, upon the goal desir’d.
I build without foundation, filling thy mind
With wild confusion when I should enlighten.
Yet must thy rapturous joy of childhood vanish
When once thou steppest foot within the world.
Not long the intoxicating sweets of peace
Could’st thou delight in mid its blinding scenes.
The goal is thine, but its false crown has torn
Thy tender hand with cruel hidden spines.
Beloved child, I would it were not so!
Far better were it, as I fondly hop’d,
To wont thee by degrees to all its trials,
To teach thee by degrees the bitter lesson
That dearest hopes must fade, fond wishes fail.
But now a sudden change has come upon thee!
As though thy fall from yonder crag were symbol,
Down thou hast plung’d where cares and danger dwell.
The very air is poison’d with suspicion,
And Envy keeps the feverish blood astir,
And gives its victims to Anxiety.
Alas! for aye the wall of Paradise,
Which safely held thee, has been torn away.
The holy lesson of thy innocence
No longer shields me from the world’s temptations.
Forth must thou with me till the net surround us —
Perplex’d, sore wounded, needing pity, both!

Eugenie.
Not so, my father! If until to-day
Inactive, kept aloof, immur’d alone,
A childish cypher, yet by very force
Of lacking individuality
I caus’d thee consolation, comfort, pleasure,
How vastly more then should thy daughter be
Now that her fate is woven into thine,
And all its threads in varied glory shine!
Part will I take in ev’ry noble deed,
In ev’ry great transaction which will bring
My father dearer to the State and King.
My eager mind, the force of youth and health
Inspiring me, will give thee freshen’d zeal,
Will drive away those visions of despair
Which rise when on the laboring breast of man
The monstrous burden of the world is laid.
If once, a child, in moments of depression
I offer’d thee good-will however helpless,
Love poor in deeds, and idle fond caresses,
So now I hope to win a daughter’s birthright
By faithful service, having learn’d thy wishes,
Initiated in the secrets of thy plans.

Duke.
What thou through this important step wilt lose
Seems worthless to thee and without reward.
What thou expectest thou dost prize too high.

Eugenie.
To share with highly-gifted, fortunate men
The use of power, the wealth of influence!
For generous souls what more attractive prize!

Duke.
’Tis true! Forgive me if thou findest me
At this hour weaker than becomes a man.
Most wonderful is this exchange of duties,
I ought to lead thee and thou art my leader.

Eugenie.
Well, then, my father, let us boldly climb
Up to those regions where before my ken
A new sun rises with enkindling rays.
And at this happy moment only smile,
If I disclose to thee in turn the cares
That burden me.

Duke.
Yea, tell me what they are.

Eugenie.
A host of weighty moments fill men’s lives,
Besieging now with joy and now with sorrow
Their hearts. The man may in such circumstances
Forget his outward show before the world;
Not so the woman; she desires to shine
By fair appropriate habit and adornment, —
An envied object in the eyes of others.
This have I often heard and often notic’d.
And now the crowning moment of my life
Has come, and I am willing to confess
That I am guilty of this woman’s weakness.

Duke.
What canst thou wish for that will not be thine?

Eugenie.
Thou art inclin’d, I know, to grant me all.
And yet the all-important day is nigh —
Too nigh to make the fitting preparation.
And all the silks, embroideries and laces,
And all the jewelry needful for adornment,
How can they be provided, how completed?

Duke.
A long-desir’d good fortune has surpris’d us,
Yet not quite unprepar’d may we receive it;
All that thou now desirest is at hand.
This very day gifts that thou didst not dream of
Lie waiting for thee in a worthy coffer.
But one slight trial must I put upon thee —
The foretaste of severer ones to come!
Here is the key; take watchful care of it,
And curb thy longing. Open not the box
Which holds this treasure till I give thee leave.
Share trust with no one, be it who it may.
Wisdom advises and the King demands it.

Eugenie.
Thou layest a heavy burden on a maiden,
Yet I will bear it, father, take my oath.

Duke.
My wild unworthy son is on the watch
To spy the quiet paths where thou art led.
The little portion of my substance treasur’d
For thy protection he already covets.
And if he knew that thou by royal favor
Wert lifted to a higher station where
Thy right and his were on an equal level,
How he would rage! And would he not exert
All spiteful wiles to block our pleasant plan?

Eugenie.
Then let us quietly await that day!
And when the deed is done that justifies me
In calling him my brother, be it mine,
By gentle words, by courteous behavior,
To win him back to reverence and affection.
He is thy son, and should he not, like thee,
Be fashion’d in the mould of love and reason?

Duke.
No miracle would be too great for thee.
But work them for the advantage of my house.
And now farewell! Yet now — alas! in parting
I feel once more the pangs of cruel fear.
Here in my arms I held thee lying dead!
And here Despair with tiger clutches tore me.
Who will dispel the vision from my eyes?
I saw thee dead! Thus wilt thou oft appear
Before me in the watches of the night,
In visions of the day. Away from thee
Have I not ever been distraught by fear?
No longer will it be the mind’s distemper;
It is a real irradicable vision:
My child, Eugenie, of my life the life,
Wan, prostrate, breathless, lifeless there.

Eugenie.
Oh, call not back what thou should’st now forget.
My fall and my escape should rather seem
The earnest of my wonderful good fortune.
Living, thou seest me before thy eyes.
[Embracing him.
And living, on thy heart thou feelest me.
So let me ever, ever thus return!
And with the touch of glowing, loving life
Blot out the loathsome sight of hated Death.

Duke.
How can a child appreciate the pangs
A father feels at thought of threaten’d loss?
I will confess that oftentimes thy courage,
Almost o’erweening, when, upon the steed
Seeming a part of thee, and full of fire,
More like a Centaur with its doubled vigor,
Thou hast o’er vale and mountain boldly dash’d,
Through stream and gully flashing like a bird,
Has fill’d my heart with greater fear than joy.
Henceforth I pray thy gallant course conform
More moderately to knighthood’s joyous practice.

Eugenie.
Before the careless, Danger yields the palm;
She often takes the careful by surprise.
Oh, feel once more that limitless keen joy
Which thou didst feel when, as a little child,
I boldly waged to do the deeds of prowess
Taught by thy knightly pride of fatherhood.

Duke.
My fault has found me out, and now a life
Of ceaseless worriment must punish me.
Does not the courting of the dangerous
Invite the danger that it holds in store?

Eugenie.
’Tis Luck not Carefulness that conquers danger.
Farewell, my father; follow now thy King,
And be, if only for thy daughter’s sake,
His blameless vassal and his faithful friend.
Farewell!

Duke.
Oh, do not go! Remain with me,
Yet standing in this place alive, erect,
As when thou cam’st to life again, rejoicing
With healing balm my sadly riven heart.
Let not this hour of bliss remain unfruitful.
This spot I dedicate to be a lasting
Memorial. Here shall rise a splendid temple
To keep the record of thy fortunate healing.
Thy hand shall here create a fairy kingdom.
A labyrinth of gentle ways shall join
The savage forest and the bristling jungle;
The steep crag shall become accessible;
This brook shall fall in musical cascades,
And loiter with its sparkling waters pure.
The stranger wandering through this novel scene
Shall deem that he has found a Paradise.
Here, while I live, no gun shall loudly echo,
No bird shall miss her mate, no antler’d stag
Fly frighten’d, wounded, shatter’d, from his haunt.
And hither, when my eyes have lost their sight,
My limbs their strength, with thee, my child, for guide,
My steps will gladly turn in pilgrimage.
Ever shall gratitude my bosom fill.
And now farewell! But stay. Why dost thou weep?

Eugenie.
Oh, if my father tremblingly forebodes
The losing of his daughter, how shall I
Not likewise feel (how can I say it, think it?)
The pain of separation which must come?
Fathers bereav’d might draw an angel’s pity;
But sadder is the lot of children orphan’d.
And I, most miserable, should stand alone
Within the desert of this wild, fierce world!
How could I bear to lose my sole protector?

Duke.
As thou hast given me strength, I now return it.
Take comfort! let us boldly onward press.
Life is the pledge of life! Upon itself
It builds and for itself alone must answer.
So let us quickly make our last adieu,
And may a joyous meeting recompense
The sorrow and the weakness of this parting!
[They hastily embrace and separate: from a distance they turn and wave a last greeting with outstretched hand and exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Eugenie’sapartment in Gothic style.
Governess. Secretary.

Secretary.
Do I deserve that thou should’st flee me thus
The moment that I bring thee wish’d-for tidings?
Pray listen first to what I have to say.

Governess.
The burden of thy importunity
Too well I ween. Oh, let my eyes from seeing
The well-known glances, let my ears from hearing
The well-known accents ever turn away.
Let me escape the devastating power
Which through the influence of love and friendship
Beside me like a gloomy spectre stands.

Secretary.
When I before thee suddenly would pour,
After long hope deferr’d, the golden horn
Of fortune, when the morning-glow begins
That marks the dawning of the blissful day
That shall unite our lives forevermore,
Then seemest thou embarrass’d and reluctant
To meet thy bridegroom’s tenderest advances.

Governess.
Therein thou showest me one side alone:
It glows and glistens like the world in sunshine.
But black night’s horror threatens nigh: I feel it.

Secretary.
Then let us first see but the lovely side.
Desirest thou a dwelling in the city,
Spacious and handsome, furnish’d splendidly,
Such as one wishes for himself, for guests?
’Tis waiting for thee: when next winter comes
‘Twill find thee settl’d nobly, if thou wilt.
In Springtime dost thou yearn to see the country,
There too a house is ours, a lovely garden,
A fertile field. And all the keen enjoyment
In forest, moors, in meadows, brooks and ponds
That fancy e’en in visions might imagine
Shall we possess, in part our own estate,
In part as common property. And thus,
Since nothing goes for rent, by careful saving
We shall be able to secure our future.

Governess.
The picture that thou paintest with such hues
Before my eyes is wrapp’d in gloomy clouds.
For not desirable but hideous seems
The abundance offer’d by the worldly gods.
What is the sacrifice they ask? To ruin
My gentle pupil’s happiness and fortune!
And whatsoe’er a crime like that might bring me,
Could I enjoy it with a quiet mind?
Eugenie! thou whose pure and gentle nature
From earliest youth entrusted to my guidance
With rich fruition has develop’d nobly.
How can I now distinguish in thee what
Is thine and what thou hast to thank me for?
Thee whom I love as my own handiwork
Must I then pluck out from my heart and ruin?
Of what base stuff are ye compos’d, ye monsters,
To dare demand a deed like this for lucre!

Secretary.
A good and honest heart preserves from youth
A store of precious treasures which in time
More costly grow and worthier of our love
To serve withal the Godhead of the temple.
Yet, when the mighty power that governs us
Demands a costly sacrifice, we yield it
At last although our hearts bleed at the duty.
Two worlds there be, my darling, which, conflicting
With awful violence, crush us between them.

Governess.
Thy steps appear to wander in a world
To me entirely foreign, since thou schemest
A treacherous stroke against thy noble patron,
The Duke, preparing days of sorrow for him
By holding to his son. If the Almighty
Appears at times to give assent to crime
We call it accident. But man who chooses
With due reflection such unlawful paths,
He is a puzzle. But — and am not I
A puzzle to myself that I should cling
With such affection to thee when thou strivest
To drag me with thee o’er the precipice?
Oh, why did Nature cast thee in her mould,
So pleasing, lovely, irresistible,
And plant within thy bosom a cold heart,
A heart destructive of the peace of others?

Secretary.
Dost thou distrust the warmth of my affection?

Governess.
This hand should slay me if I only dar’d.
Oh, why, alas! with this detested plot
Again assault my heart? Didst thou not swear
To hide the horror in everlasting night?

Secretary.
Alas! it rose with more impellent might!
This step is forc’d upon the Prince’s son.
An insignificant, inoffensive child
Eugenie was, for many peaceful years.
Commencing with her very earliest days,
Shrin’d in this ancient hall thou wert her guardian,
Few came to see her, and those secretly.
Yet how a father’s love deceiv’d itself.
The Duke, proud of his daughter’s excellence,
Relax’d his care and by degrees allow’d her
To show herself in public openly:
On horseback, driving, she is seen. All ask,
And all at last know, who the maiden is.
Her mother now is dead. The haughty dame,
To whom the child was an abomination,
A keen reminder of her fatal passion,
Had never recogniz’d her, scarcely seen her.
By her decease the Duke at last feels freed,
Devises secret plans, once more attends
At court, forgets the ancient grudge he owed
And seeks the King in reconciliation,
Demanding only that he grant this child
Her birthright as a princess of his race.

Governess.
And do you then begrudge this lovely creature
The joy of feeling that the right was hers?

Secretary.
Belov’d! dearest! ah, thou speakest lightly,
Thus wall’d and separated from the world,
In cloister-wise, of riches of the earth!
Turn hence thine eyes! A treasure such as this
Is valu’d there more truly at its worth.
The father grudges it his son, the son
Reckons his father’s years, and deadly discord
Parts brothers, through this right intangible.
And e’en the priest forgets his sacred goal
And strives for riches. Is it then surprising
That, when the Prince has always call’d himself
The only child, he should decline to welcome
This sister who with insolent intrusion
Diminishes his fair inheritance?
What, if in his place, would’st thou do thyself?

Governess.
Already is he not a wealthy Prince?
And at his father’s death will he not be
Superfluously rich? If he should spend
A part of his possessions would he waste them
In winning by them such a lovely sister?

Secretary.
To act with arbitrary will delights
The man of fortune. Nature’s claims he scorns;
He scorns the authority of law and reason,
And spends his substance on the throw of chance.
Merely to have sufficient is to starve.
Give all or nothing. Measureless possessions
For endless squandering are what he wishes.
Advice is not desir’d; think not to turn us.
If thou wilt not work with us, give us up.

Governess.
What is the deed ye plan? Long ye have threaten’d,
Holding aloof, to blast the lovely child.
What have ye now in monstrous crime devis’d
To spoil her chance of fortune. Do ye ask
That I should blindly cling to what ye plan?

Secretary.
By no means. Thou shalt be initiated.
The first step lies with thee. Our scheme demands
That thou abduct Eugenie. She must vanish
So utterly from knowledge of the world
That we can confidently mourn her death.
The secret of her fate must be conceal’d
Forever, like the secret of the dead.

Governess.
Ye doom her to a living grave, O villains,
And think to send me with her as companion.
Me too ye doom. I am with her to share —
I the betrayer chain’d to the betray’d —
The awful fate of death, a living death!

Secretary.
Thou shalt return when thou hast done the deed.

Governess.
Is it a cloister where her days will end?

Secretary.
Not in a cloister! Such a costly pledge
We could not give the clergy, who might use it
Against us as a most convenient tool.

Governess.
Then is it to the Islands? Tell me plainly!

Secretary.
Thy destination shall be known. Be patient!

Governess.
How can I be before the fear and danger
That threat my lov’d one’s happiness and mine?

Secretary.
Thy lov’d one in her new life joy will find.
And joy and rapture will await thee here.

Governess.
Oh, flatter not yourselves with such a hope!
What good is there in holding such temptations
Before me — forcing me, enticing me?
The noble child herself will block your scheme.
Think not to drag her off a willing victim
And helpless. Nay, the spirit that fills her heart
With courage, and the power inherited,
Will go with her where’er she goes, and break
The evil net which you have cast around her.

Secretary.
Thy part will be to make the meshes strong.
Wilt thou persuade me that a simple child,
Till now protected by the arm of Fortune,
Will show, when unexpected chance arises,
Forethought and power, sagacity and wisdom?
Her mind is cultur’d but to think, not act.
And if her thoughts are right, her speech delightful,
Yet much is lacking in her will to do.
The lofty boundless courage of ignorance
Sinks easily to cowardice and despair
When stern Necessity presents itself.
What we have plann’d see that thou carry out.
Small will the harm be, splendid the reward.

Governess.
Then give me time to ponder and decide.

Secretary.
The moment for the action is at hand.
The Duke knows well that the next holiday
The King will grant the favor long desired,
And recognize his daughter’s princely birth.
For clothes and costly jewels are provided
Already, laid in splendid cabinets,
The keys of which he guards with jealous care,
And thinks he keeps a perfect mystery.
But we are in his secret and prepar’d.
What we have schem’d must quickly now be done.
This evening thou’lt hear more. Till then farewell.

Governess.
On dubious paths ye work, on mischief bent,
And think ye see a profit in your plans.
Has no suspicion ever cross’d your mind
That over guilt and innocence there hovers
A Being from whose essence streams avenging
A light divine that rescues the oppress’d?

Secretary.
Who dares gainsay the ruling Providence
That shapes conformably to his own will
The outcome of our deeds whate’er they be?
Yet who presumes to make himself an arbiter
In God’s high councils? Who can know
The rule and law by which his fiat works?
We have our reason, and in stature grown
We walk erect upon the face of earth,
And our advantage is our highest right.

Governess.
Thus are ye traitors to the godlike
If ye despise the dictates of the heart!
It calls me boldly to ward off the danger
That hangs with horrid threat’ning o’er my darling;
It bids me arm myself against my lover,
Against the base designs that strong men harbor!
No glittering promise and no threats shall force me
To leave my rightful place beside my pupil:
Thus do I stand devoted to protect her.

Secretary.
Ah! sweetest, thou alone canst give her safety,
And thou alone the danger canst avert
And at the selfsame time assist our plan.
Lay hold upon her swiftly; take the maiden
As far as possible away, conceal her
That no one know her habitation! Else —
(Thou tremblest — for thou knowest well
The words upon my lips!) Since thou hast forc’d me
Let the alternative at last be said: —
Removal with her is the mildest measure —
If thou refusest to co-operate,
If thou art minded secretly to check us,
And if thou darest, out of friendly purpose,
To drop the slightest hint of what I tell thee,
Then dead she lies upon thy bosom! What
Would fill my heart with sorrow must be done!

SCENE II.

Governess.
His angry threat brings no surprise for me!
’Tis long that I have seen this smouldering fire,
And now it bursts in flames of fury out.
If I would save thee, must I, darling child,
Dispel the lovely dream that beckons thee?
One hope alone diminishes my sorrow —
It vanishes before I fairly hold it.
Eugenie! if thou only could’st renounce
The splendid fortune, which appears so boundless,
Before thy footsteps cross the fatal threshold
Where danger, death, or banishment awaits thee!
Oh, if I only dared enlighten thee,
Dared point the secret hiding-place where lurk
The evil conclave of thy persecutors!
Ah, I must keep dark counsel! Only hints
Can shrive my soul before thee! In the tumult
Of eager pleasure wilt thou understand?

SCENE III.

Eugenie. Governess.

Eugenie.
Welcome a thousand times, friend of my heart,
Who showest a mother’s fondness for me, welcome!

Governess.
With joy, dear child, I press thee to my bosom,
And share the rapture which thy buoyant life
So richly yields thee. How thy dear eyes sparkle!
O’er cheek and brow what lovely color mantles.
What joyous fortune swells thy youthful breast?

Eugenie.
A great misfortune has befallen me:
The horse fell headlong from the crag with me.

Governess.
My God!

Eugenie.
Be calm! thou seest me again
Unharm’d and fortunate, though great the fall!

Governess.
How was it? Tell me!

Eugenie.
Thou shalt hear how fortune
Resulted splendidly from my disaster.

Governess.
Alas! from fortune often pain develops.

Eugenie.
Let words of evil import not be spoken,
And fright me not with evil thoughts of sorrow!

Governess.
Ah, would that thou could’st trust me absolutely!

Eugenie.
Above all others thee! Yet leave me now,
Beloved, to myself! I wish, alone,
To wont myself to feelings new and strange.
Thou knowest what delight my father takes
Whene’er a little poem comes to greet him
Not look’d for, as the favor of the Muses
Grants power to give expression to my thoughts.
So leave me! Even now the inspiration
Is on me; I must seize it ere it fail me.

Governess.
When shall we hold again the precious hours
Of sweet discourse and gentle confidences?
When shall we once again like happy maidens,
Who tireless show each other their adornments,
Unlock the secret chambers of our hearts,
Comparing all our changeable possessions?

Eugenie.
Those pleasant moments will return again
Whose peaceful joys one gladly recollects,
Sharing with confidence our confidences.
Yet leave me in full loneliness to-day
To find the need of trustful days like those.

SCENE IV.

Eugenie.
Later Governess without.

Eugenie.
(Getting out a portfolio.)
Now quick to work with parchment and with pen!
’Tis wholly mine and soon it shall be written;
The tribute flowing from my thankful heart,
Which to the King, upon that festal day
When, new-born by his all-compelling word,
I enter life, shall now be dedicated.
[She copies out what she slowly recites.
With what a wondrous prospect am I greeted!
Canst thou, O master of the realm elysian,
Forgive the novice for her indecision?
Blinded by Majesty I sink defeated!
Yet soon encourag’d by the judgment meted,
I lift to thee my eyes in raptur’d vision,
Confess’d thy kin, receiv’d without derision,
And all my young hopes are at last completed!
Thus let the boundless spring of grace flow ever!
Here will my faithful heart, ecstatic, tarry,
Sway’d by the majesty of love’s emotion.
My all hangs by a thread a touch might sever!
Methinks the life thou gavest I should carry
And lay before thy throne in sweet devotion.
[Contemplating her writing with satisfaction.
Long has it been, O agitated heart,
Since thou hast spoken in the words of verse.
How happy are we when our inmost feelings
Can take the impress of infinity!
Yet is it quite enough? Here streams it forth,
Here streams it up! Great day, thou drawest nigh,
Which gives the King to us and which shall give
For measureless delight me to the King,
Me to my father, me unto myself.
May this high festival exalt my song!
The wings of Fancy are already spread.
It bears me up before the throne, presents me,
And gives me to the circle rare —

Governess.
Eugenie!

Eugenie.
Hark! What is that?

Governess.
’Tis I! Open the door!

Eugenie.
Vexatious interruption! I am busy.

Governess.
Word from thy father!

Eugenie.
What! my father? Hold!
Then I will open!

Governess.
Yes, thy father sends
Great gifts to thee

Eugenie.
One moment!

Governess.
Dost thou hear?

Eugenie.
One moment! Where shall I conceal this paper?
Too clearly it betrays the hopes I feel.
No nook affords concealment! and with me
There is no safety even in my desk.
For treacherous and faithless are my servants.
When I have slept my papers have been rummag’d,
And many of my treasures have been stolen.
This mystery, the greatest of my life,
Where, where shall I bestow it?
[She approaches the wall.
Ah, yes! here,
Where thou, in days past, wainscot cabinet,
Didst hide the innocent secrets of my childhood!
Discover’d by my restless energy,
Investigating, born of idleness
And childish natural curiosity,
Thou, known to no one save myself, springest open!
[She presses on an invisible spring and a little door flies open.
Thus as I once conceal’d forbidden sweets
For sly enjoyment in thy secret chamber,
So now, transported, timid, I entrust thee
A little space with my life’s happiness.
[She lays the parchment in the cupboard and closes it.
The days press on and full of expectation
Bring joy and sadness with them in their train.
[She opens the door.

SCENE V.

Eugenie. Governess. Servants bringing a magnificent dressing-case.

Governess.
If I disturb thee, still I bring with me
What in thy eyes should give me absolution.

Eugenie.
This from my father! This resplendent gift!
What content does a shrine like that portend?
(To the Servants.)
Ho! tarry yet a moment!
[She hands them a purse.
Take this trifle
As foretaste of reward for service! richer follows!
[Exit Servants.
No letter and no key! ’Tis passing strange!
Must such a treasure wait me unexplor’d?
O curiosity! O eager longing!
Suspectest thou what mean these gifts to me?

Governess.
I doubt not thou thyself hast solv’d the riddle.
It signifies a coming elevation.
The finery of a princess is allow’d thee
Because the King will soon declare thy rank.

Eugenie.
What makes thee think so?

Governess.
Oh, I know it well!
The secrets of the great are never kept.

Eugenie.
Well, if thou knowest, why should I dissemble?
Shall I restrain before thee without reason
My curiosity to see this gift? The key
Is here! I know my father did forbid it.
Yet what did he forbid? To tell the secret
Before the time. Yet thou already knowest
The weighty news: what more is there to tell
Than thou hast heard, and through thy love for me
Hast kept in guard beneath the seal of silence?
Why then delay? Come, let us open! come!
So that the glory of the gifts may charm us!

Governess.
Nay! touch it not! Remember his forbiddance.
Who knows the reason of the Duke’s command?

Eugenie.
He had a purpose for his prohibition,
That purpose now is render’d nugatory;
Thou knowest all. Thou lovest me, thou art
A faithful friend that can preserve a secret.
So let us push the bolt and close the chamber,
And let us quick together solve the mystery.
[She shuts the chamber door and runs to the casket.

Governess.
(Restraining her.) The gold, the colors of the splendid fabrics,
The soft light of the pearls, the gleam of jewels,
Ah! let them all remain unseen! They tempt thee
Beyond control to seek the fatal goal!

artist: otto seitz.
THE NATURAL DAUGHTER. ACT II, SCENE IV.
eugenia placing the parchment in the press.

Eugenie.
Not they, but what they signify, attract me.
[She opens the box; mirrors adorn the cover.
What costly raiment, lying folded there
E’en as I touch it, shows before my eyes!
And do these mirrors not make swift demand
To image forth the maiden in her jewels?

Governess.
Medea’s fiery garment seems to me
To lie unfolded in my nerveless hand!

Eugenie.
What Melancholy weaves its mist around thee?
Think rather of delightful bridal feasts!
Come! reach the treasures to me one by one!
That underdress! how richly, sweetly gleam
The silver gauze, the sparkle of its hues.

Governess.
(Throwing the garment over Eugenie’s shoulders.) If e’er the rays of Favor’s sun should darken,
The cause would be such glory’s bright reflection.

Eugenie.
A faithful heart deserves the rays of favor,
And if they fail it draws them back again. —
Now bring the gold-embroider’d overskirt,
And spread the train with all its wealth of lace.
The brilliancy of flowers has ting’d the gold
Spread in metallic hues with tasteful choice.
Am I not beautiful in this array?

Governess.
Yet beauty unadorn’d is honor’d more
For its own splendor by the truly wise.

Eugenie.
The truly wise may treasure simple beauty,
But most prefer the beauty that’s adorn’d. —
Now bring the tender twilight of the pearls,
The flashing glory of the splendid jewels.

Governess.
Yet not the appearance but the genuine worth
Can satisfy the cravings of thy heart!

Eugenie.
What is appearance having naught of substance,
And what would substance be without appearance?

Governess.
And hast thou not enjoy’d within these walls
The long untroubled days of sunny youth,
Nor felt the secret bliss of holy rapture
When cradled with the hearts of those that love thee?

Eugenie.
The tender bud rejoices in its calyx
So long as Winter’s frost besieges it;
But now the breath of Spring inspires its life,
It bursts in blossoms, full of light and fragrance!

Governess.
But moderation gives a joy serene!

Eugenie.
Provided that a moderate aim is set.

Governess.
He who enjoys submits to limitations.

Eugenie.
Thy arguments persuade me not, thus rob’d.
Oh, would that this apartment might expand
Until it reach’d the glory of the King’s.
That splendid carpets deck’d the polish’d floors,
That golden groins might overarch the vault!
And thus before the throne of royalty
With humble pride, among the haughty nobles
Reflecting back the smiling beams of grace,
I ‘mid the circle of distinguish’d ones
Should stand the most distinguish’d at the pageant.
Oh, let me have the foretaste of this joy
When all the world shall wonder at my fortune.

Governess.
Thou’lt be an object not of wonder only:
Envy will mark thee, hate will seek thy ruin.

Eugenie.
Success must ever raise the coils of envy.
We learn to keep our guard when haters prowl.

Governess.
Humiliation oft surprises pride.

Eugenie.
Presence of mind will guard against surprise!
[Turning to the dressing-case.
Not yet have we examin’d everything.
For self alone I do not ask this fortune;
With others would I all my treasures share.

Governess.
(Taking out a jewel box.)
Here written on this box the words: “For Gifts.”

Eugenie.
Then pray select the things that please thee most.
Among these watches, boxes, take thy choice.
Yet hold! Be wary! Who can tell? Perchance
Yet costlier things lie hid within the case!

Governess.
Would that a powerful talisman were here
To win thy cruel brother’s love to thee!

Eugenie.
The pure affections of the ingenuous heart
May gradually soften his ill will.

Governess.
Yet those who strive to make more black his grudge
Are pledg’d forever to oppose thy wishes.

Eugenie.
If they till now have sought to block my fortune,
Yet since the grand decision has been made
They will each one conform without a murmur.

Governess.
That which thou hopest is not yet accomplish’d.

Eugenie.
Yet ’tis so safe that I can call it done.
[Returning to the case again.
See what is lying in that long flat box!

Governess.
(Uncovering it.) The loveliest ribbons, fresh and newly chosen!
Ah, let not curious contemplation ruin
With dissipating tendency thy mind.
Oh, would it might be, that my earnest warning
Should make a moment’s impress on thy mind.
From the still circle thou wilt soon emerge
On wider fields where anxious cares will harass,
Where dangerous snares, where Death itself, perchance,
From murderous hands of enemies await thee.

Eugenie.
Thou art unwell! How can my sure success
Appear to thee as frightful as a spectre?
[Gazing into the box.
What do I see? This roll! ’tis verily
The ribbon of the noblest princely order!
This also I must wear then! Come! make haste!
I wish to see its whole effect! ’Tis part
Of this superb array. It must be tried!
[The order is attached.
Now prate to me of death! now prate of danger!
What nobler grace than when a man can stand
In all the bravery of heroic garb
Amid his peers in presence of his King?
What gives more satisfaction to the eye
Than robes that tell of splendid lines of knights?
This raiment and its colors are they not
A symbol of the danger ever near?
The sash, significant of war, wherewith
A man with dauntless courage girds himself?
My friend, my love! Whatever ornament
Is emblematical of peril, that
Must, of necessity, be dangerous!
So give me then the sentiment of courage
To meet the dangers menacing my path,
Array’d, as now, in splendid princely garb.
Henceforth, irrevocable is my fortune.

Governess.
(Aside.) The fate that calls thee is irrevocable.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

The Antechamber of the Duke,furnished in magnificent modern style.
Secretary. Secular Priest.

Secretary.
Tread silently into this deathly silence!
The palace is as quiet as the tomb.
The Duke is sleeping, and the servants all,
Touch’d by his grief, are bent in sympathy.
He sleeps! I bless’d him as I saw him lie
Wrapp’d in unconsciousness upon his pillow
Peacefully breathing. The excess of woe
Has yielded to the healing balm of Nature.
The moment that shall wake him, that I fear —
A man of grief before you will appear!

Secular Priest.
I am prepar’d to see him, doubt it not.

Secretary.
An hour or two ago the tidings came
That fair Eugenie had been thrown and kill’d.
You must confirm it: say that she was brought
Unto your chapel as the nearest place
That they could take her from the treacherous ground,
Where, boldly courting death, she forc’d her steed.

Secular Priest.
And in the meantime she is far away?

Secretary.
With breathless haste the speeding coursers fly.

Secular Priest.
To whom entrust you such a weighty task?

Secretary.
The prudent goodwife who is wholly ours.

Secular Priest.
To what far region have you sent the maid?

Secretary.
The port that lies most distant in this realm.

Secular Priest.
And will a foreign shore receive her next?

Secretary.
The favoring wind will bear her quickly hence.

Secular Priest.
And will they here forever think her dead?

Secretary.
The purport of thy fiction shall decide.

Secular Priest.
And so this error from the very first
Will sway the fortune of all coming time.
Her very grave is feign’d, and for her body
A mask shall cheat the eye. Her lovely image
Shall shatter in a thousand pieces. Horror
Shall sear my wretched hearer’s loving heart,
As though with fire, because of this misfortune.
All think her dead, she disappears forever
Within the ashes, gray, of nothingness.
Then each of us will quickly turn to life,
And in the tumult of the busy world
Forget that she too, though so far away,
Still breathes the air of life among the living.

Secretary.
Dost thou with utter boldness face the deed?
Will not remorse remain with bitter sting?

Secular Priest.
Thou askest such a question? We are firm.

Secretary.
An inward dissatisfaction oftentimes
Against our will accompanies an action.

Secular Priest.
What do I hear? art thou become repentant,
Or wilt thou only test me if I be
A worthy pupil in the arts thou teachest?

Secretary.
Never sufficiently do men reflect!

Secular Priest.
They should reflect before the deed’s begun.

Secretary.
’Tis not too late before the deed is done.

Secular Priest.
For me the door of forethought is shut fast.
The time for that was when I still delay’d
Within the Paradise of simple joys:
When, bounded by the garden’s cosy hedge,
I grafted trees that I myself had planted,
And fed my table from the narrow beds,
When still contentment in the little house
Supplied a sense of having wealth unbounded,
And when, according to my light, I spoke
Unto the congregation from my heart,
A friend with friends, a father with his children,
And gave my hand to aid the worthy man,
And stopp’d the bad man and the sin he did.
Oh, would that some beneficent spirit had then
Turn’d from my door thy hesitating steps,
Whereto thou, weary, thirsty from the chase,
Didst come to knock and with thy flattering ways,
Thy wily words, didst lay a spell upon me!
That beauteous day on which our friendship hung
Peace spread her wings and fled forever from me!

Secretary.
We brought thee many pleasures, did we not?

Secular Priest.
And many anxious wants which weight me down.
I felt my poverty to see the rich.
Anxiety oppress’d me, for I lack’d;
And in my need I ask’d for help from others.
You brought me aid: dearly I pay for it.
You took me as the comrade of your fortune.
You took me as the complice of your deeds —
Nay, rather should I say the slave, for such
You made the once free now abandon’d man.
You gave him pay forsooth, but yet denied
The sole reward which he had dared to ask.

Secretary.
Have faith that we shall load thee down ere long
With honors, benefices and estates.

Secular Priest.
But those are not the things that I expect.

Secretary.
And now what new demand hast thou conceiv’d?

Secular Priest.
You use me as a tool devoid of feelings
Thus once again. This noble child ye thrust
Forth from the living circle of her friends.
’Tis I must palliate, must hide the deed,
Yet you determine and I have no voice.
Henceforth I ask to join your secret conclave
Where frightful deeds are plann’d, where every man
Proud of his strength and genius bends the course
Of monstrous actions unavoidable.

Secretary.
That thou so closely art with us allied
Gives thee a new and potent claim upon us.
With weighty secrets shalt thou soon be trusted.
And so be patient and control thyself.

Secular Priest.
I am, and far more patient than you think.
Long since I saw the purport of your plans.
He only merits secret consecration
Who through presentiment anticipates.

Secretary.
What dost thou guess? What dost thou know?

Secular Priest.
Let that
Be spared until we meet at midnight’s hour.
Alas! this maiden’s melancholy fate
Has vanish’d like a brook in ocean’s tide,
When I consider how ye lift yourselves
In secret in a mighty party schism,
And hope, by treacherous wiles, to oust the King,
And foist yourselves as rulers on the land.
Not you alone, for others also strive
In rivalry with you to reach your goal.

And so ye undermine the throne and State.
Who shall be rescued from the impending fate?

Secretary.
Hush! Some one comes! Hide in this secret closet.
When it is time I’ll summon thee to enter.

SCENE II.

Duke. Secretary.

Duke.
O baleful light! thou call’st me back to life,
Thou bringest me to knowledge of the world
And of myself again. How barren, bare and hollow
Lies all before me now, and burn’d to ashes!
A heap of ruins is my happiness!

Secretary.
If each and every of thy faithful friends
Who suffer with thee at this hour could bear
A portion of thy sorrows, how would’st thou
Not feel thyself renew’d in strength and courage!

Duke.
The wound to love like love itself remains
Incurable, unending! Now I know
The terrible disaster which befalls
The man who misses his accustom’d weal.
Oh, why did you allow these well-known walls
To shine upon me with their bravery
Of gold and color, calling back the days —
The yesterdays — of my complete delight
With chilling sense of loss? Why did you not
Envelop halls and chambers with black crape,
So that the everlasting shades of night,
Without me as within, might cast their gloom?

Secretary.
Oh, would that still thy many blessings might
In spite of loss seem something in thy sight!

Duke.
A dream embodied, free from spirit bonds!
She was the living soul that fill’d this house.
Whene’er I wak’d how sweet before mine eyes
Hover’d the image of the lovely maiden!
Here oft I found a leaflet from her hand,
A soulful, heartfelt word for morning greeting!

Secretary.
How oft the wish to give her father joy
Express’d itself in fresh melodious verse!

Duke.
The hope of seeing her alone reliev’d
The weary hours of slow laborious days!

Secretary.
And when delay and hindrance clogg’d the wheels,
With what impatience hast thou yearn’d for her,
As the rash lover yearns to see his mistress.

Duke.
Make no compare between the fire of youth
Devouring selfishly the thing it clutches
And that ecstatic glow a father feels
Who, fill’d with contemplation rapt, rejoices
At all development of wondrous powers,
At all the giant strides in culture’s path.
The present is the pledge that love demands.
The future is the parent’s treasur’d boon.
There lie the spreading acres of his hopes,
And there the ripening harvest of his joys!

Secretary.
Alas! these boundless pleasures thou hast lost;
This ever blossoming hope is now destroy’d.

Duke.
And have I lost it? But a moment since
Its perfect glory fill’d my joyful soul.
Alas! ’tis gone! Let your laments arise.
Let grief destroy this solid edifice
Which age too generous has preserv’d till now!
Accurs’d be all that’s left to me! accurs’d!
And all that shakes and totters now be welcome!
Boil up, ye floods, break o’er the dykes and change
The land to sea! Ye raging gulfs, o’erwhelm
In dire destruction ship and crew and treasure!
Spread out, ye war-compelling ranks, and drown
The fields with gore and every form of death!
Flash forth, ye lightning bolts, across the waste
And blast the haughty heads of solid towers,
Cast stone from stone, let flames arise and scourge
With horrid fury all the haunts of men,
That I, ring’d round by universal sorrow,
May bend before the Fate that hounds me!

Secretary.
This unexpected tragedy so monstrous
Weighs fearfully upon thee, noble Duke!

Duke.
Most suddenly it came, not unforewarn’d!
A happy Fate brought her from realms of death,
And in my arms she came to life again.
I saw with hasty passing glance the horror
Which now confronts me with its frozen stare.
I should have punish’d then her recklessness,
Have set my face with sternest opposition
Against her daring, and have check’d the madness
Which blindly deem’d itself invulnerable,
Immortal, and which sent her from the cliff,
Through wood and stream and thicket like a bird.

Secretary.
How should such deeds made certain by success
Have given presentiment of coming woe?

Duke.
The presage of these woes full well I felt
When I the last — when I the last time saw —
Yea! speak it out — the devastating word
That builds a hedge of darkness round thy way!
Oh, would that I had seen her once again!
Perchance, I might have warded off this blow!
I would have knelt before her, would have pray’d,
Have warn’d her, with a father’s faithful warning,
To spare herself and me, and for the sake Of future fortune to attempt no risk,
Of future fortune to attempt no risk,
Though tempted by the madness of the chase.
Alas! this hour was not vouchsaf’d to me!
And now I’ve lost my precious child forever.
She is no more! Her boldness only grew
From having easily escap’d that fall.
And no one there to warn her, none to guide!
The discipline of childhood was forgotten!
Whose hands did I entrust with such a treasure?
The hands compliant, pampering, of a woman!
No stringent word to bend my daughter’s will
In ways of temperate reasonableness!
With freedom uncontroll’d she let her roam
O’er every field that offer’d reckless daring.
I felt it oft and often half confess’d
That she was ill watch’d by her governess.

Secretary.
Oh, cast not blame upon that hapless creature!
In company with deathless grief she wanders,
God knows in what far land, now, unconsol’d!
She fled! for who could look thee in the face
If conscious that the least reproach were due?

Duke.
Oh, let me wreak my wrath on blameless others
Lest in despair I tear myself in pieces!
For I myself must bear the blame, though heavy.
Did I not with my foolish fond beginnings
Tempt death and danger on my darling’s head?
It was my pride to see the maiden win
The mastery of every undertaking.
And now I pay the fearful price in full.
In carriage, in the saddle should she shine,
A heroine for guiding foaming steeds!
Or diving through the water did she seem
A goddess to command the elements.
And so she thought to conquer every danger.
Ah me! instead of giving preservation
The wont of danger now has brought her death!

Secretary.
The wont of duty’s grand behests has brought
Death to the ne’er-to-be-forgotten maiden!

Duke.
Explain thyself!

Secretary.
And shall I wake thy pain
By telling of the childlike noble action?
Her aged, first and highly-honored friend
And teacher, from this city dwells remote,
In melancholy, pain, misanthropy.
’Twas she alone was able to console him.
Compassion put this on her as a duty;
But often when she wish’d to visit him
Her governess denied her. But she plann’d
To compass it. She boldly used the hours
Devoted to her morning ride to dash
With splendid wild impetuosity
And visit the aged, well-beloved man.
A single groom alone was in the secret.
This time he must have put the saddle on
As we suspect; for he cannot be found.
The wretched man and that unhappy woman
Both vanish’d from the world from fear of thee.

Duke.
Fortunate both! who nothing have to fear,
Whose sorrow for their master’s vanish joy
Has lightly chang’d to mere anxiety.
I too have naught to fear, have naught to hope,
So let me hear the whole and spare me not
The least detail! My soul is iron wrought.

SCENE III.

Duke. Secretary. Secular Priest.

Secretary.
Until this very moment, honor’d Prince,
Have I refrain’d from calling in a man
Who, also sad, appears before thee now.
He is the priest who from the hand of death
Receiv’d thy daughter, and when hope was none
Of saving her, with all a father’s care
Provided everything that love could do.

SCENE IV.

Duke. Secular Priest.

Secular Priest.
How earnestly, exalted Prince, have I
Cherish’d the wish to come before thy presence!
Now it is gratified, but at a moment
When thou and I with thee art bent with grief!

Duke.
Unwelcome messenger, e’en so, be welcome!
Thou hast beheld her last, thy heart has felt
The pathos of her last long yearning look,
Her last word hast thou reverently heard.
Her last sigh hast thou met with kind response.
Oh, tell me, did she speak? What were her words?
Remember’d she her father? Dost thou bring me
A heartfelt “farewell” from her dying lips?

Secular Priest.
We bid the unwelcome messenger be welcome
So long as he is silent and our hearts
Hold room for hope, for doubting still hold room.
Bad tidings spoken are detestable.

Duke.
Why dost thou hesitate? What deeper grief
Can I experience? She is no more.
And peace and silence at this moment hover
Above her tomb. Whate’er she may have suffer’d
Is past for her: for me begins. But speak.

Secular Priest.
A universal calamity is death.
Consider thus the evil which has come,
And let the path by which she pass’d away
Be hid in darkness like the shades of night.
Not every one can tread the flowery path
That leads unto the silent realm of shadows.
With forceful pain destruction often comes
And brings through pangs of hell eternal peace.

Duke.
She suffer’d much?

Secular Priest.
She suffer’d much, not long.

Duke.
There was a moment while my darling suffer’d,
A moment that she cried in vain for aid!
And I, where was I then? What enterprise,
What scene of pleasure chain’d me at the time?
Did nothing presage what a woful thing
Was come to rend in fragments all my life?
Her cry I heard not, and I felt no sign
Of that misfortune struck so surely home.
Far-working holy sympathy’s foreboding
Is but a fable. Sensitive and firm,
Shut in by his environment, man feels
The present good or else the present evil;
And love itself is deaf to distant sounds.

Secular Priest.
The very utmost comfort speech can give
I feel how little can avail thee now.

Duke.
A word can wound more readily than heal;
And grief, renew’d, forever strives in vain
To bring again the days of vanish’d joy.
And was there then no skill, no art availing
To call the fleeting spirit back to life?
What was thy first expedient? Oh, tell me,
What didst thou do to save her? Thou didst not
Leave any means untried!

Secular Priest.
Alas! Too late
When I had found her was it to devise.

Duke.
Then if forever I must mourn the loss
Of her young life’s delightful power
Let me deceive my grief with deeper grief,
Let me immortalize her dear remains!
Come, let us visit her! Where does she lie?

Secular Priest.
A worthy chapel holds the maiden’s tomb,
Kept consecrate and silent! From the altar
Across the iron bars I see the spot;
And while I live my prayers for her shall rise.

Duke.
Oh, come and lead me thither! With us twain
Shall go the wisest of all wise physicians.
Her beauteous body we will snatch perforce
Before corruption work. With choicest drugs
We will preserve the treasure of her body;
And of the atoms which erewhile were join’d
In that incomparable, priceless form,
None shall return unto the dust again.

Secular Priest.
What can I say? Must I confess the whole?
Thou canst not go! Alas! the form distorted,
No stranger could behold it without horror!
And in a father’s eyes — it could not be!
No, God forbid! thou must not look upon her.

Duke.
What new device of torment threatens me?

Secular Priest.
Oh, let me hold my peace, that words of mine
May not abuse remembrance of the lost!
Let me conceal the appalling sight of her
Dragg’d through the thicket, through the mangling rocks,
Disabled and disfigur’d and distorted,
Bleeding and crush’d, unrecognizable,
And lifeless, hanging from my arm. And I
With flooding tears — I bless’d the solemn hour
When I renounc’d a father’s holy hope.

Duke.
Thou hast not been a father. Thou art one
Of those self-seeking, hard, self-centred men
Who let their narrow lives unfruitful run,
To end in gloom. So get thee gone! I hate
The very sight of thee!

Secular Priest.
I knew ’twas so.
Who could forgive the bringer of such tidings?
[Turns to go.

Duke.
Forgive me and remain! Hast ever seen
A picture limn’d by art’s consummate skill
That once and once again thy recollection
Has striven to catch in all its wondrous beauty?
Oh, if thou hadst, then hadst thou surely never
So ruthlessly destroy’d the image which, for me,
Built with its thousand lines of loveliness,
Was all the world of fortune and of joy, —
And pleasure in remembrance so dispell’d!

Secular Priest.
What should I do? Conduct thee to the tomb
Bedew’d with countless tears from strangers’ eyes
Before I laid the rotting corpse away
To fall in mouldering peaceful dissolution!

Duke.
Silence! unfeeling man! thou only add’st
New torments to the pain thou think’st to soothe.
Ah, woe! the elements, no longer rul’d
By that fair spirit of order, now destroy
In noiseless conflict what was godlike once.
If o’er her growth and swift development
Paternal fancy hover’d, full of care,
So now before the insistence of despair
The joy of life is turn’d to dust and ashes.

Secular Priest.
What light and air have made in fleeting form
Is kept for long within the sealed tomb.

Duke.
The custom of the ancients was a wise one:
That when the active spirit pass’d away
The agency of purifying fire
Should solve the long and earnest work of nature,
Completed in the noble human form.
And when the flames their ruddy billows toss’d
Rolling to heaven and ‘mid the clouds was seen
The eagle’s mighty wing significant,
Then tears were dried and friends forsaken gaz’d
With vision clarified up to the realms
Where sat the new-crown’d god upon Olympos.
Oh, gather for me in a costly urn
The sad remains of flesh consum’d to ashes,
So that the yearning arms outstretch’d in vain
May clasp reality, that I may press
Against my breast so full of emptiness
The painfulest possession of my life!

Secular Priest.
Ever more bitter grief becomes by grieving.

Duke.
By grieving grief at last becomes enjoyment.
Oh, would that wandering ever on and on
I, laden with my melancholy burden
Of shrunken ashes, might with feeble footsteps
In expiation come where last I saw her.
There lay she dead within my arms, and there
Deceiv’d I saw her come to life again.
I thought I clasp’d her, thought I held her fast,
But now she is forever torn from me.
But there will I immortalize my sorrow.
A tribute to her rescue did I vow,
Enraptur’d by the marvel of my dream.
E’en now the gardener’s skilful hand is making
Through wood and fell a labyrinth of paths,
Enclosing round about the sacred spot
Where to his heart my royal master press’d
My daughter, and her princely birth confess’d.
Where henceforth symmetry and just proportion
Would grace the spot which brought me happiness.
There not a hand shall labor! Half completed
This plan shall be an emblem of my fate.
But the memorial — that I still shall found.
Heap’d up of unhewn bowlders, orderless,
There will I wander, there in silence dwell
Till Death at last shall bring desir’d relief.
Oh, let me there, like stone, dream life away,
Until the slender trace of former care
Shall vanish from this melancholy desert.
In freedom shall the meadow green with grass
And bough with bough in wildness intertwine,
The bending birch’s head shall sweep the ground,
The tender saplings wax to mighty trees,
And moss shall clothe around the slippery stems.
Time passes without note: for she is gone
By whose development I mark’d the years.

Secular Priest.
And will that man whose pleasure oft has been
To mingle in the beneficent whirl of life
Allow himself to shun the busy world
And choose the monotony of loneliness,
Because a burden unendurable
Has roll’d upon him with its threatening doom?
Go forth! with eagle swiftness through the land,
Through foreign kingdoms, that before thy mind
The world and all its glories may arise.

Duke.
What have I in the world to look for now,
When she no longer meets my eye who was
The only object that I cared to see?
Shall stream and mountain, vale and wood and fell,
In varied panorama pass before me,
And only wake the bitter need I feel
To hold once more the form so dearly lov’d?
From mountain-top down to the ocean wide
What would the wealth of nature be to me —
Recalling me to poverty and loss?

Secular Priest.
But novel wealth lies close before thy hand!

Duke.
’Tis through the eye undimm’d of youth alone
That things familiar vivified can stir us;
When the enthusiasm long despis’d
Comes to us pleasantly from childish lips.
And so I plann’d to show her all the realm,
The peopled plains, the forest depths, the rivers,
And all the boundless majesty of ocean,
So that the intoxication of her gaze
When turn’d upon the infinite of space
Should fill my soul with infinite of love!

Secular Priest.
If thou, exalted Prince, didst not aspire
To spend the glorious days of fullest life
In contemplation, if activity
In doing for unnumber’d multitudes
Gave thee the precedent unto the throne
For noble service in the common good,
Instead of accident of kingly birth,
Thus in the name of all I summon thee:
Take courage! Let the melancholy hours
Which darken thy horizon be, for others,
Through consolation, counsel, aid, no less
Than for thyself, bright hours of happiness.

Duke.
How shallow and disgusting such a life,
Where every motion, every impulse brings
Ever new need of motion, need of impulse,
And no desir’d result at last rewards.
That did I see in her alone: for her
I strove and won with pleasure keen
That I might build a realm of pleasing fortune.
So I was genial, was a friend to all,
Obliging, quick, in deed and counsel lavish.
“It is the father in me that they love,”
I said; “they thank the father, and, in time,
The daughter will they welcome as their friend.”

Secular Priest.
No time is left for sentimental musings!
Exalted Prince, quite different thoughts demand thee.
Shall I the secret hazard? I the humblest
Among thy servitors? The eager glances
Of all are turn’d to thee, these dubious days,
Thy solid worth, thy strength undeviating.

Duke.
The happy man alone feels worth and strength!

Secular Priest.
The pain intense of woes intolerable
Are bail unto the moment for vast meaning.
Let me have pardon if I boldly wage
To speak the confidential tidings out!
How from below fermenting passions seethe!
How ineffectual the force above!
Not every one has sight to see but thou

More than the multitude in which I move.
Oh, do not falter now the storm draws nigh,
But seize the helm and guide the weltering ship
For the advantage of thy fatherland.
Forget thy grief: else will a thousand fathers
Like thee their children mourn, a thousand children
Call vainly for their fathers, and the cries
Of mourning mothers echo horribly
Against the pitiless hollow prison walls.
Oh, bring an offering of thy grief and pain
Unto the altar of the common weal.
And all whom thou wilt rescue from this doom
Thou shalt in compensation win as children.

Duke.
From gloomy corners do not raise again
The swarm opaque of spectres to oppress me,
Which through my daughter’s wonder-working power
Were often bann’d and readily put to flight.
That all-compelling might of love is vanish’d
Which sang unto my soul in pleasant dreams.
Now heavy on me weighs with solid pressure
The actual present, threatening to crush me.
Away! away! Take me from out the world!
And if the robe in which thou movest lie not,
Then lead me to the place where patience dwells, —
Unto the monastery, and leave me there
In universal silence, silent, bowed,
To sink, a weary mortal, to the vault.

Secular Priest.
Me scarcely it becomes to recommend
The world to thee: yet boldly will I speak!
Not in the grave nor yet upon the grave
The noble man will waste his wealth of longing.
He turns unto himself, and full of wonder
He finds the lost again within his heart.

Duke.
The fact that such a treasure still remains
When far and farther flies the treasure lost,
That is the torment which the parted member
Forever torn away must still renew
Upon the pang-wrench’d, palpitating body.
Dismember’d life who can unite again?
Annihilated! who rebuild?

Secular Priest.
The spirit!
The spirit of man for whom is nothing lost
Which once was priz’d and held in firm possession.
So lives Eugenie still, within thy mind,
Which she erewhile sustain’d, in which she stirr’d
Perception of the wondrous works of Nature.
Still as a lofty pattern doth she work,
Protecting thee from common things and bad
Which, every hour, may meet thee. And the glory
Reflected from her noble truth will banish
The empty falsehood that would sting thee.
So through her power feel that thy strength is doubled,
And give her back a life invulnerable
Which can be shatter’d by no earthly force.

Duke.
Nay, let some intricate net of death encoil me
With gloomy glowering web of woven dreams.
And, O thou image, perfect in thy beauty,
Remain for me forever young and changeless!
Around me let the pure light of thine eyes
Forever shine! Where’er my steps may wander
Do thou go with me, pointing out the way
Amid the thorny labyrinth of earth!
Thou art no figment of a dream! I see thee!
Just as thou wast, art thou. Almighty God
Conceiv’d thee perfect, perfect wast thou made.
Thou art a portion of the Infinite,
The Endless, and thou art forever mine.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Park at the port. On one side a palace, on the other a church; in the background a row of trees through which the port is seen below.Eugenie,enveloped in a veil, seated on a bench in the background, with face turned to the sea.
Governess. Counsellor.In the foreground.

Governess.
A wretched business unavoidably
Compels me from the Kingdom’s central heart,
The district of the capital, to seek
The limits of the solid land, this haven,
With strenuous care forever at my heels
And dubious distance ever beckoning on.
How would the counsel and the sympathy
Of some strong man reliable and noble
Shine on me as a blessed guiding star!
Forgive me, therefore, if I come to thee
And bring this charter which shall justify
The formidable purpose that I own!
For I have heard thy name in hearty praise
Once in the halls where righteous judgment sways
As worthy aid, but now as perfect judge.

Counsellor.
(Who meantime thoughtfully contemplates the paper.) Not my desert but my endeavor won
Perchance my meed of praise. But strange it seems
That him whom thou hast righteous call’d and noble,
Thou should’st demand in aid, and mock his eyes
With such a paper which can only fill
His bosom with disgust and sheer abhorrence.
Of right, of judgment, let no word be spoken.
This deed is violence, is tyranny!
E’en if the treatment wise and skilful be!
A child of noble birth is given over
For death or life — I speak not too severely? —
Is given over to thy will alone.
All, be they officers, civilians, soldiers,
Are bidden to protect thee, and to do
To her whate’er thy word as law may say.
[Gives back the paper.

Governess.
Here show thy wisdom as a righteous umpire.
Let not this paper bring complaint alone!
To me, the deeply blamed, oh, lend an ear!
Consider favorably my proposition!
Of noble blood the peerless maiden sprang.
With every gift, with every virtue grac’d
By Nature as inalienable right,
E’en though the law denies her other
And now has banish’d her. ’Tis I must lead her
Forth from the circle of her friends and hence
Go with her as her guardian to the islands.

Counsellor.
To certain death she goes: where heated vapors
With slow insinuating poison work.
There must this flower of heaven quickly wither,
The color mantling on her cheek must fade!
The form must disappear which yearning eyes
Would ever wish to keep preserv’d from ill.

Governess.
Before thou judgest, listen to the end.
The girl is innocent (what need of proof?)
Yet is the cause of evils numberless.
An angry God between two parties plac’d her
Like Discord’s apple, and they now contend,
Forever separated on the question.
The one would see her rais’d to highest station,
The other strives to push her from the ground.
Both were of stout resolve. A labyrinth
Of cunning, weird devices hedg’d her fate,
Plot cross’d with counterplot and end was none
Until impatient passion brought a crisis,
Precipitating moments big with doom.
Dissimulation then forgot its bounds,
And violence fraught with peril to the State
Broke forth in all its threatening fury.
And now to keep the guilty from their guilt,
And check them, a decree divine is made
That strikes my charge, the innocent occasion
Of all the coil, and crushes me with her.

Counsellor.
The instrument I blame not, scarce can judge
Those powers that work with such high hand. Alas!
They also are the slaves of tyrant fate
And rarely act from free deliberation.
Solicitude and fear of greater evils
Ofttimes compel the monarch into deeds
Which are unjust and yet must needs be done.
Complete thy necessary task! Begone
Out of the narrow boundaries of my Eden.

Governess.
’Tis that I seek, and thither turn my steps,
In hope to find relief. Thou’lt not repulse me!
I long have tried to draw entrancing pictures
Before the worthy maiden of the pure delights
Which might await her in the calm contentment
Within the circles of the burgher classes.
If she would but renounce her high ambition
And claim the safeguard of an honest husband.
Would turn her eyes from sweet forbidden regions
Where danger, banishment and death surround her
To look with favor on a simple home,
Then all were solv’d, my bitter task fulfill’d,
And I, rejoicing in my fatherland,
Releas’d from care could still see peaceful hours.

Counsellor.
A web of wondrous circumstance thou showest.

Governess.
I show it to a wise and resolute man.

Counsellor.
A suitor to thy mind could win the maid?

Governess.
She should be his and richlydower’d withal.

Counsellor.
Who could so rashly make a grave decision?

Governess.
With sudden purpose inclination acts.

Counsellor.
To link one’s life with fate unknown were madness.

Governess.
One glance at her is warrant of her worth.

Counsellor.
The wife’s foes are the foes of husband also.

Governess.
When she is wed comes reconciliation.

Counsellor.
And will her husband know the maiden’s secret?

Governess.
If he is trusty, trust will be bestow’d.

Counsellor.
And will she freely sanction such alliance?

Governess.
A dread alternative will weight her choice.

Counsellor.
Is it fair to woo in such extremity?

Governess.
He who would rescue must not reason fine.

Counsellor.
Pray, what before all else dost thou demand?

Governess.
That thy resolve shall be confirm’d at once.

Counsellor.
And is the peril of thy fate so pressing?

Governess.
The busy sailors yonder spur the voyage.

Counsellor.
Hast thou advised her yet of such a step?

Governess.
I hinted thus with quick significance.

Counsellor.
And did she not, indignant, spurn the thought?

Governess.
Her former fortune then was all too nigh.

Counsellor.
The glorious fancies, will they ever fade?

Governess.
The awful ocean puts them all to flight.

Counsellor.
She hates to leave her fatherland forever?

Governess.
She hates to leave it, and to me ’tis death.
Thou, noble sir, by happy fortune found,
Oh, let us not exchange uncertain words.
Thy heart is young and in it dwells that virtue
That needs bright faith and uncondition’d love
For the accomplishment of treasur’d deeds.
In sooth a splendid circle hems thee round
Of men like thee — I would not say of equals.
Oh, look around thee! Look into thy heart
And look into the hearts of all thy friends!
And if thou find’st an overflowing measure
Of love, and charity and strength and courage,
Then let the most deserving take this jewel
And find the blessing that shall be his portion.

Counsellor.
I know, I feel thy dubious situation.
I cannot with myself discreetly balance,
As wisdom would demand, before I choose.
Let me converse with her.
[The Governess retires towards Eugenie. What must be done
’Tis fated will be done. In commonest things
Volition, choice determine much. The highest
That comes to us of good, who knows its source?

SCENE II.

Eugenie. Counsellor.

Counsellor.
E’en as thou comest to me, honor’d lady,
I almost doubt if they have told me truly.
Thou art unhappy, say they, yet thou bringest
Where’er thou art prosperity and fortune.

Eugenie.
If I o’erwhelm’d in tribulation find
The first to whom I turn my face and voice,
So kind and noble, as thou seem’st to me,
Then will my sorrow disappear, I hope.

Counsellor.
If on a man of wide experience
A lot like thine should fall, ‘twere pitiful.
But grief of youth when first oppress’d how sorely
It calls for sympathy and love’s protection.

Eugenie.
Thus but a little time ago I came
Up from the night of death to light of day.
I knew not what befell, what accident
Had hurl’d me headlong from the dizzy cliff.
Then suddenly I rose, I recogniz’d
The lovely world again. I saw the leech
Struggling to stir the dying flames again;
Found in my father’s loving glance, his voice,
My life again. And now a second time
I waken from a more disastrous fall.
Unknown and shadowy is the scene around me;
Strange to me are the faces of the men;
Thy gentleness itself is like a dream.

Counsellor.
If strangers feel for our adversity
Then are they nearer to us than our nearest,
Who often look upon our grief with coldness,
From very carelessness of wonted sight.
Thy case is perilous, but who can say
If yet there be not chance of safety for thee?

Eugenie.
No answer can I make. Unknown to me
The powers are which have brought about my exile.
The woman whom thou spokest with knows well
I suffer from the madden’d deeds of others.

Counsellor.
Although superior power with strenuous blow
Has stricken hard thy fault so innocent,
Thy error made so by an accident,
No less respect remains — and dawning love.

Eugenie.
The knowledge that my heart is pure within
Makes strange the consequence of little errors.

Counsellor.
’Tis sport to stumble on the level ground;
A single slip hurls from the precipice.

Eugenie.
Upon those heights I wander’d full of joy;
Excess of rapture caus’d my foot to fail.
The coming fortune I anticipated;
My hands already grasp’d the precious pledge.
A single moment and a little patience,
And, as I fondly thought, the whole was mine.
But rash desire o’erwhelm’d me. Swift temptation
Made havoc with my resolution. Was that it?
I saw, I told what was forbidden me
To see, to tell. Is such a trifling fault
So harshly punish’d? Does a lightly-given
Injunction, seeming like a jocular test,
Relentlessly condemn the breaker of it?
Oh, then ’tis true what ancient legends tell,
Once deem’d incredible. The momentary,
Thoughtless enjoyment of the apple brought
Unending guilt and sorrow on the world.
Thus also to my care a key was trusted.
Forbidden treasures did I dare unlock,
And I unlock’d the entrance to my tomb.

Counsellor.
Thou canst not find the evil’s primal source,
And were it found it still would flow forever.

Eugenie.
In trifling faults I seek it. I impute
To idle fancy blame for such disaster;
But higher, higher let suspicion rest.
The twain to whom I owed my life’s completeness,
Those glorious men, apparently were friends.
But now the discord of unstable parties
Which long had coil’d in dusky hiding-places
Perchance is breaking forth in open feud.
And what surrounded me as fear and care
Has reach’d its crisis, while it crushes me
And threats annihilation to the world.

Counsellor.
I pity thee. Destruction of a world
Thou prophesiest since thy grief is sore.
Did not the earth seem fortunate and joyful
When, as a happy child, thou play’dst ‘mid flowers?

Eugenie.
The fortune of the earth who ever saw
Bedeck’d in more attractive hues than I?
Ah! what magnificence, what purity,
What fulness, fill’d my life! The satisfaction
Of every human want seem’d but a tithe
Of all the riches squander’d for my pleasure.
And who provided me this Paradise?
A loving father, who, neglecting naught
Of least or greatest, prodigally pour’d
Bewildering wealth of treasures in my hands,
And form’d me, body and mind alike, to carry
The weight of such responsibility.
If my surroundings seem’d effeminate,
And comfort pour’d its subtile poison round,
Then knightly sports invited me away
To fight with danger on the mettlesome steed.
Ofttimes I yearn’d to visit far horizons
To view the bounds of countries new and strange,
And this my noble father promis’d me.
He promis’d me to take me o’er the sea.
He hop’d to join in loving sympathy
In my first rapture in the infinite.
And here I stand alone and gaze far out,
And closer seems the world to hedge me in.
O God! how limited are earth and heaven
To human hearts left wholly to themselves.

Counsellor.
Thou hapless one! How like a meteor
With fell destruction in its train
Thou sweepest down upon me from on high,
Disturbing all the current of my life!
The joy which in the boundless sea I took
Henceforth is turn’d to pain by thee. When Phœbus
Prepares to couch upon his fiery pyre
And every eye is soften’d with delight,
My face will then be turn’d away, and tears
Will flow in sorrow for thee and thy fate.
Far on the rim of night-surrounded ocean
I see thy path beset by want and sorrow!
Depriv’d of all thy wonted joys and comforts,
Afflicted hopelessly with trials new!
The glowing arrows of the sun are pour’d
Upon a land scarce sever’d from the tide;
The pestilence of poisonous dampness born
Hovers in murky vapors o’er the lowlands.
I see thee in the valley of the shadow
Languid and pale, fading from day to day.
Must she who stands before me fair and blooming
So prematurely die a living death?

Eugenie.
Thou callest shapes of horror up before me.
There, there they banish me? To yonder land
From childhood painted in the gloomiest colors,
The very hiding-place of hell on earth:
Where ‘mid foul swamps the serpent and the tiger,
Through reeds and tangled thorn-brakes lurking, crawl;
Where swarms of insects arm’d with cruel stings
Like living clouds surround the wanderer;
Where every wind-breath, weighted with discomfort
And deadly, shortens life by precious hours.
I thought to ask thee; now thou seest, beg
With importunity the hapless maid:
Thou canst, thou wilt avert this fate from me.

Counsellor.
A talisman of frightful potency
The woman who hath brought thee hither holds.

Eugenie.
What use are law and order if they fail
To shelter childhood from the crafts of crime?
Who then are you, who with your empty pride
In justice boast of quelling lawlessness?

Counsellor.
In narrow circles lies our jurisdiction;
And all the weight of law that we can wield
Rules the unstable class of humble life.
The varied deeds that pass in higher places,
High-handed deeds that give life or that kill,
Accomplish’d without counsel, without verdict,
Are measur’d by another measure, punish’d,
Perchance, according to another standard,
Remaining ever like a dubious riddle.

Eugenie.
And is that all? Hast thou no more to say,
To tell me?

Counsellor.
Nothing.

Eugenie.
I believe thee not;
I do not dare believe!

Counsellor.
Let me depart.
Must I appear a weak, a lackwit coward?
Bewail and pity? Shall I not devise
Some daring stroke that shall secure thy rescue?
Yet would not in this very boldness lurk
The poignant danger that thou mightest hope
Too much from me? that if my plan should fail
I should appear to thee a wretched bungler?

Eugenie.
I will not let thee go whom fortune sends —
My happy fortune of the olden days
Which from my youth up watch’d and guarded me,
And now, when angry storms are raging, sends
A’noble substitute to take her place.
Shall I not see and feel the sympathy
Thou takest in me and my fate? I stand
Not without influence here. Thou thinkest, plannest —
The wide domain of law’s experience
Will surely offer some resource to save me.
Not yet is all hope lost. Oh, yes, thou seekest
Some means of rescue — hast already found it.
I know it, read it plainly in thy face,
Thy earnest, friendly, melancholy face.
Turn not away from me. Oh, speak the word,
The earnest glorious word that brings me comfort!

Counsellor.
Thus, full of confidence, the sorely ill
Seeks the physician, begging for relief,
For help against the threat of darkening days.
The skilful man appears to him a god.
Yet ah! a bitter, unendurable means
Is offer’d of relief. Alas! must hope
Give way, must mutilation’s gruesome horror
Cause loss instead of healing? must it be?
Thou wilt be rescu’d and thou canst be rescu’d,
But not restor’d. Thy past is gone forever.
The future that may wait thee, canst thou bear it?

Eugenie.
For rescue from the hateful power of death,

For quickening refreshment of the light,
For mere security of life, one sinking
O’erwhelm’d in waves of difficulty calls.
What later must be heal’d, what be renew’d
And what be miss’d, the coming days will teach.

Counsellor.
And next to life what dost thou most desire?

Eugenie.
To live in my beloved fatherland.

Counsellor.
That single mighty word is much to ask.

Eugenie.
A single word contains my happiness.

Counsellor.
Who can annul the magic incantation?

Eugenie.
Victorious is the counter-charm of virtue.

Counsellor.
’Tis hard to fight against superior might.

Eugenie.
Superior might is not all-powerful!
But surely knowledge of the legal forms
Which bind alike the lofty and the low
Has found a means. Thou smilest. Is it true?
The means is found. Oh, free me from suspense.

Counsellor.
What were the advantage, lady, if I spoke
Of possibilities to thee? Our wishes
Make everything seem possible. Our acts,
Oppos’d by much without us and within,
Are ignominiously brought to naught.
I cannot, dare not speak. Let me depart.

Eugenie.
And even if thou should’st deceive! Were only
My imagination for a few glad moments
Allow’d to try a dubious, feeble flight!
Let me exchange one evil for another.
I feel that I am sav’d if I can choose.

Counsellor.
There is one way by which thou canst remain
Here in thy fatherland — a peaceful way,
And many would conceive it pleasant. Favor
Is given it both by God and man. ’Tis lifted
By mighty powers above all fear of chance.
To those who take it, choose it for their own,
It bringeth peace and fortune. Full abundance
Of all desirable fruits of life it gives us
As well as most alluring future hope.
By heaven itself ’twas granted unto men
To be a common benefit and fortune.
Or boldness, or unfroward inclination
May find it leads to fields of sure content.

Eugenie.
What paradise dost thou present in riddles?

Counsellor.
Earth’s heavenly fortune which thou canst create.

Eugenie.
What helps my riddling it? I am perplex’d.

Counsellor.
Thyself must solve it or thy hope is over.

Eugenie.
Let that be seen when thou hast told it me.

Counsellor.
Great is my boldness! It is marriage.

Eugenie.
What!

Counsellor.
The word is spoken. Thou must ponder it.

Eugenie.
It takes me by surprise; it grieves my heart.

Counsellor.
Thou must face bravely what surprises thee.

Eugenie.
Far from me was it in my happy days,
And now its nearness is to me a horror.
My sorrow, my anxieties increase.
My father and my King I once suppos’d
Would bring the bridegroom at the proper time.
My anxious fancy did not search the future.
No lover’s image ever fill’d my breast.
Now must I think, perforce, unwonted thoughts,
And school myself to feelings new and strange.
Must give me to a husband, ere a man
Loveworthy, worthy of my hand, appear.
And violate the fortune Hymen grants
To save me from the misery of my need.

Counsellor.
A woman may entrust her dubious fate
To any worthy man, albeit a stranger.
He is no stranger who can sympathize.
And quickly one in sore distress will learn
To love his rescuer. What brings in union
Through years of life the woman with the man —
The feeling of security — will never
Fail her in comfort, counsel, help, protection,
With which upon the instant, for all time,
A steadfast man through deeds of bravery
Inspires the woman when oppress’d with danger.

Eugenie.
And where for me were such a hero found?

Counsellor.
This city has a host of worthy men.

Eugenie.
Yet no one knows me or would care to know.

Counsellor.
A face like thine cannot remain conceal’d.

Eugenie.
Oh, do not cheat a hope so prone to fail.
Where would a man be found so generous
To give his hand to me, the deeply-humbl’d?
Could I myself accept a boon so great?

Counsellor.
Unfair seem many things in life; yet soon
And unexpected comes the compensation.
In constant change the weal outweighs the woe,
And sudden sorrows counterbalance joys.
Nothing is constant. Many a coil of trouble
Is disentangled while the days roll by
Resolving into gradual harmony.
And ah! the widest chasms love can bridge,
And bind in lasting union earth and heaven.

Eugenie.
With empty visions wilt thou mock my eyes?

Counsellor.
Thy safety is secur’d if thou canst trust me.

Eugenie.
Then let me see my rescuer’s faithful image.

Counsellor.
Thou seest him; he offers thee his hand.

Eugenie.
Thou! What access of madness has o’ercome thee?

Counsellor.
Forever resolute my feelings stand.

Eugenie.
And can a moment bring forth such a marvel?

Counsellor.
A miracle ever is a moment’s birth.

Eugenie.
And so is error also child of rashness.

Counsellor.
A man who once has seen thee errs no more.

Eugenie.
Wisdom remains forever queen of life.

Counsellor.
She may mistake, e’en while the heart decides!
Oh, let me tell thee how I with myself,
Not many hours ago, took serious counsel.
And as I felt my loneliness, review’d
My situation as it was, my fortune,
Position, possibilities of life,
And cast my eyes about to seek a wife.
Then fancy show’d me many a pleasing picture,
The garner’d treasures of my recollection.
They pass’d in bright procession through my mind;
But to a choice my heart was not inclin’d:
Now thou appearest and my bosom glows
With sense of what it lack’d. This is my fate.

Eugenie.
The stranger, ill-entreated, sadly-dower’d, —
She could confess a glad, proud consolation
To see herself so treasur’d and so lov’d,
But she considers also her friend’s fortune —
The unselfish man, who should perchance be last
Among all men to proffer her his aid.
Dost thou not cheat thy heart, and dost thou dare
Defy those mighty powers that threaten me?

Counsellor.
Not those alone. The monstrous violence
That stirs among the masses must be shunn’d.
And God has given men the safest haven
Within the home o’er which the husband guards.
There only dwelleth peace, which thou in vain
Outside its sacred circle mightest seek.
Disturbing jealousy, venomous calumny,
The noisy strife and selfish interests
Within its lovely shelter have no place.
Its happiness is hedg’d by love and reason,
And all mischance is soften’d by their power.
Oh, come! Accept the safety I can offer.
I know myself and what I dare to promise.

Eugenie.
Art thou a Prince within thy house?

Counsellor.
I am.
And so is every man, the evil and the good.
Is not that house a little kingdom where
The husband tyrannizes o’er the wife?
When he, according to his selfish humor,
With whims, and bitter words and cruel deeds,
Takes fiendish pleasure in the slow destruction
Of gentle joys which he had sworn to cherish.
Who dries the suffering woman’s tears? What law
Or what tribunal reaches the offender?
He triumphs, and with agony of patience
She sinks before her time into the grave.
Necessity, the law, and custom gave
The man these arbitrary powers. They trusted
His strength, his honest worth would be the safeguard.
I cannot offer thee, beloved, honor’d stranger,
A knightly arm, a long descent of heroes,
Only the yeoman’s worthy rank secure.
When thou art mine, what more can trouble thee?
Forever thou art mine, maintain’d, protected.
Should even the King demand thee back from me,
As consort I could reckon with the King.

Eugenie.
Forgive me. Yet too vividly I see
Hovering before me what I lost so lightly.
O friend magnanimous, thou canst not think
How little now of good remains to me.
This little thou teachest me to prize, thou givest
With new vitality endow’d myself
Back to myself, so generous is thy heart.
I give thee honor for it — can I speak it? —
The grateful loving feelings of a sister!
I call myself thy work, but what thou wishest
Alas! I never can become to thee.

Counsellor.
Dost thou so rashly blast my hope and thine?

Eugenie.
The word that dooms our hopes is ever sudden.

SCENE III.

The Same. Governess.

Governess.
The fleet already hears the favoring wind;
The sails are bellying; all is in commotion.
In tears the parting take one more embrace,
And from the vessels, from the steadfast land,
White handkerchiefs are waving last farewells.
And soon our vessel also weighs the anchor.
Come! let us go. No parting salutation
Consoles us, not a tear is shed for us.

Counsellor.
Not unbewail’d, not without bitter pain
Of friends deserted, who would rescue you,
Who stretch forth yearning arms, ye pass from sight.
Oh, yet perchance from far will smile upon you
Desir’d in vain the vision ye now scorn.
(To Eugenie.)
A few short moments since I welcom’d thee
With rapture. Must a hasty “Fare-thee-well”
Now seal our everlasting separation?

Governess.
Do I surmise the purport of your talk?

Counsellor.
Thou seest me anxious for the eternal union.

Governess.
(To Eugenie.) And how dost thou receive so great an offer?

Eugenie.
With keenest gratitude that heart could render.

Governess.
And art thou not inclin’d to grasp this hand?

Counsellor.
She turn’d to me for aid importunately.

Eugenie.
What next us lies is oft beyond our reach.

Governess.
Ah! quite too soon relief will be too late.

Counsellor.
And hast thou thought of all the threatening ill?

Eugenie.
E’en to the last that threatens — death itself.

Governess.
Dost thou decline the life that’s offer’d thee?

Counsellor.
Delectable days of glad festivity.

Eugenie.
One festival I hop’d for: hope is past.

Governess.
Who much has lost again can quickly gain.

Counsellor.
A lingering destiny instead of glory.

Eugenie.
When glory quench’d its light slow days began.

Governess.
The possible fate in store should bring content.

Counsellor.
Who would not be content with love and faith?

Eugenie.
My heart would contradict those flattering words,
And contravene you both impatiently.

Counsellor.
Alas! I know how all too burdensome
Is succor undesir’d. It only rouses
Within our hearts the strongest opposition.
We should be grateful, but our thanks are scanty
Because we are not willing to receive.
So let me go. But ere our paths divide
I must fulfil the duty and the custom
Incumbent on the native of the port:
And to your voyage across the barren main
Devote refreshing stores of fruits and flowers,
My parting benediction and farewell.
Then will I stand and watch with stony eyes
While down the horizon fades the towering sail.
And with it go my happiness and fortune.

SCENE IV.

Eugenie. Governess.

Eugenie.
Upon thy will I know my happiness,
My misery depend. Oh, be persuaded!
Oh, let thy hard heart yield! Send me not hence.

Governess.
It lies with thee to guide our future course.
Thou hast a choice. I only can obey
The ruling hand; it hurls me swift away.

Eugenie.
And dost thou call it choice when opposite
The stronghold of impossibility
The unavoidable arrays itself?

Governess.
The alliance can be made, the ban be broken.

Eugenie.
There are things that a noble cannot do.

Governess.
This worthy man might well inspire thy favor.

Eugenie.
If thou would’st bring me back to better fortune
I would reward his kindness boundlessly.

Governess.
Oh, give him now the only boon he asks,
And lead him by thy hand to higher levels.
If virtue, if desert but slowly forward
The man of capability, if he,
With calm renunciation, scarcely notic’d,
Devotes himself to others, striving upwards,
A noble wife will lead him to his goal.
Let no man look below him for a spouse.
Too lofty his ambition cannot be.
If he succeeds to woo a high-born lady
The path of life will smooth before his steps.

Eugenie.
The meaning of thy false, confusing words
I disentangle from thy lying speech.
The opposite I know too well is true.
The husband irresistibly compels
The wife to take the exclusive course he follows.
Once there, forever there; she cannot choose
By force inherent ways dissimilar.
From low condition he will lift her up;
And so from higher spheres he snares her down;
Her former self is vanish’d quite away,
Extinguish’d every trace of days departed.
What she has won who now can tear from her?
And who can give her back what she has lost?

Governess.
And thus thou dost pronounce the fatal sentence.

Eugenie.
Yet full of hope I look for rescue still.

Governess.
When he who loves despairs how canst thou hope?

Eugenie.
A man less passionate would counsel better.

Governess.
Of choice and counsel let no more be said;
Thou driv’st me into exile: thou must follow.

Eugenie.
Oh, would that yet once more before my eyes
Thou would’st appear with gentle friendliness,
As always from the earliest days I saw thee.
With not more sweet, benevolent glance than thine,
The sun whose glory animates all life,
The bright moon with its soft inspiring rays,
Pour’d forth their heavenly influence on my mind.
What boldest wish was not anticipated?
What was to fear? The safeguard was prepar’d.
And though my mother held herself aloof
And did not show her favor to her child
Thou camest to me in a mother’s place,
Consoling me with limitless affection.
And art thou now so chang’d? Thou seemest
In outward guise the same old loving friend.
But inwardly thy heart has wholly chang’d.
It still is thou whom I so often ask’d
For favors small and great, never denied.
The childlike sentiment of wonted reverence
It prompts me now to ask the greatest boon.

artist: otto seitz.
THE NATURAL DAUGHTER. ACT IV, SCENE IV.
eugenia and the governess.
And could it lower me to beg thee now
On bended knee, as though before my father,
As though before my King, my God, for safety?
[She kneels.

Governess.
It seems to me that in thy present mood
Thou mockest me, and falsehood moves me not.
[She roughly lifts Eugenie to her feet.

Eugenie.
A tone so harsh, such inconsiderate treatment,
Must I endure to suffer at thy hands?
And dost thou fright away my dream so rudely?
In clearest light I see my destiny.
’Twas not my fault, ’twas not the strife of party,
It was my brother’s guile that drove me hither;
And thou, a sworn conspirator with him,
Compellest me to suffer lifelong exile.

Governess.
Thy error drives thee into thoughts unjust.
What will thy brother scheme to do against thee?
He has the will perchance but not the power.

Eugenie.
As he desires, so let it be. I will not
In those far-distant hopeless deserts languish.
A living people move around me here,
A loving people, in whose hearts the name
Of father spoken by a child is sweet.
I will demand their aid. A mighty shout
Would summon rescuers from the brawny rabble.

Governess.
The brawny rabble thou hast never known.
They stare and wonder and procrastinate
While what is done is done. And if they move
Failure attends their planless enterprise.

Eugenie.
Thou shalt not with thy chilling word destroy
My faith, as thou hast ruin’d my happiness.
Down in the city life shall give me life;
There where the billowing throngs stream ceaselessly,
Where every heart contented with its pittance
Will open to the touch of sympathy —
Thou shalt not keep me back. I’ll shout aloud,
Impetuously mixing in the throng,
And blazon forth the frightful deed of crime
Which fills my soul with poignant pangs of fear.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Plaza at the Port.
Eugenie. Governess.

Eugenie.
What influence dost thou use to draw me back?
Now also I obey against my will.
O cursed power, thy voice has won upon me,
Which erst so smoothly led me to obey,
Which got the mastery of the whole domain
Wherein my plastic nature was confin’d.
’Twas thou who taught me first the magic power
Of speech, the fine artistic web of words.
Thy lips unseal’d the world to me and gave me
The costly knowledge of my inmost heart.
This magic now thou usest to my harm;
Thou bindest me, thou draggest me away.
My mind is dull’d, my feelings are confus’d,
And I could wish I were among the dead.

Governess.
Oh, would this magic had reveal’d its power
In days when I besought thee fervently
To let those lofty schemes of thine dissolve.

Eugenie.
Didst thou imagine such a monstrous evil
And didst not warn the all-too-trustful mind?

Governess.
Indeed I warn’d thee but in guarded words;
The secret spoken out had brought thee death.

Eugenie.
And yet behind thy silence exile lay;
More welcome to me were the doom of death.

Governess.
Yet this misfortune, unforeseen or not,
Has snar’d me with thee in the selfsame net.

Eugenie.
How can I know what great reward thou’lt have
When thou hast work’d the undoing of thy charge?

Governess.
’Tis waiting for me on a foreign shore.
The sail is spread and bears us both away.

Eugenie.
The prison of the ship has not yet seiz’d me;
’Tis not too late; why should I go unwilling?

Governess.
Hast thou not once appeal’d unto the people?
They only stared in silence and went their way.

Eugenie.
Contending as I was with keen emotions
The common people thought that I was mad.
Yet not with words or violence should’st thou hinder
My bold, courageous steps to get me aid.
The magnates of this city from their houses
Come hither to the strand to watch the vessels
Which mass’d in fleets, by us unlov’d, depart.
Within the palace of the governor
The guards are stirring; he it is who comes
Adown you steps escorted by a throng.
I will address him and unfold my case.
If he be fit to represent my King
And take his place in matters of concern,
He’ll not repulse me without hearing me.

Governess.
I stand not in the way of this attempt;
Yet name no names, but only tell thy story.

Eugenie.
No names until I see that I can trust him.

Governess.
He seems to be a noble youth, and gladly
Will do his utmost to confer a favor.

SCENE II.

The Same.
The Governor. Adjutants.

Eugenie.
I crave a pardon for my over boldness;
Oh, wilt thou heed the stranger in thy way?

Governor.
(After long and attentive contemplation.) One who, like thee, commends herself at sight
Will be secure of friendliest reception.

Eugenie.
No bright and friendly matter do I bring;
The deepest woe compels me to address thee.

Governor.
Then let it be my duty to dispel it;
Or failing that, to make it light to bear.

Eugenie.
She who petitions is of loftiest race;
And yet she has no right to bear its name.

Governor.
A name is soon forgotten; but thy face
Would stay forever in the memory.

Eugenie.
Me from my father’s breast to the wild sea
Has treacherous violence harshly torn and forc’d.

Governor.
Who with irreverent, hostile hand could think
Of bringing pain to such a peaceful heart?

Eugenie.
Suspicion only tells me that this blow
Wag’d by a member of my race fell on me.
Misled by selfishness and evil counsels
My brother plotted this destruction for me.
And she whom here thou seest, who nurtured me,
I know not why, sides with my enemies.

Governess.
I side with her and mitigate an evil
Which I, alas! cannot entirely cure.

Eugenie.
She forces me to embark upon the ship;
She carries me away to yonder isles!

Governess.
If I myself go with thee on this exile
It proves my love and motherly devotion.

Governor.
Forgive me, honor’d ladies, if, one instant,
Surprise at seeing and at hearing you
O’ercomes a man who, young in years, has seen
And has consider’d many things in life.
Ye both to me seem worthy of belief;
And yet does each of you distrust the other.
At least it seems so. What am I to do
To disentangle now the twisted threads
Which in a puzzling knot so strangely bind you?

Eugenie.
If thou wilt hear me I will tell thee more.

Governess.
I also much am able to explain.

Governor.
That oftentimes we are deceiv’d by strangers
Must also prejudice the truth when seen
Behind the seeming of adventurers.

Eugenie.
If thou dost not believe me I am lost.

Governor.
E’en if I did believe ’tis hard to help.

Eugenie.
Oh, send me to my father’s house again!

Governor.
To rescue outcast children, to protect
Foundlings or those who have been put away
Brings small reward to wisely-thinking men.
About the inheritance of property
Arises question of the rightful heir,
And hateful passions seethe, and if relations
Brawl noisily about the Mine and Thine
The stranger who shall meddle wins the hate
Of both sides. Not infrequently indeed,
If his more strenuous interference fail,
In shame before the judgment he is brought.
And so excuse me if I cannot promise
A hopeful answer to thy pressing claim.

Eugenie.
If such timidity becomes the noble,
Then whither shall the poor downtrodden turn?

Governor.
Yet certainly thou wilt excuse me now,
Since urgent business calls me swiftly hence,
If I invite thee early on the morrow
To seek my palace, there more comfortably
To learn the heavy fate that weighs thee down.

Eugenie.
With pleasure will I come. And in advance
Accept my earnest thanks for my relief.

Governess.
(Putting a paper into his hands.) If we do not accept thy invitation
This leaflet will appear our exculpation.

Governor.
(Reading it attentively and handing it back.) My only service to thee then can be
To wish that thou may’st have a fortunate voyage,
Submission to thy destiny, and hope.

SCENE III.

Eugenie. Governess.

Eugenie.
Is this the talisman which thou hast wielded
To carry me away, to hold me prison’d,
Which palsies all who come to my assistance?
Oh, let me look upon this deadly sheet.
I’ve learn’d to know my grief; so let me now
Know also who has caus’d the fatal blow.

Governess.
(Opening the paper before her.)
Here! Look upon it!

Eugenie.
(Turning away.) Horrible sensation!
Have I surviv’d it that my father’s name,
My King’s name flash’d against me from the page?
Yet may deception have been play’d, perchance
Some crown official, insolent, has dared
Misuse his power, and serve my brother’s whim,
To harass me. Then can I yet be rescu’d.
I’ll try this also. Let me see.

Governess.
(As before.) Behold!

Eugenie.
(As before.) My courage fails me. Nay! I dare not look.
Let be as Fate will have it: I am lost.
Driven out from all advantage of this world.
Oh, let me then renounce this world forever.
Oh, grant me this one boon. My enemies,
And thou among them, wish my death, they wish
To bury me alive. Permit me then
To yield me to the church which greedily
Has swallow’d so many a guiltless offering.
Here the cathedral stands: this door conducts
To silent sorrow or to silent joy.
Oh, let me take this step and hide myself.
And what awaits me there shall be my fate.

Governess.
I see the Abbess comes accompanied
By twain o’ the sisters down into the plaza.
She too is young and of a princely house.
Disclose thy wish to her; I will not hinder.

SCENE IV.

The Same.
Abbess. Two Nuns.

Eugenie.
Adorable, holy virgin, here thou seest
One who is stupefied, confus’d, at odds
With self and with the world. My present sorrow,
Solicitude for future evils drive me
To seek thy presence, where I dare to hope
For swift deliverance from monstrous wrong.

Abbess.
If peace, reflection, reconciliation
With God and our own hearts can be imparted,
Then, noble stranger, shall the faithful word
Be taught thee which shall make thee know the joy
That blesses now and ever me and mine.

Eugenie.
Unending is my woe; not even speech
With power divine could serve to assuage it.
Oh, take me! let me stay where thou dost stay,
And first, dissolv’d in tears of melancholy,
Devote my lighten’d heart to consolation.

Abbess.
Oft have I seen within my holy sphere
The tears of earth change into heavenly smiles,
And bitter sorrow into joy divine.

Yet not by force can entrance here be made.
Full many a trial must the novice suffer
That we may know her absolute desert.

Governess.
Complete desert is easy to perceive,
And easy to fulfil severe conditions.

Abbess.
I do not doubt thy gentleness of birth,
Thy property, are all could be desir’d
To gain the privileges of this house
For thee, although they are so great and tempting:
So let me quickly learn what be thy wishes.

Eugenie.
Grant my petition, take me to thy care!
Conceal me from the world in deep seclusion.
All that is mine I freely give to thee.
Much do I bring and more I hope to offer.

Abbess.
If youth and beauty can appeal to us,
A noble maiden fills our heart with love;
Dear child, then hast thou many claims upon us.
Beloved daughter, come into my arms.

Eugenie.
With words like these, with such a warm embrace,
Thou hast at once appeas’d the angry storm
Which rag’d within my heart. The last wave dying
Still foams around me. I have reach’d the port.

Governess.
(Stepping between.) Did not a wretched destiny oppose!
Behold this paper! give us then thy pity.
[She hands the Abbess the paper.

Abbess.
(Having read it.) My censure thou deservest since thou knewest
That this was so, and yet our vain discourse
Thou didst permit unchalleng’d, though thou heardest.
I bow my head before the mightier hand
That seems to rule here.

SCENE V.

Eugenie. Governess.

Eugenie.
What! a mightier hand?
What means the hypocrite? Is’t God she means?
The Almighty God of heaven has not surely
To do with any such atrocious deed.
Or does she mean our King? Well! I must bear it —
Whatever he imposes on me. Yet
I will no longer dubiously hover
Between my love and fear, nor like a woman
E’en while I sink will spare the feelings
Which fill my timid heart. So let it break
If break it must; and now I wish to see
That paper, if the sentence unto death
Be by my King or by my father sign’d.
Before the angry godhead that has crush’d me
I stand and face the consequences boldly.
Oh, that I really stood before it! Fearful
Is the last glance of injur’d innocence.

Governess.
I never have refus’d it; take it now.

Eugenie.
(Looking at the outside of the paper.) It is the idiosyncrasy of man
That in the very extremity of evil
The fear of further loss clings to him still.
Are we so rich, ye gods, that at one blow
Ye cannot strip us of our last possession?
This paper tore me from my life’s delight,
And lets me still forebode a deeper grief.
[She unfolds it.
Ah, well! be brave, my heart, and tremble not
To drain this bitter cup e’en to the dregs.
[She peers into it.
The seal and manual of the King!

Governess.
(Taking away the paper.)
Good child!
On me have pity while thyself thou mournest.
In undertaking this disastrous duty
I but fulfil the bidding of the Almighty,
That I may stand beside thee in thy sorrow,
Lest in the hand of strangers thou should’st fall.
What fills my soul with anguish, all I know
About this frightful deed soon thou shalt learn.
But grant me pardon if necessity
With iron hand compels me instantly
To take our passage on the parting vessel.

SCENE VI.

Eugenie.Afterwards Governess in background.

Eugenie.
Thus then the loveliest kingdom on the earth,
This seaport peopled by its busy thousands,
Becomes a wilderness. I am alone.
Here noble gentlemen conform to laws,
And warriors listen to the word of duty;
Here saints in peace beseech the God of heaven;
The throng are busy striving after gain;
But I am banish’d without right or justice.
There is no hand to arm itself for me;
The house of safety is shut fast against me;
None dares to stir an inch in my defence.
Banishment! Yes, the hideous, burdensome word
Already crushes me with all its weight.
I feel that I am but a lifeless member
The which the healthy body lops away.
As one who dies before his time I am —
Who, conscious of himself but stricken dumb,
Lies shuddering in a waking dream, to be
The unwilling witness of his own interment.
Unspeakable necessity! Yet hold!
Is not a choice still left me? Can I not
Lay hold upon the hand of that good man
Who offer’d aid to me, the nobly born.
But could I do it? I renounce the birth
Which lifted me to such a lofty height?
Forever yield the glory of my hope?
In vain! oh, seize me, Force, with brazen claws!
Unseeing Fate, oh, take me hence away!
The choice that trembles dubious ‘twixt two ills
Is even harder than the ill itself.
[Governess,with porters carrying luggage, goes in silence across the background.
They come, they bear off with them my possessions,
The last remaining of my costly treasures.
Will all I have be stolen from me too?
They take them to the ship and I must follow.
A favoring zephyr lifts the pennant seawards;
Soon shall I see the swelling sails all spread.
The fleet already leaves the harbor mouth!
And now the ship that bears me wretched sails.
They’re coming! I must set my foot on board.
O God! Why are the heavens as brass above me?
Does not my voice of anguish reach thine ear?
So be it! I will go. Yet shall the vessel
Not swallow me within its prison cell.
The plank that leads me over to its side
Shall be the first step for me unto freedom.
Receive me then, ye billows, take me up,
And girdling me around let me descend
Into the bosom of your solemn peace.
And when at last no more I have to fear
From the injustice of this world, then roll
To shore my whitening bones, that pious care
May make my grave upon my native soil.
[She takes a few steps.
Why stop then?
[She hesitates.
Will my foot no more obey me?
What chains my steps? What seems to hold me here?
Oh, fatal love for miserable life,
Again thou bring’st me to the bitter strife.
By banishment, by death and degradation
I am environ’d round about and each
Has deeper anguish for me than the other.
And when I turn my shuddering eyes from one
The other glares with hellish face upon me.
Is there no mortal means, no means divine
To free me from this thousand-footed anguish?
Oh, that a single sympathetic word
Might chance to reach me from the passing throng.
Oh, that a bird, foreboding peace, might fly
Light-winged by me, guiding me to shelter.
I gladly follow whither fate should call.
Point me the way and faith shall lead me on.
Or give me but a hint and I will yield
In hope and confidence without delay.

SCENE VII.

Eugenie. Monk.

Eugenie.
(Standing long in contemplation, then lifting her eyes and seeing the Monk.)
I cannot doubt it: here at last is safety.
Yes, this is he who shall decide my course.
In answer to my prayer he comes to me,
A man of wisdom, full of years, to whom
The heart unhesitating flies for succor.
[Approaching him.
My father! let the sweet, paternal name
To me denied, forbidden and embitter’d,
Be now transferr’d to thee, the noble stranger.
Let me narrate my trouble in few words.
With pain and yet with confidence I lay it
Upon thy heart, not for thy quality
Of wisdom and discreetness, but because
Thou art an aged man belov’d by God.

Monk.
What troubles thee disclose with perfect freedom.
Through Providence the sufferer meets with him
Who ever must regard his highest duty
The alleviation of the woes of others.

Eugenie.
A riddle thou wilt hear and not complaints.
For I would seek an oracle, not counsel.
In two detestable directions stretch
Two paths before my feet. The one leads hither,
The other thence. Which one shall I select?

Monk.
Thou art a tempter to me. Thou wilt count
My answer as a lot?

Eugenie.
A sacred lot.

Monk.
If I conceive thee right, thy eyes aspire
To higher regions out of deepest need.
The will is stricken dead within thy heart.
Thou hopest for a stronger to decide.
In sooth, incomprehensibly to us,
The ever-active Agent as by chance
Sets this or that before us, for our good,
For our deliberation, our decision,
Or our accomplishment: thus, as it were,
Carried, in spite of us we win the goal.
To comprehend this is the richest fortune;
’Tis absolute duty not to interfere,
To wait in patience, comfort in distress.
Oh, would that I were granted grace to feel
Beforehand what were truly best for thee.
But in my breast presentiment is silent.
And if thou canst confide no more in me
Then take a fruitless pity for farewell.

Eugenie.
Shipwreck’d I still have one last spar to clutch.
I hold thee fast and speak against my will
For the last time the word that crushes hope.
A scion of a noble house I now
Am outcast, banish’d o’er the sea; but yet
I could avoid my fate through marriage bonds
Which drag me down to low ignoble spheres.
What whispers now thy heart? Still is it silent?

Monk.
Let it not speak until my searching reason
Shall be oblig’d to recognize its weakness.
The story which to me thou hast confided
Is too indefinite, and my advice
Can likewise only be indefinite.
If thou art forc’d to choose between two evils
Both hated, face them boldly, and then choose
The one that will allow thee widest scope
For worthy deeds and holy undertakings,
That puts the smallest limits to thy spirit,
That hinders thee the least from noble actions.

Eugenie.
It is not marriage then that thou advisest?

Monk.
Not such an one as seems to threaten thee.
What blessing can the priest give when the “Yes”
Proceeds not from the fair bride’s inmost heart?
He should not chain two contraries together
Lest conflict ever freshly born should rise.
It is his godlike service to fulfil
The wish of Love which to the All, the one,
To the eternal joins the momentary,
And that which fades to that which lasts forever.

Eugenie.
Thou sendest me to woe across the ocean.

Monk.
Go hence with comfort for the wretched there.

Eugenie.
What comfort can I give in dark despair?

Monk.
A pure heart as is witness’d by thy face.
A noble courage, lofty, boundless thoughts,
Will hold thee firm and others, wheresoe’er
On earth thy steps may wander. If thou now
In bloom of youth art banish’d innocent,
And bearest through thy solemn acquiescence
The imputation of the sins of others,
Then wilt thou, like a superhuman nature,
Diffuse a wondrous virtue all around thee —
The happy fortune of thy innocence.
So then go hence! Go like a healing breeze
Within the circle of those sorrowing ones;
Rejoice with thy appearance that sad world.
Through powerful words, through mighty deeds encourage
New strength in hearts that have forgot to hope.
Unite the scatter’d into bands around thee.
Bind them in love together, all to thee.
Create there what thou here hast lost,
A race and fatherland and princely house.

Eugenie.
Would’st thou have faith to do what thou commandest?

Monk.
Thus have I done. When still my years were young
The spirit led me into savage lands.
I chang’d rough lives to gentle practices;
I gave the hope of heaven unto death.
Oh, had I not, misled by genuine longing
To serve my fatherland, turn’d back my steps
Unto this desert of audacious life,
This city wilderness of subtile crimes,
This troubled pool of selfish vanity!
The era’s impotency chains my spirit,
Old customs, duties and perhaps a fate
That brought its heaviest trial on me late.
But thou art young, and free from every hindrance;
The wide world lies before thee; press thou on
And get salvation. All the grief thou feelest
Will change to genuine pleasure. Hasten forth!

Eugenie.
Explain more clearly what it is thou fearest.

Monk.
In darkness comes the future pressing on;
What closest lies before us is not seen
E’en by the open eyes of sense, of reason.
If I by daylight wander through these streets
In wonder, and behold the splendid buildings,
The solid bulks rocklike with lofty towers,
The parks with palaces, the noble churches,
And see the harbor with its fleets of ships —
It all appears to me dispos’d and founded
To last forever, and these hurrying throngs
Of busy workers rushing on and on
In ceaseless waves through all the spaces seem
The promise of eternal lastingness.
But when at night this mighty panorama
Repasses through the chambers of my mind,
Then all the murky air is fill’d with rumblings,
The solid earth gives way, the towers totter,
The fitted stonework falls, and all the glory
Which fill’d the scene is scatter’d in confusion.
A few sad creatures climb the hills new risen,
And every heap of rubbish marks a tomb.
A lessen’d people, hard-oppress’d, no more
Are able to restrain the elements;
And with its restless overflow the tide
Fills up the harbor with its sand and slime.

Eugenie.
Night first disarms a man and then in spite
Subdues him with her idle fantasies.

Monk.
Ah! soon enough the sun’s face veil’d in sadness
Comes forth to look upon our woful plight.
But thou must go, thou whom a kindly spirit
Bless’d e’en in banishing. Farewell and hasten!

SCENE VIII.

Eugenie.
From selfish sorrow I am led away
And others’ woes are plac’d before my ken.
Yet does it not concern thee what shall happen
Unto thy fatherland? With added weight
This settles on my overburden’d heart.
Besides the present evil must I bear
The imaginary burdens of the future?
Then it is true what e’en in childhood’s days
Rang in my ears unconscious, what I heard
In youth and question’d and at last have learn’d
From truthful lips of father and of King:
This realm is threaten’d with a sudden fall;
The elements once fused in mighty life
No longer will reciprocally join
With force of love in unity renew’d
Continually. Scattering, forth they fly,
And each returns unto itself in coldness.
Where was the mighty spirit of our fathers
Which for one purpose brought them into union
That hitherto had stood apart in battle,
And which before this mighty people became
Personified as monarch and as father?
That spirit is no more. What now remains
Is but a spectre which with idle striving
Gropes blindly, hopelessly, for lost possessions.
And could I take such cares across with me?
Could I withdraw me from the common danger?
Could I neglect the chance to show myself
Of courage worthy of my noble sires,
And in a time of trouble by my aid
Shame him who has unworthily oppress’d me?
Now, O my fatherland, thy sacred soil
Has first become my inspiration, now
I feel for the first time the pressing call
To stand by thee so long as life shall last.
I will not let thee go; whate’er the bond
That binds me unto thee is henceforth holy.
Where shall I find that noble-minded man
Who offer’d me his hand so honorably?
To him I will confide my life. In secret
He shall preserve me as a talisman pure!
For if a marvel happens on the earth
It happens through the love of faithful hearts.
The greatness of the peril I dismiss;
I do not dare to think upon my weakness.
A favorable chance when times are ripe
Shall bring to lofty purposes the whole.
And if my father, if my King forget me
Whom once they banish’d and disown’d, their eyes
Astonish’d shall upon me rest, preserv’d
To work for the accomplishment in sorrow
Of what in fortune she had vow’d to do.
He comes! With more delight I see him now
Than when he left me. Seeking me he comes!
He thinks we part; I shall remain to him.

SCENE IX.

Eugenie. Counsellor. Boy bearing a beautiful casket.

Counsellor.
The vessels one by one are putting out
And soon I fear me wilt thou too be call’d.
Receive once more a hearty “Fare-thee-well”
With this slight gift which breathes to weary hearts
Refreshment for the long-continu’d voyage.
Remember me, and oh, may evil days
On which thou yearnest for me never come.

Eugenie.
With pleasure I accept thy graceful gift;
It is a pledge to me of loving care;
Yet send it quickly to thy house again.
And if thou thinkest former thoughts and feelest
As thou hast felt, that still my love could be
A satisfaction to thee, I will follow.

Counsellor.
(After a pause, motioning the Boy to depart.) Is’t possible? Has such a sudden change
Brought round thy will to answer in my favor?

Eugenie.
My will is chang’d indeed; but do not think
That apprehension drove me back to thee.
A feeling that is nobler (let me hide it)
Preserves me for my fatherland, for thee.
Now let the question come: Hast thou the courage,
The lofty courage for renunciation,
To vow thyself to her who must renounce?
Canst thou agree to take me, as a sister
Is taken by a brother, in pure affection?
And wilt thou give me counsel and protection
And peaceful home-life in return for love?

Counsellor.
I think that I could all things bear but one —
The thought of losing thee now I have found thee
Seems unendurable to me. To see thee,
Near thee to be, for thee to live, I count
My sole, my highest fortune. Therefore let
Thy heart alone be privileg’d to set
The terms of the alliance which we pledge.

Eugenie.
Henceforth, the world avoiding, I must live
In deep seclusion only known by thee.
If thou a distant lonely house possessest,
Then give it me and send me thence away.

Counsellor.
A small estate I own, well-situated;
But old and half in ruins is the house.
Thou canst however in that region soon
The loveliest dwelling find at small expense.

Eugenie.
Nay! let me settle in the ancient ruin.
It suits my circumstances and my mind.
And when my fortune brightens I shall find
Material and time for busy action.
So soon as I am thine, accompanied
By some retainer, old and faithful, let me
There find a lonely burial-place, in hope
Soon to return in joyful resurrection.

Counsellor.
When can I make my visit to thee there?

Eugenie.
Thou must await in patience till I summon,
For such a day will come to us perchance
To bind us closer with most solemn bonds.

Counsellor.
Thou layest on me a burden all too heavy.

Eugenie.
Fulfil thy obligations unto me;
That I acknowledge mine be well assur’d.
Thou darest much to offer me thy hand
That thou may’st save me. Should I be discover’d,
Too soon discover’d, much thou mightest suffer.
I bid thee keep the wisest circumspection;
Let no one learn the place from which I came.
Indeed my distant lov’d ones I will visit
In spirit only. Not a single line,
No messenger shall dare to name me there
Where for my rescue glows perchance a spark.

Counsellor.
In this momentous crisis words are vain.
The lips can often counterfeit with boldness
Disinterested love, when in the heart
The monster, selfishness, is grimly lurking.
The power of love is shown by deeds alone.
Thus while I win thee I must yield up all,
Even the sight of thee. I meet the test.
Thy image ever will before my eyes
Seem as it seem’d when first I saw thy face,
An object of attraction and of honor.
Because of thee I wish to live. Thou art
My mistress and my queen. And if the priest
From day to day so long as life may last
Bows low before the God he cannot see,
Which in a moment of supreme conviction
In grand ideal swept before his spirit,
So nothing shall destroy henceforth for me,
However thou may’st hide thyself away,
The glory thou hast shed upon my life.

Eugenie.
How absolutely I confide in thee,
And read the truthful lineaments of thy face,
The accents of thy tongue so free from guile!
How sure I am of what a man thou art,
Upright, warm-hearted, strong, reliable!
Here have the proof than which no higher can be
By any woman in her senses given:
I linger not, I haste to follow thee,
Here is my hand. We go unto the altar!

FAUST: PART TWO

Translated by Anna Swanwick

Goethe completed writing Part Two of his epic tragedy Faust in 1831. In contrast to Part One, the focus in the final part is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics, in addition to mystical and philosophical topics. The writing of this second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe’s last years.  Part Two was never published in the playwright’s lifetime, appearing posthumously in 1832.

The second part opens with Faust awaking in a field of fairies, about to embark on a new cycle of adventures. Unlike Part One, it consists of five acts, each representing a different theme.

The first edition of Part Twoo

CONTENTS

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

ACT I.

ACT II.

ACT III.

ACT IV.

ACT V.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Faust.
Mephistopheles(in various disguises).

 Other characters also in ACT I:
Ariel.
Emperor.
Fool(Mephistopheles).
Chancellor.
Commander-in-Chief.
Treasurer.
Marshal.
Astrologer.
Various Ladies, Gentlemen and Pages of the court. Also numerous male and female masks.
Scene — Chiefly in the different apartments and Pleasure Garden of the Imperial Palace.

Other characters also in ACT II:
Famulus.
Baccalaureus.
Wagner.
Homunculus.
Numerous mythical personages and monsters appearing in the Classical Walpurgis-Night.
Scene — Faust’sStudy; afterwards the Pharsalian Plains.

 Other characters also in ACT III:
Helen.
Phorkyad(Mephistopheles).
Lynceus,the Watchman.
Euphorion, Helen’sSon.
Panthalisand Chorus of Trojan women.
Scene — At first the supposed Palace of Menelaus in Sparta; afterwards the Courtyard of a mediæval castle, and finally a rocky dell.

Other characters also in ACT IV:
The three mighty men: Bully, Havequick,and Holdfast.
Speedquick.
The Emperor,and other officers of his Court, as in Act I.
Scene — A high mountainous country and the adjacent neighborhood.

Other characters also in ACT V:
Baucis.
Philemon.
A Wanderer.
Lynceus.
The four gray women: Want, Guilt, Careand Need.
Lemures.
A Penitent,formerly Margaret.
Dr. Marianus.
Chorus of Angels and Penitents and various Heavenly characters.
Scene — The neighborhood of  Faust’sPalace, afterwards rocky heights and the higher regions of the sky.

ACT I.

A Pleasing Landscape.
Faust reclining upon flowery turf, restless, seeking sleep.
Twilight.
Circle of spirits, hovering, flit around. — Graceful, tiny forms.

Ariel.
(Song, accompanied by Æolian harps. )
When, in vernal showers descending,
Blossoms gently veil the earth,
When the fields’ green wealth, up-tending,
Gleams on all of mortal birth:
Tiny elves, where help availeth,
Large of heart, there fly apace;
Pity they whom grief assaileth,
Be he holy, be he base.
Ye round this head on airy wing careering,
Attend, in noble Elfin guise appearing;
Assuage the cruel strife that rends his heart,
The burning shaft remove of keen remorse,
From rankling horror cleanse his inmost part:
Four are the pauses of the nightly course;
Them, without rest, fill up with kindly art.
And first his head upon cool pillow lay,
Then bathe ye him in dew from Lethe’s stream;
His limbs, cramp-stiffen’d, will more freely play,
If sleep-refreshed he wait morn’s wak’ning beam.
Perform the noblest Elfin rite,
Restore ye him to the holy light!

Chorus.
(Singly, two or more, alternately and together.) Softly when warm gales are stealing
O’er the green-environ’d ground,
Twilight sheddeth all-concealing
Mists and balmy odors round:
Whispers low sweet peace to mortals,
Rocks the heart to childlike rest,
And of daylight shuts the portals
To these eyes, with care oppress’d.
Night hath now descended darkling,
Holy star is link’d to star;
Sovereign fires, or faintly sparkling,
Glitter near and shine afar;
Glitter here lake-mirror’d, yonder
Shine adown the clear night sky;
Sealing bliss of perfect slumber,
Reigns the moon’s full majesty.
Now the hours are cancell’d; sorrow,
Happiness, have pass’d away:
Whole thou shalt be on the morrow!
Feel it! Trust the new-born day!
Swell the hills, green grow the valleys,
In the dusk ere breaks the morn;
And in silvery wavelets dallies,
With the wind, the ripening corn.
Cherish hope, let naught appall thee!
Mark the East, with splendor dyed!
Slight the fetters that enthrall thee;
Fling the shell of sleep aside!
Gird thee for the high endeavor;
Shun the crowd’s ignoble ease!
Fails the noble spirit never,
Wise to think, and prompt to seize.
[A tremendous tumult announces the uprising of the sun.

Ariel.
Hark! the horal tempest nears!
Sounding but for spirit ears,
Lo! the new-born day appears;
Clang the rocky portals, climb
Phœbus’ wheels with thund’rous chime:
Breaks with tuneful noise the light!
Blare of trumpet, clarion sounding,
Eyesight dazing, ear astounding!
Hear not the unheard; take flight!
Into petal’d blossoms glide
Deeper, deeper, still to bide,
In the clefts, ‘neath thickets! ye,
If it strike you, deaf will be.

Faust.
Life’s pulses reawaken’d freshly bound,
The mild ethereal twilight fain to greet.
Thou, Earth, this night wast also constant found,
And, newly-quicken’d, breathing at my feet,
Beginnest now to gird me with delight:
A strong resolve dost rouse, with noble heat
Aye to press on to being’s sovereign height.
The world in glimmering dawn still folded lies;
With thousand-voiced life the woods resound;
Mist-wreaths the valley shroud; yet from the skies
Sinks heaven’s clear radiance to the depths profound;
And bough and branch from dewy chasms rise,
Where they had droop’d erewhile in slumber furl’d;
Earth is enamell’d with unnumber’d dyes,
Leaflet and flower with dewdrops are impearl’d;
Around me everywhere is paradise.
Gaze now aloft! Each mountain’s giant height
The solemn hour announces, herald-wise;
They early may enjoy the eternal light,
To us below which later finds its way.
Now are the Alpine slopes and valleys dight
With the clear radiance of the new-born day,
Which, downward, step by step, steals on apace. —
It blazes forth, — and, blinded by the ray,
With aching eyes, alas! I veil my face.
So when a hope, the heart hath long held fast,
Trustful, still striving towards its highest goal,
Fulfilment’s portals open finds at last; —
Sudden from those eternal depths doth roll
An overpowering flame; — we stand aghast!
The torch of life to kindle we were fain; —
A fire-sea, — what a fire! — doth round us close;
Love is it? Is it hate? with joy and pain,
In alternation vast, that round us glows?
So that to earth we turn our wistful gaze,
In childhood’s veil to shroud us once again!
So let the sun behind me pour its rays!
The cataract, through rocky cleft that roars,
I view, with growing rapture and amaze.
From fall to fall, with eddying shock, it pours,
In thousand torrents to the depths below,
Aloft in air up-tossing showers of spray.
But see, in splendor bursting from the storm,
Arches itself the many-colored bow,
An ever-changeful, yet continuous form,
Now drawn distinctly, melting now away,
Diffusing dewy coolness all around!
Man’s efforts there are glass’d, his toil and strife;
Reflect, more true the emblem will be found:
This bright reflected glory pictures life!
Imperial Palace. Throne-Room.
Council of State, in expectation of the Emperor.
Trumpets.
Enter courtiers of every grade, splendidly attir’d. The Emperor ascends the throne; to the right the Astrologer.

Emperor.
I greet you, trusty friends and dear,
Assembled thus from far and wide! —
I see the wise man at my side,
But wherefore is the fool not here?

Page.
Entangled in thy mantle’s flow,
He tripped upon the stair below;
The mass of fat they bare away,
If dead or drunken — who can say?

Second Page.
Forthwith another comes apace,
With wondrous speed to take his place;
Costly, yet so grotesque his gear,
All start amaz’d as he draws near.
Crosswise the guards before his face,
Entrance to bar, their halberds hold —
Yet there he is, the fool so bold.

Mephis.
(Kneeling before the throne.)
What is accurs’d and gladly hail’d?
What is desir’d and chas’d away?

What is upbraid’d and assail’d?
What wins protection every day?
Whom darest thou not summon here?
Whose name doth plaudits still command?
What to thy throne now draweth near?
What from this place itself hath bann’d?

Emperor.
For this time thou thy words mayst spare!
This is no place for riddles, friend;
They are these gentlemen’s affair. —
Solve them! an ear I’ll gladly lend.
My old fool’s gone, far, far away, I fear;
Take thou his place, come, stand beside me here!
[Mephistophelesascends and places himself at the Emperor’sleft.
(Murmur of the Crowd.)
Here’s a new fool — for plague anew!
Whence cometh he? — How pass’d he through?
The old one fell — he squander’d hath. —
He was a tub — now ’tis a lath. —

Emperor.
So now, my friends, belov’d and leal,
Be welcome all, from near and far!
Ye meet ‘neath an auspicious star;
For us above are written joy and weal.
But tell me wherefore, on this day,
When we all care would cast away,
And don the masker’s quaint array,
And naught desire but to enjoy,
Should we with state affairs ourselves annoy?
But if ye think it so must be indeed,
Why, well and good, let us forthwith proceed!

Chancellor.
The highest virtue circles halo-wise
Our Cæsar’s brow; virtue, which from the throne,
He validly can exercise alone:
Justice! — What all men love and prize,
What all demand, desire, and sorely want,
It lies with him, this to the folk to grant.
But ah! what help can intellect command,
Goodness of heart, or willingness of hand,
When fever saps the state with deadly power,
And mischief breedeth mischief, hour by hour?
To him who downward from this height supreme
Views the wide realm, ’tis like a troubled dream,
Where the deform’d deformity o’ersways,
Where lawlessness, through law, the tyrant plays,
And error’s ample world itself displays.
One steals a woman, one a steer,
Lights from the altar, chalice, cross,
Boasts of his deed full many a year,
Unscath’d in body, without harm or loss.
Now to the hall accusers throng;
On cushion’d throne the judge presides;
Surging meanwhile in eddying tides,
Confusion waxes fierce and strong.
He may exult in crime and shame,
Who on accomplices depends;
Guilty! the verdict they proclaim,
When Innocence her cause defends.
So will the world succumb to ill,
And what is worthy perish quite;
How then may grow the sense which still
Instructs us to discern the right?
E’en the right-minded man, in time,
To briber and to flatterer yields;
The judge, who cannot punish crime,
Joins with the culprit whom he shields. —
I’ve painted black, yet fain had been
A veil to draw before the scene.
[Pause.
Measures must needs be taken; when
All injure or are injur’d, then
E’en Majesty becomes a prey.

Field-Marshal.
In these wild days what tumults reign!
Each smitten is and smites again;
Deaf to command, will none obey.
The burgher, safe behind his wall,
Within his rocky nest, the knight,
Against us have conspir’d, and all
Firmly to hold their own unite.
Impatient is the hireling now,
With vehemence he claims his due;
And did we owe him naught, I trow,
Off he would run, nor bid adieu.
Who thwarts what fondly all expect,
He hath disturb’d a hornet’s nest;
The empire which they should protect,
It lieth plunder’d and oppress’d.
Their furious rage may none restrain;
Already half the world’s undone;
Abroad there still are kings who reign —
None thinks ’tis his concern, not one.

Treasurer.
Who will depend upon allies!
For us their promis’d subsidies
Like conduit-water, will not flow.
Say, Sire, through your dominions vast
To whom hath now possession pass’d!
Some upstart, wheresoe’er we go,
Keeps house, and independent reigns;
We must look on, he holds his own;
So many rights away we’ve thrown,
That for ourselves no right remains.
On so-called parties in the state
There’s no reliance, now-a-days;
They may deal out or blame or praise,
Indifferent are love and hate.
The Ghibelline as well as Guelph
Retire, that they may live at ease!
Who helps his neighbor now? Himself
Each hath enough to do to please.
Barr’d are the golden gates; while each
Scrapes, snatches, gathers all within his reach —
Empty, meanwhile, our chest remains.

Steward.
What worry must I, also, bear!
Our aim each day is still to spare —
And more each day we need; my pains,
Daily renew’d, are never o’er.
The cooks lack nothing; — deer, wild-boar,
Stags, hares, fowls, turkeys, ducks and geese, —
Tribute in kind, sure payment, these
Come fairly in, and none complains.
But now at last wine fails; and if of yore
Up-piled upon the cellar-floor,
Cask rose on cask, a goodly store,
From the best slopes and vintage; now
The swilling of our lords, I trow,
Unceasing, drains the very lees.
E’en the Town-council must give out
Its liquor; — bowls and cups they seize,
And ‘neath the table lies the drunken rout.
Now must I pay, whate’er betides;
Me the Jew spares not; he provides
Anticipation-bonds which feed
Each year on that which must succeed;
The swine are never fatten’d now;
Pawn’d is the pillow or the bed,
And to the table comes fore-eaten bread.

Emperor.
(After some reflection to Mephistopheles.) Say, fool, another grievance knowest thou?

Mephis.
I, nowise. On this circling pomp to gaze,
On thee and thine! There can reliance fail
Where majesty resistless sways,
And ready power makes foemen quail?
Where loyal will, through reason strong,
And prowess, manifold, unite,
What could together join for wrong,
For darkness, where such stars give light?
(Murmur of the Crowd.)
He is a knave — he comprehends —
He lies — while lying serves his ends —
Full well I know — what lurks behind —
What next? — Some scheme is in the wind! —

Mephis.
Where is not something wanting here on earth?
Here this, — there that: of gold is here the dearth.
It cannot from the floor be scrap’d, ’tis true;
But what lies deepest wisdom brings to view.
In mountain-veins, walls underground,
Is gold, both coin’d and uncoin’d, to be found.
And if ye ask me, — bring it forth who can?
Spirit and nature-power of gifted man.

Chancellor.
Nature and spirit — Christians ne’er should hear
Such words, with peril fraught and fear.
These words doom atheists to the fire.
Nature is sin, spirit is devil; they,
Between them, doubt beget, their progeny,
Hermaphrodite, mis-shapen, dire.
Not so with us! Within our Cæsar’s land
Two orders have arisen, two alone,
Who worthily support his ancient throne:
Clergy and knights, who fearless stand,
Bulwarks ‘gainst every storm, and they
Take church and state, as their appropriate pay.
Through lawless men, the vulgar herd
To opposition have of late been stirr’d;
The heretics these are, the wizards, who
The city ruin and the country too.
With thy bold jests, to this high sphere,
Such miscreants wilt smuggle in;
Hearts reprobate to you are dear;
They to the fool are near of kin.

Mephis.
Herein your learned men I recognize!
What you touch not, miles distant from you lies;
What you grasp not, is naught in sooth to you;
What you count not, cannot you deem be true;
What you weigh not, that hath for you no weight;
What you coin not, you’re sure is counterfeit.

Emperor.
Therewith our needs are not one whit the less.
What meanest thou with this thy Lent address?
I’m tired of this eternal If and How.
’Tis gold we lack; so good, procure it thou!

Mephis.
I’ll furnish more, ay, more than all you ask.
Though light it seem, not easy is the task.
There lies the gold, but to procure it thence,
That is the art: who knoweth to commence?
Only consider, in those days of terror,
When human floods swamp’d land and folk together,
How every one, how great soe’er his fear,
All that he treasur’d most, hid there or here;
So was it ‘neath the mighty Roman’s sway,
So on till yesterday, ay, till to-day:
That all beneath the soil still buried lies —
The soil is Cæsar’s, his shall be the prize.

Treasurer.
Now for a fool he speaketh not amiss;
Our Cæsar’s ancient right, in sooth, was this.

Chancellor.
Satan for you spreads golden snares; ’tis clear,
Something not right or pious worketh here.

Steward.
To us at court if welcome gifts he bring,
A little wrong is no such serious thing.

Field-Marshal.
Shrewd is the fool, he bids what all desire;
The soldier, whence it comes, will not inquire.

Mephis.
You think yourselves, perchance, deceiv’d by me;
Ask the Astrologer! This man is he!
Circle round circle, hour and house, he knows. —
Then tell us how the heavenly aspect shows.
(Murmur of the Crowd.)
Two rascals — each to other known —
Phantast and fool — so near the throne —
The old old song, — now trite with age —
The fool still prompts — while speaks the sage.

Astrologer.
(Speaks, Mephistophelesprompts.) The sun himself is purest gold; for pay
And favor serves the herald, Mercury;
Dame Venus hath bewitch’d you from above,
Early and late, she looks on you with love;
Chaste Luna’s humor varies hour by hour;
Mars, though he strike not, threats you with his power;
And Jupiter is still the fairest star;
Saturn is great, small to the eye and far;
As metal him we slightly venerate,
Little in worth, though ponderous in weight.
Now when with Sol fair Luna doth unite,
Silver with gold, cheerful the world and bright!
Then easy ’tis to gain whate’er one seeks;
Parks, gardens, palaces, and rosy cheeks;
These things procures this highly learned man.
He can accomplish what none other can.

Emperor.
Double, methinks, his accents ring,
And yet they no conviction bring.
(Murmur.)
Of what avail! — a worn-out tale —
Calendery — and chemistry —
I the false word — full oft have heard —
And as of yore — we’re hoax’d once more.

Mephis.
The grand discovery they misprize,
As, in amaze, they stand around;
One prates of gnomes and sorceries,
Another of the sable hound.
What matters it, though witlings rail,
Though one his suit ‘gainst witchcraft press,
If his sole tingle none the less,
If his sure footing also fail?
Ye of all swaying Nature feel
The secret working, never-ending,
And, from her lowest depths up-tending,
E’en now her living trace doth steal.
If sudden cramps your limbs surprise,
If all uncanny seem the spot —
There dig and delve, but dally not!
There lies the fiddler, there the treasure lies!
(Murmur.)
Like lead it lies my foot about —
Cramp’d is my arm — ’tis only gout —
Twitchings I have in my great toe —
Down all my back strange pains I know —
Such indications make it clear
That sumless treasuries are here.

Emperor.
To work — the time for flight is past. —
Put to the test your frothy lies!
These treasures bring before our eyes!
Sceptre and sword aside I’ll cast,
And with these royal hands, indeed,
If thou lie not, to work proceed.
Thee, if thou lie, I’ll send to hell!

Mephis.
Thither to find the way I know full well! —
Yet can I not enough declare,
What wealth unown’d lies waiting everywhere:
The countryman, who ploughs the land,
Gold-crocks upturneth with the mould;
Nitre he seeks in lime-walls old,
And findeth, in his meagre hand,
Scar’d, yet rejoic’d, rouleaus of gold.
How many a vault upblown must be,
Into what clefts, what shafts, must he,
Who doth of hidden treasure know,
Descend, to reach the world below!
In cellars vast, impervious made,
Goblets of gold he sees display’d,
Dishes and plates, row after row;
There beakers, rich with rubies, stand;
And would he use them, close at hand
Well stor’d the ancient moisture lies;
Yet — would ye him who knoweth, trust? —
The staves long since have turned to dust,
A tartar cask their place supplies!
Not gold alone and jewels rare,
Essence of noblest wines are there,
In night and horror veiled. The wise
Unwearied here pursues his quest.
To search by day, that were a jest;
’Tis darkness that doth harbor mysteries.

Emperor.
What can the dark avail? Look thou to that!
If aught have worth, it cometh to the light.
Who can detect the rogue at dead of night?
Black are the cows, and gray is every cat.
These pots of heavy gold, if they be there —
Come, drive thy plough, upturn them with thy share!

Mephis.
Take spade and hoe thyself; — dig on —
Great shalt thou be through peasant toil —
A herd of golden calves anon
Themselves shall tear from out the soil;
Then straight, with rapture newly born,
Thyself thou canst, thy sweetheart wilt adorn.
A sparkling gem, lustrous, of varied dye,
Beauty exalts as well as majesty.

Emperor.
To work, to work! How long wilt linger?

Mephis.
Sire,
Relax, I pray, such vehement desire!
First let us see the motley, joyous, show!
A mind distraught conducts not to the goal.
First must we calmness win through self-control,
Through things above deserve what lies below.
Who seeks for goodness must himself be good;
Who seeks for joy must moderate his blood;

Who wine desires, the luscious grape must press;
Who craveth miracles, more faith possess.

Emperor.
So be the interval in gladness spent!
Ash-Wednesday cometh, to our hearts’ content.
Meanwhile we’ll solemnize, whate’er befall,
More merrily the joyous Carnival.
[Trumpets. Exeunt.

Mephis.
That merit and success are link’d together,
This to your fools occurreth never;
Could they appropriate the wise man’s stone,
That, not the wise man, they would prize alone.
[A spacious Hall, with adjoining apartments, arranged and decorated for a masquerade.

Herald.
Think not we hold in Germany our revels;
Where dances reign of death, of fools and devils;
You doth a cheerful festival invite.
Our Cæsar, Romeward turning his campaign,
Hath — for his profit, and for your delight —
Cross’d the high Alps, and won a fair domain.
Before the sacred feet bow’d down,
His right to reign he first hath sought,
And when he went to fetch his crown,
For us the fool’s cap hath he brought.
Now all of us are born anew;
And every world-experienc’d man
Draws it in comfort over head and ears;
A fool beneath it, he appears,
And plays the sage as best he can.
I see them, how they form in groups,
Now they pair off, now wavering sever;
Choir now with choir together troops,
Within, without, unwearied ever!
The world remaineth as of yore,
With fooleries, ten thousand score,
The one great fool, for ever more!

Garden-Girls.
(Song, accompanied by mandolins.) That to us ye praise may render,
Deck’d are we in festive sort;
Girls of Florence, we the splendor
Follow of the German court.
Many a flower, we, Flora’s vassals,
In our dark brown tresses wear;
Silken threads and silken tassels,
Play their part and grace our hair.
For we hold ourselves deserving
All your praises, full and clear;
Since our flowers, their bloom preserving,
Blossom through the livelong year.
Cuttings divers-hued were taken,
And arrang’d with symmetry;
Piece by piece they mirth awaken,
Yet the whole attracts the eye.
Garden-girls and fair to look on,
Fittingly we play our part;
For the natural in woman,
Closely is allied to art.

Herald.
Now from baskets richly laden,
Which, upon her head and arm,
Beareth every lovely maiden,
Let each choose what each doth charm!
Hasten ye, till bower and alley
Aspect of a garden bears!
Worthy are the crowds to dally
Round the sellers and their wares.

Garden-Girls.
In this mart, your flowers unscreening,
Cheapen not, as them you show!
With brief words, but full of meaning,
What he hath, let each one know.

Olive-Branch.
(With fruit.) I of blossoms envy none,
Quarrels studiously I shun;
They against my nature are:
Marrow of the land, in sooth
Pledge I am of peace and ruth,
To all regions near and far.
Be it my good fortune now
To adorn the loveliest brow.

Wheat-Wreath.
(Golden.) Ceres’ gifts, sweet peace expressing,
Would enhance thy charms; be wise!
What is useful, rich in blessing,
As thy best adornment prize!

Fancy-Garland.
Colored flowers, from moss out-peering,
Mallow-like, a wondrous show —
Not in nature’s guise appearing,
Fashion ’tis that makes them blow.

Fancy-Nosegay.
Theophrastus would not venture
Names to give to flowers like these.
Yet, though some perchance may censure,
Many still I hope to please.
Who to wreathe her locks permits me
Straight shall win a heighten’d grace,
Or who near her heart admits me,
Finding on her breast a place.

Challenge.
Be your motley fancies moulded,
For the fashion of the day.
Nature never yet unfolded
Wonders half so strange as they:
Golden bells, green stalks, forth glancing
From rich locks, their charm enhancing.
But we —

Rosebuds.
Hide from mortal eyes.
Happy he who finds the prize!
When draws nigh once more the summer,
Rosebuds greet the bright new-comer. —
Who such happiness would miss?
Promise, then fulfilment, — this
Is the law in Flora’s reign,
Swayeth too sense, heart, and brain.
[The flower-girls tastefully arrange their wares under green, leafy arcades.

Gardeners.
(Song, accompanied by Theorbos.)

Mark the blossoms calmly sprouting,
Charmingly to wreathe your brow;
Fruits will not deceive, I trow;
Taste, enjoy them, nothing doubting.

Magnum bonums, cherries, peaches,
Faces offer sun-embrown’d:
Buy, poor judge the eye is found; —
Heed what tongue, what palate teaches.

Luscious fruits to taste invite them
Who behold these rich supplies.
We o’er roses poetize; —
As for apples, we must bite them.

Let us now, with your good pleasure,
Join your youthful choir, in pairs;
And beside your flowery wares,
Thus adorn our riper treasure.

Under leaf-adorned bowers,
‘Mid the merry windings haste;
Each will find what suits his taste;
Buds or leafage, fruit or flowers.
[Amid alternate songs, accompanied by guitars and Theorbos, the two choruses proceed to arrange their wares, terrace-wise, and to offer them for sale.
Motherand Daughter.

Mother.

Maiden, when thou cam’st to light,
Full thy tender form of grace;
In its tiny hood bedight,
Lovely was thy infant face.
Then I thought of thee with pride
Of some wealthy youth the bride,
Taking as his wife thy place.

Ah! full many a year in vain,
All unus’d away have pass’d;
Of the suitors’ motley train
Quickly hath gone by the last!
Thou with one didst gaily dance,
One didst seek with quiet glance,
Or sly elbow-touch, to gain.

All the fêtes that we might plan,
Vainly did we celebrate;
Games of forfeit, or third man,
Fruitless were, they brought no mate;
Many a fool’s abroad to-day,
Dear one, now thy charms display,
One thou mayst attach, though late.

[Girlish playfellows, young and beautiful, enter and join the groups; loud confidential chatting is heard. Fishers and bird-catchers with nets, fishing-rods, limed twigs, and other gear, enter and mingle with the maidens. Reciprocal attempts to win, to catch, to escape, and hold fast, give occasion to most agreeable dialogues.

Wood-Cutters.
(Enter, boisterous and uncouth.)
Place! Give place!
We must have space!
Trees we level,
Down they fall,
Crashing to the ground;
As we bear them forth,
Blows we deal around.
To our praise, be sure; —
This proclaim aloud; —
Labor’d not the boor,
Where were then the proud!
How in idless revel
Could they at their ease!
Never then forget, —
If we did not sweat,
That ye all would freeze.

Punchinelloes.
(Awkward and foolish.)
Fools are ye, poor hacks!
Born with curved backs.
Prudent ones are we,
From all burdens free;
For our greasy caps,
Our jerkins and our traps
We bear right easily.
Forthwith at our leisure,
We with slipper’d feet,
Saunter at our pleasure,
On through mart and street,
Standing still or going,
At each other crowing;
When the folk around
Gather at the sound,
Slipping then aside,
Frolicking together,
Eel-like on we glide.
And we care not whether
Ye applaud or blame;
To us ’tis all the same.
[
Editor: illegible word]
(Flattering — lustful.)

Porters brave, and you,
Charcoal-burners true,
Kinsmen, ye indeed
Are the men we need.

Bowings low,
Assenting smiles,
Long-drawn phrases,
Crooked wiles,
Double-breath,
That as you please,
Blows hot or cold;
What profit these? —

Down from heaven
Must fire be given,
Vast, enormous,
If, to warm us,
We no coal had got,
Nor of logs a heap,
Warm our hearth to keep,
Our furnace to make hot.

There is roasting,
There is brewing,
There is toasting,
There is stewing;
Your true taster
Licks the dish;
Sniffs the roast,
Forebodes the fish;
These for great deeds make him able,
Seated at his patron’s table.

Drunken Man.
(Hardly conscious.)
Naught to-day shall mar my pleasure!
Frank I feel myself and free;
Cheerful songs and jovial leisure,
Both I hither bring with me;
Therefore drink I! Drink ye, drink!
Strike your glasses! Clink ye, clink!
You behind there, join the fun!
Strike your glasses; so, ’tis done!
Let my wife, shrill-tongued, assail me,
Sneering at my colored vest,
And, despite my vaunting, hail me
Fool, like masquerader dress’d;
Still I’ll drink! Come drink ye, drink!
Strike your glasses! Clink ye, clink!
Fools in motley, join the fun!
Strike your glasses; so, ’tis done!
Here I’m bless’d, whoever chooses
Me, as erring, to upbraid:
If to score mine host refuses,
Scores the hostess, scores the maid;
Always drink I! drink ye, drink!
Up my comrades! clink ye, clink!
Each to other! Join the fun!
To my thinking now ’tis done!
From this place there’s now no flying,
Here where pleasures are at hand:
Let me lie, where I am lying,
For I can no longer stand.

Chorus.
Brothers all, come drink ye, drink!
One more toast, now clink ye, clink!
Firmly sit on bench and board!
‘Neath the table lie who’s floor’d!
[The Heraldannounces various poets, the Poet of Nature, Court-singers, and Ritter-singers, tender as well as enthusiastic. In the throng of competitors of every kind none will allow the others to be heard. One sneaks past with a few words.

Satirist.
Know ye what would me to-day,
The poet, most rejoice and cheer?
If I dar’d to sing and say,
That which none would like to hear.
[Poets of Night and of the Sepulchre send apologies, inasmuch as they are engaged in a most interesting conversation with a newly-arisen Vampire, wherefrom a new kind of poetry may perhaps be developed; the Heraldmust admit the excuse, and meanwhile summons the Greek Mythology, which, though in modern masks, loses neither character nor charm.

artist: franz simm
FAUST. SECOND PART.
victory, fear, hope and prudence
The Graces.

Aglaia.
Charm we bring to life, and grace;
In your gifts let both have place!

Hegemony.
In receiving let the twain,
Preside! ’Tis sweet our wish to gain.

Euphrosyne.
And when benefits you own
Chiefly be these graces shown!
The Fates.

Atropos.
I, the Eldest, am from yonder
Realm invited, here to spin.
Much to think of, much to ponder,
Lieth life’s frail thread within.
That it pliant be and tender,
Finest flax to choose be mine;
That it even be and slender,
Must the cunning finger twine.
If of festive dance and pleasure
Ye too wantonly partake,
Think upon this thread’s just measure;
be cautious! It may break!

Clotho.
Know ye, to my guidance lately
They the fateful shears confide.
By our elder’s doings greatly
None, in sooth, were edified.
Spinnings, to no issue tending,
Forth she drew to air and light;
Threads of noblest promise rending,
Down she sent to realms of night.
While a novice still in reigning,
I too err’d, in bygone years;
But to-day, myself restraining,
In the sheath I plunge my shears.
Fain I am to wear the bridle,
Kindly I this place survey;
In these seasons, gay and idle,
Give your revelry full play!

Lachesis.
Reason’s laws alone obeying,
Order was to me decreed.
Mine the will that, ever-swaying,
Never errs though over-speed.
Threads are coming; threads are going;
Each one in its course I guide,
None permit I overflowing,
From its skein to swerve aside.
Were I only once to slumber! —
For the world my spirit quakes;
Years we measure, hours we number,
And the hank the weaver takes.

Herald.
How vers’d so e’er in lore of ancient fame,
Those who are coming now ye would not know;
Gazing upon these workers of much woe,
Them, as your welcome guests, ye would proclaim.
The Furies these, — none will believe us; — kind,
Graceful in figure, pretty, young and fair;
If their acquaintance ye would make, beware;
How serpent-like such doves can wound, ye’ll find.
Cunning they are, yet now, when every clown
Boastful, his failings shuns not to proclaim,
They too, desiring not angelic fame,
Own themselves plagues of country and of town.

Alecto.
What help for you? Since young we are and fair,
Ye in such flattering kittens will confide!
Has any here a sweetheart to his side,
Stealing, we gain his ear, until we dare
To tell him, face to face, she may be caught
Winking at this or that one; that ’tis plain,
She halts, is crooked-back’d, and dull of brain,
And, if to him betroth’d, is good for naught.
To vex the bride doth also tax our skill:
We tell what slighting things, some weeks agone,
Her lover said of her, to such an one. —
They’re reconcil’d, yet something rankles still.

Megara.
That’s a mere jest! Let them be mated, then
I go to work, and e’en the fairest joy,
In every case, can through caprice destroy.
The hours are changeful, changeful too are men.
What was desir’d, once grasp’d, its charm hath lost;
Who firmly holds the madly longed-for prize,
Straight for some other blessing fondly sighs;
The sun he flieth, and would warm the frost.
How to arrange, I know, in such affairs;
And here Asmodi lead, my comrade true,
At the right time mischief abroad to strew;
And so destroy the human race in pairs.

Tisiphone.

Poison, steel, I mix and whet,
Words abjuring, — for the traitor; —
Lov’st thou others, sooner, later,
Ruin shall o’erwhelm thee yet.

All transform’d to gall and foam
Is the moment’s sweetest feeling!
Here no higgling, here no dealing!
Sinn’d he hath, his sin comes home.

Let none say: “Forgiveness cherish!”
To the rocks my cause I bring;
Hark! Revenge, the echoes ring!
Who betrayeth, he must perish!

Herald.
Now may it please you, to retire behind;
For what now cometh is not of your kind. —
Ye see a mountain press the crowd among,
Its flanks with brilliant carpet proudly hung;
With lengthen’d tusks, and serpent-trunk below,
A mystery, but I the key will show.
Thron’d on his neck a gentle lady rides,
With a fine wand his onward course she guides.
Aloft the other stands, of stately height,
Girt with a splendor that o’erpowers the sight;
Beside him, chain’d, two noble dames draw near;
Sad is the one, the other blithe of cheer;
The one for freedom yearns, the other feels she’s free.
Let them declare in turn who they may be!

Fear.
Torches, lamps, with lurid sheen,
Through the turmoil gleam around;
These deceitful forms between,
Fetters hold me firmly bound.
Hence, vain laughter-loving brood!
I mistrust your senseless grin!
All my foes, with clamor rude,
Strive to-night to hem me in.
Friend like foeman would betray me,
But his mask I recognize;
There is one who fain would slay me,
Now, unmask’d, away he hies.
Ah, how gladly would I wander
Hence, and leave this lower sphere;
But destruction, threatening yonder,
Holds me ‘twixt despair and fear.

Hope.
Hail! Beloved sisters, hail!
If to-day and yesterday
Ye have lov’d this masking play,
Yet to-morrow, trite the tale,
Will your masks aside be thrown;
And if, ‘neath the torches’ glare,
We no special joy have known,
Yet will we, in daylight fair,
Just according to our pleasure,
Now with others, now alone,
Wander forth o’er lawn and mead;
Work at will, or take our leisure,
Careless live, exempt from need;
And at last, we’ll aye succeed.
Everywhere, as welcome guest,
Step we in, with easy mind;
Confident that we the best
Somewhere, certainly, may find.

Prudence.
Fear and hope, in chains thus guiding,
Two of man’s chief foes, I bar
From the thronging crowds; — dividing,
Clear the way; — now sav’d ye are!
I this live colosse am leading,
Which, tower-laden, as ye gaze,
Unfatigued is onward speeding,
Step by step, up steepest ways.
But, with broad and rapid pinion,
From the battlement on high,
Gazing on her wide dominion,
Turneth that divinity.
Fame, around her, bright and glorious,
Shining on all sides one sees:
Victory her name, — victorious
Queen of all activities.

Zoilo-Thersites.
Bah! bah! The very time I’ve hit!
You all are wrong, no doubt of it!
Yet what I make my special aim
Is victory, yon stately dame.
She, with her snowy wings, esteems
Herself an eagle, and still deems
That wheresoe’er she bends her sight,
Peoples and land are hers, by right!
But, where a glorious deed is done,
My harness straight I buckle on;
Where high is low, and low is high,
The crooked straight, the straight awry —
Then only am I wholly sound:
So be it on this earthly round.

Herald.
So take thou then, thou ragged hound,
From my good staff, a master-blow!
There crouch and wriggle, bending low!
The double dwarfish form, behold,
Itself to a vile ball hath roll’d!
The ball becomes an egg! — strange wonder!
It now dilates and bursts asunder:
Thence falleth a twin-pair to earth,
Adder and bat; — a hideous birth;
Forth in the dust one creeps, his brother
Doth darkling to the ceiling flee;
Outside they haste to join each other —
The third I am not fain to be!
(Murmur.)
Come on! Behind they’re dancing — No,
Not I, from hence I fain would go —
Dost thou not feel the spectral rout
Is flitting everywhere about?
It whistl’d right above my hair —
Close to my feet, — I felt it there —
No one is hurt — ’tis not denied, —
But we have all been terrified —
Wholly the frolic now is ended —
’Tis what the brutish pair intended.

Herald.
Since on me, at festive masque,
Laid hath been the Herald’s task,
At the doors I watch with care,
Lest aught harmful, unaware,
Creep into this joyous space;
I nor waver, nor give place.
Yet I fear the spectral brood
Through the window may intrude;
And from trick and sorcery,
I know not how to keep you free.
First the dwarf awaken’d doubt,
Now streams in the spectral rout.
I would show you herald-wise,
What each figure signifies.
But what none can comprehend
I should strive to teach in vain.
All must help me to explain! —
Through the crowd behold ye it wend;
A splendid car is borne along
By a team of four; the throng
Is not parted, nor doth reign
Tumult round the stately wain;
Bright it glitters from afar;
Shineth many a motley star,
As from magic-lantern cast;
On it snorts with stormful blast. —
I needs must shudder! Clear the way!

Boy-Charioteer.
Stay your wings, ye coursers, stay!
Own the bridle’s wonted sway!
Rein yourselves, as you I rein;
When I prompt you, rush amain! —
Honor we this festal ground.
See how press the folk around,
Ring in ring, with wondering eyes. —
Herald, as thy wont is, rise;
From you ere we flee afar,
Tell our name, our meaning show!
Since we allegories are,
’Tis thy duty us to know.

Herald.
I cannot guess how I should name thee;
I to describe thee should prefer.

Boy-Charioteer.
So, try it then!

Herald.
We must proclaim thee,
Firstly to be both young and fair;
A half-grown boy; — yet women own
They fain would see thee fully grown;
A future wooer seemest thou to me,
A gay deceiver out and out to be.

Boy-Charioteer.
Not badly spoken! Pray proceed!
The riddle’s cheerful meaning strive to read.

Herald.
Thine eyes swart flash, thy jewell’d bandlet glowing
Starlike, amid thy night-like hair;
And what a graceful robe dost wear,
Down from thy shoulder to thy buskin flowing,
With purple hem and fringes rare!
Thee as a girl one might misprize;
Yet thou, for weal or woe, wouldst be,
E’en now, of worth in maidens’ eyes;
Thee they would teach the A B C.

Boy-Charioteer.
And he whose stately figure gleams
Enthron’d upon his chariot wain?

Herald.
A monarch, rich and mild, he seems;
Happy who may his grace obtain,
Henceforth they’ve naught for which to strive!
His glance discerns if aught’s amiss;
Greater his pleasure is to give,
Than to possess or wealth or bliss.

Boy-Charioteer.
Suspend not here thy words, I pray,
Him thou more fully must portray.

Herald.
The noble none can paint. Yet there
Glows the round visage, hale and fair,
Full mouth, and blooming cheeks, descried
Beneath the turban’s jewell’d pride;
What ease his mantle folds display!
What of his bearing can I say?
As ruler seems he known to me.

Boy-Charioteer.
Plutus, the god of wealth is he.
Hither he comes in royal state;
Of him the emperor’s need is great.

Herald.
Tell of thyself the what and how to me!

Boy-Charioteer.
I am profusion, I am Poesie;
The bard am I, who to perfection tends
When freely he his inner wealth expends.
I too have riches beyond measure,
And match with Plutus’ wealth my treasure;
For him adorn and quicken dance and show,
And what he lacketh, that do I bestow.

Herald.
Boasting to thee new charm imparts.
Now show us something of thine arts!

Boy-Charioteer.
See me but snap my fingers, lo!
Around the car what splendors glow!
A string of pearls forth leapeth here;
[Continually snapping.
Take golden clasps for neck and ear;
Combs too, and other precious things,
Crowns without flaw, and jewell’d rings!
Flamelets I scatter too, in play,
Awaiting where they kindle may.

Herald.
How the good people snatch and seize!
Almost the donor’s self they squeeze.
As in a dream he gems doth rain,
In the wide space they snatch amain.
But — here new juggling meets mine eye:
What one doth grasp so eagerly,
Doth prove, in sooth, a sorry prize;
Away from him the treasure flies;
The pearls are loosen’d from their band;
Now beetles crawl within his hand;
He shakes them off, poor fool, instead,
Swarming, they buzz around his head;
Others, in place of solid things,
Catch butterflies, with lightsome wings.
Though vast his promises, the knave
To them but golden glitter gave!

Boy-Charioteer.
Masks, I remark, thou canst announce full well;
Only to reach the essence ‘neath the shell,
Is not the Herald’s courtly task;
A sharper vision that dost ask.
But I from every quarrel would be free. —
Master, I speech and question turn to thee.
[Turning to Plutus.
The storm-blast didst thou not confide
To me, of this four-yoked car?
Lead I not well, as thou dost guide?
Where thou dost point, thence am I far?
Have I not known, on daring wing
For thee the victor’s palm to wring?
Full often as for thee I’ve fought,
Still have I conquer’d; and if now
The laurel decorates thy brow,
Have not my hand and skill the chaplet wrought?

Plutus.
If need there be, that I should witness bear, —
Soul of my soul, thee gladly I declare:
According to my will thou actest ever;
Art richer than myself denied.
To give thy service its due meed,
Before all crowns the laurel wreath I treasure.
This truthful word let all men hear:
My son art thou, thee doth my soul hold dear.

Boy-Charioteer.
(To the crowd.)
Now of my hand the choicest dower,
I’ve scatter’d in this festive hour;
There glows on this or that one’s head
A flame, which I abroad have shed;
From one to other now it hies,
To this one cleaves, from that one flies,
Seldom aloft its flames aspire;
Sudden they gleam, with transient fire;
With many, ere they know the prize,
It mournfully burns out and dies.
(Clamor of Women.)
He yonder, on the chariot-van,
Is, without doubt, a charlatan.
Behind him, crouching, is the clown,
By thirst and hunger so worn down,
The like was never seen till now;
If pinch’d, he would not feel, I trow.

The Starveling.
Avaunt, ye loathed women-kind!
With you I ne’er a welcome find. —
When rul’d the hearth your thrifty dame,
Then Avaritia was my name;
Then throve our household well throughout;
For much came in, and naught went out!
Great was my zeal for chest and bin —
And that, forsooth, you call a sin!
But in these later years, no more
The wife is thrifty as of yore;
She, like each tardy payer, owns
Far more desires than golden crowns;
This for her spouse much care begets;
Where’er he turneth, there are debts;
What she by spinning earns, she spends
On gay attire, and wanton friends;
Better she feasts, and drinketh too
More wine, with her vile suitor crew:
That rais’d for me of gold the price.
Now, male of sex, I’m Avarice!

Leader of the Women.
Dragon may still with dragon spare;
It’s cheat and lies at last, no more!
He comes to rouse the men; beware!
Full troublesome they were before.

Women.
(All together.) The scarecrow! Box his ears! Make haste!
To threat us does the juggler dare?
Us shall his foolish prating scare?
The dragons are but wood and paste;
Press in upon him, do not spare!

Herald.
Now, by my staff! Keep quiet there!
Yet scarcely needed is my aid.
See, in the quickly opened space,
How the grim monsters move apace!
Their pinions’ double pair display’d!
The dragons shake themselves in ire,
Scale-proof, their jaws exhaling fire —
The crowd recedes; clear is the place.
[Plutusdescends from the chariot.

Herald.
He steps below, a king confess’d!
He nods, the dragons move; the chest
They from the chariot, in a trice,
Have lower’d, with gold and avarice;
Before his feet it standeth now:
How done a marvel is, I trow.

Plutus.
(To the Charioteer.) Now from the burden that oppress’d thee here
Thou’rt frank and free; away to thine own sphere!
Here is it not; distorted, wild, grotesque,
Surrounds us here a motley arabesque.
There fly, where on thy genius thou canst wait,
Lord of thyself; where charm the good, the fair;
Where clear thy vision in the clear calm air;
To solitude — there thine own world create!

Boy-Charioteer.
Myself as trusty envoy I approve;
Thee as my nearest relative I love.
Where thou dost dwell, is fulness; where I reign,
Within himself each feeleth glorious gain;
And ‘mid life’s contradictions wavers he:
Shall he resign himself to thee, to me?
Thy votaries may idly rest, ’tis true;
Who follows me, hath always work to do.
My deeds are not accomplish’d in the shade,
I only breathe, and forthwith am betray’d.
Farewell! My bliss thou grudgest not to me;
But whisper low, and straight I’m back with thee.
[Exit as he came.

Plutus.
Now is the time the treasure to set free!
The locks I strike, thus with the Herald’s rod;
’Tis open’d now! In blazing caldrons, see,
It bubbles up, and shows like golden blood;
Next crowns, and chains, and rings, a precious dower:
It swells and fusing threats the jewels to devour.
(Alternate cry of the Crowd.)
Look here! look there! How flows the treasure,
To the chest’s brim in ample measure! —
Vessels of gold are melting, near
Up-surging, coin’d rouleaux appear,
And ducats leap as if impress’d —
how the vision stirs my breast! —
My heart’s desire now meets mine eye!
They’re rolling on the floor, hard by. —
To you ’tis proffer’d; do not wait,
Stoop only, you are wealthy straight! —
While, quick as lightning, we anon,
The chest itself will seize upon.

Herald.
Ye fools, what ails you? What your quest?
’Tis but a masquerading jest.
To-night no more desire ye may;
Think you that gold we give away,
And things of worth? For such as you,
And at such foolish masking too,
E’en counters were too much to pay.
Blockheads! a pleasing show, forsooth,
Ye take at once for solid truth.
What’s truth to you? Delusion vain
At every turn ye clutch amain. —
Thou, Plutus, hero of the masque,
This folk to chase, be now thy task!

Plutus.
Ready at hand thy staff I see;
For a brief moment lend it me! —
Quickly in fire and seething glare
I’ll dip it. — Now, ye masks, beware!
It sputters, crackles, flares outright;
Bravely the torch is now alight;
And pressing round, who comes too nigh,
Is forthwith scorch’d, relentlessly! —
Now then my circuit is begun.
(Cries and Tumult.)
misery! We are undone. —
Escape, let each escape who can!
Back! further back! thou hindmost man! —
Hot in my face it sputter’d straight —
Of the red staff I felt the weight —
We all, alas! we all are lost! —
Back, back, thou masquerading host! —
Back, back, unthinking crowd! — Ah me,
Had I but wings, I hence would flee! —

Plutus.
Back is the circle driven now;
And no one has been sing’d, I trow.
The crowds give way,
Scared, with dismay. —
Yet, pledge of order and of law,
A ring invisible I draw.

Herald.
Achiev’d thou hast a noble deed;
For thy sage might be thanks thy meed!

Plutus.
Yet needs there patience, noble friend;
Still many a tumult doth impend.

Avarice.
If it so please us, pleasantly,
We on this living ring may gaze around.
For women ever foremost will be found,
If aught allure the palate or the eye.
Not yet am I grown rusty quite!
A pretty face must always please;
And since it nothing costs to-night,
We’ll go a-wooing at our ease.
Yet as in this o’ercrowded sphere,
Words are not audible to every ear,
Deftly I’ll try, — and can but hope success —
In pantomime my meaning to express.
Hand, foot and gesture will not here suffice,
Hence I must strive to fashion some device:
Like moisten’d clay forthwith I’ll knead the gold;
This metal into all things we can mould.

Herald.
The meagre fool, what doeth he?
Hath such a starveling humor? See,
He kneadeth all the gold to dough,
Beneath his hand ’tis pliant too;
Yet howsoe’er he squeeze and strain,
Misshapen it must still remain.
He to the women turns, but they
All scream, and fain would flee away,
With gestures of aversion. Still
Ready the rascal seems for ill;
Happy, I fear, himself he rates,
When decency he violates.
Silence were wrong in such a case;
Give me my staff, him forth to chase!

Plutus.
What threats us from without, he bodeth not.
Let him play out his pranks a little longer!
Room for his jest will fail him soon, I wot;
Strong as is law, necessity is stronger.
[Enter Fauns, Satyrs, Gnomes, Nymphs,etc., attendants on Pan,and announcing his approach.
(Tumult and Song.)
From forest-vale and mountain height,
Advancing with resistless might,
The savage host, it cometh straight:
Their mighty Pan they celebrate.
They know, what none beside can guess;
Into the vacant ring they press.

Plutus.
You and your mighty Pan I recognize!
Conjoin’d you’ve enter’d on a bold emprise.
Full well I know, what is not known to all,
And ope this narrow space, at duty’s call. —
may a happy Fate attend!
Wonders most strange may happen now;
They know not where unto they tend;
Forward they have not look’d, I trow.
(Wild Song.)
Bedizen’d people, glittering brood!
They’re coming rough, they’re coming rude;
With hasty run, with lofty bound,
Stalwart and strong they press around.

Fauns.
Fauns advance,
Their crisp locks bound
With oak-leaves round, —
In merry dance!

artist franz simm.
FAUST. SECOND PART.
pan and his attendants
A fine and sharply pointed ear,
Forth from their clustering locks doth peer;
A stumpy nose, with breadth of face —
These forfeit not a lady’s grace:
If but his paw the Faun advance,
Not lightly will the fairest shun the dance.

Satyr.
The Satyr now comes hopping in,
With foot of goat, and withered shin;
These sinewy must be and thin.
In chamois-guise, on mountain height,
Around to gaze is his delight;
In freedom’s air, with freshness rife,
Child he despiseth, man and wife,
Who, ‘mid the valley’s smoke and steam,
That they too live, contented dream;
On those pure heights, sequester’d, lone,
The upper world is his alone!

Gnomes.
Tripping, here comes a tiny crew.
They like not keeping two and two;
In mossy dress, with lamplet clear,
Commingling swiftly, they career,
Where for himself his task each plies,
Swarming they glitter, emmet-wise;
And ever busy, move about,
With ceaseless bustle in and out.
We the “Good Folk” as kindred own,
As rock-chirurgists well we’re known;
Cupping the lofty hills, we drain,
With cunning, from each well-fill’d vein,
The metals, which aloft we pile,
Shouting, Good luck! Good luck! the while:
Kindness at bottom we intend;
Good men we evermore befriend.
Yet to the light we gold unseal,
That men therewith may pimp and steal;
Nor to the proud, who murder plann’d
Wholesale, shall fail the iron brand;
These three commands who hath transgress’d,
Will take small reckoning of the rest;
Nathless for that we’re not to blame:
Patient we are, be ye the same!

Giants.
The wild men, such in sooth our name,
Upon the Hartzberg known to fame,
Naked, in ancient vigor strong,
Pell-mell we come, a giant throng;
With pine-stem grasp’d in dexter hand,
And round the loins a padded band,
Apron of leaf and bough, uncouth, —
Such guards the pope owns not, in sooth.

Chorus of Nymphs.
(They surround the great Pan.) He draweth near!
In mighty Pan
The All we scan
Of this world-sphere.
All ye of gayest mood advance,
And him surround, in sportive dance!
For since he earnest is and kind,
Joy everywhere he fain would find;
E’en ‘neath the blue o’erarching sky,
He watcheth still, with wakeful eye;
Purling to him the brooklet flows,
And zephyrs lull him to repose;
And when he slumbers at mid-day,
Stirs not a leaf upon the spray;
Health-breathing plants, with balsams rare,
Pervade the still and silent air;
The nymph no more gay vigil keeps,
And where she standeth, there she sleeps.
But if, at unexpected hour,
His voice resounds with mighty power,
Like thunder, or the roaring sea,
Then knoweth none, where he may flee;
Panic the valiant host assails,
The hero in the tumult quails.
Then honor to whom honor’s due!
And hail to him, who leads us unto you!

Deputation ofGnomes.
(To the great Pan.)

When a treasure, richly shining,
Winds through clefts its thread-like way,
Sole the cunning rod, divining,
Can its labyrinth display.

Troglodytes, in caves abiding,
We our sunless homes vault o’er;
Thou, ‘mid day’s pure airs presiding,
Graciously thy gifts dost pour.

Close at hand, a fount of treasure
We have found, a wondrous vein; —
Promising in fullest measure,
What we scarce might hope to gain.

Perfect thou alone canst make it;
Every treasure in thy hand,
Is a world-wide blessing; take it,
Thine it is, Sire, to command!

Plutus.
(To the Herald.) Our self-possession now must be display’d,
And come what may, we must be undismayed;
Still hast thou shown a strong, courageous soul.
A dreadful incident will soon betide;
‘Twill be by world and after-world denied;
Inscribe it truly in thy protocol!

Herald.
(Grasping the staff which Plutusholds in his hand.) The dwarfs conduct the mighty Pan
Softly the source of fire to scan;
It surges from the gulf profound,
Then downward plunges ‘neath the ground;
While dark the mouth stands, gaping wide,
Once more uprolls the fiery tide.
The mighty Pan stands well-content,
Rejoicing in the wondrous sight,
While pearl-foam drizzles left and right.
How may he trust such element!
Bending, he stoops to look within. —
But now his beard hath fallen in! —
Who may he be, with shaven chin?
His hand conceals it from our eyes. —
Now doth a dire mishap arise;
His beard takes fire and backward flies;
Wreath, head and breast are all ablaze;
Joy is transformed to dire amaze. —
To quench the fire his followers run;
Free from the flames remaineth none;
Still as they strike from side to side,
New flames are kindled far and wide;
Envelop’d in the fiery shroud,
Burns now the masquerading crowd.
But what’s the tale that’s rumor’d here,
From mouth to mouth, from ear to ear!
night, for aye with sorrow fraught,
To us what mischief hast thou brought!
The coming morn will tidings voice,
At which, in sooth, will none rejoice.
From every side they cry amain,
“The Emperor suffers grievous pain!”
were some other tidings true! —
The Emperor burns, his escort too.
Accurs’d be they, for evermore,
Who him seduc’d, with noisy roar,
Abroad, begirt with pitchy bough,
To roam, for general overthrow!
youth, O youth, and wilt thou never
To joy assign its fitting bound?
Majesty, with reason never
Will thy omnipotence be crown’d?
The mimic forest hath caught fire;
Tongue-like the flame mounts high and higher;
Now on the wood-bound roof it plays,
And threats one universal blaze!
O’erflows our cup of suffering;
I know not, who may rescue bring;
Imperial pomp, so rich o’er night,
An ash-heap lies in morning’s light.

Plutus.
Long enough hath terror sway’d;
Hither now be help convey’d.
Strike, thou hallow’d staff, the ground,
Till earth tremble and resound!
Cooling vapors everywhere
Fill the wide and spacious air!
Moisture-teeming mist and cloud
Draw anear, and us o’ershroud;
Veil the fiery tumult, veil!
Curling, drizzling, breathing low,
Gracious cloudlets hither sail,
Shedding down the gentle rain!
To extinguish, to allay,
Ye, the assuagers, strive amain;
Into summer-lightning’s glow
Change our empty fiery play! —
Threaten spirits us to hurt,
Magic must its power assert.

Pleasure-Garden.
Morning sun.
[The Emperor,his court, men and women; Faust, Mephistophelesdressed becomingly, in the usual fashion; both kneel.

Faust.
The flaming juggler’s play dost pardon, Sire?

Emperor.
I of such sports full many should desire. —
I saw myself within a glowing sphere;
Almost it seem’d as if I Pluto were;
A rock abyss there lay, with fire aglow,
Gloomy as night; from many a gulf below,
Seething, a thousand savage flames ascend,
And in a fiery vault together blend;
Up to the highest dome their tongues were toss’d,
Which ever was, and evermore was lost.
In the far space, through spiral shafts of flame,
Peoples I saw, in lengthen’d lines who came;
In the wide circle forward press’d the crowd,
And as their wont hath been, in homage bow’d;
I seem’d, surrounded by my courtly train,
O’er thousand Salamanders king to reign.

Mephis.
Such art thou, Sire! For thee each element
To own as absolute is well content.
Obedient thou hast proven fire to be.
Where it is wildest, leap into the sea —
And scarce thy foot the pearl-strewn floor shall tread,
A glorious, billowy dome o’ervaults thy head;
Wavelets of tender green thou seest swelling,
With purple edge, to form thy beauteous dwelling,
Round thee, the central point; where thou dost wend,
At every step, thy palace homes attend;
The very walls, in life rejoicing, flow
With arrowy swiftness, surging to and fro;
Sea-marvels to the new and gentle light repair;
They dart along, to enter none may dare;
There sports, with scales of gold, the bright-hued snake,
Gapes the fell shark, his jaws thy laughter wake:
Howe’er thy court may round thee now delight,
Such throng as this, before ne’er met thy sight.
Nor long shalt sever’d be from the most fair;
The curious Nereids, to thy dwelling rare,
‘Mid the eternal freshness, shall draw nigh;
The youngest, greedy like the fish, and shy;
The elder prudent. Thetis hears the news,
Nor to the second Peleus will refuse
Or hand or lip. — Olympos’ wide domain —

Emperor.
I leave to thee, thou o’er the air mayst reign;
Full early every one must mount that throne.

Mephis.
Earth, noblest Sire! already thou dost own.

Emperor.
Hither what happy Fate, with kindness fraught,
Thee from the thousand nights and one hath brought!
If thou, like Scheherazade, prolific art,
To thee my highest favor I’ll impart;
Be ever near when, as is oft the case,
Most irksome is our world of commonplace!

Marshal.
(Entering in haste.)
Your Highness, never thought I in my life
Tidings to give, with such good fortune rife
As these which, in thy presence, cheer
My raptur’d heart, absolv’d from fear;
All reckonings paid, from debt we’re eased: —
The usurer’s clutches are appeas’d —
From such hell-torment I am free!
In Heaven can none more cheerful be.

Commander-in-Chief.
(Follows hastily.)
Paid in advance the soldiers’ due,
Now the whole army’s pledged anew.
Blood dances in the trooper’s veins;
Vinter and damsel reap their gains.

Emperor.
How freely now your breast doth heave!
The marks of care your visage leave!
How hastily you enter!

Treasurer.
(Entering.) Sire, proceed
These men to question who have done the deed.

Faust.
(To the Chancellor.) To you it doth belong the case to state.

Chancellor.
(Who advances slowly.)
In my old days I am with joy elate!
So hear and see this fortune-weighted scroll,
Which hath to happiness transform’d our dole:
(He reads.)
“To all whom it concerneth, be it known:
Who owns this note a thousand crowns doth own.
To him assur’d, as certain pledge, there lies,
Beneath the Emperor’s land, a boundless prize;
It is decreed, this wealth without delay
To raise, therewith the promis’d sum to pay.”

Emperor.
Crime I suspect, some huge deceit!
The Emperor’s name who here doth counterfeit?
Unpunish’d still remains such breach of right?

Treasurer.
Remember, Sire! Thyself but yesternight
Didst sign the note. — Thou stoodst as mighty Pan;
Then spake the Chancellor, whose words thus ran:
“This festive pleasure for thyself obtain,
Thy people’s weal, with a few pen-strokes gain!”
These mad’st thou clearly; thousand-fold last night
Have artists multiplied what thou didst write;
And that to each alike might fall the aid,
To stamp the series, we have not delay’d,
Ten, thirty, fifty, hundreds at a stroke.
You cannot guess, how it rejoic’d the folk:
Behold your town, mouldering half dead that lay,
How full of life and bounding joy to-day!
Long as thy name hath bless’d the world, till now
So gladly was it ne’er beheld, I trow.
The Alphabet is now redundant grown;
Each in this sign finds happiness alone.

Emperor.
My people take it for true gold, you say?
In camp, at court, it passes for full pay?
Much as I wonder, it I must allow.

Marshal.
To stay the flying leaves were hopeless now;
With speed of lightning all abroad they float:
The changers’ banks stand open; every note
Is honored there with silver and with gold;
Discount deducted, if the truth were told.
To butcher, baker, vintner, thence they fare;
With half the world is feasting their sole care;
The other half, new-vestur’d, bravely shows;
The mercer cuts away, the tailor sews.
In cellars still “The Emperor!” they toast,
While, amid clattering plates, they boil and roast.

Mephis.
Alone who treads the terraced promenade,
Sees there the fair one, splendidly array’d;
One eye the peacock’s fan conceals; the while
This note in view, she lures us with her smile,
And swifter than through eloquence or wit,
Love’s richest favor may be won by it.
One’s self with purse and scrip one need not tease.
Hid in the breast, a note is borne with ease,
And with the billet-doux is coupled there;
The priest conveys it in his book of prayer;
The soldier, that his limbs may be more free,
Quickly his girdle lightens. Pardon me,
Your Majesty, if the high work I seem,
Dwelling on these details, to disesteem.

Faust.
This superfluity of wealth, that deep
Imprison’d in its soil thy land doth keep,
Lies all unus’d; wide-reaching thought profound
Is of such treasure but a sorry bound;
In loftiest flight, fancy still strives amain
To reach its limit, but still strives in vain —
Yet minds who dare behind the veil to press,
In the unbounded, boundless faith possess.

Mephis.
Such paper, in the place of pearls and gold,
Convenient is, we know how much we hold;
No need for change or barter, each at will
Of love and wine may henceforth drink his fill.
If coin is needed, stands the changer nigh,
If there it faileth, straight the shovel ply;
Goblet and chain at auction fetch their price;
The paper, forthwith cancell’d, in a trice
The sceptic shames, who us did erst deride;
The people, used to it, wish naught beside:
So henceforth, through the realm, there’s goodly store,
Of jewels, gold, and paper, evermore.

Emperor.
You this high aid have render’d to our state;
Great is the service, be the meed as great!
Our realm’s subsoil confide we to your care;
Best guardians of the treasure buried there.
Full well ye know the vast, well-guarded hoard,
And when men dig, so be it at your word!
To Faustand the Treasurer.
Ally yourselves, ye masters of our treasure,
The honors of your place fulfil with pleasure,
There where together join’d in blest content,
The upper with the under world is blent!

Treasurer.
Not the most distant strife shall us divide;
As colleague be the conjuror at my side.
[Exit with Faust.

Emperor.
If I at court each man with gifts endow,
Whereto he’ll use them, let each tell me now.

Page.
(Receiving.) Merry I’ll be, and taste life’s pleasant things.

Another.
(The same.) I for my sweetheart will buy chain and rings.

Chamberlain.
(Accepting.) Wine twice as good from this time forth I’ll drink.

Another.
(The same.) The dice already in my pocket clink.

Banneret.
(Thoughtfully.) My field and castle I from debt will free.

Another.
(The same.) I’ll lay my treasure in my treasury.

Emperor.
Courage I hoped, and joy, for new emprise —
But whoso knows you, straight will recognize;
I mark it well, though wealth be multiplied,
Just what ye were, the same will ye abide!

Fool.
(Approaching.) Favors you scatter; grant me some, I pray!

Emperor.
What, living yet? Thou’lt drink them soon away.

Fool.
These magic leaves! I comprehend not quite —

Emperor.
That I believe: them thou’lt not spend aright.

Fool.
There, others drop — I know not what to do —

Emperor.
Take them! They’ve fallen to thy share. Adieu!
[Exit.

Fool.
Five thousand crowns in hand! can it be true?

Mephis.
Thou two-legg’d paunch, art thou then risen anew?

Fool.
As oft before, ne’er happily as now.

Mephis.
So great thy joy, it makes thee sweat, I trow.

Fool.
Is this indeed worth money? art thou sure?

Mephis.
What throat and paunch desire it will procure.

Fool.
Can I then field, and house, and cattle buy?

Mephis.
Of course! Bid only, thee it will not fail.

Fool.
Castle with forest, chase, and fishpond?

Mephis.
Ay!
Thee as your worship I should like to hail!

Fool.
As land-owner I’ll rock myself ere eve!
[Exit.

Mephis.
In our fool’s wit who will not now believe?
Dark Gallery.
Faust. Mephistopheles.

Mephis.
Why drag me these dark corridors along?
Within hast not enough of sport?
Occasion ‘mid the motley throng
For jest and lie, hast not at court?

Faust.
Speak not of that; in days of old hast thou
Outworn it to the very soles. But now,
Thy shuffling is a mere pretext
How to evade my questions. Sore perplex’d,
I know not how to act, or what to do;
The marshal urges me, the steward too,
The Emperor wills it — hence it straight must be —
Wills Helena and Paris here to see;
Of man and womankind the true ideal,
He fain would view, in forms distinct and real.
Quick to the work! My word I may not break.

Mephis.
Such promise it was weak, nay, mad to make.

Faust.
Comrade, thou hast not thought, I trow,
Whither these arts of thine must lead:
First we have made him rich, and now
Him to amuse we must proceed.

Mephis.
Thou think’st no sooner said than done;
Here before steeper steps we stand,
A foreign realm must here be won,
New debts wilt add to those of old.
With the same ease dost think I can command
Helen, as phantom-notes evoke for gold!
With wizard, witchery, or ghostly ghost,
Or goiter’d dwarf, I’m ready at my post,
But Devil’s darlings, though we mayn’t abuse them,
Yet cannot we as heroines produce them.

Faust.
Still harping on the ancient lyre!
The father thou of hindrances; — with thee
We needs must fall into uncertainty;
For each expedient thou dost claim new hire!
With little muttering, I know, ’tis done;
Ere one looks round, thou’lt bring them to the spot.

Mephis.
The Heathen-folk I’m glad to let alone,
In their own hell is cast their lot;
Yet are there means —

Faust.
Speak quickly, naught withhold!

Mephis.
Loth am I higher secrets to unfold.
In solitude, where reigns nor space nor time,
Are goddesses enthron’d from early prime;
’Tis hard to speak of beings so sublime —
The Mothers are they.

Faust.
(Terrified.) Mothers!

Mephis.
Tremblest thou?

Faust.
The Mothers! Mothers! strange it sounds, I trow!

Mephis.
And is so: Goddesses, to men unknown,
And by us nam’d unwillingly, I own.
Their home to reach, full deeply must thou mine.
That we have need of them, the fault is thine!

Faust.
The way?

Mephis.
No way; to the untrodden none,
Not to be trodden, neither to be won
By prayer! Art ready for the great emprise?
No locks are there, no bolts thy way to bar;
By solitudes shalt thou be whirl’d afar:
Such void and solitude canst realize?

Faust.
To spare such speeches, it were well!
They of the witches’ kitchen smell,
And of a time long past and gone.
To know the world have I not sought?
The empty learn’d, the empty taught? —
Spake I out plainly, as in reason bound,
Then doubly loud the paradox would sound;
By Fortune’s adverse buffets overborne,
To solitude I fled, to wilds forlorn,
And not in utter loneliness to live,
Myself at last did to the Devil give!

Mephis.
And hadst thou swum to ocean’s utmost verge,

And there the shoreless infinite beheld,
There hadst thou seen surge rolling upon surge,
Though dread of coming doom thy soul had quell’d,
Thou hadst seen something; — dolphins thou hadst seen.
Cleaving the silent sea’s pellucid green,
And flying cloud hadst seen, sun, moon and star;
Naught, in the everlasting void afar,
Wilt see, nor hear thy footfall’s sound,
Nor for thy tread find solid ground!

Faust.
Thou speakest as of mystagogues the first,
True neophytes who gulled — only revers’d:
I to vacuity by thee am sent,
That art as well as strength I may augment;
Thou wouldest, like the cat, make use of me,
The chestnuts from the fire to snatch for thee.
We’ll fathom it! come on, nor look behind!
In this thy naught, the All I hope to find.

Mephis.
Before we part, thy bearing I commend;
I see, the Devil thou dost comprehend.
Here, take this key!

Faust.
That little thing!

Mephis.
First hold it fast, not lightly valuing!

Faust.
It waxes in my hand! It flashes, glows!

Mephis.
Soon shalt thou mark what virtue it bestows.
The key will scent the very place you need;
Follow, thee to the Mothers it will lead.

Faust.
(Shuddering.) The Mothers! Like a blow it strikes mine ear!
What is this word, it troubles me to hear?

Mephis.
So narrow-minded, scar’d by each new word!
Wilt only hear, what hast already heard?
Inur’d to marvels, thee let naught astound;
Be not disturb’d, how strange soe’er the sound!

Faust.
My weal I seek not in torpidity;
Humanity’s best part in awe doth lie:
Howe’er the world the sentiment disown,
Once seiz’d — we deeply feel the vast, the unknown.

Mephis.
Sink then! Arise! This also I might say: —
’Tis all the same. Escaping from the real,
Seek thou the boundless realm of the ideal.
Delight thyself in forms long pass’d away!
The train, like cloud-procession, glides along;
Swing thou the key, hold off the shadowy throng!

Faust.
(Inspired. ) Good! firmly grasping it, new strength is mine,
My breast expands! Now for the great design!

Mephis.
A glowing tripod teaches thee thou hast
The deep attain’d, the lowest deep, at last:
There, by its light the Mothers thou wilt see;
Some sit, while others, as the case may be,
Or stand, or walk: formation, transformation,
Of mind etern, eternal recreation!
While forms of being round them hover; thee
Behold they not, phantoms alone they see.
Take courage, for the danger is not slight.
Straight to the tripod press thou on, be brave,
And touch it with the key —
[Faust,with the key, assumes an attitude of determined authority.

Mephis.
(Observing him.) So, that is right!
It cleaves to thee, it follows like a slave;
Calmly dost mount, fortune doth thee upbear,
Back art thou with it, ere they are aware.
And hither hast thou brought it: by its might,
Hero mayst call, and heroine from night;
The first to venture in such enterprise;
’Tis done — with thee the bold achievement lies;
And then by spells, to sorcery allow’d,
To gods shall be transform’d the incensecloud.

Faust.
And now what next?

Mephis.
Downward thy being strain.
Stamping descend, stamping thou’lt rise again.
[Fauststamps and sinks.
In his behoof if worketh but the key!
Whether he will return, I’m fain to see.
Hall.(Brilliantly lighted.)
Emperorand Princes: The Court in movement.

Chamberlain.
(To Mephistopheles.)
You’re still our debtors for the spirit-show;
To work! The Emperor doth impatient grow.

Steward.
His Highness even now hath question’d me;
Delay not, nor affront his Majesty!

Mephis.
My comrade’s for that very purpose gone;
How to commence he knows; he labors on,
Secluded in his study, calm and still,
With mind intensely strung; for who the prize,
Ideal beauty, would evoke at will,
Needs highest art, the magic of the wise.

Steward.
To us it matters not what arts you need;
The Emperor wills that ye forthwith proceed.

A Blonde.
(To Mephistopheles.)
One word, good sir! My visage now is clear —
It is not so when baleful summer’s here:
Then sprout a hundred freckles, brown and red,
Which, to my grief, the white skin overspread.
A cure!

Mephis.
’Tis pity, face so fair to see,
In May like panther’s cub should mottled be!
Take spawn of frog, and tongue of toad, the twain
Under the fullest moon distil with care;
Lay on the mixture, when the moon doth wane —
The spring arrives, no blemishes are there.

Brunette.
To fawn upon you, how the crowds advance;
A remedy I ask! A frozen foot
Hinders me sorely when I walk or dance;
Awkward my movement e’en when I salute.

Mephis.
A single tread allow me with my foot!

Brunette.
Well, betwixt lovers that might come to pass —

Mephis.
A deeper meaning, child, my footprint has:
Like unto like, in sickness is the rede;
Foot healeth foot; with every limb ’tis so.
Draw near! Give heed! My tread return not.

Brunette.
(Screaming.) Woe!
Ah, woe! It burns! A hard tread that indeed,
Like horse’s hoof!

Mephis.
Receive thy cure as meed.
Now mayst thou dance at pleasure; and salute,
Beneath the festal board, thy lover’s foot.

Lady.
(Pressing forward.) Make way for me, too grievous is my smart,
Seething, it rankles in my deepest heart:
Bliss in my looks he sought till yesterday —
With her he talks, and turns from me away!

Mephis.
The case is grave, but this my lore receive:
Thou to his side must stealthily make way;
Take thou this coal, a mark upon his sleeve,
His cloak, or shoulder make, as happen may —
His heart repentant will be thine once more;
The coal thou straight must swallow; after it,
No water near thy lip, no wine, permit —
This very night he’ll sigh before thy door.

Lady.
It is not poison?

Mephis.
(Offended.) Honor where ’tis due!
You for such coal much ground must wander o’er;
It cometh from a pyre, that we of yore
More fiercely stirr’d than now we do.

Page.
I love; as still unripe they scorn my youth!

Mephis.
(Aside.) I know not whom to listen to, in sooth.
(To the Page.)
Not on the youngest set your happiness;
Those more in years your merits will confess.
[Others press up to him.
Others are coming! What a fearful rout!
Myself with truth I must at last help out —
The sorriest shift! Great is the need! Ah me!
Mothers, Mothers! Only Faust set free.
[Looking round.
The lights are burning dimly in the hall;
At once the court is moving, one and all;
Advancing in due order them I see,
Through long arcade and distant gallery;
Now in the old Baronial hall, the train
Assemble, them it scarcely can contain;
Its ample walls rare tapestries enrich,
While armor decks each corner, every niche;
Here magic-words, methinks, are needed not,
Ghosts, of their own accord, would haunt this spot.
Baronial Hall.(Dimly illuminated.)
Emperorand Court have entered.

Herald.
Mine ancient usage, to announce the play,
The spirits’ secret working mars; in vain
The surging tumult to ourselves, to-day,
Would we, on reasonable grounds, explain.
Seats are arrang’d, ready is every chair;
The Emperor sits before the wall, and there,
On tapestry in comfort may behold
The battles of the glorious days of old.
All now are seated; prince and court around;
While crowded benches fill the hinder ground;
Your lovers too, in these dark hours, will find,
Beside their sweethearts, places to their mind.
So now we’re seated, ready for the play;
The phantoms may appear, without delay!
[Trumpets.

Astrologer.
Now let the drama, ’tis the Sire’s command,
Begin forthwith its course! ye walls expand!
Naught hinders; magic yields what we require.
The curtains vanish, as uproll’d by fire;
The wall splits open, backward it doth wend;
An ample theatre appears to rise;
A mystic lustre gleams before our eyes;
And I to the proscenium ascend.

Mephis.
(Emerging from the prompter’s box.) I hope for general favor in your eyes,
The Devil’s rhetoric in prompting lies!
(To the Astrologer.)
The time dost know, in which the stars proceed,
And, like a master, wilt my whispering read.

Astrologer.
Through magic power, appears before our gaze,
Massive enough, a fane of ancient days;
Like Atlas, who of old the heavens upbare,
Columns, in goodly rows, are standing there;
They for their burden may suffice, when twain
A mighty edifice might well sustain.

Architect.
That the antique — I cannot think it right;
It as unwieldy we should designate;
The rude is noble styled, the clumsy great!
Slim shafts I love, aspiring, infinite;
The pointed zenith lifts the soul on high;
Such building us doth mostly edify.

Astrologer.
Receive with reverence stargranted hours!
By magic word enthrall’d be reason’s powers;
Here, on the other hand, let phantasy,
Noble and daring, roam more wildly free!
What boldly you desir’d, he with your eyes perceiv’d!
Impossible, and hence, by faith to be believ’d.
[Faustrises at the other side of the proscenium.

Astrologer.
In priestly vesture, crown’d, a wondrous man,
Who now achieves, what trustful he began;
A tripod with him from the gulf ascends;
With the surrounding air the incense blends;
He arms himself, the lofty work to bless:
Henceforth we naught can augur but success.

Faust.
In your name, Mothers, ye who on your throne
Dwell in the Infinite, for aye alone,
Yet sociably! Around your heads are rife
Life’s pictures, restless, yet devoid of life;
What was, there moveth, bright with lustrous sheen;
For deathless will abide what once hath been.
This ye dispense, beings of matchless might,
To day’s pavilion, to the vault of night:
Life in its gentle course doth some arrest;
Of others the bold magian goes in quest:
In rich profusion, fearless, he displays
The marvels upon which each longs to gaze.

Astrologer.
Scarcely the glowing key the censer nears,
When o’er the scene a misty shroud appears;
It creepeth in, cloudlike it onward glides,
Expands, upcurls, contracts, unites, divides.
Now recognize a spirit masterpiece:
The clouds make music; wonders never cease;
The airy tones, one knows not how, float by:
Where’er they move, there all is melody;
The pillar’d shaft, the very triglyph rings;
Yea, I believe that the whole temple sings!
The mist subsides; steps forth, in measur’d time,
From the light veil, a youth in beauty’s prime.
Silent mine office here; his name I need not show;
Who doth the gentle Paris fail to know!

First Lady.
O! In his youthful strength what lustrous grace!

Second Lady.
Fresh as a peach, and full of sap his face!

Third Lady.
The finely chisell’d, sweetly swelling lip!

Fourth Lady.
At such a beaker fain wert thou to sip?

Fifth Lady.
Though handsome, quite unpolish’d is his mien.

Sixth Lady.
A little more refin’d he might have been.

Knight.
The shepherd youth, methinks, in him I trace;
Naught of the prince or of the courtier’s grace!

Another Knight.
Half naked, fair the stripling seems to be;
But clad in armor him we first must see!

Lady.
Gently he seats himself, with easy grace.

Knight.
For you his lap were pleasant resting-place?

Another.
Lightly his arm he bendeth o’er his head.

Chamberlain.
That is not here allow’d. ’Tis under-bred!

Lady.
You gentlemen are always hard to please.

Chamberlain.
Before the Emperor to loll at ease!

Lady.
He only acts! He thinks himself alone.

Chamberlain.
The drama should be courtly near the throne.

Lady.
Gently hath sleep o’ercome the gracious youth.

Chamberlain.
He snoreth now; ’tis nature, perfect truth.

Young Lady.
(Enraptured.) What fragrance with the incense sweetly blends.
That to my inmost heart refreshment sends?

Older Lady.
A breath the soul pervades with gracious power!
From him it comes.

Oldest Lady.
Of growth it is the flower;
It like ambrosia from the youth distils,
And the whole atmosphere around him fills.
[Helenasteps forward.

Mephis.
Such then she was! She will not break my rest!
Fair, doubtless; but she is not to my taste.

Astrologer.
For me remains no further duty now,
As man of honor, this I must allow.
The fair one comes; and had I tongues of fire —
Beauty of old did many a song inspire —
Who sees her is enraptur’d; all too bless’d
Was he indeed by whom she was possess’d.

Faust.
Have I still eyes? Is beauty’s very spring,
Full gushing, to mine inmost sense reveal’d?
Most blessed gain doth my dread journey bring.
How blank to me the world, its depths unseal’d!
What is it since my priesthood’s solemn hour!
Enduring, firmly-bas’d, a precious dower!
Vanish from me of life the breathing power,
If, e’en in thought, I e’er from thee decline! —
The gracious form that raptur’d once my sight,
That in the magic mirror wak’d delight,
Was a foam-image to such charms as thine! —
’Tis thou, to whom as tribute now I bring
My passion’s depth, of every power the spring,
Love, adoration, madness, heart and soul!

Mephis.
(From the prompter’s box.)
Collect yourself, and fall not from your rôle!

Elderly Lady.
Tall and well-shap’d! Only too small the head.

Younger Lady.
Her foot! ’Tis clumsy if the truth were said.

Diplomatist.
Princesses of this kind I’ve seen; and she
From head to foot seems beautiful to me.

Courtier.
Softly she nears the sleeper, artful, shy.

Lady.
How hateful near that form of purity!

Poet.
He is illumin’d by her beauty’s sheen.

Lady.
Endymion! Luna! — ’Tis the pictur’d scene!

Poet.
Quite right! The goddess downward seems to sink;
O’er him she bends, his balmy breath to drink;
A kiss! — The measure’s full! — O envied youth!

Duenna.
Before the crowd — too bold that is, in sooth!

Faust.
A fearful favor to the boy! —

Mephis.
Be still!
And let the phantom do whate’er it will.

Courtier.
She steals away, light-footed; — he awakes.

Lady.
A backward glance, just as I thought, she takes!

Courtier.
He starts! ’Tis marvellous! he’s all amaze.

artist franz simm
FAUST. SECOND PART.
paris and helen

Lady.
To her no marvel is what meets her gaze.

Courtier.
To him with coy reserve she turneth now.

Lady.
She takes him into tutelage, it seems;
All men in such a case are fools, I trow;
Himself to be the first, he fondly dreams!

Knight.
Let me admire! Majestically fair —

Lady.
The courtezan! ’Tis vulgar, I declare!

Page.
Now in his place to be, full fain I were!

Courtier.
Who in such net would not be gladly caught?

Lady.
From hand to hand the jewel hath been pass’d;
The very gilding is worn off at last.

Another.
From her tenth year she hath been good for naught.

Knight.
Each takes the best that Fate to him hath sent:
With this fair ruin I were well content.

Learned Man.
Her I behold, yet to confess am free,
Doubts may arise, if she the right one be.
What’s present doth into extremes betray;
Cling closely to the letter, that’s my way;
I to what’s written turn, and there I read:
How she all Troya’s graybeards charm’d indeed.
How perfectly this tallies here, I see —
I am not young, and yet she pleases me.

Astrologer.
A boy no more! A man, heroic, brave,
He claspeth her, who scarce herself can save;
With stalwart arm aloft he raises her.
Thinks he to bear her off?

Faust.
Rash fool! Beware!
Thou darest! Hearest not! Forbear I say!

Mephis.
Why thou thyself dost make the phantom-play!

Astrologer.
Only one word! From what did her befall,
“The rape of Helena,” the piece I call.

Faust.
The rape! Count I for nothing here? This key,
Do I not hold it still within my hand?
Through dreary wastes, through waves, it guided me,
Through solitudes, here to this solid land;
Here is firm footing, here the actual, where
Spirit with spirits to contend may dare,
And for itself a vast, twin-realm prepare.
Far as she was, how can she be more near?
Sav’d, she is doubly mine! I’ll dare it! Hear,
Ye Mothers, Mothers, hear, and grant my quest!
Who once hath known, without her cannot rest!

Astrologer.
What dost thou? Faustus! Faustus! — Her with might,
He seizes; fades the phantom from the sight;
Towards the youth he turneth now the key,
He touches him! — Presto! alas! Woe’s me!
[Explosion, Faustlies upon the ground.
[The phantoms vanish in the air.

Mephis.
(Taking Faustupon his shoulders.) You have it now! With fools one’s self to burden,
May to the devil prove a sorry guerdon.
(Darkness. Tumult.)

ACT II.

High-vaulted, Narrow Gothic Chamber.
(Formerly Faust’s,unaltered.)

Mephis.
(Stepping from behind a curtain. While he raises it and looks back, Faustis seen, stretched upon an old-fashioned bed.)
Lie there, ill-starr’d one! In love’s chain,
Full hard to loose, he captive lies!
Not soon his senses will regain
Whom Helena doth paralyze.
[Looking round.
Above, around, on every side
I gaze, uninjur’d all remains:
Dimmer, methinks, appear the color’d panes,
The spiders’ webs are multiplied,
Yellow the paper, and the ink is dry;
Yet in its place each thing I find;
And here the very pen doth lie,
Wherewith himself Faust to the Devil sign’d,
Yea, quite dried up, and deeper in the bore,
The drop of blood, I lur’d from him of yore —
O’erjoy’d to own such specimen unique
Were he who objects rare is fain to seek; —
Here on its hook hangs still the old fur cloak,
Me it remindeth of that merry joke,
When to the boy I precepts gave, for truth,
Whereon, perchance, he’s feeding now, as youth.
The wish comes over me, with thee allied,
Envelop’d in thy worn and rugged folds,
Once more to swell with the professor’s pride!
How quite infallible himself he holds;
This feeling to obtain your savans know;
The devil parted with it long ago.
[He shakes the fur cloak which he has taken down; crickets, moths and chafers fly out.

Chorus of Insects.
We welcome thy coming,
Our patron of yore!
We’re dancing and humming,
And know thee once more.
Us singly, in silence,
Hast planted, and lo!
By thousands, O Father,
We dance to and fro.
The rogue hides discreetly
The bosom within;
We looseskins fly rather
Forth from the fur skin.

Mephis.
O’erjoy’d I am my progeny to know!
We’re sure to reap in time, if we but sow.
I shake the old fur-mantle as before,
And here and there outflutters one or more.
Above, around, hasten, beloved elves,
In hundred thousand nooks to hide yourselves!
‘Mid boxes there of bygone time,
Here in these age-embrowned scrolls,
In broken potsherds, foul with grime,
In yonder skulls’ now eyeless holes!
Amid such rotten, mouldering life,
Must foolish whims for aye be rife.
[Slips into the fur-mantle.
Come shroud my shoulders as of yore!
To-day I’m principal once more;
But useless ’tis, to bear the name:
Where are the folk to recognize my claim?
[He pulls the bell, which emits a shrill penetrating sound, at which the halls shake and the doors spring open.

Famulus.
(Tottering up the long dark passage.) What a clamor! What a quaking!
Stairs are rocking, walls are shaking:
Through the windows’ quivering sheen,
Are the stormful lightnings seen;
Springs the ceiling, — thence, below,
Lime and mortar rattling flow:
And, though bolted fast, the door
Is undone by magic power!
There, in Faust’s old fleece bedight,
Stands a giant, — dreadful sight!
At his glance, his beck, at me!
I could sink upon my knee.
Shall I fly, or shall I stay?
What will be my fate to-day!

Mephis.
Come hither, friend! — Your name is Nicodemus?

Famulus.
Most honor’d Sir, such is my name. — Oremus!

Mephis.
That we’ll omit.

Famulus.
joy, me you do not forget.

Mephis.
I know it well: old, and a student yet;
My mossy friend, even a learned man
Still studies on, because naught else he can:
Thus a card-house each builds of medium height;
The greatest spirit fails to build it quite.
Your master, though, that title well may claim —
The noble Doctor Wagner, known to fame,
First in the learned world! ’Tis he, they say,
Who holds that world together; every day
Of wisdom he augments the store!
Who crave omniscience, evermore
In crowds upon his teaching wait;
He from the rostrum shines alone;
The keys doth like Saint Peter own,
And doth of Hell and Heaven ope the gate;
As before all he glows and sparkles,
No fame, no glory but grows dim,
Even the name of Faustus darkles!
Inventor there is none like him.

Famulus.
Pardon, most honor’d Sir, excuse me, pray —
If I presume your utterance to gainsay —
This bears not on the question any way;
A modest mind is his allotted share.
The disappearance, unexplain’d as yet,
Of the great man, his mind doth sorely fret;
Comfort from his return and health are still his prayer.
The chamber, as in Doctor Faustus’ day,
Maintains, untouch’d, its former state,
And for its ancient lord doth wait.
Venture therein I scarcely may.
What now the aspect of the stars? —
Awe-struck the very walls appear;
The door-posts quiver’d, sprang the bars —
Else you yourself could not have enter’d here.

Mephis.
Where then bestow’d himself hath he?
Lead me to him! bring him to me!

Famulus.
Alas! Too strict his prohibition
Scarce dare I, without his permission.
Months, on his mighty work intent,
Hath he, in strict seclusion spent.
Most dainty ‘mong your men of books,
Like charcoal-burner now he looks,
With face begrim’d from ear to nose;
His eyes are blear’d, while fire he blows;
Thus for the crisis still he longs;
His music is the clang of tongs.

Mephis.
Admittance unto me deny?
To hasten his success, the man am I.
[Exit Famulus. Mephistophelesseats himself with a solemn air.
Scarce have I taken my post, when lo!
Stirs from behind a guest, whom well I know;
Of the most recent school, this time, is he,
And quite unbounded will his daring be.

Baccalaureus.
(Storming along the passage.) Open find I door and gate!

Hope at last springs up elate,
That the living shall no more
Corpse-like rot, as heretofore,
And, while breathing living breath,
Waste and moulder as in death.

Here partition, screen, and wall
Are sinking, bowing to their fall,
And, unless we soon retreat,
Wreck and ruin us will greet.
Me, though bold, nor soon afraid,
To advance shall none persuade.

What shall I experience next?
Years ago, when sore perplex’d,
Came I not a freshman here,
Full of anxious doubt and fear,
On these graybeards then relied,
By their talk was edified?

What from musty tomes they drew,
They lied to me; the things they knew
Believ’d they not; with falsehood rife,
Themselves and me they robb’d of life.
How? — Yonder in the murky glare,
There’s one still sitting in the chair —

Drawing near I wonder more —
Just as him I left of yore,
There he sits, in furry gown,
Wrapp’d in shaggy fleece, the brown!
Then he clever seem’d, indeed,
Him as yet I could not read;
Naught will it avail to-day;
So have at him, straight-away.
If Lethe’s murky flood not yet hath pass’d,
Old Sir, through your bald pate, that sideways bends,
The scholar recognize, who hither wends,
Outgrown your academic rods at last.
The same I find you, as of yore;
But I am now the same no more.

Mephis.
Glad am I that I’ve rung you here.
I priz’d you then not slightingly;
In grub and chrysalis appear
The future brilliant butterfly.
A childish pleasure then you drew
From collar, lace, and curls. — A queue
You probably have never worn? —
Now to a crop I see you shorn.
All resolute and bold your air —
But from the absolute forbear!

Baccalaureus.
We’re in the ancient place, mine ancient Sir,
But think upon time’s onward flow,
And words of double-meaning spare!
Quite otherwise we hearken now.
You fool’d the simple, honest youth;
It cost but little art in sooth,
To do what none to-day will dare.

Mephis.
If to the young the naked truth one speaks,
It pleases in no wise the yellow beaks;
But afterwards, when in their turn
On their own skin the painful truth they learn,
They think, forsooth, from their own head it came;
“The master was a fool,” they straight proclaim.

Baccalaureus.
A rogue perchance! — For where’s the teacher found
Who to our face, direct, will Truth expound?
Children to edify, each knows the way,
To add or to subtract, now grave, now gay.

Mephis.
For learning there’s in very truth a time;
For teaching, I perceive, you now are prime.
While a few suns and many moons have wan’d,
A rich experience you have doubtless gain’d!

Baccalaureus.
Experience! Froth and scum alone,
Not with the mind of equal birth!
Confess! what men have always known,
As knowledge now is nothing worth.

Mephis.
(After a pause.) I long have thought myself a fool;
Now shallow to myself I seem, and dull.

Baccalaureus.
That pleases me! Like reason that doth sound;
The first old man of sense I yet have found!

Mephis.
I sought for hidden treasures, genuine gold —
And naught but hideous ashes forth I bore!

Baccalaureus.
Confess that pate of yours, though bare and old,
Than yonder hollow skull is worth no more!

Mephis.
(Good-naturedly.) Thou know’st not, friend, how rude is thy reply.

Baccalaureus.
In German to be courteous is to lie.

Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word]
Wagner.

Mephis.
(Still moving his wheel-chair ever nearer to the proscenium, to the pit.)
Up here I am bereft of light and air;
I perhaps shall find a refuge with you there?

Baccalaureus.
When at their worst, that men would something be,
When they are naught, presumptuous seems to me.
Man’s life is in the blood, and where, in sooth,
Pulses the blood so strongly as in youth?
That’s living blood, which with fresh vigor rife,
The newer life createth out of life.
There all is movement, something there is done;
Falleth the weak, the able presses on!
While half the world we ‘neath our sway have brought,
What have ye done? Slept, nodded, dream’d and thought,
Plan after plan reject’d; — nothing won.
Age is, in sooth, a fever cold,
With frost of whims and peevish need:
When more than thirty years are told,
As good as dead one is indeed:
You it were best, methinks, betimes to slay.

Mephis.
The devil here has nothing more to say.

Baccalaureus.
Save through my will, no devil dares to be.

Mephis.
(Aside.) The devil now prepares a fall for thee!

Baccalaureus.
The noblest mission this of youth’s estate.
The world was not, till it I did create;
The radiant Sun I led from out the sea;
Her changeful course the Moon began with me;
The Day array’d herself my steps to meet,
The Earth grew green, and blossom’d me to greet;
At my command, upon you primal Night,
The starry hosts unveil’d their glorious light.
Who, beside me, the galling chains unbound,
Which cramping thought had cast your spirits round?
But I am free, as speaks my spirit-voice,
My inward light I follow, and rejoice;
Swift I advance, enraptur’d, void of fear,
Brightness before me, darkness in the rear.
[Exit.

Mephis.
Go, in thy pride, Original, thy way! —
True insight would, in truth, thy spirit grieve!
What wise or stupid thoughts can man conceive,
Unponder’d in the ages pass’d away? —
Yet we for him need no misgiving have;
Chang’d will he be, when a few years are past;
Howe’er absurdly may the must behave,
Nathless it yields a wine at last. —
(To the younger part of the audience, who do not applaud.)
Though to my words you’re somewhat cold,
Good children, me you don’t offend;
Reflect! The devil, he is old;
Grow old then, him to comprehend!
Laboratory.
After the fashion of the middle ages; cumbrous, useless apparatus, for fantastic purposes.

Wagner.
(At the furnace.) Soundeth the bell, the fearful clang
Thrills through these sooty walls; no more
Upon fulfilment waits the pang
Of hope or fear; — suspense is o’er;
The darknesses begin to clear,
Within the inmost phial glows
Radiance, like living coal, that throws,
As from a splendid carbuncle, its rays;
Athwart the gloom its lightning plays,
A pure white lustre doth appear;
may I never lose it more! —
My God! what rattles at the door?

Mephis.
(Entering.) Welcome! As friend I enter here.

Wagner.
Hail to the star that rules the hour!
[Softly.
On breath and utterance let a ban be laid!
Soon will be consummate a work of power.

Mephis.
(In a whisper.) What is it, then?

Wagner.
A man is being made.

Mephis.
A man? and pray what loving pair
Have in your smoke-hole their abode?

Wagner.
Nay! Heaven forbid! As nonsense we declare
The ancient procreative mode;
The tender point, life’s spring, the gentle strength
That took and gave, that from within hath press’d,
And seiz’d, intent itself to manifest
The nearest first, the more remote at length, —
This from its dignity is now dethron’d!
The brute indeed may take delight therein,
But man, by whom such mighty gifts are own’d,
Must have a purer, higher origin.
[He turns to the furnace.
It flashes, see! — Now may we trustful hold,
That if, of substances a hundred-fold,
Through mixture, — for on mixture it depends —
The human substance duly we compose,
And then in a retort enclose,
And cohobate; in still repose
The work is perfect’d, our labor ends.
[Again turning to the furnace.
It forms! More clear the substance shows!
Stronger, more strong, conviction grows!
What Nature’s mystery we once did style,
That now to test, our reason tries,
And what she organiz’d erewhile,
We now are fain to crystallize.

Mephis.
Who lives, doth much experience glean;
By naught in this world will he be surpris’d;
Already in my travel-years I’ve seen,
Full many a race of mortals crystallized.

Wagner.
(Still gazing intently on the phial.)
It mounts, it glows, and doth together run,
One moment, and the work is done!
As mad, a grand design at first is view’d;
But we henceforth may laugh at fate,
And so a brain, with thinking-power imbu’d,
Henceforth your living thinker will create.
[Surveying the phial with rapture.
The glass resounds, with gracious power possess’d;
It dims, grows clear; living it needs must be!
And now in form of beauty dress’d,
A dainty mannikin I see.
What more can we desire, what more mankind?
Unveil’d is now what hidden was of late;
Give ear unto this sound, and you will find,
A voice it will become, articulate.

Homunculus.
(In the phial, to Wagner.)
Now, Fatherkin, how goes it? ’Twas no jest!
Come let me to thy heart be fondly press’d —
Lest the glass break, less tight be thine embrace!
This is the property of things: the All
Scarcely suffices for the natural;
The artificial needs a bounded space.
(To Mephistopheles.)
But thou, Sir Cousin, Rogue, art thou too here?
At the right moment! Thee I thank. ’Tis clear
To us a happy fortune leadeth thee;
While I exist, still must I active be,
And to the work forthwith myself would gird;
Thou’rt skill’d the way to shorten.

Wagner.
Just one word!
I oft have been asham’d that knowledge fail’d,
When old and young with problems me assail’d.
For instance: no one yet could comprehend,
How soul and body so completely blend,
Together hold, as ne’er to part, while they
Torment each other through the livelong day.
So then —

Mephis.
Forbear! The problem solve for me,
Why man and wife so wretchedly agree?
Upon this point, my friend, thou’lt ne’er be clear;
The mannikin wants work, he’ll find it here.

Homunculus.
What’s to be done?

Mephis.
(Pointing to a side door.)
Yonder thy gifts display!

Wagner.
(Still gazing into the phial.)
A very lovely boy, I needs must say!
[The side door opens; Faustis seen stretched upon a couch.

Homunculus.
(Amazed.) Momentus!
[The phial slips from Wagner’shands, hovers over Faust,and sheds a light upon him.
Girt with beauty! — Water clear
In the thick grove; fair women, who undress;
Most lovely creatures! — grows their loveliness:
But o’er the rest one shines without a peer,
As if from heroes, nay from gods she came;
In the transparent sheen her foot she laves;
The tender life-fire of her noble frame
She cools in yielding crystal of the waves. —
Of swiftly moving wings what sudden noise?
What plash, what plunge the liquid glass destroys?
The maidens fly, alarmed; alone, the queen,
With calm composure gazes on the scene:
With womanly and proud delight, she sees
The prince of swans press fondly to her knees,
Persistent, tame; familiar now he grows. —
But suddenly upfloats a misty shroud,
And with thick-woven veil doth overcloud
The loveliest of all lovely shows.

Mephis.
Why thou in sooth canst everything relate!
Small as thou art, as phantast thou art great.
I can see nothing —

Homunculus.
I believe it. Thou,
Bred in the north, in the dark ages, how,
In whirl of priesthood and knight-errantry,
Have for such sights, thy vision free!
In darkness only thou’rt at home.
[Looking round.
Ye brown, repulsive blocks of stone,
Arch-pointed, low, with mould o’ergrown!
Should he awake, new care were bred,
He on the spot would straight be dead.
Wood-fountains, swans, fair nymphs undress’d,
Such was his dream, presageful, rare;
In place like this how could he rest,
Which I, of easy mood, scarce bear!
Away with him!

Mephis.
I like your plan, proceed!

Homunculus.
Command the warrior to the fight,
The maiden to the dancers lead!
They’re satisfied, and all is right.
E’en now a thought occurs, most bright;
’Tis classical Walpurgis-night —
Most fortunate! It suits his bent,
So bring him straightway to his element!

Mephis.
Of such I ne’er have heard, I frankly own.

Homunculus.
Upon your ear indeed how should it fall?
Only romantic ghosts to you are known;
Your genuine ghost is also classical.

Mephis.
But whitherward to travel are we fain?
Your antique colleagues are against my grain.

Homunculus.
North-westward, Satan, lies thy pleasure-ground;
But, this time, we to the south-east are bound. —
An ample vale Peneios floweth through,
‘Mid bush and tree its curving shores it laves;
The plain extendeth to the mountain caves,
Above it lies Pharsalus, old and new.

Mephis.
Alas! Forbear! Forever be eschew’d
Those wars of tyranny and servitude!
I’m bored with them: for they, as soon as done,
Straight recommence; and no one calls to mind
That he in sooth is only play’d upon
By Asmodeus, who still lurks behind.
They battle, so ’tis said, for freedom’s rights —
More clearly seen, ’tis slave ‘gainst slave who fights.

Homunculus.
Leave we to men their nature, quarrel-prone!
Each must defend himself, as best he can,
From boyhood up; so he becomes a man.
The question here is, how to cure this one?
[Pointing to Faust.
Hast thou a means, here let it tested be;
Canst thou do naught, then leave the task to me.

Mephis.
Full many a Brocken-piece I might essay,
But bolts of heathendom foreclose the way.
The Grecian folk were ne’er worth much, ’tis true,
Yet with the senses’ play they dazzle you;
To cheerful sins the human heart they lure,
While ours are reckon’d gloomy and obscure.
And now what next?

Homunculus.
Of old thou wert not shy;
And if I name Thessalian witches, — why,
I something shall have said, — of that I’m sure.

Mephis.
(Lustfully.) Thessalian witches — well! the people they
Concerning whom I often have inquir’d.
Night after night, indeed, with them to stay,
That were an ordeal not to be desir’d;
But for a trial trip —

Homunculus.
The mantle there
Reach hither, wrap it round the knight!
As heretofore, the rag will bear
Both him and thee; the way I’ll light.

Wagner.
(Alarmed.) And I?

Homunculus.
At home thou wilt remain:
Thee most important work doth there detain;
The ancient scrolls unfolding, cull
Life’s elements, as taught by rule;
And each with other then combine with care;
Upon the What, more on the How, reflect!
Meanwhile as through a piece of world I fare,
I may the dot upon the “I” detect.
Then will the mighty aim accomplish’d be;
Such high reward deserves such striving; — wealth,
Honor and glory, lengthen’d life, sound health,
Knowledge withal and virtue — possibly.
Farewell!

Wagner.
Farewell! That grieves my heart full sore!
I fear indeed I ne’er shall see thee more.

Mephis.
Now to Peneios forth we wend!
We must not slight our cousin’s aid.
(To the spectators.)
At last, in sooth, we all depend
On creatures, we ourselves have made.

CLASSICAL WALPURGISNIGHT.

Pharsalian Fields.
Darkness.

Erichtho.*
To this night’s ghastly fête, as oftentimes before,
I hither come, Erichtho, I, the gloomy one;
Not so atrocious, as the sorry poet-throng
Me in excess have slander’d. . . They no measure know
In censure and applause. . . O’erwhiten’d seems to me,
With waves of dusky tents, the valley, far and wide,
Night-phantom of that dire and most appalling night.
How often ’tis repeated! Will for evermore
Repeat itself for aye. . . empire none gladly yields
To others; none to him, by force who master’d it
And forceful reigns. For each, his inmost self to rule
How impotent soe’er, ruleth right joyously
His neighbor’s will, as prompts his own imperious mind. . . .
Nathless a great example here was battled through;
Here force ‘gainst force more potent takes its stand,
Freedom’s fair chaplet breaks, with thousand blossoms rife,
The stubborn laurel bends around the victor’s brow.
Of greatness’ budding-day here Pompey dream’d; and there,
Watching the wavering balance, Cæsar wakeful lay!
Strength they shall measure. Knows the world who here prevail’d.
Brightly the watch-fires burn, diffusing ruddy flames;
Reflex of blood, once spill’d, does from the soil exhale,
And by the night’s most rare and wondrous splendor lur’d,
Hither the legions throng of Hellas’ mythic lore.
Round every fire dim shapes, phantoms of ancient days,
Flit wavering to and fro, or there recline at ease. . .
The moon, not fully orb’d, of clearest light serene,
Uprising, lustre mild diffuses all around.
Vanish the spectral tents, the fires are burning blue.
But lo! above my head, what sudden meteor sails!
It shines, and doth illume a ball corporeal.
I snuff the scent of life. Me it beseemeth not
The living to approach, to whom I noxious am;
That brings me ill-repute, and nothing profits me.
Already it sinks down. With caution I retire.
[Withdraws.
The Aerial Travellers above.

Homunculus.
O’er the horror weird and blazing,
Wing once more your circling flight;
Down on vale and hollow gazing,
All phantasmal is the sight.

Mephis.
Hideous ghosts, as through the casement
Old, ‘mid northern waste and gloom,
I behold, — without amazement, —
Here as there I am at home!

Homunculus.
Swiftly, there, before us striding,
Mark yon tall, retreating shade!

Mephis.
Seeing us through ether gliding,
Troubled seems she, and afraid.

Homunculus.
Let her stride! Set down thy burden, —
Him, thy Knight; — the while I speak,
Life to him returns, the guerdon,
He in fable-land doth seek.

Faust.
(Touching the ground.) Where is she?

Homunculus.
That I cannot say,
But here perchance inquire for her you may.
Till breaks the dawn, with speed, do thou,
From fire to fire, still seeking, wend;
He nothing more need fear, I trow,
Who, to the Mothers, ventur’d to descend.

Mephis.
My part to play, I also claim;
And for our weal naught better know,
Than that, forthwith, from flame to flame,
Seeking his own adventures each should go.
Then us once more to re-unite,
Show, little friend, thy sounding light!

Homunculus.
Thus shall it sound, thus glitter too!
[The glass rings, and emits a powerful light.
And now away to marvels new!

Faust.
(Alone.) Where is she? — Now no further question make! . . .
If this were not the sod, her form that bare,
This not the wave that brake to welcome her,
Yet ’tis the air, that once her language spake!
Here! through a wonder, here on Grecian land!
I felt at once the soil whereon I stand:
As me, the sleeper, a new spirit fired,
An Antæus in heart, I rise inspir’d.
Assembled here objects most strange I find.
Searching, through this flame-labyrinth I’ll wind.
[He retires.

Mephis.
(Prying around.) As I these little fires still wander through,
I find myself a stranger everywhere;
Quite naked most, some shirted here and there:
The Sphinxes shameless, and the Griffins too,
And winged things, with tresses, hurrying past,
Before, behind, within mine eye are glass’d . . .
At heart indecent are we, truth to speak,
Yet all too life-like find I the Antique;
It by the modern mind must be controll’d,
And overgloss’d, in fashions manifold. . . .
A crew repulsive! Yet, a stranger guest,
In courteous phrase be my salute express’d. . . .
All hail! ye beauteous ladies, graybeards wise!

Griffin.
(Snarling.) Not Graybeards — Griffins! It the temper tries
To hear one’s self styled gray. In every word
Some echo of its origin is heard:
Grim, grievous, grizzl’d, grimy, graveyards, gray,
In etymology accord, and they
Still put us out of tune.

Mephis.
Yet all the same,
The “Gri” contents you in your honor’d name.

Griffin.
(As above.) Of course! For the alliance prov’d may be,
Oft blam’d indeed, but prais’d more frequently.
Let each one gripe at beauty, empire, gold,
Fortune still aids the Griper if he’s bold.

Ants.
(Of the colossal kind.) Of gold ye speak. Thereof we much had stor’d,
And pil’d in rocks and caves our secret hoard;
The Arimaspians found it, bore it off —
So far away that now at us they scoff.

Griffin.
We’ll bring them straightway to confession.

Arimaspian.
Not on this night of jubilee!
Ere morning, all will squander’d be;
For this time we retain possession.

Mephis.
(Who has seated himself between the Sphinxes.) How soon, well-pleas’d, I grow familiar here!
I understand them, man by man.

Sphinx.
Our spirit-tones into your ear
We breathe, embody them you can.
Until we know thee better, tell thy name.

Mephis.
Full many a title I ‘mong men may claim.
Are Britons here? They travel far to trace
Renowned battlefields, and waterfalls,
Old musty classic sites, and ruin’d walls.
A worthy goal for them this very place;
Of me their ancient plays would testify;
I there was seen as Old Iniquity.

Sphinx.
How came they upon that?

Mephis.
I know not.

Sphinx.
That may be.
To read the starry volume hast thou power?
What sayest to the aspect of the hour?

Mephis.
(Looking up.) Star shooteth after star, bright the shorn moon doth shine,
And I’m content this cozy place within;
I warm myself against thy lion’s skin.
Aloft to climb were hurtful, I opine.
Propose some riddles, some charades! — Begin!

Sphinx.
Thyself declare, a riddle that indeed.
Only essay thine inmost self to read:
“Needful to pious, as to bad men found;
Armor to those, ascetic fence to test,
Comrade to these, in every desperate quest.
And both alike to Zeus, a merry jest.”

First Griffin.
(Snarling.) I like him not!

Second Griffin.
(Snarling more loudly.)
What wants he here?

Both.
The brute belongs not to this sphere!

Mephis.
(Brutally.) Thou thinkest, maybe, that the stranger’s nail,
To scratch with, like thy talons, can’t avail?
Let’s try, forthwith!

Sphinx.
(Mildly.) Here thou mayst ever dwell;
But from our midst thyself wilt soon expel.
In thine own land art wont thyself to please.
If I mistake not, here thou’rt ill at ease.

Mephis.
Enticing art thou, when above descried;
But with the beast below, I’m horrified.

Sphinx.
Thou false one, thou shalt bitterly repent:
These paws are sound: but as for thee,
With thy shrunk hoof thou’rt not content,
It seems, in our society.

Sirens.
(Preluding above.)

Mephis.
What birds are those, on poplar bough
Swinging, the river banks along?

Sphinx.
Beware! the noblest have ere now
Been master’d by the Sirens’ song!

Sirens.
Ah! Misguided one, why linger,
‘Mid these hideous wonders dwelling!
Cometh each melodious singer; —
Hark! our choral notes are swelling,
As beseems the Siren-throng.

Sphinxes.
(Mocking them in the same melody.)
Force them downward, hither faring;
‘Mid the boughs themselves concealing,
They to seize you are preparing:
Ugly falcon-claws revealing,
If ye hearken to their song.

Sirens.
Envy, Hate, avaunt ye! Listen!
All the brightest joys that glisten,
‘Neath the sky, assemble we!
Now with joy in every feature,
Hail we gladly every creature,
On the earth or in the sea!

Mephis.
Dainty novelties, — there ring
From the throat, and from the string
Tones that sweetly interweave.
Trills on me away are thrown;
Tickle they mine ear alone,
But untouch’d my heart they leave.

Sphinxes.
Speak not of hearts, for, I believe,
A leathern wallet in its place,
Shrivell’d, would better suit thy face.

Faust.
(Entering.) The spectacle contents me; — wondrous creatures,
Ill-favor’d, yet with large and stalwart features.
E’en now, I augur an auspicious fate;
Whither doth me that earnest glance translate?
[Pointing to the Sphinxes.
Once before such took Œdipus his stand;
[Pointing to the Sirens.
Writhed before such Ulyss in hempen band?
[Pointing to the Ants.
By such the mightiest treasure was upstor’d.
[Pointing to the Griffins.
With true and faithful watch, these kept the hoard.
I feel new life my being penetrate;
Great are the forms, the memories are great!

Mephis.
Once thou such shapes had scouted, now
Thou seemest friendly to their kind;
E’en monsters welcome are, I trow,
To him who would the lov’d one find.

Faust.
(To the Sphinxes.) Ye women shapes, straight must ye answer me:
Hath one of you chanc’d Helena to see?

Sphinx.
We reach not to her day; the last was slain
By Hercules; some tidings thou mayst gain
From Chiron, canst thou him detain.
Round on this ghostly night he doth career;
If he will answer thee, thy goal is near.

Sirens.
Thou, for certain, shalt not fail! . . .
When Ulysses, with us whiling,
Sped not forward, unreviling,
He hath told us many a tale.
All to thee we would confide,
If ‘midst Ocean’s purple tide,
To our seats thou wouldst repair.

Sphinx.
Noble one, their guile beware!
As Ulysses to the mast, —
Thee let our good counsel bind.
Canst thou noble Chiron find,
Thy desire wilt gain at last.
[Exit Faust.

Mephis.
(Peevishly.) What croaks, on pinions rushing by?
So swiftly they elude the eye,
In single file they hurrying fly;
The hunter they would tire, I ween.

Sphinx.
Like storm of wintry tempest, these,
Scarce reach Alcides’ arrows keen —
They are the swift Stymphalides;
Their croaking too is kindly meant,
With foot of goose and vulture beak;
To mingle in our sphere they seek,
Their cousinship to prove intent.

Mephis.
(Scared.) There whiz some other forms of ill —

Sphinx.
For fear of these you need not quake:
These are the heads of the Lernæan snake,
Shorn from the trunk, and think they’re something still.
But say what meaneth this distress?
This troubled air, this restlessness?
Where would you go? Be off, I say!
The group, that yonder meets mine eye,
Leads you to turn your neck awry.
Be not constrain’d! Begone! Away!
And greet full many a visage fair!
The Lamiæ, wantons sly, are there,
With forehead bold, and winning smile,
As they the Satyr-race beguile:
With them the goat’s foot all may dare.

Mephis.
You’ll stay, that I may find you here again.

Sphinx.
Yea! mingle with the airy train!
From Egypt we the custom own,
That each a thousand years should keep her throne.
And to our place, if due respect ye pay,
We rule the lunar, rule the solar day.
We, the Pyramids before,
Sit for judgment of the nations,
War and peace and inundations —
Change our features never more.
Peneios.
Surrounded by waters and Nymphs.

Peneios.
Sedgy whispers, gently flow;
Sister reeds breathe faint and low;
Willows lightly rustle ye,
Lisp each trembling poplar-tree,
To my interrupted dream!
Wakens me a tempest drear;
From my rest a trembling fear
Scares me, ‘neath my flowing stream.

Faust.
(Approaching the stream.)
By mine ear I must believe,
Where these arbors interweave
Bush and bough, there breathes around,
As of human voice the sound;
Prattling seems each wave to play,
And the breeze keeps holiday.

Nymphs.
(To Faust.)
Oh, best were it for thee,
Way-weary and sore,
In coolness reclining,
Thy limbs to restore; —
The rest thus enjoying
That from thee doth flee;
We rustle, we murmur,
We whisper to thee!

Faust.
Yes, I’m awake! Let them have sway,
These peerless shapes, as in their play
Follows mine eye, in eager quest.
How strange the feeling! What are these?
Dreams are they? Are they memories?
Already once wert thou so bless’d.
Athwart thick-woven copse and bush
Still waters glide; — they do not rush,
Scarcely they rustle as they flow:
From every side their currents bright
A hundred crystal springs unite,
And form a sloping bath below.
Young nymphs, whose limbs of graceful mould,
The gazer’s raptur’d eyes behold,
Are in the liquid mirror glass’d!
Bathing with joyance all-pervading,
Now boldly swimming, shyly wading,
With shout and water-fight at last.
Contented might I be with these,
Mine eye be charm’d with what it sees;
Yet to yon covert’s leafy screen
My yearning glance doth forward press,
The verdant wealth of whose recess
Shrouds from my gaze the lofty queen.
Most wonderful! Swans now draw near;
Forth from the bays their course they steer,
Oaring with majestic grace;
Floating, tenderly allied,
But with self-complacent pride,
Head and beak they move apace!
But one seems before the rest,
Joyfully the wave to breast,

artist: franz simm.
FAUST. SECOND PART.
faust mounted on chiron.
Sailing swift, without a peer;
Swells his plumage, wave on wave,
That the answering flood doth lave; —
He the hallow’d spot doth near. . . .
Now the others swim together,
To and fro, with shining feather;
Soon in splendid strife, they scare
All the timid maids away;
That, from duty swerving, they
For themselves alone may care.

Nymphs.
Sisters, hearken, lay your ear
To the water’s grassy bound!
Ringeth, if I rightly hear,
As of horse’s hoof the sound.
Would I knew, who on this night,
Message bears in rapid flight.

Faust.
As it seems, the earth indeed
Echoes ‘neath a hurrying steed.
Yonder turns my glance!
Can such blessed chance
Wait upon me here?
Marvel without peer!
Hither a rider swift doth scour —
Endow’d with spirit and with power —
Borne by a snow-white steed is he. . . .
I err not, him I seek is found —
Of Philyra the son renown’d! —
Halt! Chiron! Halt! I’d speak with thee. . . .

Chiron.
How now! what would’st thou?

Faust.
Thy course arrest!

Chiron.
I pause not.

Faust.
Take me with thee; grant my quest!

Chiron.
Mount! So I can inquire, as on we fare,
Whither art bound? Thou standest on the banks;
Prepar’d I am, thee through the stream to bear.

Faust.
(Mounting.) Where’er thou wilt. Have evermore my thanks. . . .
The mighty man, the pedagogue of old
Whose fame it was, a hero-race to mould:
The noble Argonauts, with all their peers,
Who form’d the poet’s world, in bygone years —

Chiron.
That pass we over! Pallas’ self indeed
As Mentor is not honor’d; to my thought,
All, in the end, in their own way proceed,
As though, in sooth, they never had been taught.

Faust.
The leech who names each plant, who knows
All roots, e’en that which deepest grows,
Wounds who assuageth, sickness who doth chase,
In mind and body’s strength I here embrace —

Chiron.
Were hero wounded on the field,
Counsel and aid I could impart;
But, in the end, to priests I yield,
And women-herbalists my healing art.

Faust.
In thee the truly great man speaks,
To words of praise who stops his ears;
Who acts, while privacy he seeks,
As were he one of many peers.

Chiron.
Well skill’d thou seemest, to beguile
People and prince with glozing wile.

Faust.
At least by thee ‘twill be confess’d, —
The greatest of thy time hast seen, the best;
Hast with the noblest vied, in earnest strife,
And liv’d of demigods the arduous life!
But ‘mong those figures of heroic mould,
In virtue whom pre-eminent didst hold?

Chiron.
In the high circle of the Argonauts,
Each valiant was in fashion of his own,
And, by the virtue which inspir’d his thoughts,
Where others fail’d, he could suffice alone;
The Dioscuri ever did prevail
Where youthful bloom and beauty turn’d the scale;
Resolve, prompt deeds for others’ welfare, these
The portion fair of the Boreades;
Reflective, wary, strong, in council wise,
So Jason lorded, dear to woman’s eyes.
Then Orpheus, tender, contemplative still; —
Smote he the lyre, all own’d his wondrous skill.
Lynceus, through rocks and shoals, who, keen of sight,
Guided the holy ship, by day and night.
In fellowship is danger fronted best,
Where one achieves, extoll’d by all the rest.

Faust.
Of Hercules to me wilt naught impart?

Chiron.
Alas! wake not the longing in my heart. . . .
Never had Phœbus met my gaze,
Ares, or Hermes, — such their name;
When, as divine what all men praise
Before my raptured vision came!
A monarch born, in youth array’d
With glorious beauty; homage due
He to his elder brother paid,
And to the loveliest women too;
His second bears not Mother Earth,
Nor Hebe leads to heaven again;
Song strives in vain to tell his worth,
Tortur’d is marble too, in vain!

Faust.
To give such form to mortal ken
The sculptor’s boasted power is weak.
The fairest hast portray’d of men,
Now of the loveliest woman speak!

Chiron.
What! Woman’s beauty! Empty phrase,
Too oft an image void of life;
The being only can I praise,
Joy-giving and with gladness rife.
For Beauty in herself is bless’d;
Grace makes resistless, where possess’d,
Like Helena, whom once I bare.

Faust.
Her thou hast borne?

Chiron.
Yea! On this back.

Faust.
Was I not ‘mazed enough? Alack!
And now such seat must bless me!

Chiron.
By my hair
Me hath she grasp’d, as thou dost now.

Faust.
I lose myself! Oh, tell me, how?
She is in truth my sole desire!
Her, whence and whither didst thou bear?

Chiron.
Easy to tell what you require.
Their little sister, then the robbers’ prey,
The Dioscuri had redeem’d; but they, —
The ravishers, not wont to be subdu’d,
Took courage, and with stormful rage pursu’d;
The brothers, with their sister, urg’d their way
Towards the marsh, that near Eleusis lay:
The brothers waded; plashing, over it I swam;
Then off she sprang, and fondly press’d
My mane, all dripping; self-possess’d,
She sooth’d and thank’d, with sweet reserve and coy!
How charming was she! Young, of eld the joy!

Faust.
Just seven years old. . . .

Chiron.
The philologues, I see,
As they themselves deceiv’d, so have they thee.
Unique, in sooth, your mythologic dame:
After his pleasure her the poet shows;
Forever young, old age she never knows;
Her figure, love-inspiring, aye the same;
Ravish’d when young, courted when youth is flown —
Enough, no bonds of time the poets own.

Faust.
So let her also by no time be bound!
At Pheræ by Achilles she was found
Beyond time’s limits — happiness how rare!
In spite of destiny, love triumph’d there;
And should I not, with powerful longing rife,
Draw forth that matchless figure into life,
The deathless being, born of gods the peer,
Tender as great, sublime yet ever dear?
Thou saw’st her once, whom I to-day have seen,
Charming as fair, fair as desir’d, I ween!
Enthrall’d is my whole being, heart and brain;
I cease to live, unless I her obtain!

Chiron.
Stranger! Thou art enraptur’d, as men deem;
Yet among spirits, brain-struck thou dost seem.
’Tis well this madness hath assail’d thee here,
Since, only for some moments, every year,
My wont it is to Manto to repair;
She, Æsculapius’ child, in silent prayer
Implores her sire, who honor thus would gain,
Now to illumine the physicians’ brain,
That from rash death-strokes they henceforth refrain —
To me the dearest of the Sibyl’s guild,
Not wildly mov’d, with helpful kindness fill’d;
After a brief delay, thy perfect cure,
Through power of simples, can her art secure.

Faust.
But cured I would not be! My mind is strong!
Then were I abject like the vulgar throng!

Chiron.
Scorn not the healing of the noble fount.
We now are at the place; with speed, dismount.

Faust.
Whither, upon this night, with horror fraught,
Me, through the pebbly stream, to land hast brought?

Chiron.
Here Rome and Hellas madly spurn’d in fight,
(Olympus left, Peneios to the right,)
The mightiest realm that e’er in sand was lost;
The monarch flies, triumphs the burgher host.
Look up! Here stands, significantly near,
The fane eternal, bath’d in moonlight clear.

Manto.
(Dreaming within.)
Horse-hoofs shake the air,
Rings the sacred stair,
Demigods draw near.

Chiron.
Right! Open but thine eyes! I’m here!

Manto.
(Awaking.) Welcome! Thou hast not fail’d, I see.

Chiron.
Still stands thy temple-home for thee!

Manto.
Unwearied roam’st thou far and wide?

Chiron.
In quiet dost thou aye abide,
While I in ceaseless change delight?

Manto.
I wait, time circles me. — This wight?

Chiron.
Him hath this ill-reputed night
Caught in its whirl, and hither brought.
Helen, with mind and sense distraught,
Helen, he for himself would win,
But how and where he knows not to begin;
Worthy is he thy healing art to prove.

Manto.
Who the impossible desires, I love.
[Chironis already far away.
Enter, bold man, be joy thy meed!
This gloomy path to Proserpine doth lead.
She at Olympus’ hollow foot
Doth lurk for unallow’d salute.
In bygone time I Orpheus smuggled here;
Do thou fare better! Forward! Do not fear!
[They descend.
The Upper Peneios, as before.

Sirens.
Plunge into Peneios’ flood!
There beseems to swim rejoicing,
Song on song in chorus voicing,
For the unhallow’d people’s good.
Without water health is none!
In bright bands to the Ægean,
Speed we now with sounding pæan;
Every joy will then be won.
[Earthquake.
Back the foaming wave is rushing,
In its bed it flows no more;
Quakes the earth, the floods are gushing,
Bursting smokes the pebbly shore.
Let us fly! Come, every one!
Bodes this marvel good to none.
Hence! each noble, joyous guest,
Seaward to our gladsome fest,
Where the wavelets’ glittering band
Lightly swelling, lave the strand;
There where Luna, mirror’d true,
Moistens us with holy dew!
There is life’s unfetter’d motion —
Here an earthquake’s dire commotion!
Hence! Ye wise ones, fly apace!
Horror reigneth in this place.

Seismos.
(Bellowing and blustering in the depths.) Once more heave with might and main,
With the shoulders bravely strain:
So the upper world we gain,
Where to us must all things bend!

Sphinx.
What a most unpleasant quaking,
Hideous storm-blast, awe-awaking!
What a heaving, what a throe,
Surging, swaying, to and fro!
Horror not to be endur’d!
But our post we’ll not forsake,
Though all Hell were loose to break.
Now uprears itself a dome,
Wonderful. With age long hoar,
He it is who built of yore
Delos’ isle amid the foam,
Heaving it from out the sea,
For her, a mother soon to be;
Striving, pressing, upward-tending,
Arms wide-stretching, back low-bending,
Atlas-like, amid the surf
Shale he raises, grass and turf,
Pebbles, gravel, loam and sand,
Tranquil cradle of our strand:
Crosswise, he a track did wrest
From the valley’s tranquil vest:
Caryatid, of giant mould,
He, with strength that ne’er grows old,
Bears, half buried, earth his zone,
A huge scaffolding of stone —
But his course must here be stay’d!
Sphinxes here their stand have made.

Seismos.
That have I wrought, myself alone,
This will mankind at last declare;
Had I not shaken, and upthrown,
How had the world been now so fair?
Into the pure ethereal blue,
Their crests how should you mountains raise,
Had I not heav’d them forth to view,
To charm the painter’s raptur’d gaze,
What time (my sires meanwhile surveying,
Chaos and Night), myself I bare
Stoutly, and, with the Titans playing,
Pelion and Ossa toss’d like balls in air?
Madly we rag’d, by youthful heat possess’d,
Till, fairly wearied out at last,
With malice, on Parnassus’ crest,
We, like twin-caps both mountains cast. . . .
There with the Muses’ hallowed choir,
Apollo finds a glad retreat;
For Zeus too, and his bolts of fire,
I rais’d aloft his glorious seat.
So now, have I, with direful strain,
Press’d from the depths to upper air,
And joyous dwellers call amain
New life henceforth with me to share.

Sphinxes.
Primeval had been deem’d, I trow,
What here hath struggled into birth,
Had we ourselves not witness’d how
It tore itself from out the earth.
Now upwards bushy groves themselves extend,
Rocks pressing upon rocks still forward tend;
Yet not for this shall any sphinx retreat:
Untroubled we retain our sacred seat.

Griffins.
Gold in leaflets, gold in flitters,
Through the crannies how it glitters;
Let none rob you of the prize —
Up! to seize it, Emmets, rise!

Chorus of Ants.
Giants, the light to greet,
Upward aspiring
Hurl’d it; with pattering feet
Climb, never tiring!
Nimbly press out and in!
Each cleft is screening
(Seek ye each crumb to win),
Gold worth the gleaning;
Even the least of all
Must ye uncover;
Haste, in each cranny small
Gold to discover.
Swarmers, in quest of pelf
Toil without leisure!
Heed not the hill itself;
Gather the treasure!

Griffins.
In with it; pile the golden heap!
Upon it we our claws will lay;
Bolts of the surest fashion, they
The greatest treasure safe will keep.

Pigmies.
We a footing here have got,
How it chanc’d, doth not appear;
Whence we issued, question not;
Once for all we’re settled here!
Seat for merry life doth yield,
Every country, every land;
Is a rocky cleft reveal’d,
There the dwarf is straight at hand;
Dwarf and dwarfess, model pair,
Swiftly each its labor plies.
Know I cannot if it were
So before in Paradise;
Here all find we for the best,
So our stars we thank; for still,
Mother Earth, in east and west,
Bringeth forth with right good will.

Dactyls.
Hath she, in a single night
Brought these tiny ones to light,
She the smallest will create;
Each forthwith will find his mate.

Eldest of the Pigmies.
Hasten, make ready,
Prompt be, and steady!
Swift to the deed!
Let strength be for speed!
Peace still is reigning;
Build uncomplaining
The smithy, to burnish
Armor, and furnish
All war’s belongings
Now for the host!
Ants in swift throngings,
Busily post; —
Metals procure, and you,
Dactyls, a tiny crew,
Yet an unnumber’d band,
Hear our command;
Wood bring with speed!
Flamelets in secret heap;
Them still alive to keep,
Coals too we need!

Generalissimo.
With arrow and bow
Now march on the foe:
The herons that o’er
Yon fish-pond now soar,
Numberless nesting,
Haughtily breasting,
Shoot altogether,
That so we may
With helm and feather
Ourselves array!

Ants and Dactyls.
Deliverance is vain!
The iron we bring,
They forge the chain;
Our freedom to wring
’Tis not yet the hour:
Crouch then to their power!

The Cranes of Ibycus.
Cry of murder, dying, wailing!
Wing-strokes, anguish’d, unavailing!
What lament, what agony,
Pierces to our realms on high!
All are murder’d now; the water,
Red with blood, betrays the slaughter;
Wanton lust of ornament
Hath the heron’s plumage shent:
See it o’er the helmet wave
Of each greasy, crook-legg’d knave!
Comrades of our army, ye
Heron-wanderers of the sea,
Be with us for vengeance mated,
In a cause so near related:
Let none spare or strength or blood!
Deathless hatred to this brood!
[They disperse, croaking in the air.

Mephis.
(On the plain.) The Northern witches I could curb; with these,
Your foreign spirits, I am ill at ease.
The Blockberg is convenient when you roam:
Go where you may, you find yourself at home;
For us Dame Ilsa watches on her stone,
Heinrich is cheerful on his mountain-throne,
The Snorers grunt if Elend but appears,
Yet all is settled for a thousand years;
But here, stand still or walk, and who can know
Whether the ground upheaves not from below?
Through a smooth valley merrily I wind,
And all at once there rises from behind
A mountain, — scarce a mountain, — yet of height
To intercept the sphinxes from my sight. . . .
Adown the valley many a flame aspires;
Round some adventure quiver still the fires . . .
Dances, and round me hovers to entice,
An amorous crew, with many a coy device.
But soft: — Accustom’d to forbidden sweets,
One seeks to snatch them, wheresoe’er one meets!

Lamiæ.
(Luring Mephistophelesafter them.)
Fleeter, still fleeter!
Ever advancing!
Then again staying,
Prattling and playing!
Nothing is sweeter
Than the hoar sinner,
After us dancing,
Thus to allure;
Limping and stumbling,
Fretting and grumbling,
To penance sure,
Draweth he nigh;
His stiff leg dragging,
Comes he unflagging,
As him we fly.

Mephis.
(Standing still.) Accursed Fate! Dupes truly styl’d!
From Adam downward, fool’d, beguil’d!
We age — but who’s in wisdom school’d?
Wert not enough already fool’d?
We know how good for naught these creatures;
Pinch’d at the waist, with painted features;
No soundness in their bodies slim; —
Grasp where we may, rotten is every limb:
We know, we see, we handle it in life —
And yet we dance, if but the carrion fife!

Lamiæ.
(Stopping.) Hold! He considers, lingers, stands;
Meet him, lest he escape your hands!

Mephis.
(Advancing.) Push on! nor, like a simpleton,
Let web of doubt entangle thee!
For if of witches there were none,
The devil who would devil be!

Lamiæ.
Round this hero circle we!
Love for one within his breast,
Soon itself will manifest.

Mephis.
By this light’s uncertain gleam
Beauteous damosels ye seem,
So from blame shall you be free.

Empusa.
(Rushing in.) And I also! One with you,
Now admit me to your crew!

Lamiæ.
One too many, she I ween
Spoiler of our sport hath been.

Empusa.
(To Mephistopheles.)
Thee doth thy cousin dear salute,
Empusa with the Ass’s foot!
Thine but a horse’s hoof, yet thee,
Cousin, I greet most courteously!

Mephis.
Myself unknown I fancied here —
And yet, alas, near kinsfolk meet;
From Hartz to Hellas, far and near,
So runs the rede, you’ll cousins greet!

Empusa.
I with resolve can act, can take
Full many a shape; but for thy sake,
That I to thee do honor pay,
The Ass’s head I don to-day.

Mephis.
I see, with people of this sort,
Relationship doth much import;
Yet come what may, ’tis all the same;
The Ass’s head I must disclaim.

Lamiæ.
This hag avoid! She comes to scare
Whatever lovely seems and fair;
What lovely was and fair before,
When she draws near, is so no more.

Mephis.
These smooth slim cousins, short or tall,
Make me suspicious, one and all;
I fear, those rosy cheeks behind,
Some metamorphoses to find.

Lamiæ.
Come, take thy choice; we many are.
Catch hold! If reigns thy lucky star,
Thou of the lot mayst draw the best.
What means this hankering delay?
The wooer wretchedly dost play,
With haughty mien and lofty crest!
Amid our troop now see him glide;
Throw by degrees your masks aside,
And be your proper selves confess’d!

Mephis.
I’ve made my choice, the fairest, she . . .
[Embracing her.
Dry as a besom! Woe is me!
[Seizing another.
And this? . . . a fright, oh, wretched lot!

Lamiæ.
Deserv’st thou better? Think it not!

Mephis.
The little one I fain would clasp. . . .
A lizard glides from out my grasp,
And serpent-like her polish’d hair.
Anon a taller one I catch. . . .
A thyrsus-staff alone I snatch,
That for a head doth pine-cone wear.
Where will this end? . . . One plump and round,
With whom some solace may be found —
I’ll try my fortune once again! —
Right flabby, squashy; such a prize,
Your Oriental dearly buys. . . .
But ah! The puff-ball bursts in twain!

Lamiæ.
Quick as lightning, disunite!
Hover ye, in dusky flight,
Round the intruding witch’s son,
In uncertain, ghastly rings,
Flitter mice, on noiseless wings!
Too cheaply he’ll escape anon.

Mephis.
(Shaking himself.) I have not grown much wiser, that is clear.
The North’s absurd, absurd ’tis also here;
Ghosts here as there, a devilish crew,
Folk are insipid, poets too!
’Tis here a masquerade as there,
A sensual dance, as everywhere;
At beauty’s mask I clutch’d amain —
And seiz’d, what made me stand aghast. . . .
Yet to deceive myself I’m fain,
If only longer it would last!
[Losing his way among the rocks.
Where am I? Whither tend my pains?
Where was a path, there chaos reigns;
I by smooth roads have hither sped,
Rude bowlders now impede my tread;
I clamber up and down in vain —
My sphinxes, where shall I regain?
Ne’er had I dream’d so mad a thing:
Such mountain in a single night!
A bold witch-journey is this flight,
Their Blockberg with them here they bring!

Oread.
(From the natural rock.)
Hither ascend! My mountain old
Its form primeval still doth hold —
My steep and rocky steps revere,
Extremest branch of Pindus — here,
Unshaken have I rear’d my head,
When over me Pompeius fled;
Yon phantom shape that cheats the eye
Away, when crows the cock, will fly:
Such fables oft arise, I see,
And disappear as suddenly.

Mephis.
Honor to thee, thou reverend head;
With lofty oak-strength garlanded,
Moonshine, however clear and bright,
Faileth to pierce thy rayless night! —
But, ‘mong the bushes, comes this way
A light, that gleams with modest ray.
How fitly all things happen thus;
In truth! it is Homunculus! —
Whither away, thou tiny friend?

Homunculus.
Flitting from place to place, I wend.
In the best sense full fain I am to be;
And long impatiently my glass to break;
Only, from what I’ve seen and see,
Courage I lack the step to take.
But now, in confidence to speak,
Of two philosophers the track I seek;
I hearken’d, their discourse I overheard;
And Nature — Nature — was their only word:
Apart from these I would not go,
Somewhat of earthly being they must know,
And doubtless I at last shall learn
Whither most wisely I myself may turn.

Mephis.
Thy course shape thou thyself. Be wise!
For where your ghosts find entrance, there
Welcome is your philosopher:
That you his art and favor may delight,
A dozen new ones he brings forth to light.
Unless thou errest, reason dormant lies;
Wilt thou exist, through thine own effort rise!

Homunculus.
Such good advice should not neglected be.

Mephis.
So now away! Of this we more shall see.
[They separate.

Anaxagoras.
(To Thales.) To yield is adverse to thy stubborn mind;
To bring conviction, needs there further proof?

Thales.
The wave yields willingly to every wind,
But from the beetling crag still keeps aloof.

Anaxagoras.
Through fiery vapor came this rock to birth.

Thales.
Moisture hath gender’d all that lives on earth.

Homunculus.
(Between them.) To walk beside you, suffer me!
I also greatly long to be.

Anaxagoras.
Hast thou, O Thales, ever in one night,
Such mountain out of slime brought forth to light?

Thales.
Never was Nature, with her living powers,
Measur’d by scale of days and nights and hours;
By law each shape she fashioneth, and hence,
E’en in the grand there is no violence.

Anaxagoras.
Yet such was here! Plutonic savage fire,
Æolian vaporous force, explosive, dire,
Burst through the ancient crusts of level earth,
And a new mountain came forthwith to birth.

Thales.
Why further press the case? at any rate,
’Tis there, and that is well. In such debate,
Leisure and precious time away one flings,
Your patient folk to keep in leading-strings.

Anaxagoras.
Quickly with myrmidons the mountain teems,
The clefts to people: forth there streams
Of pigmies, ants and gnomes, a living tide,
And other tiny bustling things beside.
(To Homunculus.)
After the Great hast ne’er aspir’d,
But hermit-like hast liv’d retir’d;
To lordship if thyself canst bring,
Forthwith I’ll have thee crown’d as king.

Homunculus.
What says my Thales?

Thales.
Not with my consent;
With dwarfs we are with dwarfish deeds content:
While with the great the dwarf doth greatness win.
See there: of cranes the swarthy cloud,
They threaten the excited crowd,
And so would threat the king; with beak
Sharp-pointed and with talons fierce,
Down-swooping, they the pigmies pierce;
Fateful, their stormful ire they wreak;
A crime the herons doom’d to slaughter,
Brooding around their tranquil water;
But that death-shower of arrowy rain,
For bloody vengeance cries amain,
And doth with rage their kindred fill,
The pigmies’ guilty blood to spill.
Of what avail helm, spear and shield?
What helps the dwarf the heron’s plume?
How ant and dactyl shun their doom!
Wavers the host, — they fly, they yield.

Anaxagoras.
(After a pause, solemnly.)
If I, till now, the powers subterrain praise,
I, in this hour, my prayers to heaven upraise. . . .
Thou thron’d aloft, eternal, aye the same,
Threefold in aspect, and threefold in name,
Amid my people’s woe I cry to thee,
Diana, Luna, Hecatè!
Deep pondering mind, expander of the breast,
Mighty within, though outwardly at rest,
Unclose the gulfs abyssmal of thy shade,
Be without spells thine ancient might display’d!
[Pause.
Am I too quickly heard?
And hath my prayer,
Ascending there,
Marred Nature’s order with a word?
And greater, ever greater draweth near
The goddess’ throne, her full-orbed sphere,
Enormous, fearful to the gaze!
Its fire grows redder through the haze. . . .
No nearer! Threatening orb, I pray; —
Ourselves and land and sea thou’lt sweep away!
Was it then true that dames of Thessaly
Through sinful trust in magic, thee
Have downward from thy pathway sung,
From thee have powers most baleful wrung? . . .
The glittering shield, behold, it darkles!
Sudden it splits, and flares and sparkles!
What a hissing! what a rattling!
Thunder and storm-blast fiercely battling! —
Humbled I fall before thy throne —
Pardon! myself invok’d it, I alone.
[Throws himself on his face.

Thales.
What hath this man not seen and heard!
I know not rightly how with us it far’d.
Like him I have not felt it. Ne’ertheless
The hours are out of tune, we must confess,
And Luna calmly as before,
In her own place aloft doth soar.

Homunculus.
Behold the pigmies’ seat! The mound
Is pointed now, before ’twas round.
Convulsion huge I felt; a rock
Down from the moon, with sudden shock,
Hath fallen; and both friend and foe
Were crush’d and slaughter’d at a blow!
Yet arts like these I needs must praise,
That, working with creative might,
Upwards and downwards, could upraise,
This mountain in a single night.

Thales.
Peace! ’Twas but fancy. That vile brood, —
To swift destruction let them fare!
That thou wert not their king, is good.
Now to the sea’s glad feast repair!
Strange guests are honor’d and expected there.
[They withdraw.

Mephis.
(Clambering up the opposite side.)
Up rocky stairs and steep must I to-day,
Through ancient oaks’ gnarl’d roots make toilsome way.
Upon my Hartz the piny atmosphere
Savors of pitch, and that to me is dear,
’Tis next to brimstone . . . Here, among the Greeks,
E’en for a trace of it one vainly seeks.
Inquisitive I am, and must inquire
Wherewith they feed hell-torment and hell-fire.

Dryad.
In thine own land be prudently at home;
Thou hast not wit enough abroad to roam.
Towards home thou should’st not turn thy thought; while here
The honor of the sacred oaks revere.

Mephis.
The lost will aye in thought arise;
What we are used to, is our Paradise.
But say, what triple object do I trace,
By the dim light, in yonder cavern’s shade?

Dryad.
The Phorkyads! Go, venture to the place,
And speak to them, if thou art undismay’d!

Mephis.
And wherefore not? . . . I see it with amaze.
Proud as I am, e’en I must needs confess,
Their like I ne’er have seen; their ugliness
That of our hellish hags o’ersways!
Sins reprobated long, — will they
Waken henceforth the least dismay,
If men this threefold dread survey?
We would not suffer them to dwell
On threshold of our dreariest Hell;
Rooted in Beauty’s land of fame,
Here to be styl’d antique they claim. . . .
They stir themselves, to scent me they appear,
Like vampire-bats, their twitter meets mine ear.

Phorkyad.
Give me the eye, my sisters, forth to gaze,
So near our fane who boldly thus delays!

Mephis.
Most honor’d! To approach you give me leave,
That I your threefold blessing may receive.
As still unknown indeed I come to you,
Yet am, methinks, a distant cousin too.
Gods ancient and rever’d I’ve seen of yore,
Deeply have Ops and Rhea bow’d before;
Your own and Chaos’ sisters, yesternight,
Or night before, the Parcæ, met my sight;
Yet on your like I ne’er before have gaz’d.
Silent I am, delighted and amaz’d.

Phorkyad.
Intelligent this spirit seems to be.

Mephis.
That you no bard hath sung, surprises me.
And say, most worthy ones, how hath it been
That of your charms no pictur’d forms are seen?
Your shapes should sculpture labor to retain,
Not Juno, Pallas, Venus, and their train!

Phorkyads.
Immers’d in solitude and night profound,
Such thought no entrance to our mind hath found!

Mephis.
How should it, from the world retir’d, when ye,
Yourselves by none beheld, can no one see!
You in such regions rather should reside
Where art and splendor reign in equal pride,
Where from a marble block, with genius rife,
Steps forth each day a hero into life,
Where —

Phorkyads.
Silence! in us wake no longings new:
What would it profit us, if more we knew?
In night begot, to things of night allied,
Unto ourselves scarce known, unknown to all beside.

Mephis.
Not much, indeed, in such case can one say.
But each himself to others can convey:
One eye, one tooth suffices for you three;
So would it tally with mythology,
In two the being of the three to blend,
And your third semblance unto me to lend,
But for brief space.

One of the Phorkyads.
What think you, may we try?

The Other.
We’ll venture — but without or tooth or eye.

Mephis.
With these the very best away you’ve ta’en;
Imperfect the stern image would remain!

One of the Phorkyads.
Press one eye close — full easily ’tis done;
Now of your canine teeth display but one —
Forthwith, in profile, perfect and complete,
Our sisterly resemblance we shall greet.

Mephis.
Much honor! Be it so!

Phorkyads.
So be it!

Mephis.
(As a Phorkyadin profile.)
Done!
Here stand I Chaos’ well-beloved son!

Phorkyads.
Daughters of Chaos we, by ancient right.

Mephis.
Me now they call, oh shame, hermaphrodite!

Phorkyads.
What beauty our new triad gives to view!
Of eyes, and eke of teeth, we now have two.

Mephis.
Now must I shroud myself from mortal sight,
In pool of hell the devils to affright.
[Exit.
Rocky bays of the Ægean Sea.
The moon pausing in the zenith.

Sirens.
(Reclined upon the cliffs around, fluting and singing.) Thou whom from thy realm supernal,
Downward drew, with rites nocturnal,
Weird Thessalian sorceresses,
With thy glance, all things that blesses,
Now illume the throng that presses
Through the waves with billowy motion,
Flooding all the rippling ocean
With the splendor of thy light!

artist: franz simm
FAUST. SECOND PART.
the sirens of the ægean sea
Luna fair, thy vassals greet thee;
Be propitious, we entreat thee!

NereidsandTritons.
(As wonders of the sea.) Sing aloud, with shriller singing,
Let it, through broad ocean ringing,
Call its people, far and near! —
From the storm’s dread whirlpools hiding,
We in stillest depths were biding;
Gracious song allures us here.
See, we deck ourselves enraptur’d,
With the treasures we have captur’d,
Golden chain and clasp and gem,
Spangled zone and diadem;
All this fruitage is your prey;
Down to us these shipwreck’d treasures,
You have lur’d with your sweet measures,
You, the Dæmons of our bay!

Sirens.
Well we know, through sea-waves gliding,
In their crystal depths abiding,
Live the fishes, sorrow-free;
Yet blithe roamers, hither thronging,
We to-day to know are longing
That ye more than fishes be.

NereidsandTritons.
Ere your song hath hither brought us,
Of this question we’ve bethought us;
Sisters, Brothers, hasten we!
Briefest journey, doubt dispelling,
Yieldeth proof sufficing, telling
That we more than fishes be!
[They retire.

Sirens.
In a twinkling, straight away,
Sped to Samothrace have they.
Vanish’d with a favoring wind!
What their purpose? what to gain,
Where the high Cabiri reign?
Gods they are, the strangest, who,
Self-evolv’d, are ever new,
Yet to their own nature blind.
Kindly linger on thy height,
Gracious Luna, that the night
Tarry may, lest daylight breaking
Drive us hence, our haunts forsaking!

Thales.
(On the shore, to Homunculus.)
Thee to old Nereus gladly would I lead;
Not distant are we from his cave indeed;
But sour he is and obstinate,
Moreover hath a stubborn pate!
The race entire of mortal kind
Is never to the grumbler’s mind.
But he the future can disclose,
Hence each to him due reverence shows,
And gives him honor at his post;
To many he hath rendered aid.

Homunculus.
Let’s knock, that trial may be made!
At once my glass and flame it will not cost.

Nereus.
Men’s voices are they, that mine ear hath heard?
With anger straight mine inmost heart is stirr’d!
Forms — striving still, who high as gods would soar,
Yet to be like themselves, doom’d evermore.
Long years could I have dwelt in godlike rest,
But ever was impell’d to aid the best;
And when at last I saw the accomplish’d deed,
It was as though they ne’er had heard my rede.

Thales.
Yet people trust in thee, thou Ocean Seer;
Wise art thou; chase us not! This flamelet here,
That man’s similitude doth wear, survey,
In everything thy counsel he’ll obey.

Nereus.
Counsel! What good to men hath counsel brought?
On stubborn ears fall prudent words in vain;
Oft as the deed dire punishment hath wrought,
Self-will’d as ever mortals aye remain.
How fatherly I Paris warn’d, or e’er
His lust another’s consort did ensnare!
On Hellas’ shore fearless he stood and bold;
What I in spirit saw, I there foretold:
The reeking winds, the upstreaming ruddy glow,
Rafters ablaze, murder and death below,
Troy’s day of doom — fast bound in deathless rhyme,
A terror and a portent for all time.
The scoffer mock’d the old man’s oracle;
He follow’d his own lust, and Ilion fell,
A giant corpse, slowly its death-pangs ceas’d, —
To Pindus’ eagles a right welcome feast.
Ulysses too — did I not oft presage
To him dark Circe’s wiles, the Cyclop’s rage,
His own delay, his comrades’ reckless vein,
And what not else? And hath it brought him gain?
Till, sorely batter’d, he full late, at last,
By favoring wave on friendly shore was cast.

Thales.
Such conduct to the sage must needs give pain;
Yet still the good man trieth once again.
A grain of thanks that richly him repays.
Tons of ingratitude still overweighs.
I and this youngster no slight boon require.
Wisely to be is now his sole desire.

Nereus.
Spoil not for me my present mood, most rare!
Far other aims to-day engross my care;
My daughters I’ve invok’d to come to me,
The Dorides, the Graces of the sea.
Neither Olympos nor your region bears
Form so replete with grace, so lithe as theirs.
From Dragons of the sea, with loveliest motion,
They cast themselves upon the steeds of Ocean,
One with the element that round them plays,
The very foam would seem their forms to raise.
‘Mid rainbow-hues of Venus’ pearly car,
Comes Galatea, beauty’s choicest star,
Who, since on us hath Cypris ceas’d to smile,
As goddess honored is on Paphos’ Isle;
And so for long the gracious one doth own,
As heiress, temple-town and chariot-throne.
Away! Harsh words, and hatred in the heart
Have in the Father’s raptur’d hour no part.
Away to Proteus! Ask that being strange
The secret of existence and of change.
[He retires towards the sea.

Thales.
We by this step, it seems, have nothing won;
For if we light on Proteus, straight he’s gone,
And if he wait, he only says at last
Things that perplex, and make one stand aghast.
Yet, once for all, such counsel thou dost need;
So then to try him, onward let us speed!
[They retire.

Sirens.
(On the rocks above.)
What are these, far off appearing,
Through the billowy realm careering?
Like to sails of snowy whiteness,
Zephyr-guided, such their brightness,
Hither borne with gentle motion,
These the lustrous nymphs of Ocean!
Downward climb we; hark! They’re singing;
Hear ye not their voices ringing!

NereidsandTritons.
Those whom thus our hand upraises
Scatter blessings; — sing their praises!
From Chelone’s giant shield,
Shines an awful form reveal’d:
Gods they are whom we rejoicing
Hither bring, glad pæans voicing.

Sirens.
Little in height,
Potent in might,
Hoar gods from the wave
The shipwreck’d who save!

NereidsandTritons.
To our peaceful revel speeding,
The Cabiri we are leading;
Where their power the hapless shieldeth,
Kindly sway there Neptune wieldeth.

Sirens.
Yield we must to you.
Ye the sinking crew,
With resistless power,
Save in shipwreck’s hour.

NereidsandTritons.
Three we bring, our triumph sharing,
But the fourth refus’d, declaring
That for all abiding yonder,
He the sole one is to ponder.

Sirens.
Thus one god doth jeer
At his fellows still.
All the good revere,
Dread ye every ill!

NereidsandTritons.
There of them should seven be.

Sirens.
Where then are the other three?

NereidsandTritons.

That we cannot answer: rather,
On Olympos question farther:
There the eighth perchance is pining,
Whom none thinks upon. Inclining
Graciously, they us have greeted —
But all are not yet completed.

The incomparable, these; —
Pressing onward, aye aspiring,
Full of longing, still desiring
What can ne’er be reach’d, to seize.

Sirens.
Every power enthron’d,
Sun or Moon that sways,
In our prayers is own’d;
’Tis our wont; it pays.

NereidsandTritons.
How brightly shines our fame, behold,
Leading this festivity!

Sirens.
Heroes of the ancient days
Lack henceforth their meed of praise,
How great soe’er their fame of old;
Though they have won the fleece of gold,
Ye have the Cabiri.
(Repeated in full Chorus.)
Though they have won the fleece of gold,
We! ye! have the Cabiri.
[The Nereidsand Tritonspass on.

Homunculus.
These uncouth figures, I am fain
For earthen pots to take them,
Gainst them the wise ones strike amain
Their stubborn heads, and break them!

Thales.
The very thing they most desire.
The rusty coin is valued higher.

Proteus.
(Unperceived.) This pleases me, the old in fable:
The stranger ’tis, the more respectable!

Thales.
Where art thou, Proteus?

Proteus.
(Ventriloquizing, now near, now far away.) Here! and here!

Thales.
I pardon the stale jest; appear,
And with a friend vain words forego!
From a false place dost speak, I know.

Proteus.
(As from a distance.) Farewell!

Thales.
(Softly to Homunculus.)
He’s close at hand. Now brightly flare,
He’s curious as a fish; where’er
He hide himself, that flame, be sure,
Hither forthwith will him allure.

Homunculus.
Full light I’ll pour, yet care must take
Lest with the shock the glass should break.

Proteus.
(In the form of a gigantic porpoise.) What shines with radiancy so dear?

Thales.
(Concealing Homunculus.)
Good! If thou wish it, thou canst draw more near;
Let the slight trouble vex thee not. I pray,
Thyself upon two human feet display.
’Tis solely by our leave, and courtesy,
That what we now conceal, who wills may see.

Proteus.
(In a noble form.) Thy sophist’s tricks, it seems, dost still employ.

Thales.
Thy figure to transform still gives thee joy.
[He has uncovered Homunculus.

Proteus.
(Astonished.) A glittering dwarflein! Ne’er beheld before!

Thales.
Fain to exist, he counsel doth implore.
He is, from him I heard it, come to earth
Only half-form’d, through some mysterious birth.
Fairly endow’d with qualities ideal,
The power he lacks, firmly to grasp the real,
Till now the glass alone to him gives weight;
But he at once would be incorporate.

Proteus.
A genuine virgin’s son art thou;
Born ere thou shouldest be, I trow!

Thales.
(In a whisper.) Further it seemeth critical to me;
He an hermaphrodite appears to be.

Proteus.
The sooner ‘twill succeed; where’er
He comes, he happily will fare.
With much reflection we may here dispense;
In the broad sea thy being must commence;
On a small scale one there begins,
Well pleas’d the smallest to devour;
Till, waxing step by step, one wins,
For loftier achievement, ampler power.

Homunculus.
A tender air is wafted here;
Dear is to me the breeze, the fragrance dear!

Proteus.
Right, dearest youth! Farther away
Still more delightful ‘twill be found;
Ineffable the airs that play
This narrow tongue of land around.
Thence, near enough, the train we see,
Now floating hither. Come with me!

Thales.
I too will go with thee; proceed!

Homunculus.
A threefold spirit-step, wondrous indeed!

Telchines of Rhodes.
(Upon hippocampi and sea-dragons, bearing Neptune’s trident.)

Chorus.
The trident we forg’d, wherewith Neptune assuages
Old Ocean’s wild waves, when most fiercely he rages:
His clouds when the Thunderer spreads o’er the skies,
To their rolling terrific then Neptune replies;
And when from on high the jagg’d lightning doth leap,
Then wave after wave dashes up from the deep;
And all that in anguish their joint rage o’erpower’d,
Long whirl’d to and fro, by the depth is devour’d;
To-day then the sceptre to us hath he lent. —
Now joyously float we, serene and content!

Sirens.
You, to Helios dedicated,
You, to bright day consecrated,
Hail we to this hour, whose light
Doth to Luna’s praise invite!

Telchines.
Thou loveliest Queen of yon o’ervaulting sphere,
The praise of thy brother with rapture dost hear:
To Rhodus’ blest island an ear thou dost lend,
Thence one deathless pæan to him doth ascend.
The day-course he opens and with fiery gaze,
When finish’d his journey, our troop he surveys;
The cities and hills, shore and wave, yield delight
To the glorious God, and are lovely and bright.
No mist hovers o’er us, and should one draw near,
A ray and a zephyr — the island is clear:
His form the high god beholds multiplied there,
As stripling, as giant, the Mighty, the Fair —
The power of the gods it was we who began
To portray in the form, not unworthy, of man.

Proteus.

Grudge them not their boastful singing,
To the holy sun, life-bringing,
Dead works are an idle jest.
Fusing mould they; when completed
Stands their god with rapture greeted,
Straight with triumph swells their breast!
These proud gods, so fondly cherish’d, —
What their doom, inquire ye? Prone,
By an earthquake overthrown,
Melted, they long since have perish’d.

Toil of earth, whate’er it be,
Nothing is but drudgery;
Life in ocean better fareth:
Thee to endless water beareth
Proteus-Dolphin.
[He transforms himself.

Fairly sped!
Bravely, on my back careering,
Thou shalt prosper, onward steering,
And to Ocean thee I’ll wed.

Thales.
Obey the noble inspiration,
And at its source begin creation,
Make ready for the great emprise!
By laws eternal still ascending,
Through myriad forms of being wending,
To be a man in time thou’lt rise.
[Homunculusmounts the Proteusdolphin.

Proteus.
In spirit come to boundless ocean:
Unfetter’d there in every motion,
At thine own pleasure thou shalt wend;
But let not higher rank allure thee;
Attaining manhood, I assure thee,
Then all with thee is at an end!

Thales.
As it may happen; good it seems to me,
In one’s own day a stalwart man to be.

Proteus.
(To Thales.) One of your stamp, perchance! For they
Abide awhile, nor pass away;
Since ‘mong the troops of spirits pale,
As pass the centuries, thy form I hail.

Sirens.
(On the rocks.)
See yon cloudlets, how they mingle
Round the moon in circlet bright!
Doves they are, whom love doth kindle,
With their pinions pure as light!
Paphos hath her bird-choir sent us,
Girt with radiance they appear.
Now our fête may well content us,
Fraught with rapture full and clear!

Nereus.
(Approaching Thales.) Yonder ring, an airy vision
Nightly wanderer might maintain;
But with juster intuition,
Other views we entertain:
Doves they are, whose escort playeth
Round my daughter’s pearly car;
Wondrous art their movement swayeth,
Learn’d by them in days afar.

Thales.
That I also hold for best,
Peace that yieldeth to the good,
If in warm and silent nest
Something holy still doth brood.

PsylliandMarsi.
(On sea-bulls, sea-calves, and sea-rams.) In the rugged Cyprian caves,
Shelter’d from the shocks of Ocean,
From the earthquake’s dire commotion,
Fann’d by Zephyr’s viewless waves,
There, as in the days afar,
We, with conscious rapture, are
Guardians of Cythera’s car,
And through breathings of the night,
Through the rippling wavelets bright,
Viewless still to mortal sight,
We the loveliest daughter lead.
Us nor winged lion scares,
Nor eagle, as our task we ply,
Nor cross, nor crescent, though it flares
Aloft, emblazon’d in the sky;
To and fro, alternate swaying,
Each the other driving, slaying,
Fields and towns in ashes laying:
Thus with joyous speed,
Onward our loveliest mistress we lead.

Sirens.
Circling still, with gentle motion,
Round the chariot, line on line,
Gliding o’er the waves of ocean,
With your movements serpentine,
Come ye stalwart Nereides,
Sturdy damsels, gracious, wild;
Bring ye, tender Dorides,
Galatea, fair and mild,
Image of her mother, she
Earnest is, of god-like mien,
Worthy immortality,
Yet, like earth’s fair dames, your queen
Winsome is, with grace serene!

Dorides.
(Passing in chorus before Nereus,mounted upon dolphins.)
Luna, light and shadow throwing,
Round this youthful band, shine clear!
For we come our Father showing
Prayerfully, our bridegrooms dear.
(To Nereus.)
Them, soft pity’s voice obeying,
From the rock’s fell tooth we bore,
And on moss and sea-weed laying,
Warm’d them back to light once more;
Kisses upon us bestowing,
Thus their grateful temper showing;
View them kindly, we implore!

Nereus.
Precious indeed the twofold gain:
To show compassion, and delight obtain!

Dorides.
Dost praise, O Father, our endeavor?
Grudge us not our joy, well-earn’d;
Deathless youth, enjoyed forever
In the bliss of love return’d!

Nereus.
Would ye enjoy your captur’d treasure!
Then mould each youth to be a man;
Powerless am I to do your pleasure;
Accord your prayer Zeus only can.
The waves, whose foam around you playeth,
All steadfastness in love ignore,
And if its spell no longer swayeth,
Then place them quietly ashore.

Dorides.
Dear ye are, sweet youths, in sooth;
Yet from you we needs must sever:
We have crav’d eternal truth,
But the Gods allow it never!

The Youths.
Gallant sailor-youths and true,
If ye still will fondly tend us;
Life so fair we never knew,
Nor could fate a fairer send us.
[Galateaapproaches in the shell chariot.

Nereus.
’Tis thou, my beloved one!

Galatea.
Sire! what delight!
Linger, ye dolphins, enchain’d is my sight.

Nereus.
Gone already! They forsake me,
Speeding on with circling motion!
What to them the heart’s emotion!
Oh! that with them they would take me!
Yet such rapture yields one gaze,
The livelong year it well repays.

Thales.
Hail! all hail! The cry renew!
Blooms my spirit, pierced through
By the Beautiful, the True! . . .
All from water sprang amain!
All things water doth sustain:
Ocean grant thy deathless reign!
Were no clouds by thee outspread,
No rich brooklets by thee fed,
On their course no rivers sped,
And no streamlets perfected,
What then were the world, what were ocean and plain?
’Tis thou, who the freshness of life dost maintain.

Echo.
(Chorus of the collective circles.)
’Tis thou, from whom freshness of life pours amain!

Nereus.
Far distant now they wheel and turn,
And vainly glance for glance must yearn;
Circle in circle wide extending,
The countless throngs, in order blending,
Urge o’er the waves their glad career.
But Galatea’s pearly throne,
Behold I still, behold; alone
Now it glitters like a star
‘Midst, the crowd; with radiance tender,
Shines through the press the lov’d one’s splendor;
Though so far, so very far,
Still it shimmers bright and clear,
Ever true and ever near!

Homunculus.
In this moisture calm and dear,
All I shine on doth appear
Exquisitely fair!

Proteus.
In this living dewy sphere,
First thy flamelet shineth clear,
Breathing tones most rare.

Nereus.
But lo! what new mystery, fraught with surprise,
Reveals itself now, ‘mid yon crowds, to our eyes?
What flames round the shell, round the feet of my child?
Now strongly it glitters, now sweetly, now mild,
As if by the pulses of love it were sway’d!

Thales.
Homunculus is it, by Proteus betray’d . . .
A yearning majestic these symptoms disclose,
Presageful they tell of his passionate throes;
Against the bright throne he’ll be shatter’d! It glows,
It flashes, it sparkles, abroad now it flows!

Sirens.
What marvel illumines the billows, which dash
Against one another in glory? They flash,
They waver, they hitherward glitter, and bright
All forms are ablaze in the pathway of night;
And all things are gleaming, by fire girt around.
Prime source of creation, let Eros be crown’d!
Hail ye billows! Hail to thee,
Girt by holy fire, O sea!
Water hail! Hail fire’s bright glare!
Hail to this adventure rare!

All Together.
Hail each softly blowing gale!
Caverns rich in marvels, hail!
Highly honor’d evermore
Be the elemental four!

ACT III.

Before the Palace of Menelaus in Sparta.
Enter Helena,with a chorus of captive Trojan women. Penthalis,leader of the chorus.

Helena.
The much admir’d and much upbraided, Helena,
From yonder strand I come, where erst we disembark’d,
Still giddy from the roll of ocean’s billowy surge,
Which, through Poseidon’s favor and through Euros’ might,
On lofty crested backs hither hath wafted us,
From Phrygia’s open field, to our ancestral bays.
Yonder King Menelaus, glad of his return,
With his brave men of war, rejoices on the beach.
But oh, thou lofty mansion, bid me welcome home,
Thou, near the steep decline, which Tyndareus, my sire,
From Pallas’ hill returning, here hath builded up;
Which also was adorn’d beyond all Sparta’s homes,
What time with Clytemnestra, sister-like, I grew,
With Castor, Pollux, too, playing in joyous sport.
Wings of yon brazen portals, you I also hail!
Through you, ye guest-inviting, hospitable gates,
Hath Menelaus once, from many princes chosen,
Shone radiant on my sight, in nuptial sort array’d.
Expand to me once more, that I the king’s behest
May faithfully discharge, as doth the spouse beseem.
Let me within, and all henceforth behind remain,
That, charg’d with doom, till now darkly hath round me storm’d!
For since, by care untroubled, I these sites forsook,
Seeking Cythera’s fane, as sacred wont enjoin’d,
And by the spoiler there was seiz’d, the Phrygian,
Happen’d have many things, whereof men far and wide
Are fain to tell, but which not fain to hear is he
Of whom the tale, expanding, hath to fable grown.

Chorus.
Disparage not, O glorious dame,
Honor’d possession of highest estate!
For sole unto thee is the greatest boon given;
The fame of beauty that all overtowers!
The hero’s name before him resounds,
So strides he with pride;
Nathless at once the stubbornest yields
To beauty, the presence which all things subdues.

Helena.
Enough! I with my spouse, ship-borne, have hither sped,
And to his city now by him before am sent.
But what the thought he harbors, that I cannot guess.
Come I as consort hither? Come I as a queen?
Come I as victim for the prince’s bitter pangs,
And for the evils dire, long suffer’d by the Greeks?
Conquer’d I am; but whether captive, know I not:
For the Immortal Powers fortune and fame for me
Have doom’d ambiguous; direful ministers that wait
On beauty’s form, who even on this threshold here,
With dark and threat’ning mien, stand bodeful at my side!
Already, ere we left the hollow ship, my spouse
Look’d seldom on me, spake no comfortable word;
As though he mischief brooded, facing me he sat.
But now, when to Eurotas’ deeply curving shores
Steering our course, scarce had our foremost vessel’s beak
The land saluted, spake he, as by God inspir’d:
“Here let my men of war, in order’d ranks, disbark;
I marshal them, drawn up upon the ocean strand;
But thou, pursue thy way, not swerving from the banks,
Laden with fruit, that bound Eurotas’ sacred stream,
Thy coursers guiding o’er the moist, enamell’d meads,
Until thou may’st arrive at that delightful plain,
Where Lacedæmon, once a broad fruit-bearing field,
By mountains stern surrounded lifteth now its walls.
Set thou thy foot within the tower-crown’d princely house,
Assemble thou the maids, whom I at parting left,
And with them summon too the wise old stewardess.
Bid her display to thee the treasures’ ample store,
As by thy sire bequeath’d, and which, in peace and war,
Increasing evermore, I have myself up-piled.
All standing shalt thou find in ancient order; for,
This is the prince’s privilege, that to his home,
When he returns at last, safe everything he finds,
Each in its proper place, as he hath left it there.
For nothing of himself the slave hath power to change.”

Chorus.
Oh, gladden now, with glorious wealth,
Ever increasing, thine eye and heart!
For beautiful chains, the adornment of crowns,
Are priding themselves, in haughty repose;
But step thou in, and challenge them all,
They arm themselves straight;
I joy to see beauty contend for the prize,
With gold, and with pearls, and with jewels of price.

Helena.
Forthwith hath follow’d next this mandate of my lord:
“Now when in order thou all things hast duly seen,
As many tripods take, as needful thou may’st deem,
And vessels manifold, which he at hand requires,
Who duly would perform the sacrificial rite,
The caldrons, and the bowls, and shallow altar-plates;
Let purest water, too, from sacred fount be there,
In lofty pitchers; further, store of season’d wood,
Quick to accept the flame, hold thou in readiness;
A knife, of sharpest edge, let it not fail at last.
But I all other things to thy sole care resign.”
So spake he, urging me at once to part; but naught,
Breathing the breath of life, the orderer appoints,
That, to the Olympians’ honor, he to slaughter doom’d:
Suspicious seems it! yet, dismiss I further care;
To the high gods’ decree be everything referr’d,
Who evermore fulfil, what they in thought conceive;
It may, in sooth, by men, as evil or as good
Be counted, it by us, poor mortals, must be borne.
Full oft the ponderous axe on high the priest hath rais’d,
In consecration o’er the earth-bow’d victim’s neck.
Nor could achieve the rite, for he was hinder’d,
Or by approaching foe, or intervening God.

Chorus.
What now will happen, canst thou not guess;
Enter, queen, enter thou in,
Strong of heart!
Evil cometh and good
Unexpected to mortals;
Though foretold, we credit it not.
Troya was burning, have we not seen
Death before us, terrible death!
And are we not here,
Bound to thee, serving with joy,
Seeing the dazzling sunshine of heaven,
And of earth too the fairest,
Kind one — thyself — happy are we!

Helena.
Come what come may! Whate’er impends, me it behoves
To ascend, without delay, into the royal house,
Long miss’d, oft yearn’d for, well-nigh forfeited;
Before mine eyes once more it stands, I know not how.
My feet now bear me not so lightly as of yore,
When up the lofty steps I, as a child, have sprung.

Chorus.

Fling now, O sisters, ye
Captives who mourn your lot,
All your sorrows far from you.
Share ye your mistress’ joy!
Share ye Helena’s joy,
Who to the dear paternal hearth,
Though returning full late in sooth,
Nathless with surer, firmer tread
Joyfully now approaches!
Praise ye the holy ones,
Happy restoring ones,
Gods, the home-leaders, praise ye!
Soars the enfranchis’d one,
As upon outspread wings,
Over the roughest fate, while in vain
Pines the captur’d one, yearning-fraught,
Over the prison-battlements
Arms outstretching, in anguish.

Nathless her a god hath seized,
The exil’d one,
And from Ilion’s wreck
Bare her hitherward back once more,
To the ancient, the newly-adorned
Father-house,
After unspeakable
Pleasure and anguish,
Earlier youthful time,
Newly quicken’d, to ponder.

Penthalis.
(As leader of the Chorus.)
Forsake ye now of song the joy-surrounded path,
And toward the portal-wings turn ye forthwith your gaze!
What see I, sisters? Here, returneth not the queen?
With step of eager haste, comes she not back to us? —
What is it, mighty queen, that in the palace-halls,
Instead of friendly hail, could there encounter thee,
And shatter thus thy being? Thou conceal’st it not;
For I abhorrence see, impress’d upon thy brow,
And noble anger, that contendeth with surprise.

Helena.
(Who has left the folded doors open, excited.) No vulgar fear beseems the daughter of high Zeus,
And her no lightly-fleeting terror-hand may touch;
But that dire horror which, from womb of ancient Night,
In time primeval rising, still in divers shapes,
Like lurid clouds, from out the mountain’s fiery gorge,
Whirls itself forth, may shake even the hero’s breast.
Thus have the Stygian gods, with horror fraught, to-day
Mine entrance to the house so mark’d, that fain I am,
Back from the oft-time trod, long-yearn’d-for threshold, now,
Like to a guest dismiss’d, departing, to retire.
Yet no, retreated have I hither to the light;
No further shall ye drive me, Powers, whoe’er ye be!
Some expiation I’ll devise, then purified,
The hearth flame welcome may the consort as the lord.

Leader of the Chorus.
Discover, noble queen, to us thy handmaidens,
Devotedly who serve thee, what hath come to pass!

Helena.
What I have seen ye too, with your own eyes, shall see,
If ancient Night, within her wonder-teeming womb,
Hath not forthwith engulf’d, once more, her ghastly birth;
But yet, that ye may know, with words I’ll tell it you: —
What time the royal mansion’s gloomy inner court,
Upon my task intent, with solemn step I trod,
I wonder’d at the drear and silent corridors.
Fell on mine ear no sound of busy servitors,
No stir of rapid haste, officious, met my gaze;
Before me there appear’d no maid, no stewardess,
Who every stranger erst, with friendly greeting, hail’d.
But when I near’d at length the bosom of the hearth,
There saw I, by the light of dimly smouldering fire,
Crouch’d on the ground, a crone, close-veil’d, of stature huge,
Not like to one asleep, but as absorb’d in thought!
With accent of command I summon her to work,
The stewardess in her surmising, whom perchance
My spouse, departing hence, with foresight there had plac’d;
Yet, closely muffl’d up, still sits she, motionless;
At length, upon my threat, uplifts she her right arm,
As though from hearth and hall she motion’d me away.
Wrathful from her I turn, and forthwith hasten out,
Towards the steps, whereon aloft the Thalamos
Rises adorn’d, thereto the treasure-house hard by;
When, on a sudden, starts the wonder from the floor;
Barring with lordly mien my passage, she herself
In haggard height displays, with hollow eyes, blood-grim’d,
An aspect weird and strange, confounding eye and thought.
Yet speak I to the winds; for language all in vain
Creatively essays to body forth such shapes.
There see herself! The light she ventures to confront!
Here are we master, till the lord and monarch comes;
The ghastly brood of Night doth Phœbus, beauty’s friend,
Back to their caverns drive, or them he subjugates.
[Phorkyasstepping on the threshold, between the door-posts.

Chorus.
Much have I liv’d through, although my tresses
Youthfully waver still round my temples;
Manifold horrors have mine eyes witness’d;
Warfare’s dire anguish, Ilion’s night,
When it fell;
Through the o’erclouded, dust overshadow’d,
Tumult of war, to gods have I hearken’d,
Fearfully shouting; hearken’d while discord’s
Brazen voices clang through the field
Rampartwards.
Ah, yet standing were Ilion’s
Ramparts; nathless the glowing flames
Shot from neighbor to neighbor roof,
Ever spreading from here and there,
With their tempest’s fiery blast,
Over the night-darken’d city. —
Flying, saw I through smoke and glare,
And the flash of the tongued flames,
Dreadful, threatening gods draw near;
Wondrous figures, of giant mould,
Onward striding through the weird
Gloom of fire-luminous vapor.
Saw I them, or did my mind,
Anguish-torn, itself body forth
Phantoms so terrible — nevermore
Can I tell; but that I this
Horrible shape with eyes behold,
This of a surety know I!
Yea, with my hands could clutch it even,
Did not fear, from the perilous
Venture, ever withhold me.

Tell me, of Phorkyas’
Daughters which art thou?
For to that family
Thee must I liken.
Art thou, may be, one of the gray-born?
One eye only, and but one tooth
Using still alternately?
One of the Graiæ art thou?

Darest thou, Horror,
Thus beside beauty,
Or to the searching glance
Phœbus’ unveil thee?
Nathless step thou forward undaunted;
For the horrible sees he not,
As his hallow’d glances yet
Never gaz’d upon shadows.

But a tragical fate, alas,
Us, poor mortals, constrains to bear.
Anguish of vision, unspeakable,
Which the contemptible, ever-detestable,
Doth in lovers of beauty wake!

Yea, so hearken then, if thou dar’st
Us to encounter, hear our curse,
Hark to each imprecation’s threat,
Out of the curse-breathing lips of the happy
ones,
Who by the gods created are!

Phorkyas.
Trite is the word, yet high and true remains the sense:
That Shame and Beauty ne’er together, hand in hand,
Their onward way pursue, earth’s verdant path along.
Deep-rooted in these twain dwelleth an ancient grudge,
So that, where’er they happen on their way to meet,
Upon her hated rival turneth each her back;
Then onward speeds her course with greater vehemence,
Shame fill’d with sorrow, Beauty insolent of mood,
Till her at length embraces Orcus’ hollow night,
Unless old age erewhile her haughtiness hath tam’d.
You find I now, ye wantons, from a foreign shore,
With insolence o’erflowing, like the clamorous flight
Of cranes, with shrilly scream that high above our heads,
A long and moving cloud, croaking send down their noise,
Which the lone pilgrim lures, wending his silent way,
Aloft to turn his gaze; yet on their course they fare,
He also upon his: so will it be with us.
Who are ye then, that thus around the monarch’s house,
With Mænad rage, ye dare like drunken ones to rave?
Who are ye then that ye the house’s stewardess
Thus bay, like pack of hounds hoarsely that bay the moon?
Think ye, ’tis hid from me, the race whereof ye are?
Thou youthful, war-begotten, battle-nurtur’d brood,
Lewd and lascivious thou, seducers and seduc’d,
Unnerving both the soldier’s and the burgher’s strength!
Seeing your throng, to me a locust-swarm ye seem,
Which, settling down, conceals the young green harvest-field.
Wasters of others’ toil! ye dainty revellers,
Destroyers in its bloom of all prosperity!
Thou conquer’d merchandise, exchang’d and marketed!

Helena.
Who in the mistress’ presence chides her handmaidens,
Audacious, doth o’erstep her household privilege;
For her alone beseems the praiseworthy to praise,
As also that to punish which doth merit blame.
Moreover with the service am I well content,
Which these have render’d me, what time proud Ilion’s strength
Beleaguer’d stood, and fell and sank; nor less indeed
When we, of our sea-voyage the dreary changeful woe
Endur’d, where commonly each thinks but of himself.
Here also I expect the like from this blithe train;
Not what the servant is, we ask, but how he serves.
Therefore be silent thou, and snarl at them no more!
If thou the monarch’s house till now hast guarded well
Filling the mistress’ place, that for thy praise shall count;
But now herself is come, therefore do thou retire,
Lest chastisement be thine, instead of wellearn’d meed!

Phorkyas.
The menial train to threat, a sacred right remains,
Which the illustrious spouse of heaven-favor’d lord
Through many a year doth earn of prudent governance.
Since that, now recogniz’d, thy ancient place as queen,
And mistress of the house, once more thou dost resume,
The long-time loosen’d reins grasp thou; be ruler here,
And in possession take the treasures, us with them!
Me before all protect, who am the elder-born,
From this young brood, who seem, thy swanlike beauty near,
But as a basely winged flock of cackling geese!

Leader of the Chorus.
How hideous beside beauty showeth hideousness!

Phorkyas.
How foolish by discretion’s side shows foolishness!
[Henceforth the choristers respond in turn, stepping forth singly from the Chorus.

First Chorister.
Tell us of Father Erebus, tell us of Mother Night!

Phorkyas.
Speak thou of Scylla, speak of her, thy sister-born!

Second Chorister.
From thy ancestral tree springs many a monster forth.

Phorkyas.
To Orcus hence, away! Seek thou thy kindred there!

Third Chorister.
Who yonder dwell, in sooth, for thee are far too young.

Phorkyas.
Tiresias, the hoary, go, make love to him!

Fourth Chorister.
Orion’s nurse of old, was thy great-granddaughter.

Phorkyas.
Harpies, so I suspect, did rear thee up in filth.

Fifth Chorister.
Thy cherish’d meagreness, whereon dost nourish that?

Phorkyas.
’Tis not with blood, for which so keenly thou dost thirst.

Sixth Chorister.
For corpses dost thou hunger, loathsome corpse thyself!

Phorkyas.
Within thy shameless jaw the teeth of vampires gleam.

Seventh Chorister.
Thine I should stop were I to tell thee who thou art.

Phorkyas.
First do thou name thyself; the riddle then is solv’d.

Helena.
Not wrathful, but in grief, step I between you now,
Forbidding such alternate quarrel’s angry noise;
For to the ruler naught more hurtful can befall,
Than, ‘mong his trusty servants, sworn and secret strife;
The echo of his mandate then to him no more,
In swift accomplish’d deed responsively returns;
No, stormful and self-will’d, it rages him around,
The self-bewilder’d one, and chiding still in vain.
Nor this alone; ye have in rude unmanner’d wrath
Unblessed images of dreadful shapes evok’d,
Which so encompass me, that whirl’d I feel myself
To Orcus down, despite these my ancestral fields.
Is it remembrance? Was it frenzy seiz’d on me?
Was I all that? and am I? shall I henceforth be
The dread and phantom-shape of those townwasting ones?
The maidens quail: but thou, the eldest, thou dost stand,
Calm and unmov’d; speak, then, to me some word of sense!

Phorkyas.
Who of long years recalls the fortune manifold,
To him Heaven’s highest favor seems at last a dream.
But thou, so highly favor’d, past all bound or goal,
Saw’st, in thy life-course, none but love-in-flamed men,
Kindled by impulse rash to boldest enterprise.
Theseus by passion stirr’d full early seiz’d on thee,
A man of glorious form, and strong as Heracles.

Helena.
Forceful he bore me off, a ten-year slender roe,
And in Aphidnus’ keep shut me, in Attica.

Phorkyas.
But thence full soon set free, by Castor, Pollux too,
In marriage wast thou sought by chosen heroband.

Helena.
Yet hath Patroclus, he, Pelides’ other self,
My secret favor won, as willingly I own.

Phorkyas.
But thee thy father hath to Menelaus wed,
Bold rover of the sea, and house-sustainer too.

Helena.
His daughter gave he, gave to him the kingdom’s sway;
And from our wedded union sprang Hermione.

Phorkyas.
But while he strove afar, for Crete, his heritage,
To thee, all lonely, came an all too beauteous guest.

Helena.
Wherefore the time recall of that half-widowhood,
And what destruction dire to me therefrom hath grown!

Phorkyas.
That voyage unto me, a freeborn dame of Crete,
Hath also capture brought and weary servitude.

Helena.
As stewardess forthwith, he did appoint thee here,
With much entrusted, — fort and treasure boldly won.

Phorkyas.
All which thou didst forsake, by Ilion’s tower-girt town
Allur’d, and by the joys, the exhaustless joys of love.

Helena.
Remind me not of joys. No, an infinitude
Of all too bitter woe o’erwhelm’d my heart and brain.

Phorkyas.
Nathless ’tis said thou didst in twofold shape appear;
Seen within Ilion’s walls, and seen in Egypt too.

Helena.
Confuse thou not my brain, distraught and desolate!
Here even, who I am in sooth I cannot tell.

Phorkyas.
’Tis also said, from out the hollow shadow-realm,
Achilles, passion-fir’d, hath join’d himself to thee,
Whom he hath lov’d of old, ‘gainst all resolves of Fate.

Helena.
As phantom I myself, to him a phantom bound;
A dream it was — thus e’en the very words declare.
I faint, and to myself a phantom I become.
[She sinks into the arms of the semi-chorus.

Chorus.

Silence! Silence!
False seeing one, false speaking one, thou!
Through thy horrible, single-tooth’d lips,
Ghastly, what exhaleth
From such terrible loathsome gulf!

For the malignant one, kindliness feigning,
Rage of wolf ‘neath the sheep’s woolly fleece,
Far more terrible is unto me than
Jaws of the hound three-headed.
Anxiously watching stand we here:
When? How? Where of such malice
Bursteth the tempest
From this deep-lurking brood of Hell?

Now, ‘stead of friendly words, freighted with comfort,
Lethe-bestowing, gracious and mild,
Thou art summoning from times departed,
Thoughts of the past most hateful,
Overshadowing not alone
All sheen gilding the present,
Also the future’s
Mildly glimmering light of hope.

Silence! Silence!
That fair Helena’s soul,
Ready e’en now to take flight,
Still may keep, yea firmly keep
The form of all forms, the loveliest,
Ever illumin’d of old by the sun.
[Helenahas revived, and again stands in the midst.

Phorkyas.
Forth emerge from fleeting cloudlets, sun resplendent of this day,
If when veil’d thou could’st delight us, dazzling now thy splendor reigns.
As the world unfolds before thee, thou dost gaze with gracious look.
Though as hideous they revile me, well the beautiful I know.

Helena.
Giddy from the void I issue, that in fainting round me clos’d,
Rest once more I fain would cherish, for soreweary are my limbs;
Yet the queen it still beseemeth, yea all mortals it beseems,
Self-controll’d, to man their spirits, whatsoe’er of ill may threat.

Phorkyas.
In thy greatness now thou standest, in thy beauty ‘fore us there,
Tells thy glance that thou commandest; what command’st thou? speak it forth!

Helena.
The delay your strife occasion’d, now prepare ye to retrieve:
Haste, a sacrifice to order, as the king commanded me!

Phorkyas.
In the palace all is ready: censer, tripod, sharpen’d axe,
For lustration and for incense; now the destin’d victim show!

Helena.
That to me the king disclos’d not.

Phorkyas.
Spake it not? O doleful word!

Helena.
What the sorrow that o’erpowers thee?

Phorkyas.
Queen, it is thyself art meant!

Helena.
I?

Phorkyas.
And these.

Chorus.
Oh, woe and wailing!

Phorkyas.
Thou wilt perish by the axe.

Helena.
Dreadful — yet surmis’d! Me wretched!

Phorkyas.
Unavoidable it seems.

Chorus.
And to us, ah what will happen?

Phorkyas.
She a noble death will die;
But upon the lofty rafter, that upholds the gable-roof,
As in fowling-time the thrushes, ye shall struggle in a row.
[Helenaand the Chorus stand astounded and terrified, in striking, well-arranged groups.

Phorkyas.
Poor phantoms! — Stand ye there like figures petrified,
In deadly fear to part from day, which is not yours.
Mortals, who phantoms are together like as ye,
Not willingly renounce the sun’s resplendent beams;
Yet from their doom may none save them by force or prayer;
All know it, yet can few with pleasure welcome it!
Enough, ye all are lost. So to the work forthwith!
[She claps her hands; thereupon appear at the door masked dwarfish figures, who execute with alacrity the orders as they are delivered.
Approach, thou swarthy, round, misshapen, goblin train!
Roll yourselves hither! Mischief work ye here at will.
The altar, golden-horn’d, bear ye, and give it place;
And let the gleaming axe o’erlay the silver rim!
The water-vessels fill, wherewith to wash away
Of black polluting gore, the horror-breathing stain;
The costly carpet here outspread upon the dust,
That so the victim may in royal fashion kneel,
And wrapp’d within its folds, although with sever’d head,
Sepulchr’d straight may be, with honorable rites!

Leader of the Chorus.
The queen, absorb’d in thought, beside us stands apart;
Blenching the maidens droop, like meadowgrass when mown;
On me, the eldest, seems a sacred duty laid,
With thee to barter words, thou form of primal eld.
Experienc’d art thou, wise, well-minded seem’st to us,
Although this brainless troop, misjudging, thee revil’d:
Tell then, if thou dost know, of rescue possible.

Phorkyas.
’Tis easy said. Alone it resteth with the queen
Herself to save, and you her handmaidens with her.
Needful is prompt resolve, and of the quickest too!

Chorus.
Most revered among the Parcæ, wisest of the Sibyls thou,
Sheathed hold the golden scissors, light and life to us proclaim!
For our tender limbs already, feel we dangling, unrejoicing,
Swinging to and fro, that rather in the dance rejoic’d of yore,
Resting then on lover’s breast.

Helena.
These tremblers leave ye; sorrow feel I, naught of fear;
Yet know’st thou rescue, straight be it with thanks receiv’d!
To sage, far-seeing minds, oft the impossible
As possible doth show. Speak on and tell thy thought!

Chorus.
Speak and tell us, tell us quickly; how may we escape the ghastly,
Odious nooses, that, with menace, like to ornaments the vilest,
Round our necks themselves are coiling? We, poor victims, feel beforehand,
Feel the stifling, feel the choking, if of all the gods, thou, Rhea,
Lofty mother, feel’st no pity!

Phorkyas.
Have ye patience, to my story’s course protracted
Still to hearken? Manifold its windings are.

Chorus.
Patience enough! For while we hearken still we live.

Phorkyas.
The man at home who tarries, noble wealth who guards,
And knoweth to cement his dwelling’s lofty walls,
As also to secure his roof ‘gainst stress of rain,
With him shall all go well, through the long day of life:
But lightly who o’ersteps, with rash and flying foot,
His threshold’s sacred bounds, by guilty aim impell’d,
Shall find, on his return, the ancient place, indeed,
But alter’d everything, if not completely wreck’d.

Helena.
Declare, whereto these trite and well-known proverbs here?
Thou should’st relate; stir not what needs must give offence!

Phorkyas.
True history it is, in no wise a reproof.
As pirate Menelaus steer’d from bay to bay;
Mainland and islands, all he ravag’d as a foe,
With spoil returning home, as it within lies stor’d.
He before Ilion’s walls hath wasted ten long years,
But on his homeward course how many know I not;
Meanwhile how fares it here where stands the lofty house
Of Tyndarus? How fares it with the region round?

Helena.
Is then reproach in thee so thoroughly ingraft,
That, save to utter blame, thy lips thou canst not move?

Phorkyas.
Thus stood, for many years, forlorn the sloping ridge
That northwards to the height rises in Sparta’s rear,
Behind Taygetus, whence, still a merry brook,
Downward Eurotas rolls, and then, along our vale,
Broad-flowing among reeds, gives nurture to your swans.
There in the mountain-vale, behind, a stalwart race
Themselves establish’d, pressing from Cimmerian night,
And have uprear’d a fastness, inaccessible,
Whence land and folk around they harry, as they list.

Helena.
This could they then achieve? Impossible it seems.

Phorkyas.
They ample time have had; haply, some twenty years.

Helena.
Is one the lord? Are they a numerous robber-horde?

Phorkyas.
Not robbers are they, yet is one among them lord.
Of him I speak no blame, though once he sought me here;
He might have taken all, yet did content himself
With some few things — which he free-gifts, not tribute, nam’d.

Helena.
And what his mien?

Phorkyas.
Nowise amiss! He pleases me.
A cheerful man he is, courageous, and wellbuilt,
With understanding dower’d, as few among the Greeks.
As barbarous we brand the race, but yet, methinks,
So savage none can be as heroes, not a few,
Who man-devouring pests at Ilion show’d themselves.
His greatness I respect; did trust myself to him.
His fortress! That should ye with your own eyes behold!
’Tis something different from clumsy masonwork
The which your fathers have aloft, at random, pil’d,
Cyclopean like the Cyclops, one unwieldy stone
On stone unwieldy hurling! There quite otherwise,
Upright and level, all is fix’d by square and rule.
Gaze on it from without; upward it strives toward heaven,
So straight, so well adjusted, mirror-smooth like steel;
To clamber there, in sooth, your very thought slides down.
Within are ample courts, broad spaces girt around
With solid mason-work, of divers kinds and use;
Pillars, pilasters, arches, archlets, balconies
Are there, and galleries, for peering out and in,
And scutcheons.

Helena.
What are they?

Phorkyas.
Ajax upon his shield,
A coiled serpent bare, as ye yourselves have seen;
The seven chiefs at Thebes have figur’d emblems borne,
Each one upon his shield, significant and rich:
There moon and star were seen, on heaven’s nightly field,
There goddess, hero, ladder, weapons, torches too,
And what with violence still threatens goodly towns.
Devices of like sort beareth our hero-band,
In color’d splendor, heir’d from primal ancestors;
There lions you behold, eagles, claw too and beak,
Then horns of buffalo, wings, roses, peacocktails,
Bars also, gold and black and silver, blue and red.
Such symbols in their halls hang pendent, row on row,
In halls that know no bound, ample as is the world;
There might ye dance!

Chorus.
tell us, be there dancers there?

Phorkyas.
The best; a youthful band, blooming and golden-hair’d;
Of youth they breathe! Of yore so only Paris breath’d,
What time he to the queen approach’d too near.

Helena.
Thou fall’st
Quite from thy part! To me declare the final word.

Phorkyas.
That speakest thou; in earnest say distinctly yes!
Then with that fortress thee I’ll straightway compass.

Chorus.
Speak
That little word, and save thyself and us with thee!

Helena.
How? Shall I harbor fear, lest Menelaus should
So ruthlessly transgress as rage to wreak on me?

Phorkyas.
Hast thou forgotten how he, thy Deiphobus,
Thy slaughter’d Paris’ brother, in unheard-of guise,
Hath mangl’d, he who strove thy stubborn widowhood
To bend, and gain’d his purpose! Nose and ears he lopp’d,
And mutilated sore; ’twas horror to behold!

Helena.
That did he unto him; for my sake it was done.

Phorkyas.
And for his sake, be sure, the like he’ll do to thee.
Not to be shar’d is beauty; her who hath possess’d
Entire, destroyeth rather, cursing partnership.
[Trumpets in the distance; the Chorusshudders.
As the shrill trumpets’ blare doth ear and entrails seize,
Reading asunder, so her talons jealousy
Fixes in that man’s breast, who never can forget
What once he own’d, now lost, by him possess’d no more.

Chorus.
Hear’st thou not the horns resounding? Seest thou not the gleam of arms?

Phorkyas.
Be thou welcome! To thee, lord and monarch! gladly give I reckoning.

Chorus.
But for us?

Phorkyas.
Ye know full surely: ‘fore your eyes her death you see,
Your own death mark too within there; no, for you there is no help.
[Pause.

Helena.
I have the course devis’d, which next I will pursue.
An adverse Demon art thou, that full well I feel;
And fear thou wilt convert even the good to ill.
Nathless to yonder keep I straight will follow thee.
The rest I know: but what in her deep breast the queen
As mystery conceals, let it remain to all
A secret unreveal’d! Now, ancient one, lead on!

Chorus.

O how gladly go we hence,
Urging our footsteps:
Death in our rear;
Once more before us
Rises a fortress,
With unscalable ramparts;
Us may they shelter as well,
Even as Ilion’s keep,
Which succumb’d at last
Through contemptible craft alone!
[Mists diffuse themselves, veiling the background; also the nearer portion of the scene.

How! Sisters, how!
Sisters, gaze around!
Was it not cheerfulest day?
Mists are rising, wreathing aloft,
From Eurotas’ hallow’d stream!
Vanish’d hath the beautiful,
Sedge-becrown’d marge from the gaze;
And the free graceful swans,
Proudly, silently, floating,
Joyfully together,
See I, ah! no more!

Yet, sisters, yet!
Singing hear I them,
Singing harsh tones from afar —
Death presaging, so mortals say;
Ah, that they to us may not,
‘Stead of rescue’s promis’d weal,
Ruin dire betoken at last,
Unto us, swanlike maids,
Fair, white-throated ones, and ah!
To our queen swan-gendered!
Woe to us, woe, woe!

All itself overshrouds,
Wrapp’d in vapor and mist:
Gaze on each other can we not!
What befalls? Do we walk?
Hover we now,
Tripping with light steps over the ground?
Seest thou naught? Floats not us before
Hermes perchance? Gleams not his golden wand,
Bidding, commanding us back to return,
Back to yon joyless realm, dusky and gray,
With intangible phantoms teeming,
The o’ercrowded, yet aye-empty Hades?
Deepens all at once the darkness. Rayless now dissolves the vapor,
Gray and murky, brown as stone-work. Walls ascend, our glances meeting,
Our free glances meeting sheer. Court is it? deep moat? or cavern?
’Tis in every case appalling! Sisters, ah, we are imprison’d,
‘Prison’d now as erst we were!
Inner Court of the Castle,
Surrounded with rich fantastic buildings of the middle ages.

Leader of the Chorus.
Foolish and overswift, true type of womankind,
Dependent on the moment, sport of every gust
Of bale or blessing! Yet not either can ye bear
With constant courage. One still fiercely contradicts
The others, crosswise she by others is gainsaid;
Only in joy and pain ye, with the self-same tone,
Or howl or laugh. Be still and hearken what the queen,
High-soul’d, may here decide both for herself and us.

Helena.
Where art thou, Pythonissa? Whatsoe’er thy name,
From out the gloomy vaults step forth of this stern keep!
Perchance, art gone to seek this wondrous hero-lord,
To herald my approach, reception kind be-speaking!
So take my thanks and quickly lead me unto him!
My wanderings I would end, repose I wish alone.

Leader of the Chorus.
Vainly thou lookest, queen, round thee on every side;
The hateful form hath vanish’d, or perchance remain’d
In yonder mist, from forth whose bosom hitherward,
We came, I wist not how, swiftly without a step;
Perchance, indeed, in doubt this labyrinth she treads,
Where many castles strangely mingle into one,
Greeting august and high demanding from its lord.
But yonder see above, where move in busy throngs,
In corridors, at casements, and through portals wide,
A crowd of menials passing, swiftly here and there;
Distinguish’d welcome this portends of honor’d guest.

Chorus.
Expands now my heart! O, yonder, behold,
How modestly downward, with lingering step,
A fair youthful throng becomingly move
In march well-appointed! Say, by whose command
Now appeareth well-train’d, and so promptly array’d,
Of blooming boyhood, the glorious race?
What admire I the most? Is it their elegant gait,
Or the tresses that curl round their dazzling white brow,
Or the twin-blooming cheeks, with the hue of the peach,
And shaded like it with soft tender down?
Fain would I bite, but I shrink back in fear;
For in similar venture, replete was the mouth,
I shudder to tell it, with ashes!
But the most beautiful
Hither are wending;
What are they bearing?
Steps for the throne,
Carpet and seat,
Hangings and tent-
Adorning gear?
Hover the folds on high,
Cloud-garlands forming
Over the head of our queen;
Lo! now invited,
Climbs she the stately couch.
Forward advancing,
Step by step, treading,
Range yourselves there!
Worthy, oh worthy, thrice worthy of her,
Be blessing on such a reception!
[All that the Chorushas indicated takes place by degrees.
(After pages and squires have descended in long procession, Faustappears above, on the steps, in knightly court costume of the middle ages; he descends slowly and with dignity.)

Leader of the Chorus.
(Attentively observing him.) If to this man the gods have not, as is their wont,
But for a season lent this wonder-worthy form,
And if his lofty grace, his love-inspiring mien,
Be not their transient gift, success will sure attend
On all he undertakes, be it in strife with men,
Or in the petty war, with fairest women wag’d.
To many others him, in sooth, I must prefer,
Others, the highly priz’d, on whom mine eyes have gaz’d.
With slow, majestic step, by reverence withheld,
The prince do I behold. Towards him turn, O queen!

Faust.
(Advancing, a man in fetters at his side.) ‘Stead of most solemn greeting, as beseemeth,
‘Stead of most reverent welcome, bring I thee,
In chains fast manacled, this varlet, who
In duty failing, wrested mine from me. —
Here bend thy knee, before this noblest dame,
To make forthwith confession of thy guilt! —
This is, exalted potentate, the man,
Of rarest vision, from the lofty tower
Appointed round to gaze, the expanse of heaven,
Keenly to overlook, and breadth of earth,
If here or yonder aught present itself,
From the encircling hills, across the vale,
Towards this fortress moving; billowy herds,
Or warlike host perchance; those we defend,
These meet in fight. To-day, what negligence!
Thou comest hither, he proclaims it not;
August reception faileth, honor due
To guest so noble. Forfeited he hath
His guilty life, and in the blood of death,
Well-merited, should lie; but thou alone
May’st punish, or show mercy, at thy pleasure.

Helena.
High as the honor thou accordest me,
As judge, as potentate, and were it but,
As I suspect, to try me — so will I
The judge’s foremost duty now fulfil,
To give the accus’d a hearing. — Therefore speak!

Lynceus,
the tower-warder.

Let me kneel and gaze upon her,
Let me live or let me die:
Pledg’d to serve, with truth and honor,
The god-given dame, am I.

Watching for the morning, gazing
Eastward for its rising, lo!
In the south, my vision dazing,
Rose the sun a wondrous show.

Neither earth nor heavenward turning,
Depth nor height my vision drew;
Thitherward I gaz’d, still yearning,
Her, the peerless one, to view.

Eyesight keen to me is granted,
Like to lynx on highest tree;
From the dream, which me enchanted,
Hard I struggled to be free.

Could I the delusion banish —
Turret — tower — barr’d gateway see?
Vapors rise, and vapors vanish;
Forward steps this deity!

Eye and heart to her I tender!
I inhale her gentle light;
Blinding all, such beauty’s splendor
Blinded my poor senses quite;

I forgot the warder’s duty,
I forgot the entrusted horn;
Threaten to destroy me — Beauty
Tameth anger, tameth scorn.

Helena.
The ill, myself occasion’d, dare I not
Chastise. Ah, woe is me! What ruthless fate
Pursues me, everywhere the breasts of men
So to befool, that they nor spare themselves
Nor aught that claimeth reverence. Plundering now,
Seducing, fighting, harrying here and there,
Gods, heroes, demigods, yea demons too,
Perplex’d have led me, wandering to and fro;
Singly, the world I madden’d, doubly, more;
Now threefold, fourfold, bring I woe on woe!
This guiltless man discharge, let him go free,
No shame should light upon the god-befool’d.

Faust.
Fill’d with amaze, O queen, I see at once
The unerring smiter, here the smitten one;
The bow I see, wherefrom hath sped the shaft
This man that wounded. Shaft doth follow shaft,
And me they smite. Them crosswise I perceive,
Feather’d, and whirring round through court and keep.
What am I now? Thou makest, all at once,
My trustiest, rebellious; insecure
My very walls; henceforth my hosts, I fear,
Will serve the conquering unconquer’d queen.
What now remaineth, save myself to yield,
And all I fancied mine, to thy sole sway?
Freely and truly, let me at thy feet,
Acknowledge thee as queen, who, coming here,
Hath won forthwith possession and a throne.

Lynceus.
(With a chest, followed by men bearing other chests.)

Back, queen, thou seest me once more!
One glance the rich man doth implore;
Poor as a beggar feeleth he,
Yet rich as prince — beholding thee.

What was I erst — what am I now?
What can I wish — what aim avow?
What boots it keenest sight to own?
Its glance reboundeth from thy throne!

We from the east still onward press’d,
And soon o’ermaster’d was the west;
A host of nations, long and vast —
The foremost knew not of the last;

The foremost fell; the next advance;
Ready the third with doughty lance —
Strengthen’d was each a hundredfold;
Thousands, unmark’d, lay stark and cold.

We rush’d along, we storm’d apace,
Lordship we won, from place to place;
And where to-day I sway achiev’d,
Next day another sack’d and reav’d.

Rapid the glance we took — one laid
His hand upon the fairest maid,
The steer one seiz’d of surest tread;
The horses all with us were led.

But my delight was everywhere
To peer about for things most rare;
And what another held in store,
To me was wither’d grass, no more.

On treasure’s track I onward sped,
Only by my keen insight led;
In every coffer I could see,
Transparent was each chest to me.

Thus heaps of gold at length were mine,
And jewel-stones, with lustrous shine! —
The emerald’s resplendent green
Alone may grace thy breast, fair queen.

Let pearl-drops hang ‘twixt lip and ear,
The spoil of ocean! rubies, near
Thy dainty cheeks, their radiance lose,
Quench’d by their vermeil-tinctur’d hues.

The greatest treasures thus to-day,
Before thy presence here I lay;
And at thy feet, in homage yield
Harvest of many a bloody field.

Though I full many a chest have brought,
Yet more I have, with treasure fraught;
Let me attend thy path, and lo!
Thy treasure-vaults shall straight o’erflow.

For scarce dost thou the throne ascend,
Already bow, already bend,
Reason, and wealth, and sovereign power,
Before thy beauty’s peerless dower.

All this I firmly held, as mine —
Freely relinquish’d, now ’tis thine!
Its worth I deem’d both vast and high —
Its nothingness I now descry.

What once was mine, doth from me pass,
Scatter’d like mown and wither’d grass.
With one kind look, give back once more,
In full, the worth it own’d before!

Faust.
Hence quickly with the burden boldly earn’d,
Not blam’d in sooth, but yet without reward.
Already all is hers, which in its depths
The castle hides; to offer special gifts
Is bootless. Hence! Treasure on treasure heap,
In order due; of splendor yet unseen
Set forth the exalted pomp; and let the vaults
Glitter like heaven new-born; from lifeless life
A paradise prepare; before her steps,
With eager haste, let carpet, rich in flowers,
Unroll on flowery carpet! Let her tread
Meet dainty footing, and the brightest sheen,
Blinding to all but gods, her glance arrest!

Lynceus.
Slight is our lord’s behest; ’tis play,
A pleasant pastime, to obey:
Not wealth alone, the blood no less
O’ersways this beauty’s fond excess!
Tam’d is the host, and falchions keen,
Now blunt and lame, have lost their sheen;
The sun beside her form divine,
Weary and cold, forgets to shine;
While near the riches of her face,
Empty is all, devoid of grace.
[Exit.

Helena.
(To Faust.) With thee I fain would speak, therefore ascend,
And seat thee at my side! The vacant place
Invites its owner, and secures me mine.

Faust.
First, kneeling, let my true allegiance be
Accepted, noble lady; let me kiss
The hand that now uplifts me to thy side!
Me as co-regent strengthen of thy realm,
No bound that knows; and for thyself obtain
Adorer, liegeman, warder, all in one!

Helena.
Full many a wonder do I see and hear;
Amazement strikes me, much I have to ask.
Yet fain I am to know wherefore the speech
Of yonder man sounds strangely, strange and sweet:
Each tone appears accordant with the next,
And hath a word found welcome in the ear,
Another woos caressingly the first.

Faust.
If thee our people’s utterance thus delights,
then be sure, their song will ravish thee,
Appeasing to their depths both ear and mind.
Yet were it best this language to essay;
Alternate speech invites it, calls it forth.

Helena.
How thus to speak so sweetly I would know.

Faust.
’Tis easy, from the heart the words must flow;
And when with fond desire the bosom yearns,
We look around and ask —

Helena.
Who with us burns?

Faust.
The spirit looks nor forward nor behind,
The present only —

Helena.
There our bliss we find.

Faust.
Wealth is it, pledge and fortune; I demand,
Who granteth confirmation?

Helena.
This — my hand.

Chorus.
Who would now upbraid our princess

Grants she to this castle’s lord
Friendliest demeanor?
For confess, together are we
Captives now, as oft already,
Since the tragical overthrow
Ilios’, and our piteous voyage,
Labyrinthine, with sorrow fraught.

Women wont to men’s affection,
Choosers are they not in sooth,
Rather adepts are they;
And to gold-ringleted shepherds,
Maybe to Fauns darkly bearded,
As to them the occasion comes,
O’er thy delicate limbs must they
Yield completely an equal right.

Near and nearer sit they already,
Each on other reclining,
Shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee,
Hand in hand, rock they themselves
Over the throne’s
High and loftily-cushion’d state:
For no scruple hath majesty,
Secretest raptures,
‘Fore the eyes of the people,
All unblushingly thus to display.

Helena.
I feel myself so distant, yet so near,
And all too gladly say: Here am I! here!

Faust.
I tremble: scarcely breathe, words die away:
A dream it is, vanish’d have place and day!

Helena.
Outworn I feel, and yet as life were new,
With thee entwin’d, to thee the unknown one true.

Faust.
Forbear to ponder thy strange destiny!
Being is duty, were it momently.

Phorkyas.
(Entering impatiently.)

On love’s primer cast your eyes,
Its sweet lessons analyze,
Fondly sport in loverwise!
Yet thereto time fails, I ween.
Feel ye not the storm o’erhanging?
Hear ye not the trumpet clanging!
Ruin nears, with threatening mien.

Menelaus comes, and gleaming
With him waves of people streaming;
Arm ye for the conflict keen!
Girt by victors, conquest-heated,
Like Deiphobus, maltreated,
Forfeit thou must pay, O queen;
These light ware, shall from the halter
Dangle; ready on the altar
Sharpen’d axe for thee is seen!

Faust.
Bold interruption, she annoyingly intrudes!
Not e’en in peril brook I senseless violence.
Ill message hideous make the fairest messenger;
Most hideous thou who dost ill tidings gladly bring.
They shall not profit thee; ay, shatter thou the air
With empty breath. In sooth, no danger lurketh here,
And danger’s self would seem but idle threatening.
[Signals. Explosions from the towers, trumpets and cornets, martial music, a powerful army marches across the stage.

Faust.
No, straight assembl’d thou shalt see
Our heroes’ close united band!
For woman’s grace none wins but he
Who knows to shield with forceful hand.
[To the leaders, who separate themselves from their columns and step forward.

With bridl’d rage and silent power,
Which victory must crown at length,
Ye of the north, the youthful flower,
Ye of the east, the blooming strength!

Steel-clad, with sunbeams round them breaking,
Empires they shatter with their spear;
They march — beneath them earth is shaking; —
They pass — it thunders in their rear.

At Pylos from our barques we landed —
The ancient Nestor was no more;
In vain their troops the kinglings banded,
‘Gainst our free host, on Hellas’ shore.

Drive from these walls, my voice obeying,
King Menelaus back to sea;
There let him, sacking and waylaying,
Fulfil his will and destiny.

I hail you dukes, for so ordaineth
Sparta’s fair queen: before her lay
Mountain and valley; while she reigneth,
Ye too shall profit by her sway.

Guard, German, wall and fence extending,
Corinthus’ bay, whate’er assails;
Goths, I confide to your defending,
Achaia, with its hundred vales;

March, Franks, your course to Elis steering,
Messene be the Saxon’s share;
Normans, the sea from pirates clearing,
Of Argolis the strength repair.

Then shall each one, at home abiding,
Prowess and strength abroad make known;
Yet Sparta shall, o’er all presiding,
Be still our queen’s ancestral throne.

Rejoicing in their lands, each nation
She sees, with every blessing crown’d;
Justice and light and confirmation,
Seek at her feet, with trust profound.

[Faustdescends, the princes close a circle round him, in order better to hear his instructions and commands.

Chorus.

Who the fairest fain would possess,
Foremost, let him for weapons
Stoutly and wisely look all around!
Fond words for him may have won
What on earth is the highest:
Yet in peace possesseth he not:
Fawners slyly entice her from him,
Spoilers daringly snatch her from him;
This to guard against be he prepar’d!

I for this commend our prince,
Prize him higher than others,
Who, brave and prudent, himself hath leagu’d,
So that the stalwart obedient stand,
To his beck still attentive;
Loyally they his hests fulfil,
To his own profit, one and all,
Having his guerdon in his lord’s thanks,
And for the loftiest glory of both.

For who shall snatch her away
From her potent possessor?
She is his, to him be she granted,
Doubly granted by us, whom he
Within, e’en like her, with impregnable ramparts,
Without, by mightiest host, surrounds.

Faust.
Our gifts to these are great and glorious:
To every one a goodly land,
Fertile and broad. March on victorious!
Here in the midst take we our stand.
Girt round by waves in sunlight dancing,
Half island, thee — whose hill-chains blend
With Europe’s mountains, widely branching —
Will they in rivalry defend.
Bless’d be this land, all lands transcending,
To every race, for evermore,
Which sees my queen the throne ascending,
As erst her birth it hail’d of yore.
When, ‘mid Eurotas’ reedy whisper,
Forth from the shell she burst to light,
Her mighty mother, brothers, sister,
Were blinded by the dazzling sight.
This land, her choicest bloom that layeth
Before thee, waiting thy behest —
Though the wide earth thy sceptre swayeth,
Oh love thy fatherland the best!
What though the sun’s keen arrow coldly playeth,
Upon the mountain summits, jagg’d and bare,
Yet where the rock the verdure overlayeth,
The wild goat nibbling, crops its scanty fare;
The spring leaps forth, united plunge the fountains,
And meadow, gorge, and valley, all are green;
On broken pastures of a hundred mountains,
Spread far and wide, the woolly herds are seen;
With measur’d tread, cautious, in line divided,
By the steep edge, the horned cattle wend;
Yet for them all a shelter is provided,
O’er many a cave the vaulted rock doth bend!
Pan shields them there, and many a nymph appeareth,
In moist and bushy caverns dwelling free;
And yearning after higher spheres, upreareth
Its leafy branches tree close-press’d to tree —
Primeval woods! The giant oak there standing,
Links bough to bough, a stubborn, tortuous, maze;
The gentle maple, with sweet juice expanding,
Shoots clear aloft and with its burden plays —
And motherly for child and lambkin streameth,
‘Mid silent shades, warm milk prepar’d for them;
Fruit close at hand, the plain’s ripe nurture, gleameth,
And honey droppeth from the hollow stem.
Pleasure is here a birthright; vying
In gladness cheek and lip are found,
Each in his station is undying,
Content and blooming health abound.
And thus to all his father’s strength unfoldeth
The gentle child, environ’d by sweet day.
Amaz’d we stand; each asks, as he beholdeth:
If gods they be, or men? so fair are they.
So when the part of hind Apollo playeth,
Like him the fairest shepherd-youth appears;
For there where Nature in clear circle swayeth,
Harmoniously are link’d her several spheres.
[Taking his seat beside Helena.
Thus happy Fate hath me, hath thee attended!
Behind us henceforth let the past be thrown!
From God supreme, oh feel thyself descended:
Thou to the primal world belong’st alone.
Thee shall no firm-built fortress capture;
Strong in eternal youth, expands
For us a sojourn, fraught with rapture,
Arcadia, near to Sparta’s lands.
Allur’d to this bless’d region, hither
Hast fled to brightest destiny:
Thrones change to bowers that never wither;
Arcadian be our bliss and free!
[The scene is entirely changed. Close arbors recline against a series of rocky caverns. A shady grove extends to the base of the encircling rocks. Faustand Helenaare not seen. The Choruslies sleeping, scattered here and there.

Phorkyas.
How long these maids have slept, in sooth I cannot tell;
Or whether they have dream’d what I before mine eyes
Saw bright and clear, to me is equally unknown.
So wake I them. Amaz’d the younger folk shall be,
Ye too, ye bearded ones, who sit below and wait,
Hoping to see at length these miracles resolv’d.
Arise! Arise! And shake quickly your crisped locks!
Shake slumber from your eyes! Blink not, and list to me!

Chorus.
Only speak, relate, and tell us, what of wonderful hath chanc’d!
We more willingly shall hearken that which we cannot believe;
For we are aweary, weary, gazing on these rocks around.

Phorkyas.
Children, how, already weary, though you scarce have rubb’d your eyes?
Hearken then! Within these caverns, in these grottoes, in these bowers,
Shield and shelter have been given, as to lovertwain idyllic.
To our lord and to our lady —

Chorus.
How, within there?

Phorkyas.
Yea, secluded
From the world; and me, me only, they to secret service call’d.
Highly honor’d stood I near them, yet, as one in trust beseemeth,
Round I gaz’d on other objects, turning hither, turning thither,
Sought for roots, for barks and mosses, with their properties acquainted;
And they thus remain’d alone.

Chorus.
Thou would’st make believe that yonder, world-wide spaces lie within,
Wood and meadow, lake and brooklet; what strange fable spinnest thou!

Phorkyas.
Yea, in sooth, ye inexperienc’d, there lie regions undiscover’d:
Hall on hall, and court on court; in my musings these I track.
Suddenly a peal of laughter echoes through the cavern’d spaces;
In I gaze, a boy is springing from the bosom of the woman
To the man, from sire to mother: the caressing and the fonding,
All love’s foolish playfulnesses, mirthful cry and shout of rapture,
Alternating, deafen me.
Naked, without wings, a genius, like a faun, with nothing bestial,
On the solid ground he springeth; but the ground, with counteraction,
Up to ether sends him flying; with the second, third rebounding
Touches he the vaulted roof.
Anxiously the mother calleth: Spring amain, and at thy pleasure:
But beware, think not of flying, unto thee is flight denied.
And so warns the faithful father: In the earth the force elastic
Lies, aloft that sends thee bounding; let thy toe but touch the surface,
Like the son of earth, Antæus, straightway is thy strength renew’d.
And so o’er these rocky masses, on from dizzy ledge to ledge,
Leaps he ever, hither, thither, springing like a stricken ball.
But in cleft of rugged cavern suddenly from sight he vanish’d;
And now lost to us he seemeth, mother waileth, sire consoleth,
Anxiously I shrug my shoulders. But again, behold, what vision!
Lie there treasures hidden yonder? Raiment broider’d o’er with flowers
He becomingly hath donn’d;
Tassels from his arms are waving, ribbons flutter on his bosom,
In his hand the lyre all-golden, wholly like a tiny Phœbus,
Boldly to the edge he steppeth, to the precipice; we wonder,
And the parents, full of rapture, cast them on each other’s heart;
For around his brow what splendor! Who can tell what there is shining?
Gold-work is it, or the flaming of surpassing spirit-power?
Thus he moveth, with such gesture, e’en as boy himself announcing
Future master of all beauty, through whose limbs, whose every member,
Flow the melodies eternal: and so shall ye hearken to him,
And so shall ye gaze upon him, to your special wonderment.

Chorus.

This call’st thou marvellous,
Daughter of Creta?
Unto the bard’s pregnant word
Hast thou perchance never listen’d?
Hast thou not heard of Ionia’s,
Ne’er been instructed in Hellas’
Legends, from ages primeval,
Godlike, heroical treasure?
All, that still happeneth
Now in the present,
Sorrowful echo ’tis,
Of days ancestral, more noble;
Equals not in sooth thy story
That which beautiful fiction,
Than truth more worthy of credence,
Chanetd hath of Maia’s offspring!

This so shapely and potent, yet
Scarcely-born delicate nursling,
Straight have his gossiping nurses
Folded in purest swaddling fleece,
Fasten’d in costly swathings,
With their irrational notions.
Potent and shapely, ne’ertheless,
Draws the rogue his flexible limbs,
Body firm yet elastic,
Craftily forth; the purple shell,
Him so grievously binding,
Leaving quietly in its place;
As the perfected butterfly,
From the rigid chrysalid,
Pinion unfolding, rapidly glides,
Boldly and wantonly sailing through
Sun-impregnated ether.

So he, too, the most dextrous,
That to robbers and scoundrels,
Yea, and to all profit-seekers,
He a favoring god might be,
This he straightway made manifest,
Using arts the most cunning.

Swift from the ruler of ocean he
Steals the trident, yea, e’en from Arès
Steals the sword from the scabbard;
Arrow and bow from Phœbus too,
Also his tongs from Hephæstos:
Even Zeus’, the father’s, bolt,
Him had fire not scar’d, he had ta’en.
Eros also worsted he,
In limb-grappling, wrestling match;
Stole from Cypria as she caress’d him,
From her bosom, the girdle.

Fr. Pecht del
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word]
Helena.
[An exquisite, purely melodious lyre-music resounds from the cave. All become attentive, and appear soon to be inwardly moved; henceforth, to the pause indicated, there is a full musical accompaniment.

Phorkyas.

Hark those notes so sweetly sounding;
Cast aside your fabl’d lore:
Gods, in olden time abounding, —
Let them go! their day is o’er.

None will comprehend your singing;
Nobler theme the age requires:
From the heart must flow, upspringing,
What to touch the heart aspires.
[She retires behind the rock.

Chorus.

To these tones, so sweetly flowing,
Dire one! dost incline thine ears,
They in us, new health bestowing,
Waken now the joy of tears.

Vanish may the sun’s clear shining,
In our soul if day arise,
In our heart we, unrepining,
Find what the whole world denies.
Helena, Faust, Euphorionin the costume indicated above.

Euphorion.
Songs of childhood hear ye ringing,
Your own mirth it seems; on me
Gazing, thus in measure springing,
Leap your parent-hearts with glee.

Helena.
Love, terrestrial bliss to capture,
Two in noble union mates;
But to wake celestial rapture,
He a precious three creates.

Faust.
All hath been achiev’d. Forever
I am thine, and mine thou art:
Blent our beings are — oh, never
May our present joy depart!

Chorus.
Many a year of purest pleasure,
In the mild light of their boy,
Crowns this pair in richest measure.
Me their union thrills with joy!

Euphorion.
Now let me gambol,
Joyfully springing!
Upward to hasten
Through ether winging,
This wakes my yearning,
This prompts me now!

Faust.
Gently! son, gently!
Be not so daring!
Lest ruin seize thee
Past all repairing,
And our own darling
Whelm us in woe!

Euphorion.
From earth my spirit
Still upward presses;
Let go my hands now,
Let go my tresses,
Let go my garments,
Mine every one!

Helena.
To whom, bethink thee,
Now thou pertainest!
Think how it grieves us
When thou disdainest
Mine, thine, and his, — the all
That hath been won.

Chorus.
Soon shall, I fear me,
The bond be undone!

HelenaandFaust.
Curb for thy parents’ sake,
To us returning,
Curb thy importunate
Passionate yearning!
Make thou the rural plain
Tranquil and bright.

Euphorion.
But to content you
Stay I my flight.
[Winding among the Chorusand drawing them forth to dance.
Round this gay troop I flee
With impulse light.
Say is the melody,
Say is the movement right?

Helena.
Yea, ’tis well done; advance,
Lead to the graceful dance
These maidens coy!

Faust.
Could I the end but see!
Me this mad revelry
Fills with annoy.

Euphorionand theChorus.
(Dancing and singing, they move about in interweaving lines.)
Moving thine arms so fair
With graceful motion,
Tossing thy curling hair
In bright commotion;
When thou with foot so light
Over the earth doth skim,
Thither and back in flight,
Moving each graceful limb;
Thou hast attain’d thy goal,
Beautiful child,
All hearts thou hast beguil’d,
Won every soul.
[Pause.

Euphorion.
Gracefully sporting,
Light-footed roes,
New frolic courting,
Scorn ye repose:
I am the hunter,
Ye are the game.

Chorus.
Us wilt thou capture,
Urge not thy pace;
For it were rapture
Thee to embrace,
Beautiful creature,
This our sole aim!

Euphorion.
Through trees and heather,
Bound all together,
O’er stock and stone!
Whate’er is lightly won,
That I disdain;
What I by force obtain,
Prize I alone.

HelenaandFaust.
What vagaries, sense confounding!
Naught of measure to be hop’d for!
Like the blare of trumpet sounding,
Over vale and forest ringing.
What a riot! What a cry!

Chorus.
(Entering quickly one by one.)
Us he pass’d with glance scorn-laden;
Hastily still onward springing,
Bearing now the wildest maiden
Of our troop, he draweth nigh.

Euphorion.
(Bearing a young maiden.)
I this wilful maid and coy
Carry to enforc’d caress;
For my pleasure, for my joy
Her resisting bosom press,
Kiss her rebel lips, that so
She my power and will may know.

Maiden.
Loose me! in this frame residing,
Burns a spirit’s strength and might;
Strong as thine, our will presiding
Swerveth not with purpose light.
Thinkest, on thy strength relying,
That thou hast me in a strait?
Hold me, fool! thy strength defying,
For my sport, I’ll scorch thee yet!
[She flames up and flashes into the air.
Follow where light breezes wander,
Follow to rude caverns yonder,
Strive thy vanish’d prey to net!

Euphorion.
(Shaking off the last flames.)
Rocks all around I see,
Thickets and woods among!
Why should they prison me?
Still am I fresh and young.
Tempests, they loudly roar,
Billows, they lash the shore;
Both far away I hear;
Would I were near!
[He springs higher up the rock.

Helena, FaustandChorus.
Would’st thou chamois-like aspire?
Us thy threaten’d fall dismays!

Euphorion.
Higher must I climb, yet higher,
Wider still must be my gaze.
Know I now, where I stand:
‘Midst of the sea-girt land,
‘Midst of great Pelops’ reign,
Kin both to earth and main.

Chorus.
Canst not near copse and wold
Tarry, then yonder,
Ripe figs and apple-gold
Seeking, we’ll wander;
Grapes too shall woo our hand,
Grapes from the mantling vine.
Ah, let this dearest land,
Dear one, be thine!

Euphorion.
Dream ye of peaceful day?
Dream on, while dream ye may!
War! is the signal cry.
Hark! cries of victory!

Chorus.
War who desireth
While peace doth reign,
To joy aspireth
Henceforth in vain.

Euphorion.
All whom this land hath bred;
Through peril onward led,
Free, of undaunted mood,
Still lavish of their blood,
With soul untaught to yield,
Rending each chain!
To such the bloody field,
Brings glorious gain.

Chorus.
High he soars, — mark, upward gazing, —
And to us not small doth seem:
Victor-like, in harness blazing,
As of steel and brass the gleam!

Euphorion.

Not on moat or wall relying,
On himself let each one rest!
Firmest stronghold, all defying,
Ever is man’s iron breast!

Dwell for aye unconquer’d would ye?
Arm, by no vain dreams beguil’d!
Amazons your women should be,
And a hero every child!

Chorus.
O hallow’d Poesie,
Heavenward still soareth she!
Shine on, thou brightest star,
Farther and still more far!
Yet us she still doth cheer;
Ever her voice to hear,
Joyful we are.

Euphorion.
Child no more; a stripling bearing
Arms appears, with valor fraught:
Leagu’d with the strong, the free, the daring,
In soul already who hath wrought.
Hence, away!
No delay!
There where glory may be sought.

HelenaandFaust.
Scarcely summon’d to life’s gladness,
Scarcely given to day’s bright gleam,
Downward now to pain and sadness
Would’st thou rush, from heights supreme!
Are then we
Naught to thee?
Is our gracious bond a dream?

Euphorion.
Hark! What thunders seaward rattle,
Echoing from vale to vale!
‘Mid dust and foam, in shock of battle,
Throng on throng, to grief and bale!
And the command
Is, firm to stand;
Death to face, nor ever quail.

Helena, Faust,andChorus.
Oh what horror! Hast thou told it!
Is then death for thee decreed?

Euphorion.
From afar shall I behold it?
No! I’ll share the care and need!

Helena, Faust,andChorus.
Rashness to peril brings,
And deadly fate!

Euphorion.
Yet — see a pair of wings
Unfoldeth straight!
Thither — I must, I must —
Grudge not my flight!
[He casts himself into the air; his garments support him for a moment; his head flames, a trail of light follows him.

Chorus.
Icarus! Icarus!
Oh woeful sight!
[A beautiful youth falls at the parents’ feet, we imagine that in the dead we recognize a well-known form; yet suddenly the corporeal part vanishes; the aureole rises like a comet to heaven; dress, mantle and lyre remain lying on the ground.

HelenaandFaust.
Follows on joy newborn
Anguishful moan!

Euphorion’s Voice.
(From the depths.)
Leave me in realms forlorn,
Mother, not all alone!
[Pause.

Chorus.
(Dirge.)

Not alone — for hope we cherish,
Where thou bidest thee to know!
Ah, from daylight though thou perish,
Ne’er a heart will let thee go!
Scarce we venture to bewail thee,
Envying we sing thy fate:
Did sunshine cheer, or storm assail thee,
Song and heart were fair and great.

Earthly fortune was thy dower,
Lofty lineage, ample might,
Ah, too early lost, thy flower
Wither’d by untimely blight!
Glance was thine the world discerning,
Sympathy with every wrong,
Woman’s love for thee still yearning,
And thine own enchanting song.

Yet the beaten path forsaking,
Thou didst run into the snare:
So with law and usage breaking,
On thy wilful course didst fare;
Yet at last high thought has given
To thy noble courage weight,
For the loftiest thou hast striven —
It to win was not thy fate.

Who does win it? Unreplying,
Destiny the question hears,
When the bleeding people lying,
Dumb with grief, no cry uprears! —
Now new songs chant forth, in sorrow
Deeply bow’d lament no more;
Them the earth brings forth to-morrow,
As she brought them forth of yore!
[Full pause. The music ceases.

Helena.
(To Faust.) An ancient word, alas, approves itself in me:
That joy and beauty ne’er enduringly are link’d!
Rent is the bond of life, with it the bond of love;
Lamenting both, I say a sorrowful farewell,
And throw myself once more, once only, in thine arms. —
Persephoneia, take the boy, take also me!
[She embraces Faust,her corporeal part vanishes, her garment and veil remain in his arms.

Phorkyas.
Hold fast what doth of all alone remain to thee,
The garment, loose it not! Already hale
The demons at its skirts, and it would fain
Drag to the nether regions. Hold it fast!
The goddess is it not, whom thou hast lost,
Yet godlike ’tis. Avail thee of the high
Inestimable gift, and upward soar;
Thee o’er all common things ‘twill swiftly bear
Through ether, long as there thou canst abide.
We meet again, far, far away from here.
[Helena’sgarments dissolve into clouds, they envelop Faust,raise him aloft, and pass with him from the scene.

Phorkyas:
(Takes Euphorion’sdress, mantle and lyre from the earth, steps into the proscenium; holding up the spoils, she says:)
A happy find hath me bestead.
The flame in sooth is vanished,
Yet for the world no grief I know:
Enough remaineth bards to consecrate,
Envy to scatter in their guild and hate;
And am I powerless genius to bestow,
Its vesture I can lend, at any rate.
[She sits down in the proscenium, at the foot of a pillar.

Penthalis.
Now hasten, girls! At length we are from magic free,
From the soul-swaying spell of the Thessalian hag;
Free also from the blare confus’d of jangling tones,
The ear perplexing, and still worse the inner sense.
Away to Hades! Thither hath in haste the queen,
With earnest step, descended. Now, ye faithful maids,
Do ye, without delay, follow upon her track.
Her at the throne we find of the Inscrutable.

Chorus.
Royal ladies, certes, everywhere are content;
E’en in Hades places take they supreme,
Proud to be with their peers allied,
With Persephone in friendship knit;
We, meanwhile, far off in meadows
Deep of asphodel abiding,
With far-reaching poplars,
And unfruitful willows conjoin’d,
What amusement or joy have we!
Flitting, bat-like to twitter —
Whispering, undelightsome, and ghostlike!

Leader of the Chorus.
Who hath no name achiev’d, nor at the noble aims,
Belongs but to the elements; so hence, begone!
My vehement desire is with my queen to be;
Not merit ’tis alone, fidelity as well,
Secure in yonder spheres, the individual life.
[Exit.

All.
Back are we given now to the daylight;
Certes, persons no more,
That feel we, that know we;
Nathless return we never to Hades!
Nature, eternally living,
Claims in us spirits,
We in her, a title undoubted.

A Portion of the Chorus.
We, amid the wavy-trembling of these thousand rustling branches.
Gently lure with dalliance charming from the root the vital currents,
Up into the boughs; with foliage, soon with lavish wealth of blossoms,
We adorn our tresses, floating in the breeze for airy growth.
Falls the fruit, forthwith assemble life-enjoying folk and cattle,
For the grasping, for the tasting, swiftly coming, onward pressing,
And, as ‘fore the gods primeval, so all bend around us here.

Another Portion.
Where these rocky walls are imag’d in the smooth, far-gleaming mirror,
Moving in the gentle wavelets, soothingly we onward glide,
Listen, hearken, to all music: birdie’s singing, reedy-fluting,
Is it Pan’s loud voice tremendous — voice responsive straight replies:
Whisper is it? — we too whisper; thunders it? — we roll our thunder
In o’erwhelming reprecussion, threefold, tenfold, echoing back.

A Third Portion.
Sisters, we, of spirit mobile, hasten with the brooklets onward;

artist: franz simm.
FAUST. SECOND PART.
helen leaving faust.
For yon hill-slopes, richly mantl’d, charm us rising far away.
Ever downwards, ever deeper, in meandering course we water
Now the meadows, then the pastures, then the garden round the house;
There, across the landscape, slender cypress shafts our banks o’erpeering,
Telling of our crystal mirror, upwards into ether soar.

A Fourth Portion.
Roam ye others, at your pleasure; we will circle, we will rustle
Round the slopes so richly planted, on its prop where sprouts the vine.
By the vintager’s emotion, we throughout the livelong day,
See what doubtful issue waiteth on his busy loving care:
Now with hoe, and now with mattock, earth upheaping, pruning, binding,
Prayeth he to all Celestials, chiefly to the Sun-God prays.
Bacchus frets himself, the weakling, little for his faithful vassal,
Rests in arbors, leans in grottoes, toying with the youngest faun;
For his visions what he lacketh, dreaming half inebriate,
Stor’d in skins, in jars and vessels, ready for his use he finds,
Right and left in cool recesses treasur’d for eternal time.
But at length have the Celestials, hath now Helios ‘fore them all,
Breathing, moistening, warming, glowing, fill’d the berries’ teeming horn:
Where the vintager in silence labor’d, there is sudden life,
Busy stir in every alley, rustles round from vine to vine;
Baskets creak, and pitchers clatter, and the loaded vine-troughs groan,
All towards the mighty wine-press, to the presser’s sturdy dance;
And so is the sacred fullness of the purely-nurtur’d berries
Rudely trodden; foaming, seething, now it mingles, foully squash’d;
And now splits the ear the cymbal, with the beaker’s brazen tones,
For himself hath Dionysos from his mysteries reveal’d;
Comes he with goat-footed satyrs, reeling nymphs goat-footed too,
And meanwhile unruly brayeth shrill, Silenus’ long-ear’d beast —
Naught is spar’d; all law and order cloven hoofs are treading down —
All the senses whirl distracted, hideously the ear is stunn’d;
Drunkards for their cups are groping, over-full are head and paunch;
Careful one is, there another, yet the tumult waxes loud:
Since the newer must to garner, they the old skins quickly drain.
[The curtain falls. Phorkyas,in the proscenium, rises to a gigantic height, descends from the cothurni, lays aside mask and veil, and reveals herself as Mephistopheles,in order, so far as it may be necessary, to comment upon the piece by way of epilogue.

ACT IV.

High Mountain.
Strong jagged rocky summit. A cloud approaches, leans against the rock, and sinks down upon a projecting level. It divides.

Faust.
(Steps forth.) On deepest solitudes down-gazing, far below my feet,
Full thoughtfully I tread this lofty mountain ridge,
My cloudy car forsaking, me which softly bare,
Through days of sunshine, hither over land and sea.
Slowly it melts from me, not scatter’d suddenly;
Towards the East the mass strives in its rolling march.
In admiration lost, the eye strives after it;
Moving it now divides, wavelike, and full of change;
Yet will it shape itself — mine eye deceives me not,
On sun-illumin’d pillows, gloriously reclines,
Of giant size indeed, a godlike female form;
I see it, like to Juno, Leda, Helena;
In majesty and love before mine eye it floats!
Ah, now it scatters; formless, broad, uptowering,
Rests in the East, and there, like ice-hills far away,
Mirrors of fleeting life the deep significance.
Yet round me hovers still, a mist-wreath, tender, light,
Surrounding breast and brow, cheering, caressing, cool.
Lightly it rises now, still lingering, high and higher, —
Together draws. Doth me a rapturing form delude,
As youth’s first fondly priz’d, long-yearn’d for, highest good?
Well up the earliest treasures of my deepest heart:
To me Aurora’s love, so light of wing, it shows,
The swift-experienc’d glance, the first, scarce understood,
Which, long and firmly held, each treasure overshone!
Like beauty of the soul rises the gracious form,
Dissolveth not, but upward into ether floats,
And with it, of my being draws the best away.
[A seven-league boot tramps down, another immediately follows. Mephistophelesdescends. The boots stride onward in haste.

Mephis.
That’s forward striding, I must own!
But tell me, what dost thou intend,
That ‘mid such horrors dost descend,
Such wilderness of yawning stone?
Though not precisely here, I know it well;
This was in sooth the very floor of Hell.

Faust.
Of foolish legends never fails thy store;
Such to give forth dost thou begin once more?

Mephis.
(Seriously.) When God the Lord — the reason well I know, —
Us from the air had bann’d to depths profound,
There, where of fire eterne the central glow
With lurid flames still circles round and round,
By the too brilliant light, we found that we
O’ercrowded were, and plac’d unpleasantly.
Forthwith to cough the devils all were fain;
From top to bottom straight they spat amain;
With sulphur-stench and acids thus inflated,
Hell, with foul gas, so hugely was dilated,
That earth’s smooth surface, by the fiery blast,
Thick as it was, cracking must burst at last.
That all things are revers’d we now discern;
What bottom was, is summit in its turn;
Also in this the proper lore they base,
To give the undermost the highest place;
For from the hot and slavish cave we fare
Into the lordship of the boundless air;
An open secret, long time well conceal’d,
And to the folk only of late reveal’d.

Faust.
To me are mountain-masses grandly dumb;
I question neither whence nor why they come.
Herself when Nature in herself had founded,
This globe of earth she then hath purely rounded,
Took both in summit and in gorge delight,
Pil’d rock on rock, and mountain-height on height;
The hills she fashion’d next with gentle force,
And to the valleys slop’d their downward course:
Then growth and verdure came, and for her joy
She needs no mad convulsive freak employ.

Mephis.
Ay! so you say, sun-clear to you it lies;
But who was present there, knows otherwise.
I was at hand when, seething still below,
Swell’d the abyss, belching a fiery tide,
When Moloch’s hammer rocks, with thunderous blow
Welding, the fragments scatter’d far and wide.
‘Neath massive foreign blocks still groans the land —
Such hurling-might say who can comprehend;
This your philosopher can’t understand;
There lies the rock, must lie, and there’s an end;
But to our shame doth all our thinking tend.
Your genuine common folk alone conceive,
And naught disturbs them in their creed;
Long since their wisdom ripen’d: they believe
A marvel ’tis, Satan receives his meed;
On crutch of faith my pilgrim hobbles on
To Devil’s bridges, to the Devil’s stone.

Faust.
Noteworthy ’tis, Nature, as now I do,
To study from the Devil’s point of view.

Mephis.
Be Nature what she may, what do I care!
My honor’s touch’d: the Devil, sooth, was there!
We are the folk, the mighty to attain:
Convulsion, madness, force. ’Tis written plain! —
But now, at last, to make my meaning clear,
Did nothing please thee in our upper sphere?
In boundless space the world thou hast survey’d,
Its kingdoms and their glory, all display’d.
And yet, insatiate as thou art,
To thee did they no joy impart?

Faust.
A project vast allur’d me on;
Divine it!

Mephis.
That I’ll do anon.
Some capital I’d choose; therein a store
Of burgher-feeding rubbish at its core;
With crooked alleys, gabl’d peaks,
Markets confin’d, kale, turnips, leeks,
And shambles where blue flies repair,
On well-fed joints to fatten — there,
At any moment shalt thou find
Stench and activity combin’d;
Wide squares, with spacious streets between,
Which arrogate a lordly mien;
And lastly, boundless to the eye,
Beyond the gate, the suburbs lie.
Of coaches too, th’ eternal roar,
Still rattling, behind, before,
Would charm me and the ceaseless flow
Of ant-swarms, running to and fro;
And let me walk, or let me ride,
Their central point I should abide,
By thousands honor’d and admir’d.

Faust.
Such things I slightly estimate.
That men, it is to be desir’d,
Should multiply, should live at ease,
Be taught, develop’d if you please; —
More rebels thus you educate.

Mephis.
Then, in grand style, with conscious power, I’d rear
A pleasure-castle, some fair pleasance near:
Hill, valley, meadow, forest, glade,
Into a splendid garden made,
With velvet lawns and verdurous walls,
Straight paths, art-guided shadows, waterfalls,
From rock to rock constrain’d to wind,
And water-jets of every kind;
Majestic soaring there while at the sides,
With whiz and gush, threadlike the stream divides.
Then for the loveliest women I’d prepare
A tiny lodge, cosy and quiet; there
The countless hours, according to my mood
I’d spend, in that sweet social solitude —
Women, I say: since, once for all,
I in the plural think upon the Fair.

Faust.
Modern and base! Sardanapal!

Mephis.
Might one but guess thy purpose? High,
Doubtless, and grandly bold! Since thou
By so much nearer to the moon didst fly,
Aptly thy choice might thither tend, I trow!

Faust.
Not so. Upon this globe of ours
For grand achievement still there’s space;
Something astounding shall take place,
For daring toil I feel new powers.

Mephis.
Fame also to achieve thou’rt fain?
That thou hast been with heroines is plain.

Faust.
Dominion and estate by me are sought.
The deed is everything, the fame is naught!

Mephis.
Yet poets shall arise, thy fame
To after ages to proclaim,
Through folly, folly to inflame.

Faust.
That is beyond thy scope, I ween;
How knowest thou, what man desires?
Adverse thy nature, bitter, keen,
How knoweth it, what man requires?

Mephis.
Be thy will done, since yield I must.
Me with the circuit of thy whims entrust.

Faust.
Mine eye was fix’d upon the open sea:
Aloft it tower’d, upheaving; then once more
Withdrew, and shook its waves exultingly,
To storm the wide expanse of level shore —
That anger’d me, since arrogance of mood,
In the free soul, that values every right,
Through the impetuous passion of the blood,
Harsh feeling genders, in its own despite.
I deem’d it chance; more keenly eyed the main:
The billow paus’d, and then roll’d back again,
And from its proudly conquer’d goal withdrew;
The hour returns, the sport it doth renew —

Mephis.
(Ad spectatores.) For me there’s nothing novel here, I own;
This for some hundred thousand years I’ve known.

Faust.
(Continues passionately.)
On through a thousand channels it doth press,
Barren itself, and causing barrenness;
It waxes, swells, it rolls and spreads its reign
Over the waste and desolate domain.
There, power-inspir’d, wave upon wave sweeps on,
Triumphs awhile, retreats — and naught is done:
It to despair might drive me to survey
Of lawless elements the aimless sway!
To soar above itself then dar’d my soul;
Here would I strive, this force would I control!
And it is possible. Howe’er the tide
May rise, it fawneth round each hillock’s side;
However proudly it may domineer,
Each puny height its crest doth ‘gainst it rear,
Each puny deep it forcefully allures.
So swiftly plan on plan my mind matures;
This glorious pleasure for thyself attain;
Back from the shore to bar the imperious main,
Narrow the limits of the watery deep,
Constrain it far into itself to sweep!
My purpose step by step I might lay bare:
That is my wish, to aid it boldly dare!
[Drums and martial music behind the spectators, from the distance, on the right hand.

Mephis.
How easy ’tis! — Hear’st thou the drums afar?

Faust.
What, war again! — The prudent likes not war.

Mephis.
In peace or war the prudent doth obtain
From every circumstance his proper gain.
We watch, we mark each favoring moment; now,
The occasion smileth — Faustus, seize it thou!

Faust.
Me, I entreat, this riddling nonsense spare.
And short and good, speak out; — thyself declare.

Mephis.
On my way hither I became aware
That the good emperor is vex’d with care;
Thou knowest him. The while we him amus’d,
And with the show of riches him abus’d,
Then the whole world to him was cheap, since he
While young attain’d to regal dignity;
This false resolve did then beguile his leisure,
That possible it is and right
Together these two interests to unite,
At once to govern, and to take one’s pleasure.

Faust.
A grievous error! He who would command,
His highest bliss must in commanding find.
With lofty will his bosom must expand,
Yet what he willeth may not be divin’d;
To trusty ear he whispers his intent,
’Tis realiz’d, — all feel astonishment;
So holds he still the most exalted place,
The worthiest. Enjoyment doth debase!

Mephis.
Such is he not; on pleasure he was bent!
Meanwhile the realm by anarchy was rent,
Where high and low were rang’d against each other,
And brother still pursu’d and slaughter’d brother,
Castle ‘gainst castle, town ‘gainst town had feud,
Guild against noble too; in conflict rude,
Chapter and flock against their bishop rose;
Who on each other gaz’d, were foes;
Within the churches death and murder reign,
Merchant and traveller at the gates were slain;
All wax’d in daring, nor to small extent;
To live was self-defence. — So matters went.

Faust.
They went, they limp’d, they fell, again they rose,
Were overturn’d, roll’d headlong — such the close.

Mephis.
And such condition no one dar’d to blame,
Authority each could and each would claim;
The smallest even proudly rear’d his crest.
At length too mad it grew e’en for the best.
The able, they forthwith arose with might,
And said: Who gives us peace is lord, by right;
The Emperor cannot, will not! — Let us choose
Another, in the realm who shall infuse
Fresh life, and safety unto each assign,
Who in a world its vigor that renews,
Together peace and justice shall combine!

Faust.
That sounds like priestcraft.

Mephis.
Priests in sooth were there;
The well-fed paunch, that was their primal care;
They implicated were above the rest.
The tumult swell’d, the priests the tumult bless’d;
Our Emperor, whom we beguil’d, perchance
To his last battle hither doth advance.

Faust.
I pity him — so frank, so kind of heart.

Mephis.
Let us look on. There’s hope ere life depart.
Him from this narrow vale let us deliver!
If rescu’d now, he rescu’d is forever.
How yet the die may fall, who may divine!
Vassals he’ll have, if Fortune on him shine.
[They ascend the middle range of hills and survey the disposition of the army in the valley. Drums and military music resound from below.

Mephis.
Well chosen the position is, I see;
We’ll join them, perfect then the victory.

Faust.
What there may we expect? Deceit!
Illusive sorcery! A hollow cheat!

Mephis.
Cunning to win war’s lofty game!
Be constant to thy mighty aim,
The while thy goal dost bear in sight;
Secure we to the Emperor throne and land,
Then kneel, from him receiving as thy right,
The fief of the unbounded strand.

Faust.
Already much for me hast done;
By thee be now a battle won!

Mephis.
No, do thou win it; forthwith here
As general-in-chief appear.

Faust.
To my true honor it would tend,
There to command where naught I comprehend!

Mephis.
The general’s staff, let that provide,
So the field-marshal’s safe whate’er betide.
War’s want of council to its source I’ve trac’d;
War’s council I forthwith have bas’d
On mountain’s and on man’s primeval force:
Bless’d who together draws their joint resource.

Faust.
What yonder bearing arms appears?
Hast thou arous’d the mountaineers?

Mephis.
No, but like Master Peter Squenze,
Of the whole mass the quintessence.
[The three mighty ones enter.
My fellows now are drawing near!
Divers the clothes, the arms, they wear,
Of different ages they appear;
With them not badly shalt thou fare.
[Ad spectatores.
There’s not a child but loves to see
Harness and arms of warlike knight;
And, allegoric as the rascals be,
They, for that reason, give the more delight.

Bully.
(Young, lightly armed, in motley attire.) If one but looks into my eyes,
Straight let his jaws my clenched fist beware,
And if a coward from me flies,
Forthwith I seize him by the hair!

Havequick.
(Manly, well armed, in rich attire.) Such brawls are foolish, are invidious,
They forfeit what the occasion brings;
In taking only be assiduous;
Hereafter look to other things.

Holdfast.
(In years, strongly armed, without attire.) Not much by such a course is won;
Through great possessions soon we run,
Borne by the stream of life away.
To take is good, ’tis better fast to hold;
Be still by the gray carle controll’d,
And none from thee takes aught away.
[They descend the mountain together.
On the Headland.
Drums and martial music from below. The Emperor’stent is pitched. Emperor, General-in-Chief, Attendants.

General-in-Chief.
Still duly weigh’d appears our course,
Back to this vale at hand that lies,
To lead when somewhat press’d our force;
Our choice of ground, I trust, is wise.

Emperor.
How it succeeds must soon be known,
Me this half flight, this yielding, grieves, I own.

General-in-Chief.
On our right flank, my prince, now cast your eyes!
Such ground doth war’s ideal realize:
Not steep the hills, nor yet too easy to ascend,
The enemy ensnaring, while they ours befriend;
We, on the wavelike plain, are half conceal’d —
No cavalry durst venture on such field.

Emperor.
Save to commend naught now remains for me;
Here strength and courage can well tested be.

General-in-Chief.
There, where the middle plain allures the sight,
Behold the phalanx, eager for the fight;
In the bright sunshine, gilded by its rays,
The lances glitter through the morning haze.
How darkly waves the mighty square below!
For bold emprise its thousands all aglow.
The mass’s strength thou thus canst comprehend;
To them I trust, the foemen’s strength to rend.

Emperor.
So fair a sight ne’er have I seen before:
Such host is worth its number, twice told o’er.

General-in-Chief.
Of our left flank naught have I to relate.
Holding the stubborn cliffs, stout heroes wait;
Ablaze with arms, the rocky height ascends,
Which the close entrance to the pass defends.
Here, where the bloody onslaught none expect,
The hostile force will, I foresee, be wreck’d.

Emperor.
There march my lying kinsfolk, still who claim’d,
As me they uncle, cousin, brother, nam’d,
More and more license; till the sceptre’s strength,
Its honor from the throne, they stole at length;
The empire, through their feuds, distracted lies,
Now, leagu’d as rebels, they against me rise!
The many waver, sway’d from side to side;
Then headlong rush, borne onward by the tide.

General-in-Chief.
A trusty man, abroad for tidings sent,
Hastes down the rocks; oh, happy be the event.

First Spy.
Fair success on us hath waited;
Through our bold and crafty art,
Here and there we penetrated;
Little good can we impart:
Many pure allegiance proffer’d;
But for their inaction they,
In excuse, these pretexts offer’d,
Public danger, civil fray —

Emperor.
Self-seekers, caring for themselves alone,
To duty, honor, gratitude, are blind!
If full your measure, you ne’er call to mind,
Your neighbor’s house-fire may consume your own.

General-in-Chief.
The second comes, descending heavily;
Tremble his limbs, a weary man is he.

Second Spy.
First with pleasure we detected
The wild tumult’s erring course.
Undelaying, unexpected,
A new emperor leads his force;
And with his behests complying,
O’er the plain the concourse sweep.
This false banner, proudly flying,
They all follow now — like sheep!

Emperor.
As gain a rival emperor I hail;
That I am emperor, now first I feel!
But as a soldier did I don the mail;
For higher purpose now I’m clad in steel.
At every festival, how bright soe’er,
Though naught was wanting — danger fail’d me there.
When to the ring-sport at your call I went,
My heart beat high, I breath’d the tournament;
From war had ye not held me back, my name
For deeds heroic had been known to fame!
What self-reliance in my breast did reign,
When I stood mirror’d in the fire-domain;
The ruthless element press’d on elate,
’Twas but a show, and yet the show was great.
Fame, victory, my troubl’d dreams display’d —
I’ll now achieve, what basely I delay’d!
[Heralds are despatched to challenge the rival Emperor.

[Faustin armor, with half-closed visor. The three mighty ones, armed and clothed, as above.

Faust.
We come, we hope uncensur’d — foresight here
May yet avail, though needless it appear.
Thoughtful, thou know’st, and wise the mountain-race,
Of rock and nature they the secrets trace;
Spirits, who long have left the level ground,
Are to their rocky heights more firmly bound:
Through labyrinthine clefts they labor, where
Rich fumes metallic fill the gaseous air;
Untir’d they separate, combine and test;
The hidden to make known is their sole quest;
With the light touch of spirit-might, they rear
Transparent figures, then in crystal clear
And its eternal silence, mirror’d true,
The doings of the upper world they view.

Emperor.
This I have heard, and think that it may be;
But, honest man, say: what is this to me?

Faust.
The Norcian sorcerer, the Sabine, he
True, honorable servant is to thee;
What ghastly fate appall’d him, on the pyre!
Crackl’d the brushwood, rose the tongues of fire;
Dry fagots all around up-piled were seen,
Mingl’d with pitch, with brimstone-bars between,
Man’s, God’s, or devil’s aid had been in vain —
Your majesty then burst the fiery chain!
’Twas there, in Rome. Deeply to thee he’s bound,
And o’er thy path keeps watch with care profound;
Himself forgetting, from that moment he
Questions the stars, questions the depths for thee.
He bade us, at the swiftest, hither post,
To succor thee. Great powers the mountains boast:
There Nature works, omnipotently free —
The priest’s dull mind blames it as sorcery.

Emperor.
On festal day when guest on guest we greet,
Joyful themselves, who joyance come to meet,
Well pleas’d we see them enter, each and all,
And, man by man, contract the spacious hall;
Yet highest welcome is the brave man’s dower,
Who, as ally to aid us, comes with power,
When morning breaks, which doubtful issues wait,
While over it are pois’d the scales of Fate.
Nathless withhold awhile thy stalwart hand,
In this high moment, from the willing brand!
Honor the hour, when many thousands wend
To battle, for or ‘gainst me to contend!
Man’s self is man! Who would be thron’d and crown’d,
Of the high honor must be worthy found.
Now may this phantom, that against us stands,
This self-styl’d emperor, ruler of our lands,
The army’s duke, lord of our feudal train,
By my own hand, be thrust to death’s domain!

Faust.
Whate’er the need to end the glorious fight,
To peril thine own head cannot be right.
Is not the helm with crest and plumage deck’d?
The head, our zeal which fires, it doth protect.
Without the head what could the members do?
Let that but sleep, forthwith all slumber too;
If it be injur’d, all are straight unsound,
And all revive, if it with health be crown’d.
Promptly the arm its own strong right doth wield,
And to protect the skull uplifts the shield;
Its proper duty well the sword doth know,
Parries with strength, and then returns the blow;
The active foot shares in the common weal,
And on the slain foe’s neck doth plant the heel.

Emperor.
Such is mine anger: him I thus would treat,
Make his proud head a footstool for my feet!

Heralds.
(Returning.)
Little profit, little credit,
From our challenge did we gain;
Noble ’twas, yet while we read it,
Us they flouted with disdain:
“Spent your Emperor’s power,” — they say,
“Like echo in yon narrow vale;
Would we think of him to-day; —
Once there was: — so runs the tale.”

Faust.
What hath occurr’d doth with their wish accord,
Who firm and true for thee would draw the sword.
The foe approach; thy troops impatient stand;
The moment favors; straight the charge command!

Emperor.
To the command all claim I now resign.
(To the General-in-Chief.)
To execute that duty, prince, be thine!

General-in-Chief.
March then our right wing onward to the field!
The foemen’s left, who even now ascend,
Ere they complete their final step, shall yield
To their tried valor who the slope defend!

Faust.
Permission grant that this blithe hero be
Enroll’d among thy ranks, immediately,
That with thy ranks incorporate, he may
Have for his powerful nature ample play.
[He points to the right.

Bully.
(Steps forward.) His face to me who shows doth not escape,
Till both his jaws I’ve smash’d with sudden bang;
His back to me who turns, I strike his nape, —
Dangling adown his back, neck, head, and top-knot hang!
And if, with sword and club, thy men
Will strike, as on I rage before,
Man over man down-smitten, then
The foe shall welter in their gore!
[Exit.

General-in-Chief.
Now let the centre phalanx follow slow,
And in full force with caution meet the foe!
Distress’d, they yield already on the right,
Their plan, by our attack, is shatter’d quite.

Faust.
(Pointing to the middle one.) Let this one also thy command obey.

Havequick.
(Steps forward.) Unto the host’s heroic pride,
Shall thirst for booty be alli’d;
Upon this goal be all intent;
The rival emperor’s sumptuous tent.
Not long upon his throne he’ll boast indeed!
Myself to battle will this phalanx lead.

Speed-Booty,Sutler-woman.
(Fawning upon him.) Although his wife I may not be,
A sweetheart dear is he to me.
For us what harvest now is ripe!
Woman is fierce when she doth gripe,
Is ruthless when she robs; press on,
All is allow’d — when we have won.
[Exeunt.

General-in-Chief.
Upon our left, as was to be expected,
With furious charge, their right is now directed.
The defile’s rocky path they hope to gain;
To thwart their purpose man for man must strain.

Faust.
(Beckons to the left.) Sire, I entreat, look also on this one;
If strength be stronger made, no harm is done.

Holdfast.
(Steps forward.) For the left wing dismiss all care!
For where I am, safe is possession there:
Herein doth age approve itself, we’re told;
No lightning rendeth, what I hold!
[Exit.

Mephis.
(Coming down from above.)
Now to the background turn your gaze;
Forth from the jagg’d and rocky ways,
See how the armed warriors pour,
The narrow paths to straiten more,
With helm, shield, harness, sword and spear,
A wall they’re forming in our rear,
Waiting the sign to strike the blow.
(Aside, to the knowing ones.)
From whence they come, ask not to know.
No time I lost; where I appear’d.
The armor-halls around were clear’d,
Footmen and horsemen, stood they there,
As if yet lords of earth they were;
Knight, emperor, king, they were of yore,
Now are they empty snail-shells, nothing more, —
Full many a ghost, thus arm’d for strife,
The middle ages have brought back to life;
What devilkin therein may lurk,
For this time it may do its work.
(Aloud.)
Hark, in their anger, how they clatter,
And like tin plates, each other batter;
Torn banners too, flapping aloft one sees,
That wait impatiently to catch the breeze.
Reflect, an ancient race stands ready there,
And in this modern combat fain would share.
[Terrible flourish of trumpets from above; perceptible wavering in the hostile army.

Faust.
Now dark the whole horizon shows,
Yet here and there presageful glows
A ruddy and portentous ray;
The weapons gleam, distain’d with blood;
The atmosphere, the rock, the wood,
The heavens, mingle in the fray.

Mephis.
Firmly the right flank holds its ground;
Among them towering there I see
Stout Hans, the nimble giant, he
His wonted strokes now deals around.

Emperor.
First on one lifted arm I gaz’d,
A dozen now I see uprais’d:
Not nature’s laws are working here!

Faust.
Of mist-wreaths hast not heard, above
The coast of Sicily that rove?
There hovering in daylight clear,
Uplifted in the middle air,
Mirror’d in exhalations rare,
A wondrous show the vision takes.
There cities waver to and fro,
There gardens rise, now high, now low,
As form on form through ether breaks.

Emperor.
It looks suspicious! For I there
See all the lofty spear-tops glare;
And through our phalanx, on each lance
I see a nimble flamelet dance:
Too spectral seems to me the sight!

Faust.
Pardon, my lord! The traces they
Of spirit-natures pass’d away,
A reflex of the mighty Pair,
By whom were sailors wont to swear:
Here they collect their final might.

Emperor.
To whom are we beholden, say,
That nature, for our weal to-day,
Her rarest powers should here unite?

Mephis.
To whom save him, that master high,
Thy fate who bears within his breast?
The strong threat of thine enemy
His soul hath stirr’d to deep unrest.
His gratitude will see thee sav’d,
Though death in the attempt he brav’d.

Emperor.
They cheer’d, with pomp around my march they press’d;
I now was something: That I fain would test,
So, without thought, it pleas’d me, then and there,
To grant to that white beard the cooling air.
Thus of the clergy I the sport have cross’d,
And have, in sooth, thereby their favor lost;
Now shall I, when so many years are pass’d,
Of that glad deed the fruitage reap at last?

Faust.
Rich interest bears the generous deed.
Now heavenward be thy glance directed:
An omen he will send; give heed!
Straight it appears — as I expected.

Emperor.
An eagle hovers in the heavenly height;
A griffin, with wild threats, attends his flight.

Faust.
Give heed! Auspicious seems the sign.
Your griffin is of fabl’d line;
How, self-forgetting, can he dare
Himself with genuine eagle to compare!

Emperor.
Forthwith, in widespread circles wending,
Around they wheel; now, through the sky,
Impetuous, they together fly,
Each other’s throat and plumage rending.

Faust.
Mark how the sorry griffin, torn
And ruffl’d sore, his flight now steereth,
With drooping lion-tail, forlorn,
And ‘mid the tree-tops disappeareth.

Emperor.
So be it, e’en as these portend!
With wonder fill’d, I wait the end.

Mephis.
(Towards the right.) Press’d by our onslaught, oft-repeated,
Our foes must yield, well nigh defeated,
Yet, waging still a dubious fight,
Onward they press toward their right,
And thus embarrass in the fray
The left flank of their chief array.
Our phalanx its firm point doth bring,
Like lightning ‘gainst their dexter wing,
The foe, where weakest, they engage.
Now, as when storm-vex’d billows rage,
Wildly contend, with equal might,
Both armies in the double fight.
More glorious deed was never done,
Ours is the field, the victory’s won!

Emperor.
(On the left side, to Faust.)
Suspicious yonder it doth seem;
Our station hazardous I deem,
No stones they hurl against the foe,
Scal’d are the lower rocks, and lo!
Deserted those above appear;
The foe, — in solid mass, draw near;
With might and main still pressing on,
Perchance the passage they have won:
Of skill unholy such the end!
Your arts to futile issues tend!
[Pause.

Mephis.
Hither, my ravens twain are winging!
For us what message are they bringing?
We are, I fear, in evil plight.

Emperor.
What want these birds, mischance portending?
They come their swarthy sails extending,
Straight from the hot and rocky fight.

Mephis.
(To the ravens.) Close to mine ears now take your post.
Whom you protect, is never lost;
For shrewd your counsel is and right.

Faust.
(To the Emperor.) Of pigeons thou hast heard, returning
Homeward, for nest and fledglings yearning,
Steering their flight from far-off lands.
But here a difference obtaineth:
Pigeons suffice while peace still reigneth,
But war the raven-post demands.

Mephis.
The message tells of sore distresses.
See yonder how the tumult presses
Our heroes’ rocky wall around!
The nearest heights are now ascended,
Win they the pass by ours defended,
In sorry plight we should be found.

Emperor.
So I deluded am at last!
Around me you have drawn your net;
I’ve shudder’d, since it held me fast!

Mephis.
Take courage! Naught is lost as yet;
Patience unties the hardest knot!
Still sharpest is the final stand.
My trusty messengers I’ve got;
Command me, that I may command.

General-in-Chief.
(Who meanwhile has arrived.) With these thou hast thyself alli’d,
I long have griev’d to see them at thy side;
No stable good doth conjuring earn.
To change the battle now I can’t pretend;
They have begun it, they may end!
My staff I unto thee return.

Emperor.
It for some better hour retain,
Which Fate for us may have in store.
This fellow and his ravens twain,
His horrid comrades, I abhor!
(To Mephistopheles.)
The staff I can’t on thee bestow,
Thou seemest not the proper man;
Command, and save us from the foe!
Then happen may what happen can.
[Exit into the tent with the General-in-Chief.

Mephis.
Him may the stupid staff defend!
To us small profit would it lend;
There was a kind of cross thereon.

Faust.
What is to do?

Mephis.
Why, all is done!
Now haste, my cousins, swart and fleet,
To the great mountain lake; the Undines greet,
And for a seeming flood, entreat them fair!
The actual they indeed, through female art,
Hard to conceive, from semblance know to part;
That it the actual is, then each will swear.
[Pause.

Faust.
The water-maidens must our raven-pair
Rightly have flatter’d and with cunning rare:
Yonder it drops already; see
From many a bare rock’s barren side,
Gushes the full, swift-flowing tide —
’Tis over with their victory.

Mephis.
Strange greeting give the rushing streams —
Perplex’d the boldest climber seems.

Faust.
Already downward brook to brook is sweeping,
Doubl’d from many a gorge again they’re leaping;
A stately water-arch one stream doth throw;
Now o’er the rock’s broad level smoothly gliding,
Anon, with flash and roar, again dividing,
It plunges stepwise to the vale below.
To stem the flood what boots their brave endeavor?
Them from the mighty flood may none deliver.
Before the tumult wild myself must quail!

Mephis.
Nothing I see of all these watery lies;
They bring illusion but to human eyes;
With joy the wondrous change I hail.
Headlong the masses pour, a shining throng;
The fools imagine they will soon be drown’d,
And while they snort upon the solid ground,
Like swimmers laughably they move along.
Now reigns confusion all around.
[The ravens return.
To the high master you I will commend.
Yourselves, would ye as masters prove — attend;
Straight to the glowing smithy fare,
To the dwarf-folk, who tireless there
Strike sparks from metal and from stone —
With them, while chattering, desire
A shining, dazzling, bursting fire,
As to man’s highest fancy shown.
True, lightning-flashes gleaming from afar,
And, swift as vision, fall of loftiest star,
May happen every summer night;
But flashes amid tangl’d bushes found,
And stars that hiss upon the humid ground —
These are in sooth, no common sight:
So must ye, without much annoy,
Entreaties first, and then commands, employ.
[Exeunt the ravens. All happens as prescribed.

Mephis.
Thick darkness o’er the foe is spreading!
They in uncertainty are treading!
Deluding flashes everywhere;
Then blindness, from the sudden glare! —
All that has wondrously succeeded;
But now some terror-sound is needed.

Faust.
The hollow weapons from the armories,
Feel themselves stronger in the open breeze;
They rattle there above, and clatter on —
A wonderful discordant tone.

Mephis.
Quite right. They can be rein’d no more;
As in the gracious times of yore,
The sound of knightly blows is rife;
Armlets and leg-protecting gear,
As Guelphs and Ghibellines appear,
Swift to renew the eternal strife:
Firm in transmitted hate, they close,
While far and wide resound their blows,
The rancor ending but with life.
At last, in every devil’s fête
Most potently works party hate,
Till the last horror closes all;
Discordant sounds of rout and panic,
Between whiles, piercing, shrill, Satanic,
Through the wide valley rise and fall.
[War tumult in the Orchestra, passing at last into cheerful military music.
The Rival Emperor’s Tent. Throne, Rich Surroundings.
Havequick, Speed-Booty.

Speed-Booty.
So here the first we are, I see!

Havequick.
No raven flies so fast as we.

Speed-Booty.
What treasure-heaps lie here and there!
Where to begin? To finish, where?

Havequick.
So full the space, I’m hard to please:
I know not what I first should seize!

Speed-Booty.
This carpet is the thing for me,
My bed is apt too hard to be.

Havequick.
Here a steel club is hanging, such,
Long, as mine own, I’ve wish’d to clutch.

Speed-Booty.
The mantle red, with golden seams —
I’ve seen its fellow in my dreams.

Havequick.
(Taking the weapon.)
With this full soon the work is done:
One strikes him dead, and passes on.
Much hast thou pack’d, yet, for thy pains,
Nothing of worth thy sack contains:
This plunder in its place may rest.
One among many, take this chest!
The host’s appointed pay they hold;
Within its belly is pure gold.

Speed-Booty.
A murderous weight is this! I may
Nor lift, nor carry it away.

Havequick.
Duck quickly! Thou must bend! I’ll pack
The booty on thy stalwart back.

Speed-Booty.
Alack! alack! ’Tis all in vain!
The load will break my back in twain.
[The chest falls, and springs open.

Havequick.
There lies of ruddy gold a heap;
Be quick, the prize away to sweep!

Speed-Booty.
(Stoops down.) Now fling it in my lap with speed!
There’s plenty to supply our need.

Havequick.
Now there’s enough! Away then, pack!
[She rises.
The apron has a hole, alack!
Where thou dost stand, and where dost go,
The treasure lavishly dost sow.

Halberdiers.
(Of our Emperor.) Sacred this place! What do ye here?
Why pillage thus the Emperor’s gear?

Havequick.
Cheaply we sold our limbs, I trow!
Our share of spoil we gather now,
In hostile tents, the victors’ due;
And we — why we are soldiers too.

Halberdiers.
It suits not in our ranks to be
Soldier at once and thief. For he
To serve our Emperor who would claim,
Must bear an honest soldier’s name!

Havequick.
Such honesty we know, by you
’Tis Contribution styl’d! Ye, too,
Upon the self-same footing live:
The password of your trade is — Give!
(To Speed-Booty.)
Off with thy prey, right speedily!
For here no welcome guests are we.
[Exeunt.

First Halberdier.
Say, wherefore didst thou not bestow
Upon the rascal’s cheek a blow?

Second.
I know not; me my strength forsook;
So phantom-like to me their look!

Third.
Something there came to mar my sight.
It glimmer’d — I saw naught aright.

Fourth.
In sooth, I know not what to say.
So hot it was the livelong day!
Fearful, oppressive, close, as well;
While one man stood, another fell;
We grop’d, still striking at the foe;
Opponents fell at every blow —
Floated before our eyes a mist;
Then in our ear it buzz’d, humm’d, hiss’d.
So on it went — now are we here;
The manner of it is not clear!
[Enter the Emperor,with four Princes. The Halberdiersretire.

Emperor.
Be with him as it may, the day is ours. Sore-batter’d,
Over the level plain the foe in flight are scatter’d.
Here stands the vacant throne; with tapestry hung round,
The traitor’s treasure too narrows the tented ground.
By our own guards defended, we wait with exultation,
And with imperial pomp, the envoys of each nation.
Here from all sides arrive glad tidings hour by hour:
The realm is pacified, and gladly owns our power.
Though in our fight perchance some magic arts were wrought,
Yet at the last, ourselves — we, only we, have fought.
To combatants, in sooth, chance still may work for good —
From Heaven falls a stone, on foemen it rains blood;
Strange sounds of wondrous power from rocky caves may flow,
Which lift our courage high, and strike with fear the foe.
Object of lasting scorn, prostrate the vanquish’d lies,
While to the favoring God the victor’s praises rise;
All blend with him, nor need that he should give the word —
“We praise Thee, Lord our God!” from million throats is heard.
Yet as the highest praise, my own breast I’ll explore,
Searching with pious glance, which rarely happ’d before.
A young and joyous prince, of time may waste the dower:
Him years will teach, at last, th’ importance of the hour.
Hence to ally myself with you, most worthy four,
For house, and court, and realm, will I delay no more.
(To the First.)
Thine was, O Prince, the wise arrangement of the host,
And in the crisis thou heroic skill could’st boast;
Therefore work thou as may with times of peace accord.
Arch-Marshal name I thee; to thee I give the sword.

Arch-Marshal.
Thy host, within the realm till now employ’d alone,
Shall on the border guard thy person and thy throne.
Then be it ours, when crowds make glad on festive day
Thy large ancestral hall, thy banquet to array.
I’ll hold it at thy side, or bear it thee before,
Of highest majesty the escort evermore.

Emperor.
(To the Second.) With valor who, like thee, doth courtesy unite,
Arch-Chamberlain shall be. The duties are not light.
Of all the house-retainers chief art thou; them I find
But sorry servants, still to household strife inclin’d:
In honor held, may they, from thy example, see
How they to prince, to court, to all, may gracious be.

Arch-Chamberlain.
The master’s lofty thought to further, bringeth grace:
Ever to aid the good, nor injure e’en the base,
Frank, without guile to be, and calm without disguise,
That thou should’st know me, Sire, this boon alone I prize.
Dare fancy to that feast press on with pinions bold —
Thou goest to the board, I reach the ewer of gold,
Thy rings I take, that while joy reigneth and delight,
Thy hand may be refresh’d, while gladdens me thy light.

Emperor.
Too earnest feel I now to think of joyous fest;
Yet be it so — a glad commencement still is best!
(To the Third.)
Arch-Steward thee I choose. Therefore henceforth to thee
The chase, the poultry-yard, the farm shall subject be.
Choice of my favorite dishes still for me prepare,
As them the month brings round, and dress’d with proper care.

Arch-Steward.
Strict fasting be for me the duty that I boast,
Until before thee plac’d the dish to please thee most:
The kitchen-service shall with me co-operate,
The far to bring anear, seasons to ante-date.
Thee charm not viands rare, wherewith thy board is grac’d;
Simple and racy food, thereto inclines thy taste.

Emperor.
(To the Fourth.) Since festivals perforce alone engage us now,
To Cupbearer transform’d, young hero, straight be thou!
Arch-Cupbearer, henceforth the duty shall be thine
To see our cellars stor’d richly with generous wine.
Be temperate thyself; be not misled through mirth,
Howe’er allurements tempt, to which the hour gives birth!

Arch-Cupbearer.
Your highness, youth itself, if trust therein be shown,
Stands, ere one looks around, to man’s full stature grown.
Myself I too transport to that great festive day:
The imperial sideboard then right nobly I’ll array;
Of gold and silver there shall splendid vessels shine,
Yet first the loveliest cup will I select as thine —
A clear Venetian glass, wherein joy lurking waits:
The flavor it improves, yet ne’er inebriates.

In such a wondrous cup too great our trust may be;
Thy moderation, Sire, still more protecteth thee.

Emperor.
What, in this solemn hour, I have conferr’d on you,
Receive with confidence, from valid lips and true;
Great is the Emperor’s word, and every gift makes sure,
For confirmation yet there needs his signature.
This duty to prepare, and royal writ thereto,
The fitting man appears, at the fit moment too.
[The Archbishopand Arch-Chancellorenter.
If to the keystone trusts its weight the vaulted arch,
Securely built it then defies time’s onward march.
Thou seest four princes here. E’en now we have decided
How governance shall be for house and court provided.
What the whole realm concerns, be that with weight and power,
To you, ye princes five, entrusted from this hour.
In landed wealth ye shall all others far excel;
Hence, with their heritage who from our standard fell,
The bounds of your possessions I forthwith expand:
Ye faithful ones, be yours full many a goodly land,
Also the lofty right, should time the occasion send,
Through purchase, chance, exchange, their limits to extend;
To practise undisturb’d, this is secur’d to you,
What sovereign rights soe’er, as landlords, are your due;
As judges, be it yours to speak the final doom, —
From your high stations none will to appeal presume.
Then tribute, tax, and tithe, safe-conduct, toll, and fee,
Mine-salt, and coinage-dues, your property shall be.
That thus my gratitude may validly be shown,
In rank I you have rais’d next the Imperial throne.

Archbishop.
In name of all be given our deepest thanks to thee!
Us mak’st thou strong and firm, — thy power shall strengthen’d be.

Emperor.
Yet higher dignities I to you five will give.
Still live I for my realm, and still rejoice to live;
Nathless of my great sires the chain withdraws my gaze,
From keen endeavor back, the coming doom to face:
I also, in His time, must bid my friends adieu;
The emperor to name shall then belong to you.
On the high altar rais’d, crown ye his sacred brow,
And peacefully shall end, what stormful was e’en now!

Arch-Chancellor.
With pride in their deep breasts, with lowly gestures, stand
Princes, before thee bow’d, the foremost of the land.
So long as in our veins the faithful current plays,
The body we, which still thy lightest impulse sways!

Emperor.
And, to conclude, what we to-day have done, made sure,
Shall be henceforth for aye, by writ and signature;
Ye hold indeed as lords, possession, full and free,
Yet on these terms — that it partition’d ne’er shall be,
And howsoe’er increas’d, what ye from us receive
Ye to your eldest son shall undivided leave.

Arch-Chancellor.
For our weal and the realm’s, to parchment will I straight,
With joyful mind, confide a statute of such weight;
The Chancery shall seal and document procure,
Then shall confirm it, Sire, thy sacred signature!

Emperor.
And so I you dismiss, that on this glorious day,
In solemn conclave met, deliberate ye may.
[The temporal lords retire. The Archbishopremains, and speaks in a pathetic tone.

Archbishop.
The chancellor is gone; the bishop doth remain,
His father’s heart for thee trembles with anxious pain:
Him a deep warning soul impels thine ear to seek.

Emperor.
What in this joyous hour is thy misgiving? Speak!

Archbishop.
With what a bitter pang find I, in such an hour,
Thy consecrated head in league with Satan’s power!
Confirm’d upon thy throne, as it appeareth, — true;
But in despite of God, and Father Pontiff too!
Hearing of this, forthwith, will he pronounce thy doom;
With sacred fire thy realm, accurs’d, will he consume;
For he forgets not how, the day when thou wast crown’d,
E’en at that hour supreme, the sorcerer hast unbound;
To Christendom’s foul shame, on that accursed head,
From out thy diadem, mercy’s first beam was shed.
Now smite upon thy breast, and from thy guilty prey
Back to our holy church some little share repay.
The broad hill-space whereon thy tent did lately stand,
Where, thee to aid, themselves did evil spirits band,
There, where the Prince of Lies did late thine ears abuse,
Taught piously, that spot devote to pious use, —
With mountains and thick wood, so far as they extend,
With verdant slopes which yield rich pasture, without end;
Clear lakes, alive with fish, unnumber’d brooks that flow,
With swift and snakelike course, down to the vale below;
Then the broad vale itself, with meadow, hollow, plain —
Let thy repentance speak, and mercy thou’lt obtain!

Emperor.
For this, my grievous fault, terror so fills my mind,
By thine own measure be the bounds by thee assign’d.

Archbishop.
First shall the space defil’d, by sin so desecrated,
To service of the Highest straight be consecrated!
Swift, to the spirit-eye, the massive walls aspire,
The morning sun’s first beam already gilds the choir;
Crosswise the structure grows, the nave, in length and height
Expanding, straightway fills believers with delight.
Through the wide portal now, they throng with ardent zeal,
While over hill and vale resounds the bells’ first peal —
From lofty towers they ring, which heavenward strive amain,
The penitent draws near, there to be born again.
On consecration day — that day soon may we see! —
The highest ornament shall then thy presence be.

Emperor.
And be my pious wish, through work so great made known,
The Lord our God to praise, and for my sin atone!
Enough! Already rais’d my spirit now I feel.

Archbishop.
As chancellor, I claim both covenant and seal.

Emperor.
A deed which to the church shall all these rights secure —
Bring it, I will with joy affix my signature.

Archbishop.
(Takes leave, but turns back again at the door.) Thou, as the work proceeds, to it must dedicate
The land’s collective dues — tribute, and tithe, and rate —
Forever. Ample wealth for due support we need,
And careful governance still heavy costs doth breed.
For swift erection too, on spot so waste, some gold,
From thy rich plunder, thou from us wilt not withhold.
Moreover, we shall want — this I cannot disguise —
Timber, and lime, and slate, and such far-off supplies;
Taught from the pulpit, these the willing people bears:
The church still blesses him, who for her service cares.
[Exit.

Emperor.
Heavy and sore the sin whose burden I bewail!
Those odious sorcerers have wrought me grievous bale!

Archbishop.
(Returning once more with profound obeisance.) Pardon, O Sire, thou hast to that unworthy man
The realm’s seashore convey’d; yet him shall smite the ban,
Unless with tithe and dues, with rent and taxes, thou,
Repentant, also there our holy church endow.

Emperor.
(With ill-humor.) The land is not yet there; broad in the sea it lies.

Archbishop.
For him the time will come who potent is and wise.
For us still may your word in its full powers remain.
[Exit.

Emperor.
(Alone.) So may I sign away the realm o’er which I reign!

ACT V.

Open Country.

Wanderer.
Yes, ’tis they, their branches rearing,
Hoary lindens, strong in age; —
There I find them, reappearing,
After my long pilgrimage!
’Tis the very spot; — how gladly
Yonder hut once more I see,
By the billows raging madly,
Cast ashore, which shelter’d me!
My old hosts, I fain would greet them,
Helpful they, an honest pair;
May I hope to-day to meet them?
Even then they aged were.
Worthy folk, in God believing!
Shall I knock? or raise my voice?
Hail to you if, guest receiving,
In good deeds ye still rejoice!

Baucis.
(A very aged woman.)
Stranger dear, beware of breaking
My dear husband’s sweet repose!
Strength for brief and feeble waking
Lengthen’d sleep on age bestows.

Wanderer.
Mother, say then, do I find thee,
To receive my thanks once more,
In my youth who didst so kindly,
With thy spouse, my life restore?
Baucis, to my lips half-dying,
Art thou, who refreshment gave?
[The husband steps forth.
Thou Philemon, strength who plying,
Snatch’d my treasure from the wave?
By your flames, so promptly kindl’d,
By your bell’s clear silver sound —
That adventure, horror-mingl’d,
Hath a happy issue found.
Forward let me step, and gazing
Forth upon the boundless main,
Kneel, and thankful prayers upraising,
Ease of my full heart the strain!
[He walks forward upon the downs.

Philemon.
(To Baucis.)
Haste to spread the table, under
The green leafage of our trees.
Let him run, struck dumb with wonder,
Scarce he’ll credit what he sees.
[He follows the wanderer. Standing beside him.
Where the billows did maltreat you,
Wave on wave in fury roll’d,
There a garden now doth greet you,
Fair as Paradise of old.
Grown more aged, as when stronger,
I could render aid no more;
And, as wan’d my strength, no longer
Roll’d the sea upon the shore:
Prudent lords, bold serfs directing,
It with trench and dyke restrain’d;
Ocean’s rights no more respecting.
Lords they were, where he had reign’d.
See, green meadows far extending; —
Garden, village, woodland, plain.
But return we, homeward wending,
For the sun begins to wane.
In the distance sails are gliding,
Nightly they to port repair;
Bird-like, in their nests confiding,
For a haven waits them there.
Far away mine eye discerneth
First the blue fringe of the main;
Right and left, where’er it turneth
Spreads the thickly-peopl’d plain.
In the Garden. The Three at Table.

Baucis.
(To the stranger.) Art thou dumb? No morsel raising
To thy famish’d lips?

Philemon.
I trow,
He of wonders so amazing
Fain would hear; inform him thou.

Baucis.
There was wrought a wonder truly,
Yet no rest it leaves to me;
Naught in the affair was duly
Done, as honest things should be!

Philemon.
Who as sinful can pronounce it?
’Twas the emperor gave the shore; —
Did the trumpet not announce it
As the herald pass’d our door?
Footing firm they first have planted
Near these downs. Tents, huts, appear’d;
O’er the green, the eye, enchanted,
Saw ere long a palace rear’d.

Baucis.
Shovel, axe, no labor sparing,
Vainly pli’d the men by day;
Where the fires at night shone flaring,
Stood a dam, in morning’s ray.
Still from human victims bleeding,
Wailing sounds were nightly borne;
Seaward sped the flames, receding;
A canal appear’d at morn!
Godless is he, naught respecting;
Covets he our grove, our cot;
Though our neighbor, us subjecting,
Him to serve will be our lot.

Philemon.
Yet he bids, our claims adjusting,
Homestead fair in his new land.

Baucis.
Earth, from water sav’d, mistrusting,
On thine own height take thy stand.

Philemon.
Let us, to the chapel wending,
Watch the sun’s last rays subside;
Let us ring, and prayerful bending,
In our fathers’ God confide!
Palace.
[Spacious ornamental garden; broad, straight canal. Faustin extreme old age, walking about, meditating.

Lynceus,the Warder.
(Through a speaking-trumpet.) The sun sinks down, the ships belated
Rejoicing to the haven steer.
A stately galley, deeply freighted,
On the canal, now draweth near;
Her chequer’d flag the breeze caresses,
The masts unbending bear the sails;
Thee now the grateful seaman blesses,
Thee at this moment Fortune hails.
[The bell rings on the downs.

Faust.
(Starting.) Accursed bell! Its clamor sending,
Like spiteful shot it wounds mine ear!
Before me lies my realm unending;
Vexation dogs me in the rear;
For I, these envious chimes still hearing,
Must at my narrow bounds repine;
The linden grove, brown hut thence peering,
The moldering church, these are not mine.
Refreshment seek I, there repairing?
Another’s shadow chills my heart,
A thorn, nor foot nor vision sparing, —
far from hence could I depart!

Warder.
(As above.) How, wafted by the evening gales,
Blithely the painted galley sails;
On its swift course, how richly stor’d!
Chest, coffer, sack, are heap’d aboard.
A Splendid Galley.
Richly and brilliantly laden with the produce of foreign climes.
Mephistopheles. The Three Mighty Comrades.

Chorus.
Here do we land,
Here are we now.
Hail to our lord;
Our patron, thou!
[They disembark. The goods are taken ashore. Mephis. So have we prov’d our worth — content
If we our patron’s praises earn:
With but two ships abroad we went,
With twenty we to port return.
By our rich lading all may see
The great successes we have wrought.
Free ocean makes the spirit free:
There claims compunction ne’er a thought!
A rapid grip there needs alone;
A fish, a ship, on both we seize.
Of three if we the lordship own,
Straightway we hook a fourth with ease,
Then is the fifth in sorry plight —
Who hath the power, has still the right;
The What is ask’d for, not the How.
Else know I not the seaman’s art:
War, commerce, piracy, I trow,
A trinity, we may not part.

The Three Mighty Comrades.
No thank and hail;
No hail and thank!
As were our cargo
Vile and rank!
Disgust upon
His face one sees:
The kingly wealth
Doth him displease!

Mephis.
Expect ye now
No further pay;
For ye your share
Have ta’en away.

The Three Mighty Comrades.
To pass the time,
As was but fair;
We all expect
An equal share.

Mephis.
First range in order,
Hall on hall,
These wares so costly,
One and all!
And when he steps
The prize to view,
And reckons all
With judgment true,
He’ll be no niggard;
As is meet,
Feast after feast
He’ll give the fleet.
The gay birds come with morning tide;
Myself for them can best provide.
[The cargo is removed.

Mephis.
(To Faust.) With gloomy look, with earnest brow
Thy fortune high receivest thou.
Thy lofty wisdom has been crown’d;
Their limits shore and sea have found;
Forth from the shore, in swift career,
O’er the glad waves, thy vessels steer;
Speak only from thy pride of place,
Thine arm the whole world doth embrace.
Here it began; on this spot stood
The first rude cabin form’d of wood;
A little ditch was sunk of yore
Where plashes now the busy oar.
Thy lofty thought, thy people’s hand,
Have won the prize from sea and land.
From here too —

Faust.
That accursed here!
It weighs upon me! Lend thine ear; —
To thine experience I must tell,
With thrust on thrust, what wounds my heart;
To bear it is impossible —
Nor can I, without shame, impart:
The old folk there above must yield;
Would that my seat those lindens were;
Those few trees not mine own, that field,
Possession of the world impair.
There I, wide view o’er all to take,
From bough to bough would scaffolds raise;
Would, for the prospect, vistas make,
On all that I have done to gaze;
To see at once before me brought
The masterwork of human thought,
Where wisdom hath achiev’d the plan,
And won broad dwelling-place for man. —
Thus are we tortur’d; — in our weal,
That which we lack, we sorely feel!
The chime, the scent of linden bloom,
Surround me like a vaulted tomb.
The will that nothing could withstand,
Is broken here upon the sand:
How from the vexing thought be safe?
The bell is pealing, and I chafe!

Mephis.
Such spiteful chance, ’tis natural,
Must thy existence fill with gall.
Who doubts it! To each noble ear,
This clanging odious must appear;
This cursed ding-dong, booming loud,
The cheerful evening sky doth shroud;
With each event of life it blends,
From birth to burial it attends,
Until this mortal life doth seem,
Twixt ding and dong, a vanish’d dream!

Faust.
Resistance, stubborn selfishness,
Can trouble lordliest success,
Till, in deep angry pain one must
Grow tired at last of being first!

Mephis.
Why let thyself be troubl’d here?
Is colonizing not thy sphere?

Faust.
Then go, to move them be thy care!
Thou knowest well the homestead fair,
I’ve chosen for the aged pair —

Mephis.
We’ll bear them off, and on new ground
Set them, ere one can look around.
The violence outliv’d and past,
Shall a fair home atone at last.
[He whistles shrilly.
The Threeenter.

Mephis.
Come! straight fulfil the lord’s behest;
The fleet to-morrow he will feast.

The Three.
The old lord us did ill requite;
A sumptuous feast is ours by right.

Mephis.
(To the spectators.) What happ’d of old, here happens too:
Still Naboth’s vineyard meets the view.
[1 Kings xvi.
Deep Night.

Lynceus,the Warder.
(On the watch-tower, singing.) Keen vision my birth-dower,
I’m plac’d on this height,
Still sworn to the watch-tower,
The world’s my delight.
I gaze on the distant,
I look on the near,
On moon and on planet,
On wood and the deer:
The beauty eternal
In all things I see;
And pleas’d with myself
All bring pleasure to me.
Glad eyes, look around ye
And gaze, for whate’er
The sight they encounter,
It still hath been fair!
[Pause.
Not alone for pleasure-taking
Am I planted thus on high;
What dire vision, horror-waking,
From yon dark world scares mine eye!
Fiery sparkles see I gleaming
Through the lindens’ twofold night;
By the breezes fann’d, their beaming
Gloweth now with fiercer light!
Ah! the peaceful hut is burning;
Stood its moss-grown walls for years;
They for speedy help are yearning —
And no rescue, none appears!
Ah, the aged folk, so kindly,
Once so careful of the fire,
Now, to smoke a prey, they blindly
Perish, oh, misfortune dire!
‘Mid red flames, the vision dazing,
Stands the moss-hut, black and bare;
From the hell, so fiercely blazing,
Could we save the honest pair!
Lightning-like the fire advances,
‘Mid the foliage, ‘mid the branches;
Wither’d boughs, — they flicker, burning,
Swiftly glow, then fall; — ah, me!
Must mine eyes, this woe discerning,
Must they so far-sighted be!
Down the lowly chapel crashes
‘Neath the branches’ fall and weight;
Winding now, the pointed flashes
To the summit climb elate.
Roots and trunks the flames have blighted;
Hollow, purple-red, they glow!
[Long pause. Song.
Gone, what once the eye delighted,
With the ages long ago!

Faust.
(On the balcony, towards the downs.)
From above what plaintive whimper?
Word and tone are here too late!
Wails my warder; me, in spirit
Grieves this deed precipitate!
Though in ruin unexpected
Charr’d now lie the lindens old,
Soon a height will be erected,
Whence the boundless to behold.
I the home shall see, enfolding
In its walls, that ancient pair,
Who, my gracious care beholding,
Shall their lives end joyful there.

Mephis.andThe Three.
(Below.)
Hither we come full speed. We crave
Your pardon! Things have not gone right!
Full many a knock and kick we gave,
They open’d not, in our despite;
Then rattl’d we and kick’d the more,
And prostrate lay the rotten door;
We call’d aloud with threat severe,
Yet sooth we found no listening ear.
And as in such case still befalls,
They heard not, would not hear our calls;
Forthwith thy mandate we obey’d,
And straight for thee a clearance made.
The pair — their sufferings were light,
Fainting they sank, and died of fright.
A stranger, harbor’d there, made show
Of force, full soon was he laid low;
In the brief space of this wild fray,
From coals, that strewn around us lay,
The straw caught fire; ’tis blazing free,
As funeral death-pyre for the three.

Faust.
To my commandments deaf were ye!
Exchange I wish’d, not robbery.
For this your wild and ruthless part; —
I curse it! Share it and depart!

Chorus.
The ancient saw still rings to-day:
Force with a willing mind obey;
If boldly thou canst stand the test,
Stake house, court, life, and all the rest!
[Exeunt.

Faust.
The stars their glance and radiance veil;
Smoulders the sinking fire, a gale
Fans it with moisture-laden wings,
Vapor to me and smoke it brings.
Rash mandate — rashly too obey’d! —
What hither sweeps like spectral shade?
Midnight.Four gray women enter.

First.
My name, it is Want.

Second.
And mine, it is Blame.

Third.
My name, it is Care.

Fourth.
Need, that is my name.

Three.
(Together.) The door is fastbolted, we cannot get in;
The owner is wealthy, we may not within.

Want.
There fade I to shadow.

Blame.
There cease I to be.

Need.
His visage the pamper’d still turneth from me.

Care.
Ye sisters, ye cannot, ye dare not go in;
But Care through the keyhole an entrance may win.
[Caredisappears.

Want.
Sisters, gray sisters, away let us glide!

Blame.
I bind myself to thee, quite close to thy side.

Need.
And Need at your heels doth with yours blend her breath.*

The Three.
Fast gather the clouds, they eclipse star on star.
Behind there, behind, from afar, from afar,
There comes he, our brother, there cometh he — Death.

Faust.
(In the palace.) Four saw I come, but only three went hence.
Of their discourse I could not catch the sense;
There fell upon mine ear a sound like breath,
Thereon a gloomy rhyme-word follow’d — Death;
Hollow the sound, with spectral horror fraught!
Not yet have I, in sooth, my freedom wrought;
Could I my pathway but from magic free,
And quite unlearn the spells of sorcery,
Stood I, oh, nature, man alone ‘fore thee,
Then were it worth the trouble man to be!
Such was I once, ere I in darkness sought,
And curses dire, through words with error fraught,
Upon myself and on the world have brought;
So teems the air with falsehood’s juggling brood,
That no one knows how them he may elude!
If but one day shines clear, in reason’s light —
In spectral dream envelops us the night;
From the fresh fields, as homeward we advance —
There croaks a bird: what croaks he? some mischance!
Ensnar’d by superstition, soon and late;
As sign and portent, it on us doth wait —
By fear unmann’d, we take our stand alone;
The portal creaks, and no one enters, — none.
(Agitated.)
Is some one here?

Care.
The question prompteth, yes!

Faust.
What art thou then?

Care.
Here, once for all, am I.

Faust.
Withdraw thyself!

Care.
My proper place is this.

Faust.
(First angry, then appeased. Aside.) Take heed, and speak no word of sorcery.

Care.
Though by outward ear unheard,
By my moan the heart is stirr’d;
And in ever-changeful guise,
Cruel force I exercise;
On the shore and on the sea,
Comrade dire hath man in me,
Ever found, though never sought,
Flatter’d, curs’d, so have I wrought.
Hast thou as yet Care never known?

Faust.
I have but hurried through the world, I own.
I by the hair each pleasure seiz’d;
Relinquish’d what no longer pleas’d,
That which escap’d me I let go,
I’ve crav’d, accomplish’d, and then crav’d again;
Thus through my life I’ve storm’d — with might and main,
Grandly, with power, at first; but now, indeed,
It goes more cautiously, with wiser heed.
I know enough of earth, enough of men;
The view beyond is barr’d from mortal ken;
Fool, who would yonder peer with blinking eyes,
And of his fellows dream above the skies!
Firm let him stand, the prospect round him scan,
Not mute the world to the true-hearted man.
Why need he wander through eternity?
What he can grasp, that only knoweth he.
So let him roam adown earth’s fleeting day;
If spirits haunt, let him pursue his way;
In joy or torment ever onward stride,
Though every moment still unsatisfied!

Care.
To him whom I have made mine own
All profitless the world hath grown:
Eternal gloom around him lies;
For him suns neither set nor rise;
With outward senses perfect, whole,
Dwell darknesses within his soul;
Though wealth he owneth, ne’ertheless
He nothing truly can possess.
Weal, woe, become mere phantasy;
He hungers ‘mid satiety;
Be it joy, or be it sorrow,
He postpones it till the morrow;
Of the future thinking ever,
Prompt for present action never.

Faust.
Forbear! Thou shalt not come near me!
I will not hear such folly. Hence!
Avaunt! This evil litany
The wisest even might bereave of sense.

Care.
Shall he come or go? He ponders; —
All resolve from him is taken;
On the beaten path he wanders,
Groping on, as if forsaken.
Deeper still himself he loses,
Everything his sight abuses,
Both himself and others hating,
Taking breath — and suffocating,
Without life — yet scarcely dying,
Not despairing — not relying.
Rolling on without remission:
Loathsome ought, and sad permission,
Now deliverance, now vexation,
Semi-sleep, — poor recreation,
Nail him to his place and wear him,
And at last for hell prepare him.

Faust.
Unblessed spectres! Ye mankind have so
Treated a thousand times, their thoughts deranging;
E’en uneventful days to mar ye know,
Into a tangl’d web of torment changing!
’Tis hard, I know, from demons to get free,
The mighty spirit-bond by force untying;
Yet Care, I never will acknowledge thee,
Thy strong increeping, potency defying.

Care.
Feel it then now; as thou shalt find
When with a curse from thee I’ve wended:
Through their whole lives are mortals blind —
So be thou, Faust, ere life be ended!
[She breathes on him.

Faust.
(Blind.) Deeper and deeper night is round me sinking;
Only within me shines a radiant light.
I haste to realize, in act, my thinking;
The master’s word, that only giveth might.
Up, vassals, from your couch! my project bold,
Grandly completed, now let all behold!
Seize ye your tools; your spades, your shovels ply;
The work laid down, accomplish instantly!
Strict rule, swift diligence, — these twain
The richest recompense obtain.
Completion of the greatest work demands
One guiding spirit for a thousand hands.
Great Fore-Court of the Palace.
Torches.

Mephis.
(An overseer leading the way.)
This way! this way! Come on! come on!
Ye Lemures, loose of tether,
Of tendon, sinew, and of bone,
Half natures, patch’d together!

Lemures.
(In chorus.)
At thy behest we’re here at hand;
Thy destin’d aim half guessing —
It is that we a spacious land
May win for our possessing.
Sharp-pointed stakes we bring with speed,
Long chains wherewith to measure.
But we’ve forgotten why indeed
To call us was thy pleasure.

Mephis.
No artist-toil we need to-day;
Sufficeth your own measure here:
At his full length the tallest let him lay!
Ye others round him straight the turf uprear;
As for our sires was done of yore,
An oblong square delve ye once more.
Out of the palace to the narrow home —
So at the last the sorry end must come!

Lemures.
(Digging, with mocking gestures.)

In youth when I did live and love,
Methought, ’twas very sweet!
Where frolic rang and mirth was rife,
Thither still sped my feet.

Now with his crutch hath spiteful age
Dealt me a blow full sore:
I stumbl’d o’er a yawning grave,
Why open stood the door!

Faust.
(Comes forth from the palace, groping his way by the door-posts.)
How doth the clang of spades delight my soul!
For me my vassals toil, the while
Earth with itself they reconcile,
The waves within their bounds control,
And gird the sea with steadfast zone —

Mephis.
(Aside.) And yet for us dost work alone,
While thou for dam and bulwark carest;
Since thus for Neptune thou prepares,
The water-fiend, a mighty fête;
Before thee naught but ruin lies;
The elements are our allies;
Onward destruction strides elate.

Faust.
Inspector!

Mephis.
Here.

Faust.
As many as you may,
Bring crowds on crowds to labor here;
Them by reward and rigor cheer;
Persuade, entice, give ample pay!
Each day be tidings brought me at what rate
The moat extends which here we excavate.

Mephis.
(Half aloud.) They speak, as if to me they gave
Report, not of a moat — but of a grave.*

Faust.
A marsh along the mountain chain
Infecteth what’s already won;
Also the noisome pool to drain —
My last best triumph then were won:
To many millions space I thus should give,
Though not secure, yet free to toil and live;
Green fields and fertile; men, with cattle blent,
Upon the newest earth would dwell content,
Settled forthwith upon the firm-bas’d hill,
Uplifted by a valiant people’s skill;
Within, a land like Paradise; outside,
E’en to the brink, roars the impetuous tide,
And as it gnaws, striving to enter there,
All haste, combin’d, the damage to repair.
Yea, to this thought I cling, with virtue rife,
Wisdom’s last fruit, profoundly true:
Freedom alone he earns as well as life,
Who day by day must conquer them anew.
So girt by danger, childhood bravely here,
Youth, manhood, age, shall dwell from year to year;
Such busy crowds I fain would see,
Upon free soil stand with a people free;
Then to the moment might I say:
Linger awhile, so fair thou art!
Nor can the traces of my earthly day
Through ages from the world depart!
In the presentiment of such high bliss,
The highest moment I enjoy — ’tis this.
[Faustsinks back, the Lemureslay hold of him and lay him upon the ground.

Mephis.
Him could no pleasure sate, no joys appease,
So woo’d he ever changeful phantasies;
The last worst empty moment to retain,
E’en to the last, the sorry wretch was fain.
Me who so stoutly did withstand —
Time conquers, — lies the old man on the sand!
The clock stands still —

Chorus.
Stands still, no sound is heard;
The index falls —

Mephis.
It falls, ’tis finish’d now.

Chorus.
Yes, it is past!

Mephis.
Past, ’tis a stupid word.
Why past?
Past and pure nothingness are one, I trow.
Of what avail creation’s ceaseless play?
Created things forthwith to sweep away?
“There, now ’tis past.” — ’Tis past, what may it mean?
It is as good as if it ne’er had been,
And yet as if it Being did possess,
Still in a circle it doth ceaseless press:
I should prefer the Eternal — Emptiness.
BURIAL.

Lemur.
(Solo.) Who hath the house so badly built,
With shovel and with spade?

Lemures.
(In chorus.) For thee, sad guest, in hempen vest,
’Tis all too deftly made.

Lemur.
(Solo.) Who furnish’d hath so ill the place?
Chair, table, where are they?

Lemures.
(In chorus.) Short was the let; there came apace
New claimants, day by day.

Mephis.
There lies the body, would the spirit flee,
I’d show him speedily the blood-sign’d scroll —
Yet they’ve so many methods, woe is me,
To cheat the devil now of many a soul!
On the old way one is not sure;
Upon the new we’re not commended;
Else had I done it unattended;
Assistants must I now procure.
In all things we’re in evil plight!
Transmitted usage, ancient right —
In these the time for confidence is past.
With the last breath once sped the soul away;
And like the nimblest mouse, I watch’d my prey;
Snap! Lock’d within my claws I held it fast;
Now she delays, nor will the dismal cell,
The loathsome body, leave, though reft of life,
The elements, in ceaseless strife,
Her, in the end, disgracefully expel.
For days and hours I’ve plagu’d myself ere now; —
Abides the sorry question; — when? where? how?
Old death has lost his power, once swift and strong;
If dead or no? in doubt we tarry long;
On rigid members oft I’ve lustful gaz’d;
’Twas but a feint, it stirr’d, once more itself uprais’d!
[Fantastic gestures of conjuration.
Come swiftly on! Double your speed; no pause!
Lords of the straight, lords of the crooked horn!
Chips of the ancient block, true devils born,
Hither bring ye forthwith Hell’s murky jaws.
Hell, to be sure, full many jaws may claim;
Which gape as rank enjoins, and dignity;
But we however in this final game,
Not so particular henceforth will be.
[The ghastly jaws of Hell open on the left.
Clatter the corner-teeth; the fire-stream whirling,
The vault’s abyss doth overflow,
And through the background-smoke upcurling
The town of flame I see in endless glow;
Up to the very teeth the ruddy billow dashes;
The damn’d, salvation hoping, swim amain,
Them in his jaws the huge hyena crashes,
Then they retrace their path of fiery pain.
In nooks fresh horrors lurk to scare the sight,
In narrowest space supremest agony:
Full well ye do, thus sinners to affright,
They hold it but for dream, deceit and lie.
(To the stout devils, with short straight horns.)
Now, paunchy slaves, with cheeks that hotly burn,
On hellish brimstone richly fed, ye glow,
Clumsy and short, with necks that never turn —
For gleam like phosphor-light, watch here below:
It is the soul, Psyche, with soaring wing;
The wings pluck off, so ’tis a sorry worm.
First with my seal I’ll stamp the ugly thing,
Then off with it to fiery-whirling storm!
Mark ye the lower regions duly,
Ye bladders! ’tis your duty so!
If there she likes to harbor, — truly,
We cannot accurately know;
She in the navel loves to bide:
Take heed, lest from you thence away she glide!
(To the lean devils, with long crooked horns.)
Buffoons, ye fuglemen, a giant crew,
Grasp in the air, still clutch without repose,
With outstretch’d arms, claws sharp and pliant too,
The fluttering, fleeing creature to enclose!
In her old home she rests uneasily,
Genius aspires, it fain would soar on high.
[Glory from above, on the right.

The Heavenly Host.
Follow, ye envoys bless’d,
Leave, brood of Heaven, your rest,
Earthward to steer:
Sinners do ye forgive,
Dust cause ye now to live!
Floating on outspread wing
Through nature’s sphere,
Kindliest traces bring
Of your career!

Mephis.
Discordant tones I hear, an odious noise
Comes with unwelcome daylight from above:

artist: franz simm.
FAUST. SECOND PART.
angels strewing roses on the body of faust.
A mawkish whimper, fit for girls and boys,
Such as a canting taste doth still approve.
Ye know how we, in hours with curses fraught,
Plann’d the destruction of the human race:
The most atrocious product of our thought
In their devotion finds a fitting place.
They come, the fools, in hypocritic guise!
Full many a soul from us they’ve snatch’d away —
With our own weapons warring ‘gainst us, they
Are devils also, only in disguise.
Here your defeat eternal shame would bring;
On to the grave, and to the margin cling!

Chorus of Angels.
(Scattering roses.)
Roses, with dazzling sheen,
Balsam outpouring!
Float heaven and earth between,
Sweet life restoring!
Branchlets with plumy wing,
Buds softly opening
Hasten to blow!
Burst into verdure, Spring,
Purple and green!
To him who sleeps below,
Paradise bring!

Mephis.
(To the Satans.) Why duck and shrink? Is this hell’s wonted way?
Stand firm, and let them scatter to and fro.
Back to his place each fool! Imagine they,
Forsooth, with such a pretty flowery show,
To cover the hot devils, as with snow?
They’ll shrink and shrivel where your breathings play.
Blow now, ye Blowers! Hold! not quite so fast!
Pales the whole bevy ‘neath your fiery blast.
Not quite so fiercely! Mouth and nostril close!
Your breathing now too strongly blows.
that ye never the just mean will learn!
That shrivels not alone, ‘twill scorch and burn.
Floating they come, with poisonous flames and clear;
Stand firm against them, press together here! —
Force is extinguish’d, courage all is spent;
A strange alluring glow the devils scene.

Angels.
Blossoms, with rapture crown’d,
Flames fraught with gladness,
Love they diffuse around,
Banishing sadness,
As the heart may:
Words, blessed truth that tell,
Give, by their potent spell,
Spirits eterne to dwell
In endless day!

Mephis.
A curse upon the idiot band!
Upon their heads the Satans stand!
Tail foremost down the hellward path
Plunge round and round the clumsy host.
Enjoy your well-earn’d fiery bath!
But for my part, I’ll keep my post.
[Striking aside the hovering roses.
Off, will-o’-the-wisp! How bright soe’er thy ray,
Captur’d, thou’rt but an odious, pulpy thing;
Why flutterest? Wilt vanish, straight away! —
Like pitch and brimstone to my neck dost cling?

Angel.
(Chorus.)
Doth aught thy nature mar?
Cease to endure it;
If ‘gainst thy soul it war,
Must ye abjure it;
If to press in it try,
Quell it right valiantly!
’Tis love the loving one
Leadeth on high.

Mephis.
I’m all aflame, head, heart and liver burn —
An over-devilish element,
Than hellish fire more sharp by far!
Hence ye so mightily lament,
Unhappy lovers, who, when scorn’d ye are,
After your sweethearts still your necks must turn.
Thus too with me, what draws my head aside?
Them have I not to deadly war defi’d?
My fiercest hate their aspect wak’d of yore;
Hath something alien pierc’d me through and through?
These gracious youths, them am I fain to view! —
What now restrains me that I curse no more?
And if befool’d I now should be,
Who may henceforth “the fool” be styl’d? —
The rascals, whom I hate, for me
Too lovely are, I fairly am beguil’d!
Sweet children, tell me, to the race
Belong ye not of Lucifer?
So fair ye seem, you I would fain embrace!
At the right moment ye appear;
So pleasant ’tis, so natural, as though
I you had seen a thousand times before,
So lustfully alluring now ye show.
With every look your beauty charms me more!
nearer come! O grant me but one glance!

Angel.
We come, why dost thou shrink as we advance?
So, if thou canst, abide; go not away.
[The angels hover round, and occupy the entire space.

Mephis.
(Who is pressed into the proscenium.) As spirits damn’d we’re blam’d by you —
Yourselves are yet the sorcerers true,
For man and maid ye lead astray. —
A curs’d adventure this I trow!
Is this love’s element? My frame
In fire is plung’d, I scarcely now
Feel on my neck the scorching flame! —
Ye hover to and fro; with pinions furl’d
Float downward, after fashion of the world
Move your sweet limbs; in sooth that earnest style
Becomes you; yet, for once, I fain would see you smile;
That were for me a rapture unsurpass’d, —
A glance, I mean, like that which lovers cast:
A slight turn of the mouth, so is it done. —
Thee, tall and stately youth, most dearly thee I prize;
But ill beseemeth thee that priestly guise,
Give me one loving glance, I crave but one!
Ye might, with decency, less cloth’d appear,
O’er modest in such lengthen’d drapery. —
They wheel around, to see them in the rear!
All too enticing are the rogues for me!

Chorus of Angels.
Love now with lustrous ray
Thy fires reveal!
Those to remorse a prey
Truth’s power can heal;
No longer evils thrall,
Joyful and blest,
One with the All-in-all,
Henceforth they rest!

Mephis.
(Collecting himself.) How is’t with me? The man entire, like Job,
Must loathe himself, cleft through with boil on boil, —
Yet triumphs too, after the first recoil,
If he his inward nature fairly probe,
And in himself confides and in his kin:
Sav’d are the noble devil parts within.
This love attack he casts upon the skin, —

Burnt out already are the cursed flames,
And, one and all, I curse you, as the occasion claims!

Chorus of Angels.
Whom ye with hallow’d glow,
Pure fires, o’erbrood,
Bless’d in love’s overflow,
Lives with the good.
Singing with voices clear,
Soar from beneath;
Pure is the atmosphere,
Breathe, spirit, breathe!
[They rise, bearing with them the immortal part of Faust.

Mephis.
(Looking around.) How is it? Whither are they gone?
Me have ye cozen’d, young things though ye be!
They with their booty now are heavenward flown.
Therefore they nibbl’d at this grave! From me
A great rare prize they’ve captur’d: the high soul,
That pledg’d itself to me with written scroll, —
This have they filch’d away, right cunningly!
From whom shall I now seek redress?
Who can secure my well-earn’d right?
In thine old days thou’rt cheated! Yet confess,
Thou hast deserv’d it, art in sorry plight;
Mismanag’d have I in disgraceful sort,
Vast outlay shamefully away have thrown;
The devil’s sense, though season’d well, the sport
Of common lust! — a love absurd I own.
And if the shrewd old devil chose
Himself to busy with this childish freak,
Not small the foolishness, the truth to speak,
Which him hath thus o’ermaster’d at the close.
Mountain Defiles, Forest, Rock, Wilderness.
Holy anchorites, dispersed up the hill, stationed among the clefts.

ChorusandEcho.
Forests are waving here,
Rocks their huge fronts uprear,
Roots round each other coil,
Stems thickly crowd the soil;
Wave gusheth after wave,
Shelter yields deepest cave;
Lions, in silence round
Tamely that rove,
Honor the hallow’d ground,
Refuge of love.

Pater Ecstaticus.
(Floating up and down.)
Joy’s everlasting fire,
Love’s glow of pure desire,
Pang of the seething breast,
Rapture, a hallow’d guest!
Darts, pierce me through and through,
Lances, my flesh subdue,
Clubs, me to atoms dash,
Lightnings, athwart me flash,
That all the worthless may
Pass like a cloud away,
While shineth from afar,
Love’s germ, a deathless star.

Pater Profundus.
(Lower region.)
As the rock-chasm, sheer descending,
On chasm resteth more profound,
As thousand sparkling streamlets blending,
Foam in the torrent’s headlong bound;
As soars, the realm of air invading,
The stem, impell’d by inward strain;
So love, almighty, all-pervading,
Doth all things mould, doth all sustain.
A roaring that the heart appalleth
Sounds as if shook the wood-crown’d steep;
Yet, lovely in its plashing, falleth
The wealth of water to the deep,
Refreshment to the valley bearing;
The atmosphere, with poison fraught,
The lightning cleareth, wildly flaring,
Whose deadly flash dire ruin brought —
Love’s heralds these, His purpose telling
Who, ever-working, us surrounds.
Come, holy fire, within me dwelling,
Where, tortur’d in the senses’ bounds,
Fetters of pain my soul enclosing,
Hold it immur’d in rayless gloom!
God, my troubl’d thoughts composing,
My needy heart do thou illume!

Pater Seraphicus.
(Middle region.)
Through the pine trees’ waving tresses,
What bright cloud floats high and higher?
What it shrouds my spirit guesses!
Soars from earth and youthful choir.

Chorus of Blessed Boys.
Whither, father, are we hieing?
Tell us, kind one, who are we?
Happy are we, upward flying;
Unto all ’tis bliss to be!

Father Seraphicus.
Boys, ere soul or sense could waken,
Ye were born at midnight hour;
From your parents straightway taken,
For the angels a sweet dower.
You a loving one embraces,
This ye feel: then hither fare!
But of earth’s rude paths no traces,
Blessed ones, your spirits bear.
In the organ now descending
Of my worldly, earth-born, eyes;
Use them, thus thy need befriending —
View the sphere that round you lies:
[He takes them into himself.
There are trees; there rocks upsoaring;
Headlong there the flood doth leap;
Cleaves the torrent, loudly roaring,
Shorter passage to the deep.

Blessed Boys.
(From within.) Grand the scene, but fear awaking: —
Desolate the spot and drear,
Us with dread and horror shaking.
Hold us not, kind father, here!

Pater Seraphicus.
Rise to higher spheres, and higher!
Unobserv’d your growth, yet sure,
As God’s presence doth inspire
Strength, by laws eternal, pure.
This the spirit’s nurture, stealing
Through the ether’s depths profound:
Love eternal, self-revealing,
Sheds beatitude around.

Chorus of Blessed Boys.
(Circling round the highest summit.)
Through ether winging,
Hands now entwine,
Joyfully singing
With feelings divine!
Taught by the Deity,
Trust in His grace;
Whom ye adore shall ye
See face to face!

Angels.
(Hovering in the higher atmosphere, bearing the immortal part of Faust.)
Sav’d is this noble soul from ill,
Our spirit-peer. Who ever
Strives forward with unswerving will, —
Him can we aye deliver;
And if with him celestial love
Hath taken part, — to meet him
Come down the angels from above;
With cordial hail they greet him.

The Younger Angels.
Roses, from fair hands descending,
Holy, penitent and pure,
Our high mission gladly ending,
Help’d our conquest to secure,
Making ours this spirit-treasure.
Demons shrank, in sore displeasure,
Devils fled, as we assail’d them,
Hell’s accustom’d torture fail’d them,
They by pangs of love were riven;
The old Satan-master even,
Pierced was by sharp annoyance.
Conquer’d have we! shout with joyance!

The More Perfect Angels.
Sad ’tis for us to bear
Spirit earth-encumber’d;
Though of asbest he were,
Yet is he number’d
Not with the pure. For where
Worketh strong spirit-force,
Elements blending,
No angel may divorce
Natures thus tending
Of twain to form but one;
Parts them God’s love, alone,
Their union ending.

The Younger Angels.
Mistlike, with movement rife,
Rock-summits veiling,
Near us a spirit-life
Upwards is sailing;
Now grow the vapors clear;
Yonder bless’d boys appear,
In chorus blending;
They from earth’s pressure free
Circle united:
Still upward tending,
In the new spring with glee
Bathe they delighted:
Here let him then begin,
Yet fuller life to win,
With these united.

Blessed Boys.
Him as a chrysalis
Joyful receive we:
Pledge of angelic bliss
In him achieve we.
Loosen the flakes of earth
That still enfold him!
Great through the heavenly birth,
And fair, now behold him.

Doctor Marianus.
(In the highest, purest cell.)
Here is the prospect free,
The soul subliming.
Yonder fair forms I see,
Heavenward they’re climbing;
In starry wreath is seen,
Lofty and tender,
Midmost the heavenly Queen,
Known by her splendor.
[Enraptured.
In thy tent of azure hue,
Queen supremely reigning,
Let me now thy secret view,

Vision high obtaining!
With the holy joy of love,
In man’s breast, whatever
Lifts the soul to thee above,
Kind one, foster ever!
All invincible we feel,
If our arm thou claimest;
Suddenly assuag’d our zeal
If our breast thou tamest.
Virgin, pure from taint of earth,
Mother, we adore thee,
With the Godhead one by birth,
Queen, we bow before thee!
Cloudlets are pressing
Gently around her;
Her knee caressing
Cloudlets surround her; —
Penitents are they;
Ether inhaling,
Their sins bewailing.
Passionless and pure, from thee
Hath it not been taken,
That poor frail ones may to thee
Come, with trust unshaken.
In their weakness snatch’d away,
Hard it is to save them;
By their own strength rend who may
Fetters that enslave them!
Glide on slippery ground the feet
Swiftly downward sailing!
Whom befool not glances sweet,
Flattery’s breath inhaling!
[Mater Gloriosasoars forward.

Chorus of Female Penitents.
To realms eternal
Upward art soaring;
Peerless, supernal,
Hear our imploring,
Thy grace adoring.
[St. Luke vii. 36.

Magna Peccatrix.
By the love, warm tears outpouring,
Laving as with balsam sweet,
Pharisaic sneers ignoring,
Of thy godlike Son the feet;
By the vase, rich odor breathing,
Lavishing its costly store;
By the locks, that gently wreathing,
Dried his holy feet once more —

Mulier Samaritana.
(St. John iv.)
By the well, whereto were driven
Abram’s flocks in ancient days;
By the cooling draught thence given,
Which the Saviour’s thirst allays;
By the fountain, still outsending
Thence its waters, far and wide,
Overflowing, never-ending,
Through all worlds it pours its tide —

Maria Ægyptiaca.
(Acta Sanctorum.)
By the hallow’d grave, whose portal
Clos’d upon the Lord of yore;
By the arm, unseen by mortal,
Back which thrust me from the door;
By my penance, slowly fleeting,
Forty years amid the waste;
By the blessed farewell greeting,
Which upon the sand I trac’d —

The Three.
Thou, unto the greatly sinning,
Access who dost not deny,
By sincere repentance winning
Bliss throughout eternity,
So from this good soul, thy blessing,
Who but once itself forgot,
Sin who knew not, while transgressing,
Gracious One, withhold thou not!

Una Pœnitentium.
(Formerly named Gretchen,pressing towards her.)
Incline, oh, incline,
All others excelling,
In glory aye dwelling,
Unto my bliss thy glance benign!
The lov’d one, ascending,
His long trouble ending,
Comes back, he is mine!

Blessed Boys.
(They approach, hovering in a circle.)
Mighty of limb, he towers
E’en now, above us;
He for this care of ours
Richly will love us.
Dying, ere we could reach
Earth’s pain or pleasure;
What he hath learn’d he’ll teach
In ample measure.

A Penitent.
(Formerly named Gretchen.)
Encircl’d by the choirs of heaven,
Scarcely himself the stranger knows;
Scarce feels the existence newly given,
So like the heavenly host he grows.
See, how he every band hath riven!
From earth’s old vesture freed at length,
Now cloth’d upon by garb of heaven,
Shines forth his pristine youthful strength,
To guide him, be it given to me;
Still dazzles him the new-born day.

Mater Gloriosa.
Ascend, thine influence feeleth he,
He’ll follow on thine upward way.

Doctor Marianus.
(Adoring, prostrate on his face.)
Penitents, her Saviour-glance
Gratefully beholding
To beatitude advance,
Still new powers unfolding!
Thine each better thought shall be,
To thy service given!
Holy Virgin, gracious be,
Mother, Queen of Heaven!

Chorus Mysticus.
All of mere transient date
As symbol showeth;
Here, the inadequate
To fulness groweth;
Here the ineffable
Wrought is in love;
The ever-womanly
Draws us above.

The Poetry

THE POEMS OF GOETHE

Translated by Edgar A. Bowring

Goethe’s poetic oeuvre had a great effect on nineteenth century literature. His poems are richly emotional, rigorously formal, epigrammatic and epic. Although he argued that classicism was the means of controlling art and that romanticism was a sickness, he at the same time wrote poetry steeped in Romatic idealism. His poetry was set to music by almost every major Austrian and German composer from Mozart to Mahler, and he influenced French drama and Italian opera and many other mediums of art.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Edgar A. Bowring (1826–1911) was a British translator, author and civil servant, who served as a librarian and registrar, as well as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Exeter.  He translated various works of poetry from German into English, including the complete poems of Goethe.  This was an incredible feat, as he rendered the poems into the same verse metre as used by Goethe in the originals.

The detailed contents table of the poems is available via this link.

Goethe by Georg Melchior Kraus, 1776

DEDICATION.

THE morn arriv’d; his footstep quickly scar’d
The gentle sleep that round my senses clung,
And I, awak’ning, from my cottage far’d,
And up the mountain’s side with light heart sprung;
At ev’ry step I felt my gaze ensnar’d
By new-born flow’rs that full of dewdrops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstasy,
And all things quicken’d were, to quicken me.
And as I mounted, from the valley rose
A streaky mist, that upward slowly spread,
Then bent, as though my form it would enclose,
Then, as on pinions, soar’d above my head:
My gaze could now on no fair view repose,
In mournful veil conceal’d, the world seem’d dead;
The clouds soon clos’d around me, as a tomb,
And I was left alone in twilight gloom.
At once the sun his lustre seem’d to pour,
And through the mist was seen a radiant light;
Here sank it gently to the ground once more,
There parted it, and climb’d o’er wood and height.
How did I yearn to greet him as of yore,
After the darkness waxing doubly bright!
The airy conflict ofttimes was renew’d,
Then blinded by a dazzling glow I stood.
Ere long an inward impulse prompted me
A hasty glance with boldness round to throw;
At first mine eyes had scarcely strength to see,
For all around appear’d to burn and glow.
Then saw I, on the clouds borne gracefully,
A godlike woman hov’ring to and fro.
In life I ne’er had seen a form so fair —
She gaz’d at me, and still she hover’d there.
“Dost thou not know me?” were the words she said
In tones where love and faith were sweetly bound;
“Knowest thou not Her who oftentimes hath shed
The purest balsam in each earthly wound?
Thou know’st me well; thy panting heart I led
To join me in a bond with rapture crown’d.
Did I not see thee, when a stripling, yearning
To welcome me with tears heartfelt and burning?”
“Yes!” I exclaim’d, whilst, overcome with joy,
I sank to earth: “I long have worshipp’d thee;
Thou gav’st me rest, when passions rack’d the boy.
Pervading ev’ry limb unceasingly;
Thy heav’nly pinions thou didst then employ
The scorching sunbeams to ward off from me.
From thee alone Earth’s fairest gifts I gain’d,
Through thee alone true bliss can be obtain’d.
“Thy name I know not; yet I hear thee nam’d
By many a one who boasts thee as his own;
Each eye believes that tow’rd thy form ’tis aim’d,
Yet to most eyes thy rays are anguish-sown.
Ah! whilst I err’d, full many a friend I claim’d,
Now that I know thee, I am left alone;
With but myself can I my rapture share,
I needs must veil and hide thy radiance fair.”
She smil’d, and answering said: “Thou seest how wise.
How prudent ’twas but little to unveil!
Scarce from the clumsiest cheat are clear’d thine eyes,
Scarce hast thou strength thy childish bars to scale,
When thou dost rank thee ‘mongst the deities,
And so man’s duties to perform would’st fail!
How dost thou differ from all other men?
Live with the world in peace, and know thee then!”
“Oh, pardon me!” I cried, “I meant it well;
Not vainly didst thou bless mine eyes with light;
For in my blood glad aspirations swell,
The value of thy gifts I know aright!
Those treasures in my breast for others dwell,
The buried pound no more I’ll hide from sight.
Why did I seek the road so anxiously,
If hidden from my brethren ‘twere to be?”
And as I answer’d, tow’rd me turn’d her face,
With kindly sympathy, that godlike one;
Within her eye full plainly could I trace
What I had fail’d in, and what rightly done.
She smil’d, and cur’d me with that smile’s sweet grace,
To new-born joys my spirit soar’d anon;
With inward confidence I now could dare
To draw yet closer, and observe her there.
Through the light cloud she then stretch’d forth her hand,
As if to bid the streaky vapor fly:
At once it seem’d to yield to her command,
Contracted, and no mist then met mine eye.
My glance once more survey’d the smiling land,
Unclouded and serene appear’d the sky.
Nought but a veil of purest white she held,
And round her in a thousand folds it swell’d.
“I know thee, and I know thy wav’ring will,
I know the good that lives and glows in thee!” —
Thus spake she, and methinks I hear her still —
“The prize long destin’d, now receive from me;
That bless’d one will be safe from ev’ry ill,
Who takes this gift with soul of purity, —
The veil of Minstrelsy from Truth’s own hand,
Of sunlight and of morn’s sweet fragrance plann’d.
And when thou and thy friends at fierce noonday
Are parch’d with heat, straight cast it in the air!
Then Zephyr’s cooling breath will round you play,
Distilling balm and flowers’ sweet incense there;
The tones of earthly woe will die away,
The grave become a bed of clouds so fair,
To sing to rest life’s billows will be seen,
The day be lovely, and the night serene.” —
Come, then, my friends! and whensoe’er ye find
Upon your way increase life’s heavy load;
If by fresh-waken’d blessings flowers are twin’d
Around your path, and golden fruits bestow’d,
We’ll seek the coming day with joyous mind!
Thus bless’d, we’ll live, thus wander on our road,
And when our grandsons sorrow o’er our tomb,
Our love, to glad their bosoms, still shall bloom.

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Songs

Late resounds the early strain;
Weal and woe in song remain.

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SOUND, SWEET SONG.

SOUND, sweet song, from some far land,
Sighing softly close at hand,
Now of joy, and now of woe!
Stars are wont to glimmer so.
Sooner thus will good unfold;
Children young and children old
Gladly hear thy numbers flow.

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TO THE KIND READER.

NO one talks more than a Poet;
Fain he’d have the people know it,
Praise or blame he ever loves;
None in prose confess an error,
Yet we do so, void of terror,
In the Muses’ silent groves.

What I err’d in, what corrected,
What I suffer’d, what effected,
To this wreath as flow’rs belong;
For the ag’d, and the youthful,
And the vicious, and the truthful,
All are fair when view’d in song.

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THE NEW AMADIS

IN my boyhood’s days so drear
I was kept confin’d;
There I sat for many a year,
All alone I pin’d,
As within the womb.

Yet thou drov’st away my gloom,
Golden phantasy!
I became a hero true,
Like the Prince Pipi,
And the world roam’d through;

Many a crystal palace built,
Crush’d them with like art,
And the Dragon’s life-blood spilt
With my glitt’ring dart.
Yes! I was a man!

Next I form’d the knightly plan
Princess Fish to free;
She was much too complaisànt,
Kindly welcom’d me, —
And I was gallant.

Heav’nly bread her kisses prov’d,
Glowing as the wine;
Almost unto death I lov’d.
Suns appear’d to shine
In her dazzling charms.

Who hath torn her from mine arms?
Could no magic band
Make her in her flight delay?
Say, where now her land?
Where, alas, the way?

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WHEN THE FOX DIES, HIS SKIN COUNTS.

WE young people in the shade
Sat one sultry day;
Cupid came, and “Dies the Fox”
With us sought to play.

Each one of my friends then sat
By his mistress dear;
Cupid, blowing out the torch,
Said: “The taper’s here!”

Then we quickly sent around
The expiring brand;
Each one put it hastily
In his neighbor’s hand.

Dorilis then gave it me,
With a scoffing jest;
Sudden into flame it broke,
By my fingers press’d.

And it sing’d my eyes and face,
Set my breast on fire;
Then above my head the blaze
Mounted ever higher.

Vain I sought to put it out;
Ever burn’d the flame;
‘Stead of dying, soon the Fox
Livelier still became.

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THE HEATHROSE.

ONCE a boy a Rosebud spi’d,
Heathrose fair and tender,
All array’d in youthful pride, —
Quickly to the spot he hi’d,
Ravish’d by her splendor.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!

Said the boy, “I’ll now pick thee,
Heathrose fair and tender!”
Said the rosebud, “I’ll prick thee,
So that thou’lt remember me,
Ne’er will I surrender!”
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!

Now the cruel boy must pick
Heathrose fair and tender;
Rosebud did her best to prick, —
Vain ’twas ‘gainst her fate to kick —
She must needs surrender.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Heathrose fair and tender!

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BLINDMAN’S BUFF.

OH, my Theresa dear!
Thine eyes I greatly fear
Can through the bandage see!
Although thine eyes are bound,
By thee I’m quickly found,
And wherefore should’st thou
catch but me?

Ere long thou held’st me fast,
With arms around me cast,
Upon thy breast I fell;
Scarce was thy bandage gone,
When all my joy was flown,
Thou coldly didst the blind repel.

He grop’d on ev’ry side,
His limbs he sorely tried,
While scoffs arose all round;
If thou no love wilt give,
In sadness I shall live,
As if mine eyes remain’d still bound.

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CHRISTEL.

MY senses ofttimes are oppress’d,
Oft stagnant is my blood;
But when by Christel’s sight I’m bless’d,
I feel my strength renew’d.
I see her here, I see her there,
And really cannot tell
The manner how, the when, the where,
The why I love her well.

If with the merest glance I view
Her black and roguish eyes,
And gaze on her black eyebrows too,
My spirit upward flies.
Has any one a mouth so sweet,
Such love-round cheeks as she?
Ah, when the eye her beauties meet,
It ne’er content can be.

And when in airy German dance
I clasp her form divine,
So quick we whirl, so quick advance,
What rapture then like mine!
And when she’s giddy, and feels warm,
I cradle her, poor thing,
Upon my breast, and in mine arm, —
I’m then a very king!

And when she looks with love on me,
Forgetting all but this,
When press’d against my bosom, she
Exchanges kiss for kiss,
All through my marrow runs a thrill,
Runs e’en my foot along!
I feel so well, I feel so ill,
I feel so weak, so strong!

Would that such moments ne’er would end!
The day ne’er long I find;
Could I the night too with her spend,
E’en that I should not mind.
If she were in mine arms but held,
To quench love’s thirst I’d try;
And could my torments not be quell’d,
Upon her breast would die.

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THE COY ONE.

ONE Spring morning bright and fair,
Roam’d a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,
Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, la, la! le ralla, etc.

Of his lambs some two or three
Thyrsis offer’d for a kiss;
First she ey’d him roguishly,
Then for answer sang but this:
So, la, la! le ralla, etc.

Ribbons did the next one offer,
And the third, his heart so true;
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer
Laugh’d at heart and ribbons too, —
Still ’twas la! le ralla, etc.

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THE CONVERT.

BEFORE sunset I was straying
Silently the wood along,
Damon on his flute was playing,
And the rocks gave back the song,
So la, la! etc.

Softly tow’rds him then he drew me;
Sweet each kiss he gave me then!
And I said, “Play once more to me!”
And he kindly play’d again,
So la, la! etc.

All my peace for aye has fleeted,
All my happiness has flown;
Yet my ears are ever greeted
With that olden, blissful tone,
So la, la! etc.

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PRESERVATION.

MY maiden she prov’d false to me;
To hate all joys I soon began,
Then to a flowing stream I ran, —
The stream ran past me hastily.

There stood I fix’d, in mute despair;
My head swam round as in a dream;
I well-nigh fell into the stream,
And earth seem’d with me whirling there.

Sudden I heard a voice that cried —
I had just turn’d my face from thence —
It was a voice to charm each sense:
“Beware, for deep is yonder tide!”

A thrill my blood pervaded now,
I look’d, and saw a beauteous maid; —
I ask’d her name — ’twas Kate, she said —
“Oh, lovely Kate! how kind art thou!

“From death I have been sav’d by thee,
’Tis through thee only that I live;
Little ‘twere life alone to give,
My joy in life then deign to be!”

And then I told my sorrows o’er,
Her eyes to earth she sweetly threw;
I kiss’d her, and she kiss’d me too,
And — then I talk’d of death no more.

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THE MUSES’ SON.

THROUGH field and wood to stray,
And pipe my tuneful lay, —
’Tis thus my days are pass’d;
And all keep tune with me,
And move in harmony,
And so on, to the last.

To wait I scarce have pow’r
The garden’s earliest flow’r,
The tree’s first bloom in Spring;
They hail my joyous strain, —
When Winter comes again,
Of that sweet dream I sing.

My song sounds far and near,
O’er ice it echoes clear,
Then Winter blossoms bright;
And when his blossoms fly,
Fresh raptures meet mine eye,
Upon the well-till’d height.

When ‘neath the linden tree,
Young folks I chance to see,
I set them moving soon;
His nose the dull lad curls,
The formal maiden whirls,
Obedient to my tune.

Wings to the feet ye lend,
O’er hill and vale ye send
The lover far from home;
When shall I, on your breast,
Ye kindly Muses, rest,
And cease at length to roam?

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FOUND.

ONCE through the forest
Alone I went;
To seek for nothing
My thoughts were bent.

I saw in the shadow
A flower stand there;
As stars it glisten’d,
As eyes ’twas fair.

I sought to pluck it, —
It gently said:
“Shall I be gather’d
Only to fade?”

With all its roots
I dug it with care,
And took it home
To my garden fair.

In silent corner
Soon it was set;
There grows it ever,
There blooms it yet.

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LIKE AND LIKE.

EARLY a bell-flower
Sprang up from the ground;
And sweetly its fragrance
It shed all around;
A bee came thither
And sipp’d from its bell; —
That they for each other
Were made, we see well.

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RECIPROCAL INVITATION TO THE DANCE.

The Indifferent.
COME to the dance with me, come with me, fair one!
Dances a feast-day like this may well crown.
If thou my sweetheart art not, thou canst be so,
But if thou wilt not, we still will dance on.
Come to the dance with me, come with me, fair one!
Dances a feast-day like this may well crown.

The Tender.
Lov’d one, without thee, what then would all feasts be?
Sweet one, without thee, what then were the dance?
If thou my sweetheart wert not, I would dance not,
If thou art still so, all life is one feast.
Lov’d one, without thee, what then would all feasts be?
Sweet one, without thee, what then were the dance?

The Indifferent.
Let them but love, then, and leave us the dancing!
Languishing love cannot bear the glad dance.
Let us whirl round in the waltz’s gay measure,
And let them steal to the dim-lighted wood.
Let them but love, then, and leave us the dancing!
Languishing love cannot bear the glad dance.

The Tender.
Let them whirl round, then, and leave us to wander!
Wand’ring to love is a heavenly dance.
Cupid, the near one, o’erhears their deriding,
Vengeance takes suddenly, vengeance takes soon.
Let them whirl round, then, and leave us to wander!
Wand’ring to love is a heavenly dance.

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SELF-DECEIT.

MY neighbor’s curtain, well I see;
Is moving to and fro.
No doubt she’s list’ning eagerly,
If I’m at home or no,

And if the jealous grudge I bore
And openly confess’d,
Is nourish’d by me as before,
Within my inmost breast.

Alas! no fancies such as these
E’er cross’d the dear child’s thoughts.
I see ’tis but the ev’ning breeze
That with the curtain sports.

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DECLARATION OF WAR.

OH, would I resembl’d
The country girls fair,
Who rosy-red ribbons
And yellow hats wear!

To believe I was pretty
I thought was allow’d;
In the town I believ’d it
When by the youth vow’d.

Now that Spring hath return’d,
All my joys disappear;
The girls of the country
Have lured him from here.

To change dress and figure
Was needful I found;
My bodice is longer,
My petticoat round.

My hat now is yellow,
My bodice like snow;
The clover to sickle
With others I go.

Something pretty, ere long
Midst the troop he explores;
The eager boy signs me
To go within doors.

I bashfully go, —
Who I am, he can’t trace;
He pinches my cheeks,
And he looks in my face.

The town girl now threatens
You maidens with war;
Her twofold charms pledges
Of victory are.

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LOVER IN ALL SHAPES.

TO be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish;
If thou cam’st with thy line,
Thou would’st soon make me thine.
To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish.

Oh, were I a steed!
Thou would’st love me indeed.
Oh, were I a car
Fit to bear thee afar!
Oh, were I a steed!
Thou would’st love me indeed.

I would I were gold
That thy fingers might hold!
If thou boughtest aught then,
I’d return soon again.
I would I were gold
That thy fingers might hold!

I would I were true,
And my sweetheart still new!
To be faithful I’d swear,
And would go away ne’er.
I would I were true,
And my sweetheart still new!

I would I were old,
And wrinkled and cold,
So that if thou said’st No,
I could stand such a blow!
I would I were old,
And wrinkled and cold.

An ape I would be,
Full of mischievous glee;
If aught came to vex thee
I’d plague and perplex thee.
An ape I would be,
Full of mischievous glee.

As a lamb I’d behave,
As a lion be brave,
As a lynx clearly see,
As a fox cunning be.
As a lamb I’d behave,
As a lion be brave.

Whatever I were,
All on thee I’d confer;
With the gifts of a prince
My affection evince.
Whatever I were,
All on thee I’d confer.

As nought diff’rent can make me,
As I am thou must take me!
If I’m not good enough,
Thou must cut thine own stuff.
As nought diff’rent can make me,
As I am thou must take me!

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THE GOLDSMITH’S APPRENTICE.

MY neighbor, none can e’er deny,
Is a most beauteous maid;
Her shop is ever in mine eye
When working at my trade.

To ring and chain I hammer then
The wire of gold assay’d,
And think the while: “For Kate, oh, when
Will such a ring be made?”

And when she takes her shutters down,
Her shop at once invade,
To buy and haggle, all the town,
For all that’s there display’d.

I file, and maybe overfile
The wire of gold assay’d;
My master grumbles all the while, —
Her shop the mischief made.

To ply her wheel she straight begins,
When not engag’d in trade;
I know full well for what she spins, —
’Tis hope guides that dear maid.

Her leg, while her small foot treads on,
Is in my mind portray’d;
Her garter I recall anon, —
I gave it that dear maid.

Then to her lips the finest thread
Is by her hand convey’d.
Were I there only in its stead,
How I would kiss the maid!

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JOY AND SORROW.

AS a fisher-boy I far’d
To the black rock in the sea,
And, while false gifts I prepar’d,
Listen’d and sang merrily.
Down descended the decoy,
Soon a fish attack’d the bait;
One exulting shout of joy, —
And the fish was captur’d straight.

Ah! on shore, and to the wood
Past the cliffs, o’er stock and stone,
One foot’s traces I pursu’d,
And the maiden was alone.
Lips were silent, eyes downcast
As a clasp-knife snaps the bait,
With her snare she seiz’d me fast,
And the boy was captur’d straight.

Heav’n knows who’s the happy swain
That she rambles with anew!
I must dare the sea again,
Spite of wind and weather too.
When the great and little fish
Wail and flounder in my net,
Straight returns my eager wish
In her arms to revel yet!

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MARCH.

THE snow-flakes fall in showers,
The time is absent still,
When all spring’s beauteous flowers,
When all spring’s beauteous flowers,
Our hearts with joy shall fill.

With lustre false and fleeting
The sun’s bright rays are thrown;
The swallow’s self is cheating,
The swallow’s self is cheating:
And why? He comes alone!

Can I e’er feel delighted
Alone, though spring is near?
Yet when we are united,
Yet when we are united,
The summer will be here.

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ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS.

The Lady.
IN the small and great world too,
What most charms a woman’s heart?
It is doubtless what is new,
For its blossoms joy impart;
Nobler far is what is true,
For fresh blossoms it can shoot
Even in the time of fruit.

The Young Gentleman.
With the Nymphs in wood and cave
Paris was acquainted well,
Till Zeus sent, to make him rave,
Three of those in heav’n who dwell;
And the choice more trouble gave
Than e’er fell to mortal lot,
Whether in old times or not.

The Experienced.
Tenderly a woman view,
And thou’lt win her, take my word;
He who’s quick and saucy too,
Will of all men be preferr’d;
Who ne’er seems as if he knew
If he pleases, if he charms, —
He ’tis injures, he ’tis harms.

The Contented.
Manifold is human strife,
Human passion, human pain;
Many a blessing yet is rife,
Many pleasures still remain.
Yet the greatest bliss in life,
And the richest prize we find,
Is a good, contented mind.

The Merry Counsel.
He by whom man’s foolish will
Is each day review’d and blam’d,
Who, when others fools are still,
Is himself a fool proclaim’d, —
Ne’er at mill was beast’s back press’d
With a heavier load than he.
What I feel within my breast
That in truth’s the thing for me!

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DIFFERENT EMOTIONS ON THE SAME SPOT.

The Maiden.
I’VE seen him before me!
What rapture steals o’er me!
Oh, heavenly sight!
He’s coming to meet me;
Perplex’d, I retreat me,
With shame take to flight.
My mind seems to wander!
Ye rocks and trees yonder,
Conceal ye my rapture,
Conceal my delight!

The Youth.
’Tis here I must find her,
’Twas here she enshrin’d her,
Here vanish’d from sight.
She came, as to meet me,
Then fearing to greet me,
With shame took to flight.
Is’t hope? Do I wander?
Ye rocks and trees yonder,
Disclose ye the lov’d one,
Disclose my delight!

The Languishing.
O’er my sad fate I sorrow,
To each dewy morrow,
Veil’d here from man’s sight.
By the many mistaken,
Unknown and forsaken,
Here wing I my flight!
Compassionate spirit!
Let none ever hear it, —
Conceal my affliction,
Conceal thy delight!

The Hunter.
To-day I’m rewarded;
Rich booty’s afforded
By Fortune so bright.
My servant the pheasants
And hares fit for presents
Takes homeward at night;
Here see I enraptur’d
In nets the birds captur’d! —
Long life to the hunter!
Long live his delight!

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WHO’LL BUY GODS OF LOVE?

OF all the beauteous wares
Expos’d for sale at fairs,
None will give more delight
Than those that to your sight
From distant lands we bring.
Oh, hark to what we sing!
These beauteous birds behold,
They’re brought here to be sold.

And first the big one see,
So full of roguish glee!
With light and merry bound
He leaps upon the ground;
Then springs up on the bough.
We will not praise him now.
The merry bird behold, —
He’s brought here to be sold.

And now the small one see!
A modest look has he,
And yet he’s such another
As his big roguish brother.
’Tis chiefly when all’s still
He loves to show his will.
The bird so small and bold, —
He’s brought here to be sold.

Observe this little love,
This darling turtle dove!
All maidens are so neat,
So civil, so discreet!
Let them their charms set loose,
And turn your love to use;
The gentle bird behold, —
She’s brought here to be sold.

Their praises we won’t tell;
They’ll stand inspection well.
They’re fond of what is new, —
And yet, to show they’re true,
Nor seal nor letter’s wanted;
To all have wings been granted.
The pretty birds behold, —
Such beauties ne’er were sold!

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THE MISANTHROPE.

AT first awhile sits he,
With calm, unruffled brow;
His features then I see,
Distorted hideously, —
An owl’s they might be now.
What is it, askest thou?
is’t love, or is’t ennui?
’Tis both at once, I vow.

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TRUE ENJOYMENT.

VAINLY would’st thou, to gain a heart,
Heap up a maiden’s lap with gold;
The joys of love thou must impart,
Would’st thou e’er see those joys unfold.
The voices of the throng gold buys,
No single heart ‘twill win for thee;
Would’st thou a maiden make thy prize,
Thyself alone the bribe must be.

If by no sacred tie thou’rt bound,
O youth, thou must thyself restrain!
Well may true liberty be found,
Tho’ man may seem to wear a chain.
Let One alone inflame thee e’er,
And if her heart with love o’erflows,
Let tenderness unite you there,
If duty’s self no fetter knows.

First feel, O youth! A girl then find
Worthy thy choice, — let her choose thee, —
In body fair, and fair in mind,
And then thou wilt be bless’d, like me.
I who have made this art mine own,
A girl have chosen such as this;
The blessing of the priest alone
Is wanting to complete our bliss.

Nought but my rapture is her guide,
Only for me she cares to please, —
Ne’er wanton save when by my side,
And modest when the world she sees;
That time our glow may never chill,
She yields no right through frailty;
Her favor is a favor still,
And I must ever grateful be.

Yet I’m content, and full of joy,
If she’ll but grant her smile so sweet,
Or if at table she’ll employ,
To pillow hers, her lover’s feet,
Give me the apple that she bit,
The glass from which she drank, bestow,
And when my kiss so orders it,
Her bosom, veil’d till then, will show.

And when she wills of love to speak,
In fond and silent hours of bliss,
Words from her mouth are all I seek,
Nought else I crave, — not e’en a kiss.
With what a soul her mind is fraught,
Wreath’d round with charms unceasingly!
She’s perfect, — and she fails in nought,
Save in her deigning to love me.

My rev’rence throws me at her feet,
My longing throws me on her breast;
This, youth, is rapture true and sweet,
Be wise, thus seeking to be bless’d.
When death shall take thee from her side,
To join th’ angelic choir above,
In heaven’s bright mansions to abide, —
No diff’rence at the change thou’lt prove.

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HAPPINESS AND VISION.

TOGETHER at the altar we
In vision oft were seen by thee,
Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I.
Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss
In an unguarded hour of bliss
I then would steal, while none were by.

The purest rapture we then knew,
The joy those happy hours gave too,
When tasted, fled, as time fleets on.
What now avails my joy to me?
Like dreams the warmest kisses flee,
Like kisses, soon all joys are gone.

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THE FAREWELL.

LET mine eye the farewell say,
That my lips can utter ne’er;
Fain I’d be a man to-day,
Yet ’tis hard, oh, hard to bear!

Mournful in an hour like this
Is love’s sweetest pledge, I ween;
Cold upon thy mouth the kiss,
Faint thy fingers’ pressure e’en.

Oh, what rapture to my heart
Us’d each stolen kiss to bring!
As the violets joy impart,
Gather’d in the early spring.

Now no garlands I entwine,
Now no roses pluck for thee.
Though ’tis springtime, Fanny mine,
Dreary autumn ’tis to me!

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THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.

NOW I leave this cottage lowly,
Where my love hath made her home,
And with silent footstep slowly
Through the darksome forest roam.
Luna breaks through oaks and bushes,
Zephyr hastes her steps to meet,
And the waving birch tree blushes,
Scattering round her incense sweet.

Grateful are the cooling breezes
Of this beauteous summer night,
Here is felt the charm that pleases,
And that gives the soul delight.
Boundless is my joy; yet, Heaven,
Willingly I’d leave to thee
Thousand such nights, were one given
By my maiden lov’d to me!

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APPARENT DEATH.

WEEP, maiden, weep here o’er the tomb of Love;
He died of nothing — by mere chance was slain.
But is he really dead? — oh, that I cannot prove:
A nothing, a mere chance, oft gives him life again.

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PROXIMITY.

I KNOW not, wherefore, dearest love,
Thou often art so strange and coy!
When ‘mongst man’s busy haunts we move,
Thy coldness puts to flight my joy.
But soon as night and silence round us reign,
I know thee by thy kisses sweet again!

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LIVING REMEMBRANCE.

HALF vex’d, half pleas’d, thy love will feel,
Should’st thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they’re much — I won’t conceal;
Such self-deceit may pardon’d be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,
In truth are no mean trifling things,
But still they’re not enough for me.

She who is dearest to my heart,
Gave me, with well-dissembl’d smart,
Of her own life, a living part,
No charm in aught beside I trace;
How do I scorn thy paltry ware!
A lock she gave me of the hair
That wantons o’er her beauteous face.

If, lov’d one, we must sever’d be,
Would’st thou not wholly fly from me,
I still possess this legacy,
To look at, and to kiss in play.
My fate is to the hair’s alli’d,
We used to woo her with like pride,
And now we both are far away.

Her charms with equal joy we press’d,
Her swelling cheeks anon caress’d,
Lur’d onward by a yearning bless’d,
Upon her heaving bosom fell.
Oh, rival, free from envy’s sway,
Thou precious gift, thou beauteous prey,
Remain my joy and bliss to tell!

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THE BLISS OF ABSENCE.

DRINK, O youth, joy’s purest ray
From thy lov’d one’s eyes all day,
And her image paint at night!
Better rule no lover knows,
Yet true rapture greater grows,
When far sever’d from her sight.

Powers eternal, distance, time,
Like the might of stars sublime,
Gently rock the blood to rest.
O’er my senses softness steals,
Yet my bosom lighter feels,
And I daily am more bless’d.

Though I can forget her ne’er,
Yet my mind is free from care,
I can calmly live and move;
Unperceiv’d infatuation
Longing turns to adoration,
Turns to reverence my love.

Ne’er can cloud, however light,
Float in ether’s regions bright,
When drawn upwards by the sun,
As my heart in rapturous calm.
Free from envy and alarm,
Ever love I her alone!

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TO LUNA.

SISTER of the first-born light,
Type of sorrowing gentleness!
Quivering mists in silv’ry dress
Float around thy features bright;
When thy gentle foot is heard,
From the day-clos’d caverns then
Wake the mournful ghosts of men,
I, too, wake, and each night-bird.

O’er a field of boundless span
Looks thy gaze both far and wide.
Raise me upwards to thy side!
Grant this to a raving man!
And to heights of rapture rais’d,
Let the knight so crafty peep
At his maiden while asleep,
Through her lattice-window glaz’d.

Soon the bliss of this sweet view,
Pangs by distance caus’d allays;
And I gather all thy rays,
And my look I sharpen too.
Round her unveil’d limbs I see
Brighter still become the glow,
And she draws me down below,
As Endymion once drew thee.

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THE WEDDING NIGHT.

WITHIN the chamber, far away
From the glad feast, sits Love in dread
Lest guests disturb, in wanton play,
The silence of the bridal bed.
His torch’s pale flame serves to gild
The scene with mystic sacred glow;
The room with incense-clouds is fill’d,
That ye may perfect rapture know.

How beats thy heart, when thou dost hear
The chime that warns thy guests to fly!
How glow’st thou for those lips so dear,
That soon are mute, and nought deny!
With her into the holy place
Thou hast’nest then, to perfect all;
The fire the warder’s hands embrace
Grows, like a night-light, dim and small.

How heaves her bosom, and how burns
Her face at every fervent kiss!
Her coldness now to trembling turns,
Thy daring now a duty is.
Love helps thee to undress her fast,
But thou art twice as fast as he;
And then he shuts both eyes at last
With sly and roguish modesty.

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MISCHIEVOUS JOY.

AS a butterfly renew’d,
When in life I breath’d my last,
To the spots my flight I wing,
Scenes of heav’nly rapture past,
Over meadows, to the spring,
Round the hill, and through the wood.

Soon a tender pair I spy,
And I look down from my seat
On the beauteous maiden’s head —
When embodied there I meet
All I lost as soon as dead —
Happy as before am I.

Him she clasps with silent smile,
And his mouth the hour improves,
Sent by kindly Deities;
First from breast to mouth it roves,
Then from mouth to hands it flies,
And I round him sport the while.

And she sees me hov’ring near;
Trembling at her lover’s rapture,
Up she springs — I fly away.
“Dearest! let’s the insect capture!
Come! I long to make my prey
Yonder pretty little dear!”

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FAREWELL.

O break one’s word is pleasure-fraught,
To do one’s duty gives a smart;
While man, alas! will promise nought,
That is repugnant to his heart.

Using some magic strains of yore,
Thou lurest him, when scarcely calm,
On to sweet folly’s fragile bark once more,
Renewing, doubling chance of harm.

Why seek to hide thyself from me?
Fly not my sight — be open then!
Known late or early it must be,
And here thou hast thy word again.

My duty is fulfill’d to-day,
No longer will I guard thee from surprise;
But, oh, forgive the friend who from thee turns away,
And to himself for refuge flies!

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THE EXCHANGE.

THE stones in the streamlet I make my bright pillow,
And open my arms to the swift-rolling billow,
That lovingly hastens to fall on my breast.
Then fickleness soon bids it onward be flowing;
A second draws nigh, its caresses bestowing, —
And so by a twofold enjoyment I’m bless’d.
And yet thou art trailing in sorrow and sadness
The moments that life, as it flies, gave for gladness,
Because by thy love thou’rt remember’d no more!
Oh, call back to mind former days and their blisses!
The lips of the second will give as sweet kisses
As any the lips of the first gave before!

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NOVEMBER SONG.

TO the great archer — not to him
To meet whom flies the sun,
And who is wont his features dim
With clouds to overrun —

But to the boy be vow’d these rhymes,
Who ‘mongst the roses plays,
Who hears us, and at proper times
To pierce fair hearts essays.

Through him the gloomy winter night,
Of yore so cold and drear,
Brings many a lov’d friend to our sight,
And many a woman dear.

Henceforward shall his image fair
Stand in yon starry skies,
And, ever mild and gracious there,
Alternate set and rise.

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TO THE CHOSEN ONE.

HAND in hand! and lip to lip:
Oh, be faithful, maiden dear!
Fare thee well! thy lover’s ship
Past full many a rock must steer;
But should he the haven see,
When the storm has ceas’d to break,
And be happy, reft of thee, —
May the Gods fierce vengeance take!

Boldly dar’d is well nigh won!
Half my task is solv’d aright;
Ev’ry star’s to me a sun,
Only cowards deem it night.
Stood I idly by thy side,
Sorrow still would sadden me;
But when seas our paths divide,
Gladly toil I, — toil for thee!

Now the valley I perceive,
Where together we will go,
And the streamlet watch each eve,
Gliding peacefully below.
Oh, the poplars on yon spot!
Oh, the beech trees in yon grove!
And behind we’ll build a cot,
Where to taste the joys of love!

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FIRST LOSS.

AH! who’ll e’er those days restore,
Those bright days of early love!
Who’ll one hour again concede,
Of that time so fondly cherish’d!
Silently my wounds I feed,
And with wailing evermore
Sorrow o’er each joy now perish’d.
Ah! who’ll e’er the days restore
Of that time so fondly cherish’d!

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AFTER-SENSATIONS.

WHEN the vine again is blowing,
Then the wine moves in the cask;
When the rose again is glowing,
Wherefore should I feel oppress’d?

Down my cheeks run tears all-burning,
If I do, or leave my task;
I but feel a speechless yearning,
That pervades my inmost breast.

But at length I see the reason,
When the question I would ask:
’Twas in such a beauteous season,
Doris glow’d to make me bless’d!

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PROXIMITY OF THE BELOVED ONE.

I THINK of thee, whene’er the sun his beams
O’er ocean flings;
I think of thee, whene’er the moonlight gleams
In silv’ry springs.

I see thee, when upon the distant ridge
The dust awakes;
At midnight’s hour, when on the fragile bridge
The wand’rer quakes.

I hear thee, when yon billows rise on high,
With murmur deep.
To tread the silent grove oft wander I,
When all’s asleep.

I’m near thee, though thou far away may’st be:
Thou, too, art near!
The sun then sets, the stars soon lighten me.
Would thou wert here!

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PRESENCE.

ALL things give token of thee!
As soon as the bright sun is shining,
Thou too wilt follow, I trust.

When in the garden thou walkest,
Thou then art the rose of all roses,
Lily of lilies as well.

When thou dost move in the dance,
Then each constellation moves also;
With thee and round thee they move.

Night! oh, what bliss were the night!
For then thou o’ershadow’st the lustre,
Dazzling and fair, of the moon.

Dazzling and beauteous art thou,
And flowers, and moon and the planets
Homage pay, Sun, but to thee.

Sun! to me also be thou
Creator of days bright and glorious;
Life and Eternity this!

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TO THE DISTANT ONE.

AND have I lost thee evermore?
Hast thou, O fair one, from me flown?
Still in mine ear sounds, as of yore,
Thine ev’ry word, thine ev’ry tone.

As when at morn the wand’rer’s eye
Attempts to pierce the air in vain,
When, hidden in the azure sky,
The lark high o’er him chants his strain:

So do I cast my troubl’d gaze
Through bush, through forest, o’er the lea;
Thou art invok’d by all my lays;
Oh, come then, lov’d one, back to me!

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BY THE RIVER.

FLOW on, ye lays so lov’d, so fair,
On to Oblivion’s ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e’er,
No maiden in her beauty’s glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!

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NIGHT SONG.

WHEN on thy pillow lying,
Half listen, I implore,
And at my lute’s soft sighing,
Sleep on! what would’st thou more?

For at my lute’s soft sighing
The stars their blessings pour
On feelings never-dying;
Sleep on! what would’st thou more?

Those feelings never-dying
My spirit aid to soar
From earthly conflicts trying;
Sleep on! what would’st thou more?

From earthly conflicts trying
Thou driv’st me to this shore;
Through thee I’m hither flying, —
Sleep on! what would’st thou more?

Through thee I’m hither flying,
Thou wilt not list before
In slumbers thou art lying:
Sleep on! what would’st thou more?

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CALM AT SEA.

SILENCE deep rules o’er the waters,
Calmly slumb’ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Nought but one vast level plain.

Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev’ry wave.

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THE PROSPEROUS VOYAGE.

DISPELL’D are the vapors,
And radiant is heaven,
Whilst Æolus loosens
Our anguish-fraught bond;
The zephyrs are sighing,
Alert is the sailor.
Quick! nimbly be plying!
The billows are riven,
The distance approaches;
I see land beyond!

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COURAGE.

CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!

Silence, lov’d one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!

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ADMONITION.

WHEREFORE ever ramble on?
For the Good is lying near.
Fortune learn to seize alone,
For that Fortune’s ever here.

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WELCOME AND FAREWELL.

QUICK throbb’d my heart: to horse! haste, haste!
And lo! ’twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embrac’d,
And o’er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,
A tow’ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,
And glar’d with hundred gloomy eyes.

From out a hill of clouds the moon
With mournful gaze began to peer:
The winds their soft wings flutter’d soon,
And murmur’d in mine awe-struck ear;
The night a thousand monsters made,
Yet fresh and joyous was my mind;
What fire within my veins then play’d!
What glow was in my bosom shrin’d!

I saw thee, and with tender pride
Felt thy sweet gaze pour joy on me;
While all my heart was at thy side,
And ev’ry breath I breath’d for thee.
The roseate hues that Spring supplies
Were playing round thy features fair,
And love for me — ye Deities!
I hope it, I deserv’d it ne’er!

But when the morning sun return’d,
Departure fill’d with grief my heart:
Within thy kiss, what rapture burn’d!
But in thy look, what bitter smart!
I went — thy gaze to earth first rov’d —
Thou follo’dst me with tearful eye:
And yet, what rapture to be lov’d!
And, gods, to love — what ecstasy!

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NEW LOVE, NEW LIFE.

HEART! my heart! what means this feeling?
What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o’er me stealing!
I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,
Fled thy peace, thine industry —
Ah, why suffer it to be?

Say, do beauty’s graces youthful,
Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,
Chain thee with unceasing might?

Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,
Back to her I’m forthwith led
By the path I seek to tread.

By a thread I ne’er can sever,
For ’tis ‘twin’d with magic skill,
Doth the cruel maid forever
Hold me fast against my will.
While those magic chains confine me,
To her will I must resign me.
Ah, the change in truth is great!
Love! kind love! release me straight!

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TO BELINDA.

WHEREFORE drag me to yon glitt’ring eddy,
With resistless might?
Was I, then, not truly bless’d already
In the silent night?

In my secret chamber refuge taking,
‘Neath the moon’s soft ray,
And her awful light around me breaking,
Musing there I lay.

And I dream’d of hours with joy o’erflowing,
Golden, truly bless’d,
While thine image so belov’d was glowing
Deep within my breast.

Now to the card-table hast thou bound me,
‘Midst the torches’ glare?
Whilst unhappy faces are around me,
Dost thou hold me there?

Spring-flowers are to me more rapture-giving,
Now conceal’d from view;
Where thou, angel, art, is Nature living,
Love and kindness too.

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MAY SONG.

HOW fair doth Nature
Appear again!
How bright the sunbeams!
How smiles the plain!

The flowers are bursting
From ev’ry bough,
And thousand voices
Each bush yields now.

And joy and gladness
Fill ev’ry breast:
O earth! — O sunlight!
Oh, rapture bless’d!

O love! O lov’d one!
As golden bright,
As clouds of morning
On yonder height!

Thou blessest gladly
The smiling field, —
The world in fragrant
Vapor conceal’d.

Oh, maiden, maiden,
How love I thee!
Thine eye, how gleams it!
How lov’st thou me!

The blithe lark loveth
Sweet song and air,
The morning floweret
Heav’n’s incense fair,

As I now love thee
With fond desire,
For thou dost give me
Youth, joy and fire,

For new-born dances
And minstrelsy.
Be ever happy,
As thou lov’st me!

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WITH A PAINTED RIBBON.

LITTLE leaves and flow’rets too,
Scatter we with gentle hand,
Kind young spring-gods to the view,
Sporting on an airy band.

Zephyr, bear it on thy wing,
Twine it round my lov’d one’s dress;
To her glass then let her spring,
Full of eager joyousness.

Roses round her let her see,
She herself a youthful rose.
Grant, dear life, one look to me!
‘Twill repay me all my woes.

What this bosom feels, feel thou,
Freely offer me thy hand;
Let the band that joins us now
Be no fragile rosy band!

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WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

DEVOTION a chain to bring thee burns,
That, train’d to suppleness of old,
On thy fair neck to nestle, yearns,
In many a hundred little fold.

To please the silly thing consent!
’Tis harmless, and from boldness free!
By day a trifling ornament,
At night ’tis cast aside by thee.

But if the chain they bring thee ever,
Heavier, more fraught with weal or woe,
I’d then, Lisette, reproach thee never
If thou should’st greater scruples show.

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TO CHARLOTTE.

‘MIDST the noise of merriment and glee,
‘Midst full many a sorrow, many a care,
Charlotte, I remember, we remember thee,
How, at evening’s hour so fair,
Thou a kindly hand didst reach us,
When thou, in some happy place
Where more fair is Nature’s face,
Many a lightly-hidden trace
Of a spirit lov’d didst teach us.

Well ’tis that thy worth I rightly knew, —
That I, in the hour when first we met,
While the first impression fill’d me yet,
Call’d thee then a girl both good and true.
Rear’d in silence, calmly, knowing nought,
On the world we suddenly are thrown;
Hundred thousand billows round us sport;
All things charm us — many please alone,
Many grieve us, and as hour on hour is stealing,
To and fro our restless natures sway;
First we feel, and then we find each feeling
By the changeful world-stream borne away.

Well I know, we oft within us find
Many a hope and many a smart.
Charlotte, who can know our mind?
Charlotte, who can know our heart?
Ah! ’twould fain be understood, ’twould fain o’erflow
In some creature’s fellow-feelings bless’d,
And, with trust, in twofold measure know
All the grief and joy in Nature’s breast.

Then thine eye is oft around thee cast,
But in vain, for all seems clos’d forever;
Thus the fairest part of life is madly pass’d
Free from storm, but resting never;
To thy sorrow thou’rt to-day repell’d
By what yesterday obey’d thee.
Can that world by thee be worthy held
Which so oft betray’d thee?
Which, ‘mid all thy pleasures and thy pains,
Liv’d in selfish, unconcern’d repose?
See, the soul its secret cells regains,
And the heart — makes haste to close.

Thus found I thee, and gladly went to meet thee;
“She’s worthy of all love!” I cried,
And pray’d that Heaven with purest bliss might greet thee,
Which in thy friend it richly hath supplied.

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ON THE LAKE.

I DRINK fresh nourishment, new blood
From out this world more free;
The Nature is so kind and good
That to her breast clasps me!
The billows toss our bark on high,
And with our oars keep time,
While cloudy mountains tow’rd the sky
Before our progress climb.

Say, mine eye, why sink’st thou down?
Golden visions, are ye flown?
Hence, thou dream, tho’ golden-twin’d;
Here, too, love and life I find.

Over the waters are blinking
Many a thousand fair star;
Gentle mists are drinking
Round the horizon afar.
Round the shady creek lightly
Morning zephyrs awake,
And the ripen’d fruit brightly
Mirrors itself in the lake.

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FROM THE MOUNTAIN.

IF I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,
How this prospect would enchant my sight!
And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,
Could I find, or here or there, delight?

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Flower Salute.

THIS nosegay, — ’twas I dress’d it, —
Greets thee a thousand times!
Oft stoop’d I, and caress’d it,
Ah! full a thousand times,
And ‘gainst my bosom press’d it
A hundred thousand times!

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MAY SONG.

BETWEEN wheatfield and corn,
Between hedgerow and thorn,
Between pasture and tree,
Where’s my sweetheart?
Tell it me!

Sweetheart caught I
Not at home;
She’s then, thought I,
Gone to roam.

Fair and loving
Blooms sweet May;
Sweetheart’s roving,
Free and gay.

By the rock near the wave,
Where her first kiss she gave,
On the greensward, to me, —
Something I see!
Is it she?

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PREMATURE SPRING.

DAYS full of rapture,
Are ye renew’d? —
Smile in the sunlight,
Mountain and wood?

Streams richer laden
Flow through the dale.
Are these the meadows?
Is this the vale?

Coolness cerulean!
Heaven and height!
Fish crowd the ocean,
Golden and bright.

Birds of gay plumage
Sport in the grove,
Heavenly numbers
Singing above.

Under the verdure’s
Vigorous bloom,
Bees, softly humming,
Juices consume.

Gentle disturbance
Quivers in air,
Sleep-causing fragrance,
Motion so fair.

Soon with more power
Rises the breeze,
Then in a moment
Dies in the trees.

But to the bosom
Comes it again.
Aid me, ye Muses,
Bliss to sustain!

Say what has happen’d
Since yester e’en?
Oh, ye fair sisters,
Her I have seen!

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Autumn Feelings

FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber,
O ye leaves, to seek my chamber,
Up the trellis’d vine on high!
May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
Juicier far, — and with more splendor
Ripen, and more speedily!
O’er ye broods the sun at even
As he sinks to rest, and heaven
Softly breathes into your ear
All its fertilizing fulness,
While the moon’s refreshing coolness,
Magic-laden, hovers near;
And, alas! ye’re water’d ever
By a stream of tears that rill
From mine eyes, — tears ceasing never,
Tears of love that nought can still!

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RESTLESS LOVE.

THROUGH rain, through snow,
Through tempest go!
‘Mongst steaming caves,
O’er misty waves,
On, on! still on!
Peace, rest have flown!

Sooner through sadness
I’d wish to be slain,
Than all the gladness
Of life to sustain;
All the fond yearning
That heart feels for heart,
Only seems burning
To make them both smart!

How shall I fly?
Forestwards hie?
Vain were all strife!
Bright crown of life,
Turbulent bliss, —
Love, thou art this!

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THE SHEPHERD’S LAMENT.

ON yonder lofty mountain
A thousand times I stand,
And on my staff reclining,
Look down on the smiling land.

My grazing flocks then I follow,
My dog protecting them well;
I find myself in the valley,
But how, I scarcely can tell.

The whole of the meadow is cover’d
With flowers of beauty rare;
I pluck them, but pluck them unknowing
To whom the offering to bear.

In rain and storm and tempest,
I tarry beneath the tree,
But clos’d remaineth yon portal;
’Tis all but a vision to me.

High over yonder dwelling,
There rises a rainbow gay;
But she from home hath departed,
And wander’d far, far away.

Yes, far away hath she wander’d,
Perchance e’en over the sea;
Move onward, ye sheep, then, move onward!
Full sad the shepherd must be.

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COMFORT IN TEARS.

HOW happens it that thou art sad,
While happy all appear?
Thine eye proclaims too well that thou
Hast wept full many a tear.

“If I have wept in solitude,
None other shares my grief,
And tears to me sweet balsam are,
And give my heart relief.”

Thy happy friends invite thee now, —
Oh, come, then, to our breast!
And let the loss thou hast sustain’d
Be there to us confess’d!

“Ye shout, torment me, knowing not
What ’tis afflicteth me;
Ah, no! I have sustain’d no loss,
Whate’er may wanting be.”

If so it is, arise in haste!
Thou’rt young and full of life.
At years like thine, man’s bless’d with strength
And courage for the strife.

“Ah, no! in vain ’twould be to strive,
The thing I seek is far;
It dwells as high, it gleams as fair
As yonder glitt’ring star.”

The stars we never long to clasp,
We revel in their light,
And with enchantment upward gaze,
Each clear and radiant night.

“And I with rapture upward gaze,
On many a blissful day;
Then let me pass the night in tears,
Till tears are wip’d away!”

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LONGING.

WHAT pulls at my heart so?
What tells me to roam?
What drags me and lures me
From chamber and home?
How round the cliffs gather
The clouds high in air!
I fain would go thither,
I fain would be there!

The sociable flight
Of the ravens comes back;
I mingle amongst them,
And follow their track.
Round wall and round mountain
Together we fly;
She tarries below there,
I after her spy.

Then onward she wanders,
My flight I wing soon
To the wood fill’d with bushes,
A bird of sweet tune.
She tarries and hearkens,
And smiling, thinks she:
“How sweetly he’s singing!
He’s singing to me!”

The heights are illum’d
By the fast setting sun;
The pensive fair maiden
Looks thoughtfully on;
She roams by the streamlet,
O’er meadows she goes,
And darker and darker
The pathway fast grows.

I rise on a sudden,
A glimmering star;
“What glitters above me,
So near and so far?”
And when thou with wonder
Hast gaz’d on the light,
I fall down before thee,
Entranc’d by thy sight!

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TO MIGNON.

OVER vale and torrent far
Rolls along the sun’s bright car.
Ah! he wakens in his course
Mine, as thy deep-seated smart
In the heart,
Ev’ry morning with new force.

Scarce avails night aught to me;
E’en the visions that I see
Come but in a mournful guise;
And I feel this silent smart
In my heart
With creative power arise.

During many a beauteous year
I have seen ships ‘neath me steer,
As they seek the shelt’ring bay;
But, alas, each lasting smart
In my heart
Floats not with the stream away.

I must wear a gala dress,
Long stor’d up within my press,
For to-day to feasts is given;
None know with what bitter smart
Is my heart
Fearfully and madly riven.

Secretly I weep each tear,
Yet can cheerful e’en appear,
With a face of healthy red;
For if deadly were this smart
In my heart,
Ah, I then had long been dead!

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THE MOUNTAIN CASTLE

THERE stands on yonder high mountain
A castle built of yore,
Where once lurk’d horse and horseman
In rear of gate and of door.

Now door and gate are in ashes,
And all around is so still;
And over the fallen ruins
I clamber just as I will.

Below once lay a cellar,
With costly wines well stor’d;
No more the glad maid with her pitcher
Descends there to draw from the hoard.

No longer the goblet she places
Before the guests at the feast;
The flask at the meal so hallow’d
No longer she fills for the priest.

No more for the eager squire
The draught in the passage is pour’d;
No more for the flying present
Receives she the flying reward.

For all the roof and the rafters,
They all long since have been burn’d,
And stairs and passage and chapel
To rubbish and ruins are turn’d.

Yet when with lute and with flagon,
When day was smiling and bright,
I’ve watch’d my mistress climbing
To gain this perilous height,

Then rapture joyous and radiant
The silence so desolate broke,
And all, as in days long vanish’d,
Once more to enjoyment awoke;

As if for guests of high station
The largest rooms were prepar’d;
As if from those times so precious
A couple thither had far’d;

As if there stood in his chapel
The priest in his sacred dress,
And ask’d: “Would ye twain be united?”
And we, with a smile, answer’d, “Yes!”

And songs that breath’d a deep feeling,
That touch’d the heart’s innermost chord,
The music-fraught mouth of sweet echo,
Instead of the many, outpour’d.

And when at eve all was hidden
In silence unbroken and deep,
The glowing sun then look’d upwards,
And gaz’d on the summit so steep.

And squire and maiden then glitter’d
As bright and gay as a lord,
She seiz’d the time for her present,
And he to give her reward.

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THE SPIRIT’S SALUTE.

THE hero’s noble shade stands high
On yonder turret gray;
And as the ship is sailing by,
He speeds it on his way.

“See with what strength these sinews thrill’d!
This heart, how firm and wild!
These bones, what knightly marrow fill’d!
This cup, how bright it smil’d!

“Half of my life I strove and fought,
And half I calmly pass’d;
And thou, oh, ship, with beings fraught,
Sail safely to the last!”

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TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK.

OH, thou token lov’d of joys now perish’d
That I still wear from my neck suspended,
Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish’d?
Or canst thou prolong love’s days untimely ended?

Lily, I fly from thee! I still am doom’d to range,
Thro’ countries strange,
Thro’ distant vales and woods, link’d on to thee!
Ah, Lily’s heart could surely never fall
So soon away from me!

As when a bird hath broken from his thrall,
And seeks the forest green,
Proof of imprisonment he bears behind him,
A morsel of the thread once used to bind him;
The free-born bird of old no more is seen,
For he another’s prey hath been.

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THE BLISS OF SORROW.

NEVER dry, never dry,
Tears that eternal love sheddeth!
How dreary, how dead doth the world still appear,
When only half-dried on the eye is the tear!
Never dry, never dry,
Tears that unhappy love sheddeth!

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THE WANDERER’S NIGHT-SONG.

THOU who comest from on high,
Who all woes and sorrows stillest,
Who, for twofold misery,
Hearts with twofold balsam fillest,

Would this constant strife would cease!
What are pain and rapture now?
Blissful Peace,
To my bosom hasten thou!

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THE SAME.

HUSH’D on the hill
Is the breeze;
Scarce by the zephyr
The trees
Softly are press’d;
The woodbird’s asleep on the bough.
Wait, then, and thou
Soon wilt find rest.

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TO THE MOON.

FILL’D are bush and vale again
With thy misty ray,
And my spirit’s heavy chain
Castest far away.

Thou dost o’er my fields extend
Thy sweet soothing eye,
Watching like a gentle friend,
O’er my destiny.

Vanish’d days of bliss and woe
Haunt me with their tone,
Joy and grief in turns I know,
As I stray alone.

Stream belov’d, flow on! flow on!
Ne’er can I be gay!
Thus have sport and kisses gone,
Truth thus pass’d away.

Once I seem’d the lord to be
Of that prize so fair!
Now, to our deep sorrow, we
Can forget it ne’er.

Murmur, stream, the vale along,
Never cease thy sighs;
Murmur, whisper to my song
Answering melodies!

When thou in the winter’s night
Overflow’st in wrath,
Or in spring-time sparklest bright,
As the buds shoot forth.

He who from the world retires,
Void of hate, is bless’d;
Who a friend’s true love inspires,
Leaning on his breast!

That which heedless man ne’er knew,
Or ne’er thought aright,
Roams the bosom’s labyrinth through,
Boldly into night.

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THE HUNTER’S EVEN-SONG.

THE plain with still and wand’ring feet,
And gun full-charg’d, I tread,
And hov’ring see thine image sweet,
Thine image dear, o’erhead.

In gentle silence thou dost fare
Through field and valley dear;
But doth my fleeting image ne’er
To thy mind’s eye appear?

His image, who, by grief oppress’d,
Roams through the world forlorn,
And wanders on from east to west
Because from thee he’s torn?

When I would think of none but thee,
Mine eyes the moon survey;
A calm repose then steals o’er me,
But how, ‘twere hard to say.

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MY ONLY PROPERTY.

I FEEL that I’m possess’d of nought,
Saving the free unfetter’d thought
Which from my bosom seeks to flow,
And each propitious passing hour
That suffers me in all its power
A loving fate with truth to know.

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TO LINA.

SHOULD these songs, love, as they fleet,
Chance again to reach thy hand,
At the piano take thy seat,
Where thy friend was wont to stand!

Sweep with finger bold the string,
Then the book one moment see:
But read not! do nought but sing!
And each page thine own will be!

Ah, what grief the song imparts
With its letters, black on white,
That, when breath’d by thee, our hearts
Now can break and now delight!
Fr. Pecht del
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word] [Editor: illegible word]
Goethe’s Mother

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Familiar Songs

What we sing in company
Soon from heart to heart will fly.

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ON THE NEW YEAR.

FATE now allow us,
‘Twixt the departing
And the upstarting,
Happy to be;
And at the call of
Memory cherish’d,
Future and perish’d
Moments we see.

Seasons of anguish, —
Ah, they must ever
Truth from woe sever,
Love and joy part;
Days still more worthy
Soon will unite us,
Fairer songs light us,
Strength’ning the heart.

We, thus united,
Think of, with gladness,
Rapture and sadness,
Sorrow now flies.
Oh, how mysterious
Fortune’s direction!
Old the connection,
New-born the prize!

Thank, for this, Fortune,
Wavering blindly!
Thank all that kindly
Fate may bestow!
Revel in change’s
Impulses clearer,
Love far sincerer,
More heartfelt glow!

Over the old one,
Wrinkles collected,
Sad and dejected,
Others may view;
But, on us gently
Shineth a true one,
And to the new one
We, too, are new.

As a fond couple
‘Midst the dance veering,
First disappearing,
Then reappear,
So let affection
Guide thro’ life’s mazy
Pathways so hazy
Into the year!

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ANNIVERSARY SONG.

WHY pacest thou, my neighbor fair,
The garden all alone?
If house and land thou seek’st to guard,
I’d thee as mistress own.

My brother sought the cellar-maid,
And suffer’d her no rest;
She gave him a refreshing draught,
A kiss, too, she impress’d.

My cousin is a prudent wight,
The cook’s by him ador’d;
He turns the spit round ceaselessly,
To gain love’s sweet reward.

We six-together then began
A banquet to consume,
When lo! a fourth pair singing came,
And danc’d into the room.

Welcome were they, — and welcome too
Was a fifth jovial pair,
Brimful of news, and stor’d with tales
And jests both new and rare.

For riddles, spirit, raillery,
And wit, a place remain’d;
A sixth pair then our circle join’d,
And so that prize was gain’d.

And yet to make us truly bless’d,
One miss’d we, and full sore;
A true and tender couple came, —
We needed then no more.

The social banquet now goes on,
Unchequer’d by alloy;
The sacred double-numbers then
Let all at once enjoy!

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THE SPRING ORACLE.

OH, prophetic bird so bright,
Blossom-songster, cuckoo hight!
In the fairest time of year,
Dearest bird, oh! deign to hear
What a youthful pair would pray;
Do thou call, if hope they may:
Thy cuck-oo, thy cuck-oo,
Ever more cuck-oo, cuck-oo!

Hearest thou? A loving pair
Fain would to the altar fare;
Yes! a pair in happy youth,
Full of virtue, full of truth.
Is the hour not fix’d by fate?
Say, how long must they still wait?
Hark! cuck-oo! hark! cuck-oo!
Silent yet! for shame, cuck-oo!

’Tis not our fault, certainly!
Only two years patient be!
But if we ourselves please here,
Will pa-pa-papas appear?
Know that thou’lt more kindness do us,
More thou’lt prophesy unto us.
One! cuck-oo! Two! cuck-oo!
Ever, ever, cuck-oo, cuck-oo, coo!

If we’ve calculated clearly,
We have half a dozen nearly.
If good promises we’ll give,
Wilt thou say how long we’ll live?
Truly, we’ll confess to thee,
We’d prolong it willingly.
Coo cuck-oo, coo cuck-oo,
Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo!

Life is one continued feast —
(If we keep no score, at least.)
If now we together dwell,
Will true love remain as well?
For if that should e’er decay,
Happiness would pass away.
Coo cuck-oo, coo cuck-oo,
Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo!
(Gracefully ad infinitum.)

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THE HAPPY COUPLE.

AFTER these vernal rains
That we so warmly sought,
Dear wife, see how our plains
With blessings sweet are fraught!

We cast our distant gaze
Far in the misty blue;
Here gentle love still strays,
Here dwells still rapture true.

Thou seest whither go
Yon pair of pigeons white,
Where swelling violets blow
Round sunny foliage bright.
’Twas there we gather’d first
A nosegay as we rov’d;
There into flame first burst
The passion that we prov’d.

Yet when, with plighted troth,
The priest beheld us fare
Home from the altar both,
With many a youthful pair, —
Then other moons had birth,
And many a beauteous sun,
Then we had gain’d the earth
Whereon life’s race to run.

A hundred thousand fold
The mighty bond was seal’d;
In woods, on mountains cold,
In bushes, in the field,
Within the wall, in caves,
And on the craggy height,
And love, e’en o’er the waves,
Bore in his tube the light.

Contented we remain’d,
We deem’d ourselves a pair;
’Twas otherwise ordain’d,
For, lo! a third was there;
A fourth, fifth, sixth appear’d,
And sat around our board;
And now the plants we’ve rear’d
High o’er our heads have soar’d!

How fair and pleasant looks,
On yonder beauteous spot,
Embrac’d by poplar-brooks,
The newly-finish’d cot!
Who is it there that sits
In that glad home above?
Is’t not our darling Fritz
With his own darling love?

Beside yon precipice,
Whence pent-up waters steal,
And, leaving the abyss,
Fall foaming through the wheel, —
Though people often tell
Of millers’ wives so fair,
Yet none can e’er excel
Our dearest daughter there!

Yet where the thick-set green
Stands round yon church and sod,
Where the old fir tree’s seen
Alone tow’rd heaven to nod, —
’Tis there the ashes lie
Of our untimely dead;
From earth our gaze on high
By their bless’d memory’s led.

See how yon hill is bright
With billowy-waving arms!
The force returns, whose might
Has vanquish’d war’s alarms.
Who proudly hastens here
With wreath-encircl’d brow?
’Tis like our child so dear! —
Thus Charles comes homeward now.

That dearest honor’d guest
Is welcom’d by the bride;
She makes the true one bless’d,
At the glad festal tide.
And ev’ry one makes haste
To join the dance with glee;
While thou with wreaths hast grac’d
The youngest children three.

To sound of flute and horn
The time appears renew’d,
When we, in love’s young morn,
In the glad dance upstood;
And perfect bliss I know
Ere the year’s course is run,
For to the font we go
With grandson and with son!

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SONG OF FELLOWSHIP.

IN ev’ry hour of joy
That love and wine prolong,
The moments we’ll employ
To carol forth this song!
We’re gather’d in His name,
Whose power hath brought us here;
He kindled first our flame,
He bids it burn more clear.

Then gladly glow to-night,
And let our hearts combine!
Up! quaff with fresh delight
This glass of sparkling wine!
Up! hail the joyous hour,
And let your kiss be true;
With each new bond of power
The old becomes the new!

Who in our circle lives,
And is not happy there?
True liberty it gives,
And brother’s love so fair.
Thus heart and heart through life
With mutual love are fill’d;
And by no causeless strife
Our union e’er is chill’d.

Our hopes a God has crown’d
With life-discernment free,
And all we view around,
Renews our ecstasy.
Ne’er by caprice oppress’d,
Our bliss is ne’er destroy’d;
More freely throbs our breast,
By fancies ne’er alloy’d.

Where’er our foot we set,
The more life’s path extends,
And brighter, brighter yet
Our gaze on high ascends.
We know no grief or pain,
Though all things fall and rise;
Long may we thus remain!
Eternal be our ties!

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CONSTANCY IN CHANGE.

COULD this early bliss but rest
Constant for one single hour!
But e’en now the humid West
Scatters many a vernal shower.
Should the verdure give me joy?
’Tis to it I owe the shade;
Soon will storms its bloom destroy,
Soon will Autumn bid it fade.

Eagerly thy portion seize,
If thou would’st possess the fruit!
Fast begin to ripen these,
And the rest already shoot.
With each heavy storm of rain
Change comes o’er thy valley fair;
Once, alas! but not again
Can the same stream hold thee e’er.

And thyself, what erst at least
Firm as rocks appear’d to rise,
Walls and palaces thou seest
But with ever-changing eyes.
Fled forever now the lip
That with kisses used to glow,
And the foot, that used to skip
O’er the mountain, like the roe.

And the hand, so true and warm,
Ever rais’d in charity,
And the cunning-fashion’d form, —
All are now chang’d utterly.
And what used to bear thy name,
When upon yon spot it stood,
Like a rolling billow came,
Hast’ning on to join the flood.

Be then the beginning found
With the end in unison,
Swifter than the forms around
Are themselves now fleeting on!
Thank the merit in thy breast,
Thank the mould within thy heart,
That the Muses’ favor bless’d
Ne’er will perish, ne’er depart.

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TABLE SONG.

O’ER me, — how I cannot say, —
Heav’nly rapture’s growing.
Will it help to guide my way
To yon stars all-glowing?
Yet that here I’d sooner be,
To assert I’m able,
Where, with wine and harmony,
I may thump the table.

Wonder not, my dearest friends,
What ’tis gives me pleasure;
For of all that earth e’er lends,
’Tis the sweetest treasure.
Therefore solemnly I swear,
With no reservation,
That maliciously I’ll ne’er
Leave my present station.

Now that here we’re gather’d round,
Chasing cares and slumbers,
Let, methought, the goblet sound
To the bard’s glad numbers!
Many a hundred mile away,
Go those we love dearly;
Therefore let us here to-day
Make the glass ring clearly!

Here’s His health, through Whom we live!
I that faith inherit.
To our king the next toast give,
Honor is his merit,
‘Gainst each in- and outward foe
He’s our rock and tower.
Of his maintenance thinks he though,
More that grows his power.

Next to her good health I drink,
Who has stirr’d my passion;
Of his mistress let each think,
Think in knightly fashion.
If the beauteous maid but see
Whom ’tis I now call so,
Let her smiling nod to me:
“Here’s my love’s health also!”

To those friends, — the two or three, —
Be our next toast given,
In whose presence revel we,
In the silent even, —
Who the gloomy mist so cold
Scatter gently, lightly;
To those friends, then, new or old,
Let the toast ring brightly.

Broader now the stream rolls on,
With its waves more swelling,
While in higher, nobler tone,
Comrades, we are dwelling, —
We who with collected might,
Bravely cling together,
Both in fortune’s sunshine bright,
And in stormy weather.

Just as we are gather’d thus,
Others are collected;
On them, therefore, as on us,
Be Fate’s smile directed!
From the springhead to the sea,
Many a mill’s revolving,
And the world’s prosperity
Is the task I’m solving.

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WONT AND DONE.

I HAVE lov’d; for the first time with passion I rave!
I then was the servant, but now am the slave;
I then was the servant of all:
By this creature so charming I now am fast bound,
To love and love’s guerdon she turns all around,
And her my sole mistress I call.

I’ve had faith; for the first time my faith is now strong!
And though matters go strangely, though matters go wrong,
To the ranks of the faithful I’m true:
Though ofttimes ’twas dark and though oftimes ’twas drear,
In the pressure of need, and when danger was near,
Yet the dawning of light I now view.

I have eaten; but ne’er have thus relish’d my food!
For when glad are the senses, and joyous the blood,
At table all else is effac’d:
As for youth, it but swallows, then whistles an air;
As for me, to a jovial resort I’d repair,
Where to eat, and enjoy what I taste.

I have drunk; but have never thus relish’d the bowl!
For wine makes us lords, and enlivens the soul,
And loosens the trembling slave’s tongue.
Let’s seek not to spare then the heart-stirring drink,
For though in the barrel the old wine may sink,
In its place will fast mellow the young.

I have danc’d, and to dancing am pledg’d by a vow!
Though no caper or waltz may be rav’d about now,
In a dance that’s becoming, whirl round.
And he who a nosegay of flowers has dress’d,
And cares not for one any more than the rest,
With a garland of mirth is aye crown’d.

Then once more be merry, and banish all woes!
For he who but gathers the blossoming rose,
By its thorns will be tickl’d alone.
To-day still, as yesterday, glimmers the star;
Take care from all heads that hang down to keep far,
And make but the future thine own.

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GENERAL CONFESSION.

IN this noble ring to-day
Let my warning shame ye!
Listen to my solemn voice, —
Seldom does it name ye.
Many a thing have ye intended,
Many a thing have badly ended,
And now I must blame ye.

At some moment in our lives
We must all repent us!
So confess, with pious trust,
All your sins momentous!
Error’s crooked pathways shunning,
Let us, on the straight road running,
Honestly content us!

Yes! we’ve oft, when waking, dream’d,
Let’s confess it rightly;
Left undrain’d the brimming cup,
When it sparkl’d brightly;
Many a shepherd’s-hour’s soft blisses,
Many a dear mouth’s flying kisses
We’ve neglected lightly.

Mute and silent have we sat,
Whilst the blockheads prated,
And above e’en song divine
Have their babblings rated;
To account we’ve even call’d us
For the moments that enthrall’d us,
With enjoyment freighted.

If thou’lt absolution grant
To thy true ones ever,
We, to execute thy will,
Ceaseless will endeavor,
From half-measures strive to wean us,
Wholly, fairly, well demean us,
Resting, flagging never.

At all blockheads we’ll at once
Let our laugh ring clearly,
And the pearly-foaming wine
Never sip at merely.
Ne’er with eye alone give kisses,
But with boldness suck in blisses
From those lips lov’d dearly.

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COPTIC SONG.

LEAVE we the pedants to quarrel and strive,
Rigid and cautious the teachers to be!
All of the wisest men e’er seen alive
Smile, nod, and join in the chorus with me:
“Vain ’tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly, —
Children of wisdom, — remember the word!”

Merlin the old, from his glittering grave,
When I, a stripling, once spoke to him, — gave
Just the same answer as that I’ve preferr’d:
“Vain ’tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly, —
Children of wisdom, — remember the world!”

And on the Indian breeze as it booms,
And in the depths of Egyptian tombs,
Only the same holy saying I’ve heard:
“Vain ’tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly, —
Children of wisdom, — remember the world!”

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ANOTHER.

O! obedient to my call,
Turn to profit thy young days,
Wiser make betimes thy breast!
In Fate’s balance as it sways,
Seldom is the cock at rest;
Thou must either mount or fall,
Thou must either rule and win
Or submissively give in,
Triumph, or else yield to clamor:
Be the anvil or the hammer.

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VANITAS! VANITATUM VANITAS!

MY trust in nothing now is plac’d,
Hurrah!
So in the world true joy I taste,
Hurrah!
Then he who would be a comrade of mine
Must rattle his glass, and in chorus combine,
Over these dregs of wine.

I plac’d my trust in gold and wealth,
Hurrah!
But then I lost all joy and health,
Lack-a-day!
Both here and there the money roll’d,
And when I had it here, behold,
From there had fled the gold!

I plac’d my trust in women next,
Hurrah!
But there in truth was sorely vex’d,
Lack-a-day!
The False another portion sought,
The True with tediousness were fraught,
The Best could not be bought.

My trust in travels then I plac’d,
Hurrah!
And left my native land in haste,
Lack-a-day!
But not a single thing seem’d good,
The beds were bad, and strange the food,
And I not understood.

I plac’d my trust in rank and fame,
Hurrah!
Another put me straight to shame,
Lack-a-day!
And as I had been prominent,
All scowl’d upon me as I went,
I found not one content.

I plac’d my trust in war and fight,
Hurrah!
We gain’d full many a triumph bright,
Hurrah!
Into the foeman’s land we cross’d,
We put our friends to equal cost,
And there a leg I lost.

My trust is plac’d in nothing now,
Hurrah!
At my command the world must bow,
Hurrah!
And as we’ve ended feast and strain,
The cup we’ll to the bottom drain;
No dregs must there remain!

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SWISS SONG.

UP in the mountain
I was a-sitting,
With the bird there
As my guest,
Blithely singing,
Blithely springing,
And building
His nest.

In the garden
I was a-standing,
And the bee there
Saw as well,
Buzzing, humming,
Going, coming,
And building
His cell.

O’er the meadow
I was a-going,
And there saw the
Butterflies,
Sipping, dancing,
Flying, glancing,
And charming
The eyes.

And then came my
Dear Hansel,
And I show’d them
With glee,
Sipping, quaffing,
And he, laughing,
Sweet kisses
Gave me.

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FORTUNE OF WAR.

NOUGHT more accurs’d in war I know
Than getting off scot-free;
Inur’d to danger, on we go
In constant victory;
We first unpack, then pack again,
With only this reward,
That when we’re marching, we complain,
And when in camp, are bor’d.

The time for billeting comes next, —
The peasant curses it;
Each nobleman is sorely vex’d,
’Tis hated by the cit.
Be civil, bad though be thy food,
The clowns politely treat;
If to our hosts we’re ever rude,
Jail-bread we’re forc’d to eat.

And when the cannons growl around,
And small arms rattle clear,
And trumpet, trot, and drum resound,
We merry all appear;
And as it in the fight may chance,
We yield, then charge amain,
And now retire, and now advance,
And yet a cross ne’er gain.

At length there comes a musket-ball,
And hits the leg, please Heaven;
And then our troubles vanish all,
For to the town we’re driven,
(Well cover’d by the victor’s force,)
Where we in wrath first came, —
The women, frighten’d then, of course,
Are loving now and tame.

Cellar and heart are open’d wide,
The cook’s allow’d no rest;
While beds with softest down suppli’d
Are by our members press’d.
The nimble lads upon us wait,
No sleep the hostess takes;
Her shift is torn in pieces straight, —
What wondrous lint it makes!

If one has tended carefully
The hero’s wounded limb,
Her neighbor cannot rest, for she
Has also tended him.
A third arrives in equal haste,
At length they all are there,
And in the middle he is plac’d
Of the whole band so fair!

On good authority the king
Hears how we love the fight,
And bids them cross and ribbon bring,
Our coat and breast to dight.
Say if a better fate can e’er
A son of Mars pursue!
‘Midst tears at length we go from there,
Belov’d and honor’d too.

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OPEN TABLE.

MANY a guest I’d see to-day,
Met to taste my dishes!
Food in plenty is prepar’d,
Birds, and game, and fishes.
Invitations all have had,
All propos’d attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

Pretty girls I hope to see,
Dear and guileless misses,
Ignorant how sweet it is
Giving tender kisses.
Invitations all have had,
All propos’d attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

Women also I expect,
Loving tow’rd their spouses,
Whose rude grumbling in their breasts
Greater love but rouses.
Invitations they’ve had too,
All propos’d attending!
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

I’ve too ask’d young gentlemen,
Who are far from haughty,
And whose purses are well-stock’d,
Well-behav’d, not naughty.
These especially I ask’d,
All propos’d attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

Men I summon’d with respect,
Who their own wives treasure;
Who in ogling other Fair
Never take a pleasure.
To my greetings they replied,
All propos’d attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

Then to make our joy complete,
Poets I invited,
Who love other’s songs far more
Than what they’ve indited.
All acceded to my wish,
All propos’d attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?

Not a single one appears,
None seem this way posting.
All the soup boils fast away,
Joints are over-roasting.
Ah, I fear that we have been
Rather too unbending!
Johnny, tell me what you think!
None are hither wending.

Johnny, run and quickly bring
Other guests to me now!
Each arriving as he is —
That’s the plan, I see now.
In the town at once ’tis known,
Ev’ry one’s commending.
Johnny, open all the doors:
All are hither wending!

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THE RECKONING.

Leader.
LET no cares now hover o’er us!
Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?
Hast thou all thy duty done?

Solo.
Two young folks — the thing is curious —
Lov’d each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,
Next day, quite the deuce to pay!

If her neck she there was stooping,
He must here needs pull his hair.
I reviv’d their spirits drooping,
And they’re now a happy pair.
Chorus.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown’d.
Solo.
Why, young orphan, all this wailing?
“Would to heaven that I were dead!
For my guardian’s craft prevailing
Soon will make me beg my bread.”
Knowing well the rascal genus,
Into court I dragg’d the knave;
Fair the judges were between us,
And the maiden’s wealth did save.
Chorus.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown’d.
Solo.
To a little fellow, quiet,
Unpretending and subdu’d,
Has a big clown, running riot,
Been to-day extremely rude.
I bethought me of my duty,
And my courage swell’d apace,
So I spoil’d the rascal’s beauty,
Slashing him across the face.
Chorus.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown’d.
Solo.
Brief must be my explanation,
For I really have done nought.
Free from trouble and vexation,
I a landlord’s business bought.
There I’ve done, with all due ardor,
All that duty order’d me;
Each one ask’d me for the larder,
And there was no scarcity.
Chorus.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown’d.
Leader.
Each should thus make proclamation
Of what he did well to-day!
That’s the match whose conflagration
Should inflame our tuneful lay.
Let it be our precept ever
To admit no waverer here!
For to act the good endeavor,
None but rascals meek appear.
Chorus.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
We have now in rapture drown’d.
Trio.
Let each merry minstrel enter,
He’s right welcome to our hall!
’Tis but with the self-tormentor
That we are not liberal;
For we fear that his caprices,
That his eyebrows dark and sad,
That his grief that never ceases
Hide an empty heart, or bad.
Chorus.
No one now for wine shall languish!
Here no minstrel shall be found,
Who all sighs and groans of anguish,
Has not first in rapture drown’d!

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ERGO BIBAMUS!

FOR a praiseworthy object we’re now gather’d here,
So, brethren, sing: Ergo bibamus!
Tho’ talk may be hush’d, yet the glasses ring clear,
Remember then: Ergo bibamus!
In truth ’tis an old, ’tis an excellent word,
With its sound so befitting each bosom is stirr’d,
And an echo the festal hall filling is heard,
A glorious Ergo bibamus!

I saw mine own love in her beauty so rare,
And bethought me of: Ergo bibamus!
So I gently approach’d, and she let me stand there,
While I help’d myself, thinking: Bibamus!
And when she’s appeas’d, and will clasp you and kiss;
Or when those embraces and kisses ye miss,
Take refuge, till found is some worthier bliss,
In the comforting Ergo bibamus!

I am call’d by my fate far away from each friend;
Ye lov’d ones, then: Ergo bibamus!
With wallet light-laden from hence I must wend,
So double our Ergo bibamus!
Whate’er to his treasures the niggard may add,
Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had,
For gladness lends ever its charms to the glad,
So, brethren, sing: Ergo bibamus!

And what shall we say of to-day as it flies?
I thought but of: Ergo Bibamus!
’Tis one of those truly that seldom arise,
So again and again sing: Bibamus!
For joy through a wide-open portal it guides,
Bright glitter the clouds, as the curtain divides,
And a form, a divine one, to greet us in glides,
While we thunder our: Ergo bibamus!

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EPIPHANIAS.

THE three holy kings with their star’s bright ray, —
They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay;
They like to eat and drink away,
They eat and drink, but had rather not pay.

The three holy kings have all come here,
In number not four, but three they appear;
And if a fourth join’d the other three,
Increas’d by one their number would be.

The first am I, — the fair and the white,
I ought to be seen when the sun shines bright!
But, alas! with all my spices and myrrh,
No girl now likes me, — I please not her.

The next am I, — the brown and the long,
Known well to women, known well to song.
Instead of spices, ’tis gold I bear,
And so I’m welcome everywhere.

The last am I, — the black and small,
And fain would be right merry withal.
I like to eat and to drink full measure,
I eat and drink, and give thanks with pleasure.

The three holy kings are friendly and mild,
They seek the Mother, and seek the Child;
The pious Joseph is sitting by,
The ox and the ass on their litter lie.

We’re bringing gold, we’re bringing myrrh,
The women incense always prefer;
And if we have wine of a worthy growth,
We three to drink like six are not loth.

As here we see fair lads and lasses,
But not a sign of oxen or asses,
We know that we have gone astray
And so go further on our way.

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FINNISH SONG.

IF the lov’d one, the well-known one,
Should return as he departed,
On his lips would ring my kisses,
Though the wolf’s blood might have dy’d them;
And a hearty grasp I’d give him,
Though his finger-ends were serpents.

Wind! Oh, if thou hadst but reason,
Word for word in turns thou’dst carry,
E’en though some perchance might perish
‘Tween two lovers so far distant.

All choice morsels I’d dispense with,
Table-flesh of priests neglect too,
Sooner than renounce my lover,
Whom, in Summer having vanquish’d,
I in Winter tam’d still longer.

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GYPSY SONG.

IN the drizzling mist, with the snow high-pil’d,
In the Winter night, in the forest wild,
I heard the wolves with their ravenous howl,
I heard the screaming note of the owl:
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!

I shot, one day, a cat in a ditch —
The dear black cat of Anna the witch;
Upon me, at night, seven were-wolves came down,
Seven women they were, from out of the town.
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!

I knew them all; ay, I knew them straight;
First, Anna, then Ursula, Eve and Kate,
And Barbara, Lizzy and Bet as well;
And forming a ring, they began to yell:
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!

Then call’d I their names with angry threat:
“What would’st thou, Anna? What would’st thou, Bet?”
At hearing my voice, themselves they shook,
And howling and yelling, to flight they took.
Wille wau wau wau!
Wille wo wo wo!
Wito hu!

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Poems from Wilhelm Meister.

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MIGNON.

WHO never eat with tears his bread,
Who never through night’s heavy hours
Sat weeping on his lonely bed, —
He knows you not, ye heavenly powers!

Through you the paths of life we gain,
Ye let poor mortals go astray,
And then abandon them to pain, —
E’en here the penalty we pay.

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THE SAME.

MY grief no mortals know,
Except the yearning!
Alone, a prey to woe,
All pleasure spurning,
Up tow’rds the sky I throw
A gaze discerning.
He who my love can know
Seems ne’er returning;
With strange and fiery glow
My heart is burning.
My grief no mortals know,
Except the yearning!

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THE HARPER.

WHO gives himself to solitude,
Soon lonely will remain;
Each lives, each loves in joyous mood,
And leaves him to his pain.
Yes! leave me to my grief!
Were solitude’s relief
E’er granted me,
Alone I should not be.

A lover steals, on footstep light,
To learn if his love’s alone;
Thus o’er me steals, by day and night,
Anguish before unknown,
Thus o’er me steals deep grief.
Ah, when I find relief
Within the tomb so lonely,
Will rest be met with only!

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PHILINE.

SING no more in mournful tones
Of the loneliness of night;
For ’tis made, ye beauteous ones,
For all social pleasures bright.

As of old to man a wife
As his better half was given,
So the night is half our life,
And the fairest under heaven.

How can ye enjoy the day,
Which obstructs our rapture’s tide?
Let it waste itself away;
Worthless ’tis for aught beside.

But when in the darkling hours
From the lamp soft rays are glowing,
And from mouth to mouth sweet showers,
Now of jest, now love, are flowing, —

When the nimble, wanton boy,
Who so wildly spends his days,
Oft amid light sports with joy
O’er some trifling gift delays, —

When the nightingale is singing
Strains the lover holds so dear,
Though like sighs and wailings ringing
In the mournful captive’s ear, —

With what heart-emotion bless’d
Do ye hearken to the bell,
Wont of safety and of rest
With twelve solemn strokes to tell!

Therefore in each heavy hour,
Let this precept fill your heart:
O’er each day will sorrow lour,
Rapture ev’ry night impart.

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Ballads

Poets’ art is ever able
To endow with truth mere fable.

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MIGNON.

KNOW’ST thou the land where the fair citron blows,
Where the bright orange midst the foliage glows,
Where soft winds greet us from the azure skies,
Where silent myrtles, stately laurels rise,
Know’st thou it well?
’Tis there, ’tis there,
That I with thee, belov’d one, would repair!

Know’st thou the house? On columns rests its pile,
Its halls are gleaming, and its chambers smile,
And marble statues stand and gaze on me:
“Poor child! what sorrow hath befallen thee?”
Know’st thou it well?
’Tis there, ’tis there,
That I with thee, protector, would repair!

Know’st thou the mountain, and its cloudy bridge?
The mule can scarcely find the misty ridge;
In caverns dwells the dragon’s olden brood,
The frowning crag obstructs the raging flood.
Know’st thou it well?
’Tis there, ’tis there,
Our path lies — Father — thither, oh, repair!

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THE HARPER.

“WHAT tuneful strains salute mine ear
Without the castle walls?
Oh, let the song re-echo here,
Within our festal halls!”
Thus spake the king, the page out-hied;
The boy return’d; the monarch cried:
“Admit the old man yonder!”

“All hail, ye noble lords to-night!
All hail, ye beauteous dames!
Star plac’d by star! What heavenly sight!
Who e’er can tell their names?
Within this glittering hall sublime,
Be clos’d, mine eyes! ’tis not the time
For me to feast my wonder.”

The minstrel straightway clos’d his eyes,
And woke a thrilling tone;
The knights look’d on in knightly guise,
Fair looks tow’rd earth were thrown.
The monarch, ravish’d by the strain,
Bade them bring forth a golden chain,
To be his numbers’ guerdon.

“The golden chain give not to me,
But give the chain to those
In whose bold face we shiver’d see
The lances of our foes.
Or give it to thy chancellor there;
With other burdens he may bear
This one more golden burden.

“I sing, like birds of blithesome note,
That in the branches dwell;
The song that rises from the throat
Repays the minstrel well.
One boon I’d crave, if not too bold —
One bumper in a cup of gold
Be as my guerdon given.”

The bowl he rais’d, the bowl he quaff’d:
“Oh, drink, with solace fraught!
Oh, house thrice-bless’d, where such a draught
A trifling gift is thought!
When Fortune smiles, remember me,
And as I thank you heartily
As warmly thank ye Heaven!”

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BALLAD

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Of the Banished and Returning Count.

OH, enter, old minstrel, thou time-honor’d one!
We children are here in the hall all alone,
The portals we straightway will bar.
Our mother is praying, our father is gone
To the forest, on wolves to make war.
Oh, sing us a ballad, the tale then repeat,
‘Till brother and I learn it right;
We long have been hoping a minstrel to meet,
For children hear tales with delight.

“At midnight, when darkness its fearful veil weaves,
His lofty and stately old castle he leaves,
But first he has buried his wealth.
What figure is that in his arms one perceives,
As the Count quits the gateway by stealth?
O’er what is his mantle so hastily thrown?
What bears he along in his flight?
A daughter it is, and she gently sleeps on:” —
The children they hear with delight.

“The morning soon glimmers, the world is so wide,
In valleys and forests a home is suppli’d,
The bard in each village is cheer’d.
Thus lives he and wanders, while years onward glide,
And longer still waxes his beard;
But the maiden so fair in his arms grows amain,
‘Neath her star all-protecting and bright,
Secur’d in the mantle from wind and from rain” —
The children they hear with delight.

“And year upon year with swift footstep now steals,
The mantle it fades, many rents it reveals,
The maiden no more it can hold.
The father he sees her, what rapture he feels!
His joy cannot now be controll’d.
How worthy she seems of the race whence she springs,
How noble and fair to the sight!
What wealth to her dearly-lov’d father she brings!” —
The children they hear with delight.

“Then comes there a princely knight galloping by,
She stretches her hand out, as soon as he’s nigh,
But alms he refuses to give.
He seizes her hand, with a smile in his eye:
‘Thou art mine!’ he exclaims, ‘while I live!’
‘When thou know’st,’ cries the old man, ‘the treasure that’s there,
A princess thou’lt make her of right;
Betroth’d be she now, on this spot green and fair’ “ —
The children they hear with delight.

“So she’s bless’d by the priest on the hallowed place,
And she goes with a smiling but sorrowful face,
From her father she fain would not part.
The old man still wanders with ne’er-changing pace,
He covers with joy his sad heart.
So I think of my daughter, as years pass away,
And my grandchildren far from my sight;
I bless them by night, and I bless them by day” —
The children they hear with delight.

He blesses the children: a knocking they hear,
The father it is! They spring forward in fear,
The old man they cannot conceal —
“Thou beggar, would’st lure, then, my children so dear?
Straight seize him, ye vassals of steel!
To the dungeon most deep, with the fool-hardy knave!”
The mother from far hears the fight;
She hastens with flatt’ring entreaty to crave —
The children they hear with delight.

The vassals they suffer the Bard to stand there,
And mother and children implore him to spare,
The proud prince would stifle his ire,
‘Till driven to fury at hearing their prayer,
His smouldering anger takes fire:
“Thou pitiful race! Oh, thou beggarly crew!
Eclipsing my star, once so bright!
Ye’ll bring me destruction, ye sorely shall rue!” —
The children they hear with affright.

The old man still stands there with dignified mien,
The vassals of steel quake before him, I ween,
The Count’s fury increases in power;
“My wedded existence a curse long has been,
And these are the fruits from that flower!
’Tis ever denied, and the saying is true,
That to wed with the base-born is right;
The beggar has borne me a beggarly crew,” —
The children they hear with affright.

“If the husband, the father, thus treats you with scorn,
If the holiest bonds by him rashly are torn,
Then come to your father — to me!
The beggar may gladden life’s pathway forlorn,
Though aged and weak he may be.
This castle is mine! thou hast made it thy prey,
Thy people ’twas put me to flight;
The tokens I bear will confirm what I say” —
The children they hear with delight.

“The king who erst govern’d returneth again,
And restores to the Faithful the goods that were ta’en,
I’ll unseal all my treasures the while;
The laws shall be gentle, and peaceful thereign.”
The old man thus cries with a smile —
“Take courage, my son! all hath turn’d out for good,
And each hath a star that is bright,
Those the princess hath borne thee are princely in blood,” —
The children they hear with delight.

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THE VIOLET.

EXHALING sweet a violet stood,
Retiring, and of modest mood,
In truth, a violet fair.
Then came a youthful shepherdess,
And roam’d with sprightly joyousness,
And blithely woo’d
With carols sweet the air.

“Ah!” thought the violet, “had I been
For but the smallest moment e’en
Nature’s most beauteous flower,
‘Till gather’d by my love, and press’d,
When weary, ‘gainst her gentle breast,
For e’en, for e’en
One quarter of an hour!”

Alas! alas! the maid drew nigh,
The violet fail’d to meet her eye,
She crush’d the violet sweet.
It sank and died, yet murmur’d not:
“And if I die, oh, happy lot,
For her I die,
And at her very feet!”

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THE FAITHLESS BOY.

THERE was a wooer blithe and gay, —
A son of France was he, —
Who in his arms for many a day,
As though his bride were she,
A poor young maiden had caress’d,
And fondly kiss’d, and fondly press’d,
And then at length deserted.

When this was told the nut-brown maid,
Her senses straightway fled;
She laugh’d and wept, and vow’d and pray’d,
And presently was dead.
The hour her soul its farewell took,
The boy was sad, with terror shook,
Then sprang upon his charger.

He drove his spurs into his side,
And scour’d the country round;
But wheresoever he might ride,
No rest for him was found.
For seven long days and nights he rode,
It storm’d, the waters overflow’d,
It bluster’d, lighten’d, thunder’d.

On rode he through the tempest’s din,
Till he a building spied;
In search of shelter crept he in,
When he his steed had tied.
And as he grop’d his doubtful way,
The ground began to rock and sway, —
He fell a hundred fathoms.

When he recover’d from the blow,
He saw three lights pass by;
He sought in their pursuit to go,
The lights appear’d to fly.
They led his footsteps all astray,
Up, down, through many a narrow way
Through ruin’d desert cellars.

When lo! he stood within a hall,
A hundred guests sat there,
With hollow eyes, and grinning all;
They bade him taste the fare.
He saw his sweetheart ‘midst the throng,
Wrapp’d up in grave-clothes white and long;
She turn’d, and —

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THE ERL-KING.

WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp’d in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

“My son, wherefore seek’st thou thy face thus to hide?”
“Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?”
“My son, ’tis the mist rising over the plain.”

“Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh, come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.”

“My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?”
“Be calm, dearest child, ’tis thy fancy deceives;
’Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.”

“Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They’ll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep.”

“My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?”
“My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
’Tis the aged gray willows deceiving thy sight.”

“I love thee, I’m charm’d by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou’rt unwilling, then force I’ll employ.”
“My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last.”

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread, —
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

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JOHANNA SEBUS

THE dam breaks down, the ice-plain growls,
The floods arise, the water howls.
“I’ll bear thee, mother, across the swell,
’Tis not yet high, I can wade right well.”
“Remember us too! in what danger are we!
Thy fellow-lodger, and children three!
The trembling woman! — Thou’rt going away!”
She bears the mother across the spray.
“Quick! haste to the mound, and a while there wait,
I’ll soon return, and all will be straight.
The mound’s close by, and safe from the wet;
But take my goat too, my darling pet!”

The dam dissolves, the ice-plain growls,
The floods dash on, the water howls.
She places the mother safe on the shore;
Fair Susan then turns tow’rd the flood once more.
“Oh, whither? Oh, whither? The breadth fast grows,
Both here and there the water o’erflows.
Wilt venture, thou rash one, the billows to brave?”
“They shall, and they must be preserved from the wave!”

The dam disappears, the water growls,
Like ocean billows it heaves and howls.
Fair Susan returns by the way she had tried,
The waves roar around, but she turns not aside;
She reaches the mound, and the neighbor straight,
But for her and the children, alas, too late!

The dam disappear’d, like a sea it growls,
Round the hillock in circling eddies it howls.
The foaming abyss gapes wide, and whirls round,
The women and children are borne to the ground;
The horn of the goat by one is seiz’d fast,
But, ah, they all must perish at last!
Fair Susan still stands there, untouch’d by the wave;
The youngest, the noblest, oh, who now will save?
Fair Susan still stands there, as bright as a star,
But, alas! all hope, all assistance is far.
The foaming waters around her roar,
To save her, no bark pushes off from the shore.
Her gaze once again she lifts up to Heaven,
Then gently away by the flood she is driven.

No dam, no plain! to mark the place
Some straggling trees are the only trace.
The rushing water the wilderness covers,
Yet Susan’s image still o’er it hovers. —
The water sinks, the plains reappear.
Fair Susan’s lamented with many a tear, —
May he who refuses her story to tell,
Be neglected in life and in death as well!

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THE FISHERMAN.

THE waters rush’d, the waters rose,
A fisherman sat by,
While on his line in calm repose
He cast his patient eye.
And as he sat, and hearken’d there,
The flood was cleft in twain,
And, lo! a dripping mermaid fair
Sprang from the troubled main.

She sang to him, and spake the while:
“Why lurest thou my brood,
With human wit and human guile
From out their native flood?
Oh, could’st thou know how gladly dart
The fish across the sea,
Thou would’st descend, e’en as thou art,
And truly happy be!

“Do not the sun and moon with grace
Their forms in ocean lave?
Shines not with twofold charms their face,
When rising from the wave?
The deep, deep heavens, then lure thee not, —
The moist yet radiant blue, —
Not thine own form, — to tempt thy lot
‘Midst this eternal dew?”

The waters rush’d, the waters rose,
Wetting his naked feet;
As if his true love’s words were those,
His heart with longing beat.
She sang to him, to him spake she,
His doom was fix’d, I ween;
Half drew she him, and half sank he,
And ne’er again was seen.

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THE KING OF THULE.

IN Thule liv’d a monarch,
Still faithful to the grave,
To whom his dying mistress
A golden goblet gave.

Beyond all price he deem’d it,
He quaff’d it at each feast;
And, when he drain’d that goblet,
His tears to flow ne’er ceas’d.

And when he felt death near him,
His cities o’er he told,
And to his heir left all things,
But not that cup of gold.

A regal banquet held he
In his ancestral hall,
In yonder sea-wash’d castle,
‘Mongst his great nobles all.

There stood the aged reveller,
And drank his last life’s-glow,
Then hurl’d the holy goblet
Into the flood below.

He saw it falling, filling,
And sinking ‘neath the main,
His eyes then clos’d forever,
He never drank again.

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THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER.

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Song of the Imprisoned Count.

Count.
I KNOW a flower of beauty rare,
Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,
Were I not prison’d here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,
I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle’s walls so steep
I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,
The flower cannot be found.
Whoe’er would bring it to my sight,
Whether a vassal he, or knight,
My dearest friend I’d deem him.

The Rose.
I blossom fair, — thy tale of woes
I hear from ‘neath thy grate.
Thou doubtless meanest me, the rose,
Poor knight of high estate!
Thou hast in truth a lofty mind;
The queen of flowers is then enshrin’d,
I doubt not, in thy bosom.

Count.
Thy red, in dress of green array’d,
As worth all praise I hold;
And so thou’rt treasur’d by each maid,
Like precious stones or gold.
Thy wreath adorns the fairest face,
But still thou’rt not the flower whose grace
I honor here in silence.

The Lily.
The rose is wont with pride to swell,
And ever seeks to rise;
But gentle sweethearts love full well
The lily’s charms to prize.
The heart that fills a bosom true,
That is, like me, unsullied too,
My merit values duly.

Count.
In truth, I hope myself unstain’d,
And free from grievous crime;
Yet I am here a prisoner chain’d,
And pass in grief my time.
To me thou art an image sure
Of many a maiden, mild and pure,
And yet I know a dearer.

The Pink.
That must be me, the pink, who scent
The warder’s garden here;
Or wherefore is he so intent
My charms with care to rear?
My petals stand in beauteous ring,
Sweet incense all around I fling,
And boast a thousand colors.

Count.
The pink in truth we should not slight,
It is the gardener’s pride;
It now must stand expos’d to light,
Now in the shade abide.
Yet what can make the Count’s heart glow
Is no mere pomp of outward show;
It is a silent flower.

The Violet.
Here stand I, modestly half hid,
And fain would silence keep;
Yet since to speak I now am bid,
I’ll break my silence deep.
If, worthy Knight, I am that flower,
It grieves me that I have not power
To breathe forth all my sweetness.

Count.
The violet’s charms I prize indeed,
So modest ’tis, and fair,
And smells so sweet; yet more I need
To ease my heavy care.
The truth I’ll whisper in thine ear:
Upon these rocky heights so drear,
I cannot find the lov’d one.

The truest maiden ‘neath the sky
Roams near the stream below,
And breathes forth many a gentle sigh,
Till I from hence can go.
And when she plucks a flow’ret blue,
And says “Forget-me-not!” — I, too,
Though far away, can feel it.

Ay, distance only swells love’s might,
When fondly love a pair;
Though prison’d in the dungeon’s night,
In life I linger there;
And when my heart is breaking nigh,
“Forget-me-not!” is all I cry,
And straightway life returneth.

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SIR CURT’S WEDDING-JOURNEY.

WITH a bridegroom’s joyous bearing,
Mounts Sir Curt his noble beast,
To his mistress’ home repairing,
There to hold his wedding-feast;
When a threatening foe advances
From a desert, rocky spot;
For the fray they couch their lances,
Not delaying, speaking not.

Long the doubtful fight continues,
Victory then for Curt declares;
Conqueror, though with wearied sinews,
Forward on his road he fares.
When he sees, though strange it may be,
Something ‘midst the foliage move;
’Tis a mother, with her baby,
Stealing softly through the grove!

And upon the spot she beckons —
“Wherefore, love, this speed so wild?
Of the wealth thy storehouse reckons,
Hast thou nought to give thy child!”
Flames of rapture now dart through him,
And he longs for nothing more,
While the mother seemeth to him
Lovely as the maid of yore.

But he hears his servants blowing,
And bethinks him of his bride;
And ere long, while onward going,
Chances past a fair to ride;
In the booths he forthwith buys him
For his mistress many a pledge;
But, alas! some Jews surprise him,
And long-standing debts allege.

And the courts of justice duly
Send the knight to prison straight.
Oh, accursed story, truly!
For a hero, what a fate!

Can my patience such things weather?
Great is my perplexity.
Women, debts and foes together, —
Ah, no knight escapes scot free!

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WEDDING SONG.

THE tale of the Count our glad song shall record
Who had in this castle his dwelling,
Where now ye are feasting the new-married lord,
His grandson of whom we are telling.
The Count as Crusader had blazon’d his fame,
Through many a triumph exalted his name,
And when on his steed to his dwelling he came,
His castle still rear’d its proud head,
But servants and wealth had all fled.

’Tis true that thou, Count, hast return’d to thy home,
But matters are faring there ill.
The winds through the chambers at liberty roam,
And blow through the windows at will.
What’s best to be done in a cold autumn night?
Full many I’ve pass’d in more piteous plight;
The morn ever settles the matter aright.
Then quick, while the moon shines so clear,
To bed on the straw, without fear.

And whilst in a soft pleasing slumber he lay,
A motion he feels ‘neath his bed.
The rat, an he likes it, may rattle away!
Ay, had he but crumbs there outspread!
But lo! there appears a diminutive wight,
A dwarf ’tis, yet graceful, and bearing a light,
With orator-gestures that notice invite,
At the feet of the Count on the floor
Who sleeps not, though weary full sore.

“We’ve long been accustom’d to hold here our feast,
Since thou from thy castle first went;
And as we believ’d thou wert far in the East,
To revel e’en now we were bent.
And if thou’lt allow it, and seek not to chide,
We dwarfs will all banquet with pleasure and pride,
To honor the wealthy, the beautiful bride” —
Says the Count with a smile, half-asleep: —
“Ye’re welcome your quarters to keep!”

Three knights then advance, riding all in a group,
Who under the bed were conceal’d;
And then is a singing and noise-making troop
Of strange little figures reveal’d;
And wagon on wagon with all kinds of things —
The clatter they cause through the ear loudly rings —
The like ne’er was seen save in castles of kings;
At length, in a chariot of gold,
The bride and the guests too, behold!

Then all at full gallop make haste to advance,
Each chooses his place in the hall;
With whirling and waltzing, and light joyous dance,
They begin with their sweethearts the ball.
The fife and the fiddle all merrily sound,
They twine, and they glide, and with nimbleness bound,
They whisper, and chatter, and clatter around;
The Count on the scene casts his eye,
And seems in a fever to lie.

They hustle, and bustle, and rattle away
On table, on bench, and on stool;
Then all who had join’d in the festival gay
With their partners attempt to grow cool.
The hams and the sausages nimbly they bear,
And meat, fish and poultry in plenty are there,
Surrounded with wine of the vintage most rare;
And when they have revell’d full long,
They vanish at last with a song.
* * * * * *
And if we’re to sing all that further occurr’d,
Pray cease ye to bluster and prate;
For what he so gladly in small saw and heard,
He enjoy’d and he practis’d in great.
For trumpets, and singing, and shouts without end
On the bridal-train, chariots and horsemen attend,
They come and appear, and they bow and they bend,
In merry and countless array.
Thus was it, thus is it to-day.

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THE TREASURE-DIGGER.

ALL my weary days I pass’d
Sick at heart and poor in purse.
Poverty’s the greatest curse,
Riches are the highest good!
And to end my woes at last,
Treasure-seeking forth I sped.
“Thou shalt have my soul instead!”
Thus I wrote, and with my blood.

Ring round ring I forthwith drew,
Wondrous flames collected there,
Herbs and bones in order fair,
Till the charm had work’d aright.
Then, to learned precepts true,
Dug to find some treasure old,
In the place my art foretold:
Black and stormy was the night.

Coming o’er the distant plain,
With the glimmer of a star,
Soon I saw a light afar,
As the hour of midnight knell’d.
Preparation was in vain.
Sudden all was lighted up
With the lustre of a cup
That a beauteous boy upheld.

Sweetly seem’d his eyes to laugh
‘Neath his flow’ry chaplet’s load;
With the drink that brightly glow’d,
He the circle enter’d in.
And he kindly bade me quaff;
Then methought: “This child can ne’er,
With his gift so bright and fair,
To the arch-fiend be akin.”

“Pure life’s courage drink!” cried he:
“This advice to prize then learn, —
Never to this place return
Trusting in thy spells absurd;
Dig no longer fruitlessly.
Guests by night, and toil by day!
Weeks laborious, feast-days gay!
Be thy future magic-word!”

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THE RAT-CATCHER.

I AM the bard known far and wide,
The travell’d rat-catcher beside;
A man most needful to this town,
So glorious through its old renown.
However many rats I see,
How many weasels there may be,
I cleanse the place from ev’ry one,
All needs must helter-skelter run.

Sometimes the bard so full of cheer
As a child-catcher will appear,
Who e’en the wildest captive brings,
Whene’er his golden tales he sings.
However proud each boy in heart,
However much the maidens start,
I bid the chords sweet music make,
And all must follow in my wake.

Sometimes the skilful bard ye view
In form of maiden-catcher too;
For he no city enters e’er,
Without effecting wonders there.
However coy may be each maid,
Howe’er the women seem afraid,
Yet all will love-sick be ere long
To sound of magic lute and song.

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THE SPINNER.

AS I calmly sat and span,
Toiling with all zeal,
Lo! a young and handsome man
Pass’d my spinning-wheel.

And he prais’d, — what harm was there? —
Sweet the things he said —
Prais’d my flax-resembling hair,
And the even thread.

He with this was not content,
But must needs do more;
And in twain the thread was rent,
Though ’twas safe before.

And the flax’s stonelike weight
Needed to be told;
But no longer was its state
Valu’d as of old.

When I took it to the weaver,
Something felt I start,
And more quickly, as with fever,
Throbb’d my trembling heart.

Then I bear the thread at length
Through the heat, to bleach;
But, alas, I scarce have strength
To the pool to reach.

What I in my little room
Span so fine and slight, —
As was likely, I presume —
Came at last to light.

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BEFORE A COURT OF JUSTICE.

THE father’s name ye ne’er shall be told
Of my darling unborn life;
“Shame, shame,” ye cry, “on the strumpet bold!”
Yet I’m an honest wife.

To whom I’m wedded, ye ne’er shall be told,
Yet he’s both loving and fair;
He wears on his neck a chain of gold,
And a hat of straw doth he wear.

If scorn ’tis vain to seek to repel,
On me let the scorn be thrown.
I know him well, and he knows me well,
And to God, too, all is known.

Sir Parson and Sir Bailiff, again,
I pray you, leave me in peace!
My child it is, my child ‘twill remain,
So let your questionings cease!

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THE PAGE AND THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER.

Page.
WHERE goest thou? Where?
Miller’s daughter so fair!
Thy name, pray?

Miller’s Daughter.
’Tis Lizzy.

Page.
Where goest thou? Where?
With the rake in thy hand?

Miller’s Daughter.
Father’s meadows and land
To visit, I’m busy.

Page.
Dost go there alone?

Miller’s Daughter.
By this rake, sir, ’tis shown
That we’re making the hay;
And the pears ripen fast
In the garden at last,
So I’ll pick them to-day.

Page.
Is’t a silent thicket I yonder view?

Miller’s Daughter.
Oh, yes! there are two;
There’s one on each side.

Page.
I’ll follow thee soon;
When the sun burns at noon,
We’ll go there, ourselves from his rays to hide.
And then in some glade all-verdant and deep —

Miller’s Daughter.
Why, people would say —

Page.
Within mine arms thou gently wilt sleep.

Miller’s Daughter.
Your pardon, I pray!
Whoever is kiss’d by the miller-maid,
Upon the spot must needs be betray’d.
’Twould give me distress
To cover with white
Your pretty dark dress.
Equal with equal! then all is right!
That’s the motto in which I delight.
I am in love with the miller-boy;
He wears nothing that I could destroy.

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THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM.

Youth.
SAY, sparkling streamlet, whither thou
Art going!
With joyous mien thy waters now
Are flowing.
Why seek the vale so hastily?
Attend for once, and answer me!

Millstream.
Oh, youth, I was a brook indeed;
But lately
My bed they’ve deepen’d, and my speed
Swell’d greatly,
That I may haste to yonder mill,
And so I’m full and never still.

Youth.
The mill thou seekest in a mood
Contented,
And know’st not how my youthful blood
‘S tormented.
But doth the miller’s daughter fair
Gaze often on thee kindly there?

Millstream.
She opes the shutters soon as light
Is gleaming;
And comes to bathe her features bright
And beaming.
So full and snow-white is her breast, —
I feel as hot as steam suppress’d.

Youth.
If she in water can inflame
Such ardor,
Surely, then, flesh and blood to tame
Is harder.
When once is seen her beauteous face,
One ever longs her steps to trace.

Millstream.
Over the wheel I, roaring, bound,
All-proudly,
And ev’ry spoke whirls swiftly round,
And loudly.
Since I have seen the miller’s daughter,
With greater vigor flows the water.

Youth.
Like others, then, can grief, poor brook,
Oppress thee?
“Flow on!” — thus she’ll, with smiling look,
Address thee.
With her sweet loving glance, oh, say,
Can she thy flowing current stay?

Millstream.
’Tis sad, ’tis sad to have to speed
From yonder;
I wind, and slowly through the mead
Would wander;
And if the choice remain’d with me,
Would hasten back there presently.

Youth.
Farewell, thou who with me dost prove
Love’s sadness!
Perchance some day thou’lt breathe of love
And gladness.
Go, tell her straight, and often too,
The boy’s mute hopes and wishes true.

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THE MAID OF THE MILL’S TREACHERY.

WHENCE comes our friend so hastily,
When scarce the Eastern sky is gray?
Hath he just ceas’d, though cold it be,
In yonder holy spot to pray?
The brook appears to hem his path,
Would he barefooted o’er it go?
Why curse his orisons in wrath,
Across those heights beclad with snow?

Alas! his warm bed he hath left,
Where he had look’d for bliss, I ween;
And if his cloak too, had been reft,
How fearful his disgrace had been!
By yonder villain sorely press’d,
His wallet from him has been torn;
Our hapless friend has been undress’d, —
Left well nigh naked as when born.

The reason why he came this road,
Is that he sought a pair of eyes,
Which, at the mill, as brightly glow’d
As those that are in Paradise.
He will not soon again be there;
From out the house he quickly hied,
And when he gain’d the open air,
Thus bitterly and loudly cried: —

“Within her gaze, so dazzling bright,
No word of treachery I could read;
She seem’d to see me with delight,
Yet plann’d e’en then this cruel deed!
Could I, when basking in her smile,
Dream of the treason in her breast?
She bade kind Cupid stay awhile,
And he was there, to make us bless’d.

“To taste of love’s sweet ecstasy
Throughout the night, that endless seem’d,
And for her mother’s help to cry
Only when morning sunlight beam’d!
A dozen of her kith and kin,
A very human flood, in-press’d,
Her cousins came, her aunts peer’d in,
And uncles, brothers, and the rest.

“Then what a tumult, fierce and loud!
Each seem’d a beast of prey to be;
The maiden’s honor all the crowd,
With fearful shout, demand of me.
Why should they, madmen-like, begin
To fall upon a guiltless youth?
For he who such a prize would win,
Far nimbler needs must be, in truth.

“The way to follow up with skill
His freaks, by love betimes is known:
He ne’er will leave, within a mill,
Sweet flowers for sixteen years alone. —
They stole my clothes away, — yes, all!
And tried my cloak besides to steal.
How strange that any house so small
So many rascals could conceal!

“Then I sprang up, and rav’d and swore,
To force a passage through them there.
I saw the treacherous maid once more,
And she was still, alas, so fair!
They all gave way before my wrath,
Wild outcries flew about pell-mell;
At length I manag’d to rush forth,
With voice of thunder, from that hell.

“As maidens of the town we fly,
We’ll shun you maidens of the village!
Leave it to those of quality,
Their humble worshippers to pillage!
Yet if ye are of practis’d skill,
And of all tender ties afraid,
Exchange your lovers, if ye will,
But never let them be betray’d.”

Thus sings he in the winter-night,
While not a blade of grass was green.
I laugh’d to see his piteous plight,
For it was well-deserv’d, I ween.
And may this be the fate of all,
Who treat by day their true loves ill,
And, with foolhardy daring, crawl
By night to Cupid’s treacherous mill!

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THE MAID OF THE MILL’S REPENTANCE.

Youth.
AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth
From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,
Expel thee!
What’s this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden’s silent truth?
Who’ll trust to such a story!

Gypsy.
I sing of a maid’s repentant fears,
And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity’s chang’d to truth and tears
All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of her mother,
She dreads far less the blows of her brother,
Than the dearly-lov’d one’s hatred.

Youth.
Of selfishness sing and treacherous lies,
Of murder and thievish plunder!
Such actions false will cause no surprise,
Or wonder.
When they share their booty, both clothes and purse, —
As bad as you gypsies, and even worse,
Such tales find ready credence.

Gypsy.
“Alas, alas! oh, what have I done?
Can listening aught avail me?
I hear him toward my room hasten on,
To hail me.
My heart beat high, to myself I said:
‘O would that thou hadst never betray’d
That night of love to thy mother!’ “

Youth.
Alas! I foolishly ventur’d there,
For the cheating silence misled me;
Ah, sweetest! let me to thee repair, —
Nor dread me!
When suddenly rose a fearful din,
Her mad relations came pouring in;
My blood still boils in my body!

Gypsy.
“Oh, when will return an hour like this?
I pine in silent sadness;
I’ve thrown away my only true bliss
With madness.
Alas, poor maid! O pity my youth!
My brother was then full cruel in truth
To treat the lov’d one so basely!”

The Poet.
The swarthy woman then went inside,
To the spring in the courtyard yonder;
Her eyes from their stain she purified,
And, — wonder! —
Her face and eyes were radiant and bright,
And the maid of the mill was disclos’d to the sight
Of the startl’d and angry stripling!

The Maid of the Mill.
Thou sweetest, fairest, dearly-lov’d life!
Before thine anger I cower;
But blows I dread not, nor sharp-edg’d knife, —
This hour
Of sorrow and love to thee I’ll sing,
And myself before thy feet I’ll fling,
And either live or die there!

Youth.
Affection, say, why buried so deep
In my heart hast thou lain hidden?
By whom hast thou now to awake from thy sleep
Been bidden?
Ah, love, that thou art immortal I see!
Nor knavish cunning nor treachery
Can destroy thy life so godlike.

The Maid of the Mill.
If still, with as fond and heartfelt love,
As thou once didst swear, I’m cherish’d,
Then nought of the rapture we used to prove
Is perish’d.
So take the woman so dear to thy breast!
In her young and innocent charms be bless’d,
For all are thine from henceforward!

Both.
Now, sun, sink to rest! Now, sun, arise!
Ye stars, be now shining, now darkling!
A star of love now gleams in the skies,
All-sparkling!
As long as the fountain may spring and run,
So long will we two be blended in one,
Upon each other’s bosoms!

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THE TRAVELLER AND THE FARM-MAIDEN.

He.
CANST thou give, oh, fair and matchless maiden,
‘Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder, —
Where I’d fain one moment cease to wander,
Food and drink to one so heavy laden?

She.
Would’st thou find refreshment, traveller weary,
Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes, —
None but Nature’s plain and homely dishes, —
Near the spring may soothe thy wanderings dreary.

He.
Dreams of old acquaintance now pass through me,
Ne’er-forgotten queen of hours of blisses:
Likenesses I’ve often found, but this is
One that quite a marvel seemeth to me!

She.
Travellers often wonder beyond measure,
But their wonder soon see cause to smother;
Fair and dark are often like each other,
Both inspire the mind with equal pleasure.

He.
Not now for the first time I surrender
To this form, in humble adoration;
It was brightest midst the constellation
In the hall adorn’d with festal splendor.

She.
Be thou joyful that ’tis in my power
To complete thy strange and merry story!
Silks behind her, full of purple glory,
Floated, when thou saw’st her in that hour.

He.
No, in truth, thou hast not sung it rightly!
Spirits may have told thee all about it;
Pearls and gems they spoke of, do not doubt it, —
By her gaze eclips’d, — it gleam’d so brightly!

She.
This one thing I certainly collected:
That the fair one — (say nought, I entreat thee!)
Fondly hoping once again to meet thee,
Many a castle in the air erected.

He.
By each wind I ceaselessly was driven,
Seeking gold and honor, too, to capture!
When my wand’rings end, then oh, what rapture,
If to find that form again ’tis given!

She.
’Tis the daughter of the race now banish’d
That thou seest, not her likeness only;
Helen and her brother, glad though lonely,
Till this farm of their estate now vanish’d.

He.
But the owner surely is not wanting
Of these plains, with ev’ry beauty teeming?
Verdant fields, broad meads, and pastures gleaming,
Gushing springs, all heav’nly and enchanting.

She.
Thou must hunt the world through, would’st thou find him! —
We have wealth enough in our possession,
And intend to purchase the succession,
When the good man leaves the world behind him.

He.
I have learn’d the owrer’s own condition,
And, fair maiden, thou indeed canst buy it;
But the cost is great, I won’t deny it, —
Helen is the price, — with thy permission!

She.
Did then fate and rank keep us asunder,
And must Love take this road, and no other?
Yonder comes my dear and trusty brother;
What will he say to it all, I wonder?

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EFFECTS AT A DISTANCE.

THE queen in the lofty hall takes her place,
The tapers around her are flaming;
She speaks to the page: “With a nimble pace
Go, fetch me my purse for gaming.
’Tis lying, I’ll pledge,
On my table’s edge.”
Each nerve the nimble boy straineth,
And the end of the castle soon gaineth.

The fairest of maidens was sipping sherbet
Beside the queen that minute;
Near her mouth broke the cup, — and she got so wet!
The very devil seem’d in it!
What fearful distress!
’Tis spoil’d, her gay dress!
She hastens, and ev’ry nerve straineth,
And the end of the castle soon gaineth.

The boy was returning, and quickly came,
And met the sorrowing maiden;
None knew of the fact, — and yet with Love’s flame,
Those two had their hearts full laden.
And, oh, the bliss
Of a moment like this!
Each falls on the breast of the other,
With kisses that well nigh might smother.

They tear themselves asunder at last,
To her chamber she hastens quickly;
To reach the queen the page hies him fast,
Midst the swords and the fans crowded thickly.
The queen spied amain
On his waistcoat a stain;
For nought was inscrutable to her,
Like Sheba’s queen — Solomon’s wooer.

To her chief attendant she forthwith cried:
“We lately together contended,
And thou didst assert, with obstinate pride,
That the spirit through space never wended, —
That traces alone
By the present were shown, —
That afar nought was fashion’d, — not even
By the stars that illumine yon heaven.

“Now see! while a goblet beside me they drain’d,
They spill’d all the drink in the chalice;
And straightway the boy had his waistcoat stain’d
At the furthermost end of the palace. —
Let them newly be clad!
And since I am glad
That it serv’d as a proof so decided,
The cost will by me be provided.”

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THE WALKING BELL.

A CHILD refus’d to go betimes
To church like other people;
He roam’d abroad, when rang the chimes
On Sundays from the steeple.

His mother said: “Loud rings the bell,
Its voice ne’er think of scorning;
Unless thou wilt behave thee well,
‘Twill fetch thee without warning.”

The child then thought: “High overhead
The bell is safe suspended” —
So to the fields he straightway sped
As if ’twas school-time ended.

The bell now ceas’d as bell to ring,
Rous’d by the mother’s twaddle;
But soon ensu’d a dreadful thing! —
The bell begins to waddle.

It waddles fast, though strange it seem;
The child, with trembling wonder,
Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;
The bell would draw him under.

He finds the proper time at last,
And straightway nimbly rushes
To church, to chapel, hastening fast
Through pastures, plains and bushes.

Each Sunday and each feast as well,
His late disaster heeds he;
The moment that he hears the bell,
No other summons needs he.

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FAITHFUL ECKART.

“OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow’rd us hastily come,
The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They’ll drink, though with toil we have fetch’d it, the beer,
And leave us the pitchers all empty.”

Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in their sight:
“Be quiet, child! children, be quiet!
From hunting they come, and their thirst they would still,
So leave them to swallow as much as they will,
And the Evil Ones then will be gracious.”

As said, so ’twas done! and the phantoms draw near,
And shadowlike seem they, and gray they appear,
Yet blithely they sip and they revel:
The beer has all vanish’d, the pitchers are void;
With cries and with shouts the wild hunters, o’erjoy’d,
Speed onward o’er vale and o’er mountain.

The children in terror fly nimbly tow’rd home,
And with them the kind one is careful to come:
“My darlings, oh, be not so mournful!” —
“They’ll blame us and beat us, until we are dead.” —
“No, no! ye will find that all goes well,” he said;
“Be silent as mice, then, and listen!

“And he by whose counsels thus wisely ye’re taught,
Is he who with children loves ever to sport,
The trusty and faithful old Eckart.
Ye have heard of the wonder for many a day,
But ne’er had a proof of the marvellous lay, —
Your hands hold a proof most convincing.”

They arrive at their home, and their pitchers they place
By the side of their parents, with fear on their face,
Awaiting a beating and scolding.
But see what they’re tasting: the choicest of beer!
Though three times and four times they quaff the good cheer,
The pitchers remain still unemptied.

The marvel it lasts till the dawning of day;
All people who hear of it doubtless will say:
“What happen’d at length to the pitchers?”
In secret the children they smile, as they wait;
At last, though, they stammer, and stutter, and prate,
And straightway the pitchers were empty.

And if, children, with kindness address’d ye may be,
Whether father, or master, or alderman he,
Obey him, and follow his bidding!
And if ’tis unpleasant to bridle the tongue,
Yet talking is bad, silence good for the young —
And then will the beer fill your pitchers!

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THE PUPIL IN MAGIC.

I AM now, — what joy to hear it!
Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev’ry spirit
Do whate’er by me is bid;
I have watch’d with rigor
All he used to do,
And will now with vigor
Work my wonders too.

Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!

And now come, thou well-worn broom,
And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou hast ever serv’d as groom,
So fulfil my pleasure, sir!
On two legs now stand,
With a head on top;
Waterpail in hand,
Haste, and do not stop!

Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!

See! he’s running to the shore,
And has now attain’d the pool,
And with lightning speed once more
Comes here, with his bucket full!
Back he then repairs;
See how swells the tide!
How each pail he bears
Straightway is supplied!

Stop, for, lo!
All the measure
Of thy treasure
Now is right! —
Ah, I see it! woe, oh, woe!
I forget the word of might.

Ah, the word whose sound can straight
Make him what he was before!
Ah, he runs with nimble gait!
Would thou wert a broom once more!
Streams renew’d forever
Quickly bringeth he;
River after river
Rusheth on poor me!

Now no longer
Can I bear him;
I will snare him,
Knavish sprite!
Ah, my terror waxes stronger!
What a look! what fearful sight!

Oh, thou villain child of hell!
Shall the house through thee be drown’d?
Floods I see that wildly swell,
O’er the threshold gaining ground.

Wilt thou not obey,
Oh, thou broom accurs’d?
Be thou still, I pray,
As thou wert at first!

Will enough
Never please thee?
I will seize thee,
Hold thee fast,
And thy nimble wood so tough,
With my sharp axe split at last.

See, once more he hastens back!
Now, oh, Cobold, thou shalt catch it!
I will rush upon his track;
Crashing on him falls my hatchet.

Bravely done, indeed!
See, he’s cleft in twain!
Now from care I’m freed,
And can breathe again.

Woe, oh, woe!
Both the parts,
Quick as darts,
Stand on end,
Servants of my dreaded foe!
Oh, ye gods, protection send!

And they run! and wetter still
Grow the steps and grows the hall.
Lord and master, hear me call!
Ever seems the flood to fill,
Ah, he’s coming! see,
Great is my dismay!
Spirits rais’d by me
Vainly would I lay!

“To the side
Of the room
Hasten, broom,
As of old!
Spirits I have ne’er untied
Save to act as they are told.”

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THE DANCE OF DEATH.

THE warder looks down at the mid hour of night,
On the tombs that lie scatter’d below;
The moon fills the place with her silvery light,
And the churchyard like day seems to glow.
When see! first one grave, then another opes wide,
And women and men stepping forth are descried,
In cerements snow-white and trailing.

In haste for the sport soon their ankles they twitch,
And whirl round in dances so gay;
The young and the old, and the poor, and the rich,
But the cerements stand in their way;
And as modesty cannot avail them aught here,
They shake themselves all, and the shrouds soon appear
Scatter’d over the tombs in confusion.

Now waggles the leg, and now wriggles the thigh,
As the troop with strange gestures advance,
And a rattle and clatter anon rises high,
As of one beating time to the dance.
The sight to the warder seems wondrously queer,
When the villanous Tempter speaks thus in his ear:
“Seize one of the shrouds that lie yonder!”

Quick as thought it was done! and for safety he fled
Behind the church-door with all speed;
The moon still continues her clear light to shed
On the dance that they fearfully lead.
But the dancers at length disappear one by one,
And their shrouds, ere they vanish, they carefully don,
And under the turf all is quiet.

But one of them stumbles and shuffles there still,
And gropes at the graves in despair;
Yet ’tis by no comrade he’s treated so ill; —
The shroud he soon scents in the air.
So he rattles the door — for the warder ’tis well
That ’tis bless’d, and so able the foe to repel,
All cover’d with crosses in metal.

The shroud he must have, and no rest will allow,
There remains for reflection no time;
On the ornaments Gothic the wight seizes now,
And from point on to point hastes to climb.
Alas for the warder! his doom is decreed!
Like a long-legged spider, with ne’er-changing speed,
Advances the dreaded pursuer.

The warder he quakes, and the warder turns pale,
The shroud to restore fain had sought;
When the end, — now can nothing to save him avail, —
In a tooth form’d of iron is caught.
With vanishing lustre the moon’s race is run,
When the bell thunders loudly a powerful One,
And the skeleton falls, crush’d to atoms.

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THE BRIDE OF CORINTH.

ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,
Who in Athens liv’d, but hop’d that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,
As his father’s friend, kind courtesy.
Son and daughter, they
Had been wont to say
Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.

But can he that boon so highly priz’d,
Save ’tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptiz’d,
He and all of his are heathens yet.
For a newborn creed,
Like some loathsome weed,
Love and truth to root out oft will threat.

Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,
And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,
And conducts him to the room of state.
Wine and food are brought,
Ere by him besought;
Bidding him good-night, she leaves him straight.

But he feels no relish now, in truth,
For the dainties so profusely spread;
Meat and drink forgets the wearied youth,
And, still dress’d, he lays him on the bed.
Scarce are clos’d his eyes,
When a form in-hies
Through the open door with silent tread.

By his glimmering lamp discerns he now
How, in veil and garment white array’d,
With a black and gold band round her brow,
Glides into the room a bashful maid.
But she, at his sight,
Lifts her hand so white,
And appears as though full sore afraid.

“Am I,” cries she, “such a stranger here,
That the guest’s approach they could not name?
Ah, they keep me in my cloister drear,
Well nigh feel I vanquish’d by my shame.
On thy soft couch now
Slumber calmly thou!
I’ll return as swiftly as I came.”

“Stay, thou fairest maiden!” cries the boy,
Starting from his couch with eager haste:
“Here are Ceres’, Bacchus’ gifts of joy;
Amor bringest thou, with beauty grac’d!
Thou art pale with fear!
Lov’d one, let us here
Prove the raptures the Immortals taste.”

“Draw not nigh, O youth! afar remain!
Rapture now can never smile on me;
For the fatal step, alas! is ta’en,
Through my mother’s sick-bed phantasy.
Cur’d, she made this oath:
‘Youth and nature both
Shall henceforth to Heav’n devoted be.’

“From the house, so silent now, are driven
All the gods who reign’d supreme of yore;
One Invisible now rules in heaven,
On the cross a Saviour they adore.
Victims slay they here,
Neither lamb nor steer,
But the altars reek with human gore.”

And he lists, and ev’ry word he weighs,
While his eager soul drinks in each sound:
“Can it be that now before my gaze
Stands my lov’d one on this silent ground?
Pledge to me thy troth!
Through our father’s oath,
With Heav’n’s blessing will our love be crown’d.”

“Kindly youth, I never can be thine!
’Tis my sister they intend for thee.
When I in the silent cloister pine,
Ah, within her arms remember me!
Thee alone I love,
While love’s pangs I prove;
Soon the earth will veil my misery.”

“No! for by this glowing flame I swear,
Hymen hath himself propitious shown:
Let us to my father’s house repair,
And thou’lt find that joy is not yet flown.
Sweetest, here then stay,
And without delay
Hold we now our wedding-feast alone!”

Then exchange they tokens of their truth;
She gives him a golden chain to wear,
And a silver chalice would the youth
Give her in return of beauty rare.
“That is not for me;
Yet I beg of thee,
One lock only give me of thy hair.”

Now the ghostly hour of midnight knell’d,
And she seem’d right joyous at the sign;
To her pallid lips the cup she held,
But she drank of nought but blood-red wine.
For to taste the bread
There before them spread,
Nought he spoke could make the maid incline.

To the youth the goblet then she brought, —
He too quaff’d with eager joy the bowl.
Love to crown the silent feast he sought,
Ah! full love-sick was the stripling’s soul.
From his prayer she shrinks,
Till at length he sinks
On the bed and weeps without control.

And she comes, and lays her near the boy:
“How I grieve to see thee sorrowing so!
If thou think’st to clasp my form with joy,
Thou must learn this secret sad to know:
Yes! the maid, whom thou
Call’st thy lov’d one now,
Is as cold as ice, though white as snow.”

Then he clasps her madly in his arm,
While love’s youthful might pervades his frame:
“Thou might’st hope, when with me, to grow warm,
E’en if from the grave thy spirit came!
Breath for breath, and kiss!
Overflow of bliss!
Dost not thou, like me, feel passion’s flame?”

Love still closer rivets now their lips,
Tears they mingle with their rapture blest,
From his mouth the flame she wildly sips,
Each is with the other’s thought possess’d.
His hot ardor’s flood
Warms her chilly blood,
But no heart is beating in her breast.

From the door she will not now remove,
‘Till she gains full certainty of this;
And with anger hears she vows of love,
Soft caressing words of mutual bliss.
“Hush! the cock’s loud strain!
But thou’lt come again,
When the night returns!” — then kiss on kiss.

In her care to see that nought went wrong,
Now the mother happen’d to draw near;
At the door long hearkens she, full long,
Wond’ring at the sounds that greet her ear.
Tones of joy and sadness,
And love’s blissful madness,
As of bride and bridegroom they appear.

Then her wrath the mother cannot hold,
But unfastens straight the lock with ease: —
“In this house are girls become so bold,
As to seek e’en strangers’ lusts to please?”
By her lamp’s clear glow
Looks she in, — and oh!
Sight of horror! — ’tis her child she sees.

Fain the youth would, in his first alarm,
With the veil that o’er her had been spread,
With the carpet, shield his love from harm;
But she casts them from her, void of dread,
And with spirit’s strength,
In its spectre length,
Lifts her figure slowly from the bed.

“Mother! mother!” — Thus her wan lips say:
“May not I one night of rapture share?
From the warm couch am I chas’d away?
Do I waken only to despair?
It contents not thee
To have driven me
An untimely shroud of death to wear?

“But from out my coffin’s prison-bounds
By a wondrous fate I’m forc’d to rove,
While the blessings and the chaunting sounds
That your priests delight in, useless prove.
Water, salt, are vain
Fervent youth to chain,
Ah, e’en Earth can never cool down love!

“When that infant vow of love was spoken,
Venus’ radiant temple smiled on both.
Mother! thou that promise since hast broken,
Fetter’d by a strange, deceitful oath.
Gods, though, hearken ne’er,
Should a mother swear
To deny her daughter’s plighted troth.

“From my grave to wander I am forc’d,
Still to seek The Good’s long-sever’d link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,
And the life-blood of his heart to drink;
When his race is run,
I must hasten on,
And the young must ‘neath my vengeance sink.

“Beauteous youth! no longer may’st thou live;
Here must shrivel up thy form so fair;
Did not I to thee a token give,
Taking in return this lock of hair?
View it to thy sorrow!
Gray thou’lt be to-morrow,
Only to grow brown again when there.

“Mother, to this final prayer give ear!
Let a funeral pile be straightway dress’d;
Open then my cell so sad and drear,
That the flames may give the lovers rest!
When ascends the fire
From the glowing pyre,
To the gods of old we’ll hasten, bless’d.”

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THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE.

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An Indian Legend.

MAHADEVA, Lord of earth,
For the sixth time comes below,
As a man of mortal birth, —
Like him, feeling joy and woe.
Hither loves he to repair,
And his power behind to leave;
If to punish or to spare,
Men as man he’d fain perceive.
And when he the town as a trav’ller hath seen,
Observing the mighty, regarding the mean,
He quits it, to go on his journey, at eve.

He was leaving now the place,
When an outcast met his eyes, —
Fair in form, with painted face, —
Where some straggling dwellings rise.
“Maiden, hail!” — ”Thanks! welcome here!
Stay! — I’ll join thee in the road.” —
“Who art thou!” — ”A Bayadere,
And this house is love’s abode.”
The cymbal she hastens to play for the dance,
Well skill’d in its mazes the sight to entrance,
Then by her with grace is the nosegay bestow’d.

Then she draws him, as in play,
O’er the threshold eagerly:
“Beauteous stranger, light as day
Thou shalt soon this cottage see.
I’ll refresh thee, if thou’rt tir’d,
And will bathe thy weary feet;
Take whate’er by thee’s desir’d,
Toying, rest, or rapture sweet.” —
She busily seeks his feign’d suff’rings to ease;
Then smiles the Immortal; with pleasure he sees
That with kindness a heart so corrupted can beat.

And he makes her act the part
Of a slave; he’s straight obey’d.
What at first had been but art,
Soon is nature in the maid.
By degrees the fruit we find,
Where the buds at first obtain;
When obedience fills the mind,
Love will never far remain.
But sharper and sharper the maiden to prove,
The Discerner of all things below and above,
Feigns pleasure, and horror, and maddening pain.

And her painted cheeks he kisses,
And his vows her heart enthral;
Feeling love’s sharp pangs and blisses,
Soon her tears begin to fall.
At his feet she now must sink,
Not with thoughts of lust or gain, —
And her slender members shrink,
And devoid of power remain.
And so the bright hours with gladness prepare
Their dark, pleasing veil of a texture so fair,
And over the couch softly, tranquilly reign.

Late she falls asleep, thus bless’d, —
Early wakes, her slumbers fled,
And she finds the much-lov’d guest
On her bosom lying dead.
Screaming falls she on him there,
But, alas, too late to save!
And his rigid limbs they bear
Straightway to their fiery grave.
Then hears she the priests and the funeral song,
Then madly she runs, and she severs the throng:
“Why press tow’rd the pile thus? Why scream thus, and rave?”

Then she sinks beside his bier,
And her screams through air resound:
“I must seek my spouse so dear,
E’en if in the grave he’s bound.
Shall those limbs of grace divine
Fall to ashes in my sight?
Mine he was! Yes, only mine!
Ah, one single blissful night!”
The priests chaunt in chorus: “We bear out the old,
When long they’ve been weary, and late they’ve grown cold;
We bear out the young, too, so thoughtless and light.

“To thy priests’ commands give ear!
This one was thy husband ne’er;
Live still as a Bayadere,
And no duty thou need’st share.
To death’s silent realms from life,
None but shades attend man’s frame,
With the husband, none but wife, —
That is duty, that is fame.
Ye trumpets, your sacred lament haste to raise!
Oh, welcome, ye gods, the bright lustre of days!
Oh, welcome to heaven the youth from the flame!”

Thus increas’d her torments are
By the cruel, heartless quire;
And with arms outstretching far
Leaps she on the glowing pyre.
But the youth divine outsprings
From the flame with heav’nly grace,
And on high his flight he wings,
While his arms his love embrace.
In the sinner repentant the Godhead feels joy;
Immortals delight thus their might to employ,
Lost children to raise to a heavenly place.

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THE PARIAH.

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The Pariah’s Prayer.

DREADED Brama, lord of might!
All proceed from thee alone;
Thou art he who judgeth right!
Dost thou none but Brahmins own?
Do but Rajahs come from thee?
None but those of high estate?
Didst not thou the ape create,
Aye, and even such as we?

We are not of noble kind,
For with woe our lot is rife;
And what others deadly find
Is our only source of life.
Let this be enough for men,
Let them, if they will, despise us;
But thou, Brama, thou should’st prize us,
All are equal in thy ken.

Now that, Lord, this prayer is said,
As thy child acknowledge me;
Or let one be born instead,
Who may link me on to thee!
Didst not thou a Bayadere
As a goddess heavenward raise?
And we too, to swell thy praise,
Such a miracle would hear.

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LEGEND.

WATER-FETCHING goes the noble
Brahmin’s wife, so pure and lovely;
He is honor’d, void of blemish,
And of justice rigid, stern.
Daily from the sacred river
Brings she back refreshment precious; —
But where is the pail and pitcher?
She of neither stands in need.
For with pure heart, hands unsullied,
She the water lifts, and rolls it
To a wondrous ball of crystal;
This she bears with gladsome bosom,
Modestly, with graceful motion,
To her husband in the house.

She to-day at dawn of morning
Praying comes to Ganges’ waters,
Bends her o’er the glassy surface —
Sudden, in the waves reflected,
Flying swiftly far above her,
From the highest heavens descending,
She discerns the beauteous form
Of a youth divine, created
By the God’s primeval wisdom
In his own eternal breast.
When she sees him, straightway feels she
Wondrous, new, confus’d sensations

In her inmost, deepest being;
Fain she’d linger o’er the vision,
Then repels it, — it returneth, —
And, perplex’d, she bends her floodwards
With uncertain hands to draw it;
But, alas, she draws no more!
For the water’s sacred billows
Seem to fly, to hasten from her;
She but sees the fearful chasm
Of a whirlpool black disclos’d.

Arms drop down, and footsteps stumble,
Can this be the pathway homewards?
Shall she fly, or shall she tarry?
Can she think, when thought and counsel,
When assistance, all are lost?
So before her spouse appears she —
On her looks he — look is judgment —
Proudly on the sword he seizes,
To the hill of death he drags her,
Where delinquents’ blood pays forfeit.
What resistance could she offer?
What excuses could she proffer,
Guilty, knowing not her guilt?

And with bloody sword returns he,
Musing, to his silent dwelling,
When his son before him stands:
“Whose this blood? Oh, father! father!”
“The delinquent woman’s!” — ”Never!
For upon the sword it dries not,
Like the blood of the delinquent;
Fresh it flows, as from the wound.
Mother! mother! hither hasten!
Unjust never was my father,
Tell me what he now hath done.” —
“Silence! silence! hers the blood is!”
“Whose, my father?” — ”Silence! Silence!”
“What! oh, what! my mother’s blood!
What her crime? What did she? Answer!
Now, the sword! the sword now hold I;
Thou thy wife perchance might’st slaughter,
But my mother might’st not slay!
Through the flames the wife is able
Her beloved spouse to follow,
And his dear and only mother
Through the sword her faithful son.”
“Stay! oh, stay!” exclaim’d the father:
“Yet ’tis time, so hasten, hasten!
Join the head upon the body,
With the sword then touch the figure,
And, alive, she’ll follow thee.”

Hastening, he, with breathless wonder,
Sees the bodies of two women
Lying crosswise, and their heads too;
Oh, what horror! which to choose!
Then his mother’s head he seizes, —
Does not kiss it, deadly pale ’tis, —
On the nearest headless body
Puts it quickly, and then blesses
With the sword the pious work.
Then a giant form uprises. —
From the dear lips of his mother,
Lips all godlike — changeless — blissful,
Sound these words with horror fraught:
“Son, O son! what overhast’ning!
Yonder is thy mother’s body,
Near it lies the impious head
Of the woman who hath fallen
Victim to the judgment-sword!
To her body I am grafted
By thy hand for endless ages;
Wise in counsel, wild in action,
I shall be amongst the gods.
E’en the heav’nly boy’s own image,
Though in brow and eye so lovely,
Sinking downwards to the bosom
Mad and raging lust will stir.

“ ‘Twill return again forever,
Ever rising, ever sinking,
Now obscur’d, and now transfigur’d, —
So great Brama hath ordain’d.
He ’twas sent the beauteous pinions,
Radiant face, and slender members
Of the only God-begotten,
That I might be prov’d and tempted;
For from high descends temptation,
When the gods ordain it so.
And so I, the Brahmin woman,
With my head in heaven reclining,
Must experience, as a Pariah,
The debasing power of earth.

“Son, I send thee to thy father!
Comfort him! Let no sad penance,
Weak delay, or thought of merit,
Hold thee in the desert fast;
Wander on through ev’ry nation,
Roam abroad throughout all ages,
And proclaim to e’en the meanest,
That great Brama hears his cry!

“None is in his eyes the meanest —
He whose limbs are lame and palsied,
He whose soul is wildly riven,
Worn with sorrow, hopeless, helpless,
Be he Brahmin, be he Pariah,
If tow’rd heaven he turns his gaze,
Will perceive, will learn to know it:
Thousand eyes are glowing yonder,
Thousand ears are calmly list’ning,
From which nought below is hid.

“If I to his throne soar upward,
If he sees my fearful figure
By his might transform’d to horror,
He forever will lament it, —
May it to your good be found!
And I now will kindly warn him,
And I now will madly tell him
Whatsoe’er my mind conceiveth,
What within my bosom heaveth.
But my thoughts, my inmost feelings —
Those a secret shall remain.”

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THE PARIAH’S THANKS.

MIGHTY Brama, now I’ll bless thee!
’Tis from thee that worlds proceed!
As my ruler I confess thee,
For of all thou takest heed.

All thy thousand ears thou keepest
Open to each child of earth;
We, ‘mongst mortals sunk the deepest,
Have from thee receiv’d new birth.

Bear in mind the woman’s story,
Who, through grief, divine became;
Now I’ll wait to view His glory,
Who omnipotence can claim.

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THE FIRST WALPURGIS-NIGHT.

A Druid.
SWEET smiles the May!
The forest gay
From frost and ice is freed;
No snow is found,
Glad songs resound
Across the verdant mead.
Upon the height
The snow lies light,
Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father’s name,
Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Thus pure the heart will grow.

The Druids.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Extol we now our Father’s name,
Whom we for ages know!
Up, up, then, let us go!

One of the People.
Would ye, then, so rashly act?
Would ye instant death attract?
Know ye not the cruel threats
Of the victors we obey?
Round about are plac’d their nets
In the sinful heathen’s way.
Ah! upon the lofty wall
Wife and children slaughter they;
And we all
Hasten to a certain fall.

Chorus of Women.
Ay, upon the camp’s high wall
All our children lov’d they slay.
Ah, what cruel victors they!
And we all
Hasten to a certain fall.

A Druid.
Who fears to-day
His rites to pay,
Deserves his chains to wear.
The forest’s free!
This wood take we,
And straight a pile prepare!
Yet in the wood
To stay ’tis good
By day, till all is still,
With watchers all around us plac’d,
Protecting you from ill.
With courage fresh, then, let us haste
Our duties to fulfil.

Chorus of Watchers.
Ye valiant watchers, now divide
Your numbers through the forest wide,
And see that all is still,
While they their rites fulfil.

A Watcher.
Let us, in a cunning wise,
Yon dull Christian priests surprise!
With the devil of their talk
We’ll those very priests confound.
Come with prong, and come with fork,
Raise a wild and rattling sound
Through the livelong night, and prowl
All the rocky passes round.
Screech-owl, owl,
Join in chorus with our howl!

Chorus of Watchers.
Come with prong, and come with fork
Like the devil of their talk,
And with wildly rattling sound,
Prowl the desert rocks around!
Screech-owl, owl,
Join in chorus with our howl!

A Druid.
Thus far ’tis right,
That we by night
Our Father’s praises sing;
Yet when ’tis day,
To Thee we may
A heart unsullied bring.
’Tis true that now,
And often, Thou
Fav’rest the foe in fight.
As from the smoke is freed the blaze,
So let our faith burn bright!
And if they crush our olden ways,
Who e’er can crush Thy light?

A Christian Watcher.
Comrades, quick! your aid afford!
All the brood of hell’s abroad:
See how their enchanted forms
Through and through with flames are glowing!
Dragon-women, men-wolf swarms,
On in quick succession going!
Let us, let us haste to fly!
Wilder yet the sounds are growing,
And the arch-fiend roars on high;
From the ground
Hellish vapors rise around.

Chorus of Christian Watchers.
Terrible enchanted forms,
Dragon-women, men-wolf swarms!
Wilder yet the sounds are growing!
See, the arch-fiend comes, all-glowing!
From the ground
Hellish vapors rise around.

Chorus of Druids.
As from the smoke is freed the blaze,
So let our faith burn bright!
And if they crush our olden ways,
Who e’er can crush Thy light?

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DEATH-LAMENT OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA.

WHAT is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hasten’d.
Snow, in truth, it is not, swans it is not;
’Tis the shining tents of Asan Aga.
He within is lying, sorely wounded;
To him come his mother and his sister;
Bashfully his wife delays to come there.

When the torment of his wounds had lessen’d,
To his faithful wife he sent this message:
“At my court no longer dare to tarry,
At my court, or e’en amongst my people.”

When the woman heard this cruel message,
Mute and full of sorrow stood that true one.
At the doors she hears the feet of horses,
And bethinks that Asan comes, — her husband,
To the tower she springs, to leap thence head-long.
Her two darling daughters follow sadly,
And whilst weeping bitter tears, exclaim they:
“These are not our father Asan’s horses;
’Tis thy brother Pintorowich coming!”

So the wife of Asan turns to meet him,
Clasps her arms in anguish round her brother:
“See thy sister’s sad disgrace, O brother!
How I’m banish’d — mother of five children!”
Silently her brother from his wallet,
Wrapp’d in deep red silk, and ready written,
Draweth forth the letter of divorcement,
To return home to her mother’s dwelling,
Free to be another’s wife thenceforward.

When the woman saw that mournful letter,
Fervently she kiss’d her two sons’ foreheads,
And her two girls’ cheeks with fervor kiss’d she.
But she from the suckling in the cradle
Could not tear herself, so deep her sorrow!

So she’s torn thence by her fiery brother;
On his nimble steed he lifts her quickly,
And so hastens, with the heart-sad woman,
Straightway tow’rd his father’s lofty dwelling.

Short the time was — seven days had pass’d not,
Yet enough ’twas; many mighty princes
Sought the woman in her widow’s mourning,
Sought the woman, — as their wife they sought her.

And the mightiest was Imoski’s Cadi,
And the woman weeping begg’d her brother:
“By thy life, my brother, I entreat thee,
Let me not another’s wife be ever,
Lest my heart be broken at the image
Of my poor, my dearly-cherish’d children!”

To her prayer her brother would not hearken,
Fix’d to wed her to Imoski’s Cadi.
Yet the good one ceaselessly implor’d him:
“Send, at least a letter, O my brother,
With this message to Imoski’s Cadi:
‘The young widow sends thee friendly greeting;
Earnestly she prays thee, through this letter,
That, when thou com’st hither, with thy Suatians,
A long veil thou’lt bring me, ‘neath whose shadow
I may hide, when near the house of Asan,
And not see my dearly-cherish’d orphans.’ “

Scarcely had the Cadi read this letter,
Than he gather’d all his Suatians round him,
And then tow’rd the bride his course directed,
And the veil she ask’d for, took he with him.

Happily they reach’d the princess’ dwelling,
From the dwelling happily they led her.
But when they approach’d the house of Asan,
Lo! the children saw from high their mother,
And they shouted: “To thy halls return thou!
Eat thy supper with thy darling children!”
Mournfully the wife of Asan heard it,
Tow’rd the Suatian prince then turn’d she, saying:
“Let, I pray, the Suatians and the horses
At the lov’d ones’ door a short time tarry,
That I may give presents to my children.”

And before the lov’d ones’ door they tarried,
And she presents gave to her poor children,
To the boys gave gold-embroider’s buskins,
To the girls gave long and costly dresses,
To the suckling, helpless in the cradle,
Gave a garment, to be worn hereafter.

This aside saw Father Asan Aga, —
Sadly cried he to his darling children:
“Hither come, ye dear unhappy infants,
For your mother’s breast is turn’d to iron,
Lock’d forever, clos’d to all compassion!”

When the wife of Asan heard him speak thus,
On the ground, all pale and trembling, fell she,
And her spirit fled her sorrowing bosom
When she saw her children flying from her.

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Antiques

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LEOPOLD, DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.

1785.

THOU wert forcibly seiz’d by the hoary lord of the river, —
Holding thee, ever he shares with thee his streaming domain.
Calmly sleepest thou near his urn as it silently trickles,
Till thou to action art rous’d, wak’d by the swift-rolling flood.
Kindly be to the people, as when thou still wert a mortal,
Perfecting that as a god, which thou didst fail in, as man.

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TO THE HUSBANDMAN.

SMOOTHLY and lightly the golden seed by the furrow is cover’d;
Yet will a deeper one, friend, cover thy bones at the last.
Joyously plough’d and sow’d! Here food all living is budding,
E’en from the side of the tomb Hope will not vanish away.

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ANACREON’S GRAVE.

HERE where the roses blossom, where vines round the laurels are twining,
Where the turtle-dove calls, where the blithe cricket is heard,
Say, whose grave can this be, with life by all the Immortals
Beauteously planted and deck’d? — Here doth Anacreon sleep!
Spring and summer and autumn rejoic’d the thrice-happy minstrel,
And from the winter this mound kindly hath screen’d him at last.

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THE BRETHREN.

SLUMBER and Sleep, two brethren ordain’d by the gods to their service,
Were by Prometheus implor’d, comfort to give to his race;
But though so light to the gods, too heavy for man was their burden,
We in their slumber find sleep, we in their sleep meet with death.

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MEASURE OF TIME.

EROS, what mean’st thou by this? In each of thine hands is an hourglass!
What, O thou frivolous god! twofold thy measure of time?
Slowly run from [Editor: illegible word] the hours of lovers when parted;
While through the other they rush swiftly, as soon as they meet.”

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WARNING.

WAKEN not Amor from sleep! The beauteous urchin still slumbers;
Go, and complete thou the task, that to the day is assign’d!
Thus doth the prudent mother with care turn time to her profit,
While her babe is asleep, for ‘twill awake but too soon.

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SAKÓNTALA.

WOULD’ST thou the blossoms of spring, as well as the fruits of the autumn,
Would’st thou what charms and delights, would’st thou what plenteously feeds,
Would’st thou include both heaven and earth in one designation,
All that is needed is done, when I Sakóntala name.

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SOLITUDE.

O ye kindly nymphs, who dwell ‘mongst the rocks and the thickets,
Grant unto each whatsoe’er he may in silence desire!
Comfort impart to the mourner, and give to the doubter instruction,
And let the lover rejoice, finding the bliss that he craves.
For from the gods ye receiv’d what they ever denied unto mortals,
Power to comfort and aid all who in you may confide.

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THE CHOSEN CLIFF.

HERE in silence the lover fondly mus’d on his lov’d one;
Gladly he spake to me thus: “Be thou my witness, thou stone!
Yet thou must not be vainglorious, thou hast many companions;
Unto each rock on the plain, where I, the happy one, dwell,
Unto each tree of the wood that I cling to, as onward I ramble,
‘Be thou a sign of my bliss!’ shout I, and then ’tis ordain’d.
Yet to thee only I lend a voice, as a Muse from the people
Chooseth one for herself, kissing his lips as a friend.”

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THE CONSECRATED SPOT.

WHEN in the dance of the Nymphs, in the moonlight so holy assembl’d,
Mingle the Graces, down from Olympus in secret descending,
Here doth the minstrel hide, and list to their numbers enthralling,
Here doth he watch their silent dances’ mysterious measure.
All that is glorious in heaven, and all that the earth in her beauty
Ever hath brought into life, the dreamer awake sees before him;
All he repeats to the Muses, and lest the gods should be anger’d,
How to tell of secrets discreetly, the Muses instruct him.

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THE INSTRUCTORS.

WHEN Diogenes quietly sunn’d himself in his barrel,
When Calanus with joy leap’d in the flame-breathing grave,
Oh, what noble lessons were those for the rash son of Philip,
Were not the lord of the world e’en for instruction too great!

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THE UNEQUAL MARRIAGE.

EVEN this heavenly pair were unequally match’d when united:
Psyche grew older and wise, Amor remain’d still a child.

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EXCUSE.

THOU dost complain of woman for changing from one to another?
Censure her not: for she seeks one who will constant remain.

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THE MUSE’S MIRROR.

EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow’d a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.
Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful-surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call’d mockingly after her, saying: “What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?”
But she already was far away, on the brink of the ocean,
In her figure rejoicing, and duly arranging her garland.

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PHŒBUS AND HERMES.

DELOS’ stately ruler, and Maïa’s son, the adroit one,
Warmly were striving, for both sought the great prize to obtain.
Hermes the lyre demanded, the lyre was claim’d by Apollo,
Yet were the hearts of the foes fruitlessly nourish’d by hope.
For on a sudden Ares burst in, with fury decisive,
Dashing in twain the gold toy, brandishing wildly his sword.
Hermes, malicious one, laugh’d beyond measure; yet deep-seated sorrow
Seiz’d upon Phœbus’s heart, seiz’d on the heart of each Muse.

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THE NEW AMOR.

AMOR, not the child, the youthful lover of Psyche,
Look’d round Olympus one day, boldly, to triumph inur’d;
There he espied a goddess, the fairest amongst the immortals, —
Venus Urania she, — straight was his passion inflam’d.
Even the holy one powerless prov’d, alas! ‘gainst his wooing, —
Tightly embrac’d in his arm, held her the daring one fast.
Then from their union arose a new, a more beauteous Amor,
Who from his father his wit, grace from his mother derives.
Ever thou’lt find him join’d in the kindly Muses’ communion,
And his charm-laden bolt foundeth the love of the arts.

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THE GARLANDS.

KLOPSTOCK would lead us away from Pindus; no longer for laurel
May we be eager — the homely acorn alone must content us;
Yet he himself his more-than-epic crusade is conducting
High on Golgotha’s summit, that foreign gods he may honor!
Yet, on what hill he prefers, let him gather the angels together,
Suffer deserted disciples to weep o’er the grave of the just one:
There where a hero and saint hath died, where a bard breath’d his numbers,
Both for our life and our death an ensample of courage resplendent
And of the loftiest human worth to bequeath, — ev’ry nation
There will joyously kneel in devotion ecstatic, revering
Thorn and laurel garland, and all its charms and its tortures.

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THE SWISS ALPS.

YESTERDAY brown was still thy head, as the locks of my lov’d one,
Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar.
Silver-gray is the early snow to-day on thy summit,
Through the tempestuous night streaming fast over thy brow.
Youth, alas, throughout life as closely to age is united
As, in some changeable dream, yesterday blends with to-day.

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Elegies

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ROMAN ELEGIES.

I.
SPEAK, ye stones, I entreat! Oh, speak, ye palaces lofty!
Utter a word, O ye streets! Wilt thou not, Genius, awake?
All that thy sacred walls, eternal Rome, hold within them
Teemeth with life; but to me, all is still silent and dead.
Oh, who will whisper unto me, — when shall I see at the casement
That one beauteous form, which, while it scorcheth, revives?
Can I as yet not discern the road on which I forever
To her and from her shall go, heeding not time as it flies?
Still do I mark the churches, palaces, ruins and columns,
As a wise traveller should, would he his journey improve.
Soon all this will be past; and then will there be but one temple,
Amor’s temple alone, where the Initiate may go.
Thou art indeed a world, O Rome; and yet, were Love absent,
Then would the world be no world, then would e’en Rome be no Rome.

II.
DO not repent, mine own love, that thou so soon didst surrender!
Trust me, I deem thee not bold! reverence only I feel.
Manifold workings the darts of Amor possess; some but scratching,
Yet with insidious effect, poison the bosom for years.
Others mightily feather’d, with fresh and newly-born sharpness
Pierce to the innermost bone, kindle the blood into flame.
In the heroical times, when lov’d each god and each goddess,
Longing attended on sight; then with fruition was bless’d.
Think’st thou the goddess had long been thinking of love and its pleasures
When she, in Ida’s retreats, own’d to Anchises her flame?
Had but Luna delay’d to kiss the beautiful sleeper,
Oh, by Aurora, ere long, he had in envy been rous’d!
Hero Leander espied at the noisy feast, and the lover
Hotly and nimbly, ere long, plung’d in the night-cover’d flood.
Rhea Silvia, virgin princess, roam’d near the Tiber,
Seeking there water to draw, when by the god she was seiz’d.
Thus were the sons of Mars begotten! The twins did a she-wolf
Suckle and nurture, — and Rome call’d herself queen of the world.

III.
ALEXANDER, and Cæsar, and Henry, and Frederick, the mighty,
On me would gladly bestow half of the glory they earn’d,
Could I but grant unto each one night on the couch where I’m lying;
But they, by Orcus’s night, sternly, alas! are held down.
Therefore rejoice, O thou living one, bless’d in thy love-lighted homestead,
Ere the dark Lethe’s sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot.

IV.
THESE few leaves, O ye Graces, a bard presents in your honor,
On your altar so pure, adding sweet rosebuds as well,
And he does it with hope. The artist is glad in his workshop,
When a Pantheon it seems round him forever to bring.
Jupiter knits his godlike brow, — hers, Juno uplifteth;
Phœbus strides on before, shaking his curly-lock’d head;
Calmly and dryly Minerva looks down, and Hermes, the light one,
Turneth his glances aside, roguish and tender at once.
But towards Bacchus, the yielding, the dreaming, raiseth Cythere
Looks both longing and sweet, e’en in the marble yet moist.
Of his embraces she thinks with delight, and seems to be asking:
“Should not our glorious son take up his place by our side?”

V.
AMOR is ever a rogue, and all who believe him are cheated!
To me the hypocrite came: “Trust me, I pray thee, this once.
Honest is now my intent, — with grateful thanks I acknowledge
That thou thy life and thy works hast to my worship ordain’d.
See, I have follow’d thee hither, to Rome, with kindly intention,
Hoping to give thee mine aid, e’en in the foreigner’s land.
Ev’ry trav’ller complains that the quarters he meets with are wretched;
Happily lodg’d, though, is he, who is by Amor receiv’d.
Thou dost observe the ruins of ancient buildings with wonder,
Thoughtfully wandering on, over each time-hallow’d spot.
Thou dost honor still more the worthy relics created
By the few artists whom I lov’d in their studios to seek.
I ’twas fashion’d those forms! thy pardon, — I boast not at present;
Presently thou shalt confess that what I tell thee is true.
Now that thou serv’st me more idly, where are the beauteous figures,
Where are the colors, the light, which thy creations once fill’d?
Hast thou a mind again to form? The school of the Grecians
Still remains open, my friend; years have not barr’d up its doors.
I, the teacher, am ever young, and love all the youthful,
Love not the subtle and old. Mother, observe what I say!
Still was new the Antique, when yonder bless’d ones were living;
Happily live, — and, in thee, ages long vanish’d will live!
Food for song, where hopest thou to find it? I only can give it,
And a more excellent style, love, and love only can teach.”
Thus did the Sophist discourse. What mortal, alas! could resist him?
And when a master commands, I have been train’d to obey.
Now he deceitfully keeps his word, gives food for my numbers,
But, while he does so, alas! robs me of time, strength and mind.
Looks, and pressure of hands, and words of kindness, and kisses,
Syllables teeming with thought, by a fond pair are exchang’d.
Then becomes whispering, talk, — and stammering, a language enchanting;
Free from all prosody’s rules, dies such a hymn on the ear.
Thee, Aurora, I used to own as the friend of the Muses;
Hath, then, Amor the rogue cheated, Aurora, e’en thee?
Thou dost appear to me now as his friend, and again dost awake me
Unto a day of delight, while at his altar I kneel.
All her locks I find on my bosom, her head is reposing,
Pressing with softness the arm, which round her neck is entwin’d;
Oh! what a joyous awak’ning, ye hours so peaceful, succeeded,
Monument sweet of the bliss which had first rock’d us to sleep!
In her slumber she moves, and sinks, while her face is averted,
Far on the breadth of the couch, leaving her hand still in mine.
Heartfelt love unites us forever, and yearnings unsullied,
And our cravings alone claim for themselves the exchange.
One faint touch of the hand, and her eyes so heavenly see I
Once more open. Ah, no! let me still look on that form!
Clos’d still remain! Ye make me confus’d and drunken, ye rob me
Far too soon of the bliss pure contemplation affords.
Mighty, indeed, are these figures! these limbs, how gracefully rounded!
Theseus, could’st thou e’er fly, whilst Ariadne thus slept?
Only one single kiss on these lips! Oh, Theseus, now leave us!
Gaze on her eyes! she awakes! — Firmly she holds thee embrac’d!

VI.
PORTENT of Autumn, the flame in the sociable country-side mansion
Crackles and gleams on the earth. Quickly the brushwood takes fire.
How it delights my soul this evening! for now, ere the fagots
Crumble to glowing coals, fall into ashes gray,
Comes my favorite maiden! Then flame the billets and brushwood,
And the comforting night warms us with festival joy.
When it is early morn the couch of Love she forsaketh,
Wakes from the ashes again agile, passionate flames.
For above all things Amor the power to the flatterer granted
Joy to awake which as yet scarcely to ashes had fallen.

VII.
“WHY, belov’d, didst thou not come to-day to the vineyard?
Alone, as I promis’d, I stood waiting for thee on the hill!”
“Dearest! scarce had I come when by chance I sighted thy uncle,
Watching close to the vines, turning this way and that!
Slyly I hurried away.” “Oh, what an error deceiv’d thee!
Only a scarecrow it was that thou sawest! The form
Skilfully fashion’d we made of reeds and ragged old raiment;
I myself lent a hand: how my work has recoil’d!
Now the old man’s wish is fulfill’d: to-day he has frighted
From his preserves the bird stealing his garden and niece.”

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ALEXIS AND DORA.

FARTHER and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel
Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover’d flood!
Long is the track plough’d up by the keel where dolphins are sporting,
Following fast in its rear, while it seems flying pursuit.
All forebodes a prosperous voyage; the sailor with calmness
Leans ‘gainst the sail, which alone all that is needed performs.
Forward presses the heart of each seaman, like colors and streamers;
Backward one only is seen, mournfully fix’d near the mast,
While on the blue-ting’d mountains, which fast are receding, he gazeth,
And as they sink in the sea, joy from his bosom departs.
Vanish’d from thee, too, O Dora, is now the vessel that robs thee
Of thine Alexis, thy friend, — ah, thy betrothed as well!
Thou, too, art after me gazing in vain. Our hearts are still throbbing,
Though, for each other, yet ah! ‘gainst one another no more.
Oh, thou single moment, wherein I found life! thou outweighest
Every day which had else coldly from memory fled.
’Twas in that moment alone, the last, that upon me descended
Life, such as deities grant, though thou perceivedst it not.
Phœbus, in vain with thy rays dost thou clothe the ether in glory:
Thine all-brightening day hateful alone is to me.
Into myself I retreat for shelter, and there, in the silence,
Strive to recover the time when she appear’d with each day.
Was it possible beauty like this to see, and not feel it?
Work’d not those heavenly charms e’en on a mind dull as thine?
Blame not thyself, unhappy one! Oft doth the bard an enigma
Thus propose to the throng, skilfully hidden in words.
Each one enjoys the strange commingling of images graceful,
Yet still is wanting the word which will discover the sense.
When at length it is found, the heart of each hearer is gladden’d,
And in the poem he sees meaning of twofold delight.
Wherefore so late didst thou remove the bandage, O Amor,
Which thou hadst plac’d o’er mine eyes, — wherefore remove it so late?
Long did the vessel, when laden, lie waiting for favoring breezes,
Till in kindness the wind blew from the land o’er the sea.
Vacant times of youth! and vacant dreams of the future!
Ye all vanish, and nought, saving the moment, remains.
Yes! it remains, — my joy still remains! I hold thee, my Dora,
And thine image alone, Dora, by hope is disclos’d.
Oft have I seen thee go, with modesty clad, to the temple,
While thy mother so dear solemnly went by thy side.
Eager and nimble thou wert, in bearing thy fruit to the market,
Boldly the pail from the well didst thou sustain on thy head.
Then was reveal’d thy neck, then seen thy shoulders so beauteous,
Then, before all things, the grace filling thy motions was seen.
Oft have I fear’d that the pitcher perchance was in danger of falling,
Yet it ever remain’d firm on the circular cloth.
Thus, fair neighbor, yes, thus I oft was wont to observe thee,
As on the stars I might gaze, as I might gaze on the moon,
Glad indeed at the sight, yet feeling within my calm bosom
Not the remotest desire ever to call them mine own.
Years thus fleeted away! Although our houses were only
Twenty paces apart, yet I thy threshold ne’er cross’d.
Now by the fearful flood are we parted! Thou liest to heaven,
Billow! thy beautiful blue seems to me dark as the night.
All were now in movement; a boy to the house of my father
Ran at full speed and exclaim’d: “Hasten thee quick to the strand!
Hoisted the sail is already, e’en now in the wind it is flutt’ring,
While the anchor they weigh, heaving it up from the sand;
Come, Alexis, oh, come!” — My worthy stout-hearted father
Press’d, with a blessing, his hand down on my curly-lock’d head,
While my mother carefully reach’d me a newly-made bundle;
“Happy may’st thou return!” cried they — ”both happy and rich!”
Then I sprang away, and under my arm held the bundle,
Running along by the wall. Standing I found thee hard by,
At the door of thy garden. Thou smilingly saidst then: — ”Alexis!
Say, are yon boisterous crew going thy comrades to be?
Foreign coasts wilt thou visit, and precious merchandise purchase,
Ornaments meet for the rich matrons who dwell in the town.
Bring me, also, I pray thee, a light chain; gladly I’ll pay thee,
Oft have I wish’d to possess some such a trinket as that.”
There I remain’d, and ask’d, as merchants are wont, with precision
After the form and the weight which thy commission should have.
Modest, indeed, was the price thou didst name! I meanwhile was gazing
On thy neck which deserv’d ornaments worn but by queens.
Loudly now rose the cry from the ship; then kindly thou spakest: —
“Take, I entreat thee, some fruit out of the garden, my friend!
Take the ripest oranges, figs of the whitest; the ocean
Beareth no fruit, and, in truth, ’tis not produc’d by each land.”
So I enter’d in. Thou pluckedst the fruit from the branches,
And the burden of gold was in thine apron upheld.
Oft did I cry, Enough! But fairer fruits were still falling
Into thy hand as I spake, ever obeying thy touch.
Presently didst thou reach the arbor; there a basket lay,
Sweet blooming myrtle trees wav’d, as we drew nigh, o’er our heads.
Then thou beganst to arrange the fruit with skill and in silence:
First the orange, which lay heavy as though ‘twere of gold,
Then the yielding fig, by the slightest pressure disfigur’d,
And with myrtle the gift soon was both cover’d and grac’d.
But I rais’d it not up. I stood. Our eyes met together,
And my eyesight grew dim, seeming obscur’d by a film.
Soon I felt thy bosom on mine! Mine arm was soon twining
Round thy beautiful form; thousand times kiss’d I thy neck.
On my shoulder sank thy head; thy fair arms, encircling,
Soon render’d perfect the ring knitting the rapturous pair.
Amor’s hands I felt: he press’d us together with ardor,
And, from the firmament clear, thrice did it thunder; then tears
Stream’d from mine eyes in torrents; thou weptest, I wept, both were weeping,
And, ‘mid our sorrow and bliss, even the world seem’d to die.
Louder and louder they call’d from the strand; my feet would no longer
Bear my weight, and I cried: — ”Dora! and art thou not mine?”
“Thine forever!” thou gently didst say. Then the tears we were shedding
Seem’d to be wip’d from our eyes, as by the breath of a god.
Nearer was heard the cry “Alexis!” The stripling who sought me
Suddenly peep’d through the door. How he the basket snatch’d up!
How he urg’d me away! how press’d I thy hand! Would’st thou ask me
How the vessel I reach’d? Drunken I seem’d, well I know.
Drunken my shipmates believ’d me, and so had pity upon me;
And as the breeze drove us on, distance the town soon obscur’d.
“Thine forever!” thou, Dora, didst murmur; it fell on my senses
With the thunder of Zeus! while by the thunderer’s throne
Stood his daughter, the Goddess of Love; the Graces were standing
Close by her side! so the bond beareth an impress divine!
Oh, then hasten, thou ship, with every favoring zephyr!
Onward, thou powerful keel, cleaving the waves as they foam!
Bring me unto the foreign harbor, so that the goldsmith
May in his workshop prepare straightway the heavenly pledge!
Ay, of a truth, the chain shall indeed be a chain, O my Dora!
Nine times encircling thy neck, loosely around it entwin’d.
Other and manifold trinkets I’ll buy thee; gold-mounted bracelets,
Richly and skilfully wrought, also shall grace thy fair hand.
There shall the ruby and emerald vie, the sapphire so lovely
Be to the jacinth oppos’d, seeming its foil; while the gold
Holds all the jewels together, in beauteous union commingled.
Oh, how the bridegroom exults, when he adorns his betroth’d!
Pearls if I see, of thee they remind me; each ring that is shown me
Brings to my mind thy fair hand’s graceful and tapering form.
I will barter and buy; the fairest of all shalt thou choose thee,
Joyously would I devote all of the cargo to thee.
Yet not trinkets and jewels alone is thy lov’d one procuring;
With them he brings thee whate’er gives to a housewife delight.
Fine and woollen coverlets, wrought with an edging of purple,
Fit for a couch where we both, lovingly, gently may rest;
Costly pieces of linen. Thou sittest and sewest, and clothest
Me, and thyself, and, perchance, even a third with it too.
Visions of hope, deceive ye my heart! Ye kindly Immortals,
Soften this fierce-raging flame, wildly pervading my breast!
Yet how I long to feel them again, those rapturous torments,
When, in their stead, care draws nigh, coldly and fearfully calm.
Neither the Furies’ torch, nor the hounds of hell with their barking
Awe the delinquent so much, down in the plains of despair,
As by the motionless spectre I’m awed, that shows me the fair one
Far away: of a truth, open the garden-door stands!
And another one cometh! For him the fruit, too, is falling,
And for him, also, the fig-strengthening honey doth yield!
Doth she entice him as well to the arbor? He follows? Oh, make me
Blind, ye Immortals! efface visions like this from my mind!
Yes, she is but a maiden! And she who to one doth so quickly
Yield, to another ere long, doubtless, will turn herself round.
Smile not, Zeus, for this once, at an oath so cruelly broken!
Thunder more fearfully! Strike! — Stay — thy fierce lightnings withhold!
Hurl at me thy quivering bolt! In the darkness of midnight
Strike with thy lightning this mast! make it a pitiful wreck!
Scatter the planks all around, and give to the boisterous billows
All these wares, and let me be to the dolphins a prey! —
Now, ye Muses, enough! In vain would ye strive to depicture
How, in a love-laden breast, anguish alternates with bliss.
Ye cannot heal the wounds, it is true, that love hath inflicted;
Yet from you only proceeds, kindly ones, comfort and balm.
alexis and dora.

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Epigrams

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Venice, 1790.

I.
SARCOPHAGUS and urn erst were with life adorn’d by the heathen:
Fauns are dancing around, while with the Bacchanal troop
Chequer’d circles they trace; and the goat-footed, puffy-cheek’d player
Wildly produceth hoarse tones out of the clamorous horn.
Cymbals and drums resound; we see and we hear, too, the marble.
Fluttering bird! Oh, how sweet tastes the ripe fruit to thy bill!
Noise there is none to disturb thee, still less to scare away Amor,
Who, in the midst of the throng, learns to delight in his torch.
Thus doth fulness overcome death; and the ashes there cover’d
Seem, in that silent domain, still to be gladden’d with life.
Thus may the minstrel’s sarcophagus be hereafter surrounded
With such a scroll, which himself richly with life has adorn’d.

II.
CLASP’D in my arms forever eagerly hold I my mistress,
Ever my panting heart throbs wildly against her dear breast,
And on her knees forever is leaning my head, while I’m gazing
Now on her sweet-smiling mouth, now on her bright sparkling eyes.
“O thou effeminate!” spake one, “and thus, then, thy days thou art spending?”
Ah, they in sorrow are spent. List while I tell thee my tale:
Yes! I have left my only joy in life far behind me,
Twenty long days hath my car borne me away from her sight.
Vetturini defy me, while crafty chamberlains flatter,
And the sly Valet de place thinks but of lies and deceit.
If I attempt to escape, the Postmaster fastens upon me,
Postboys the upper hand get, custom-house duties enrage.
“Truly, I can’t understand thee! thou talkest enigmas! thou seemest
Wrapp’d in a blissful repose, glad as Rinaldo of yore:” —
Ah, I myself understand full well; ’tis my body that travels,
And ’tis my spirit that rests still in my mistress’s arms.

III.
I WOULD liken this gondola unto the soft-rocking cradle,
And the chest on its deck seems a vast coffin to be.
Yes! ‘tween the cradle and coffin, we totter and waver forever
On the mighty canal, careless our lifetime is spent.

IV.
WHY are the people thus busily moving? For food they are seeking,
Children they fain would beget, feeding them well as they can.
Traveller, mark this well, and when thou art home, do thou likewise!
More can no mortal effect, work with what ardor he will.

V.
I WOULD compare to the land this anvil, its lord to the hammer,
And to the people the plate, which in the middle is bent.
Sad is the poor tin-plate’s lot, when the blows are but given at random:
Ne’er will the kettle be made, while they uncertainly fall.

VI.
WHAT is the life of a man? Yet thousands are ever accustom’d
Freely to talk about man, — what he has done, too, and how.
Even less is a poem; yet thousands read and enjoy it,
Thousands abuse it. — My friend, live and continue to rhyme!

VII.
MERRY’S the trade of a poet; but somewhat a dear one, I fear me;
For, as my book grows apace, all of my sequins I lose.

VIII.
IF thou’rt in earnest, no longer delay, but render me happy;
Art thou in jest? Ah, sweet love! time for all jesting is past.

IX.
ART thou, then, vex’d at my silence? What shall I speak of? Thou markest
Neither my sorrowful sigh, nor my soft eloquent look.
Only one goddess is able the seal of my lips to unloosen, —
When by Aurora I’m found, slumbering calm on thy breast.
Ah, then my hymn in the ears of the earliest gods shall be chaunted,
As the Memnonian form breath’d forth sweet secrets in song.

X.
IN the twilight of morning to climb to the top of the mountain, —
Thee to salute, kindly star, earliest herald of day, —
And to await, with impatience, the gaze of the ruler of heaven, —
Youthful delight, oh, how oft lurest thou me out in the night!
O ye heralds of day, ye heavenly eyes of my mistress,
Now ye appear, and the sun evermore riseth too soon.

XI.
THOU art amaz’d, and dost point to the ocean. It seems to be burning,
Flame-crested billows in play dart round our night-moving bark.
Me it astonisheth not, — of the ocean was born Aphrodite, —
Did not a flame, too, proceed from her for us, in her son?

XII.
GLEAMING the ocean appear’d, the beauteous billows were smiling,
While a fresh, favoring wind, filling the sails, drove us on.
Free was my bosom from yearning; yet soon my languishing glances
Turn’d themselves backward in haste, seeking the snow-cover’d hills.
Treasures unnumber’d are southwards lying. Yet one to the northwards
Draws me resistlessly back, like the strong magnet in force.

XIII.
SPACIOUS and fair is the world; yet oh, how I thank the kind heavens
That I a garden possess, small though it be, yet mine own.
One which enticeth me homewards; why should a gardener wander?
Honor and pleasure he finds when to his garden he looks.

XIV.
AH, my maiden is going! she mounts the vessel! My monarch,
Æolus! potentate dread! keep every storm far away!
“O thou fool!” cried the god: “ne’er fear the blustering tempest;
When Love flutters his wings, then may’st thou dread the soft breeze.”

XV.
WILT thou enjoy the pleasures of Love with purest of feelings?
Keep conceit from thy heart — banish solemnity!
Love is scared by the one, the other hopes vainly to chain him:
Ill-affected to both smiles the mischievous god.

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The Four Seasons.

Lovely children large and small
All the Four our hearts enthrall.

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SPRING.

I.
ULL ye Distichs, awake! Ye lively youths in your joyance!
Rich are gardens and fields! Bring ye blossoms for wreaths.

II.
Rich is the meadow in flowers; yet the eye cannot claim all their beauty.
Others bloom for the heart. Reader, now choose for thyself!

III.
Rosebud! thou art the flower of the maiden, rosy and blooming;
Symbol of queenly guise, symbol of modest deport.

IV.
Violets cluster’d together and bound in a delicate nosegay
Making one flower; ’tis thou, home-loving maiden, I mean!

V.
One whom I knew, like a lily was slender. Purity cloth’d her
Pridelike. Such splendor of garb Solomon sure never saw.

VI.
Lovely the Columbine stands and hangs his radiant head down:
Petulance is it, or pride? Answer me now if you can!

VII.
Many odorous bells thou swingest, O Hyacinth, gayly,
Yet nor fragrance or bells have the gift to attract.

VIII.
Hesperus! thee in the garish day men pass without noting;
When the nightingale sings, then thy glory appears.

IX.
Thou, Tuberose, art haughty, and thou rejoicest in freedom,
Yet — away from my sight! Come not nigh to my heart!

X.
Glowing the Poppy I see in the distance; when I come nearer,
Ah! then I learn thee too late! thou that apest the Rose.

XI.
Tulips, I know ye are scorn’d by those who take pride in æsthetics;
Courage! a thought that’s robust needs a lusty leaf.

XII.
Pinks! how lovely ye are! Yet ye all resemble each other.
Who can distinguish? Not I! How then, pray, can I choose?

XIII.
Flush with the colors of dawn Ranunculus, Tulips and Asters!
Here is a dark fragrant flower, puts you all to the blush.

XIV.
Crowsfoot! none of thy sisters attract me; desire ye awake not;
Yet, commingled in beds, pleasure ye give to the eye.

XV.
Tell me what perfumes the chamber? Mignonette, fragrant and pleasing,
Colorless, shapeless and still, modest and sensible plant.

XVI.
Ornament fit for the garden, where’er thou appearest, thou sayest:
“Ceres, the Queen, with her hand scatter’d me forth with the grain.”

XVII.
Sweetest of dainty flowers! thy eyes so tender they whisper
Always, “Forget-me-not!” always, “Forget not thy friend!”

XVIII.
If from the eye of the mind the forms of the flowers should all vanish,
Eleonore! thy face would’st ever remain in my heart!

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SUMMER.

XIX.
TERRIBLE, Love shows himself unto me! Ye Muses, awaken
Harmonies out of the pain stirr’d by the God in my heart.

XX.
Written scrolls I possess which scholars and monarchs might covet.
For my beloved she writes words that I turn into verse!

XXI.
As in Winter the grain only slowly sprouts, but in Summer
Hastens to push into bloom, so was my yearning for thee!

XXII.
Ever it seem’d to me that forests, fields, mountains and gardens
Were but symbols of space; Love, thou makest them real.

XXIII.
Space and Time to my mind are idle phantoms of fancy;
But the corner with thee, dearest, seems without bounds.

XXIV.
Care, she sits in the saddle with thee; she embarks in the vessel.
Zealous is Care, but Love follows us up with more zeal.

XXV.
Hard is the conquest of Passion, but if she be strengthen’d by Custom,
Ancient ally and friend, she’s an invincible foe!

XXVI.
What is the scroll that twice and thrice I read in succession?
Manuscripts sent by my love, written warm from her heart.

XXVII.
She is my joy, but perchance she deceives me. O poets and singers,
Mimics! much ye might learn, knowing my sweetheart, my love!

XXVIII.
All the joy of the poet in shaping his verse to perfection,
Sympathizing Love, that inspir’d him, feels.

XXIX.
Think you an epigram short to express a sentiment for thee?
Why, Love, how can that be! Isn’t a kiss far more short?

XXX.
Know’st thou, O friend, the splendid poison of love unrequited?
Burning, it gives fresh strength; wasting the flesh it renews.

XXXI.
Know’st thou the splendid working of love that has found its ideal?
Bodies it binds in sweet union, spirits are freed.

XXXII.
True love is that which always and ever remains without changing
When it is granted all, all things being denied.

XXXIII.
All the world I would like, so all to share with my darling;
All the world would I give, if she were only mine.

XXXIV.
When a loving heart is pain’d and must suffer in silence,
Rhadamanthus himself could not imagine such pangs.

XXXV.
“Why do I fade so soon, O Zeus?” ask’d Beauty in sorrow.
“Ah,” said the father of gods, “only the beautiful fades.”

XXXVI.
Love and youth and the dew and the flowers heard the hard saying;
All turn’d their faces away, weeping, from Jupiter’s throne.

XXXVII.
Live while we may and love; for life and love are both fleeting.
Fate, thou cuttest the threads! Both must come to an end!

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AUTUMN.

XXXVIII.
LIFE brings fruits unto man! Yet rarely they hang from the branches,
Rosy and bright in the sun, greeting, like apples, the eye.

XXXIX.
Hold the staff of direction o’er life and all its transactions.
Leave unto Love and the Muse chance for jovial sport!

XL.
Preach, for it seemeth you well; we also honor the custom;
Yet will the Muse not allow orders peremptorily given.

XLI.
Seize the lighted torch from Prometheus, O Muse, and inspire us!
Seize it from Love, and torment us with ravishing joy.

XLII.
All creation is Nature’s work. From Zeus on Olympos
Flashes the wonderful bolt, building and crushing the world.

XLIII.
Brothers! do all that ye do with zeal and with love. Both are virtues
Lovely for German hearts, easily turn’d from the path.

XLIV.
Children toss the ball to the wall and catch it rebounding;
This is a game that I like play’d by the friend of my choice.

XLV.
Ever strive for the whole, and if the whole should escape thee,
Be, as thou canst, a part useful in forming the whole.

XLVI.
Knowledge of self is fine, yet when one is treasur’d by others,
Object of honor and love, is it not better by far?

XLVII.
What controls the youth, holds the man, embraces the graybeard,
That be thy portion of joy all thy life, lovely child.

XLVIII.
Willingly age clings to youth, and youth for age has affection;
Yet all over the world like is attracted by like.

XLIX.
Keep in thy heart the vision of worthies: bright constellations,
Nature scatter’d them forth, out of measureless space.

L.
Who is the luckiest man? ’Tis he who has wisdom to welcome
Service of others and feel joy like his own in his friend’s.

LI.
Time gives us much and robs us of much; but the love of thy betters,
Graciously bestowed, ever should be thy delight.

LII.
Were ye, foolish dreamers, able to grasp your ideals,
Honor to Nature ye’d pay as her merits deserve.

LIII.
Honest friend, I will tell thee what thou canst safely believe in:
Life is the only thing teaching better than books.

LIV.
Ev’ry blossom must fall before the fruit will rejoice us;
Blossoms and fruit at once only the Muses can give.

LV.
Truth that hurts I prefer to falsehood giving advantage.
Truth, it assuages the pain which perchance it has caus’d.

LVI.
Does an error hurt? Not always; but making the error
Always hurts, and how sore only the sequel can tell.

LVII.
Never so dear to us seem as our own the children of others;
Error, the child of our hearts, claims so much of our love.

LVIII.
Error is ever at hand. Yet a higher necessity draws us
Gently and steadily on, strive as we will, towards Truth.

LIX.
No one resembles another, yet each resembles the Highest.
How can this be explain’d? Each is complete in himself!

LX.
Why are Genius and Taste so seldom blended in union?
Genius hates the curb; Taste is timid at force.

LXI.
Helpless for moving the world are all the discourses of Reason;
Impotent also is she, crush’d in the presence of Art.

LXII.
Whom do I wish for a reader? He who is freest from bias,
Losing himself and the world, living alone in my book.

LXIII.
He is my dearest friend who walks with me as I struggle;
If he invite me to sit, forth I wander alone.

LXIV.
Ah, how it goes to my heart, that this most excellent spirit,
Bent on seeking the goal, uses me as a means.

LXV.
Praise the child for the toys on which it squanders its pennies
Recklessly! Truth, thou wilt be godlike to trader and child.

LXVI.
What is the method of Nature in joining the good and the evil,
Forming man? She thrusts vanity deftly between.

LXVII.
In susceptible people no good have I ever discover’d.
Give them only the chance, rascals they readily turn.

LXVIII.
Gallomania checks in this degenerate epoch
Peaceful culture as once Lutheranism did.

LXIX.
Whatever in France is past the Germans take up and encourage;
For the proudest man flatters the rabble and crawls.

LXX.
“Darest thou call it the rabble? Where is the rabble?” The people,
Could ye get your own way, soon a rabble would be.

LXXI.
Wherever parties arise each holds itself this side and that side;
Many years will elapse ere their centres unite.

LXXII.
“Those men there are starting a party; what a ridiculous notion!
But our party indeed! That is a different thing!”

LXXIII.
Son, wilt thou always be free? then learn something useful, remaining
Quite content with thy lot, never aspiring too high.

LXXIV.
Who is the nobler man in ev’ry station? Whoever
Gives impartial advice, scorning advantage for self.

LXXV.
Know’st thou how even the small may be great? By doing their duty,
Small though it be; the great needs must do just the same.

LXXVI.
What is holy? ’Tis that which binds many spirits in union.
Bond, though ever so slight, like the grass on a wreath.

LXXVII.
What is the holiest? That which binds to-day and forever,
Spirits in sympathy close, union of soul unto soul.

LXXVIII.
Who is the worthiest man in the state? A respectable burgher;
Under whatever rule he is the soldiest prop.

LXXIX.
Who then is really a prince? My own observation has taught me
He alone is a prince who has it in him to be.

LXXX.
Wisdom failing in rulers, right good-will in the people,
Force must grasp the helm, else will destruction ensue.

LXXXI.
Many states have I seen, and that stands high above others,
Where the rulers must serve, leaving to others the gain.

LXXXII.
Only let every being fairly use his advantage,
Granting to others their share; then will peace ever reign.

LXXXIII.
But if none is content with the share that Fate has allotted,
Then is the train ready laid always and ever for war.

LXXXIV.
Twain are the methods of speaking the truth if truth be unwelcome:
Frankly that people may know, secretly unto the prince.

LXXXV.
If thou findest fault with the individual loudly,
He will harden his heart as the throng do at praise.

LXXXVI.
Thou art monarch and knight and thou canst rule and do battle;
But if treaties are made call the chancellor’s aid.

LXXXVII.
Wise, industrious, firm, acquainted with all, understanding
High and low alike, thus the minister stands.

LXXXVIII.
What is the courtier I honor? The keenest and shrewdest. Whatever
Yet that he fails to possess comes to his service as man.

LXXXIX.
Whether thou art the wisest or not who gives an opinion?
But — be the upright man both at home and abroad.

XC.
Whether thou wakest or not we care not, provided thou singest.
Sing, O watchman, thy song, sleeping, as multitudes do.

XCI.
Now, O Autumn, thou strewest only yellowing leaflets.
Give me another year full-ripen’d fruit instead.

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WINTER.

XCII.
WATER is body and substance in flux. The stage that is newest
Shines in the glow of the sun held by the shimmering shores.

XCIII.
Truly it seems like a vision! Life in significant pictures
Hovers earnest and fair over the far-gleaming plains.

XCIV.
Countless centuries frozen, like ice, stretch off in our vision;
Reason and Sympathy glide dim in the background away.

XCV.
Only the level plain conditions the whirl of existence:
If it be smooth we all reck not of danger at hand.

XCVI.
All are striving and hasting, seeking and fleeing each other;
Yet our courses are fix’d over the slippery plain.

XCVII.
Hither and thither they glide, the pupils and master together,
And the common folk holding the middle way.

XCVIII.
Every one must show what he can; not praise and not glory
Kept this man from the goal, drove that other one on.

XCIX.
You who praise the bungler, the Master’s detractors, I see you,
Dumb with impotent rage, standing here on the shore.

C.
Novice! thou totterest clumsily shunning, the dangerous mirror.
Keep up thy heart! thou wilt be soon the pride of the course.

CI.
Wilt thou already show prowess, and art not confident? Nonsense!
Only from well-pois’d force gleams true happiness forth.

CII.
Falls are the fortune of man; the pupil must fall, and the master
Also will meet with mishaps; let him beware how he strikes.

CIII.
If the skilfullest skater but fall, the idle spectators
Laugh, as over their cups men boast of whipping their foes.

CIV.
Glide away joyfully, giving advice to the novice beginning;
Take full pride in thy leadership, joy in the day.

CV.
See! already the Spring is at hand. The hurrying waters
Waste the ice from below, gentler sunbeams above.

CVI.
This generation is vanish’d, scatter’d the radiant circles.
Fishers and sailors once more claim the swift-rolling stream.

CVII.
Swim, thou wonderful floe, away, and if thou shalt never
Join the sea as a floe, drop by drop thou may’st come.

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Sonnets.

Lovingly I’ll sing of love;
Ever comes she from above.

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THE FRIENDLY MEETING.

ENROB’D with mantle to my chin conceal’d,
I trod the rocky path, so steep and gray,
Then to the wintry plain I bent my way
Uneasily, to flight my bosom steel’d.

But sudden was the newborn day reveal’d:
A maiden came, in heavenly bright array,
Like the fair creatures of the poet’s lay
In realms of song. My yearning heart was heal’d.

Yet turn’d I thence, till she had onward pass’d,
While closer still the folds to draw I tried,
As though with heat self-kindled to grow warm;

But follow’d her. She stood. The die was cast!
No more within my mantle could I hide;
I threw it off, — she lay within mine arm.

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IN A WORD.

THUS to be chain’d forever can I bear?
A very torment that, in truth, would be.
This very day my new resolve shall see, —
I’ll not go near the lately-worshipp’d Fair.

Yet what excuse, my heart, can I prepare
In such a case, for not consulting thee?
But courage! while our sorrows utter we
In tones where love, grief, gladness have a share.

But see! the minstrel’s bidding to obey,
Its melody pours forth the sounding lyre,
Yearning a sacrifice of love to bring.

Scarce would’st thou think it — ready is the lay;
Well, but what then? Methought in the first fire
We to her presence flew, that lay to sing.

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THE MAIDEN SPEAKS.

HOW grave thou lookest, lov’d one! wherefore so?
Thy marble image seems a type of thee;
Like it, no sign of life thou giv’st to me;
Compar’d with thee, the stone appears to glow.

Behind his shield in ambush lurks the foe,
The friend’s brow all-unruffled we should see.
I seek thee, but thou seek’st away to flee;
Fix’d as this sculptur’d figure, learn to grow!

Tell me, to which should I the preference pay?
Must I from both with coldness meet alone?
The one is lifeless, thou with life art bless’d.

In short, no longer to throw words away,
I’ll fondly kiss and kiss and kiss this stone,
Till thou dost tear me hence with envious breast.

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GROWTH.

O’ER field and plain, in childhood’s artless days,
Thou sprang’st with me, on many a springmorn fair.
“For such a daughter, with what pleasing care,
Would I, as father, happy dwellings raise!”

And when thou on the world didst cast thy gaze,
Thy joy was then in household toils to share.
“Why did I trust her, why she trust me e’er?
For such a sister, how I Heaven should praise!”

Nothing can now the beauteous growth retard;
Love’s glowing flame within my breast is fann’d.
Shall I embrace her form, my grief to end?

Thee as a queen must I, alas, regard:
So high above me plac’d thou seem’st to stand;
Before a passing look I meekly bend.

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FOOD IN TRAVEL.

IF to her eyes’ bright lustre I were blind,
No longer would they serve my life to gild.
The will of destiny must be fulfill’d, —
This knowing, I withdrew with sadden’d mind.

No further happiness I now could find;
The former longings of my heart were still’d;
I sought her looks alone, whereon to build
My joy in life, — all else was left behind.

Wine’s genial glow, the festal banquet gay,
Ease, sleep, and friends, all wonted pleasures glad
I spurn’d, till little there remain’d to prove.

Now calmly through the world I wend my way:
That which I crave may everywhere be had,
With me I bring the one thing needful — love.

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DEPARTURE.

WITH many a thousand kiss not yet content,
At length with One kiss I was forc’d to go;
After that bitter parting’s depth of woe,
I deem’d the shore from which my steps I bent,

Its hills, streams, dwellings, mountains, as I went,
A pledge of joy, till daylight ceas’d to glow;
Then on my sight did blissful visions grow
In the dim-lighted, distant firmament.

And when at length the sea confin’d my gaze,
My ardent longing fill’d my heart once more;
What I had lost, unwillingly I sought.

Then Heaven appear’d to shed its kindly rays;
Methought that all I had possess’d of yore
Remain’d still mine — that I was reft of nought.

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THE LOVING ONE WRITES.

THE look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress,
The pledge thy lips to mine convey, — the kiss, —
He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?

Remov’d from thee, friend-sever’d, in distress,
These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:
They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.

But unawares the tear makes haste to dry:
He loves, methinks, e’en to these glades so still, —
And shalt not thou to distant lands extend?

Receive the murmurs of this loving sigh;
My only joy on earth is in thy will,
Thy kindly will tow’rd me; a token send!

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THE LOVING ONE ONCE MORE.

WHY do I o’er my paper once more bend?
Ask not too closely, dearest one, I pray:
For, to speak truth, I’ve nothing now to say;
Yet to thy hands at length ‘twill come, dear friend.

Since I can come not with it, what I send
My undivided heart shall now convey,
With all its joys, hopes, pleasures, pains, to-day:
All this hath no beginning, hath no end.

Henceforward I may ne’er to thee confide
How, far as thought, wish, fancy, will, can reach,
My faithful heart with thine is surely blended.

Thus stood I once enraptur’d by thy side,
Gaz’d on thee, and said nought. What need of speech?
My very being in itself was ended.

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SHE CANNOT END.

WHEN unto thee I sent the page all white,
Instead of first thereon inscribing aught,
The space thou doubtless filledst up in sport,
And sent it me, to make my joy grow bright.

As soon as the blue cover met my sight,
As well becomes a woman, quick as thought
I tore it open, leaving hidden nought,
And read the well-known words of pure delight:

My only being! Dearest heart! Sweet child!
How kindly thou my yearning then didst still
With gentle words, enthralling me to thee.

In truth methought I read thy whispers mild
Wherewith thou lovingly my soul didst fill,
E’en to myself for aye ennobling me.

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NEMESIS.

WHEN through the nations stalks contagion wild,
We from them cautiously should steal away.
E’en I have oft with ling’ring and delay
Shunn’d many an influence, not to be defil’d.

And e’en though Amor oft my hours beguil’d,
At length with him preferr’d I not to play,
And so, too, with the wretched sons of clay,
When four and three-lin’d verses they compil’d.

But punishment pursues the scoffer straight,
As if by serpent-torch of furies led
From hill to vale, from land to sea to fly.

I hear the genie’s laughter at my fate;
Yet do I find all power of thinking fled
In sonnet-rage and love’s fierce ecstasy.

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THE CHRISTMAS-BOX.

THIS box, mine own sweet darling, thou wilt find
With many a varied sweetmeat’s form supplied;
The fruits are they of holy Christmas tide,
But bak’d indeed, for children’s use design’d.

I’d fain, in speeches sweet with skill combin’d,
Poetic sweetmeats for the feast provide;
But why in such frivolities confide?
Perish the thought, with flattery to blind!

One sweet thing there is still, that from within,
Within us speaks, — that may be felt afar;
This may be wafted o’er to thee alone.

If thou a recollection fond canst win,
As if with pleasure gleam’d each well-known star,
The smallest gift thou never wilt disown.

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THE WARNING.

WHEN sounds the trumpet at the Judgment-Day,
And when forever all things earthly die,
We must a full and true account supply
Of ev’ry useless word we dropp’d in play.

But what effect will all the words convey
Wherein with eager zeal and lovingly,
That I might win thy favor, labor’d I,
If on thine ear alone they die away?

Therefore, sweet love, thy conscience bear in mind,
Remember well how long thou hast delay’d,
So that the world such sufferings may not know.

If I must reckon, and excuses find
For all things useless I to thee have said,
To a full year the Judgment-Day will grow.

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THE DOUBTERS AND THE LOVERS.

The Doubters.
YE love, and sonnets write! Fate’s strange behest!
The heart, its hidden meaning to declare,
Must seek for rhymes, uniting pair with pair:
Learn, children, that the will is weak, at best.

Scarcely with freedom the o’erflowing breast
As yet can speak, and well may it beware;
Tempestuous passions sweep each chord that’s there,
Then once more sink to night and gentle rest.

Why vex yourselves and us, the heavy stone
Up the steep path but step by step to roll?
It falls again, and ye ne’er cease to strive.

The Lovers.
But we are on the proper road alone!
If gladly is to thaw the frozen soul
The fire of love must aye be kept alive.

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THE EPOCHS.

ON Petrarch’s heart, all other days before,
In flaming letters written, was impress’d
Good Friday. And on mine, be it confess’d,
Is this year’s Advent, as it passeth o’er.

I do not now begin, — I still adore
Her whom I early cherish’d in my breast,
Then once again with prudence dispossess’d,
And to whose heart I’m driven back once more.

The love of Petrarch, that all-glorious love,
Was unrequited, and, alas, full sad;
One long Good Friday ’twas, one heartache drear;

But may my mistress’ Advent ever prove,
With its palm-jubilee, so sweet and glad,
One endless Mayday, through the livelong year!

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CHARADE.

TWO words there are, both short, of beauty rare,
Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame,
But which with clearness never can proclaim
The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear.

’Tis well in days of age and youth so fair
One on the other boldly to inflame;
And if those words together link’d we name,
A blissful rapture we discover there.

But now to give them pleasure do I seek;
And in myself my happiness would find;
I hope in silence, but I hope for this:

Gently, as lov’d one’s names, those words to speak,
To see them both within one image shrin’d,
Both in one being to embrace with bliss.

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Miscellaneous Poems.

In the wares before you spread,
Types of all things may be read.

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THE GERMAN PARNASSUS.

‘NEATH the shadow
Of these bushes,
On the meadow
Where the cooling water gushes,
Phœbus gave me, when a boy,
All life’s fulness to enjoy.
So, in silence, as the God
Bade them with his sov’reign nod,
Sacred Muses train’d my days
To his praise, —
With the bright and silv’ry flood
Of Parnassus stirr’d my blood,
And the seal so pure and chaste
By them on my lips was plac’d.

With her modest pinions, see,
Philomel encircles me!
In these bushes, in yon grove,
Calls she to her sister-throng,
And their heavenly choral song
Teaches me to dream of love.

Fulness waxes in my breast
Of emotions social, bless’d;
Friendship’s nurtur’d, — love awakes, —
And the silence Phœbus breaks
Of his mountains, of his vales, —
Sweetly blow the balmy gales;
All for whom he shows affection,
Who are worthy his protection,
Gladly follow his direction.

This one comes with joyous bearing
And with open, radiant gaze;
That a sterner look is wearing,
This one, scarcely cured, with daring
Wakes the strength of former days;
For the sweet, destructive flame
Pierc’d his marrow and his frame.
That which Amor stole before
Phœbus only can restore, —
Peace, and joy, and harmony,
Aspirations pure and free.

Brethren, rise ye!
Numbers prize ye!
Deeds of worth resemble they.
Who can better than the bard
Guide a friend when gone astray?
If his duty he regard
More he’ll do than others may.

Yes! afar I hear them sing!
Yes! I hear them touch the string,
And with mighty godlike stroke
Right and duty they inspire,
And evoke,
As they sing, and wake the lyre,
Tendencies of noblest worth
To each type of strength give birth.

Phantasies of sweetest power
Flower
Round about on ev’ry bough,
Bending now,
Like the magic wood of old,
‘Neath the fruit that gleams like gold.

What we feel and what we view
In the land of highest bliss, —
This dear soil, a sun like this, —
Lures the best of women too.
And the Muses’ breathings bless’d
Rouse the maiden’s gentle breast,
Tune the throat to minstrelsy,
And with cheeks of beauteous dye,
Bid it sing a worthy song,
Sit the sister-band among;
And their strains grow softer still
As they vie with earnest will.

One amongst the band betimes
Goes to wander
By the beeches, ‘neath the limes,
Yonder seeking, finding yonder
That which in the morning-grove
She had lost through roguish Love,
All her breast’s first aspirations,
And her heart’s calm meditations.
To the shady wood so fair
Gently stealing,
Takes she that which man can ne’er
Duly merit, — each soft feeling, —
Disregards the noontide ray
And the dew at close of day, —
In the plain her path she loses.
Ne’er disturb her on her way!
Seek her silently, ye Muses!

Shouts I hear wherein the sound
Of the waterfall is drown’d.
From the grove loud clamors rise;
Strange the tumult, strange the cries.
See I rightly? Can it be?
To the very sanctuary,
Lo, an impious troop in-hies!

O’er the land
Streams the band;
Hot desire,
Drunken fire
In their gaze
Wildly plays, —
Makes their hair
Bristle there.
And the troop,
With fell swoop,
Women, men,
Coming then,
Ply their blows
And expose,
Void of shame,
All the frame.
Iron shot,
Fierce and hot,
Strike with fear
On the ear;
All they slay
On their way.
O’er the land
Pours the band;
All take flight
At their sight.

Ah, o’er ev’ry plant they rush!
Ah, their cruel footsteps crush
All the flowers that fill their path!
Who will dare to stem their wrath?

Brethren, let us venture all!
Virtue in your pure cheek glows.
Phœbus will attend our call
When he sees our heavy woes;
And that we may have aright
Weapons suited to the fight,
He the mountain shaketh now —
From its brow
Rattling down
Stone on stone
Through the thicket spread appear.
Brethren, seize them! Wherefore fear?
Now the villain crew assail
As though with a storm of hail,
And expel the strangers wild
From these regions soft and mild
Where the sun has ever smil’d!

What strange wonder do I see?
Can it be?
All my limbs of power are reft,
And all strength my hand has left.
Can it be?
None are strangers that I see!
And our brethren ’tis who go
On before, the way to show!
Oh, the reckless impious ones!
How they, with their jarring tones,
Beat the time as on they hie!
Quick, my brethren! — let us fly!

To the rash ones, yet a word!
Ay, my voice shall now be heard
As a peal of thunder, strong!
Words as poets’ arms were made, —
When the god will be obey’d,
Follow fast his darts ere long.

Was it possible that ye
Thus your godlike dignity
Should forget? The Thyrsus rude
Must a heavy burden feel
To the hand but wont to steal
O’er the lyre in gentle mood.
From the sparkling waterfalls,
From the brook that purling calls,
Shall Silenus’ loathsome beast
Be allow’d at will to feast?
Aganippe’s wave he sips
With profane and spreading lips, —
With ungainly feet stamps madly,
Till the waters flow on sadly.

Fain I’d think myself deluded
In the sadd’ning sounds I hear;
From the holy glades secluded
Hateful tones assail the ear.
Laughter wild (exchange how mournful!)
Takes the place of love’s sweet dream;
Women-haters and the scornful
In exulting chorus scream.
Nightingale and turtle-dove
Fly their nests so warm and chaste,
And, inflam’d with sensual love,
Holds the Faun the Nymph embrac’d.
Here a garment’s torn away,
Scoffs succeed their sated bliss,
While the god, with angry ray,
Looks upon each impious kiss.

Vapor, smoke, as from a fire,
And advancing clouds I view;
Chords not only grace the lyre,
For the bow its chords hath too.
Even the adorer’s heart
Dreads the wild advancing band,
For the flames that round them dart
Show the fierce destroyer’s hand.
Oh, neglect not what I say,
For I speak it lovingly!
From our boundaries haste away,
From the god’s dread anger fly!
Cleanse once more the holy place,
Turn the savage train aside!
Earth contains upon its face
Many a spot unsanctified;
Here we only prize the good.
Stars unsullied round us burn.

If ye, in repentant mood,
From your wanderings would return, —
If ye fail to find the bliss
That ye found with us of yore, —
Or when lawless mirth like this
Gives your hearts delight no more, —
Then return in pilgrim guise,
Gladly up the mountain go,
While your strains repentant rise,
And our brethren’s advent show.

Let a new-born wreath entwine
Solemnly your temples round;
Rapture glows in hearts divine
When a long-lost sinner’s found.
Swifter e’en than Lethe’s flood
Round Death’s silent house can play
Ev’ry error of the good
Will love’s chalice wash away.
All will haste your steps to meet
As ye come in majesty, —
Men your blessing will entreat; —
Ours ye thus will doubly be!

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MAHOMET’S SONG.

SEE the rock-born stream!
Like the gleam
Of a star so bright!
Kindly spirits
High above the clouds
Nourish’d him while youthful
In the copse between the cliffs.

Young and fresh,
From the clouds he danceth
Down upon the marble rocks;
Then tow’rd heaven
Leaps exulting.

Through the mountain-passes
Chaseth he the color’d pebbles,
And, advancing like a chief,
Tears his brother streamlets with him
In his course.

In the valley down below
‘Neath his footsteps spring the flowers,
And the meadow
In his breath finds life.

Yet no shady vale can stay him
Nor can flowers,
Round his knees all-softly twining,
With their loving eyes detain him;
To the plain his course he taketh,
Serpent-winding.

Social streamlets
Join his waters. And now moves he
O’er the plain in silv’ry glory,
And the plain in him exults,
And the rivers from the plain,
And the streamlets from the mountain,
Shout with joy, exclaiming: “Brother,
Brother, take thy brethren with thee,
With thee to thine aged father,
To the everlasting ocean,
Who, with arms outstretching far,
Waiteth for us;
Ah, in vain those arms lie open
To embrace his yearning children;
For the thirsty sand consumes us
In the desert waste; the sunbeams
Drink our life-blood; hills around us
Into lakes would dam us! Brother,
Take thy brethren of the plain,
Take thy brethren of the mountain
With thee, to thy father’s arms!” —

Let all come, then! —
And now swells he
Lordlier still; yea, e’en a people
Bears his regal flood on high!
And in triumph onward rolling
Names to countries gives he, — cities
Spring to light beneath his foot.

Ever, ever, on he rushes,
Leaves the towers’ flame-tipp’d summits,
Marble palaces, the offspring
Of his fulness, far behind.

Cedar-houses bears the Atlas
On his giant shoulders; flutt’ring
In the breeze far, far above him
Thousand flags are gayly floating,
Bearing witness to his might.

And so beareth he his brethren
All his treasures, all his children,
Wildly shouting, to the bosom
Of his long-expectant sire.

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SPIRIT SONG OVER THE WATERS.

THE soul of man
Resembleth water:
From heaven it cometh,
To heaven it soareth,
And then again
To earth descendeth,
Changing ever.

Down from the lofty
Rocky wall
Streams the bright flood,
Then spreadeth gently
In cloudy billows
O’er the smooth rock,
And welcomed kindly,
Veiling, on roams it,
Soft murmuring,
Toward the abyss.

Cliffs projecting
Oppose its progress, —
Angrily foams it
Down to the bottom,
Step by step.

Now, in flat channel,
Through the meadowland steals it,
And in the polish’d lake
Each constellation
Joyously peepeth.

Wind is the loving
Wooer of waters;
Wind blends together
Billows all-foaming.

Spirit of man,
Thou art like unto water!
Fortune of man,
Thou art like unto wind!

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MY GODDESS.

SAY, which Immortal
Merits the highest reward?
With none contend I,
But I will give it
To the aye-changing,
Ever-moving
Wondrous daughter of Jove,
His best-beloved offspring,
Sweet Phantasy.

For unto her
Hath he granted
All the fancies which erst
To none allow’d he
Saving himself;
Now he takes his pleasure
In the mad one.

She may, crown’d with roses,
With staff twined round with lilies,
Roam through flow’ry valleys,
Rule the butterfly-people,
And soft-nourishing dew
With bee-like lips
Drink from the blossom:

Or else she may
With fluttering hair
And gloomy looks
Sigh in the wind
Round rocky cliffs,
And thousand-hued,
Like morn and even,
Ever changing,
Like moonbeam’s light,
To mortals appear.

Let us all, then,
Adore the Father!
The old, the mighty,
Who such a beauteous
Ne’er-fading spouse
Deigns to accord
To perishing mortals!

To us alone
Doth he unite her
With heavenly bonds,
While he commands her,
In joy and sorrow,
As a true spouse
Never to fly us.

All the remaining
Races so poor
Of life-teeming earth,
In children so rich,
Wander and feed
In vacant enjoyment,
And ‘mid the dark sorrows
Of evanescent
Restricted life, —
Bow’d by the heavy
Yoke of Necessity.

But unto us he
Hath his most versatile,
Most cherish’d daughter
Granted, — what joy!
Lovingly greet her
As a belov’d one!
Give her the woman’s
Place in our home!

And oh, may the aged
Stepmother Wisdom
Her gentle spirit
Ne’er seek to harm!

Yet know I her sister,
The older, sedater,
Mine own silent friend;
Oh, may she never,
Till life’s lamp is quench’d,
Turn away from me, —
That noble inciter,
Comforter, — Hope!

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WINTER JOURNEY OVER THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS.

LIKE the vulture
Who on heavy morning clouds
With gentle wing reposing
Looks for his prey, —
Hover, my song!

For a God hath
Unto each prescrib’d
His destin’d path,
Which the happy one
Runs o’er swiftly
To his glad goal:
He whose heart cruel
Fate hath contracted,
Struggles but vainly
Against all the barriers
The brazen thread raises,
But which the harsh shears
Must one day sever.

Through gloomy thickets
Presseth the wild deer on,
And with the sparrows
Long have the wealthy
Settled themselves in the marsh.

Easy ’tis following the chariot
That by Fortune is driven,
Like the baggage that moves
Over well-mended highways
After the train of a prince.

But who stands there apart?
In the thicket, lost is his path;
Behind him the bushes
Are closing together,
The grass springs up again,
The desert engulfs him.

Ah, who’ll heal his afflictions
To whom balsam was poison,
Who, from love’s fulness,
Drank in misanthropy only?
First despis’d, and now a despiser,
He, in secret, wasteth
All that he is worth
In a selfishness vain.

If there be, on thy psaltery,
Father of Love, but one tone
That to his ear may be pleasing,
Oh, then, quicken his heart!
Clear his cloud-envelop’d eyes
Over the thousand fountains
Close by the thirsty one
In the desert.

Thou who createst much joy,
For each a measure o’erflowing,
Bless the sons of the chase
When on the track of the prey,
With a wild thirsting for blood,
Youthful and joyous,
Avenging late the injustice
Which the peasant resisted
Vainly for years with his staff.

But the lonely one veil
Within thy gold clouds!
Surround with wintergreen
Until the roses bloom again
The humid locks,
Oh, Love, of thy minstrel!

With thy glimmering torch
Lightest thou him
Through the fords when ’tis night,
Over bottomless places,
On desert-like plains;
With the thousand colors of morning
Gladd’nest his bosom;
With the fierce-biting storm
Bearest him proudly on high;
Winter torrents rush from the cliffs, —
Blend with his psalms;
An altar of grateful delight
He finds in the much-dreaded mountain’s
Snow-begirded summit,
Which foreboding nations
Crown’d with spirit-dances.

Thou stand’st with breast inscrutable,
Mysteriously disclos’d,
High o’er the wondering world,
And look’st from clouds
Upon its realms and its majesty,
Which thou from the veins of thy brethren
Near thee dost water.

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TO FATHER KRONOS.

HASTEN thee, Kronos!
On with clattering trot!
Downhill goeth thy path;
Loathsome dizziness ever,
When thou delayest, assails me.
Quick, rattle along,
Over stock and stone let thy trot
Into life straightway lead!
Now once more
Up the toilsome ascent
Hasten, panting for breath!
Up, then, nor idle be. —
Striving and hoping, up, up!

Wide, high, glorious the view
Gazing round upon life,
While from mount unto mount
Hovers the spirit eterne,
Life eternal foreboding.

Sideways a roof’s pleasant shade
Attracts thee,
And a look that promises coolness
On the maidenly threshold.
There refresh thee! And, maiden,
Give me this foaming draught also,
Give me this health-laden look!

Down, now! quicker still, down!
See where the sun sets!
Ere he sets, ere old age
Seizeth me in the morass,
Ere my toothless jaws mumble,
And my useless limbs totter;

While drunk with his farewell beam
Hurl me, — a fiery sea
Foaming still in mine eye, —
Hurl me, while dazzled and reeling,
Down to the gloomy portal of hell.

Blow, then, gossip, thy horn!
Speed on with echoing trot,
So that Orcus may know we are coming;
So that our host may with joy
Wait at the door to receive us.

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THE WANDERER’S STORM-SONG.

HE whom thou ne’er leavest, Genius,
Feels no dread within his heart
At the tempest or the rain.
He whom thou ne’er leavest, Genius,
Will to the rain-clouds,
Will to the hail-storm,
Sing in reply
As the lark sings,
Oh, thou on high!

Him whom thou ne’er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt raise above the mud-track
With thy fiery pinions.
He will wander
As, with flowery feet,
Over Deucalion’s dark flood,
Python-slaying, light, glorious,
Pythius Apollo.

Him whom thou ne’er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt place upon thy fleecy pinion
When he sleepeth on the rock, —
Thou wilt shelter with thy guardian wing
In the forest’s midnight hour.

Him whom thou ne’er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt wrap up warmly
In the snow-drift;
Tow’rd the warmth approach the Muses,
Tow’rd the warmth approach the Graces.

Ye Muses, hover round me!
Ye Graces also!
That is water, that is earth,
And the son of water and of earth
Over which I wander
Like the gods.

Ye are pure, like the heart of the water;
Ye are pure, like the marrow of earth,
Hov’ring round me, while I hover
Over water, o’er the earth
Like the gods.

Shall he then return,
The small, the dark, the fiery peasant?
Shall he then return, awaiting
Only thy gifts, O Father Bromius,
And brightly gleaming, warmth-spreading fire?
Return with joy?
And I. whom ye attended,
Ye Muses and ye Graces,
Whom all awaits that ye,
Ye Muses and ye Graces,
Of circling bliss in life
Have glorified — shall I
Return dejected?

Father Bromius!
Thou’rt the Genius,
Genius of ages,
Thou’rt what inward glow
To Pindar was,
What to the world
Phœbus Apollo.

Woe! woe! Inward warmth,
Spirit-warmth,
Central point!
Glow, and vie with
Phœbus Apollo!
Coldly soon
His regal look
Over thee will swiftly glide, —
Envy-struck
Linger o’er the cedar’s strength,
Which to flourish
Waits him not.

Why doth my lay name thee the last?
Thee, from whom it began,
Thee, in whom it endeth,
Thee, from whom it flows,
Jupiter Pluvius!
Tow’rd thee streams my song,
And a Castalian spring
Runs as a fellow-brook,
Runs to the idle ones,
Mortal, happy ones,
Apart from thee,
Who cov’rest me around,
Jupiter Pluvius!

Not by the elm tree
Him didst thou visit,
With the pair of doves
Held in his gentle arm, —
With the beauteous garland of roses, —
Caressing him, so bless’d in his flowers,
Anacreon,
Storm-breathing godhead!

Not in the poplar grove
Near the Sybaris’ strand,
Not on the mountain’s
Sun-illumined brow
Didst thou seize him,
The flower-singing,
Honey-breathing,
Sweetly nodding
Theocritus.

When the wheels were rattling,
Wheel on wheel tow’rd the goal,
High arose
The sound of the lash
Of youths with victory glowing,
In the dust rolling,
As from the mountain fall
Showers of stones in the vale —
Then thy soul was brightly glowing, Pindar —
Glowing? Poor heart!
There, on the hill, —
Heavenly might!
But enough glow
Thither to wend
Where is my cot!

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THE SEA-VOYAGE.

MANY a day and night my bark stood ready laden;
Waiting fav’ring winds, I sat with true friends round me
Pledging me to patience and to courage
In the haven.

And they spoke thus with impatience twofold:
“Gladly pray we for thy rapid passage,
Gladly for thy happy voyage; fortune
In the distant world is waiting for thee,
In our arms thou’lt find thy prize, and love too,
When returning.”
And when morning came arose an uproar,
And the sailors’ joyous shouts awoke us;
All was stirring, all was living, moving,
Bent on sailing with the first kind zephyr.

And the sails soon in the breeze are swelling,
And the sun with fiery love invites us;
Fill’d the sails are, clouds on high are floating,
On the shore each friend exulting raises
Songs of hope, in giddy joy expecting
Joy the voyage through as on the morn of sailing
And the earliest starry nights so radiant.

But by God-sent changing winds ere long he’s driven
Sideways from the course he had intended,
And he feigns as though he would surrender
While he gently striveth to outwit them.

To his goal, e’en when thus press’d, still faithful.
But from out the damp gray distance rising
Softly now the storm proclaims its advent,
Presseth down each bird upon the waters,
Presseth down the throbbing hearts of mortals.
And it cometh. At its stubborn fury
Wisely ev’ry sail the seaman striketh;
With the anguish-laden ball are sporting
Wind and water.

And on yonder shore are gather’d, standing,
Friends and lovers, trembling for the bold one:
“Why, alas, remain’d he here not with us!
Ah, the tempest! Cast away by fortune!
Must the good one perish in this fashion?
Might not he perchance . . . Ye great immortals!”

Yet he, like a man, stands by his rudder;
With the bark are sporting wind and water,
Wind and water sport not with his bosom:
On the fierce deep looks he as a master, —
In his gods, or shipwreck’d or safe landed,
Trusting ever.

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PROMETHEUS.

COVER thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist,
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles’ heads,
Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks;
Yet thou must leave
My earth still standing;
My cottage too, which was not rais’d by thee;
Leave me my hearth,
Whose kindly glow
By thee is envied.

I know naught poorer
Under the sun than ye gods!
Ye nourish painfully,
With sacrifices
And votive prayers,
Your majesty;
Ye would e’en starve
If children and beggars
Were not trusting fools.

While yet a child
And ignorant of life
I turn’d my wandering gaze
Up tow’rd the sun, as if with him
There were an ear to hear my wailings,
A heart like mine
To feel compassion for distress.

Who help’d me
Against the Titans’ insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceiv’d with grateful thanks,
To yonder slumbering one?

I honor thee! and why?
Hast thou e’er lighten’d the sorrows
Of the heavy-laden?
Hast thou e’er dried up the tears
Of the anguish-stricken?
Was I not fashion’d to be a man
By omnipotent Time
And by eternal Fate,
Masters of me and thee?

Didst thou e’er fancy
That life I should learn to hate
And fly to deserts,
Because not all
My blossoming dreams grew ripe?

Here sit I, forming mortals
After my image;
A race resembling me,
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad,
And thee to scorn
As I!

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THE EAGLE AND DOVE.

IN search of prey once rais’d his pinions An eaglet;
A huntsman’s arrow came and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writh’d
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature’s
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out the copse
And stretch’d his wing — alas!
Lost is all power of flight —
He scarce can lift himself

From off the ground
To catch some mean, unworthy prey,
And rests, deep-sorrowing,
On the low rock beside the stream.
Up to the oak he looks,
Looks up to heaven,
While in his noble eye there gleams a tear.
Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold,
There comes a wanton pair of doves
Who settle down, and, nodding, strut
O’er the gold sands beside the stream,
And gradually approach;
Their red-tinged eyes so full of love
Soon see the inward-sorrowing one.
The male, inquisitively social, leaps
On the next bush, and looks
Upon him kindly and complacently.
“Thou sorrowest,” murmurs he:
“Be of good cheer, my friend!

All that is needed for calm happiness
Hast thou not here?
Hast thou not pleasure in the golden bough
That shields thee from the day’s fierce glow?
Canst thou not raise thy breast to catch
On the soft moss beside the brook
The sun’s last rays at even?
Here thou may’st wander through the flowers’ fresh dew,
Pluck from the overflow
The forest-trees provide
The choicest food, — may’st quench
Thy light thirst at the silvery spring.
O friend, true happiness
Lies in contentedness,
And that contentedness
Finds everywhere enough.”
“O wise one!” said the eagle, while he sank
In deep and ever-deep’ning thought —
“O Wisdom! like a dove thou speakest!”

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GANYMEDE.

HOW in the light of morning
Round me thou glowest,
Spring, thou beloved one!
With thousand-varying loving bliss
The sacred emotions
Born of thy warmth eternal
Press ‘gainst my bosom,
Thou endlessly fair one!
Could I but hold thee clasp’d
Within mine arms!
Ah! upon thy bosom
Lay I pining,
And then thy flowers, thy grass,
Were pressing against my heart.
Thou coolest the burning
Thirst of my bosom,
Beauteous morning breeze!
The nightingale then calls me
Sweetly from out of the misty vale.
I come, I come!
Whither? Ah, whither?
Up, up, lies my course.
While downward the clouds
Are hovering, the clouds
Are bending to meet yearning love.
For me
Within thine arms
Upwards!
Embrac’d and embracing!
Upwards into thy bosom,
O Father all-loving!

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THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY.

WHEN the primeval
All-holy Father
Sows with a tranquil hand
From clouds, as they roll,
Bliss-spreading lightnings
Over the earth,
Then do I kiss the last
Hem of his garment,
While by a childlike awe
Fill’d is my breast.

For with immortals
Ne’er may a mortal
Measure himself.
If he soar upwards
And if he touch
With his forehead the stars,
Nowhere will rest then
His insecure feet,
And with him sport
Tempest and cloud.

Though with firm sinewy
Limbs he may stand
On the enduring
Well-grounded earth,
All he is ever
Able to do
Is to resemble
The oak or the vine.

Wherein do gods
Differ from mortals?
In that the former
See endless billows
Heaving before them;
Us doth the billow
Lift up and swallow,
So that we perish.

Small is the ring
Enclosing our life,
And whole generations
Link themselves firmly
On to existence’s
Chain never-ending.
Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word]
[Editor: illegible word]

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THE GODLIKE.

NOBLE be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.

Hail to the beings,
Unknown and glorious,
Whom we forebode!
From his example
Learn we to know them!

For unfeeling
Nature is ever:
On bad and on good
The sun alike shineth;
And on the wicked
As on the best
The moon and stars gleam.

Tempest and torrent,
Thunder and hail,
Roar on their path,
Seizing the while,
As they haste onward,
One after another.

Even so fortune
Gropes ‘mid the throng —
Innocent boyhood’s
Curly head seizing. —
Seizing the hoary
Head of the sinner.

After laws mighty,
Brazen, eternal,
Must all we mortals
Finish the circuit
Of our existence.

Man and man only
Can do the impossible;
He ’tis distinguisheth,
Chooseth and judgeth;
He to the moment
Endurance can lend.

He and he only
The good can reward,
The bad can he punish,
Can heal and can save;
All that wanders and strays
Can usefully blend.

And we pay homage
To the immortals
As though they were men,
And did in the great,
What the best, in the small,
Does or might do.

Be the man that is noble,
Both helpful and good,
Unweariedly forming
The right and the useful,
A type of those beings
Our mind hath foreshadow’d

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ROYAL PRAYER.

HA, I am the lord of earth! The noble,
Who ‘re in my service, love me.
Ha, I am the lord of earth! The noble,
O’er whom my sway extendeth, love I.
Oh, grant me, God in heaven, that I may ne’er
Dispense with loftiness and love!

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HUMAN FEELINGS.

AH, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, O kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!

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LILY’S MENAGERIE.

THERE’S no menagerie, I vow,
Excels my Lily’s at this minute;
She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.
Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp’d pinions wildly wave, —
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that naught can cure.

What is the fairy’s name? — Is’t Lily? — Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she’s unknown to thee.

Oh, what a cackling, what a shrieking,
When near the door she takes her stand
With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh, what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look! — the very gods delighting
(To say naught of beasts). There begins then a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
And each o’er the legs of another is tripping,
And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
And all for one small piece of bread,
To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
As though it in ambrosia had been plac’d.

And then her look! the tone
With which she calls: Pipi! Pipi!
Would draw Jove’s eagle from his throne;
Yes, Venus’ turtle-doves, I ween,
And the vain peacock e’en,
Would come, I swear,
Soon as that tone had reach’d them through the air.

E’en from a forest dark had she
Entic’d a bear, unlick’d, ill-bred,
And by her wiles alluring led
To join the gentle company,
Until as tame as they was he:
(Up to a certain point, be’t understood!)
How fair, and, ah, how good
She seem’d to be! I would have drain’d my blood
To water e’en her flow’rets sweet.

Thou sayest: “I! Who? How? And where?” —
Well, to be plain, good Sirs — I am the bear;
In a net-apron caught, alas!
Chain’d by a silk-thread at her feet.
But how this wonder came to pass
I’ll tell some day, if ye are curious;
Just now, my temper’s much too furious.

Ah, when I’m in the corner plac’d,
And hear afar the creatures snapping,
And see the flipping and the flapping,
I turn around
With growling sound,
And backward run a step in haste,
And look around
With growling sound,
Then run again a step in haste,
And to my former post go round.

But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose,
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! a dolt!
Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack!
I bristle up my shaggy back,
Unused a slave to be.
I’m laugh’d at by each trim and upstart tree
To scorn. The bowling-green I fly,
With neatly-mown and well-kept grass;
The box makes faces as I pass, —
Into the darkest thicket hasten I,
Hoping to ‘scape from the ring,
Over the palings to spring!
Vainly I leap and climb;
I feel a leaden spell
That pinions me as well;
And when I’m fully wearied out in time
I lay me down beside some mock cascade,
And roll myself half dead, and foam, and cry,
And, ah! no Oreads hear my sigh
Excepting those of china made!

But, ah, with sudden power
In all my members blissful feelings reign!
’Tis she who singeth yonder in her bower!
I hear that darling, darling voice again.

The air is warm, and teems with fragrance clear,
Sings she perchance for me alone to hear?
I haste, and trample down the shrubs amain;
The trees make way, the bushes all retreat,
And so — the beast is lying at her feet.

She looks at him: “The monster’s droll enough!
He’s for a bear too mild,
Yet for a dog too wild,
So shaggy, clumsy, rough!”
Upon his back she gently strokes her foot;
He thinks himself in Paradise.
What feelings through his seven senses shoot!
But she looks on with careless eyes.
I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,
As gently as a bear well may;
Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse
Leap on her knee. — On a propitious day
She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,
And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
I growl with new-born ecstasy;
Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot:
“Allons tout doux! eh! la menotte!
Et faites serviteur
Comme un joli seigneur.”

Thus she proceeds with sport and glee;
Hope fills the oft-deluded beast;
Yet if one moment he would lazy be
Her fondness all at once hath ceas’d.

She doth a flask of balsam-fire possess
Sweeter than honey-bees can make,
One drop of which she’ll on her finger take,
When soften’d by his love and faithfulness,
Wherewith her monster’s raging thirst to slake;
Then leaves me to myself, and flies at last,
And I, unbound, yet prison’d fast
By magic, follow in her train,
Seek for her, tremble, fly again.
The hapless creature thus tormenteth she,
Regardless of his pleasure or his woe;
Ha! oft half-open’d does she leave the door for me,
And sideways looks to learn if I will fly or no.
And I — O gods! your hands alone
Can end the spell that’s o’er me thrown;
Free me, and gratitude my heart will fill;
And yet from heaven ye send me down no aid —
Not quite in vain doth life my limbs pervade:
I feel it! Strength is left me still.

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LOVE’S DISTRESSES.

WHO will hear me? Whom shall I lament to?
Who would pity me that heard my sorrows?
Ah, the lip that erst so many raptures
Used to taste, and used to give responsive,
Now is cloven, and it pains me sorely;
And it is not thus severely wounded
By my mistress having caught me fiercely,
And then gently bitten me, intending
To secure her friend more firmly to her:
No, my tender lip is crack’d thus only
By the winds, o’er rime and frost proceeding,
Pointed, sharp, unloving, having met me.
Now the noble grape’s bright juice commingled
With the bee’s sweet juice, upon the fire
Of my hearth, shall ease me of my torment.
Ah, what use will all this be if with it
Love adds not a drop of his own balsam?

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TO HIS COY ONE.

SEEST thou yon smiling Orange?
Upon the tree still hangs it;
Already March hath vanish’d,
And new-born flow’rs are shooting.
I draw nigh to the tree then,
And there I say: O Orange,
Thou ripe and juicy Orange,
Thou sweet and luscious Orange —
I shake the tree, I shake it —
Oh, fall into my lap!

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PETITION.

OH, thou sweet maiden fair,
Thou with the raven hair,
Why to the window go?
While gazing down below,
Art standing vainly there?
Oh, if thou stood’st for me,
And lett’st the latch but fly,
How happy should I be!
How soon would I leap high!

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THE MUSAGETES.

IN the deepest nights of winter
To the Muses kind oft cried I:
“Not a ray of morn is gleaming,
Not a sign of daylight breaking;
Bring then, at the fitting moment,
Bring the lamp’s soft glimm’ring lustre
‘Stead of Phœbus and Aurora,
To enliven my still labors!”
Yet they left me in my slumbers,
Dull and unrefreshing, lying,
And to each late-waken’d morning
Follow’d days devoid of profit.

When at length return’d the springtime
To the nightingales thus spake I:
“Darling nightingales, oh, beat ye
Early, early at my window, —
Wake me from the heavy slumber
That chains down the youth so strongly!”
Yet the love-o’erflowing songsters
Their sweet melodies protracted
Through the night before my window,
Kept awake my loving spirit,
Rousing new and tender yearnings
In my newly-waken’d bosom.
And the night thus fleeted o’er me,
And Aurora found me sleeping, —
Ay, the sun could scarce arouse me.

Now at length is come the summer,
And the early fly so busy
Draws me from my pleasing slumbers
At the first-born morning-glimmer.
Mercilessly then returns she,
Though the half-aroused one often
Scares her from him with impatience,
And she lures her shameless sisters,
So that from my weary eyelids
Kindly sleep ere long is driven.
From my couch then boldly spring I,
And I seek the darling Muses,
In the beechen-grove I find them
Full of pleasure to receive me;
And to the tormenting insects
Owe I many a golden hour.
Thus be ye, unwelcome beings,
Highly valued by the poet
As the flies my numbers tell of.

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MORNING LAMENT.

O THOU cruel deadly-lovely maiden,
Tell me what great sin have I committed
That thou keep’st me to the rack thus fasten’d,
That thou hast thy solemn promise broken?

’Twas but yestere’en that thou with fondness
Press’d my hand, and these sweet accents murmur’d:
“Yes, I’ll come, I’ll come when morn approacheth,
Come, my friend, full surely to thy chamber.”

On the latch I left my doors, unfasten’d,
Having first with care tried all the hinges,
And rejoic’d right well to find they creak’d not.

What a night of expectation pass’d I!
For I watch’d, and ev’ry chime I number’d;
If perchance I slept a few short moments
Still my heart remain’d awake forever,
And awoke me from my gentle slumbers.

Yes, then bless’d I night’s o’erhanging darkness
That so calmly cover’d all things round me;
I enjoy’d the universal silence,
While I listen’d ever in the silence
If perchance the slightest sounds were stirring.

“Had she only thoughts my thoughts resembling,
Had she only feelings like my feelings,
She would not await the dawn of morning,
But ere this would surely have been with me.”

Skipp’d a kitten on the floor above me,
Scratch’d a mouse a panel in the corner,
Was there in the house the slightest motion,
Ever hoped I that I heard thy footstep,
Ever thought I that I heard thee coming.

And so lay I long, and ever longer,
And already was the daylight dawning,
And both here and there were signs of movement.

“Is it yon door? Were it my door only!”
In my bed I lean’d upon my elbow,
Looking tow’rd the door, now half-apparent,
If perchance it might not be in motion.
Both the wings upon the latch continued,
On the quiet hinges calmly hanging.

And the day grew bright and brighter ever;
And I heard my neighbor’s door unbolted
As he went to earn his daily wages;
And ere long I heard the wagons rumbling,
And the city gates were also open’d,
While the market-place in ev’ry corner
Teem’d with life and bustle and confusion.

In the house was going now and coming
Up and down the stairs, and doors were creaking
Backwards now, now forwards, — footsteps clatter’d;
Yet, as though it were a thing all-living,
From my cherish’d hope I could not tear me.

When at length the sun, in hated splendor,
Fell upon my walls, upon my windows,
Up I sprang, and hasten’d to the garden,
There to blend my breath, so hot and yearning,
With the cool refreshing morning breezes,
And, it might be, even there to meet thee:
But I cannot find thee in the arbor,
Or the avenue of lofty lindens.

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THE VISIT.

FAIN had I to-day surpris’d my mistress,
But soon found I that her door was fasten’d.
Yet I had the key safe in my pocket,
And the darling door I open’d softly!

In the parlor found I not the maiden,
Found the maiden not within her closet,
Then her chamber-door I gently open’d,
When I found her wrapp’d in pleasing slumbers,
Fully dress’d, and lying on the sofa.

While at work had slumber stolen o’er her;
For her knitting and her needle found I
Resting in her folded hands so tender;
And I placed myself beside her softly,
And held counsel whether I should wake her.

Then I look’d upon the beauteous quiet
That on her sweet eyelids was reposing;
On her lips was silent truth depicted,
On her cheeks had loveliness its dwelling,
And the pureness of a heart unsullied
In her bosom evermore was heaving.
All her limbs were gracefully reclining,
Set at rest by sweet and godlike balsam.
Gladly sat I, and the contemplation
Held the strong desire I felt to wake her
Firmer and firmer down with mystic fetters.
“O thou love,” methought, “I see that slumber,
Slumber that betrayeth each false feature,
Cannot injure thee, can naught discover
That could serve to harm thy friend’s soft feelings.

“Now thy beauteous eyes are firmly closed,
That, when open, form mine only rapture.
And thy sweet lips are devoid of motion,
Motionless for speaking or for kissing;
Loosen’d are the soft and magic fetters
Of thine arms, so wont to twine around me,
And the hand, the ravishing companion
Of thy sweet caresses, lies unmoving.

“Were my thoughts of thee but based on error,
Were the love I bear thee self-deception,
I must now have found it out, since Amor
Is, without his bandage, placed beside me.”

Long I sat thus, full of heartfelt pleasure
At my love, and at her matchless merit;
She had so delighted me while slumbering
That I could not venture to awake her.

Then I on the little table near her
Softly placed two oranges, two roses;
Gently, gently stole I from her chamber.
When her eyes the darling one shall open
She will straightway spy these color’d presents,
And the friendly gift will view with wonder,
For the door will still remain unopen’d.

If perchance I see to-night the angel,
How will she rejoice! — reward me doubly
For this sacrifice of fond affection!

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THE MAGIC NET.

DO I see a contest yonder?
See I miracles or pastimes?
Beauteous urchins, five in number,
‘Gainst five sisters fair contending, —
Measur’d is the time they’re beating —
At a bright enchantress’ bidding.

Glitt’ring spears by some are wielded,
Threads are others nimbly twining,
So that in their snares the weapons
One would think must needs be captured.
Soon, in truth, the spears are prison’d;
Yet they, in the gentle war-dance,
One by one escape their fetters
In the row of loops so tender
That make haste to seize a free one
Soon as they release a captive.

So with contests, strivings, triumphs,
Flying now, and now returning,
Is an artful net soon woven,
In its whiteness like the snow-flakes
That, from light amid the darkness,
Draw their streaky lines so varied
As e’en colors scarce can draw them.

Who shall now receive that garment
Far beyond all others wish’d for?
Whom our much-lov’d mistress favor
As her own acknowledg’d servant?
I am bless’d by kindly Fortune’s
Tokens true, in silence pray’d for!
And I feel myself held captive,
To her service now devoted.

Yet, e’en while I, thus enraptured,
Thus adorn’d, am proudly wand’ring,
See! yon wantons are entwining,
Void of strife, with secret ardor,
Other nets, each fine and finer,
Threads of twilight interweaving,
Moonbeams sweet, night-violets’ balsam.

Ere the net is noticed by us
Is a happier one imprison’d,
Whom we, one and all, together
Greet with envy and with blessings.

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The Goblet.

EAGERLY a well-carv’d brimming goblet
In my two hands tightly clasp’d I lifted;
Ardently the sweet wine sipp’d I from it,
Seeking there to drown all care and sorrow.

Amor enter’d in, and found me sitting,
And he gently smiled in modest fashion,
Smiled as though the foolish one he pitied.

“Friend, I know a far more beauteous vessel,
One wherein to sink thy spirit wholly;
Say, what wilt thou give me, if I grant it,
And with other nectar fill it for thee?”
Oh, how kindly hath he kept his promise!
For to me, who long had yearn’d, he granted
Thee, my Lida, fill’d with soft affection.

When I clasp mine arms around thee fondly,
When I drink in love’s long-hoarded balsam
From thy darling lips so true, so faithful,
Fill’d with bliss thus speak I to my spirit: —

“No! a vessel such as this, save Amor,
Never god hath fashion’d or been lord of!
Such a form was ne’er produc’d by Vulcan
With his cunning, reason-gifted hammers!
On the leaf-crown’d mountains may Lyæus
Bid his Fauns, the oldest and the wisest,
Pass the choicest clusters through the winepress,
And himself watch o’er the fermentation:
Such a draught no toil can e’er procure him!”

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NIGHT THOUGHTS.

O UNHAPPY stars! your fate I mourn;
Ye by whom the sea-toss’d sailor’s lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heavens adorn,
But by gods and men are unrequited:
For ye love not, — ne’er have learn’d to love!
Ceaselessly in endless dance ye move,
In the spacious sky your charms displaying.
What far travels ye have hasten’d through,
Since, within my lov’d one’s arms delaying,
I’ve forgotten you and midnight too!

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TO LIDA.

THE only one whom, Lida, thou canst love,
Thou claim’st, and rightly claim’st, for only thee;
He too is wholly thine; since doom’d to rove
Far from thee, in life’s turmoils naught I see
Save a thin veil, through which thy form I view
As though in clouds; with kindly smile and true
It cheers me, like the stars eterne that gleam
Across the northern lights’ far-flick’ring beam.

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FOREVER.

THE happiness that man, whilst prison’d here,
Is wont with heavenly rapture to compare, —
The harmony of Truth, from wavering clear, —
Of Friendship that is free from doubting care, —
The light which in stray thoughts alone can cheer
The wise, — the bard alone in visions fair, —
In my best hours I found in her all this,
And made mine own, to mine exceeding bliss.

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FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604.

HOPE provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
And whisper in her ear with modest softness
How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
And O ye thoughts, distrustfully inclin’d,
If ye are therefore by the lov’d one chided,
Answer: ’tis true ye change, but alter not,
As she remains the same, yet changeth ever.
Doubt may invade the heart, but poisons not,
For love is sweeter, by suspicion flavor’d.
If it with anger overcasts the eye,
And heaven’s bright purity perversely blackens,
Then zephyr-sighs straight scare the clouds away,
And chang’d to tears dissolve them into rain.
Thought, hope, and love remain there as before,
Till Cynthia gleams upon me as of old.

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TO THE RISING FULL MOON.

Dornburg, August 25th, 1828.

WILT thou suddenly enshroud thee,
Who this moment wert so nigh?
Heavy rising masses cloud thee,
Thou art hidden from mine eye.

Yet my sadness thou well knowest,
Gleaming sweetly as a star!
That I’m lov’d, ’tis thou that showest,
Though my lov’d one may be far.

Upward mount then! clearer, milder,
Rob’d in splendor far more bright!
Though my heart with grief throbs wilder,
Fraught with rapture is the night!

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BETROTHED.

I SLEPT, — ’twas midnight, — in my bosom woke,
As though ‘twere day, my love-o’erflowing heart;
To me it seem’d like night when day first broke;
What is’t to me, whate’er it may impart?

She was away; the world’s unceasing strife
For her alone I suffer’d through the heat
Of sultry day. Oh, what refreshing life
At cooling eve! — my guerdon was complete.

The sun now set, and wand’ring hand in hand
His last and blissful look we greeted then;
While spake our eyes, as they each other scann’d:
“From the far east, let’s trust, he’ll come again!”

At midnight! — the bright stars in vision bless’d
Guide to the threshold where she slumbers calm:
Oh, be it mine, there too at length to rest, —
Yet howsoe’er this prove, life’s full of charm!

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AT MIDNIGHT HOUR.

AT midnight hour I went, not willingly,
A little, little boy, yon churchyard past,
To Father Vicar’s house; the stars on high
On all around their beauteous radiance cast,
At midnight hour.

And when, in journeying o’er the path of life,
My love I follow’d, as she onward mov’d,
With stars and northern lights o’er head in strife,
Going and coming, perfect bliss I prov’d
At midnight hour.

Until at length the full moon, lustre-fraught,
Burst through the gloom wherein she was enshrin’d;
And then the willing, active, rapid thought
Around the past, as round the future twin’d,
At midnight hour.

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LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL.

WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one day
I view’d the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were gray.
Close pack’d they stand that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones that to the death contended
Are lying cross’d, — to lie forever, fated.
What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?
No one now asks; and limbs with vigor fired,
The hand, the foot — their use in life is ended.
Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye’re driven
Back into daylight by a force inspir’d;
But none can love the wither’d husk, though even
A glorious noble kernel it contained.
To me, an adept, was the writing given
Which not to all its holy sense explained,
When ‘mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,
I saw a form, that glorious still remained,
And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,
Gave me a bless’d, a rapture-fraught emotion,
As though from death a living fount were springing.
What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!
That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!
A look, how did it whirl me tow’rd that ocean
Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!
Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!
Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,
Except to steal thee from thy prison here
With pious purpose, and devoutly go
Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.
What greater gain in life can man e’er know
Than when God-Nature will to him explain
How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,
How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.

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Trilogy of Passion.

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TO WERTHER.

ONCE more, then, much-wept shadow, thou dost dare
Boldly to face the day’s clear light,
To meet me on fresh blooming meadows fair,
And dost not tremble at my sight.
Those happy times appear return’d once more.
When on one field we quaff’d refreshing dew,
And, when the day’s unwelcome toils were o’er,
The farewell sunbeams bless’d our ravish’d view;
Fate bade thee go — to linger here was mine —
Going the first, the smaller loss was thine.

The life of man appears a glorious fate:
The day how lovely, and the night how great!
And we, ‘mid paradise-like raptures plac’d,
The sun’s bright glory scarce have learn’d to taste,
When strange contending feelings dimly cover,
Now us, and now the forms that round us hover;
One’s feelings by no other are supplied;
’Tis dark without, if all is bright inside;
An outward brightness veils my sadden’d mood,
When Fortune smiles, — how seldom understood!

Now think we that we know her, and with might
A woman’s beauteous form instils delight;
The youth, as glad as in his infancy,
The spring-time treads, as though the spring were he.
Ravish’d, amaz’d, he asks, how this is done?
He looks around, the world appears his own.
With careless speed he wanders on through space,
Nor walls, nor palaces can check his race;
As some gay flight of birds round tree-tops plays,
So ’tis with him who round his mistress strays;
He seeks from Æther, which he’d leave behind him,
The faithful look that fondly serves to bind him.

Yet first too early warn’d, and then too late,
He feels his flight restrain’d, is captur’d straight;
To meet again is sweet, to part is sad,
Again to meet again is still more glad,
And years in one short moment are enshrin’d;
But oh, the harsh farewell is hid behind!

Thou smilest, friend, with fitting thoughts inspir’d;
By a dread parting was thy fame acquir’d;
Thy mournful destiny we sorrow’d o’er;
For weal and woe thou left’st us evermore;
And then again the passions’ wavering force
Drew us along in labyrinthine course;
And we, consum’d by constant misery,
At length must part — and parting is to die!
How moving is it, when the minstrel sings,
To ‘scape the death that separation brings!
Oh, grant, some god, to one who suffers so,
To tell, half-guilty, his sad tale of woe!

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ELEGY.

When man had ceased to utter his lament,
A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow.

WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav’ring thoughts within the bosom play! —
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on high.

And thus thou into paradise wert brought,
As worthy of a pure and endless life;
Nothing was left, no wish, no hope, no thought,
Here was the boundary of thine inmost strife:
And seeing one so fair, so glorified,
The fount of yearning tears was straightway dried.

No motion stirr’d the day’s revolving wheel;
In their own front the minutes seem’d to go;
The evening kiss, a true and binding seal,
Ne’er changing till the morrow’s sunlight glow.
The hours resembled sisters as they went,
Yet each one from another different.

The last hour’s kiss, so sadly sweet, effac’d
A beauteous network of entwining love.
Now on the threshold pause the feet, now haste,
As though a flaming cherub bade them move;
The unwilling eye the dark road wanders o’er,
Backward it looks, but clos’d it sees the door.

And now within itself is clos’d this breast,
As though it ne’er were open, and as though,
Vying with ev’ry star, no moments bless’d
Had, in its presence, felt a kindling glow;
Sadness, reproach, repentance, weight of care,
Hang heavy on it in the sultry air.

Is not the world still left? The rocky steeps.
Are they with holy shades no longer crown’d?
Grows not the harvest ripe? No longer creeps
Th’ espalier by the stream, — the copse around?
Doth not the wondrous arch of heaven still rise,
Now rich in shape, now shapeless to the eyes?

As, seraph-like, from out the dark clouds’ chorus,
With softness woven, graceful, light and fair,
Resembling Her, in the blue ether o’er us,
A slender figure hovers in the air, —
Thus didst thou see her joyously advance,
The fairest of the fairest in the dance.

Yet but a moment dost thou boldly dare
To clasp an airy form instead of hers;
Back to thine heart! thou’lt find it better there,
For there in changeful guise her image stirs;
What erst was one, to many turneth fast,
In thousand forms, each dearer than the last.

As at the door on meeting linger’d she,
And step by step my faithful ardor bless’d,
For the last kiss herself entreated me,
And on my lips the last, last kiss impress’d —
Thus clearly trac’d, the lov’d one’s form we view,
With flames engraven on a heart so true, —

A heart that, firm as some embattled tower,
Itself for her, her in itself reveres,
For her rejoices in its lasting power,
Conscious alone, when she herself appears
Feels itself freer in so sweet a thrall,
And only beats to give her thanks in all.

The power of loving, and all yearning sighs
For love responsive were effac’d and drown’d;
While longing hope for joyous enterprise
Was form’d, and rapid action straightway found;
If love can e’er a loving one inspire,
Most lovingly it gave me now its fire.

And ’twas through her! — an inward sorrow lay
On soul and body, heavily oppress’d;
To mournful phantoms was my sight a prey,
In the drear void of a sad tortured breast;
Now on the well-known threshold Hope hath smil’d,
Herself appeareth in the sunlight mild.

Unto the peace of God, which, as we read,
Blesseth us more than reason e’er hath done,
Love’s happy peace would I compare indeed,
When in the presence of the dearest one.
There rests the heart, and there that sweetest thought,
The thought of being hers, is check’d by naught.

In the pure bosom doth a yearning float,
Unto a holier, purer, unknown Being
Its grateful aspirations to devote,
The Ever-Nameless then unriddled seeing;
We call it piety! — such bless’d delight
I feel a share in when before her sight.

Before her sight, as ‘neath the sun’s hot ray,
Before her breath, as ‘neath the Spring’s soft wind,
In its deep wintry cavern melts away
Self-love, so long in icy chains confin’d;
No selfishness and no self-will are nigh,
For at her advent they were forc’d to fly.

It seems as though she said: “As hours pass by
They spread before us life with kindly plan;
Small knowledge did the yesterday supply,
To know the morrow is conceal’d from man;
And if the thought of evening made me start,
The sun at setting gladden’d straight my heart.

“Act, then, as I, and look, with joyous mind,
The moment in the face; nor linger thou!
Meet it with speed, so fraught with life, so kind
In action, and in love so radiant now;
Let all things be where thou art, childlike ever,
Thus thou’lt be all, thus thou’lt be vanquish’d never.”

Thou speakest well, methought, for as thy guide
The moment’s favor did a god assign,
And each one feels himself, when by thy side,
Fate’s fav’rite in a moment so divine;
I tremble at thy look that bids me go;
Why should I care such wisdom vast to know?

Now am I far! And what would best befit
The present minute? I could scarcely tell;
Full many a rich possession offers it,
These but offend, and I would fain repel.
Yearnings unquenchable still drive me on;
All counsel, save unbounded tears, is gone.

Flow on, flow on in never-ceasing course,
Yet may ye never quench my inward fire!
Within my bosom heaves a mighty force,
Where death and life contend in combat dire.
Medicines may serve the body’s pangs to still;
Naught but the spirit fails in strength of will, —

Fails in conception; wherefore fails it so?
A thousand times her image it portrays;
Enchanting now, and now compell’d to go,
Now indistinct, now cloth’d in purest rays!
How could the smallest comfort here be flowing?
The ebb and flood, the coming and the going!

* * * * *
Leave me here now, my life’s companions true!
Leave me alone on rock, in moor and heath;
But courage! open lies the world to you,
The glorious heavens above, the earth beneath;
Observe, investigate, with searching eyes,
And Nature will disclose her mysteries.

To me is all, I to myself am lost,
Who the immortals’ fav’rite erst was thought;
They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,
So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown’d,
Deserted me, and hurl’d me to the ground.

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ATONEMENT.

PASSION brings reason, — who can pacify
An anguish’d heart whose loss hath been so great?
Where are the hours that fled so swiftly by?
In vain the fairest thou didst gain from Fate;
Sad is the soul, confus’d the enterprise;
The glorious world, how on the sense it dies!

In million tones entwin’d for evermore,
Music with angel-pinions hovers there,
To pierce man’s being to its inmost core,
Eternal beauty as its fruit to bear;
The eye grows moist, in yearnings bless’d reveres
The godlike worth of music as of tears.

And so the lighten’d heart soon learns to see
That it still lives, and beats, and ought to beat,
Off’ring itself with joy and willingly,
In grateful payment for a gift so sweet.
And then was felt — oh, may it constant prove! —
The twofold bliss of music and of love.

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APRIL.

TELL me, eyes, what ’tis ye’re seeking;
For ye’re saying something sweet,
Fit the ravish’d ear to greet,
Eloquently, softly speaking.

Yet I see now why ye’re roving;
For behind those eyes so bright,
To itself abandon’d quite,
Lies a bosom, truthful, loving, —

One that it must fill with pleasure
‘Mongst so many, dull and blind,
One true look at length to find,
That its worth can rightly treasure.

Whilst I’m lost in studying ever
To explain these cyphers duly, —
To unravel my looks truly
In return be your endeavor!

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MAY.

LIGHT and silv’ry cloudlets hover
In the air, as yet scarce warm;
Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over,
Peeps the sun through fragrant balm.

Gently rolls and heaves the ocean
As its waves the bank o’erflow,
And with ever-restless motion
Moves the verdure to and fro,
Mirror’d brightly far below.

What is now the foliage moving?
Air is still, and hush’d the breeze,
Sultriness, this fulness loving,
Through the thicket, from the trees.

Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
As the morning gave it birth,
Flutt’ring two and two o’er earth.

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JUNE.

SHE behind you mountain lives,
Who my love’s sweet guerdon gives.
Tell me, mount, how this can be!
Very glass thou seem’st to me,
And I seem to be close by,
For I see her drawing nigh;
Now, because I’m absent, sad,
Now, because she sees me, glad!

Soon between us rise to sight
Valleys cool, with bushes light,
Streams and meadows; next appear
Mills and wheels, the surest token
That a level spot is near,
Plains far-stretching and unbroken.
And so onward, onward roam,
To my garden and my home!

But how comes it then to pass?
All this gives no joy, alas! —
I was ravish’d by her sight,
By her eyes so fair and bright,
By her footstep soft and light.
How her peerless charms I prais’d,
When from head to foot I gaz’d!
I am here, she’s far away, —
I am gone with her to stay.

If on rugged hills she wander,
If she haste the vale along,
Pinions seem to flutter yonder,
And the air is fill’d with song;
With the glow of youth still playing,
Joyous vigor in each limb,
One in silence is delaying,
She alone ’tis blesses him.

Love, thou art too fair, I ween!
Fairer I have never seen!
From the heart full easily
Blooming flowers are cull’d by thee.
If I think: “Oh, were it so,”
Bone and marrow seem to glow!
If rewarded by her love,
Can I greater rapture prove?

And still fairer is the bride,
When in me she will confide,
When she speaks and lets me know
All her tale of joy and woe.
All her lifetime’s history
Now is fully known to me.
Who in child or woman e’er
Soul and body found so fair?

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EVER AND EVERYWHERE.

FAR explore the mountain hollow,
High in air the clouds then follow!
To each brook and vale the Muse
Thousand times her call renews.

Soon as a flow’ret blooms in spring,
It wakens many a strain;
And when Time spreads his fleeting wing
The seasons come again.

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NEXT YEAR’S SPRING.

THE bed of flowers
Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops
Droop o’er the plain;
The crocus opens
Its glowing bud,
Like emeralds others,
Others like blood.
With saucy gesture
Primroses flare,
And roguish violets,
Hidden with care,
And whatsoever
There stirs and strives,
The Spring’s contented,
It works and thrives.

‘Mongst all the blossoms
That fairest are,
My sweetheart’s sweetness
Is sweetest far;
Upon me ever
Her glances light,
My song they waken,
My words make bright.
An ever open
And blooming mind,
In sport, unsullied,
In earnest, kind.
Though roses and lilies
By Summer are brought,
Against my sweetheart
Prevails he naught.

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SUCH, SUCH IS HE WHO PLEASETH ME.

FLY, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
He who found thee one fair morn in spring
In the wood where thou thy flight didst wing.
Fly, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
Never rests the foot of evil spy.

Hark! flutes’ sweet strains and love’s refrains
Reach the lov’d one, borne there by the wind,
In the soft heart open doors they find.
Hark! flutes’ sweet strains and love’s refrains,
Hark! — yet blissful love their echo pains.

Erect his head, and firm his tread,
Raven hair around his smooth brow strays,
On his cheeks a spring eternal plays.
Erect his head, and firm his tread,
And by grace his ev’ry step is led.

Happy his breast, with pureness bless’d,
And the dark eyes ‘neath his eye brows placed,
With full many a beauteous line are graced.
Happy his breast, with pureness bless’d,
Soon as seen, thy love must be confess’d.

His mouth is red — its power I dread,
On his lips morn’s fragrant incense lies,
Round his lips the cooling zephyr sighs.
His mouth is red — its power I dread,
With one glance from him, all sorrow’s fled.

His blood is true, his heart bold too,
In his soft arms, strength, protection, dwells,
And his face with noble pity swells.
His blood is true, his heart bold too,
Bless’d the one whom those dear arms may woo!

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ST. NEPOMUK’S EVE.

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Carlsbad, May 15, 1820.

CHILDREN on the bridge are singing,
On the river lights are glancing,
The cathedral bells are ringing
For devotion’s joy entrancing.

Lights and stars flash out and vanish:
Thus our martyr’s soul unfearing
Took its flight. Force could not banish
Secrets trusted to his hearing.

Glance, ye lights! Sing, youthful chorus!
Children, raise your tuneful voices!
If ye can, make plain before us
How one star the rest rejoices.

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THE FREEBOOTER.

NO door has my house,
No house has my door;
And in and out ever
I carry my store.

No grate has my kitchen,
No kitchen my grate;
Yet roasts it and boils it
Both early and late.

My bed has no trestles,
My trestles no bed;
Yet merrier moments
No mortal e’er led.

My cellar is lofty,
My barn is full deep,
From top to the bottom, —
There lie I and sleep.

And soon as I waken,
All moves on its race;
My place has no fixture,
My fixture no place.

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RECIPROCAL.

MY mistress, where sits she?
What is it that charms?
The absent she’s rocking,
Held fast in her arms.

In pretty cage prison’d
She holds a bird still;
Yet lets him fly from her,
Whenever he will.

He pecks at her finger,
And pecks at her lips,
And hovers and flutters,
And round her he skips.

Then hasten thou homeward,
In fashion to be;
If thou hast the maiden,
She also hath thee.

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SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS.

HALTING, hurrying, hurrying, halting.
Be henceforth like men of worth:
Useful labor is exalting
And deserves to rule the earth.
Thee to follow is a pleasure;
He who heeds thee finds the treasure
Of a glorious fatherland!
Hail the leader! Hail the band!

Thou the strength and burden bearest,
Thou art patron of our lives,
Honor with the old thou sharest,
Givest young men work and wives;
Mutual confidence arouses
Men to build them cosy houses,
Neat with gardens, lawns and woods,
Strong in helpful neighborhoods.

On the highways wisely planted
Men find comfort in new inns,
And the immigrant is granted
All the land his courage wins.
Therefore let us hasten, brothers,
Let us settle with the others
In the new-found fatherland!
Hail, O leader! Hail, O band!

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EXPLANATION OF AN ANCIENT WOODCUT REPRESENTING HANS SACHS’ POETICAL MISSION.

EARLY within his workshop here,
On Sundays stands our master dear;
His dirty apron he puts away,
And a cleanly doublet wears to-day;
Lets wax’d thread, hammer and pincers rest,
And lays his awl within his chest;
The seventh day he takes repose
From many pulls and many blows.

Soon as the spring sun meets his view
Repose begets him labor anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.

He had a skilful eye and true,
And was full kind and loving too.
For contemplation, clear and pure, —
For making all his own again, sure;
He had a tongue that charm’d when ’twas heard,
And graceful and light flow’d ev’ry word;
Which made the Muses in him rejoice,
The Master-singer of their choice.

And now a maiden enter’d there,
With swelling breast, and body fair;
With footing firm she took her place,
And mov’d with stately, noble grace;
She did not walk in wanton mood,
Nor look around with glances lewd.
She held a measure in her hand,
Her girdle was a golden band,
A wreath of corn was on her head,
Her eye the day’s bright lustre shed;
Her name is honest Industry,
Else, Justice, Magnanimity.

She enter’d with a kindly greeting;
He felt no wonder at the meeting,
For, kind and fair as she might be,
He long had known her, fancied he.

“I have selected thee,” she said,
“From all who earth’s wild mazes tread,
That thou should’st have clear-sighted sense,
And naught that’s wrong should’st e’er commence.
When others run in strange confusion,
Thy gaze shall see through each illusion;
When others dolefully complain,
Thy cause with jesting thou shalt gain,
Honor and right shalt value duly,
In everything act simply, truly, —
Virtue and godliness proclaim,
And call all evil by its name,
Naught soften down, attempt no quibble,
Naught polish up, naught vainly scribble.
The world shall stand before thee, then,
As seen by Albert Dürer’s ken,
In manliness and changeless life,
In inward strength, with firmness rife.
Fair Nature’s Genius by the hand
Shall lead thee on through every land,
Teach thee each different life to scan,
Show thee the wondrous ways of man,
His shifts, confusions, thrustings and drubbings,
Pushings, tearings, pressings and rubbings;
The varying madness of the crew,
The anthill’s ravings bring to view;
But thou shalt see all this express’d
As though ‘twere in a magic chest.
Write these things down for folks on earth,
In hopes they may to wit give birth.” —
Then she a window open’d wide,
And show’d a motley crowd outside,
All kinds of beings ‘neath the sky,
As in his writings one may spy.

Our master dear was, after this,
On Nature thinking, full of bliss,
When tow’rd him, from the other side,
He saw an aged woman glide;
The name she bears, Historia,
Mythologia, Fabula;
With footstep tottering and unstable
She dragg’d a large and wooden carv’d table,
Where, with wide sleeves and human mien,
The Lord was catechizing seen;
Adam, Eve, Eden, the Serpent’s seduction,
Gomorrah and Sodom’s awful destruction,
The twelve illustrious women, too,
That mirror of honor brought to view;
All kinds of bloodthirstiness, murder and sin;
The twelve wicked tyrants also were in,
And all kinds of goodly doctrine and law;
Saint Peter with his scourge you saw,
With the world’s ways dissatisfied,
And by our Lord with power supplied.
Her train and dress, behind and before,
And e’en the seams, were painted o’er
With tales of worldly virtue and crime. —
Our master view’d all this for a time;
The sight right gladly he survey’d,
So useful for him in his trade,
Whence he was able to procure
Example good and precept sure,
Recounting all with truthful care,
As though he had been present there.
His spirit seem’d from earth to fly,
He ne’er had turn’d away his eye;
Did he not just behind him hear
A rattle of bells approaching near?

And now a fool doth catch his eye,
With goat and ape’s leap drawing nigh,
A merry interlude preparing
With fooleries and jests unsparing.
Behind him, in a line drawn out,
He dragg’d all fools, the lean and stout,
The great and little, the empty and full,
All too witty, and all too dull;
A lash he flourish’d overhead,
As though a dance of apes he led,
Abusing them with bitterness,
As though his wrath would ne’er grow less.

While on this sight our master gaz’d,
His head was growing well-nigh craz’d:
What words for all could he e’er find,
Could such a medley be combin’d?
Could he continue with delight
For evermore to sing and write?
When lo, from out a cloud’s dark bed
In at the upper window sped
The Muse, in all her majesty,
As fair as our lov’d maids we see.
With clearness she around him threw
Her truth, that ever stronger grew.

“I to ordain thee come,” she spake:
“So prosper, and my blessing take!
The holy fire that slumb’ring lies
Within thee, in bright flames shall rise;
Yet that thine ever-restless life
May still with kindly strength be rife,
I, for thine inward spirit’s calm,
Have granted nourishment and balm,
That rapture may thy soul imbue,
Like some fair blossom bath’d in dew.” —

Behind his house then secretly
Outside the doorway pointed she,
Where, in a shady garden-nook,
A beauteous maid with downcast look
Was sitting where a stream was flowing,
With elder bushes near it growing.
She sat beneath an apple tree,
And naught around her seem’d to see.
Her lap was full of roses fair,
Which in a wreath she twin’d with care,
And, with them, leaves and blossoms blended:
For whom was that sweet wreath intended?
Thus sat she, modest and retir’d,
Her bosom throbb’d, with hope inspir’d;
Such deep forebodings fill’d her mind,
No room for wishing could she find,
And with the thoughts that o’er it flew,
Perchance a sigh was mingled too.

“But why should sorrow cloud thy brow?
That, dearest love, which fills thee now
Is fraught with joy and ecstasy,
Prepar’d in one alone for thee,
That he within thine eye may find
Solace when fortune proves unkind,
And be newborn through many a kiss,
That he receives with inward bliss;
Whene’er he clasps thee to his breast
May he from all his toils find rest;
When he in thy dear arms shall sink
May he new life and vigor drink:
Fresh joys of youth shalt thou obtain,
In merry jest rejoice again.
With raillery and roguish spite
Thou now shalt tease him, now delight.
Thus Love will nevermore grow old,
Thus will the minstrel ne’er be cold!”

While he thus lives, in secret bless’d,
Above him in the clouds doth rest
An oak-wreath, verdant and sublime,
Placed on his brow in after-time;
While they are banish’d to the slough,
Who their great master disavow.

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THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL.

WHAT wondrous noise is heard around!
Through heaven exulting voices sound,
A mighty army marches on.
By thousand millions follow’d, lo,
To yon dark place makes haste to go
God’s Son, descending from His throne!
He goes — the tempests round Him break,
As Judge and Hero cometh He;
He goes — the constellations quake,
The sun, the world quake fearfully.

I see Him in His victor-car,
On fiery axles borne afar,
Who on the cross for us expir’d.
The triumph to yon realms He shows, —
Remote from earth, where star ne’er glows, —
The triumph He for us acquir’d.
He cometh, Hell to extirpate,
Whom He, by dying, well nigh kill’d;
He shall pronounce her fearful fate:
Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill’d.

Hell sees the victor come at last,
She feels that now her reign is past,
She quakes and fears to meet His sight;
She knows His thunders’ terrors dread,
In vain she seeks to hide her head,
Attempts to fly, but vain is flight;
Vainly she hastes to ‘scape pursuit
And to avoid her Judge’s eye;
The Lord’s fierce wrath restrains her foot
Like brazen chains, — she cannot fly.

Here lies the Dragon, trampled down,
He lies, and feels God’s angry frown,
He feels, and grinneth hideously;
He feels Hell’s speechless agonies;
A thousand times he howls and sighs:
“O burning flames! quick, swallow me!”
There lies he in the fiery waves,
By torments rack’d and pangs infernal,
Instant annihilation craves,
And hears those pangs will be eternal.

Those mighty squadrons, too, are here,
The partners of his curs’d career,
Yet far less bad than he were they.
Here lies the countless throng combin’d,
In black and fearful crowds entwin’d,
While round him fiery tempests play;
He sees how they the Judge avoid,
He sees the storm upon them feed,
Yet is not at the sight o’erjoy’d,
Because his pangs e’en theirs exceed.

The Son of Man in triumph passes
Down to Hell’s wild and black morasses,
And there unfolds His majesty.
Hell cannot bear the bright array,
For, since her first created day,
Darkness alone e’er govern’d she.
She lay remote from ev’ry light,
With torments fill’d in Chaos here;
God turn’d forever from her sight
His radiant features’ glory clear.

Within the realms she calls her own,
She sees the splendor of the Son,
His dreaded glories shining forth;
She sees Him clad in rolling thunder,
She sees the rocks all quake with wonder
When God before her stands in wrath.
She sees He comes her Judge to be,
She feels the awful pangs inside her,
Herself to slay endeavors she,
But e’en this comfort is denied her.

Now looks she back, with pains untold,
Upon those happy times of old,
When all these glories gave her joy;
When yet her heart revered the truth,
When her glad soul, in endless youth
And rapture dwelt, without alloy.
She calls to mind with madden’d thought
How over man her wiles prevail’d;
To take revenge on God she sought,
And feels the vengeance it entail’d.

God was made man, and came to earth.
Then Satan cried with fearful mirth:
“E’en He my victim now shall be!”
He sought to slay the Lord Most High,
The world’s Creator now must die;
But, Satan, endless woe to thee!
Thou thought’st to overcome Him then,
Rejoicing in His suffering;
But He in triumph comes again
To bind thee: Death! where is thy sting?

Speak, Hell! where is thy victory?
Thy power destroy’d and scatter’d see!
Know’st thou not now the Highest’s might?
See, Satan, see thy rule o’erthrown!
By thousand-varying pangs weigh’d down,
Thou dwell’st in dark and endless night.
As though by lightning struck thou liest,
No gleam of rapture far or wide;
In vain! no hope thou there descriest, —
For me alone Messiah died!

A howling rises through the air,
A trembling fills each dark vault there,
When Christ to Hell is seen to come.
She snarls with rage, but needs must cower
Before our mighty Hero’s power;
He signs — and Hell is straightway dumb.
Before His voice the thunders break,
On high His victor-banner blows;
E’en angels at His fury quake,
When Christ to the dread judgment goes.

Now speaks He, and His voice is thunder,
He speaks, the rocks are rent in sunder,
His breath is like devouring flames.
Thus speaks He: “Tremble, ye accurs’d!
He who from Eden hurl’d you erst,
Your kingdom’s overthrow proclaims.
Look up! My children once were ye,
Your arms against Me then ye turn’d,
Ye fell, that ye might sinners be,
Ye’ve now the wages that ye earn’d.

“My greatest foemen from that day,
Ye led My dearest friends astray, —
As ye had fallen, man must fall.
To kill him evermore ye sought,
‘They all shall die the death,’ ye thought;
But howl! for Me I’ve won them all.
For them alone did I descend,
For them pray’d, suffer’d, perish’d I.
Ye ne’er shall gain your wicked end;
Who trusts in Me shall never die.

“In endless chains here lie ye now,
Nothing can save you from the slough,
Not boldness, not regret for crime.
Lie, then, and writhe in brimstone fire!
’Twas ye yourselves drew down Mine ire,
Lie and lament throughout all time!
And also ye, whom I selected,
E’en ye forever I disown,
For ye My saving grace rejected;
Ye murmur? blame yourselves alone!

“Ye might have liv’d with Me in bliss,
For I of yore had promis’d this;
Ye sinn’d, and all My precepts slighted.
Wrapp’d in the sleep of sin ye dwelt,
Now is My fearful judgment felt,
By a just doom your guilt requited.”
Thus spake He, and a fearful storm
From Him proceeds, the lightnings glow,
The thunders seize each wicked form,
And hurl them in the gulf below.

The God-man closeth Hell’s sad doors;
In all His majesty He soars
From those dark regions back to light:
He sitteth at the Father’s side.
O friends, what joy doth this betide!
For us, for us He still will fight!
The angels’ sacred choir around
Rejoice before the mighty Lord,
So that all creatures hear the sound:
“Zebaoth’s God be aye ador’d!”

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Art

Artist, fashion! talk not long!
Be a breath thine only song!

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THE DROPS OF NECTAR.

WHEN Minerva, to give pleasure
To Prometheus, her well-lov’d one,
Brought a brimming bowl of nectar
From the glorious realms of heaven
As a blessing for his creatures,
And to pour into their bosoms
Impulses for arts ennobling,
She with rapid footstep hasten’d,
Fearing Jupiter might see her,
And the golden goblet trembled,
And there fell a few drops from it
On the verdant plain beneath her.

Then the busy bees flew thither
Straightway, eagerly to drink them,
And the butterfly came quickly
That he, too, might find a drop there;
Even the misshapen spider
Thither crawl’d and suck’d with vigor.

To a happy end they tasted,
They, and other gentle insects!
For with mortals now divide they
Art — that noblest gift of all.

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THE WANDERER.

Wanderer.
YOUNG woman, may God bless thee,
Thee and the sucking infant
Upon thy breast!
Let me, ‘gainst this rocky wall,
‘Neath the elm tree’s shadow,
Lay aside my burden,
Near thee take my rest.

Woman.
What vocation leads thee,
While the day is burning,
Up this dusty path?
Bring’st thou goods from out the town
Round the country?
Smil’st thou, stranger,
At my question?

Wanderer.
From the town no goods I bring.
Cool is now the evening;
Show to me the fountain
Whence thou drinkest,
Woman young and kind!

Woman.
Up the rocky pathway mount;
Go thou first! Across the thicket
Leads the pathway tow’rd the cottage
That I live in,
To the fountain
Whence I drink.

Wanderer.
Signs of man’s arranging hand
See I ‘mid the trees!
Not by thee these stones were join’d,
Nature, who so freely scatterest!

Woman.
Up, still up!

Wanderer.
Lo, a mossy architrave is here!
I discern thee, fashioning spirit!
On the stone thou hast impress’d thy seal.

Woman.
Onward, stranger!

Wanderer.
Over an inscription am I treading!
’Tis effaced!
Ye are seen no longer,
Words so deeply graven,
Who your master’s true devotion
Should have shown to thousand grandsons!

Woman.
At these stones, why
Start’st thou, stranger?
Many stones are lying yonder
Round my cottage.

Wanderer.
Yonder?

Woman.
Through the thicket,
Turning to the left,
Here!

Wanderer.
Ye Muses and ye Graces!

Woman.
This, then, is my cottage.

Wanderer.
’Tis a ruin’d temple!

Woman.
Just below it, see,
Springs the fountain
Whence I drink.

Wanderer.
Thou dost hover
O’er thy grave, all glowing,
Genius! while upon thee
Hath thy masterpiece
Fallen crumbling,
Thou Immortal One!

Woman.
Stay, a cup I’ll fetch thee
Whence to drink.

Wanderer.
Ivy circles thy slender
Form so graceful and godlike.
How ye rise on high
From the ruins,
Column-pair!
And thou, their lonely sister yonder, —
How thou,
Dusky moss upon thy sacred head, —
Lookest down in mournful majesty
On thy brethren’s figures
Lying scatter’d
At thy feet!
In the shadow of the bramble
Earth and rubbish veil them,
Lofty grass is waving o’er them!
Is it thus thou, Nature, prizest
Thy great masterpiece’s masterpiece?
Carelessly destroyest thou
Thine own sanctuary,
Sowing thistles there?

Woman.
How the infant sleeps!
Wilt thou rest thee in the cottage,
Stranger? Would’st thou rather
In the open air still linger?
Now ’tis cool! take thou the child
While I go and draw some water.
Sleep on, darling! sleep!

Wanderer.
Sweet is thy repose!
How, with heaven-born health imbued,
Peacefully he slumbers!
O thou, born among the ruins
Spread by great antiquity,
On thee rest her spirit!
He whom it encircles
Will, in godlike consciousness,
Ev’ry day enjoy.
Full of germ, unfold,
As the smiling springtime’s
Fairest charm,
Outshining all thy fellows!
And when the blossom’s husk is faded,
May the full fruit shoot forth
From out thy breast,
And ripen in the sunshine!

Woman.
God bless him! — Is he sleeping still?
To the fresh draught I naught can add,
Saving a crust of bread for thee to eat.

Wanderer.
I thank thee well.
How fair the verdure all around!
How green!

Woman.
My husband soon
Will home return
From labor. Tarry, tarry, man,
And with us eat our evening meal.

Wanderer.
Is’t here ye dwell?

Woman.
Yonder, within those walls we live.
My father ’twas who built the cottage
Of tiles and stones from out the ruins.
’Tis here we dwell.
He gave me to a husbandman,
And in our arms expir’d. —
Hast thou been sleeping, dearest heart?
How lively, and how full of play!
Sweet rogue!

Wanderer.
Nature, thou ever budding one,
Thou formest each for life’s enjoyments,
And, like a mother, all thy children dear,
Blessest with that sweet heritage, — a home!
The swallow builds the cornice round,
Unconscious of the beauties
She plasters up.
The caterpillar spins around the bough,
To make her brood a winter house;
And thou dost patch, between antiquity’s
Most glorious relics,
For thy mean use,
O man, an humble cot, —
Enjoyest e’en ‘mid tombs! —
Farewell, thou happy woman!

Woman.
Thou wilt not stay, then?

Wanderer.
May God preserve thee,
And bless thy boy!

Woman.
A happy journey!

Wanderer.
Whither conducts the path
Across yon hill?

Woman.
To Cuma.

Wanderer.
How far from hence?

Woman.
’Tis full three miles.

Wanderer.
Farewell!
O Nature, guide me on my way!
The wandering stranger guide,
Who o’er the tombs
Of holy bygone times
Is passing,
To a kind sheltering place,
From North winds safe,
And where a poplar grove
Shuts out the noontide ray!
And when I come
Home to my cot
At evening,
Illumin’d by the setting sun,
Let me embrace a wife like this,
Her infant in her arms!

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LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE-PAINTER.

ON a rocky peak once sat I early,
Gazing on the mist with eyes unmoving;
Stretch’d out like a pall of grayish texture,
All things round, and all above it cover’d.

Suddenly a boy appear’d beside me,
Saying, “Friend, what meanest thou by gazing
On the vacant pall with such composure?
Hast thou lost for evermore all pleasure
Both in painting cunningly, and forming?”
On the child I gaz’d, and thought in secret:
“Would the boy pretend to be a master?”

“Would’st thou be forever dull and idle,”
Said the boy, “no wisdom thou’lt attain to;
See, I’ll straightway paint for thee a figure, —
How to paint a beauteous figure, show thee.”

And he then extended his fore-finger, —
(Ruddy was it as a youthful rosebud)
Tow’rd the broad and far outstretching carpet,
And began to draw there with his finger.

First on high a radiant sun he painted,
Which upon mine eyes with splendor glisten’d,
And he made the clouds with golden border,
Through the clouds he let the sunbeams enter;
Painted then the soft and feathery summits
Of the fresh and quicken’d trees, behind them
One by one with freedom drew the mountains;
Underneath he left no lack of water,
But the river painted so like Nature,
That it seem’d to glitter in the sunbeams,
That it seem’d against its banks to murmur.

Ah, there blossom’d flowers beside the river.
And bright colors gleam’d upon the meadow.
Gold, and green, and purple, and enamell’d,
All like carbuncles and emeralds seeming!
Bright and clear he added then the heavens,
And the blue-tinged mountains far and farther,
So that I, as though newborn, enraptur’d
Gaz’d on, now the painter, now the picture.

Then spake he: “Although I have convinc’d thee
That this art I understand full surely,
Yet the hardest still is left to show thee.”

Thereupon he trac’d, with pointed finger,
And with anxious care, upon the forest,
At the utmost verge, where the strong sunbeams
From the shining ground appear’d reflected,
Trac’d the figure of a lovely maiden,
Fair in form, and clad in graceful fashion,
Fresh the cheeks beneath her brown locks’ ambush,
And the cheeks possess’d the selfsame color
As the finger that had serv’d to paint them.

“O thou boy!” exclaim’d I then, “what master
In his school receiv’d thee as his pupil,
Teaching thee so truthfully and quickly
Wisely to begin, and well to finish?”

Whilst I still was speaking, lo, a zephyr
Softly rose, and set the tree-tops moving,
Curling all the wavelets on the river,
And the perfect maiden’s veil, too, fill’d it,
And to make my wonderment still greater,
Soon the maiden set her foot in motion.
On she came, approaching tow’rd the station
Where still sat I with my arch instructor.

As now all, yes, all thus mov’d together, —
Flowers, rivers, trees, the veil, — all moving, —
And the gentle foot of that most fair one,
Can ye think that on my rock I linger’d,
Like a rock, as though fast-chain’d and silent?
Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
Schultheiss sculp.
Frederika

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ARTIST’S EVENING SONG.

UH, would that some celestial flower
Might fill the world with rapture!
That inspiration’s blissful power
My inmost soul might capture!

The feeling takes me in control,
My weakness makes me stumble;
Ah, Nature, recognize my soul,
Thy worshipper though humble!

How many a long and weary year
My heart has vainly waited,
As on a meadow wan and sere,
For fountains uncreated!

Ah, Nature, how I yearn for thee,
Thy love and faith consoling!
A wondrous river full and free
Through paradises rolling.

And all my song and all my strength
Thou turnest to endeavor,
Until my narrow path at length
Shall widen out forever.

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Parables

Joy from that in type we borrow.
Which in life gives only sorrow.

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EXPLANATION OF AN ANTIQUE GEM.

A YOUNG fig tree its form lifts high
Within a beauteous garden;
And see, a goat is sitting by,
As if he were its warden.

But O Quirites, how one errs!
The tree is guarded badly;
For round the other side there whirrs
And hums a beetle madly.

The hero with his well-mail’d coat
Nibbles the branches tall so;
A mighty longing feels the goat
Gently to climb up also.

And so, my friends, ere long ye see
The tree all leafless standing;
It looks a type of misery,
Help of the gods demanding.

Then listen, ye ingenuous youth,
Who hold wise saws respected:
From he-goat and from beetle’s tooth
A tree should be protected!

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CAT-PIE.

WHILE he is mark’d by vision clear
Who fathoms Nature’s treasures,
The man may follow, void of fear,
Who her proportions measures.

Though for one mortal, it is true,
These trades may both be fitted,
Yet, that the things themselves are two
Must always be admitted.

Once on a time there liv’d a cook
Whose skill was past disputing,
Who in his head a fancy took
To try his luck at shooting.

So, gun in hand, he sought a spot
Where stores of game were breeding,
And there ere long a cat he shot
That on young birds was feeding.

This cat he fancied was a hare,
Forming a judgment hasty,
So serv’d it up for people’s fare,
Well-spic’d, and in a pasty.

Yet many a guest with wrath was fill’d
(All who had noses tender):
The cat that’s by the sportsman kill’d
No cook a hare can render.

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LEGEND.

THERE liv’d in the desert a holy man
To whom a goat-footed Faun one day
Paid a visit, and thus began
To his surprise: “I entreat thee to pray
That grace to me and my friends may be given,
That we may be able to mount to heaven,
For great is our thirst for heav’nly bliss.”
The holy man made answer to this:
“Much danger is lurking in thy petition,
Nor will it be easy to gain admission;
Thou dost not come with an angel’s salute;
For I see thou wearest a cloven foot.”
The wild man paus’d, and then answer’d he:
“What doth my goat’s foot matter to thee?
Full many I’ve known into heaven to pass
Straight and with ease, with the head of an ass!”

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THE CRITIC.

I HAD a fellow as my guest,
Not knowing he was such a pest,
And gave him just my usual fare;
He ate his fill of what was there,
And for desert my best things swallow’d;
Soon as his meal was o’er, what follow’d?
Led by the Deuce to a neighbor he went,
And talk’d of my food to his heart’s content:
“The soup might surely have had more spice,
The meat was ill-brown’d, and the wine wasn’t nice.”
A thousand curses alight on his head!
’Tis a critic, I vow! Let the dog be struck dead!

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AUTHORS.

OVER the meadows, and down the stream,
And through the garden-walks straying,
He plucks the flowers that fairest seem;
His throbbing heart brooks no delaying.
His maiden then comes — oh, what ecstasy!
Thy flowers thou giv’st for one glance of her eye!
The gard’ner next door o’er the hedge sees the youth:
“I’m not such a fool as that, in good truth;
My pleasure is ever to cherish each flower,
And see that no birds my fruit e’er devour.
But when ’tis ripe, your money, good neighbor!
’Twas not for nothing I took all this labor!”

And such, methinks, are the author-tribe.
The one his pleasures around him strews,
That his friends, the public, may reap, if they choose:
The other would fain make them all subscribe.

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THE DILETTANTE AND THE CRITIC.

A BOY a pigeon once possess’d,
In gay and brilliant plumage dress’d;
He lov’d it well, and in boyish sport
Its food to take from his mouth he taught,
And in his pigeon he took such pride,
That his joy to others he needs must confide.

An aged fox near the place chanc’d to dwell,
Talkative, clever, and learned as well;
The boy his society used to prize,
Hearing with pleasure his wonders and lies.

“My friend the fox my pigeon must see!”
He ran, and stretch’d ‘mongst the bushes lay he.
“Look, fox, at my pigeon, my pigeon so fair!
His equal I’m sure thou hast look’d upon ne’er!”

“Let’s see!” — The boy gave it. — ”’Tis really not bad;
And yet, it is far from complete, I must add.
The feathers, for instance, how short! ’Tis absurd!”
So he set to work straightway to pluck the poor bird.

The boy scream’d. — ”Thou must now stronger pinions supply,
Or else ‘twill be ugly, unable to fly.” —
Soon ’twas stripp’d — oh, the villain! — and torn all to pieces,
The boy was heart-broken, — and so my tale ceases.
* * * * *

He who sees in the boy shadow’d forth his own case
Should be on his guard ‘gainst the fox’s whole race.

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CELEBRITY.

ON bridges small and bridges great
Stand Nepomuks in ev’ry state,
Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone,
Some small as dolls, some giants grown;
Each passer must worship before Nepomuk,
Who to die on a bridge chanc’d to have the ill luck.

When once a man with head and ears
A saint in people’s eyes appears,
Or has been sentenced piteously
Beneath the hangman’s hand to die,
He’s as a noted person priz’d,
In portrait is immortaliz’d.
Engravings, woodcuts, are supplied,
And through the world spread far and wide.
Upon them all is seen his name,
And ev’ry one admits his claim;
Even the image of the Lord
Is not with greater zeal ador’d.
Strange fancy of the human race!
Half sinner frail, half child of grace
We see Herr Werther of the story
In all the pomp of woodcut glory.
His worth is first made duly known
By having his sad features shown
At ev’ry fair the country round;
In ev’ry alehouse too they’re found.
His stick is pointed by each dunce:
“The ball would reach his brain at once!”
And each says, o’er his beer and bread:
“Thank Heav’n that ’tis not we are dead!”

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THE YELPERS.

OUR rides in all directions bend,
For business or for pleasure,
Yet yelpings on our steps attend,
And barkings without measure.

The dog that in our stable dwells,
After our heels is striding,
And all the while his noisy yells
But show that we are riding.

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THE WRANGLER.

ONE day a shameless and impudent wight
Went into a shop full of steel wares bright,
Arrang’d with art upon ev’ry shelf.
He fancied they all were meant for himself;
And so, while the patient owner stood by,
The shining goods needs must handle and try,
And valued, — for how should a fool better know? —
The bad things high, and the good ones low,
And all with an easy self-satisfied face;
Then, having bought nothing, he left the place.

The tradesman now felt sorely vex’d,
So when the fellow went there next,
A lock of steel made quite red hot.
The other cried upon the spot:
“Such wares as these, who’d ever buy?
The steel is tarnish’d shamefully;” —
Then pull’d it like a fool about,
But soon set up a piteous shout,
“Pray, what’s the matter?” the shopman spoke;
The other scream’d: “Faith, a very cool joke!”

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JOY.

A DRAGON-FLY with beauteous wing
Is hov’ring o’er a silv’ry spring;
I watch its motions with delight, —
Now dark its colors seem, now bright;
Chameleon-like appear now blue,
Now red, and now of greenish hue.
Would it would come still nearer me,
That I its tints might better see!

It hovers, flutters, resting ne’er!
But hush! it settles on the mead.
I have it safe now, I declare!
And when its form I closely view,
’Tis of a sad and dingy blue —
Such, Joy-Dissector, is thy case indeed!

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PLAYING AT PRIESTS.

WITHIN a town where parity
According to old form we see, —
That is to say, where Catholic
And Protestant no quarrels pick,
And where, as in his father’s day,
Each worships God in his own way,
We Luth’ran children used to dwell,
By songs and sermons taught us well.
The Catholic clingclang in truth
Sounded more pleasing to our youth,
For all that we encounter’d there
To us seem’d varied, joyous, fair.

As children, monkeys, and mankind
To ape each other are inclin’d,
We soon, the time to while away,
A game at priests resolv’d to play.
Their aprons all our sisters lent
For copes, which gave us great content;
And handkerchiefs, embroider’d o’er,
Instead of stoles we also wore;
Gold paper, whereon beasts were trac’d,
The bishop’s brow as mitre grac’d.

Through house and garden thus in state
We strutted early, strutted late,
Repeating with all proper unction,
Incessantly each holy function.
The best was wanting to the game;
We knew that a sonorous ring
Was here a most important thing;
But Fortune to our rescue came,
For on the ground a halter lay;
We were delighted, and at once
Made it a bellrope for the nonce,
And kept it moving all the day;
In turns each sister and each brother
Acted as sexton to another;
All help’d to swell the joyous throng;
The whole proceeded swimmingly,
And since no actual bell had we,
We all in chorus sang, Ding dong!

Our guileless child’s-sport long was hush’d
In memory’s tomb, like some old lay;
And yet across my mind it rush’d
With pristine force the other day.
The New-Poetic Catholics
In ev’ry point its aptness fix!

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SONGS.

SONGS are like painted window-panes!
In darkness wrapp’d the church remains,
If from the market-place we view it;
Thus sees the ignoramus through it.
No wonder that he deems it tame, —
And all his life ‘twill be the same.

But let us now inside repair,
And greet the holy Chapel there!
At once the whole seems clear and bright,
Each ornament is bath’d in light,
And fraught with meaning to the sight.
God’s children! thus your fortune prize,
Be edified, and feast your eyes!

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POETRY.

GOD to his untaught children sent
Law, order, knowledge, art, from high,
And ev’ry heav’nly favor lent,
The world’s hard lot to qualify.
They knew not how they should behave,
For all from Heav’n stark-naked came;
But Poetry their garments gave,
And then not one had cause for shame.

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A PARABLE.

I PICK’D a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow’rd the ground
I plac’d them in a well-cool’d glass,
And what a wonder came to pass!
The heads soon rais’d themselves once more,
The stalks were blooming as before,
And all were in as good a case
As when they left their native place.
* * * * *
So felt I, when I wond’ring heard
My song to foreign tongues transferr’d.

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CUPID AND PSYCHE.

A PLAN the Muses entertain’d
Methodically to impart
To Psyche the poetic art;
Prosaic-pure her soul remain’d.
No wondrous sounds escap’d her lyre
E’en in the fairest Summer night;
But Amor came with glance of fire, —
The lesson soon was learn’d aright.

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THE DEATH OF THE FLY.

WITH eagerness he drinks the treach’rous potion,
Nor stops to rest, by the first taste misled;
Sweet is the draught, but soon all power of motion
He finds has from his tender members fled;
No longer has he strength to plume his wing,
No longer strength to raise his head, poor thing!
E’en in enjoyment’s hour his life he loses,
His little foot to bear his weight refuses;
So on he sips, and ere his draught is o’er,
Death veils his thousand eyes for evermore.

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BY THE RIVER.

WHEN by the broad stream thou dost dwell,
Oft shallow is its sluggish flood;
Then, when thy fields thou tendest well,
It o’er them spreads its slime and mud.

The ships descend ere daylight wanes,
The prudent fisher upward goes;
Round reef and rock ice casts its chains,
And boys at will the pathway close.

To this attend, then, carefully,
And what thou would’st, that execute!
Ne’er linger, ne’er o’erhasty be,
For time moves on with measur’d foot.

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THE FOX AND CRANE.

ONCE two persons uninvited
Came to join my dinner table;
For the nonce they liv’d united,
Fox and crane yclept in fable.

Civil greetings pass’d between us;
Then I pluck’d some pigeons tender
For the fox of jackal genus,
Adding grapes in full-grown splendor.

Long-neck’d flasks I put as dishes
For the crane, without delaying,
Fill’d with gold and silver fishes,
In the limpid water playing.

Had ye witness’d Reynard planted
At his flat plate, all demurely,
Ye with envy must have granted:
“Ne’er was such a gourmand, surely!”

While the bird with circumspection
On one foot, as usual, cradled,
From the flasks his fish-refection
With his bill and long neck ladled.

One the pigeons prais’d, — the other,
As they went, extoll’d the fishes,
Each one scoffing at his brother
For preferring vulgar dishes.
* * * * *

If thou would’st preserve thy credit,
When thou askest folks to guzzle
At thy board, take care to spread it
Suited both for bill and muzzle.

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THE FOX AND HUNTSMAN.

HARD ’tis on a fox’s traces
To arrive, midst forest-glades;
Hopeless utterly the chase is,
If his flight the huntsman aids.

And so ’tis with many a wonder
(Why A B make Ab in fact),
Over which we gape and blunder,
And our head and brains distract.

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THE STORK’S VOCATION.

THE stork who worms and frogs devours
That in our ponds reside,
Why should he dwell on high church-towers,
With which he’s not allied?

Incessantly he chatters there,
And gives our ears no rest;
But neither old nor young can dare
To drive him from his nest.

I humbly ask if, — how can he
Give of his title proof,
Save by his happy tendency
To soil the church’s roof?

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THE FROGS.

A POOL was once congeal’d with frost;
The frogs, in its deep waters lost,
No longer dar’d to croak or spring;
But promis’d, being half asleep,
If suffer’d to the air to creep,
As very nightingales to sing.

A thaw dissolv’d the ice so strong, —
They proudly steer’d themselves along,
When landed, squatted on the shore,
And croak’d as loudly as before.

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THE WEDDING.

A FEAST was in a village spread, —
It was a wedding-day, they said.
The parlor of the inn I found,
And saw the couples whirling round,
Each lass attended by her lad,
And all seem’d loving, blithe and glad;
But on my asking for the bride,
A fellow with a stare replied:
“ ’Tis not the place that point to raise!
We’re only dancing in her honor;
We now have danc’d three nights and days,
And not bestow’d one thought upon her.”
* * * * *
Whoe’er in life employs his eyes
Such cases oft will recognize.

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BURIAL.

TO the grave one day from a house they bore A maiden;
To the window the citizens went to explore;
In splendor they liv’d, and with wealth as of yore
Their banquets were laden.
Then thought they: “The maid to the tomb is now borne;
We too from our dwellings ere long must be torn,
And he that is left our departure to mourn,
To our riches will be the successor,
For some one must be their possessor.”

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THREATENING SIGNS.

IF Venus in the evening sky
Is seen in radiant majesty,
If rod-like comets, red as blood,
Are ‘mongst the constellations view’d,
Out springs the Ignoramus, yelling:
“The star’s exactly o’er my dwelling!
What woful prospect, ah, for me!” —
Then calls his neighbor mournfully:
“Behold that awful sign of evil,
Portending woe to me, poor devil!
My mother’s asthma ne’er will leave her,
My child is sick with wind and fever;
I dread the illness of my wife,
A week has pass’d devoid of strife, —
And other things have reach’d my ear;
The Judgment-day has come, I fear!”

His neighbor answers: “Friend, you’re right!
Matters look very bad to-night.
Let’s go a street or two, though, hence,
And gaze upon the stars from thence.” —
No change appears in either case.
Let each remain then in his place,
And wisely do the best he can,
Patient as any other man.

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THE BUYERS.

TO an apple-woman’s stall
Once some children nimbly ran;
Longing much to purchase all,
They with joyous haste began
Snatching up the piles there rais’d,
While with eager eyes they gaz’d
On the rosy fruit so nice;
But when they found out the price,
Down they threw the whole they’d got,
Just as if they were red-hot.
* * * * *
The man who gratis will his goods supply
Will never find a lack of folks to buy!

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THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE.

“THE mountain village was destroy’d;
But see how soon is fill’d the void!
Shingles and boards, as by magic arise,
The babe in his cradle and swaddling-clothes lies;
How bless’d to trust to God’s protection!”

Behold a wooden new erection,
So that, if sparks and wind but choose,
God’s self at such a game must lose!

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SYMBOLS.

PALM Sunday at the Vatican
They celebrate with palms;
With reverence bows each holy man,
And chants the ancient psalms.

Those very psalms are also sung
With olive boughs in hand,
While holly, mountain wilds among,
In place of palms must stand;
In fine, one seeks some twig that’s green
And takes a willow rod,
So that the pious man may e’en
In small things praise his God.
And if ye have observ’d it well,
To gain what’s fit ye’re able,
If ye in faith can but excel;
Such are the myths of fable.

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THREE PALINODIAS.

I.
“Incense is but a tribute for the gods, —
To mortals ’tis but poison.”

THE smoke that from thine altar blows,
Can it the gods offend?
For I observe thou hold’st thy nose —
Pray what does this portend?
Mankind deem incense to excel
Each other earthly thing,
So he that cannot bear its smell
No incense e’er should bring.

With unmov’d face by thee at least
To dolls is homage given;
If not obstructed by the priest
The scent mounts up to heaven.
II.
CONFLICT OF WIT AND BEAUTY.
SIR WIT, who is so much esteem’d,
And who is worthy of all honor,
Saw Beauty his superior deem’d
By folks who lov’d to gaze upon her;
At this he was most sorely vex’d.
Then came Sir Breath (long known as fit
To represent the cause of wit),
Beginning, rudely, I admit,
To treat the lady with a text.
To this she hearken’d not at all,
But hasten’d to his principal:
“None are so wise, they say, as you, —
Is not the world enough for two?
If you are obstinate, good-bye!
If wise, to love me you will try,
For be assur’d the world can ne’er
Give birth to a more handsome pair.”
Ἄλλως.
Fair daughters were by Beauty rear’d,
Wit had but dull sons for his lot;
So for a season it appear’d
Beauty was constant, Wit was not.
But Wit’s a native of the soil,
So he return’d, work’d, strove amain,
And found — sweet guerdon for his toil! —
Beauty to quicken him again.
III.
RAIN AND RAINBOW.
DURING a heavy storm it chanc’d
That from his room a cockney glanc’d
At the fierce tempest as it broke,
While to his neighbor thus he spoke:
“The thunder has our awe inspir’d,
Our barns by lightning have been fir’d, —
Our sins to punish, I suppose;
But in return, to soothe our woes,
See how the rain in torrents fell,
Making the harvest promise well!
But is’t a rainbow that I spy
Extending o’er the dark-gray sky?
With it I’m sure we may dispense,
The color’d cheat! The vain pretence!”
Dame Iris straightway thus replied:
“Dost dare my beauty to deride?
In realms of space God station’d me
A type of better worlds to be
To eyes that from life’s sorrows rove
In cheerful hope to heav’n above,
And, through the mists that hover here,
God and His precepts bless’d revere.
Do thou, then, grovel like the swine,
And to the ground thy snout confine,
But suffer the enlighten’d eye
To feast upon my majesty.”

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VALEDICTION.

I ONCE was fond of fools,
And bid them come each day;
Then each one brought his tools,
The carpenter to play;
The roof to strip first choosing,
Another to supply,
The wood as trestles using,
To move it by-and-by,
While here and there they ran,
And knock’d against each other;
To fret I soon began,
My anger could not smother,
So cried, “Get out, ye fools!”
At this they were offended;
Then each one took his tools,
And so our friendship ended.

Since that, I’ve wiser been,
And sit beside my door;
When one of them is seen,
I cry, “Appear no more!”
“Hence, stupid knave!” I bellow:
At this he’s angry too:
“You impudent old fellow!
And pray, sir, who are you?
Along the streets we riot,
And revel at the fair;
But yet we’re pretty quiet,
And folks revile us ne’er.
Don’t call us names, then, please!” —
At length I meet with ease,
For now they leave my door —
’Tis better than before!

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THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER.

I.
A MASTER of a country school
Jump’d up one day from off his stool,
Inspir’d with firm resolve to try
To gain the best society;
So to the nearest baths he walk’d,
And into the saloon he stalk’d.
He felt quite startled at the door,
Ne’er having seen the like before.
To the first stranger made he now
A very low and graceful bow,
But quite forgot to bear in mind
That people also stood behind;
His left-hand neighbor’s paunch he struck
A grievous blow, by great ill luck;
Pardon for this he first entreated,
And then in haste his bow repeated.

His right-hand neighbor next he hit,
And begg’d him, too, to pardon it;
But on his granting his petition
Another was in like condition;
These compliments he paid to all,
Behind, before, across the hall;
At length one who could stand no more
Show’d him impatiently the door.
* * * * *
May many, pond’ring on their crimes,
A moral draw from this betimes!

II.
As he proceeded on his way
He thought, “I was too weak to-day;
To bow I’ll ne’er again be seen;
For goats will swallow what is green.”
Across the fields he now must speed,
Not over stumps and stones, indeed,
But over meads and cornfields sweet,
Trampling down all with clumsy feet.
A farmer met him by-and-by,
And didn’t ask him: how? or why?
But with his fist saluted him.

“I feel new life in every limb!”
Our traveller cried in ecstasy.
“Who art thou who thus gladden’st me?
May Heaven such blessings ever send!
Ne’er may I want a jovial friend!”

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THE LEGEND OF THE HORSESHOE.

WHAT time our Lord still walk’d the earth,
Unknown, despis’d, of humble birth,
And on Him many a youth attended
(His words they seldom comprehended),
It ever seem’d to Him most meet
To hold His court in open street,
As under heaven’s broad canopy
One speaks with greater liberty.
The teachings of His blessed word
From out His holy mouth were heard;
Each market to a fane turn’d He
With parable and simile.

One day, as tow’rd a town He rov’d,
In peace of mind with those He lov’d,
Upon the path a something gleam’d:
A broken horseshoe ’twas, it seem’d.
So to St. Peter thus He spake:
“That piece of iron prithee take!”
St. Peter’s thoughts had gone astray;
He had been musing on his way
Respecting the world’s government —
A dream that always gives content,
For in the head ’tis check’d by naught;
This ever was his dearest thought.
For him this prize was far too mean; —
Had it a crown and sceptre been!
But surely ’twasn’t worth the trouble
For half a horseshoe to bend double!
And so he turn’d away his head
As if he heard not what was said.

The Lord, forbearing tow’rd all men,
Himself pick’d up the horseshoe then
(He ne’er again like this stoop’d down).
And when at length they reach’d the town,
Before a smithy He remain’d,
And there a penny for’t obtain’d.
As they the market-place went by,
Some beauteous cherries caught His eye;
Accordingly He bought as many
As could be purchas’d for a penny,
And then, as oft His wont had been,
Plac’d them within his sleeve unseen.

They went out by another gate,
O’er plains and fields proceeding straight;
No house or tree was near the spot;
The sun was bright, the day was hot;
In short, the weather being such,
A draught of water was worth much.
The Lord walk’d on before them all,
And let, unseen, a cherry fall.
St. Peter rush’d to seize it bold,
As though an apple ‘twere of gold;
His palate much approv’d the berry.
The Lord ere long another cherry
Once more let fall upon the plain;
St. Peter forthwith stoop’d again.
The Lord kept making him thus bend
To pick up cherries without end.
For a long time the thing went on;
The Lord then said, in cheerful tone:
“Hadst thou but mov’d when thou wert bid,
Thou of this trouble hadst been rid;
The man who small things scorns will next
By things still smaller be perplex’d.”

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Epigrams II.

In these numbers be express’d
Meaning deep, ‘neath merry jest.

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TO ORIGINALS.

AFELLOW says: “I own no school or college;
No master lives whom I acknowledge;
And pray don’t entertain the thought
That from the dead I e’er learn’d aught.”
This, if I rightly understand,
Means: “I’m a blockhead at first hand.”

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THE SOLDIER’S CONSOLATION.

NO! in truth there’s here no lack:
White the bread, the maidens black!
To another town, next night:
Black the bread, the maidens white!

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GENIAL IMPULSE.

THUS roll I, never taking ease,
My tub, like Saint Diogenes,
Now serious am, now seek to please;
Now love and hate in turns one sees;
The motives now are those, now these;
Now nothings, now realities.
Thus roll I, never taking ease,
My tub, like Saint Diogenes.

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NEITHER THIS NOR THAT.

IF thou to be a slave should’st will,
Thou’lt get no pity, but fare ill;
And if a master thou would’st be,
The world will view it angrily;
And if in statu quo thou stay,
That thou art but a fool, they’ll say.

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THE WAY TO BEHAVE.

THOUGH tempers are bad, and peevish folks swear,
Remember to ruffle thy brows, friend, ne’er;
And let not the fancies of women so fair
E’er serve thy pleasure in life to impair.

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THE BEST.

WHEN head and heart are busy, say,
What better can be found?
Who neither loves nor goes astray,
Were better under ground.

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AS BROAD AS IT’S LONG.

MODEST men must needs endure,
And the bold must humbly bow;
Thus thy fate’s the same, be sure,
Whether bold or modest thou.

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CALM AT SEA.

SILENCE deep rules o’er the waters,
Calmly slumb’ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Naught but one vast level plain.

Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev’ry wave.

BE who with life makes sport
Can prosper never,
Who rules himself in naught,
Is a slave ever.

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THE RULE OF LIFE.

IF thou would’st live unruffled by care,
Let not the past torment thee e’er;
As little as possible be thou annoy’d,
And let the present be ever enjoy’d;
Ne’er let thy breast with hate be supplied,
And to God the future confide.

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THE SAME, EXPANDED.

IF thou would’st live unruffled by care,
Let not the past torment thee e’er;
If any loss thou hast to rue,
Act as though thou wert born anew;
Inquire the meaning of each day:
What each day means, itself will say;
In their own actions take thy pleasure,
What others do, thou’lt duly treasure,
Ne’er let thy breast with hate be supplied,
And to God the future confide.
GOOD wine is drunken everywhere.
For gracefulest cup the toper’s no seeker;
But if my wine shall taste me fair,
Give me a costly Grecian beaker.

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THE FAIR AT HUEHENEFELD.

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July 25th, 1814.

I WENT with haughty nonchalance
To give the Fair a passing glance,
To see the pedlers at the booths,
And, using old Lavater’s truths,
Once whisper’d in my ear, to try
If I were wise yet. Bluff’d was I.
The first I saw were soldiers gay,
Dress’d in their very best array.
The stress and strain of war was done;
They had no wish for another begun.
Their fine coats for the girls had charms,
Who threw themselves in the soldiers’ arms.
Peasant and burgher stood amaz’d;
The excellent lads were almost daz’d;
Their pennies and pains were thoroughly wasted;
The cup of glory they had not tasted.
And so for the end they all stood waiting,
Not quite pleas’d in contemplating.
Matrons and maidens with repose
Fitted themselves with wooden sabots.
You could see by their gestures, by their faces,
That their hopes were set in lofty places.

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THE LITTLE GIRL’S WISH.

OH, would that some friend
A husband would send!
’Tis such a nice game,
Mamma is my name.
One needs not to go
To school or to sew!
Then one can command;
Has servants at hand!
Can choose her own dresses,
And, what I confess is
The nicest, have candy
And sugar-plums handy;
And go out to ride;
And at balls be a bride;
And not have to ask
Papa and mamma, or be taken to task.

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EPITAPH.

AS a boy, reserv’d and naughty;
As a youth, a coxcomb and haughty;
As a man, for action inclin’d;
As a graybeard, fickle in mind. —
Upon thy grave will people read:
This was a very man, indeed!

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ADMONITION.

WHEREFORE ever ramble on?
For the Good is lying near.
Fortune learn to seize alone,
For that Fortune’s ever here.

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MY ONLY PROPERTY.

I FEEL that I’m possess’d of naught,
Saving the free unfetter’d thought
Which from my bosom seeks to flow,
And each propitious passing hour
That suffers me in all its power
A loving fate with truth to know.

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OLD AGE.

OLD age is courteous — no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, “Walk in, sir, pray!”
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed,
And then they cry, “A cool one, indeed!”

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COURAGE.

CARELESSLY over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!

Silence, lov’d one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!

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RULE FOR MONARCHS.

IF men are never their thoughts to employ,
Take care to provide them a life full of joy;
But if to some profit and use thou would’st bend them,
Take care to shear them, and then defend them.

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MEMORIES.

THE remembrance of the Good
Keeps us ever glad in mood.

The remembrance of the Fair
Makes a mortal rapture share.

The remembrance of one’s Love
Bless’d is, if it constant prove.

The remembrance of the One
Is the greatest joy that’s known.

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PAULO POST FUTURI.

WEEP ye not, ye children dear,
That as yet ye are unborn:
For each sorrow and each tear
Makes the father’s heart to mourn.
Patient be a short time to it,
Unproduc’d, and known to none;
If your father cannot do it,
By your mother ‘twill be done.

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THE FOOL’S EPILOGUE.

MANY good works I’ve done and ended,
Ye take the praise — I’m not offended;
For in the world, I’ve always thought
Each thing its true position hath sought.
When prais’d for foolish deeds am I,
I set off laughing heartily;
When blam’d for doing something good,
I take it in an easy mood.
If some one stronger gives me hard blows,
That it’s a jest, I feign to suppose;
But if ’tis one that’s but my own like,
I know the way such folks to strike.
When Fortune smiles, I merry grow,
And sing in dulci jubilo;
When sinks her wheel, and tumbles me o’er,
I think ’tis sure to rise once more.

In the sunshine of summer I ne’er lament,
Because the winter it cannot prevent;
And when the white snow-flakes fall around,
I don my skates, and am off with a bound.
Though I dissemble as I will,
The sun for me will ne’er stand still;
The old and wonted course is run,
Until the whole of life is done;
Each day the servant like the lord
In turns comes home, and goes abroad;
If proud or humble the line they take,
They all must eat, drink, sleep and wake.
So nothing ever vexes me;
Act like the fool, and wise ye’ll be!

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ON THE DIVAN.

HE who knows himself and others
Here will also see,
That the East and West, like brothers,
Parted ne’er shall be.

Thoughtfully to float forever
‘Tween two worlds, be man’s endeavor
So between the East and West
To revolve, be my behest!

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God and World.

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PROOEMION.

IN His bless’d name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity and might;
In that One’s name, who, nam’d though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high soe’er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers;
Onward thou’rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where’er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numb’rest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.
What God would outwardly alone control,
And on His finger whirl the mighty Whole?
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,
The measure of His strength, His spirit gives.
Within us all a universe doth dwell;
And hence each people’s usage laudable,
That ev’ry one the Best that meets his eyes
As God, yea e’en his God, doth recognize;
To Him both earth and heaven surrenders he,
Fears Him, and loves Him too, if that may be.

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THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS.

THOU art confus’d, my beloved, at seeing the thousandfold union
Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers’d;
Many a name dost thou hear assign’d; one after another
Falls on thy list’ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;
Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim’d;
Yes, a sacred enigma! O dearest friend, could I only
Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,
Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent
Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,
Trusteth the delicate leaves, feebly beginning to shoot.
Simply slumber’d the force in the seed; a germ of the future,
Peacefully lock’d in itself, ‘neath the integument lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of color, and shapeless;
Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,
And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;
And ’tis a token like this points out the child ‘mid the plants.
Soon a shoot, succeeding it, riseth on high, and reneweth,
Piling up node upon node, ever the primitive form;
Yet not ever alike: for the following leaf, as thou seest,
Ever produceth itself, fashion’d in manifold ways.
Longer, more indented, in points and in parts more divided,
Which, all-deform’d until now, slept in the organ below,
So at length it attaineth the noble and destin’d perfection,
Which, in full many a tribe, fills thee with wondering awe.
Many ribb’d and tooth’d, on a surface juicy and swelling,
Free and unending the shoot seemeth in fulness to be;
Yet here Nature restraineth, with powerful hands, the formation,
And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,
So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth disclose.
Soon and in silence is check’d the growth of the vigorous branches,
And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer stem then upspringeth,
And a miraculous sight doth the observer enchant.
Rang’d in a circle, in numbers that now are small, and now countless,
Gather the smaller-siz’d leaves, close by the side of their like.
Round the axis compress’d the sheltering calyx unfoldeth,
And, as the perfectest type, brilliant-hued coronals forms.
Thus doth Nature bloom, in glory still nobler and fuller,
Showing, in order arrang’d, member on member uprear’d.
Wonderment fresh dost thou feel, as soon as the stem rears the flower
Over the scaffolding frail of the alternating leaves.
But this glory is only the new creation’s foreteller,
Yes, the leaf with its hues feeleth the hand all divine,
And on a sudden contracteth itself; the tenderest figures,
Twofold as yet, hasten on, destin’d to blend into one.
Lovingly now the beauteous pairs are standing together,
Gather’d in countless array, there where the altar is rais’d.
Hymen hovereth o’er them, and scents delicious and mighty
Stream forth their fragrance so sweet, all things enliv’ning around.
Presently, parcell’d out, unnumber’d germs are seen swelling,
Sweetly conceal’d in the womb, where is made perfect the fruit.
Here doth Nature close the ring of her forces eternal;
Yet doth a new one at once cling to the one gone before,
So that the chain be prolonged forever through all generations,
And that the whole may have life, e’en as enjoy’d by each part.
Now, my beloved one, turn thy gaze on the many-hued thousands
Which, confusing no more, gladden the mind as they wave.
Every plant unto thee proclaimeth the laws everlasting,
Every floweret speaks louder and louder to thee;
But if thou here canst decipher the mystic words of the goddess,
Everywhere will they be seen, e’en though the features are chang’d;
Creeping insects may linger, the eager butterfly hasten, —
Plastic and forming may man change e’en the figure decreed!
Oh, then, bethink thee, as well, how out of the germ of acquaintance
Kindly intercourse sprang, slowly unfolding its leaves;
Soon how friendship with might unveil’d itself in our bosoms,
And how Amor at length brought forth blossom and fruit!
Think of the manifold ways wherein Nature hath lent to our feelings,
Silently giving them birth, either the first or the last!
Yes, and rejoice in the present day! For love that is holy
Seeketh the noblest of fruits — that where the thoughts are the same,
Where the opinions agree — that the pair may, in rapt contemplation,
Lovingly blend into one — find the more excellent world.

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THE SAGES AND THE PEOPLE.

Epimenides.
NOW, brethren! hasten to the grove!
The eager people push and shove.
From North, South, East and West their yearning
For wisdom brings them, hither turning
Their hurrying steps. ’Tis light they love,
But not expensive is their learning;
I beg you now your minds prepare
To read the text as they demand it!

The People.
Ye men of riddles, we declare
That you must teach us, full and fair,
Not darkly — so we understand it:
Say! is the world from everlasting?

Anaxagoras.
I have no doubt of it, for casting
A backward glance, if e’er you came
To time without it, ’twould seem a shame!

The People.
But will it end in smoke and flame?

Anaximenes.
Most likely! Yet it’s all the same!
If God exists in deed and name,
There’ll still be pleasant worlds in plenty.

The People.
What dost thou mean by Infinite?

Parmenides.
Why should’st thou vex thyself with it?
Search thy own soul! If there is lacking
Infinity in mind and wit,
Take little thought for other’s backing!

The People.
But where and how is Thought evolv’d?

Diogenes.
Thou putt’st a riddle never solv’d;
The thinker thinks from hat to shoe,
And in a flash he gets the clue,
Unto the Where, the How, the Best.

The People.
And does my body house a soul?

Mimnermos.
‘Twere well to ask thy brothers,
For, dost thou see, this life long guest,
This civil creature with its rôle
Of pleasing self, delighting others,
Is call’d a soul, and I sustain it.

The People.
When Night is on, does sleep enchain it?

Periander.
It cannot slip its lasting bond;
Thy body feels the power of sleep,
Which comes upon it from beyond;
The soul, too, feels the influence deep.

The People.
What dost thou mean by Spirit? speak!

Kleoboulos.
The thing call’d Spirit, I confess,
Asks questions — never answers.

The People.
Now, tell me! what is happiness?

Krates.
’Tis what the fearless urchin shows,
Who, with his comrades — jolly dancers —
With jingling pennies, gayly goes;
Full well the pudding-place he knows —
I mean, he knows the baker!

The People.
What proof of immortality?

Aristippos.
The best life in reality
He leads who lives serene and meek —
Builds firm and strong in perfect vows —
And trusts all to his Maker!

The People.
Is wisdom or is folly best?

Demokritos.
That scarcely needs reflection,
The wise in his own conceit,
Is not begrudged when wise men meet.

The People.
Does chance rule all and mere deception?

Epikouros.
I take the old direction,
Get all the good I can from chance,
Enjoy deception’s fleeting glance;
Their use and sport thou would’st prefer so.

The People.
Is freedom of the will a lie?

Zeno.
It seems as though it were so,
So keep a good stiff upper lip,
And if thou mak’st a final slip,
Thou would’st preserve thy gravity.

The People.
Was I, a child, born in depravity?

Pelagius.
Thy question I had much preferred
Not at this junction to have heard;
’Tis true thou hast inherited
A grievous load unmerited.
To ask the question was absurd!

The People.
Are we compelled to seek our best?

Plato.
If everybody were not blest,
In ever taking good suggestions,
Thou would’st not ask such questions.
Make on thyself the first attempt,
And, if thou canst know thyself,
Let other people be exempt.

The People.
But everywhere rules greed for pelf!

Epiktetos.
Well! let the people have their gain,
The farthings of the balance
Thou must not grudge them; that is plain.

The People.
Now tell us how to use our talents,
Ere we forever drift apart.

The Sages.
The law of wisdom take to heart!
Avoid all questioners, my gallants!

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Rhymed Distichs.

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GOD, SOUL AND WORLD.

WHO trusts in God
Fears not His rod.
This truth may be by all believ’d:
Whom God deceives is well deceiv’d.
How? when? and where? — No answer comes from high;
Thou wait’st for the Because, and yet thou ask’st not Why?
If the whole is ever to gladden thee,
That whole in the smallest thing thou must see.
Water its living strength first shows
When obstacles its course oppose.
Transparent appears the radiant air,
Though steel and stone in its breast it may bear;
At length they’ll meet with fiery power,
And metal and stones on the earth will shower.
Whate’er a living flame may surround,
No longer is shapeless, or earthly bound.
’Tis now invisible, flies from earth,
And hastens on high to the place of its birth.

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DISTICHS.

CHORDS are touch’d by Apollo, — the death-laden bow, too, he bendeth;
While he the shepherdess charms, Python he lays in the dust.
What is merciful censure? To make thy faults appear smaller?
May be to veil them? No, no! O’er them to raise thee on nigh!
Democratic food soon cloys on the multitude’s stomach;
But I’ll wager, ere long, other thou’lt give them instead.
What in France has pass’d by, the Germans continue to practise,
For the proudest of men flatters the people and fawns.
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though ‘twere his own.
Not in the morning alone, not only at midday he charmeth;
Even at setting, the sun is still the same glorious planet.
TIME mows the thorns and the roses;
But the root fresh life-force ever discloses!
’Tis easier far a wreath to bind,
Than a good owner for’t to find.
A breach is every day
By many a mortal storm’d;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,
Yet a heap of dead is ne’er form’d.
What harm has thy poor mirror done, alas?
Look not so ugly, prithee, in the glass!
God gave to mortals birth,
In His own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.
“NOW what is thy purpose and thy intention
In kindling new fire in thy spirit?”
My work men only shall mention
When I no longer shall hear it.

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West-Eastern Divan.

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Moganni Nameh.

Who the song would understand.
Needs must seek the song’s own land.
Who the minstrel understand,
Needs must seek the minstrel’s land.

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BOOK OF THE MINSTREL.

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HEGIRA.

NORTH and West and South are crumbling,
Kingdoms tremble, thrones are tumbling;
To the East fly from annoyance,
Seeking patriarchal joyance,
Where ‘mid love and wine and singing,
Chiser’s Fount new life is bringing.

There in calm and holy places
Will I study primal races;
Searching back to dim beginnings
For the source of wisdom’s winnings;
Wealth of language, lore of heaven,
Undisturb’d by discord’s leaven.

Children then show’d veneration,
Scorn’d was outside obligation!
Firmly grown in bone and marrow,
Faith was strong though thought was narrow;
And the word kept power unbroken,
Just because the word was spoken.

I will mix with shepherd races —
Find enjoyment in oases,
With long caravans will wander,
Wealth on shawls and spices squander.
Every path though rough or pretty
Will explore from waste to city.

Mountain footways rough and weary,
Hafis, do thy songs make cheery;
When the guide on muleback clinging
Wakes the echoes with his singing;
And the stars above are brighten’d,
And the lurking brigand frighten’d.

When I bathe or when I’m drinking,
Hafis great, of thee I’m thinking;
When her veil my sweetheart raises,
And my cheek her fair hair grazes,
Yea, the secret of the poet,
E’en the houris long to know it.

If you envy him this pleasure,
Or would stint him in his measure,
Know his poems, gently knocking,
For admittance hover flocking,
Round the gate of Eden never,
Doubting of the life forever.

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DISCORD.

WHEN by the brook his strain
Cupid is fluting,
And on the neighb’ring plain
Mavors disputing,
There turns the ear ere long,
Loving and tender,
Yet to the noise the song
Soon must surrender.
Loud then the flute-notes glad
Sound ‘mid war’s thunder;
If I grow raving mad,
Is it a wonder?
Flutes sing and trumpets bray,
Waxing yet stronger;
If, then, my senses stray,
Wonder no longer.

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TALISMANS.

GOD is of the East possess’d,
God is ruler of the West;
North and South alike, each land
Rests within His gentle hand.
He, the only righteous one,
Wills that right to each be done.
‘Mongst His hundred titles, then,
Highest praise be this! — Amen.
Error seeketh to deceive me,
Thou art able to retrieve me;
Both in action and in song
Keep my course from going wrong.

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THE FOUR FAVORS.

THAT Arabs through the realms of space
May wander on, light-hearted,
Great Allah hath, to all their race,
Four favors meet imparted.

The turban first — that ornament
All regal crowns excelling;
A light and ever-shifting tent,
Wherein to make our dwelling;

A sword, which, more than rocks and walls
Doth shield us, brightly glist’ning;
A song that profits and enthrals,
For which the maids are list’ning.

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SONG AND STRUCTURE.

LET the Greek his plastic clay
Mould in human fashion,
While his own creation may
Wake his glowing passion;

But it is our joy to court
Great Euphrates’ torrent,
Here and there at will to sport
In the watery current.

Quench’d I thus my spirit’s flame,
Songs had soon resounded;
Water drawn by bards whose fame
Pure is, may be rounded.

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CREATION AND VIVIFICATION.

OLD Adam was a clod of earth
Which God a man created,
Yet he, in spite of such a birth,
Was unsophisticated!

The Elohim blew down his nose
The breath of life most pleasing;
He now to something great arose: —
He caught a fit of sneezing.

Yet in his bones and limbs and head
He still remain’d half earthy,
Till Noah the bumper found, ’tis said,
The right thing for the worthy.

The clod as soon as he was wet
Felt wings of inspiration,
Just as the dough when it is set
Swells up with fermentation.

Thus Hafis, may thy lofty song,
Thy glorious example
Lead us with clinking cups along
To our Creator’s temple.

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Hafis Nameh.

Spirit let us bridegroom call,
And the word the bride;
Known this wedding is to all
Who have Hafis tried.

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BOOK OF HAFIS.

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THE NEW NAME.

Poet.
MAHOMET-SHEMS-ED-DIN, tell me
Why thy noble people name thee
Hafis?

Hafis.
Sir, I cannot blame thee;
I will speak how it befell me:
Since my memory never faltered,
And with joy I kept unaltered
All the Koran’s sacred verses,
And amid my many mercies
Never with the evil paltered
That the faithful were offended,
Who the seed-word of the prophet
Treasure as it was intended:
Therefore am I bearer of it.

Poet.
Hafis, as I thus behold us,
Is it well to stay anigh thee;
For the thoughts of others mould us
To resemble them; and I thee
Must resemble wholly,
Who have in my bosom minted
Impress of our Scripture holy,
As the Saviour’s face was printed
On the wondrous napkin. Joyance
Fills me, spite of all annoyance,
Spite of hindrance, loss, negation,
For I have Faith’s consolation.

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THE GERMAN RETURNS THANKS.

HOLY EBUSUUD, thou hast fathom’d
All the holy things the poet covets!
For it is indeed the thousand trifles
Not within the sacred Law’s dominions
Where his portion lies, and where with boldness,
Joyous e’en in grief, he finds his duty.
Serpent venom and the theriaca
He must take without discrimination:
Poison kills not, antidote is helpless,
For true life consists in guileless action
Tempered by the everlasting wisdom,
Harming self but never harming others:
Thus the aged poet hopes the houris
To the joys of paradise will take him,
As a youth with vision clarified: —
Holy Ebusuud, thou hast reach’d it!

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THE UNLIMITED.

THAT thou canst never end doth make thee great,
And that thou ne’er beginnest is thy fate.
Thy song is changeful as yon starry frame,
End and beginning evermore the same;
And what the middle bringeth but contains
What was at first, and what at last remains.
Thou art of joy the true and minstrel-source,
From thee pours wave on wave with ceaseless force.
A mouth that’s aye prepar’d to kiss,
A breast whence flows a loving song,
A throat that finds no draught amiss,
An open heart that knows no wrong.

And what though all the world should sink!
Hafis, with thee, alone with thee
Will I contend! joy, misery,
The portion of us twain shall be;
Like thee to love, like thee to drink, —
This be my pride, — this, life to me!

Now, Song, with thine own fire be sung, —
For thou art older, thou more young!

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TO HAFIS.

HAFIS, straight to equal thee,
One would strive in vain;
Though a ship with majesty
Cleaves the foaming main,
Feels its sails swell haughtily
As it onward hies; —
Crush’d by ocean’s stern decree,
Wreck’d it straightway lies.
Tow’rd thee, songs, light, graceful, free,
Mount with cooling gush;
Then their glow consumeth me,
As like fire they rush.
Yet a thought with ecstasy
Hath my courage mov’d;
In the land of melody
I have liv’d and lov’d.

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FETWA.

THE Mufti read Misri’s verses cherish’d! —
Each one deliberately in succession,
And gave them to the flames’ possession;
And thus the costly book entirely perish’d.

“May flames consume the man whoe’er believeth
And speaketh as this Misri! He alone” —
Thus spoke the judge severe — ”shall not atone
In fire: the poet gifts from God receiveth,
And if in traffic of his sins he use them,
Let him beware lest he shall sadly lose them.

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Uschk Nameh.

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BOOK OF LOVE.

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THE TYPES.

Hear and in memory bear
These six fond loving pair.
Love, when arous’d, kept true
Rustan and Rodawu!
Strangers approach from far
Jussuf and Suleika;
Love, void of hope, is in
Ferhad and Schirin.
Born for each other are
Medschnun and Leila;
Loving, though old and gray,
Dschemil saw Boteinah.
Love’s sweet caprice anon,
Brown maid and Solomon!
If thou dost mark them well,
Stronger thy love will swell.

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ONE PAIR MORE.

LOVE is indeed a glorious prize!
What fairer guerdon meets our eyes? —
Though neither wealth nor power are thine,
A very hero thou dost shine.
As of the prophet, they will tell
Wamik and Asra’s tale as well. —
They’ll tell not of them, — they’ll but give
Their names, which now are all that live.
The deeds they did, the toils they prov’d
No mortal knows! But that they lov’d
This know we. Here’s the story true
Of Wamik and of Asra too.
Love’s torments sought a place of rest,
Where all might drear and lonely be;
They found ere long my desert breast,
And nestled in its vacancy.

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MYSTERY.

IN my sweetheart’s eyes the people
Find perpetual cause for wonder.
I who know the meaning of it
Can explain it without blunder.

For it means: “This is my lover,”
Not to this and that one turning:
Therefore, worthy people, hearken,
Cease your wonder, cease your yearning

Yea, with secret force prodigious
Round the circle she is glancing,
Yet she only seeks to tell him
Of the coming hour entrancing.

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IT WAS SHE.

YES, the lips that kiss’d me were her lips,
Hers the eyes that shone upon me.
Body round and slender hips, —
All of Eden’s joyance won me.
Was she there? where has she fled?
Yes! ’twas she, my soul enraptur’d,
Gave me life, and as she sped
Held my life forever captur’d.

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MOST MYSTERIOUS.

“WE assiduous gossip-mongers
Fain would know thy sweetheart’s hiding,
And if thou deceivest also
Many husbands too confiding.

“For we see thou art a lover,
And thy fortune we would covet;
But that thou could’st find a mistress,
Not a word believe we of it!”

Seek her, if ye please, my masters,
None will hinder; yet this learn ye:
Ye will tremble at her presence;
Gone, her loss will much concern ye.

If ye know how Shehab-ed-din
Dropp’d on Arafat his raiment,
Ye would never call him foolish
Who for wisdom was a claimant!

If thy name before thou diest
Should be spoken to thy monarch,
Should be spoken to thy mistress,
Count it ‘mid thy honors highest!

Thus it show’d the bitterest sorrow,
When the dying Medschnun will’d it
That his name henceforth for Leila
Should be dead, and men fulfill’d it.

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Teskir Nameh.

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BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION.

HEARKEN the word the harp sings! Yet unless
Thou art well skill’d, thou need’st not try.
The wisest counsel is foolishness
To the hearer who hears awry!

“What sings then the harp?” Its counsel is plain: —
“The fairest bride is not the bride to gain;
Yet will we not reckon thee among the choicest
Unless at Fairest and Best thou rejoicest!”

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FIVE THINGS.

WHAT makes time short to me?
Activity!
What makes it long and spiritless?
’Tis idleness!
What brings us to debt?
To delay and forget!
What makes us succeed?
Decision with speed!
How to fame to ascend?
Oneself to defend!
For woman due allowance make!
Form’d of a crooked rib was she, —
By Heaven she could not straight’ned be.
Attempt to bend her, and she’ll break;
If left alone, more crooked grows madam;
What well could be worse, my good friend, Adam? —
For woman due allowance make;
‘Twere grievous, if thy rib should break!

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TO SHAH SHEDSHAA AND HIS LIKE.

THROUGH the Trans Oxus throng,
With arms victorious,
In boldness seeks our song
Thy pathway glorious!
We have no fear of wrong
If thou defend us!
Long be thy life and long
Thy reign tremendous!

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HIGHEST FAVOR.

THOUGH I was untam’d and wild,
Yet a master I have found;
Years had pass’d ere I grew mild,
Yet a mistress I have found;
They have put me to the test,
Faithful I have still been found;
With their care I have been bless’d
As the treasure they had found.
No one ever served two lords
And a decent fortune found;
Master, mistress each affords
Proof in me their joy is found;
And my joy’s too deep for words,
That I both of them have found.
Through many countries I have been,
And mostly throngs of men have seen;
But the hidden corners I ever have sought,
And every holm great joy has brought,
The blessed city, none seen besides;
Houris and houris, brides and brides.
Whence come I hither? ’tis a puzzling story.
My earthward path is scarcely known to me,
But now and here this day of heav’nly glory
Like bosom friends meet joy and misery.
O blissful Fate, if they are wedded only!
Laughter and tears who can enjoy when lonely?

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FIRDUSI SPEAKS.

O world, with what baseness and guilt thou art rife!
Thou nurturest, trainest, and killest the while.
He only whom Allah doth bless with his smile
Is train’d and is nurtur’d with riches and life.
What then is wealth? A sun that is warming.
The beggar enjoys it as we find our joyance;
So let not the opulent find annoyance
In a joy, the beggar’s property forming.

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DSHELAL-ED-DIN RUMI SPEAKS.

WHILE thou art here the world flies like a dream,
Thou journeyest, space all bewitched doth seem.
Or cold or heat thy pow’r it cannot hold;
Thy flowers will wither and joys grow old.

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SULEIKA SPEAKS.

THE mirror tells me, I am fair!
Thou sayest, to grow old my fate will be.
Naught in God’s presence changeth e’er, —
Love Him, for this one moment, then, in me.

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Rendsch Nameh.

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BOOK OF GLOOM.

IT is a fault oneself to praise,
And yet ’tis done by each whose deeds are kind;
And if there’s no deceit in what he says,
The good we still as good shall find.

Let, then, ye fools, that wise man taste
Of joy, who fancies that he’s wise;
That he, a fool like you, may waste
Th’ insipid thanks the world supplies.

Thou wilt never find a rhymer,
His things not the best averring;
Nor a fiddler who in playing,
His own melodies not preferring.

And I cannot blame them harshly:
If we give the praise to others,
We must lower ourselves to do it,
Do we live as live our brothers.

So I found it very fitting,
In some ante-rooms, bystanders
Could not easily distinguish
Mouse-dung from the corianders.

What has been stirs up vast hatred
In new brooms so full of vigor,
For they can help the impulse,
Acting towards the old with rigor.

And when nations come in conflict,
Each new schemes of war contriving,
Neither of them will acknowledge,
Each for one same thing is striving.

And men blame their fellows harshly
For their brutal selfishness;
While themselves cannot endure it
If another win success.

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Hikmet Nameh.

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BOOK OF PROVERBS.

TALISMANS throughout the book I’d scatter,
For an equipoise they make.
Who the credulous pin will take,
Opening will find, surely find good matter.
From this day, from this night
Ask for naught,
Only what the yesterdays have brought.
The sea is flowing ever,
The land retains it never.
Be stirring, man, while yet the day is clear;
The night when none can work fast draweth near.
When the heavy-laden sigh,
Deeming help and hope gone by,
Oft, with healing power is heard,
Comfort-fraught, a kindly word.
How vast is mine inheritance, how glorious and sublime!
For time mine own possession is, the land I till is time!
Enweri saith, — ne’er lived a man more true;
The deepest heart, the highest head he knew, —
“In ev’ry place and time thou’lt find availing
Uprightness, judgment, kindliness unfailing.”
Though the bards whom the Orient sun hath bless’d
Are greater than we who dwell in the west,
Yet in hatred of those whom our equals we find,
In this we’re not in the least behind.
Would we let our envy burst,
Feed its hunger fully first!
To keep our proper place,
We’ll show our bristles more;
With hawks men all things chase,
Except the savage boar.
By those who themselves more bravely have fought
A hero’s praise will be joyfully told.
The worth of man can only be taught
By those who have suffer’d both heat and cold.

“Wherefore is truth so far from our eyes,
Buried as though in a distant land?”

None at the proper moment are wise!
Could they properly understand,
Truth would appear in her own sweet guise,
Beauteous, gentle, and close at hand.
Why these inquiries make,
Where charity may flow?
Cast in the flood thy cake, —
Its eater, who will know?
Once when I a spider had kill’d,
Then methought: was’t right or wrong?
That we both to these times should belong,
This had God in His goodness will’d.

A man with households twain
Ne’er finds attention meet;
A house wherein two women reign
Is ne’er kept clean and neat.

Bless, thou dread Creator,
Bless this humble fane;
Man may build them greater, —
More they’ll not contain.
Let this house’s glory rise,
Handed to far ages down,
And the son his honor prize,
As the father his renown.
O’er the Mediterranean sea
Proudly hath the Orient sprung;
Who loves Hafis and knows him, he
Knows what Calderon hath sung.
If the ass that bore the Saviour
Were to Mecca driven, he
Would not alter, but would be
Still an ass in his behavior.
The flood of passion storms with fruitless strife,
‘Gainst the unvanquish’d solid land.
It throws poetic pearls upon the strand,
And thus is gain’d the prize of life.
When so many minstrels there are,
How it pains me, alas, to know it!
Who from the earth drives poetry far?
Who but the poet!

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Timur Nameh.

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BOOK OF TIMUR.

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THE WINTER AND TIMUR.

SO the winter now clos’d round them
With resistless fury. Scatt’ring
Over all his breath so icy,
He inflam’d each wind that bloweth
To assail them angrily.
Over them he gave dominion
To his frost-ensharpen’d tempests;
Down to Timur’s council went he,
And with threat’ning voice address’d him: —
“Softly, slowly, wretched being!
Live, the tyrant of injustice;
But shall hearts be scorch’d much longer
By thy flames, — consume before them?
If amongst the evil spirits
Thou art one, — good! I’m another.
Thou a graybeard art — so I am;
Land and men we make to stiffen.
Thou art Mars! And I Saturnus, —
Both are evil-working planets,
When united, horror-fraught.
Thou dost kill the soul, thou freezest
E’en the atmosphere; still colder
Is my breath than thine was ever.
Thy wild armies vex the faithful
With a thousand varying torments;
Well! God grant that I discover
Even worse, before I perish!
And by God, I’ll give thee none.
Let God hear what now I tell thee!
Yes, by God! from Death’s cold clutches
Naught, O graybeard, shall protect thee,
Not the hearth’s broad coalfire’s ardor,
Not December’s brightest flame.”

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TO SULEIKA.

FITTING perfumes to prepare,
And to raise thy rapture high,
Must a thousand rosebuds fair
First in fiery torments die.

One small flask’s contents to glean,
Whose sweet fragrance aye may live,
Slender as thy finger e’en,
Must a world its treasures give;

Yes, a world where life is moving,
Which, with impulse full and strong,
Could forebode the bulbul’s loving,
Sweet, and spirit-stirring song.

Since they thus have swell’d our joy,
Should such torments grieve us, then?
Doth not Timur’s rule destroy
Myriad souls of living men?

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Suleika Nameh.

Once, methought, in the night hours cold,
That I saw the moon in my sleep;
But as soon as I waken’d, behold
Unawares rose the sun from the deep.

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BOOK OF SULEIKA.

THAT Suleika’s love was so strong
For Jussuf, need cause no surprise;
He was young, youth pleaseth the eyes, —
He was fair, they say, beyond measure
Fair was she, and so great was their pleasure.
But that thou, who awaitedst me long,
Youthful glances of fire dost throw me,
Soon wilt bless me, thy love now dost show me,
This shall my joyous numbers proclaim,
Thee I forever Suleika shall name.

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HATEM.

NOT occasion makes the thief;
She’s the greatest of the whole;
For Love’s relics, to my grief,
From my aching heart she stole.

She hath given it to thee, —
All the joy my life had known,
So that, in my poverty,
Life I seek from thee alone.

Yet compassion greets me straight
In the lustre of thine eye,
And I bless my newborn fate,
As within thine arms I lie.

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SULEIKA.

THE sun appears! A glorious sight!
The crescent moon clings round him now.
What could this wondrous pair unite?
How to explain this riddle? How?

Hatem.
May this our joy’s foreboder prove!
In it I view myself and thee;
Thou callest me thy sun, my love, —
Come, my sweet moon, cling thou round me!

Love for love, and moments sweet,
Lips returning kiss for kiss,
Word for word, and eyes that meet;
Breath for breath, and bliss for bliss.
Thus at eve, and thus the morrow!
Yet thou feelest, at my lay,
Ever some half-hidden sorrow;
Could I Jussuf’s graces borrow,
All thy beauty I’d repay!

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HATEM.

OH, say, ‘neath what celestial sign
The day doth lie,
When ne’er again this heart of mine
Away will fly?
And e’en though fled (what thought divine!)
Would near me lie? —
On the soft couch, on whose sweet shrine
My heart near hers will lie!

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HATEM.

HOLD me, locks, securely caught
In the circle of her face!
Dear brown serpents, I have naught
To repay this act of grace,

Save a heart whose love ne’er dies,
Throbbing with aye-youthful glow;
For a raging Etna lies
‘Neath its veil of mist and snow.

Yonder mountain’s stately brow
Thou, like morning beams, dost shame;
Once again feels Hatem now
Spring’s soft breath and summer’s flame.

One more bumper! Fill the glass;
This last cup I pledge to thee! —
By mine ashes if she pass,
“He consum’d,” she’ll say, “for me.”

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THE LOVING ONE SPEAKS.

AND wherefore sends not
The horseman-captain
His heralds hither
Each day, unfailing?
Yet hath he horses,
He writeth well.

He writeth Talik,
And Neski knows he
To write with beauty
On silken tablets.
I’d deem him present,
Had I his words.

The sick One will not,
Will not recover,
From her sweet sorrow;
She, when she heareth
That her true lover
Grows well, falls sick.

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THE LOVING ONE AGAIN.

WRITES he in Neski,
Faithfully speaks he;
Writes he in Talik,
Joy to give, seeks he:
Writes he in either,
Good! — for he loves!

These tufted branches fair
Observe, my lov’d one, well!
And see the fruits they bear
In green and prickly shell!

They’ve hung roll’d up, till now,
Unconsciously and still;
A loosely-waving bough
Doth rock them at its will.

Yet, ripening from within,
The kernel brown swells fast;
It seeks the air to win,
It seeks the sun at last.

With joy it bursts its thrall,
The shell must needs give way:
’Tis thus my numbers fall
Before thy feet, each day.

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SULEIKA.

WHAT is by this stir reveal’d?
Doth the East glad tidings bring?
For my heart’s deep wounds are heal’d
By his mild and cooling wing.

He the dust with sports doth meet,
And in gentle cloudlets chase;
To the vineleaf’s safe retreat
Drives the insect’s happy race;

Cools these burning cheeks of mine,
Checks the sun’s fierce glow amain;
Kisses, as he flies, the vine,
Flaunting over hill and plain.

And his whispers soft convey
Thousand greetings from my friend;
Ere these hills own night’s dark sway,
Kisses greet me, without end.

Thus canst thou still onward go,
Serving friend and mourner too!
There, where lofty ramparts glow,
Soon the lov’d one shall I view.

Ah, what makes the heart’s truth known, —
Love’s sweet breath, — a newborn life, —
Learn I from his mouth alone,
In his breath alone is rife!

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THE SUBLIME TYPE.

THE sun, whom Grecians Helios call,
His heavenly path with pride doth tread,
And, to subdue the world’s wide all,
Looks round, beneath him, high o’er head.

He sees the fairest goddess pine,
Heaven’s child, the daughter of the clouds, —
For her alone he seems to shine;
In trembling grief his form he shrouds,

Careless for all the realms of bliss, —
Her streaming tears more swiftly flow:
For every pearl he gives a kiss,
And changeth into joy her woe.

She gazeth upward fixedly,
And deeply feels his glance of might,
While, stamp’d with his own effigy,
Each pearl would range itself aright.

Thus wreath’d with bows, with hues thus grac’d,
With gladness beams her face so fair,
While he, to meet her, maketh haste,
And yet, alas! can reach her ne’er.

So, by the harsh decree of Fate,
Thou movest from me, dearest one;
And were I Helios e’en, the Great,
What would avail his chariot-throne?

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SULEIKA.

ZEPHYR, for thy humid wing,
Oh, how much I envy thee!
Thou to him canst tidings bring
How our parting saddens me!

In my breast, a yearning still
As thy pinions wave, appears;
Flowers and eyes, and wood, and hill
At thy breath are steep’d in tears.

Yet thy mild wing gives relief,
Soothes the aching eyelid’s pain;
Ah, I else had died for grief,
Him ne’er hop’d to see again.

To my love, then, quick repair,
Whisper softly to his heart;
Yet, to give him pain, beware,
Nor my bosom’s pangs impart.

Tell him, but in accents coy,
That his love must be my life;
Both, with feelings fraught with joy,
In his presence will be rife.

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THE REUNION.

CAN it be! of stars the star,
Do I press thee to my heart?
In the night of distance far,
What deep gulf, what bitter smart!
Yes, ’tis thou, indeed, at last,
Of my joys the partner dear!
Mindful, though, of sorrows past,
I the present needs must fear.

When the still-unfashion’d earth
Lay on God’s eternal breast,
He ordain’d its hour of birth,
With creative joy possess’d.
Then a heavy sigh arose,
When He spake the sentence: — ”Be!”
And the All, with mighty throes,
Burst into reality.

And when thus was born the light,
Darkness near it fear’d to stay,
And the elements with might
Fled on every side away;
Each on some far-distant trace,
Each with visions wild employ’d,
Numb, in boundless realms of space,
Harmony and feeling-void.

Dumb was all, all still and dead,
For the first time, God alone!
Then He form’d the morning-red,
Which soon made its kindness known:
It unravell’d from the waste
Bright and glowing harmony,
And once more with love was grac’d
What contended formerly.

And with earnest, noble strife,
Each its own Peculiar sought;
Back to full, unbounded life
Sight and feeling soon were brought.
Wherefore, if ’tis done, explore
How? why give the manner, name?
Allah need create no more,
We his world ourselves can frame.

So, with morning pinions bright,
To thy mouth was I impell’d;
Stamp’d with thousand seals by night,
Star-clear is the bond fast held.
Paragons on earth are we
Both of grief and joy sublime,
And a second sentence: — ”Be!”
Parts us not a second time.

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SULEIKA.

WITH what inward joy, sweet lay,
I thy meaning have descried!
Lovingly thou seem’st to say
That I’m ever by his side;

That he ever thinks of me,
That he to the absent gives
All his love’s sweet ecstasy,
While for him alone she lives.

Yes, the mirror which reveals
Thee, my lov’d one, is my breast;
This the bosom where thy seals
Endless kisses have impress’d.

Numbers sweet, unsullied truth,
Chain me down in sympathy!
Love’s embodied radiant youth,
In the garb of poesy!

In thousand forms may’st thou attempt surprise,
Yet, all-beloved-one, straight know I thee;
Thou may’st with magic veils thy face disguise,
And yet, all-present-one, straight know I thee.

Upon the cypress’ purest, youthful bud,
All-beauteous-growing-one, straight know I thee;
In the canal’s unsullied, living flood,
All-captivating-one, well know I thee.

When spreads the water-column, rising proud,
All-sportive-one, how gladly know I thee;
When, e’en in forming, is transform’d the cloud,
All-figure-changing-one, there know I thee.

Veil’d in the meadow-carpet’s flow’ry charms,
All-chequer’d-starry-fair-one, know I thee;
And if a plant extend its thousand arms,
O all-embracing-one, there know I thee.

When on the mount is kindled morn’s sweet light,
Straightway, all-gladd’ning-one, salute I thee;
The arch of heaven o’erhead grows pure and bright, —
All-heart-expanding-one, then breathe I thee.

That which my inward, outward sense proclaims,
Thou all-instructing-one, I know through thee;
And if I utter Allah’s hundred names,
A name with each one echoes, meant for thee.

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Safi Nameh.

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THE CONVIVIAL BOOK.

ALSO in the wine-room have been sitting,
They serv’d me like the others as was fitting.
Men gossip’d, shouted, told the day’s event,
Gayly or sadly as the day was spent.
But I sat, inwardly with all content;
I thought about my love. How does she love?
I do not know, but why should that concern?
I love her all things else on earth above,
As truly as a heart can ever burn.
Where is that parchment, where that precious style,
That give me power? This was the thought! I smile!

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THE INN.

MAIDEN with the dark-brown ringlets,
Crafty maiden, prithee leave me!
If I serve my lord with favor,
He would kiss my brow, believe me.

Thou, however, I would wager,
Art not with me well contented;
But I know my friend will weary
Of thy cheeks, thy breasts, sweet-scented.

That thou shamefaced turnest from me,
Dost thou reckon to deceive me?
By the door-sill I will slumber,
And awaken if thou leave me.

Because we yield to drunkenness,
They cover us with blame,
Their words about our drunkenness
Forever are the same.
Men oftenest in drunkenness
Have slept ‘till daylight came;
But all night long my drunkenness
Drove me without an aim.
My trouble is love’s drunkenness,
It plagues me without shame.
From day till night, from night till day
It knows my heart to claim, —
Though buried deep in drunkenness
The songs that flash and flame,
And which no jejune drunkenness
Could ever dare to tame.
Love, song and Bacchic drunkenness,
In night and day the same;
But the divinest drunkenness
Fills me with joy and shame.

Can the Koran from Eternity be?
’Tis worth not a thought!
Can the Koran a creation, then, be?
Of that, I know naught!
Yet that the book of all books it must be,
I believe as a Mussulman ought.

That from Eternity wine, though, must be,
I ever have thought;
That ’twas ordain’d, ere the angels, to be,
As a truth may be taught.
Drinkers, however these matters may be,
Gaze on God’s face, fearing naught.

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THE INN.

THIS last glass, I gladly drain it;
That I think must now suffice thee: —
Here enjoy these fresh-pluck’d almonds,
Then the wine once more’ll entice thee.

Then I’ll lead thee to the terrace,
With cool breezes gently blowing,
And perchance thou’lt kiss thy servant,
As I catch thy eye in going.

See, the world is not delusion,
Birds and nests mark her endeavor,
Breath of roses, oil of roses,
And the bulbul sings forever.

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Mathal Nameh.

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BOOK OF PARABLES.

IN the Koran with strange delight
A peacock’s feather met my sight:
Thou’rt welcome in this holy place,
The highest prize on earth’s wide face!
As in the stars of heaven, in thee,
God’s greatness in the small we see;
For he whose gaze whole worlds hath bless’d
His eye hath even here impress’d,
And the light down in beauty dress’d,
So that e’en monarchs cannot hope
In splendor with the bird to cope.
Meekly enjoy thy happy lot,
And so deserve that holy spot!
From heaven there fell upon the foaming wave
A timid drop; the flood with anger roar’d, —
But God, its modest boldness to reward,
Strength to the drop and firm endurance gave.
Its form the mussel captive took.
And to its lasting glory and renown,
The pearl now glistens in our monarch’s crown,
With gentle gleam and loving look.
Bulbul’s song, through night hours cold,
Rose to Allah’s throne on high;
To reward her melody,
Giveth he a cage of gold.
Such a cage are limbs of men, —
Though at first she feels confin’d,
Yet when all she brings to mind,
Straight the spirit sings again.
All kinds of men, both small and great,
A fine-spun web delight to create,
And in the middle they take their place,
And wield their scissors with wondrous grace.
But if a besom should sweep that way:
“What a most shameful thing,” they say, —
“They’ve crush’d a mighty palace to-day.”

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IT IS GOOD.

IN Paradise while moonbeams play’d,
Jehovah found, in slumber deep,
Adam fast sunk; He gently laid
Eve near him, — she, too, fell asleep.
There lay they now, on earth’s fair shrine,
God’s two most beauteous thoughts divine. —
When this He saw, He cried: — ’Tis Good!
And scarce could move from where He stood.

No wonder that our joy’s complete,
While eye and eye responsive meet,
When this bless’d thought of rapture moves us —
That we’re with Him who truly loves us,
And if He cries: — Good, let it be!
’Tis so for both, it seems to me.
Thou’rt clasp’d within these arms of mine,
Dearest of all God’s thoughts divine!

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Parsi Nameh.

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BOOK OF THE PARSEES.

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THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.

BRETHREN, what bequest to you should come
From the lowly poor man, going home,
Whom ye younger ones with patience tended,
Whose last days ye honor’d and defended?

When we oft have seen the monarch ride,
Gold upon him, gold on ev’ry side;
Jewels on him, on his courtiers all,
Thickly strew’d as hailstones when they fall,

Have ye e’er known envy at the sight?
And not felt your gaze become more bright,
When the sun was, on the wings of morning,
Darnawend’s unnumber’d peaks adorning,

As he, bow-like, rose? How each eye dwelt
On the glorious scene! I felt, I felt,
Thousand times, as life’s days fleeted by,
Borne with him, the coming one, on high.

God upon His throne then to proclaim,
Him, the life-fount’s mighty Lord, to name,
Worthily to prize that glorious sight,
And to wander on beneath His light.

When the fiery orb was all defin’d,
There I stood, as though in darkness, blind,
Beat my breast, my quicken’d members threw
On the earth, brow foremost, at the view.

Let this holy, great bequest reward
Brotherly good-will and kind regard:
Solemn Duty’s daily observation. —
More than this, it needs no revelation.

If its gentle hands a new-born one
Move, then straightway turn it tow’rd the sun —
Soul and body dip in bath of fire!
Then each morning’s favor ‘twill acquire.

To the living one commit the dead,
O’er the beast let earth and dust be spread,
And, so far as may extend your might,
What ye deem impure conceal from sight.

Till your plains to graceful purity,
That the sun with joy your labors see;
When ye plant, your trees in rows contrive,
For he makes the Regular to thrive.

E’en the floods that through the channel rush
Must not fail in fulness or in gush;
And as Senderud, from mountain high,
Rises pure, in pureness must it die.

Not to weaken water’s gentle fall,
Carefully cleanse out the channels all;
Salamander, snake, and rush, and reed, —
All destroy, — each monster and each weed.

If thus pure ye earth and water keep,
Through the air the sun will gladly peep,
Where he, worthily enshrin’d in space,
Worketh life, to life gives holy grace.

Ye, by toil on toil so sorely tried,
Comfort take, the All is purified;
And now man, as priest, may boldly dare
From the stone God’s image to prepare.

When the flame burns joyously and bright,
Limbs are supple, radiant is the night;
On the hearth when fire with ardor glows,
Ripe the sap of plants and creatures grows.

Dragging wood, with rapture be it done,
’Tis the seed of many an earthly sun;
Plucking Pambeh, gladly may ye say: —
This, as wick, the Holy will convey.

If ye meekly, in each burning lamp,
See the nobler light’s resplendent stamp,
Ne’er will Fate prevent you, void of feeling,
At God’s throne at morningtide from kneeling.

This is Being’s mighty signet, then,
God’s pure glass to angels and to men;
Each word lisp’d the Highest’s praise to sound.
Ring in ring, united there is found;

From the shore of Senderud ascendeth,
Up to Darnawend its pinions bendeth,
As he dawns, with joy to greet his light,
You with endless blessings to requite.

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Chuld Nameh.

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BOOK OF PARADISE.

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THE PRIVILEGED MEN.

LET the foeman sorrow o’er his dead,
Ne’er will they return again to light;
O’er our brethren let no tear be shed,
For they dwell above yon spheres so bright.

All the seven planets open throw
All their metal doors with mighty shock,
And the forms of those we lov’d below
At the gates of Eden boldly knock.

There they find, with bliss ne’er dream’d before,
Glories that my flight first show’d to eye,
When the wondrous steed my person bore
In one second through the realms on high.

Wisdom’s trees, in cypress-order growing,
High uphold the golden apples sweet;
Trees of life, their spreading shadows throwing,
Shade each blossoming plant, each flow’ry seat.

Now a balmy zephyr from the East
Brings the heavenly maidens to thy view;
With the eye thou now dost taste the feast,
Soon the sight pervades thee through and through!

There they stand, to ask thee thy career:
Mighty plans? or dangerous bloody rout?
Thou’rt a hero, know they, — for thou’rt here,
What a hero? — This they’ll fathom out.

By thy wounds soon clearly this is shown,
Wounds that write thy fame’s undying story;
Wounds the true believer mark alone,
When have perish’d joy and earthly glory.

To chiosks and arbors thou art brought,
Fill’d with chequer’d marble columns bright;
To the noble grape-juice, solace-fraught,
They the guest with kindly sips invite.

Youth! Thou’rt welcome more than e’er was youth!
All alike are radiant and serene;
When thou tak’st one to thine heart with truth,
Of thy band she’ll be the friend and queen.

So prepare thee for this place of rest,
Never can it now be chang’d again;
Maids like these will ever make thee bless’d
Wines like these will never harm thy brain.

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THE FAVORED BEASTS.

OF beasts there have been thosen four
To come to Paradise,
And there with saints for evermore
They dwell in happy wise.

Amongst them all the Ass stands first;
He comes with joyous stride,
For to the Prophet-City erst
Did Jesus on him ride.

Half timid next a Wolf doth creep,
To whom Mahomet spake: —
“Spoil not the poor man of his sheep,
The rich man’s thou may’st take.”

And then the brave and faithful Hound,
Who by his master kept,
And slept with him the slumbers sound
The seven sleepers slept.

Abuherrira’s Cat, too, here
Purrs round his master bless’d,
For holy must the beast appear
The Prophet hath caress’d.

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THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

SIX among the courtiers favor’d
Fly before the Cæsar’s fury,
Who would as a god be worshipp’d,
Though in truth no god appearing,
For a fly prevents him ever
From enjoying food at table.
Though with fans his servants scare it,
They the fly can never banish.
It torments him, stings, and troubles,
And the festal board perplexes,
Then returning like the herald
Of the olden crafty Fly-God.
“What!” — the striplings say together —
“Shall a fly a god embarrass?

“Shall a god drink, eat at table,
Like us mortals? No, the Only,
Who the sun and moon created,
And the glowing stars arch’d o’er us,
He is God, — we’ll fly!” — The gentle,
Lightly shod, and dainty striplings
Did a shepherd meet, and hide them,
With himself, within a cavern.

And the sheep-dog will not leave them, —
Scar’d away, his foot all-mangled,
To his master still he presses,
And he joins the hidden party,
Joins the favorites of slumber.

And the prince, whom they had fled from,
Fondly-furious, thinks of vengeance,
And, discarding sword and fire,
Has them wall’d-up in the cavern,
Wall’d-up fast with bricks and mortar.

But the others slumber ever,
And the Angel, their protector,
Gives before God’s throne this notice:
“To the right and left alternate
Have I ever car’d to turn them,
That their fair and youthful members
Be not by the mould-damp injur’d;
Clefts within the rocks I open’d,
That the sun may, rising, setting,
Keep their cheeks in youthful freshness.”
So they lie there, bless’d by Heaven.
And, with forepaws sound and scatheless,
Sleeps the dog in gentle slumber.

Years come round, and years fly onward,
And the youths at length awaken,
And the wall, which now had moulder’d,
From its very age has fallen.
And Jamblika says, — whose beauty
Far exceedeth all the others, —
When the fearful shepherd lingers: —
“I will run, and food procure you,
Life and piece of gold I’ll wager!” —
Ephesus had many a year now
Own’d the teaching of the Prophet
Jesus (Peace be with the Good One!)

And he ran, and at the gateway
Were the warders and the others.
Yet he to the nearest baker’s,
Seeking bread, went swiftly onwards. —
“Rogue!” thus cried the baker — ”hast thou,
Youth, a treasure, then, discover’d?
Give me, — for the gold betrays thee, —
Give me half, to keep thy secret!”

And they quarrel. — To the monarch
Comes the matter; and the monarch
Fain would halve it, like the baker.

Now the miracle is proven
Slowly by a hundred tokens.
He can e’en his right establish
To the palace he erected,
For a pillar, when pierc’d open,
Leads to wealth he said ’twould lead to.
Soon are gather’d there whole races,
Their relationship to show him.
And as great-grandfather, nobly
Stands Jamblika’s youthful figure.

As of ancestors, he hears them,
Speaking of his son and grandsons.
His great-grandsons stand around him,
Like a race of valiant mortals,
Him to honor, — him, the youngest.
And one token on another
Rises up, the proof completing;
The identity is proven
Of himself, and of his comrades.

Now returns he to the cavern,
With him go both king and people. —
Neither to the king nor people
E’er returns that chosen mortal;
For the Seven, who for ages —
Eight was, with the dog, their number —
Had from all the world been sunder’d,
Gabriel’s mysterious power,
To the will of God obedient,
Hath to Paradise conducted, —
And the cave was clos’d forever.

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Hermann and Dorothea

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Kalliope

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FATE AND SYMPATHY.

“NE’ER have I seen the market and streets so thoroughly empty!
Still as the grave is the town, clear’d out! I verily fancy
Fifty at most of all our inhabitants still may be found there.
People are so inquisitive! All are running and racing
Merely to see the sad train of poor fellows driven to exile.
Down to the causeway now building, the distance nearly a league is,
And they thitherward rush, in the heat and the dust of the noonday.
As for me, I had rather not stir from my place just to stare at
Worthy and sorrowful fugitives, who, with what goods they can carry,
Leaving their own fair land on the further side of the Rhine-stream,
Over to us are crossing, and wander through the delightful
Nooks of this fruitful vale, with all its twistings and windings.
Wife, you did right well to bid our son go and meet them,
Taking with him old linen, and something to eat and to drink too,
Just to give to the poor; the rich are bound to befriend them.
How he is driving along! How well he holds in the horses!
Then the new little carriage looks very handsome; inside it
Four can easily sit, besides the one on the coachbox.
This time he is alone; how easily turns it the corner!”
Thus to his wife the host of the Golden Lion discoursed,
Sitting at ease in the porch of his house adjoining the market.
Then replied as follows the shrewd and sensible hostess: —
“Father, I don’t like giving old linen away, for I find it
Useful in so many ways, ’tis not to be purchas’d for money
Just when it’s wanted. And yet to-day I gladly have given
Many excellent articles, shirts and covers and suchlike;
For I have heard of old people and children walking half-naked.
Will you forgive me, too, for having ransacked your presses?
That grand dressing-gown, cover’d with Indian flowers all over,
Made of the finest calico, lin’d with excellent flannel,
I have despatch’d with the rest; ’tis thin, old, quite out of fashion.”
But the worthy landlord only smiled, and then answer’d: —
“I shall dreadfully miss that ancient calico garment,
Genuine Indian stuff! They’re not to be had any longer.
Well! I shall wear it no more. And your poor husband henceforward
Always must wear a surtout, I suppose, or commonplace jacket,
Always must put on his boots; good-by to cap and to slippers!”
“See,” continu’d his wife, “a few are already returning
Who have seen the procession, which long ago must have pass’d by.
See how dusty their shoes are, and how their faces are glowing!
Each one carries a handkerchief, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
I, for one, wouldn’t hurry and worry myself in such weather
Merely to see such a sight! I’m certain to hear all about it.”
And the worthy father, speaking with emphasis, added: —
“Such fine weather seldom lasts through the whole of the harvest;
And we’re bringing the fruit home, just as the hay we brought lately,
Perfectly dry; the sky is clear, no clouds in the heavens,
And the whole day long delicious breezes are blowing.
Splendid weather I call it! The corn already too ripe is,
And to-morrow begin we to gather the plentiful harvest.”
Whilst he was thus discoursing, the number of men and of women
Crossing the market and going towards home kept ever increasing;
And there return’d amongst others, bringing with him his daughters,
On the other side of the market, their prosperous neighbor,
Going full speed to his newbuilt house, the principal merchant,
Riding inside an open carriage (in Landau constructed).
All the streets were alive; for the town, though small, was well peopled,
Many a factory throve there, and many a business also.
Long sat the excellent couple under the doorway, exchanging
Many a passing remark on the people who happen’d to pass them.
Presently thus to her husband exclaim’d the good-natured hostess: —
“See! Yon comes the minister; with him is walking the druggist:
They’ll be able to give an account of all that has happen’d,
What they witness’d, and many a sight I fear which was painful.”
Both of them came in a friendly manner, and greeted the couple,
Taking their seats on the wooden benches under the doorway,
Shaking the dust from their feet, their handkerchiefs using to fan them.
Presently, after exchanging reciprocal greetings, the druggist
Open’d his mouth, and almost peevishly vented his feelings: —
“What strange creatures men are! They all resemble each other,
All take pleasure in staring, when troubles fall on their neighbors.
Ev’ry one runs to see the flames destroying a dwelling,
Or a poor criminal led in terror and shame to the scaffold.
All the town has been out to gaze at the sorrowing exiles,
None of them bearing in mind that a like misfortune hereafter,
Possibly almost directly, may happen to be their own portion.
I can’t pardon such levity; yet ’tis the nature of all men.”
Thereupon rejoin’d the noble and excellent pastor,
He, the charm of the town, in age scarce more than a stripling: —
(He was acquainted with life, and knew the wants of his hearers,
Fully convinc’d of the worth of the Holy Scriptures, whose mission
Is to reveal man’s fate, his inclinations to fathom;
He was also well read in the best of secular writings.)
“I don’t like to find fault with any innocent impulse
Which in the mind of man Dame Nature has ever implanted;
For what reason and intellect ne’er could accomplish, is often
Done by some fortunate, quite irresistible instinct within him.
If mankind were never by curiosity driven,
Say, could they e’er have found out for themselves the wonderful manner
Things in the world range in order? For first they Novelty look for,
Then with untiring industry seek to discover the Useful,
Lastly they yearn for the Good, which makes them noble and worthy.
All through their youth frivolity serves as their joyous companion,
Hiding the presence of danger, and swiftly effacing the traces
Caus’d by misfortune and grief, as soon as their onslaught is over.
Truly the man’s to be prais’d who, as years roll onward, develops
Out of such glad disposition an intellect settled and steady, —
Who, in good fortune as well as misfortune, strives zealously, nobly;
For what is good he brings forth, replacing whatever is injur’d.”
Then in a friendly voice impatiently spoke thus the hostess: —
“Tell us what you have seen; I am eagerly longing to hear it.”
Then with emphasis answer’d the druggist: — ”The terrible stories
Told me to-day will serve for a long time to make me unhappy.
Words would fail to describe the manifold pictures of mis’ry.
Far in the distance saw we the dust, before we descended
Down to the meadows; the rising hillocks hid the procession
Long from our eyes, and little could we distinguish about it.
When, however, we reach’d the road that winds through the valley,
Great was the crowd and the noise of the emigrants mix’d with the wagons.
We unhappily saw poor fellows passing in numbers,
Some of them showing how bitter the sense of their sorrowful flight was,
Some with a feeling of joy at saving their lives in a hurry.
Sad was the sight of the manifold goods and chattels pertaining
Unto a well-manag’d house, which the careful owner’s accustom’d
Each in its proper position to place, and in regular order,
Always ready for use, for all are wanted and useful. —
Sad was the sight of them now, on many a wagon and barrow
Heap’d in thorough confusion, and hurriedly huddled together.
Over a cupboard was plac’d a sieve and a coverlet woollen;
Beds in the kneading troughs lay, and linen over the glasses.
Ah! and the danger appear’d to rob the men of their senses,
Just as in our great fire of twenty years ago happen’d,
When what was worthless they sav’d, and left all the best things behind them.
So on the present occasion with heedless caution they carried
Many valueless chattels, o’erlading the cattle and horses, —
Common old boards and barrels, a birdcage next to a goose-pen.
Women and children were gasping beneath the weight of their bundles,
Baskets and tubs full of utterly useless articles bearing.
(Man is always unwilling the least of his goods to abandon.)
Thus on its dusty way advanced the crowded procession,
All in hopeless confusion. First one, whose cattle were weaker,
Fain would slowly advance, while others would eagerly hasten.
Then there arose a scream of half-crush’d women and children,
And a lowing of cattle, with yelping of dogs intermingled,
And a wailing of aged and sick, all sitting and shaking,
Rang’d in their beds on the top of the wagon too-heavily laden.
Next some lumbering wheel, push’d out of the track by the pressure,
Went to the edge of the roadway; the vehicle fell in the ditch then,
Rolling right over, and throwing, in falling, the men who were in it
Far in the field, screaming loudly, their persons however uninjur’d.
Then the boxes roll’d off and tumbled close to the wagon.
Those who saw them falling full surely expected to see them
Smash’d to pieces beneath the weight of the chests and the presses.
So the wagon lay broken, and those that it carried were helpless,
For the rest of the train went on, and hurriedly pass’d them,
Thinking only of self, and carried away by the current.
So we sped to the spot, and found the sick and the aged
Who, when at home and in bed could scarcely endure their sad ailments,
Lying there on the ground, all sighing and groaning in anguish,
Stifled by clouds of dust, and scorch’d by the fierce sun of summer.”
Then replied in tones of compassion the sensitive landlord: —
“Hermann I trust will find them and give them refreshment and clothing.
I should unwillingly see them; I grieve at the sight of such sorrow.
Touch’d by the earliest news of the sad extent of the suff’ring,
Hastily sent we a trifle from out of our superabundance,
Just to comfort a few, and then our minds were more easy.
Now let us cease to discourse on such a sorrowful subject,
For men’s hearts are easily overshadow’d by terror,
And by care, more odious far to me than misfortune.
Now let us go to a cooler place, the little backparlor;
There the sun never shines, and the walls are so thick that the hot air
Never can enter; and mother shall forthwith bring us a glass each
Full of fine Eighty-three, well fitted to drive away trouble.
This is a bad place for drinking; the flies will hum round the glasses.”
So they all went inside, enjoying themselves in the coolness.
Then in a well-cut flask the mother carefully brought them
Some of that clear, good wine, upon a bright metal waiter
With those greenish rummers, the fittingest goblets for Rhine wine.
So the three sat together, around the glistening polish’d
Circular large brown table, — on massive feet it was planted.
Merrily clink’d together the glasses of host and of pastor,
But the other one thoughtfully held his glass without moving,
And in friendly fashion the host thus ask’d him to join them: —
“Drink, good neighbor, I pray! A merciful God has protected
Us in the past from misfortune, and will protect us in future.
All must confess that since He thought fit to severely chastise us,
When that terrible fire occurr’d, He has constantly bless’d us,
And watch’d over us constantly, just as man is accustom’d
His eye’s precious apple to guard, that dearest of members.
Shall He not for the future preserve us, and be our Protector?
For ’tis in danger we learn to appreciate duly His Goodness.
This so flourishing town, which He built again from its ashes
By the industrious hands of its burghers, and bless’d it so richly,
Will He again destroy it, and render their toil unavailing?”
Cheerfully answer’d the excellent pastor, in accents of mildness: —
“Steadfastly cling to this faith, and cherish such worthy opinions;
In good fortune they’ll make you prudent, and then in misfortune
Well-grounded hopes they’ll supply, and furnish you true consolation.”
Then continued the host, with thoughts full of manhood and wisdom: —
“Oft have I greeted with wonder the rolling flood of the Rhine stream,
When, on my business trav’lling, I’ve once more come to its borders.
Grand has it ever appear’d, exalting my feelings and senses;
But I could never imagine that soon its beautiful margin
Into a wall would be turn’d, to keep the French from our country,
And its wide-spreading bed a ditch to hinder and check them.
So by Nature we’re guarded, we’re guarded by valorous Germans,
And by the Lord we’re guarded; who then would foolishly tremble?
Weary the combatants are, and all things indicate peace soon;
And when at length the long-expected festival’s holden
Here in our church, and the bells chime in with the organ in chorus,
And the trumpets are blowing, the noble Te Deum upraising,
Then on that selfsame day I fain would see, my good pastor,
Our dear Hermann kneel with his bride at the altar before you,
And the glad festival held through the length and breadth of the country
Will henceforward to me be a glad anniversary also!
But I am griev’d to observe that the youth, who is always so active
When he is here at home, abroad is so slow and so timid.
Little at any time cares he to mix with the rest of the people;
Yes, he even avoids young maidens’ society ever,
And the frolicsome dance, that great delight of young people.”
Thus he spake, and then listen’d. The sound of the stamping of horses
Drawing nearer was heard; and then the roll of the carriage,
Which, with impetuous speed, now thunder’d under the gateway.

Chronological table of contents

Alphabetical table of contents

Terpsichore.

Chronological table of contents

Alphabetical table of contents

HERMANN.

THEN when into the room the well-built son made his entry,
Straightway with piercing glances the minister eyed him intently,
And with carefulness watch’d his looks and the whole of his bearing,
With an inquiring eye which easily faces deciphers;
Then he smil’d, and with cordial words address’d him as follows: —
“How you are chang’d in appearance, my friend! I never have seen you
Half so lively before; your looks are thoroughly cheerful.
You have return’d quite joyous and merry. You’ve doubtless divided
All of the presents amongst the poor, their blessings receiving.”
Then in calm accents replied the son, with gravity speaking: —
“Whether I’ve laudably acted, I know not; I follow’d the impulse
Of my own heart, as now I’ll proceed to describe with exactness.
Mother, you rummag’d so long, in looking over old pieces,
And in making your choice, that ’twas late when the bundle was ready,
And the wine and the beer were slowly and carefully pack’d up.
When I at length emerg’d at the gate, and came on the highway,
Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
Adr. Schreck sculp.
Hermann
Streams of citizens met I returning, with women and children,
For the train of the exiles had long disappear’d in the distance.
So I quicken’d my pace, and hastily drove to the village
Where I had heard that to-night to rest and to sleep they intended.
Well, as I went on my way, the newly-made causeway ascending,
Suddenly saw I a wagon, of excellent timber constructed,
Drawn by a couple of oxen, the best and the strongest of foreign.
Close beside it there walk’d, with sturdy footsteps, a maiden,
Guiding the two strong beasts with a long kind of staff, which with skill she
Knew how to use, now driving, and now restraining their progress.
When the maiden observ’d me, she quietly came near the horses,
And address’d me as follows: — ’Our usual condition, believe me,
Is not so sad as perchance you might judge from our present appearance.
I am not yet accustom’d to ask for alms from a stranger,
Who so often but gives, to rid himself of a beggar.
But I’m compell’d to speak by necessity. Here on the straw now
Lies the lately-confin’d poor wife of a wealthy landowner,
Whom with much trouble I manag’d to save with oxen and wagon.
We were late in arriving, and scarcely with life she escaped.
Now the newly-born child in her arms is lying, all naked,
And our friends will be able to give them but little assistance,
E’en if in the next village, to which to-night we are going,
We should still find them, although I fear they have left it already.
If you belong to the neighborhood, any available linen
These poor people will deem a most acceptable present.’
“Thus she spake, and wearily rais’d herself the pale patient
Up from the straw and gaz’d upon me, while thus I made answer: —
‘Oft doth a heavenly spirit whisper to kindhearted people,
So that they feel the distress o’er their poorer brethren impending;
For my mother, your troubles foreboding, gave me a bundle
Ready prepar’d for relieving the wants of those who were naked.’
Then I loosen’d the knots of the cord, and the dressing-gown gave her
Which belong’d to my father, and gave her some shirts and some linen,
And she thank’d me with joy and said: — ’The fortunate know not
How ’tis that miracles happen; we only discover in sorrow
God’s protecting finger and hand, extended to beckon
Good men to good. May your kindness to us by Him be requited.’
And I saw the poor patient joyfully handling the linen,
Valuing most of all the soft flannel, the dressing-gown lining.
Then the maid thus address’d her: — ’Now let us haste to the village
Where our friends are resting, to-night intending to sleep there;
There I will straightway attend to whate’er for the infant is needed.’
Then she saluted me too, her thanks most heartily giving,
Drove the oxen, the wagon went on. I linger’d behind them,
Holding my horses rein’d back, divided between two opinions,
Whether to hasten ahead, reach the village, the viands distribute
‘Mongst the rest of the people, or give them forthwith to the maiden,
So that she might herself divide them amongst them with prudence.
Soon I made up my mind, and follow’d after her softly,
Overtook her without delay, and said to her quickly: —
‘Maiden, it was not linen alone that my mother provided
And in the carriage plac’d, as clothing to give to the naked,
But she added meat, and many an excellent drink, too;
And I have got quite a stock stow’d away in the boot of the carriage.
Well, I have taken a fancy the rest of the gifts to deposit
In your hands, and thus fulfil to the best my commission;
You will divide them with prudence, whilst I my fate am obeying.’
Then the maiden replied: — ’With faithfulness I will distribute
All your gifts, and the needy shall surely rejoice at your bounty.’
Thus she spake, and I hastily open’d the boot of the carriage,
Took out the hams (full heavy they were) and took out the bread-stuffs,
Flasks of wine and beer, and handed the whole of them over.
Gladly would I have given her more, but empty the boot was.
Straightway she pack’d them away at the feet of the patient, and forthwith
Started again, whilst I hasten’d back to the town with my horses.”
Then when Hermann had ended his story, the garrulous neighbor
Open’d his mouth and exclaim’d: — ”I only deem the man happy
Who lives alone in his house in these days of flight and confusion,
Who has neither wife nor children cringing beside him!
I feel happy at present; I hate the title of father;
Care of children and wife in these days would be a sad drawback.
Often have I bethought me of flight, and have gather’d together
All that I deem most precious, the antique gold and the jewels
Worn by my late dear mother, not one of which has been sold yet.
Much indeed is left out, that is not so easily carried.
Even the herbs and the roots, collected with plenty of trouble,
I should be sorry to lose, though little in value they may be.
If the dispenser remains, I shall leave my house in good spirits;
If my ready money is sav’d, and my body, why truly
All is sav’d, for a bachelor easily flies when ’tis needed.”
“Neighbor,” rejoin’d forthwith young Hermann, with emphasis speaking: —
“Altogether I differ, and greatly blame your opinions.
Can that man be deem’d worthy, who both in good and ill fortune
Thinks alone of himself, and knows not the secret of sharing
Sorrows and joys with others, and feels no longing to do so?
I could more easily now than before determine to marry;
Many an excellent maiden needs a husband’s protection,
Many a man a cheerful wife, when sorrow’s before him.”
Smilingly said then the father: — ”I’m pleas’d to hear what you’re saying,
Words of such wisdom have seldom been utter’d by you in my presence.”
Then his good mother broke in, in her turn, with vivacity speaking: —
“Son, you are certainly right. We parents set the example.
’Twas not in time of pleasure that we made choice of each other,
And ’twas the saddest of hours that knitted us closely together.
Monday morning, — how well I remember! the very day after
That most terrible fire occurr’d which burn’d down the borough,
Twenty years ago now; the day, like to-day, was a Sunday,
Hot and dry was the weather, and little available water.
All the inhabitants, cloth’d in their festival garments, were walking,
Scatter’d about in the inns and the mills of the neighboring hamlets.
At one end of the town the fire broke out, and the flames ran
Hastily all through the streets, impell’d by the draught they created.
And the barns were consum’d, where all the rich harvest was gather’d.
And all the streets as far as the market; the dwelling-house also
Of my father hard by was destroy’d, as likewise was this one.
Little indeed could we save; I sat the sorrowful night through
On the green of the town, protecting the beds and the boxes.
Finally sleep overtook me, and when by the cool breeze of morning
Which dies away when the sun arises I was awaken’d,
Saw I the smoke and the glow, and the half-consum’d walls and the chimneys.
Then my heart was sorely afflicted; but soon in his glory
Rose the sun more brilliant than ever, my spirits reviving.
Then in haste I arose, impell’d the site to revisit
Where our dwelling had stood, to see if the chickens were living
Which I especially lov’d; for childlike I still was by nature.
But when over the ruins of courtyard and house I was climbing,
Which still smok’d, and saw my dwelling destory’d and deserted,
You came up on the other side, the ruins exploring.
You had a horse shut up in his stall; the still-glowing rafters
Over it lay, and rubbish, and naught could be seen of the creature.
Over against each other we stood, in doubt and in sorrow,
For the wall had fallen which used to sever our courtyards;
And you grasp’d my hand, addressing me softly as follows: —
‘Lizzy, what here are you doing? Away! Your soles you are burning,
For the rubbish is hot, and is scorching my boots which are thicker.’
Then you lifted me up, and carried me off through your courtyard.
There still stood the gateway before the house, with its arch’d roof,
Just as it now is standing, the only thing left remaining.
And you set me down and kiss’d me, and I tried to stop you,
But you presently said, with kindly words full of meaning: —
‘See, my house is destroy’d! Stop here and help me to build it,
I in return will help to rebuild the house of your father.’
I understood you not, till you sent to my father your mother,
And ere long our marriage fulfill’d the troth we soon plighted.
Still to this day I remember with pleasure the half-consum’d rafters,
Still do I see the sun in all his majesty rising,
For on that day I gain’d my husband; the son of my youth too
Gain’d I during that earliest time of the wild desolation.
Therefore commend I you, Hermann, for having with confidence guileless
Turn’d towards marriage your thoughts in such a period of mourning,
And for daring to woo in war and over the ruins.”
Then the father straightway replied, with eagerness speaking: —
“Sensible is your opinion, and true is also the story
Which you have told us, good mother, for so did ev’rything happen.
But what is better is better. ’Tis not the fortune of all men
All their life and existence to find decided beforehand;
All are not doom’d to such troubles as we and others have suffer’d.
Oh, how happy is he whose careful father and mother
Have a house ready to give him, which he can successfully manage!
All beginnings are hard, and most so the landlord’s profession.
Numberless things a man must have, and ev’rything daily
Dearer becomes, so he needs to scrape together more money.
So I am hoping that you, dear Hermann, will shortly be bringing
Home to us a bride possessing an excellent dowry,
For a worthy husband deserves a girl who is wealthy,
And ’tis a capital thing for the wish’d-for wife to bring with her
Plenty of suitable articles stow’d in her baskets and boxes.
Not in vain for years does the mother prepare for her daughter
Stocks of all kinds of linen, both finest and strongest in texture;
Not in vain do god-parents give them presents of silver,
Or the father lay by in his desk a few pieces of money.
For she hereafter will gladden, with all her goods and possessions,
That happy youth who is destined from out of all others to choose her.
Yes! I know how pleasant it makes a house for a young wife,
When she finds her own property plac’d in the rooms and the kitchen,
And when she herself has cover’d the bed and the table.
Only well-to-do brides should be seen in a house, I consider,
For a poor one is sure at last to be scorn’d by her husband,
And he’ll deem her a jade who as jade first appear’d with her bundle.
Men are always unjust, but moments of love are but transient.
Yes, my Hermann, you greatly would cheer the old age of your father
If you soon would bring home a daughter-in-law to console me,
Out of the neighborhood too, — yes, out of yon dwelling, — the green one!
Rich is the man, in truth: his trade and his manufactures
Make him daily richer, for when does a merchant not prosper?
He has only three daughters; the whole of his wealth they’ll inherit.
True the eldest’s already engag’d; but then there’s the second,
And the third, who still (not for long) may be had for the asking.
Had I been in your place, I should not till this time have waited;
Bring home one of the girls, as I brought your mother before you.”
Then, with modesty, answer’d the son his impetuous father: —
“Truly my wish was, like yours, to marry one of the daughters
Of our neighbor. We all, in fact, were brought up together,
Sported in youthful days near the fountain adjoining the market,
And from the rudeness of boys I often manag’d to save them.
But those days have long pass’d; the maidens grew up, and with reason
Stop now at home and avoid the rougher pastimes of childhood.
Well brought up with a vengeance they are! To please you, I sometimes
Went to visit them, just for the sake of olden acquaintance;
But I was never much pleas’d at holding intercourse with them,
For they were always finding fault, and I had to bear it:
First my coat was too long, the cloth too coarse, and the color
Far too common, my hair was cut and curl’d very badly.
I at last was thinking of dressing myself like the shop-boys,
Who are accustom’d on Sundays to show off their persons up yonder,
And round whose coats in summer half-silken tatters are hanging.
But ere long I discover’d they only intended to fool me;
This was very annoying, my pride was offended, but more still
Felt I deeply wounded that they so mistook the good feelings
Which I cherish’d towards them, especially Minnie, the youngest.
Well, I went last Easter, politely to pay them a visit,
And I wore the new coat now hanging up in the closet,
And was frizzl’d and curl’d, like all the rest of the youngsters.
When I enter’d, they titter’d; but that didn’t very much matter.
Minnie sat at the piano, the father was present amongst them,
Pleas’d with his daughter’s singing, and quite in a jocular humor.
Little could I understand of the words in the songs she was singing,
But I constantly heard of Pamina, and then of Tamino,
And I fain would express my opinion; so when she had ended,
I ask’d questions respecting the text, and who were the persons.
All were silent and smil’d; but presently answer’d the father: —
‘Did you e’er happen, my friend, to hear of Eve or of Adam?’
Then no longer restrain’d they themselves, the girls burst out laughing,
All the boys laugh’d loudly, the old man’s sides appear’d splitting.
In my confusion I let my hat fall down, and the titt’ring
Lasted all the time the singing and playing continu’d.
Then I hasten’d home, asham’d and full of vexation,
Hung up my coat in the closet, and put my hair in disorder
With my fingers, and swore ne’er again to cross o’er their threshold.
And I’m sure I was right; for they are all vain and unloving.
And I hear they’re so rude as to give me the nickname Tamino.”
Then the mother rejoin’d: — ”You’re wrong, dear Hermann, to harbor
Angry feelings against the children, for they are but children.
Minnie’s an excellent girl, and has a tenderness for you;
Lately she ask’d how you were. Indeed, I wish you would choose her!”
Then the son thoughtfully answer’d: — ”I know not why, but the fact is
My annoyance has graven itself in my mind, and hereafter
I could not bear at the piano to see her, or list to her singing.”
But the father sprang up, and said, in words full of anger: —
“Little comfort you give me, in truth! I always have said it,
When you took pleasure in horses, and cared for nothing but fieldwork;
That which the servants of prosperous people perform as their duty,
You yourself do; meanwhile the father his son must dispense with,
Who in his honor was wont to court the rest of the townsfolk.
Thus with empty hopes your mother early deceiv’d me,
When your reading, and writing, and learning at school ne’er succeeded
Like the rest of the boys, and so you were always the lowest.
This all comes from a youth not possessing a due sense of honor,
And not having the spirit to try to raise his position.
Had my father but cared for me, as I have for you, sir,
Sent me to school betimes, and given me proper instructors,
I should not merely have been the host of the fam’d Golden Lion.”
But the son arose, and approach’d the doorway in silence,
Slowly, and making no noise; but then the father in dudgeon
After him shouted: — ”Be off! I know you’re an obstinate fellow!
Go and look after the business; else I shall scold you severely;
But don’t fancy I’ll ever allow you to bring home in triumph
As my daughter-in-law any boorish impudent hussy.
Long have I liv’d in the world, and know how to manage most people,
Know how to entertain ladies and gentlemen, so that they leave me
In good humor, and know how to flatter a stranger discreetly.
But my daughter-in-law must have useful qualities also,
And be able to soften my manifold cares and vexations.
She must also play on the piano, that all the best people
Here in the town may take pleasure in often coming to see us,
As in the house of our neighbor the merchant happens each Sunday.”
Softly the son at these words rais’d the latch, and left the apartment.

Thalia.

THE BURGHERS.

THUS did the prudent son escape from the hot conversation,
But the father continu’d precisely as he had begun it: —
“What is not in a man can never come out of him, surely!
Never, I fear, shall I see fulfill’d my dearest of wishes,
That my son should be unlike his father, but better.
What would be the fate of a house or a town, if its inmates
Did not all take pride in preserving, renewing, improving,
As we are taught by the age, and by the wisdom of strangers?
Man is not born to spring out of the ground, just like a mere mushroom,
And to rot away soon in the very place that produc’d him!
Leaving behind him no trace of what he has done in his lifetime.
One can judge by the look of a house of the taste of its master,
As on ent’ring a town, one can judge the authorities’ fitness.
For where the towers and walls are falling, where in the ditches
Dirt is collected, and dirt in every street is seen lying,
Where the stones come out of their groove, and are not replac’d there,
Where the beams are rotting, and vainly the houses are waiting
New supports; that town is sure to be wretchedly manag’d.
For where order and cleanliness reign not supreme in high places,
Then to dirt and delay the citizens soon get accustom’d,
Just as the beggar’s accustom’d to wear his clothes full of tatters.
Therefore I often have wish’d that Hermann would start on his travels
Ere he’s much older, and visit at any rate Strasburg and Frankfort,
And that pleasant town, Mannheim, so evenly built and so cheerful.
He who has seen such large and cleanly cities rests never
Till his own native town, however small, he sees better’d.
Do not all strangers who visit us praise our well-mended gateways,
And the well-whited tower, the church so neatly repair’d too?
Do not all praise our pavements? Our well-arrang’d cover’d-in conduits,
Always well furnish’d with water, utility blending with safety,
So that a fire, whenever it happens, is straightway extinguish’d, —
Is not this the result of that conflagration so dreadful?
Six times in Council I superintended the town’s works, receiving
Hearty thanks and assistance from every well-dispos’d burgher.
How I design’d, follow’d up and insur’d the completion of measures
Worthy men had projected, and afterwards left all unfinish’d!
Finally, every man in the Council took pleasure in working.
All put forth their exertions, and now they have finally settled
That new highway to make, which will join our town with the mainroad.
But I am greatly afraid that the young generation won’t act thus;
Some on the one hand think only of pleasure and trumpery dresses,
Others won’t stir out of doors, and pass all their time by the fireside,
And our Hermann, I fear, will always be one of this last sort.”
Forthwith to him replied the excellent sensible mother: —
“Father, you’re always unjust whenever you speak of your son, and
That is the least likely way to obtain your wishes’ fulfilment;
For we cannot fashion our children after our fancy.
We must have them and love them, as God has given them to us,
Bring them up for the best, and let each do as he listeth.
One has one kind of gift, another possesses another,
Each one employs them, and each in turn in his separate fashion
Good and happy becomes. My Hermann shall not be upbraided,
For I know that he well deserves the wealth he’ll inherit;
He’ll be an excellent landlord, a pattern to burghers and peasants,
And, as I clearly foresee, by no means the last in the Council.
But with your blame and reproaches, you daily dishearten him sadly,
As you have done just now, and make the poor fellow unhappy.”
Then she left the apartment, and after her son hasten’d quickly,
Hoping somewhere to find him, and with her words of affection
Gladden his heart, for he, the excellent son, well deserv’d it.
Smilingly, when she had clos’d the door, continu’d the father: —
“What a wonderful race of people are women and children!
All of them fain would do whatever pleases their fancy,
And we’re only allow’d to praise them and flatter them freely.
Once for all there’s truth in the ancient proverb which tells us:
He who moves not forward, goes backward! a capital saying!”
Speaking with much circumspection, the druggist made answer as follows: —
“What you say, good neighbor, is certainly true, and my plan is
Always to think of improvement, provided though new, ’tis not costly.
But what avails it in truth, unless one has plenty of money,
Active and fussy to be, improving both inside and outside?
Sadly confin’d are the means of a burgher; e’en when he knows it,
Little that’s good he is able to do, his purse is too narrow,
And the sum wanted too great; and so he is always prevented.
I have had plenty of schemes! but then I was terribly frighten’d
At the expense, especially during a time of such danger.
Long had my house smil’d upon me, deck’d out in modish exterior;
Long had my windows with large panes of glass resplendently glitter’d.
Who can compete with a merchant, however, who, rolling in riches,
Also knows the manner in which what is best can be purchas’d?
Only look at the house up yonder, the new one! how handsome
Looks the stucco of those white scrolls on the green-color’d panels!
Large are the plates of the windows; how shining and brilliant the panes are,
Quite eclipsing the rest of the houses that stand in the market!
Yet at the time of the fire, our two were by far the most handsome,
Mine at the sign of the Angel, and yours at the old Golden Lion.
Then my garden was famous throughout the whole country, and strangers
Used to stop as they pass’d and peep through my red-color’d palings
At my beggars of stone, and at my dwarfs, which were painted.
He to whom I gave coffee inside my beautiful grotto,
Which, alas! is now cover’d with dust and tumbling to pieces,
Used to rejoice in the color’d glimmering light of the mussels,
Rang’d in natural order around it, and connoisseurs even
Used with dazzl’d eyes to gaze at the spars and the coral.
Then, in the drawing-room, people look’d with delight on the painting,
Where the prim ladies and gentlemen walk’d in the garden demurely,
And with pointed fingers presented the flowers, and held them.
Ah, if only such things were now to be seen! Little care I
Now to go out; for everything needs to be alter’d and tasteful,
As it is call’d; and white are the benches of wood and the palings;
All things are simple and plain; and neither carving nor gilding
Now are employ’d, and foreign timber is now all the fashion.
I should be only too pleas’d to possess some novelty also,
So as to march with the times, and my household furniture alter.
But we all are afraid to make the least alteration,
For who is able to pay the present charges of workmen?
Lately a fancy possess’d me, the angel Michael, whose figure
Hangs up over my shop, to treat to a new coat of gilding,
And the terrible Dragon, who round his feet is entwining;
But I have left him all brown; as he is; for the cost quite alarm’d me.”

Euterpe.

MOTHER AND SON.

THUS the men discoursed together; and meanwhile the mother
Went in search of her son, — at first in front of the dwelling
On the bench of stone, for he was accustom’d to sit there.
When she found him not there, she went to look in the stable,
Thinking perchance he was feeding his splendid horses, the stallions,
Which he had bought when foals, and which he entrusted to no one.
But the servant inform’d her that he had gone to the garden.
Then she nimbly strode across the long double courtyard,
Left the stables behind, and the barns all made of good timber,
Enter’d the garden which stretch’d far away to the walls of the borough,
Walk’d across it, rejoicing to see how all things were growing,
Carefully straighten’d the props, on which the apple tree’s branches,
Heavily-loaded, repos’d, and the weighty boughs of the pear tree,
Took a few caterpillars from off the strong-sprouting cabbage;
For a bustling woman is never idle one moment.
In this manner she came to the end of the long-reaching garden,
Where was the arbor all cover’d with woodbine: she found not her son there,
Nor was he to be seen in any part of the garden,
But she found on the latch the door which out of the arbor
Through the wall of the town had been made by special permission
During their ancestor’s time, the worthy old burgomaster.
So she easily stepp’d across the dry ditch at the spot where
On the highway abutted their well-enclos’d excellent vineyard,
Rising steeply upwards, its face tow’rd the sun turn’d directly.
Up the hill she proceeded, rejoicing, as farther she mounted,
At the size of the grapes, which scarcely were hid by the foliage.
Shady and well-cover’d in, the middle walk at the top was,
Which was ascended by steps of rough flat pieces constructed.
And within it were hanging fine chasselas and muscatels also,
And a reddish-blue grape, of quite an exceptional bigness,
All with carefulness planted, to give to their guests after dinner.
But with separate stems the rest of the vineyard was planted,
Smaller grapes producing, from which the finest wine made is.
So she constantly mounted, enjoying in prospect the autumn,
And the festal day, when the neighborhood met with rejoicing,
Picking and treading the grapes, and putting the must in the wine-vats.
Every corner and nook resounding at night with the fireworks,
Blazing and cracking away, due honor to pay to the harvest.
But she uneasy became, when she in vain had been calling
Twice and three times her son, and when the sole answer that reach’d her
Came from the garrulous echo which out of the town towers issu’d.
Strange it appear’d to have to seek him; he never went far off,
(As he before had told her) in order to ward off all sorrow
From his dear mother, and her forebodings of coming disaster.
But she still was expecting upon the highway to find him,
For the doors at the bottom, like those at the top, of the vineyard
Stood wide open; and so at length she enter’d the broad field
Which, with its spreading expanse, o’er the whole of the hill’s back extended.
On their own property still she proceeded, greatly rejoicing
At their own crops, and at the corn which nodded so bravely,
Over the whole of the field in golden majesty waving.
Then on the border between the fields, she follow’d the footpath,
Keeping her eye on the pear tree fix’d, the big one, which standing
Perch’d by itself on the top of the hill, their property bounded.
Who had planted it, no one knew; throughout the whole country
Far and wide was it visible; noted also its fruit was.
Under its shadow the reaper ate his dinner at noonday,
And the herdsman was wont to lie, when tending his cattle.
Benches made of rough stones and of turf were plac’d all about it.
And she was not mistaken; there sat her Hermann and rested;
On his arm he was leaning, and seem’d to be looking ‘cross country
Tow’rds the mountains beyond; his back was turn’d to his mother.
Softly creeping up, she lightly tapp’d on his shoulder;
And he hastily turn’d; she saw that his eyes full of tears were.
“Mother,” he said in confusion: — ”You greatly surprise me!” and quickly
Wip’d he away his tears, the noble and sensitive youngster.
“What! You are weeping, my son?” the startled mother continu’d: —
“That is indeed unlike you! I never before saw you crying!
Say, what has sadden’d your heart? What drives you to sit here all lonely
Under the shade of the pear tree? What is it that makes you unhappy?”
Then the excellent youth collected himself, and made answer: —
“Truly that man can have no heart, but a bosom of iron,
Who no sympathy feels for the wants of unfortunate exiles;
He has no sense in his head who, in times of such deep tribulation,
Has no concern for himself or for his country’s well-being.
What I to-day have seen and heard has stirr’d up my feelings;
Well, I have come up here, and seen the beautiful, spreading
Landscape, which in fruitful hills to our sight is presented, —
Seen the golden fruit of the sheaves all nodding together,
And a plentiful crop of fruit, full garners foreboding.
But, alas, how near is the foe! By the Rhine’s flowing waters
We are protected indeed; but what are rivers and mountains
To such a terrible nation, which hurries along like a tempest!
For they summon together the young and the old from all quarters,
Rushing wildly along, while the multitude little is caring
Even for death; when one falls, his place is straight fill’d by another.
Ah! and can Germans dare to remain at home in their dwellings,
Thinking perchance to escape from the widely-threat’ning disaster?
Dearest mother, I tell you that I to-day am quite sorry
That I was lately excus’d, when they selected the fighters
Out of the townsfolk. ’Tis true I’m an only son, and moreover
Large is our inn, and our business also is very important;
Were it not better however for me to fight in the vanguard
On the frontier, than here to await disaster and bondage?
Yes, my spirit has told me, and in my innermost bosom
Feel I courage and longing to live and die for my country,
And to others to set an example worthy to follow.
Oh, of a truth, if the strength of the German youths was collected
On the frontier, all bound by a vow not to yield to the stranger,
He on our noble soil should never set foot, or be able
Under our eyes to consume the fruits of the land, or to issue
Orders unto our men, or despoil our women and maidens!
See, good mother, within my inmost heart I’ve determin’d
Soon and straightway to do what seems to me right and becoming;
For the man who thinks long, not always chooses what best is.
See, I will not return to the house, but will go from here straightway
Into the town, and there will place at the fighters’ disposal
This stout arm and this heart, to serve, as I best can, my country.
Then let my father say whether feelings of honor are stirring
In my bosom or not, and whether I yearn to mount upwards.”
Then with significance answer’d his good and sensible mother,
Shedding tears in silence, which easily rose in her eyelids: —
“Son, what has wrought so strange a change in your temper and feelings,
That you freely and openly speak to your mother no longer,
As you till yesterday did, nor tell her truly your wishes?
If another had heard you speaking, he doubtless would praise you
Highly, and deem your new resolution as worthy of honor,
Being deceiv’d by your words, and by your manner of speaking.
I however can only blame you. I know you much better.
You are concealing your heart, and very diff’rent your thoughts are;
For I am sure you care not at all for drum and for trumpet,
Nor, to please the maidens, care you to wear regimentals.
For, though brave you may be, and gallant, your proper vocation
Is to remain at home, the property quietly watching.
Therefore tell me truly: What means this sudden decision?”
Earnestly answer’d the son: — ”You are wrong, dear mother, one day is
Unlike another. The youth soon ripens into his manhood.
Ofttimes he ripens better to action in silence, than living
That tumultuous noisy life which ruins so many.
And though silent I have been, and am, a heart has been fashion’d
Inside my bosom, which hates whatever unfair and unjust is,
And I am able right well to discriminate secular matters.
Work moreover my arms and my feet has mightily strengthen’d.
All that I tell you is true; I boldly venture to say so.
And yet, mother, you blame me with reason; you’ve caught me employing
Words that are only half true, and that serve to conceal my true feelings.
For I must need confess, it is not the advent of danger
Calls me away from my father’s house, nor a resolute purpose
Useful to be to my country, and dreaded to be by the foeman.
Words alone it was that I utter’d, — words only intended
Those deep feelings to hide, which within my breast are contending.
And now leave me, my mother! For as in my bosom I cherish
Wishes that are but vain, my life will be to no purpose.
For I know that the Unit who makes a self-sacrifice, only
Injures himself, unless all endeavor the Whole to accomplish.”
“Now continue,” replied forthwith his sensible mother: —
“Tell me all that has happen’d, the least as well as the greatest;
Men are always hasty, and only remember the last thing,
And the hasty are easily forc’d from the road by obstructions.
But a woman is skilful, and full of resources, and scorns not
By-roads to traverse when needed, well-skill’d to accomplish her purpose.
Tell me then all, and why you are stirr’d by such violent feelings
More than I ever have seen, while the blood is boiling within you,
And from your eyes the tears against your will fain would fall now.”
Then the youth gave way to his sorrow, and burst into weeping,
Weeping aloud on the breast of his mother, and softly replying: —
“Truly, my father’s words to-day have wounded me sadly,
Never have I deserv’d at his hands such treatment, — no, never!
For to honor my parents was always my wish from my childhood,
No one ever appear’d so prudent and wise as my parents,
Who in the darker days of childhood carefully watch’d me.
Much indeed it has been my lot to endure from my playmates,
When with their knavish pranks they used to embitter my temper.
Often I little suspected the tricks they were playing upon me:
But if they happen’d to ridicule father, whenever on Sundays
Out of church he came with his slow deliberate footsteps,
If they laugh’d at the strings of his cap, and his dressing-gown’s flowers,
Which he in stately wise wore, and to-day at length has discarded,
Then in a fury I clench’d my fist, and, storming and raging,
Fell upon them and hit and struck with terrible onslaught,
Heedless where my blows fell. With bleeding noses they halloo’d,
And could scarcely escape from the force of my blows and my kicking.
Then, as in years I advanc’d, I had much to endure from my father,
Who, in default of others to blame, would often abuse me,
When at the Council’s last sitting his anger perchance was excited,
And I the penalty paid of the squabbles and strife of his colleagues.
You yourself have oft pitied me; I endur’d it with patience,
Always rememb’ring the much-to-be-honor’d kindness of parents,
Whose only thought is to swell for our sakes their goods and possessions,
And who deprive themselves of much, to save for their children.
But, alas, not saving alone, for enjoyment hereafter,
Constitutes happiness; no, not heaps of gold or of silver,
Neither field upon field, however compact the estate be.
For the father grows old, and his son at the same time grows older,
Feeling no joy in To-day, and full of care for To-morrow.
Now look down from this height, and see how beauteous before us
Lies the fair rich expanse, with vineyard and gardens at bottom;
There are the stables and barns, and the rest of the property likewise;
There I also descry the back of our house, in the gables
Of the roof may be seen the window of my small apartment.
When I remember the time when I used to look out for the moon there
Half through the night, or perchance at morning awaited the sunrise,
When with but few hours of healthy sleep I was fully contented,
Ah, how lonely do all things appear! My chamber, the court and
Garden, the beautiful field which spreads itself over the hillside;
All appear but a desert to me: I still am unmarried!”
Then his good mother answer’d his speech in a sensible manner: —
“Son, your wish to be able to lead your bride to her chamber,
Turning the night to the dearest and happiest half of your lifetime,
Making your work by day more truly free and unfetter’d,
Cannot be greater than that of your father and mother. We always
Urg’d you, — commanded, I even might say, — to choose some fair maiden.
But I know full well, and my heart has told me already: —
If the right hour arrives not, or if the right maiden appears not
Instantly when they are sought for, man’s choice is thrown in confusion,
And he is driven by fear to seize what is counterfeit only.
If I may tell you, my son, your choice already is taken,
For your heart is smitten, and sensitive more than is usual.
Answer me plainly, then, for my spirit already has told me:
She whom now you have chosen is that poor emigrant maiden!”
“Yes, dear mother, you’re right!” the son with vivacity answer’d: —
“Yes, it is she! And unless this very day I conduct her
Home as my bride, she will go on her way and escape me forever,
In the confusion of war, and in moving backwards and forwards.
Mother, then before my eyes will in vain be unfolded
All our rich estate, and each year henceforward be fruitful.
Yes, the familiar house and the garden will be my aversion.
Ah, and the love of my mother no comfort will give to my sorrow,
For I feel that by Love each former bond must be loosen’d,
When her own bonds she knits; ’tis not the maiden alone who
Leaves her father and mother behind, when she follows her husband.
So it is with the youth; no more he knows mother and father,
When he beholds the maiden, the only belov’d one, approaching.
Therefore let me go hence, to where desperation may lead me,
For my father already has spoken in words of decision,
And his house no longer is mine, if he shuts out the maiden
Whom alone I would fain take home as my bride from henceforward.”
Then the excellent sensible mother answer’d with quickness: —
“Men are precisely like rocks when they stand oppos’d to each other!
Proud and unyielding, the one will never draw near to the other.
Neither will suffer his tongue to utter the first friendly accent.
Therefore I tell you, my son, a hope still exists in my bosom,
If she is worthy and good, he will give his consent to your marriage,
Poor though she be, and although with disdain he refus’d you the poor thing.
For in his hot-headed fashion he utters many expressions
Which he never intends; and so will accept the refus’d one.
But he requires kind words, and has a right to require them,
For your father he is; his anger is all after dinner,
When he more eagerly speaks, and questions the reasons of others,
Meaning but little thereby; the wine then excites all the vigor
Of his impetuous will, and prevents him from giving due weight to
Other people’s opinions; he hears and he feels his own only.
But when evening arrives, the tone of the many discourses
Which his friends and himself hold together is very much alter’d.
Milder becomes he as soon as his liquor’s effects have pass’d over,
And he feels the injustice his eagerness did unto others.
Come, we will venture at once! Success the reward is of boldness,
And we have need of the friends who now have assembled around him.
Most of all we shall want the help of our excellent pastor.”
Thus she eagerly spoke, and leaving the stone that she sat on,
Also lifted her son from his seat. He willingly follow’d,
And they descended in silence, revolving the weighty proposal.

Polyhymnia.

THE COSMOPOLITE.

BUT the Three, as before, were still sitting and talking together,
With the landlord, the worthy divine, and also the druggist,
And their conversation still concern’d the same subject,
Which in every form they had long been discussing together.
Full of noble thoughts, the excellent pastor continu’d: —
“I can’t contradict you. I know ’tis the duty of mortals
Ever to strive for improvement; and, as we may see, they strive also
Ever for that which is higher, at least what is new they seek after,
But don’t hurry too fast! For combin’d with these feelings, kind Nature
Also has given us pleasure in dwelling on that which is ancient,
And in clinging to that to which we have long been accustom’d.
Each situation is good that’s accordant to nature and reason.
Many things man desires, and yet he has need of but little;
For but short are the days, and confin’d is the lot of a mortal.
I can never blame the man who, active and restless,
Hurries along, and explores each corner of earth and the ocean
Boldly and carefully, while he rejoices at seeing the profits
Which round him and his family gather themselves in abundance.
But I also duly esteem the peaceable burgher,
Who with silent steps his paternal inheritance paces,
And watches over the earth, the seasons carefully noting.
’Tis not every year that he finds his property alter’d;
Newly-planted trees cannot stretch out their arms tow’rds the heavens
All in a moment, adorn’d with beautiful buds in abundance.
No, a man has need of patience, he also has need of
Pure unruffl’d tranquil thoughts, and an intellect honest.
For to the nourishing earth few seeds at a time he entrusteth,
Few are the creatures he keeps at a time, with a view to their breeding,
For what is useful alone remains the first thought of his lifetime.
Happy the man to whom Nature a mind thus attun’d may have given!
’Tis by him that we all are fed. And happy the townsman
Of the small town who unites the vocations of town and of country.
He is exempt from the pressure by which the poor farmer is worried,
Is not perplex’d by the citizens’ cares and soaring ambition,
Who, with limited means, — especially women and maidens, —
Think of nothing but aping the ways of the great and the wealthy.
You should therefore bless your son’s disposition so peaceful,
And the like-minded wife whom we soon may expect him to marry.”
Thus he spoke. At that moment the mother and son stood before them.
By the hand she led him and plac’d him in front of her husband: —
“Father,” she said, “how often have we, when talking together,
Thought of that joyful day in the future, when Hermann, selecting
After long waiting his bride, at length would make us both happy!
All kinds of projects we form’d; designing first one, then another
Girl as his wife, as we talk’d in the manner that parents delight in.
Now the day has arriv’d; and now has his bride been conducted
Hither and shown him by Heaven; his heart at length has decided.
Were we not always saying that he should choose for himself, and
Were you not lately wishing that he might feel for a maiden
Warm and heartfelt emotions? And now has arriv’d the right moment!
Yes, he has felt and has chosen, and like a man has decided.
That fair maiden it is, the stranger whom he encounter’d.
Give her him; else he’ll remain — he has sworn it — unmarried forever.”
And the son added himself: — ”My father, Oh, give her! My heart has
Chosen purely and truly; she’ll make you an excellent daughter.”
But the father was silent. Then suddenly rose the good pastor,
And address’d him as follows: — ”One single moment’s decisive
Both of the life of a man, and of the whole of his future.
After lengthen’d reflection, each resolution made by him
Is but the work of a moment; the prudent alone seize the right one.
Nothing more dangerous is, in making a choice, than revolving
First this point and then that, and so confusing the feelings.
Pure is Hermann’s mind; from his youth I have known him; he never,
Even in boyhood, was wont to extend his hand hither and thither.
What he desir’d was suitable to him; he held to it firmly.
Be not astonish’d and scared because there appears on a sudden
What you so long have desir’d. ’Tis true the appearance at present
Bears not the shape of the wish as you in your mind had conceiv’d it.
For our wishes conceal the thing that we wish for; our gifts too
Come from above upon us, each clad in its own proper figure.
Do not now mistake the maiden who has succeeded
First in touching the heart of your good wise son, whom you love so.
Happy is he who is able to clasp the hand of his first love,
And whose dearest wish is not doom’d to pine in his bosom!
Yes, I can see by his face, already his fate is decided;
True affection converts the youth to a man in a moment.
He little changeable is; I fear me, if this you deny him,
All the fairest years of his life will be chang’d into sorrow.
Then in prudent fashion the druggist, who long had been wanting
His opinion to give, rejoin’d in the following manner: —
“This is just a case when the middle course is the wisest!
‘Hasten slowly,’ you know, was the motto of Cæsar Augustus.
I am always ready to be of use to my neighbors,
And to turn to their profit what little wits I can boast of.
Youth especially needs the guidance of those who are older.
Let me then depart; I fain would prove her, that maiden,
And will examine the people ‘mongst whom she lives, and who know her.
I am not soon deceiv’d; I know how to rate their opinions.”
Then forthwith replied the son, with eagerness speaking: —
“Do so, neighbor, and go, and make your inquiries. However,
I should greatly prefer that our friend, the pastor, went with you;
Two such excellent men are witnesses none can find fault with.
my father! the maiden no vagabond is, I assure you,
No mere adventurer, wand’ring about all over the country,
And deceiving the inexperienc’d youths with her cunning;
No! the harsh destiny link’d with this war, so destructive of all things,
Which is destroying the world, and already has wholly uprooted
Many a time-honor’d fabric, has driven the poor thing to exile.
Are not brave men of noble birth now wand’ring in mis’ry?
Princes are fleeing disguis’d, and monarchs in banishment living.
Ah, and she also herself, the best of her sisters, is driven
Out of her native land; but her own misfortunes forgetting,
Others she seeks to console, and, though helpless, is also most helpful.
Great are the woes and distress which over the earth’s face are brooding,
But may happiness not be evok’d from out of this sorrow?
May not I, in the arms of my bride, the wife I have chosen,
Even rejoice at the war, as you at the great conflagration?”
Then replied the father, and open’d his mouth with importance: —
“Strangely indeed, my son, has your tongue been suddenly loosen’d,
Which for years has stuck in your mouth, and mov’d there but rarely!
I to-day must experience that which threatens each father:
How the ardent will of a son a too gentle mother
Willingly favors, whilst each neighbor is ready to back him,
Only provided it be at the cost of a father or husband!
But what use would it be to resist so many together?
For I see that defiance and tears will otherwise greet me.
Go and prove her, and in God’s name then hasten to bring her
Home as my daughter; if not, he must think no more of the maiden.”
Thus spake the father. The son exclaim’d with jubilant gesture: —
“Ere the ev’ning arrives, you shall have the dearest of daughters,
Such as the man desires whose bosom is govern’d by prudence;
And I venture to think the good creature is fortunate also.
Yes, she will ever be grateful that I her father and mother
Have restor’d her in you, as sensible children would wish it.
But I will loiter no longer; I’ll straightway harness the horses,
And conduct our friends on the traces of her whom I love so,
Leave the men to themselves and their own intuitive wisdom,
And be guided alone by their decision, — I swear it, —
And not see the maiden again, until she my own is.”
Then he left the house; meanwhile the others were eagerly
Settling many a point, and the weighty matter debating.
Hermann sped to the stable forthwith, where the spirited stallions
Tranquilly stood and with eagerness swallow’d the pure oats before them,
And the well-dried hay, which was cut from the best of their meadows.
Then in eager haste in their mouths the shining bits plac’d he,
Quickly drew the harness through the well-plated buckles,
And then fasten’d the long broad reins in proper position,
Led the horses out in the yard, where already the carriage,
Easily mov’d along by its pole, had been push’d by the servant.
Then they restrain’d the impetuous strength of the fast-moving horses,
Fastening both with neat-looking ropes to the bar of the carriage.
Hermann seiz’d his whip, took his seat, and drove to the gateway.
When in the roomy carriage his friends had taken their places,
Swiftly he drove away, and left the pavement behind them,
Left behind the walls of the town and the clean-looking towers.
Thus sped Hermann along, till he reach’d the familiar highway,
Not delaying a moment, and galloping uphill and downhill.
When however at length the village steeple descried he,
And not far away lay the houses surrounded by gardens,
He began to think it was time to hold in the horses.
By the time-honor’d gloom of noble lime trees o’ershadow’d,
Which for many a century past on the spot had been rooted,
Stood there a green and spreading grass-plot in front of the village,
Cover’d with turf, for the peasants and neighboring townsmen a playground.
Scoop’d out under the trees, to no great depth, stood a fountain.
On descending the steps, some benches of stone might be seen there,
Rang’d all around the spring, which ceaselessly well’d forth its waters,
Cleanly, enclos’d by a low wall all round, and convenient to draw from.
Hermann then determin’d beneath the shadow his horses
With the carriage to stop. He did so, and spoke then as follows: —
“Now, my friends, get down, and go by yourselves to discover
Whether the maiden is worthy to have the hand which I offer.
I am convinc’d that she is; and you’ll bring me no new or strange story:
Had I to manage alone, I would straightway go off to the village,
And in few words should my fate by the charming creature be settled.
Her you will easily recognize ‘mongst all the rest of the people,
For her appearance is altogether unlike that of others.
But I will now describe the modest dress she is wearing: —
First a bodice red her well-arch’d bosom upraises,
Prettily tied, while black are the stays fitting closely around her.
Then the seams of the ruff she has carefully plaited and folded,
Which, with modest grace, her chin so round is encircling.
Free and joyously rises her head with its elegant oval,
Strongly round bodkins of silver her back-hair is many times twisted;
Her blue well-plaited gown begins from under her bodice,
And as she walks envelops her well-turn’d ankles completely.
But I have one thing to say, and this must expressly entreat you:
Do not speak to the maiden, and let not your scheme be discover’d.
But inquire of others, and hearken to all that they tell you.
When you have learn’d enough to satisfy father and mother,
Then return to me straight, and we’ll settle future proceedings.
This is the plan which I have matur’d, while driving you hither.”
Thus he spoke, and the friends forthwith went on to the village,
Where, in gardens and barns and houses, the multitude crowded;
All along the broad road the numberless carts were collected,
Men were feeding the lowing cattle and feeding the horses.
Women on every hedge the linen were carefully drying,
Whilst the children in glee were splashing about in the streamlet.
Forcing their way through the wagons, and past the men and the cattle,
Walk’d the ambassador spies, looking well to the righthand and lefthand,
Hoping somewhere to see the form of the well-describ’d maiden;
But wherever they look’d, no trace of the girl they discover’d.
Presently denser became the crowd. Round some of the wagons
Men in a passion were quarreling, women also were screaming.
Then of a sudden approach’d an aged man with firm footstep
Marching straight up to the fighters; and forthwith was hush’d the contention
When he bade them be still, and with fatherly earnestness threaten’d.
“Are we not yet,” he exclaim’d, “by misfortune so knitted together
As to have learn’d at length the art of reciprocal patience
And toleration, though each cannot measure the actions of others?
Prosperous men indeed may quarrel! Will sorrow not teach you
How no longer as formerly you should quarrel with brethren?
Each should give way to each other, when treading the soil of the stranger,
And, as you hope for mercy yourselves, you should share your possessions.”
Thus the man address’d them, and all were silent. In peaceful
Humor the reconcil’d men look’d after their cattle and wagons.
When the pastor heard the man discourse in this fashion,
And the foreign magistrate’s peaceful nature discover’d,
He approach’d him in turn, and used this significant language: —
“Truly, father, when nations are living in days of good fortune,
Drawing their food from the earth, which gladly opens its treasures,
And its wish’d-for gifts each year and each month is renewing,
Then all matters go smoothly; each thinks himself far the wisest
And the best, and so they exist by the side of each other,
And the most sensible man no better than others is reckon’d;
For the world moves on, as if by itself and in silence.
But when distress unsettles our usual manner of living,
Pulls down each time-honor’d fabric, and roots up the seed in our gardens,
Drives the man and his wife far away from the home they delight in,
Hurries them off in confusion through days and nights full of anguish,
Ah! then look we around in search of the man who is wisest,
And no longer in vain he utters his words full of wisdom.
Tell me whether you be these fugitives’ magistrate, father,
Over whose minds you appear to possess such an influence soothing?
Aye, to-day I could deem you one of the leaders of old time,
Who through wastes and through deserts conducted the wandering people;
I could imagine ’twas Joshua I am addressing, or Moses.”
Then with solemn looks the magistrate answer’d as follows: —
“Truly the present times resemble the strangest of old times,
Which are preserv’d in the pages of history, sacred or common.
He in these days who has liv’d to-day and yesterday only,
Many a year has liv’d, events so crowd on each other.
When I reflect back a little, a gray old age I could fancy
On my head to be lying, and yet my strength is still active.
Yes, we people in truth may liken ourselves to those others
Unto whom in a fiery bush appear’d, in a solemn
Moment, the Lord our God; in fire and clouds we behold him.”
When the pastor would fain continue to speak on this subject,
And was anxious to learn the fate of the man and his party,
Quickly into his ear his companion secretly whisper’d: —
“Speak for a time with the magistrate, turning your talk on the maiden,
Whilst I wander about, endeavoring to find her. Directly
I am successful, I’ll join you again.” Then nodded the pastor,
And the spy went to seek her, in barns and through hedges and gardens.

Klio

THE AGE.

WHEN the pastor ask’d the foreign magistrate questions,
What the people had suffer’d, how long from their homes they had wander’d,
Then the man replied: — ”By no means short are our sorrows,
For we have drunk the bitters of many a long year together,
All the more dreadful, because our fairest hopes have been blighted.
Who can deny that his heart beat wildly and high in his bosom,
And that with purer pulses his breast more freely was throbbing,
When the newborn sun first rose in the whole of its glory,
When we heard of the right of man to have all things in common,
Heard of noble equality, and of inspiriting freedom!
Each man then hop’d to attain new life for himself, and the fetters
Which had encircled many a land appear’d to be broken,
Fetters held by the hands of sloth and selfish indulgence.
Did not all nations turn their gaze, in those days of emotion,
Tow’rds the world’s capital, which so many a long year had been so,
And then more than ever deserv’d a name so distinguish’d?
Were not the men, who first proclaim’d so noble a message,
Names that are worthy to rank with the highest the sun ever shone on?
Did not each give to mankind his courage and genius and language?
“And we also, as neighbors, at first were warmly excited.
Presently after began the war, and the train of arm’d Frenchmen
Nearer approach’d; at first they appear’d to bring with them friendship,
And they brought it in fact; for all their souls were exalted.
And the gay trees of liberty ev’rywhere gladly they planted,
Promising unto each his own, and the government long’d for.
Greatly at this was youth, and greatly old age was delighted,
And the joyous dance began round the newly-rais’d standards.
In this manner the overpow’ring Frenchmen soon conquer’d
First the minds of the men, with their fiery lively proceedings,
Then the hearts of the women, with irresistible graces.
Even the strain of the war, with its many demands, seem’d but trifling,
For before our eyes the distance by hope was illumin’d,
Luring our gaze far ahead into paths now first open’d before us.
“Oh, how joyful the time, when with his bride the glad bridegroom
Whirls in the dance, awaiting the day that will join them forever!
But more glorious far was the time when the Highest of all things
Which man’s mind can conceive, close by and attainable seemed.
Then were the tongues of all loosen’d, and words of wisdom and feeling
Not by graybeards alone, but by men and by striplings were utter’d.
“But the heavens soon clouded became. For the sake of the mast’ry
Strove a contemptible crew, unfit to accomplish good actions.
Then they murder’d each other, and took to oppressing their new-found
Neighbors and brothers, and sent on missions whole herds of self-seekers;
And the superiors took to carousing and robbing by wholesale,
And the inferiors down to the lowest carous’d and robb’d also.
Nobody thought of aught else than having enough for to-morrow.
Terrible was the distress, and daily increas’d the oppression.
None the cry understood, that they of the day were the masters.
Then even temperate minds were attack’d by sorrow and fury;
Each one reflected, and swore to avenge all the injuries suffer’d,
And to atone for the bitter loss of hopes twice defrauded.
Presently Fortune declar’d herself on the side of the Germans,
And the French were compell’d to retreat by forc’d marches before them.
Ah! the sad fate of the war we then for the first time experienc’d.
For the victor is kind and humane, at least he appears so,
And he spares the man he has vanquish’d, as if he his own were,
When he employs him daily, and with his property helps him.
But the fugitive knows no law; he wards off death only,
And both quickly and recklessly all that he meets with, consumes he.
Then his mind becomes heated apace; and soon desperation
Fills his heart, and impels him to all kinds of criminal actions.
Nothing then holds he respected, he steals it. With furious longing
On the woman he rushes; his lust becomes awful to think of.
Death all around him he sees, his last minutes in cruelty spends he,
Wildly exulting in blood, and exulting in howls and in anguish.
“Then in the minds of our men arose a terrible yearning
That which was lost to avenge, and that which remain’d to defend still.
All of them seiz’d upon arms, lur’d on by the fugitives’ hurry,
By their pale faces, and by their shy, uncertain demeanor.
There was heard the sound of alarm-bells unceasingly ringing,
And the approach of danger restrain’d not their violent fury.
Soon into weapons were turn’d the implements peaceful of tillage,
And with dripping blood the scythe and the pitchfork were cover’d.
Every foeman without distinction was ruthlessly slaughter’d,
Fury was ev’rywhere raging, and artful, cowardly weakness.
May I never again see men in such wretched confusion!
Even the raging wild beast is a better object to gaze on.
Ne’er let them speak of freedom, as if themselves they could govern!
All the evil which Law has driven far back in the corner
Seems to escape as soon as the fetters which bound it are loosen’d.”
“Excellent man,” replied the pastor, with emphasis speaking: —
“If you’re mistaken in man, ’tis not for me to reprove you.
Evil enough have you suffer’d indeed from his cruel proceedings!
Would you but look back, however, on days so laden with sorrow,
You would yourself confess how much that is good you have witness’d,
Much that is excellent, which remains conceal’d in the bosom
Till by danger ’tis stirr’d, and till necessity makes man
Show himself as an angel, a tutelar God unto others.”
Then with a smile replied the worthy old magistrate, saying: —
“Your reminder is wise, like that which they give to the suff’rer
Who has had his dwelling burn’d down, that under the ruins
Gold and silver are lying, though melted and cover’d with ashes.
Little, indeed, it may be, and yet that little is precious,
And the poor man digs it up, and rejoices at finding the treasure.
Gladly, therefore, I turn my thoughts to those few worthy actions
Which my memory still is able to dwell on with pleasure.
Yes, I will not deny it, I saw late foemen uniting
So as to save the town from harm; I saw with devotion
Parents, children and friends impossible actions attempting,
Saw how the youth of a sudden became a man, how the graybeard
Once more was young, how the child as a stripling appear’d in a moment.
Aye, and the weaker sex, as people commonly call it,
Show’d itself brave and daring, with presence of mind all-unwonted.
Let me now, in the first place, describe a deed of rare merit
By a high-spirited girl accomplish’d, an excellent maiden,
Who in the great farmhouse remain’d behind with the servants,
When the whole of the men had departed, to fight with the strangers.
Well, there fell on the court a troop of vagabond scoundrels,
Plund’ring and forcing their way inside the rooms of the women.
Soon they cast their eyes on the forms of the grown-up fair maiden,
And of the other dear girls, in age little more than mere children.
Hurried away by raging desire, unfeelingly rush’d they
On the trembling band, and on the highspirited maiden.
But she instantly seiz’d the sword from the side of a ruffian,
Hew’d him down to the ground; at her feet straight fell he, all bleeding.
Then with doughty strokes the maidens she bravely deliver’d,
Wounded four more of the robbers; with life, however, escap’d they.
Then she lock’d up the court, and, arm’d still, waited for succor.”
When the pastor heard the praise of the maiden thus utter’d,
Feelings of hope for his friend forthwith arose in his bosom,
And he prepar’d to ask what had been the fate of the damsel,
Whether she, in the sorrowful flight, form’d one of the people?
At this moment, however, the druggist nimbly approach’d them,
Pull’d the sleeve of the pastor, and whisper’d to him as follows: —
“I have at last pick’d out the maiden from many a hundred
By her description! Pray come and judge for yourself with your own eyes;
Bring the magistrate with you, that we may learn the whole story.”
So they turn’d themselves round; but the magistrate found himself summon’d
By his own followers, who had need of his presence and counsel.
But the pastor forthwith the druggist accompanied, till they
Came to a gap in the hedge, when the latter pointed with slyness.
“See you,” exclaim’d he, “the maiden? The child’s clothes she has been changing.
And I recognize well the old calico — also the cushion-
Cover of blue, which Hermann took in the bundle and gave her.
Quickly and well, of a truth, she has used the presents left with her.
These are evident proofs; and all the rest coincide too;
For a bodice red her well-arch’d bosom upraises,
Prettily tied, while black are the stays fitting close around her.
Then the seams of the ruff she has carefully plaited and folded,
Which, with modest grace, her chin so round is encircling;
Free and joyously rises her head, with its elegant oval,
Strongly round bodkins of silver her back hair is many times twisted.
When she is sitting, we plainly see her noble proportions,
And the blue well-plaited gown which begins from close to her bosom,
And in rich folds descending, her well-turn’d ankles envelops.
’Tis she, beyond all doubt. So come, that we may examine
Whether she be both a good and a frugal and virtuous maiden.”
Then the pastor rejoin’d, the sitting damsel inspecting: —
“That she enchanted the youth, I confess is no matter of wonder,
For she stands the test of the gaze of a man of experience.
Happy the person to whom Mother Nature the right face has given!
She recommends him at all times, he never appears as a stranger,
Each one gladly approaches, and each one beside him would linger,
If with his face is combin’d a pleasant and courteous demeanor.
Yes, I assure you the youth has indeed discover’d a maiden
Who the whole of the days of his life will enliven with gladness,
And with her womanly strength assist him at all times and truly.
Thus a perfect body preserves the soul also in pureness,
And a vigorous youth of a happy old age gives assurance.”
After reflecting a little, the druggist made answer as follows: —
“Yet appearances oft are deceitful. I trust not the outside.
Often, indeed, have I found the truth of the proverb which tells us:
Ere you share a bushel of salt with a newfound acquaintance,
Do not trust him too readily; time will make you more certain
How you and he will get on, and whether your friendship is lasting.
Let us then, in the first place, inquire amongst the good people
Unto whom the maiden is known, who can tell us about her.”
“Well, of a truth I commend your prudence,” the pastor continu’d: —
“Not for ourselves are we wooing! To woo for others is serious.”
So they started to meet the worthy magistrate, seeing
How in the course of his business he was ascending the main street.
And the wise pastor straightway address’d him with foresight as follows: —
“We, by-the-by, have just seen a girl in the neighboring garden
Under an apple tree sitting, and clothes for the children preparing,
Made of worn calico which for the purpose was doubtless presented.
We were pleas’d by her face; she appears to be one of the right sort.
Tell us, what know you about her? We ask from a laudable motive.”
When the magistrate came to the garden and peep’d in, exclaim’d he: —
“Well do I know her, in truth; for when I told you the story
Of that noble deed which was done by the maiden I spoke of,
How she seiz’d on the sword, and defended herself and the servants, —
She the heroine was! You can see how active her nature.
But she’s as good as she’s strong; for her aged kinsman she tended
Until the time of his death, for he died overwhelm’d by affliction
At the distress of his town, and the danger his goods were expos’d to.
Also with mute resignation she bore the grievous affliction
Of her betroth’d’s sad death, a noble young man who, incited
By the first fire of noble thoughts, to struggle for freedom,
Went himself to Paris, and soon found a terrible death there.
For, as at home, so there, he fought ‘gainst intrigue and oppression.”
Thus the magistrate spoke. The others departed and thank’d him,
And the pastor produc’d a gold piece (the silver his purse held
He some hours before had with genuine kindness expended
When he saw the fugitives passing in sorrowful masses).
And the magistrate handed it, saying: — ”Divide it, I pray you,
‘Mongst those who need it the most. May God give it prosperous increase.”
But the man refus’d to accept it, and said: — ”I assure you,
Many a dollar we’ve sav’d, and plenty of clothing and such things,
And I trust we may reach our homes before they are finish’d.”
Then continu’d the pastor, the gold in his hand once more placing: —
“None should delay to give in days like the present, and no one
Ought to refuse to receive what is offer’d with liberal kindness.
No one can tell how long he will keep what in peace he possesses,
No one, how long he is doom’d in foreign countries to wander,
While he’s depriv’d of the field and the garden by which he is nurtur’d.”
“Bravo!” added in turn the druggist, with eagerness speaking: —
“Had I but money to spare in my pocket, you surely should have it —
Silver and gold alike; for your followers certainly need it.
Yet I’ll not leave you without a present, if only to show you
My good will, and I hope you will take the will for the action.”
Thus he spoke and pull’d out by the strings the leather embroider’d
Pouch, in which he was wont his stock of tobacco to carry,
Daintily open’d and shar’d its contents — some two or three pipes’ full.
“Small in truth is the gift,” he added. The magistrate answer’d: —
“Good tobacco is always a welcome present to trav’llers.”
Then the druggist began his canister to praise very highly.
But the pastor drew him away, and the magistrate left them.
“Come, let us hasten!” exclaim’d the sensible man, “for our young friend
Anxiously waits; without further delay let him hear the good tidings.”
So they hasten’d and came, and found that the youngster was leaning
‘Gainst his carriage under the lime trees. The horses were pawing
Wildly the turf; he held them in check and stood there all pensive,
Silently gazing in front, and saw not his friends coming near him,
Till, as they came, they call’d him and gave him signals of triumph.
Some way off the druggist already began to address him,
But they approach’d the youth still nearer, and then the good pastor
Seiz’d his hand and spoke and took the word from his comrade: —
“Friend, I wish you joy! Your eye so true and your true heart
Rightly have chosen! May you and the wife of your young days be happy!
She is full worthy of you; so come and turn round the carriage,
That we may reach without delay the end of the village,
So as to woo her, and shortly escort the dear creature home with us.”
But the youth stood still, and without any token of pleasure
Heard the words of the envoy, though sounding consoling and heav’nly,
Deeply sigh’d and said: — ”We came full speed in the carriage,
And shall probably go back home asham’d and but slowly;
For, since I have been waiting care has fallen upon me,
Doubt and suspicion and all that a heart full of love is expos’d to.
Do you suppose we have only to come, for the maiden to follow,
Just because we are rich, and she poor and wandering in exile?
Poverty, when undeserv’d, itself makes proud. The fair maiden
Seems to be active and frugal; the world she may claim as her portion.
Do you suppose that a woman of such great beauty and manners
Can have grown up without exciting love in man’s bosom?
Do you suppose that her heart until now has to love been fast closed?
Do not drive thither in haste, for perchance to our shame and confusion
We shall have slowly to turn towards home the heads of our horses.
Yes, some youth, I fear me, possesses her heart, and already
She has doubtless promis’d her hand and her solemn troth plighted,
And I shall stand all asham’d before her when making my offer.”
Then the pastor proceeded to cheer him with words of good comfort,
But his companion broke in, in his usual talkative manner: —
“As things used to be, this embarrassment would not have happen’d,
When each matter was brought to a close in an orthodox fashion.
Then for their son themselves the bride the parents selected,
And a friend of the house was secretly call’d in the first place.
He was then quietly sent as a suitor to visit the parents
Of the selected bride; and, dress’d in his gayest apparel,
Went after dinner some Sunday to visit the excellent burgher,
And began by exchanging polite remarks on all subjects,
Cleverly turning and bending the talk in the proper direction.
After long beating about the bush, he flatter’d the daughter,
And spoke well of the man and the house that gave his commission.
Sensible people soon saw his drift, and the sensible envoy
Watch’d how the notion was taken, and then could explain himself farther.
If they declin’d the proposal, why then the refusal cost nothing,
But if all prosper’d, why then the suitor forever thereafter
Play’d the first fiddle at every family feast and rejoicing.
For the married couple remember’d the whole of their lifetime
Whose was the skilful hand by which the marriage knot tied was.
All this now is chang’d, and with many an excellent custom
Has gone quite out of fashion. Each person woos for himself now.
Everyone now must bear the weight of a maiden’s refusal
On his own shoulders, and stand all asham’d before her, if needs be.”
“Let that be as it may,” then answer’d the young man who scarcely
Heard what was said, and his mind had made up already in silence: —
“I will go myself, and out of the mouth of the maiden
Learn my own fate, for towards her I cherish the most trustful feelings
That any man ever cherish’d towards any woman whatever.
That which she says will be good and sensible, — this I am sure of.
If I am never to see her again, I must once more behold her,
And the ingenuous gaze of her black eyes must meet for the last time.
If to my heart I may clasp her never, her bosom and shoulders
I would once more see, which my arm so longs to encircle;
Once more the mouth I would see, from which one kiss and a Yes will
Make me happy forever, a No forever undo me.
But now leave me alone! Wait here no longer. Return you
Straight to my father and mother, in order to tell them in person
That their son was right, and that the maiden is worthy.
And so leave me alone! I myself shall return by the footpath
Over the hill by the pear tree and then descend through the vineyard,
Which is the shortest way back. Oh, may I soon with rejoicing
Take the belov’d one home! But perchance all alone I must slink back
By that path to our house and tread it no more with a light heart.”
Thus he spoke, and then plac’d the reins in the hands of the pastor,
Who, in a knowing way both the foaming horses restraining,
Nimbly mounted the carriage, and took the seat of the driver.
But you still delay’d, good cautious neighbor, and spoke thus: —
“Friend, I will gladly intrust to you soul, and spirit, and mind too,
But my body and bones are not preserv’d in the best way
When the hand of a parson such worldly matters as reins grasps!”
But you smil’d in return, you sensible pastor, replying: —
“Pray jump in, nor fear with both body and spirit to trust me,
For this hand to hold the reins has long been accustom’d,
And these eyes are train’d to turn the corner with prudence.
For we were wont to drive the carriage, when living at Strasburg,
At the time when with the young baron I went there, for daily,
Driven by me, through the echoing gateway thunder’d the carriage
By the dusty roads to distant meadows and lindens,
Through the crowds of the people who spend their lifetime in walking.”
Partially comforted, then his neighbor mounted the carriage,
Sitting like one prepar’d to make a wise jump, if needs be,
And the stallions, eager to reach their stables, cours’d homewards,
While beneath their powerful hoofs the dust rose in thick clouds.
Long there stood the youth, and saw the dust rise before him,
Saw the dust disperse; but still he stood there, unthinking.
Fr. Pecht del.
published by george barrie
[Editor: illegible word]
Dorothea

Erato.

DOROTHEA.

AS the man on a journey, who, just at the moment of sunset,
Fixes his gaze once more on the rapidly vanishing planet,
Then on the side of the rocks and in the dark thicket still sees he
Hov’ring its image; wherever he turns his looks, on in front still
Runs it, and glitters and wavers before him in colors all splendid,
So before Hermann’s eyes did the beautiful form of the maiden
Softly move, and appear’d to follow the path through the cornfields.
But he rous’d himself up from his startling dream, and then slowly
Turn’d tow’rd the village his steps, and once more started, — for once more
Saw he the noble maiden’s stately figure approaching.
Fixedly gaz’d he; it was no phantom in truth; she herself ’twas.
In her hands by the handle she carried two pitchers, — one larger,
One of a smaller size, and nimbly walk’d to the fountain.
And he joyfully went to meet her; the sight of her gave him
Courage and strength, and so he address’d the surpris’d one as follows: —
“Do I find you again, brave maiden, engag’d in assisting
Others so soon, and in giving refreshment to those who may need it?
Tell me why you have come all alone to the spring so far distant,
Whilst the rest are content with the water that’s found in the village?
This one, indeed, special virtue possesses, and pleasant to drink is.
Is’t for the sake of that sick one you come, whom you sav’d with such courage?”
Then the good maiden the youth in friendly fashion saluted,
Saying: — ”Already my walk to the fountain is fully rewarded,
Since I have found the kind person who gave us so many good presents;
For the sight of a giver, like that of a gift, is refreshing.
Come and see for yourself the persons who tasted your kindness,
And receive the tranquil thanks of all you have aided.
But that you may know the reason why I have come here,
Water to draw at a spot where the spring is both pure and unceasing,
I must inform you that thoughtless men have disturb’d all the water
Found in the village, by carelessly letting the horses and oxen
Wade about in the spring which gives the inhabitants water.
In the same manner, with all their washing and cleaning, they’ve dirtied
All the troughs of the village, and all the fountains have sullied.
For each one of them only thinks how quickly and soon he
May supply his own wants, and cares not for those who come after.”
Thus she spoke, and soon she arriv’d at the foot of the broad steps
With her companion, and both of them sat themselves down on the low wall
Round the spring. She bent herself over, to draw out the water,
He the other pitcher took up, and bent himself over,
And in the blue of the heavens they saw their figures reflected,
Waving, and nodding, and in the mirror their greetings exchanging.
“Now let me drink,” exclaim’d the youth in accents of gladness,
And she gave him the pitcher. They then, like old friends, sat together,
Leaning against the vessels, when she address’d him as follows: —
“Say, why find I you here without your carriage and horses,
Far from the place where first I saw you? Pray how came you hither?”
Hermann thoughtfully gaz’d on the ground, but presently lifted
Calmly towards her his glances, and gaz’d on her face in kind fashion,
Feeling quite calm and compos’d. And yet with love to address her
Found he quite out of the question; for love from her eyes was not beaming,
But an intellect clear, which bade him use sensible language.
Soon he collected his thoughts, and quietly said to the maiden: —
“Let me speak, my child, and let me answer your questions.
’Tis for your sake alone I have come, — why seek to conceal it?
For I happily live with two affectionate parents,
Whom I faithfully help to look after our house and possessions,
Being an only son, while numerous are our employments.
I look after the field-work; the house is carefully manag’d
By my father; my mother the hostelry cheers and enlivens.
But you also have doubtless found out how greatly the servants,
Sometimes by fraud, and sometimes by levity, worry their mistress,
Constantly making her change them, and barter one fault for another.
Long has my mother, therefore, been wanting a girl in the household,
Who, not only with hand, but also with heart might assist her,
In the place of the daughter she lost, alas, prematurely.
Now when I saw you to-day near the carriage, so active and sprightly,
Saw the strength of your arm and the perfect health of your members,
When I heard your sensible words, I was struck with amazement,
And I hasten’d back home, deservedly praising the stranger
Both to my parents and friends. And now I come to inform you
What they desire, as I do. Forgive my stammering language!”
“Do not hesitate,” said she, “to tell me the rest of your story;
I have with gratitude felt that you have not sought to insult me.
Speak on boldly, I pray; your words shall never alarm me;
You would fain hire me now as maid to your father and mother,
To look after the house, which now is in excellent order.
And you think that in me you have found a qualified maiden,
One that is able to work, and not of a quarrelsome nature.
Your proposal was short, and short shall my answer be also: —
Yes! with you I will go, and the voice of my destiny follow.
I have fulfill’d my duty, and brought the lyingin woman
Back to her friends again, who all rejoice at her rescue.
Most of them now are together, the rest will presently join them.
All expect that they, in a few short days, will be able
Homewards to go; ’tis thus that exiles themselves love to flatter.
But I cannot deceive myself with hopes so delusive
In these sad days which promise still sadder days in the future;
For all the bonds of the world are loosen’d, and naught can rejoin them,
Save that supreme necessity over our future impending.
If in the house of so worthy a man I can earn my own living,
Serving under the eye of his excellent wife, I will do so;
For a wandering girl bears not the best reputation.
Yes! with you I will go, as soon as I’ve taken the pitcher
Back to my friends, and receiv’d the blessing of those worthy people.
Come! you needs must see them, and from their hands shall receive me.”
Joyfully heard the youth the willing maiden’s decision,
Doubting whether he now had not better tell her the whole truth;
But it appear’d to him best to let her remain in her error,
First to take her home, and then for her love to entreat her.
Ah! but now he espied a golden ring on her finger,
And so let her speak, while he attentively listen’d: —
“Let us now return,” she continu’d; “the custom is always
To admonish the maidens who tarry too long at the fountain,
Yet how delightful it is by the fast-flowing water to chatter!”
Then they both arose, and once more directed their glances
Into the fountain, and then a blissful longing came o’er them.
So from the ground by the handles she silently lifted the pitchers,
Mounted the steps of the well, and Hermann follow’d the lov’d one.
One of the pitchers he ask’d her to give him, thus sharing the burden.
“Leave it,” she said; “the weight feels less when thus they are balanc’d;
And the master I’ve soon to obey should not be my servant.
Gaze not so earnestly at me, as if my fate were still doubtful!
Women should learn betimes to serve, according to station,
For by serving alone she attains at last to the mastery,
To the due influence which she ought to possess in the household.
Early the sister must learn to serve her brothers and parents,
And her life is ever a ceaseless going and coming,
Or a lifting and carrying, working and doing for others.
Well for her if she finds no manner of life too offensive,
And if to her the hours of night and of day all the same are,
So that her work never seems too mean, her needle too pointed,
So that herself she forgets, and liveth only for others!
For as a mother in truth she needs the whole of the virtues,
When the suckling awakens the sick one, and nourishment calls for
From the exhausted parent, heaping cares upon suff’ring.
Twenty men together could not endure such a burden,
And they ought not, — and yet they gratefully ought to behold it.”
Thus she spoke, and with her silent companion advanc’d she
Through the garden, until the floor of the granary reach’d they,
Where the sick woman lay, whom she left by her daughters attended,
Those dear rescu’d maidens, the types of innocent beauty.
Both of them enter’d the room, and from the other direction,
Holding a child in each hand, her friend, the magistrate, enter’d.
These had lately been lost for some time by the sorrowing mother,
But the old man had now found them out in the crowd of the people.
And they sprang in with joy, to greet their dearly-lov’d mother,
To rejoice in a brother, the playmate now seen for the first time!
Then on Dorothea they sprang, and greeted her warmly,
Asking for bread and fruit, but asking for drink before all things.
And they handed the water all round. The children first drank some,
Then the sick woman drank, with her daughters, the magistrate also.
All were refresh’d, and sounded the praise of the excellent water;
Mineral was it, and very reviving, and wholesome for drinking.
Then with a serious look continu’d the maiden, and spoke thus: —
“Friends, to your mouths for the last time in truth I have lifted the pitcher,
And for the last time, alas, have moisten’d your lips with pure water.
But whenever in scorching heat your drink may refresh you,
And in the shade you enjoy repose and a fountain unsullied,
Then remember me, and all my friendly assistance,
Which I from love, and not from relationship merely, have render’d.
All your kindness to me, as long as life lasts, I’ll remember.
I unwillingly leave you; but each one is now to each other
Rather a burden than comfort. We all must shortly be scatter’d
Over a foreign land, unless to return we are able.
See, here stands the youth to whom for those gifts we’re indebted,
All those clothes for the child, and all those acceptable viands.
Well, he has come, and is anxious that I to his house should go with him,
There as a servant to act to his rich and excellent parents,
And I have not refus’d him, for serving appears my vocation,
And to be serv’d by others at home would seem like a burden.
So I’ll go willingly with him; the youth appears to be prudent;
Thus will his parents be properly car’d for, as rich people should be.
Therefore, now, farewell, my much-lov’d friend, and be joyful
In your living infant, who looks so healthily at you.
When you press him against your bosom, wrapp’d up in those color’d
Swaddling-clothes, then remember the youth who so kindly bestow’d them,
And who in future will feed and clothe me also, your lov’d friend.
You too, excellent man,” to the magistrate turning, she added: —
“Warmly I thank for so often acting the part of a father.”
Then she knelt herself down before the lying-in patient,
Kiss’d the weeping woman, her whisper’d blessing receiving.
Meanwhile the worthy magistrate spoke to Hermann as follows: —
“You deserve, my friend, to be counted amongst the good landlords
Who are anxious to manage their house through qualified people.
For I have often observ’d how cautiously men are accustom’d
Sheep and cattle and horses to watch, when buying or bart’ring;
But a man, who’s so useful, provided he’s good and efficient,
And who does so much harm and mischief by treacherous dealings,
Him will people admit to their houses by chance and haphazard,
And too late find reason to rue an o’erhasty decision.
This you appear to understand, for a girl you have chosen
As your servant, and that of your parents, who thoroughly good is.
Treat her well, and as long as she finds the business suits her,
You will not miss your sister, your parents will miss not their daughter.”
Other persons now enter’d, the patient’s nearest relations,
Mahy articles bringing, and better lodgings announcing.
All were inform’d of the maiden’s decision, and warmly bless’d Hermann,
Both with significant looks, and also with grateful expressions,
And one secretly whisper’d into the ear of another: —
“If the master should turn to a bridegroom, her home is provided.”
Hermann then presently took her hand, and address’d her as follows: —
“Let us be going; the day is declining, and far off the village.”
Then the women, with lively expressions, embrac’d Dorothea;
Hermann drew her away; they still continu’d to greet her.
Next the children, with screams and terrible crying, attack’d her,
Pulling her clothes, their second mother refusing to part from.
But first one of the women, and then another rebuk’d them: —
“Children, hush! to the town she is going, intending to bring you
Plenty of gingerbread back, which your brother already had order’d,
From the confectioner, when the stork was passing there lately,
And she’ll soon return, with the papers prettily gilded.”
So at length the children releas’d her; but scarcely could Hermann
Tear her from their embraces and distant-signaling kerchiefs.

Melpomene.

HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.

SO tow’rd the sun, now fast sinking to rest, the two walk’d together,
Whilst he veil’d himself deep in clouds which thunder portended;
Out of his veil now here, now there, with fiery glances
Beaming over the plain with rays foreboding and lurid.
“May this threatening weather,” said Hermann, “not bring to us shortly
Hail and violent rain, for well does the harvest now promise.”
And they both rejoic’d in the corn so lofty and waving,
Well nigh reaching the heads of the two tall figures that walk’d there.
Then the maiden spoke to her friendly leader as follows: —
“Generous youth, to whom I shall owe a kind destiny shortly,
Shelter and home, when so many poor exiles must weather the tempest,
In the first place tell me all about your good parents,
Whom I intend to serve with all my soul from henceforward;
Knowing one’s master, ’tis easier far to give satisfaction,
By rememb’ring the things which he deems of the highest importance,
And on which he has set his heart with the greatest decision.
Tell me, then, how best I can win your father and mother.”
Then the good and sensible youth made answer as follows: —
“You are indeed quite right, my kind and excellent maiden,
To begin by asking about the tastes of my parents!
For I have hitherto striven in vain to satisfy father,
When I look’d after the inn, as well as my regular duty,
Working early and late in the field, and tending the vineyard.
Mother indeed was contented; she knew how to value my efforts;
And she will certainly hold you to be an excellent maiden,
If you take care of the house, as though the dwelling your own were.
But my father’s unlike her; he’s fond of outward appearance.
Gentle maiden, deem me not cold and void of all feeling,
If I disclose my father’s nature to you, who’re a stranger.
Yes, such words have never before escap’d, I assure you,
Out of my mouth, which is little accustom’d to babble and chatter;
But you have manag’d to worm all my secrets from out of my bosom.
Well, my worthy father the graces of life holds in honor,
Wishes for outward signs of love, as well as of rev’rence,
And would doubtless be satisfied with an inferior servant
Who understood this fancy, and hate a better, who did not.”
Cheerfully she replied, with gentle movement increasing
Through the darkening path the speed at which she was walking: —
“I in truth shall hope to satisfy both of your parents,
For your mother’s character my own nature resembles,
And to external graces have I from my youth been accustom’d.
Our old neighbors, the French, in their earlier days laid much stress on
Courteous demeanor; ’twas common alike to nobles and burghers,
And to peasants, and each enjoin’d it on all his acquaintance.
In the same way, on the side of the Germans, the children were train’d up
Every morning, with plenty of kissing of hands and of curtsies,
To salute their parents, and always to act with politeness.
All that I have learn’d, and all I have practis’d since childhood,
All that comes from my heart, — I will practise it all with the old man.
But on what terms shall I — I scarcely dare ask such a question, —
Be with yourself, the only son, and hereafter my master?”
Thus she spoke, and at that moment they came to the pear tree.
Down from the skies the moon at her full was shining in glory;
Night had arriv’d, and the last pale gleam of the sunset had vanish’d.
So before them were lying, in masses all heap’d up together,
Lights as clear as the day, and shadows of night and of darkness.
And the friendly question was heard by Hermann with pleasure,
Under the shade of the noble tree at the spot which he lov’d so,
Which that day had witness’d his tears at the fate of the exile.
And whilst they sat themselves down, to take a little repose there,
Thus the loving youth spoke, whilst he seiz’d the hand of the maiden: —
“Let your heart give the answer, and always obey what it tells you!”
But he ventur’d to say no more, however propitious
Was the moment; he fear’d that a No would be her sole answer,
Ah! and he felt the ring on her finger, that sorrowful token.
So by the side of each other they quietly sat and in silence,
But the maiden began to speak, and said, “How delightful
Is the light of the moon! The clearness of day it resembles.
Yonder I see in the town the houses and courtyards quite plainly,
In the gable a window; methinks all the panes I can reckon.”
“That which you see,” replied the youth, who spoke with an effort,
“That is our house down to which I now am about to conduct you,
And that window yonder belongs to my room in the attic,
Which will probably soon be yours, as we’re making great changes.
All these fields are ours, and ripe for the harvest to-morrow;
Here in the shade we are wont to rest, enjoying our meal-time.
But let us now descend across the vineyard and garden,
For observe how the threatening storm is hitherward rolling,
Lightening first, and then eclipsing the beautiful full moon.”
So the pair arose, and wander’d down by the corn-field,
Through the powerful corn, in the nightly clearness rejoicing;
And they reach’d the vineyard, and through its dark shadows proceeded.
So he guided her down the numerous tiers of the flat stones
Which, in an unhewn state, serv’d as steps to the walk through the foliage.
Slowly she descended, and plac’d her hands on his shoulders;
And, with a quivering light, the moon through the foliage o’erlook’d them,
Till by storm-clouds envelop’d, she left the couple in darkness.
Then the strong youth supported the maiden, who on him was leaning;
She, however, not knowing the path, or observing the rough steps,
Slipp’d as she walk’d, her foot gave way, and she well nigh was falling.
Hastily held out his arm the youth with nimbleness thoughtful,
And held up his belov’d one; she gently sank on his shoulder,
Breast was press’d against breast, and cheek against cheek, and so stood he
Fix’d like a marble statue, restrain’d by a firm resolution;
He embrac’d her no closer, though all her weight he supported;
So he felt his noble burden, the warmth of her bosom,
And her balmy breath, against his warm lips exhaling,
Bearing with manly feelings the woman’s heroical greatness.
But she conceal’d the pain which she felt, and jestingly spoke thus: —
“It betokens misfortune, — so scrupulous people inform us, —
For the foot to give way on entering a house, near the threshold.
I should have wish’d, in truth, for a sign of some happier omen!
Let us tarry a little, for fear your parents should blame you,
For their limping servant, and you should be thought a bad landlord.”

Urania.

Chronological table of contents

Alphabetical table of contents

CONCLUSION.

YE MUSES, who gladly favor a love that is heartfelt,
Who on his way the excellent youth have hitherto guided,
Who have press’d the maid to his bosom before their betrothal,
Help still further to perfect the bonds of a couple so loving,
Drive away the clouds which over their happiness hover!
But begin by saying what now in the house has been passing.
For the third time the mother impatiently enter’d the chamber
Where the men were sitting, which she had anxiously quitted,
Speaking of the approaching storm, and the loss of the moon’s light,
Then of her son’s long absence, and all the perils that night brings.
Strongly she censur’d their friends for having so soon left the youngster,
For not even addressing the maiden, or seeking to woo her.
“Make not the worst of the mischief,” the father peevishly answer’d;
“For you see we are waiting ourselves, expecting the issue.”
But the neighbor sat still, and calmly address’d them as follows: —
“In uneasy moments like these I always feel grateful
To my late father, who, when I was young, all seeds of impatience
In my mind uprooted, and left no fragment remaining,
And I learn’d how to wait, as well as the best of the wise men.”
“Tell us what legerdemain he employ’d,” the pastor made answer.
“I will gladly inform you, and each one may gain by the lesson,”
Answer’d the neighbor. “When I was a boy, I was standing one Sunday
In a state of impatience, eagerly waiting the carriage
Which was to carry us out to the fountain under the lime trees;
But it came not; I ran like a weasel, now hither, now thither,
Up and down the stairs, and from the door to the window;
Both my hands were prickling, I scratch’d away at the tables,
Stamping and trotting about, and scarcely refrain’d I from crying.
All this the calm man composedly saw; but finally when I
Carried my folly too far, by the arm he quietly took me,
Led me up to the window, and used this significant language: —
‘See you up yonder the joiner’s workshop, now clos’d for the Sunday?
‘Twill be reopen’d to-morrow, and plane and saw will be working.
Thus will the busy hours be pass’d from morning till evening.
But remember this: the morning will soon be arriving
When the master, together with all his men, will be busy
In preparing and finishing quickly and deftly your coffin,
And they will carefully bring over here that house made of boards, which
Will at length receive the patient as well as impatient,
And which is destin’d to carry a roof that’s unpleasantly heavy.’
All that he mention’d I forthwith saw taking place in my mind’s eye,
Saw the boards join’d together, and saw the black cover made ready, —
Patiently then I sat, and meekly awaited the carriage.
And I always think of the coffin whenever I see men
Running about in a state of doubtful and wild expectation.”
Smilingly answer’d the pastor: — ”Death’s stirring image is neither
Unto the wise a cause of alarm, — or an end to the pious.
Back into life it urges the former, and teaches him action,
And for the weal of the latter, it strengthens his hope in affliction.
Death is a giver of life unto both. Your father did wrongly
When to the sensitive boy he pointed out death in its own form.
Unto the youth should be shown the worth of a noble and ripen’d
Age, and unto the old man, youth, that both may rejoice in
The eternal circle, and life may in life be made perfect!”
Here the door was open’d. The handsome couple appear’d there,
And the friends were amaz’d, the loving parents astonish’d
At the form of the bride, the form of the bridegroom resembling.
Yes! the door appear’d too small to admit the tall figures
Which now cross’d the threshold, in company walking together.
To his parents Hermann presented her, hastily saying: —
“Here is a maiden just of the sort you are wishing to have here.
Welcome her kindly, dear father! she fully deserves it, and you too,
Mother dear, ask her questions as to her housekeeping knowledge,
That you may see how well she deserves to form one of our party.”
Then he hastily took on one side the excellent pastor,
Saying: — ”Kind sir, I entreat you to help me out of this trouble
Quickly, and loosen the knot, whose unravelling I am so dreading;
For I have not ventur’d to woo as my bride the fair maiden,
But she believes she’s to be a maid in the house, and I fear me
She will in anger depart, as soon as we talk about marriage.
But it must be decided at once! no longer in error
Shall she remain, and I no longer this doubt can put up with.
Hasten and once more exhibit that wisdom we all hold in honor.”
So the pastor forthwith turn’d round to the rest of the party,
But the maiden’s soul was, unhappily, troubled already
By the talk of the father, who just had address’d her as follows,
Speaking good-humoredly, and in accents pleasant and lively: —
“Yes, I’m well satisfied, child! I joyfully see that my son has
Just as good taste as his father, who in his younger days show’d it,
Always leading the fairest one out in the dance, and then lastly
Taking the fairest one home as his wife — ’twas your dear little mother!
For by the bride whom a man selects, we may easily gather
What kind of spirit his is, and whether he knows his own value.
But you will surely need but a short time to form your decision,
For I verily think he will find it full easy to follow.”
Hermann but partially heard the words; the whole of his members
Inwardly quiver’d, and all the circle were suddenly silent.
But the excellent maiden, by words of such irony wounded,
(As she esteem’d them to be) and deeply distress’d in her spirit,
Stood, while a passing flush from her cheeks as far as her neck was
Spreading, but she restrain’d herself, and collected her thoughts soon;
Then to the old man she said, not fully concealing her sorrow: —
“Truly I was not prepar’d by your son for such a reception,
When he describ’d his father’s nature, — that excellent burgher,
And I know I am standing before you, a person of culture,
Who behaves himself wisely to all, in a suitable manner.
But it would seem that you feel not pity enough for the poor thing
Who has just cross’d your threshold, prepar’d to enter your service;
Else you would not seek to point out, with ridicule bitter,
How far remov’d my lot from your son’s and that of yourself is.
True, with a little bundle, and poor, I have enter’d your dwelling,
Which it is the owner’s delight to furnish with all things.
But I know myself well, and feel the whole situation.
Is it generous thus to greet me with language so jeering,
Which has well nigh expell’d me the house, when just on the threshold?”
Hermann uneasily mov’d about, and sign’d to the pastor
To interpose without delay, and clear up the error.
Quickly the wise man advanc’d to the spot, and witness’d the maiden’s
Silent vexation and tearful eyes and scarce-restrain’d sorrow.
Then his spirit advis’d him to solve not at once the confusion,
But, on the contrary, prove the excited mind of the maiden.
So, in words fram’d to try her, the pastor address’d her as follows: —
“Surely, my foreign maiden, you did not fully consider,
When you made up your mind to serve a stranger so quickly,
What it really is to enter the house of a master;
For a shake of the hand decides your fate for a twelvemonth,
And a single word Yes to much endurance will bind you.
But the worst part of the service is not the wearisome habits,
Nor the bitter toil of the work, which seems never-ending;
For the active freeman works hard as well as the servant.
But to suffer the whims of the master, who blames you unjustly,
Or who calls for this and for that, not knowing his own mind,
And the mistress’s violence, always so easily kindled,
With the children’s rough and supercilious bad manners, —
This is indeed hard to bear, whilst still fulfilling your duties
Promptly and actively, never becoming morose or ill-natured;
Yet for such work you appear little fit, for already the father’s
Jokes have offended you deeply; yet nothing more commonly happens
Than to tease a maiden about her liking a youngster.”
Thus he spoke, and the maiden felt the weight of his language,
And no more restrain’d herself; mightily all her emotions
Show’d themselves, her bosom heav’d, and a deep sigh escap’d her,
And whilst shedding burning tears, she answer’d as follows: —
“Ne’er does the clever man, who seeks to advise us in sorrow,
Think how little his chilling words our hearts can deliver
From the pangs which an unseen destiny fastens upon us.
You are happy and merry. How then should a jest ever wound you?
But the slightest touch gives torture to those who are suff’ring.
Even dissimulation would nothing avail me at present.
Let me at once disclose what later would deepen my sorrow,
And consign me perchance to agony mute and consuming.
Let me depart forthwith! No more in this house dare I linger;
I must hence and away, and look once more for my poor friends
Whom I left in distress, when seeking to better my fortunes.
This is my firm resolve; and now I may properly tell you
That which had else been buried for many a year in my bosom.
Yes, the father’s jest has wounded me deeply, I own it,
Not that I’m proud and touchy, as ill becometh a servant,
But because in truth in my heart a feeling has risen
For the youth, who to-day has fill’d the part of my saviour.
For when first in the road he left me, his image remain’d still
Firmly fix’d in my mind; and I thought of the fortunate maiden
Whom, as his betroth’d one, he cherish’d perchance in his bosom.
And when I found him again at the well, the sight of him charm’d me
Just as if I had seen an angel descending from heaven.
And I follow’d him willingly, when as a servant he sought me,
But by my heart in truth I was flatter’d (I need must confess it),
As I hitherward came, that I might possibly win him,
If I became in the house an indispensable pillar.
But, alas, I now see the dangers I well nigh fell into,
When I bethought me of living so near a silently-lov’d one.
Now for the first time I feel how far remov’d a poor maiden
Is from a richer youth, however clever she may be.
I have told you all this, that you my heart may mistake not,
Which an event that in thought I foreshadow has wounded already.
For I must have expected, my secret wishes concealing,
That, ere much time had elaps’d, I should see him bringing his bride home.
And how then could I have endur’d my hidden affliction!
Happily I am warn’d in time, and out of my bosom
Has my secret escap’d, whilst curable still is the evil.
But no more of the subject! I now must tarry no longer
In this house, where I now am standing in pain and confusion,
All my foolish hopes and my feelings freely confessing.
Not the night which, with sinking clouds, is spreading around us,
Not the rolling thunder (I hear it already) shall stop me,
Not the falling rain, which outside is descending in torrents,
Not the blustering storm. All this I had to encounter
In that sorrowful flight, while the enemy follow’d behind us.
And once more I go on my way, as I long have been wont to,
Seiz’d by the whirlpool of time, and parted from all that I care for.
So farewell! I’ll tarry no longer. My fate is accomplish’d!”
Thus she spoke, and towards the door she hastily turn’d her,
Holding under her arm the bundle she brought when arriving,
But the mother seiz’d by both of her arms the fair maiden,
Clasping her round the body, and cried with surprise and amazement: —
“Say, what signifies this? These fruitless tears, what denote they?
No, I’ll not leave you alone! You’re surely my dear son’s betrothed!”
But the father stood still, and show’d a great deal of reluctance,
Stared at the weeping girl, and peevishly spoke then as follows: —
“This, then, is all the indulgence my friends are willing to give me,
That at the close of the day the most unpleasant thing happens!
For there is nothing I hate so much as the tears of a woman,
And their passionate cries, set up with such heat and excitement,
Which a little plain sense would show to be utterly needless.
Truly, I find the sight of these whimsical doings a nuisance.
Matters must shift for themselves; as for me, I think it is bed-time.”
So he quickly turn’d round, and hasten’d to go to the chamber
Where the marriage-bed stood, in which he slept for the most part.
But his son held him back, and spoke in words of entreaty: —
“Father, don’t go in a hurry, and be not annoy’d with the maiden!
I alone have to bear the blame of all this confusion,
Which our friend has increas’d by his unexpected dissembling.
Speak then, honor’d sir! for to you the affair I confided;
Heap not up pain and annoyance, but rather complete the whole matter;
For I surely in future should not respect you so highly,
If you play practical jokes, instead of displaying true wisdom.”
Thereupon the worthy pastor smilingly answer’d: —
“What kind of wisdom could have extracted the charming confession
Of this good maiden, and so have reveal’d all her character to us?
Is not your care converted at once to pleasure and rapture?
Speak out, then, for yourself! Why need explanations from others?”
Hermann then stepp’d forward, and gently address’d her as follows: —
“Do not repent of your tears, nor yet of your passing affliction;
For they perfect my happiness; yours too, I fain would consider.
I came not to the fountain, to hire so noble a maiden
As a servant, I came to seek to win your affections.
But, alas! my timid gaze had not strength to discover
Your heart’s leanings; it saw in your eye but a friendly expression,
When you greeted it out of the tranquil fountain’s bright mirror.
Merely to bring you home, made half of my happiness certain;
But you now make it complete! May every blessing be yours, then!”
Then the maiden look’d on the youth with heartfelt emotion,
And avoided not kiss or embrace, the summit of rapture,
When they also are to the loving, the long wish’d-for pledges
Of approaching bliss in a life which now seems to them endless.
Then the pastor told the others the whole of the story;
But the maiden came, and gracefully bent o’er the father,
Kissing the while his hand, which he to draw back attempted.
And she said: — ”I am sure that you will forgive the surpris’d one,
First for her tears of sorrow, and then for her tears of true rapture.
Oh, forgive the emotions by which they both have been prompted,
And let me fully enjoy the bliss that has now been vouchsaf’d me!
Let the first vexation, which my confusion gave rise to,
Also be the last! The loving service which lately
Was by the servant promis’d, shall now by the daughter be render’d.”
And the father, his tears concealing, straightway embrac’d her;
Lovingly came the mother in turn, and heartily kiss’d her,
Warmly shaking her hand; and silently wept they together.
Then in a hasty manner, the good and sensible pastor
Seiz’d the hand of the father, his wedding-ring off from his finger
Drawing (not easily though; so plump was the member that held it);
Then he took the mother’s ring, and betroth’d the two children,
Saying: — ”Once more may it be these golden hoops’ destination
Firmly to fasten a bond altogether resembling the old one!
For this youth is deeply imbu’d with love for the maiden,
And the maiden confesses that she for the youth has a liking.
Therefore, I now betroth you, and wish you all blessings hereafter,
With the parents’ consent, and with our friend here as a witness.”
And the neighbor bent forward, and added his own benediction;
But when the clergyman plac’d the gold ring on the hand of the maiden,
He with astonishment saw the one which already was on it,
And which Hermann before at the fountain had anxiously notic’d.
Whereupon he spoke in words at once friendly and jesting: —
“What! You are twice engaging yourself? I hope that the first one
May not appear at the altar, unkindly forbidding the banns there!”
But she said in reply: — ”Oh, let me devote but one moment
To this mournful rememb’rance! For well did the good youth deserve it,
Who, when departing, presented the ring, but never return’d home.
All was by him foreseen, when freedom’s love of a sudden,
And a desire to play his part in the new-found existence,
Drove him to go to Paris, where prison and death were his portion.
‘Farewell,’ said he, ‘I go; for all things on earth are in motion
At this moment, and all things appear in a state of disunion.
Fundamental laws in the steadiest countries are loosen’d,
And possessions are parted from those who used to possess them,
Friends are parted from friends, and love is parted from love too.
I now leave you here, and whether I ever shall see you
Here again, — who can tell? Perchance these words will our last be.
Man is a stranger here upon earth, the proverb informs us;
Every person has now become more a stranger than ever.
Ours the soil is no longer; our treasures are fast flying from us;
All the sacred old vessels of gold and silver are melted,
All is moving, as though the old-fashion’d world would roll backwards
Into chaos and night, in order anew to be fashion’d.
You of my heart have possession, and if we shall ever hereafter
Meet again over the wreck of the world, it will be as new creatures,
All remodell’d and free and independent of fortune;
For what fetters can bind down those who survive such a period!
But if we are destin’d not to escape from these dangers,
If we are never again to embrace each other with rapture,
Oh, then fondly keep in your thoughts my hovering image,
That you may be prepar’d with like courage for good and ill fortune!
If a new home or a new alliance should chance to allure you,
Then enjoy with thanks whatever your destiny offers,
Purely loving the loving, and grateful to him who thus loves you.
But remember always to tread with a circumspect footstep,
For the fresh pangs of a second loss will behind you be lurking.
Deem each day as sacred; but value not life any higher
Than any other possession, for all possessions are fleeting.’
Thus he spoke; and the noble youth and I parted forever:
Meanwhile I ev’rything lost, and a thousand times thought of his warning;
Once more I think of his words, now that love is sweetly preparing
Happiness for me anew, and the brightest of hopes is unfolding.
Pardon me, dearest friend, for trembling e’en at the moment
When I am clasping your arm! For thus, on first landing, the sailor
Fancies that even the solid ground is shaking beneath him.”
Thus she spoke, and she plac’d the rings by the side of each other.
But the bridegroom answer’d, with noble and manly emotion: —
“All the firmer, amidst the universal disruption,
Be, Dorothea, our union! We’ll show ourselves bold and enduring,
Firmly hold our own, and firmly retain our possessions.
For the man who in wav’ring times is inclin’d to be wav’ring
Only increases the evil, and spreads it wider and wider;
But the man of firm decision the universe fashions.
’Tis not becoming the Germans to further this fearful commotion,
And in addition to waver uncertainly hither and thither.
‘This is our own!’ we ought to say, and so to maintain it!
For the world will ever applaud those resolute nations
Who for God and the Law, their wives, and parents, and children
Struggle, and fall when contending against the foeman together.
You are mine; and now what is mine, is mine more than ever.
Not with anxiety will I preserve it, or timidly use it,
But with courage and strength. And if the enemy threaten,
Now or hereafter, I’ll hold myself ready, and reach down my weapons.
If I know that the house and my parents by you are protected,
I shall expose my breast to the enemy, void of all terror;
And if all others thought thus, then might against might should be measur’d,
And in the early prospect of peace we should all be rejoicing.”

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

DEDICATION.

Songs

SOUND, SWEET SONG.

TO THE KIND READER.

THE NEW AMADIS

WHEN THE FOX DIES, HIS SKIN COUNTS.

THE HEATHROSE.

BLINDMAN’S BUFF.

CHRISTEL.

THE COY ONE.

THE CONVERT.

PRESERVATION.

THE MUSES’ SON.

FOUND.

LIKE AND LIKE.

RECIPROCAL INVITATION TO THE DANCE.

SELF-DECEIT.

DECLARATION OF WAR.

LOVER IN ALL SHAPES.

THE GOLDSMITH’S APPRENTICE.

JOY AND SORROW.

MARCH.

ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS.

DIFFERENT EMOTIONS ON THE SAME SPOT.

WHO’LL BUY GODS OF LOVE?

THE MISANTHROPE.

TRUE ENJOYMENT.

HAPPINESS AND VISION.

THE FAREWELL.

THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.

APPARENT DEATH.

PROXIMITY.

LIVING REMEMBRANCE.

THE BLISS OF ABSENCE.

TO LUNA.

THE WEDDING NIGHT.

MISCHIEVOUS JOY.

FAREWELL.

THE EXCHANGE.

NOVEMBER SONG.

TO THE CHOSEN ONE.

FIRST LOSS.

AFTER-SENSATIONS.

PROXIMITY OF THE BELOVED ONE.

PRESENCE.

TO THE DISTANT ONE.

BY THE RIVER.

NIGHT SONG.

CALM AT SEA.

THE PROSPEROUS VOYAGE.

COURAGE.

ADMONITION.

WELCOME AND FAREWELL.

NEW LOVE, NEW LIFE.

TO BELINDA.

MAY SONG.

WITH A PAINTED RIBBON.

WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

TO CHARLOTTE.

ON THE LAKE.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN.

Flower Salute.

MAY SONG.

PREMATURE SPRING.

Autumn Feelings

RESTLESS LOVE.

THE SHEPHERD’S LAMENT.

COMFORT IN TEARS.

LONGING.

TO MIGNON.

THE MOUNTAIN CASTLE

THE SPIRIT’S SALUTE.

TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK.

THE BLISS OF SORROW.

THE WANDERER’S NIGHT-SONG.

THE SAME.

TO THE MOON.

THE HUNTER’S EVEN-SONG.

MY ONLY PROPERTY.

TO LINA.

Familiar Songs

ON THE NEW YEAR.

ANNIVERSARY SONG.

THE SPRING ORACLE.

THE HAPPY COUPLE.

SONG OF FELLOWSHIP.

CONSTANCY IN CHANGE.

TABLE SONG.

WONT AND DONE.

GENERAL CONFESSION.

COPTIC SONG.

ANOTHER.

VANITAS! VANITATUM VANITAS!

SWISS SONG.

FORTUNE OF WAR.

OPEN TABLE.

THE RECKONING.

ERGO BIBAMUS!

EPIPHANIAS.

FINNISH SONG.

GYPSY SONG.

Poems from Wilhelm Meister.

MIGNON.

THE SAME.

THE HARPER.

PHILINE.

Ballads

MIGNON.

THE HARPER.

BALLAD

Of the Banished and Returning Count.

THE VIOLET.

THE FAITHLESS BOY.

THE ERL-KING.

JOHANNA SEBUS

THE FISHERMAN.

THE KING OF THULE.

THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER.

Song of the Imprisoned Count.

SIR CURT’S WEDDING-JOURNEY.

WEDDING SONG.

THE TREASURE-DIGGER.

THE RAT-CATCHER.

THE SPINNER.

BEFORE A COURT OF JUSTICE.

THE PAGE AND THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER.

THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM.

THE MAID OF THE MILL’S TREACHERY.

THE MAID OF THE MILL’S REPENTANCE.

THE TRAVELLER AND THE FARM-MAIDEN.

EFFECTS AT A DISTANCE.

THE WALKING BELL.

FAITHFUL ECKART.

THE PUPIL IN MAGIC.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

THE BRIDE OF CORINTH.

THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE.

An Indian Legend.

THE PARIAH.

The Pariah’s Prayer.

LEGEND.

THE PARIAH’S THANKS.

THE FIRST WALPURGIS-NIGHT.

DEATH-LAMENT OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA.

Antiques

LEOPOLD, DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.

TO THE HUSBANDMAN.

ANACREON’S GRAVE.

THE BRETHREN.

MEASURE OF TIME.

WARNING.

SAKÓNTALA.

SOLITUDE.

THE CHOSEN CLIFF.

THE CONSECRATED SPOT.

THE INSTRUCTORS.

THE UNEQUAL MARRIAGE.

EXCUSE.

THE MUSE’S MIRROR.

PHŒBUS AND HERMES.

THE NEW AMOR.

THE GARLANDS.

THE SWISS ALPS.

Elegies

ROMAN ELEGIES.

ALEXIS AND DORA.

Epigrams

Venice, 1790.

The Four Seasons.

SPRING.

SUMMER.

AUTUMN.

WINTER.

Sonnets.

THE FRIENDLY MEETING.

IN A WORD.

THE MAIDEN SPEAKS.

GROWTH.

FOOD IN TRAVEL.

DEPARTURE.

THE LOVING ONE WRITES.

THE LOVING ONE ONCE MORE.

SHE CANNOT END.

NEMESIS.

THE CHRISTMAS-BOX.

THE WARNING.

THE DOUBTERS AND THE LOVERS.

THE EPOCHS.

CHARADE.

Miscellaneous Poems.

THE GERMAN PARNASSUS.

MAHOMET’S SONG.

SPIRIT SONG OVER THE WATERS.

MY GODDESS.

WINTER JOURNEY OVER THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS.

TO FATHER KRONOS.

THE WANDERER’S STORM-SONG.

THE SEA-VOYAGE.

PROMETHEUS.

THE EAGLE AND DOVE.

GANYMEDE.

THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY.

THE GODLIKE.

ROYAL PRAYER.

HUMAN FEELINGS.

LILY’S MENAGERIE.

LOVE’S DISTRESSES.

TO HIS COY ONE.

PETITION.

THE MUSAGETES.

MORNING LAMENT.

THE VISIT.

THE MAGIC NET.

The Goblet.

NIGHT THOUGHTS.

TO LIDA.

FOREVER.

FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604.

TO THE RISING FULL MOON.

BETROTHED.

AT MIDNIGHT HOUR.

LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL.

Trilogy of Passion.

TO WERTHER.

ELEGY.

ATONEMENT.

APRIL.

MAY.

JUNE.

EVER AND EVERYWHERE.

NEXT YEAR’S SPRING.

SUCH, SUCH IS HE WHO PLEASETH ME.

ST. NEPOMUK’S EVE.

Carlsbad, May 15, 1820.

THE FREEBOOTER.

RECIPROCAL.

SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS.

EXPLANATION OF AN ANCIENT WOODCUT REPRESENTING HANS SACHS’ POETICAL MISSION.

THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL.

Art

THE DROPS OF NECTAR.

THE WANDERER.

LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE-PAINTER.

ARTIST’S EVENING SONG.

Parables

EXPLANATION OF AN ANTIQUE GEM.

CAT-PIE.

LEGEND.

THE CRITIC.

AUTHORS.

THE DILETTANTE AND THE CRITIC.

CELEBRITY.

THE YELPERS.

THE WRANGLER.

JOY.

PLAYING AT PRIESTS.

SONGS.

POETRY.

A PARABLE.

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

THE DEATH OF THE FLY.

BY THE RIVER.

THE FOX AND CRANE.

THE FOX AND HUNTSMAN.

THE STORK’S VOCATION.

THE FROGS.

THE WEDDING.

BURIAL.

THREATENING SIGNS.

THE BUYERS.

THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE.

SYMBOLS.

THREE PALINODIAS.

VALEDICTION.

THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER.

THE LEGEND OF THE HORSESHOE.

Epigrams II.

TO ORIGINALS.

THE SOLDIER’S CONSOLATION.

GENIAL IMPULSE.

NEITHER THIS NOR THAT.

THE WAY TO BEHAVE.

THE BEST.

AS BROAD AS IT’S LONG.

CALM AT SEA.

THE RULE OF LIFE.

THE SAME, EXPANDED.

THE FAIR AT HUEHENEFELD.

July 25th, 1814.

THE LITTLE GIRL’S WISH.

EPITAPH.

ADMONITION.

MY ONLY PROPERTY.

OLD AGE.

COURAGE.

RULE FOR MONARCHS.

MEMORIES.

PAULO POST FUTURI.

THE FOOL’S EPILOGUE.

ON THE DIVAN.

God and World.

PROOEMION.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS.

THE SAGES AND THE PEOPLE.

Rhymed Distichs.

GOD, SOUL AND WORLD.

DISTICHS.

West-Eastern Divan.

Moganni Nameh.

BOOK OF THE MINSTREL.

HEGIRA.

DISCORD.

TALISMANS.

THE FOUR FAVORS.

SONG AND STRUCTURE.

CREATION AND VIVIFICATION.

Hafis Nameh.

BOOK OF HAFIS.

THE NEW NAME.

THE GERMAN RETURNS THANKS.

THE UNLIMITED.

TO HAFIS.

FETWA.

Uschk Nameh.

BOOK OF LOVE.

THE TYPES.

ONE PAIR MORE.

MYSTERY.

IT WAS SHE.

MOST MYSTERIOUS.

Teskir Nameh.

BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION.

FIVE THINGS.

TO SHAH SHEDSHAA AND HIS LIKE.

HIGHEST FAVOR.

FIRDUSI SPEAKS.

DSHELAL-ED-DIN RUMI SPEAKS.

SULEIKA SPEAKS.

Rendsch Nameh.

BOOK OF GLOOM.

Hikmet Nameh.

BOOK OF PROVERBS.

Timur Nameh.

BOOK OF TIMUR.

THE WINTER AND TIMUR.

TO SULEIKA.

Suleika Nameh.

BOOK OF SULEIKA.

HATEM.

SULEIKA.

HATEM.

HATEM.

THE LOVING ONE SPEAKS.

THE LOVING ONE AGAIN.

SULEIKA.

THE SUBLIME TYPE.

SULEIKA.

THE REUNION.

SULEIKA.

Safi Nameh.

THE CONVIVIAL BOOK.

THE INN.

THE INN.

Mathal Nameh.

BOOK OF PARABLES.

IT IS GOOD.

Parsi Nameh.

BOOK OF THE PARSEES.

THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.

Chuld Nameh.

BOOK OF PARADISE.

THE PRIVILEGED MEN.

THE FAVORED BEASTS.

THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

Hermann and Dorothea

Kalliope

FATE AND SYMPATHY.

Terpsichore.

HERMANN.

Thalia.

THE BURGHERS.

Euterpe.

MOTHER AND SON.

Polyhymnia.

THE COSMOPOLITE.

Klio

THE AGE.

Erato.

DOROTHEA.

Melpomene.

HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.

Urania.

CONCLUSION.

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

A-D   E-H   I-L   M-O   P-S   T-V   W-Z

A PARABLE.

ADMONITION.

ADMONITION.

AFTER-SENSATIONS.

ALEXIS AND DORA.

AN INDIAN LEGEND.

ANACREON’S GRAVE.

ANNIVERSARY SONG.

ANOTHER.

ANSWERS IN A GAME OF QUESTIONS.

APPARENT DEATH.

APRIL.

ARTIST’S EVENING SONG.

AS BROAD AS IT’S LONG.

AT MIDNIGHT HOUR.

ATONEMENT.

AUTHORS.

AUTUMN FEELINGS

AUTUMN.

BALLAD

BEFORE A COURT OF JUSTICE.

BETROTHED.

BLINDMAN’S BUFF.

BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION.

BOOK OF GLOOM.

BOOK OF HAFIS.

BOOK OF LOVE.

BOOK OF PARABLES.

BOOK OF PARADISE.

BOOK OF PROVERBS.

BOOK OF SULEIKA.

BOOK OF THE MINSTREL.

BOOK OF THE PARSEES.

BOOK OF TIMUR.

BURIAL.

BY THE RIVER.

BY THE RIVER.

CALM AT SEA.

CALM AT SEA.

CARLSBAD, MAY 15, 1820.

CAT-PIE.

CELEBRITY.

CHARADE.

CHRISTEL.

CHULD NAMEH.

COMFORT IN TEARS.

CONCLUSION.

CONSTANCY IN CHANGE.

COPTIC SONG.

COURAGE.

COURAGE.

CREATION AND VIVIFICATION.

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

DEATH-LAMENT OF THE NOBLE WIFE OF ASAN AGA.

DECLARATION OF WAR.

DEPARTURE.

DIFFERENT EMOTIONS ON THE SAME SPOT.

DISCORD.

DISTICHS.

DOROTHEA.

DSHELAL-ED-DIN RUMI SPEAKS.

EFFECTS AT A DISTANCE.

ELEGY.

EPIPHANIAS.

EPITAPH.

ERATO.

ERGO BIBAMUS!

EUTERPE.

EVER AND EVERYWHERE.

EXCUSE.

EXPLANATION OF AN ANCIENT WOODCUT REPRESENTING HANS SACHS’ POETICAL MISSION.

EXPLANATION OF AN ANTIQUE GEM.

FAITHFUL ECKART.

FAREWELL.

FATE AND SYMPATHY.

FETWA.

FINNISH SONG.

FIRDUSI SPEAKS.

FIRST LOSS.

FIVE THINGS.

FLOWER SALUTE.

FOOD IN TRAVEL.

FOREVER.

FORTUNE OF WAR.

FOUND.

FROM AN ALBUM OF 1604.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN.

GANYMEDE.

GENERAL CONFESSION.

GENIAL IMPULSE.

GOD, SOUL AND WORLD.

GROWTH.

GYPSY SONG.

HAFIS NAMEH.

HAPPINESS AND VISION.

HATEM.

HATEM.

HATEM.

HEGIRA.

HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.

HERMANN.

HIGHEST FAVOR.

HIKMET NAMEH.

HUMAN FEELINGS.

IN A WORD.

IT IS GOOD.

IT WAS SHE.

JOHANNA SEBUS

JOY AND SORROW.

JOY.

JULY 25TH, 1814.

JUNE.

KALLIOPE

KLIO

LEGEND.

LEGEND.

LEOPOLD, DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.

LIKE AND LIKE.

LILY’S MENAGERIE.

LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL.

LIVING REMEMBRANCE.

LONGING.

LOVE AS A LANDSCAPE-PAINTER.

LOVE’S DISTRESSES.

LOVER IN ALL SHAPES.

MAHOMET’S SONG.

MARCH.

MATHAL NAMEH.

MAY SONG.

MAY SONG.

MAY.

MEASURE OF TIME.

MELPOMENE.

MEMORIES.

MIGNON.

MIGNON.

MISCHIEVOUS JOY.

MOGANNI NAMEH.

MORNING LAMENT.

MOST MYSTERIOUS.

MOTHER AND SON.

MY GODDESS.

MY ONLY PROPERTY.

MY ONLY PROPERTY.

MYSTERY.

NEITHER THIS NOR THAT.

NEMESIS.

NEW LOVE, NEW LIFE.

NEXT YEAR’S SPRING.

NIGHT SONG.

NIGHT THOUGHTS.

NOVEMBER SONG.

OF THE BANISHED AND RETURNING COUNT.

OLD AGE.

ON THE DIVAN.

ON THE LAKE.

ON THE NEW YEAR.

ONE PAIR MORE.

OPEN TABLE.

PARSI NAMEH.

PAULO POST FUTURI.

PETITION.

PHILINE.

PHŒBUS AND HERMES.

PLAYING AT PRIESTS.

POETRY.

POLYHYMNIA.

PREMATURE SPRING.

PRESENCE.

PRESERVATION.

PROMETHEUS.

PROOEMION.

PROXIMITY OF THE BELOVED ONE.

PROXIMITY.

RECIPROCAL INVITATION TO THE DANCE.

RECIPROCAL.

RENDSCH NAMEH.

RESTLESS LOVE.

ROMAN ELEGIES.

ROYAL PRAYER.

RULE FOR MONARCHS.

SAFI NAMEH.

SAKÓNTALA.

SELF-DECEIT.

SHE CANNOT END.

SIR CURT’S WEDDING-JOURNEY.

SOLITUDE.

SONG AND STRUCTURE.

SONG OF FELLOWSHIP.

SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS.

SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT.

SONGS.

SOUND, SWEET SONG.

SPIRIT SONG OVER THE WATERS.

SPRING.

ST. NEPOMUK’S EVE.

SUCH, SUCH IS HE WHO PLEASETH ME.

SULEIKA NAMEH.

SULEIKA SPEAKS.

SULEIKA.

SULEIKA.

SULEIKA.

SULEIKA.

SUMMER.

SWISS SONG.

SYMBOLS.

TABLE SONG.

TALISMANS.

TERPSICHORE.

TESKIR NAMEH.

THALIA.

THE AGE.

THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER.

THE BEAUTIFUL NIGHT.

THE BEQUEST OF THE ANCIENT PERSIAN FAITH.

THE BEST.

THE BLISS OF ABSENCE.

THE BLISS OF SORROW.

THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY.

THE BRETHREN.

THE BRIDE OF CORINTH.

THE BURGHERS.

THE BUYERS.

THE CHOSEN CLIFF.

THE CHRISTMAS-BOX.

THE CONSECRATED SPOT.

THE CONVERT.

THE CONVIVIAL BOOK.

THE COSMOPOLITE.

THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER.

THE COY ONE.

THE CRITIC.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

THE DEATH OF THE FLY.

THE DILETTANTE AND THE CRITIC.

THE DOUBTERS AND THE LOVERS.

THE DROPS OF NECTAR.

THE EAGLE AND DOVE.

THE EPOCHS.

THE ERL-KING.

THE EXCHANGE.

THE FAIR AT HUEHENEFELD.

THE FAITHLESS BOY.

THE FAREWELL.

THE FAVORED BEASTS.

THE FIRST WALPURGIS-NIGHT.

THE FISHERMAN.

THE FOOL’S EPILOGUE.

THE FOUR FAVORS.

THE FOX AND CRANE.

THE FOX AND HUNTSMAN.

THE FREEBOOTER.

THE FRIENDLY MEETING.

THE FROGS.

THE GARLANDS.

THE GERMAN PARNASSUS.

THE GERMAN RETURNS THANKS.

THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE.

THE GODLIKE.

THE GOLDSMITH’S APPRENTICE.

THE HAPPY COUPLE.

THE HARPER.

THE HARPER.

THE HEATHROSE.

THE HUNTER’S EVEN-SONG.

THE INN.

THE INN.

THE INSTRUCTORS.

THE KING OF THULE.

THE LEGEND OF THE HORSESHOE.

THE LITTLE GIRL’S WISH.

THE LOVING ONE AGAIN.

THE LOVING ONE ONCE MORE.

THE LOVING ONE SPEAKS.

THE LOVING ONE WRITES.

THE MAGIC NET.

THE MAID OF THE MILL’S REPENTANCE.

THE MAID OF THE MILL’S TREACHERY.

THE MAIDEN SPEAKS.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS.

THE MISANTHROPE.

THE MOUNTAIN CASTLE

THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE.

THE MUSAGETES.

THE MUSE’S MIRROR.

THE MUSES’ SON.

THE NEW AMADIS

THE NEW AMOR.

THE NEW NAME.

THE PAGE AND THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER.

THE PARIAH.

THE PARIAH’S PRAYER.

THE PARIAH’S THANKS.

THE PRIVILEGED MEN.

THE PROSPEROUS VOYAGE.

THE PUPIL IN MAGIC.

THE RAT-CATCHER.

THE RECKONING.

THE REUNION.

THE RULE OF LIFE.

THE SAGES AND THE PEOPLE.

THE SAME, EXPANDED.

THE SAME.

THE SAME.

THE SEA-VOYAGE.

THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.

THE SHEPHERD’S LAMENT.

THE SOLDIER’S CONSOLATION.

THE SPINNER.

THE SPIRIT’S SALUTE.

THE SPRING ORACLE.

THE STORK’S VOCATION.

THE SUBLIME TYPE.

THE SWISS ALPS.

THE TRAVELLER AND THE FARM-MAIDEN.

THE TREASURE-DIGGER.

THE TYPES.

THE UNEQUAL MARRIAGE.

THE UNLIMITED.

THE VIOLET.

THE VISIT.

THE WALKING BELL.

THE WANDERER.

THE WANDERER’S NIGHT-SONG.

THE WANDERER’S STORM-SONG.

THE WARNING.

THE WAY TO BEHAVE.

THE WEDDING NIGHT.

THE WEDDING.

THE WINTER AND TIMUR.

THE WRANGLER.

THE YELPERS.

THE YOUTH AND THE MILLSTREAM.

THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST’S DESCENT INTO HELL.

THREATENING SIGNS.

THREE PALINODIAS.

TIMUR NAMEH.

TO A GOLDEN HEART THAT HE WORE ROUND HIS NECK.

TO BELINDA.

TO CHARLOTTE.

TO FATHER KRONOS.

TO HAFIS.

TO HIS COY ONE.

TO LIDA.

TO LINA.

TO LUNA.

TO MIGNON.

TO ORIGINALS.

TO SHAH SHEDSHAA AND HIS LIKE.

TO SULEIKA.

TO THE CHOSEN ONE.

TO THE DISTANT ONE.

TO THE HUSBANDMAN.

TO THE KIND READER.

TO THE MOON.

TO THE RISING FULL MOON.

TO WERTHER.

TRUE ENJOYMENT.

URANIA.

USCHK NAMEH.

VALEDICTION.

VANITAS! VANITATUM VANITAS!

VENICE, 1790.

WARNING.

WEDDING SONG.

WELCOME AND FAREWELL.

WHEN THE FOX DIES, HIS SKIN COUNTS.

WHO’LL BUY GODS OF LOVE?

WINTER JOURNEY OVER THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS.

WINTER.

WITH A GOLDEN NECKLACE.

WITH A PAINTED RIBBON.

WONT AND DONE.

The Non-Fiction

Christiane Vulpius, Goethe’s mistress and eventual wife; her ardent actions to protect Goethe when Napoleon’s soldiers stormed their house convinced Goethe to marry her after 18 years of living together.

THEORY OF COLOURS

Translated by Charles Lock Eastlake

This monumental non-fiction work concerns Goethe’s views on the nature of colours and how these are perceived. First published in 1810, the book contains some of the earliest printed descriptions of phenomena such as coloured shadows, refraction and chromatic aberration.  Goethe was a keen artist, which in turn inspired him to explore the true nature of perceiving colour.  This groundbreaking book went on to influence many artists, including J. M. W. Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites and the abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky.

In Theory of Colours, Goethe gives a general explanation of how colour is perceived in a variety of circumstances, considering Isaac Newton’s observations to be special cases.  Goethe’s concern was not so much with the analytic measurement of colour phenomenon, as with the qualities of how phenomena are perceived. Philosophers have come to understand the distinction between the optical spectrum, as observed by Newton, and the phenomenon of human colour perception as presented by Goethe - a subject analysed at length by Wittgenstein in his exegesis of Goethe in Remarks on Colour.

In later years Goethe was to regard the work in conducted in creating Theory of Colours as even more important than the writing of Faust and his other literary masterpieces.

Goethe’s colour wheel, forming the basis of his theory

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

INTRODUCTION.

PART I. PHYSIOLOGICAL COLOURS.

I. Effects of Light and Darkness On the Eye.

II. Effects of Black and White Objects On the Eye.

III. Grey Surfaces and Objects.

IV. Dazzling Colourless Objects.

V. Coloured Objects.

VI. Coloured Shadows.

VII. Faint Lights.

VIII. Subjective Halos.

PATHOLOGICAL COLOURS: APPENDIX.

PART II. PHYSICAL COLOURS.

IX. Dioptrical Colours.

X. Dioptrical Colours of the First Class.

XI. Dioptrical Colours of the Second Class. — Refraction.

XII. Refraction Without the Appearance of Colour.

XIII. Conditions of the Appearance of Colour.

XIV. Conditions Under Which the Appearance of Colour Increases.

XV. Explanation of the Foregoing Phenomena.

XVI. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour.

XVII. Grey Objects Displaced By Refraction.

XVIII. Coloured Objects Displaced By Refraction.

XIX. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism.

XX. Advantages of Subjective Experiments.-Transition to the Objective.

XXI.Refraction Without the Appearance of Colour.

XXII.Conditions of the Appearance of Colour.

XXIII.Conditions of the Increase of Colour.

XXIV. Explanation of the Foregoing Phenomena.

XXV. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour.

XXVI.Grey Objects.

XXVII. Coloured Objects.

XXVIII. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism.

XXIX. Combination of Surjective and Orjective Experiments.

XXXX. Transition.

XXXI. Catoptrical Colours.

XXXII. Paroptical Colours.

XXXIII. Epoptical Colours.

PART III. CHEMICAL COLOURS.

XXXIV. Chemical Contrast.

XXXV. White.

XXXVI. Black.

XXXVII. First Excitation of Colour.

XXXVIII. Augmentation of Colour.

XXXIX. Culmination.

XL. Fluctuation.

XLI.Passage Through the Whole Scale.

XLII. Inversion.

XLIII. Fixation.

XLIV. Intermixture, Real.

XLV. Intermixture, Apparent.

XLVI. Communication, Actual.

XLVII. Communication, Apparent.

XLVIII. Extraction.

XLIX. Nomenclature.

L. Minerals.

LI. Plants.

LII. Worms, Insects, Fishes.

LIII. Birds.

LIV. Mammalia and Human Beings.

LV. Physical and Chemical Effects of the Transmission of Light Through Coloured Mediums.

LVI. Chemical Effect in Dioptrical Achromatism.

PART IV.  GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Combination of the Two Principles.

Augmentation to Red.

Junction of the Two Augmented Extremes.

Completeness the Result of Variety in Colour.

Harmony of the Complete State.

Facility With Which Colour May Be Made to Tend Either to the Plus or Minus Side.

Evanescence of Colour.

Permanance of Colour.

PART V. RELATION TO OTHER PURSUITS

Relation to Philosophy.

Relation to Mathematics.

Relation to the Technical Operations of the Dyer.

Relation to Physiology and Pathology.

Relation to Natural History.

Relation to General Physics.

Relation to the Theory of Music.

Concluding Observations On Terminology.

PART VI. EFFECT OF COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO MORAL ASSOCIATIONS.

Yellow.

Red-Yellow.

Yellow-Red.

Blue.

Red-Blue.

Blue-Red.

Red.

Green.

Completeness and Harmony.

Characteristic Combinations.

Yellow and Blue.

Yellow and Red.

Blue and Red.

Yellow-Red and Blue-Red.

Combinations Non-Characteristic.

Relation of the Combinations to Light and Dark.

Considerations Derived From the Evidence of Experience and History.

Aesthetic Influence.

Chiaro-Scuro.

Tendency to Colour.

Keeping.

Colouring.

Colour in General Nature.

Colour of Particular Objects.

Characteristic Colouring.

Harmonious Colouring.

Genuine Tone.

False Tone.

Weak Colouring.

The Motley.

Dread of Theory.

Ultimate Aim.

Grounds.

Pigments.

Allegorical, Symbolical, Mystical Application of Colour.

Concluding Observations.

NOTES.

Note A. — Par. 18.

Note B. — Par. 23.

Note C. — Par. 50.

Note D. — Par. 66.

Note E — Par. 69.

Note F. — Par. 88.

Note G. — Par. 98.

Note H. — Par. 113.

Note I. — Par. 135.

Note K. — Par. 140.

Note L. — Par. 150.

Note M. — Par. 177.

Note N. — Par. 246.

Note O. — Par. 252.

Note P. — Par. 284.

Note Q. — Par. 387.

Note R. — Par. 478.

Note S. — Par. 485.

Note T. — Par. 496.

Note U. — Par. 502.

Note V. — Par. 555.

Note W. — Par. 608.

Note X. — Par. 670.

Note Y. — Par. 672.

Note Z. — Par. 690.

Note AA. — Par. 732.

Note BB. — Par. 748.

Note CC. — Par. 758.

Note DD. — Par. 849.

Note EE. — Par. 855.

Note FF. — Par. 859.

Note GG. — Par. 863.

Note HH. — Par. 865.

Note II. — Par. 902.

Note KK. — Par. 903.

Note LL. — Par. 919.

DEDICATION

TO

JEREMIAH HARMAN, ESQ.

Dear Sir,

I dedicate to you the following translation as a testimony of my sincere gratitude and respect; in doing so, I but follow the example of Portius, an Italian writer, who inscribed his translation of Aristotle’s Treatise on Colours to one of the Medici.

I have the honour to be,

Dear Sir

Your most obliged and obedient Servant,

C. L. Eastlake.

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TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

English writers who have spoken of Goethe’s Doctrine of Colours, have generally confined their remarks to those parts of the work in which he has undertaken to account for the colours of the prismatic spectrum, and of refraction altogether, on principles different from the received theory of Newton. The less questionable merits of the treatise consisting of a well-arranged mass of observations and experiments, many of which are important and interesting, have thus been in a great measure overlooked. The translator, aware of the opposition which the theoretical views alluded to have met with, intended at first to make a selection of such of the experiments as seem more directly applicable to the theory and practice of painting. Finding, however, that the alterations this would have involved would have been incompatible with a clear and connected view of the author’s statements, he preferred giving the theory itself entire, reflecting, at the same time, that some scientific readers may be curious to hear the author speak for himself even on the points at issue.

In reviewing the history and progress of his opinions and researches, Goethe tells us that he first submitted his views to the public in two short essays entitled Contributions to Optics. Among the circumstances which he supposes were unfavourable to him on that occasion, he mentions the choice of his title, observing that by a reference to optics he must have appeared to make pretensions to a knowledge of mathematics, a science with which he admits be was very imperfectly acquainted. Another cause to which he attributes the severe treatment he experienced, was his having ventured so openly to question the truth of the established theory: but this last provocation could not be owing to mere inadvertence on his part; indeed the larger work, in which he alludes to these circumstances, is still more remarkable for the violence of his objections to the Newtonian doctrine.

There can be no doubt, however, that much of the opposition Goethe met with was to be attributed to the manner as well as to the substance of his statements. Had he contented himself with merely detailing his experiments and showing their application to the laws of chromatic harmony, leaving it to others to reconcile them as they could with the pre-established system, or even to doubt in consequence, the truth of some of the Newtonian conclusions, he would have enjoyed the credit he deserved for the accuracy and the utility of his investigations. As it was, the uncompromising expression of his convictions only exposed him to the resentment or silent neglect of a great portion of the scientific world, so that for a time he could not even obtain a fair hearing for the less objectionable or rather highly valuable communications contained in his book. A specimen of this manner of alluding to the Newtonian theory will be seen in the preface.

It was quite natural that this spirit should call forth a somewhat vindictive feeling, and with it not a little uncandid as well as unsparing criticism. The Doctrine of Colours met with this reception in Germany long before it was noticed in England, where a milder and. fairer treatment could hardly be expected, especially at a time when, owing perhaps to the limited intercourse with the continent, German literature was far less popular than it is at present. This last fact, it is true, can be of little importance in the present instance, for although the change of opinion with regard to the genius of an enlightened nation must be acknowledged to be beneficial, it is to be hoped there is no fashion in science, and the translator begs to state once for all, that in advocating the neglected merits of the Doctrine, of Colours, he is far from undertaking to defend its imputed errors. Sufficient time has, however, now elapsed since the publication of this work (in 1810) to allow a calmer and more candid examination of its claims. In this more pleasing task Germany has again for some time led the way, and many scientific investigators have followed up the hints and observations of Goethe with a due acknowledgment of the acuteness of his views.

It may require more magnanimity in English scientific readers to do justice to the merits of one who was so open and, in many respects, it is believed, so mistaken an opponent of Newton; but it must be admitted that the statements of Goethe contain more useful principles in all that relates to harmony of colour than any that have been derived from the established doctrine. It is no derogation of the more important truths of the Newtonian theory to say, that the views it contains seldom appear in a form calculated for direct application to the arts. The principle of contrast, so universally exhibited in nature, so apparent in the action and re-action of the eye itself, is scarcely hinted at. The equal pretensions of seven colours, as such, and the fanciful analogies which their assumed proportions could suggest, have rarely found favour with the votaries of taste,-indeed they have long been abandoned even by scientific authorities. And here the translator stops: he is quite aware that the defects which make the Newtonian theory so little available for esthetic application, are far from invalidating its more important conclusions in the opinion of most scientific men. In carefully abstaining therefore from any comparison between the two theories in these latter respects, he may still be permitted to advocate the clearness and fulness of Goethe’s experiments. The German philosopher reduces the colours to their origin and simplest elements; he sees and constantly bears in mind, and sometimes ably elucidates, the phenomena of contrast and gradation, two principles which may be said to make up the artist’s world, and to constitute the chief elements of beauty. These hints occur mostly in what may be called the scientific part of the work.. On the other hand, in the portion expressly devoted to the esthetic application of the doctrine, the author seems to have made but an inadequate use of his own principles.

In that part of the chapter on chemical colours which relates to the colours of plants and animals, the same genius and originality which are displayed in the Essays on Morphology, and which have secured to Goethe undisputed rank among the investigators of nature, are frequently apparent.

But one of the most interesting features of Goethe’s theory, although it cannot be a recommendation in a scientific point of view, is, that it contains, undoubtedly with very great improvements, the general doctrine of the ancients and of the Italians at the revival of letters. The translator has endeavoured, in some notes, to point out the connexion between this theory and the practice of the Italian painters.

The Doctrine of Colours, as first published in 1810, consists of two volumes in 8vo., and sixteen plates, with descriptions, in 4to. It is divided into three parts, a didactic, a controversial, and an historical part; the present translation is confined to the first of these, with such extracts from the other two as seemed necessary, in fairness to the author, to explain some of his statements. The polemical and historical parts are frequently alluded to in the preface and elsewhere in the present work, but it has not been thought advisable to omit these allusions. No alterations whatever seem to have been made by Goethe in the didactic portion in later editions, but he subsequently wrote an additional chapter on entoptic colours, expressing his wish that it might be inserted in the theory itself at a particular place which he points out. The form of this additional essay is, however, very different from that of the rest of the work, and the translator has therefore merely given some extracts from it in the appendix. The polemical portion has been more than once omitted in later editions.

In the two first parts the author’s statements are arranged numerically, in the style of Bacon’s Natural History. This, we are told, was for the convenience of reference; but many passages are thus separately numbered which hardly seem to have required it. The same arrangement is, however, strictly followed in the translation to facilitate a comparison with the original where it may be desired; and here the translator observes, that although he has sometimes permitted himself to make slight alterations, in order to avoid unnecessary repetition, or to make the author’s meaning clearer, he feels that an apology may rather be expected from him for having omitted so little. He was scrupulous on this point, having once determined to translate the whole treatise, partly, as before stated, from a wish to deal fairly with a controversial writer, and partly because many passages, not directly bearing on the scientific views, are still characteristic of Goethe. The observations which the translator has ventured to add are inserted in the appendix: these observations are chiefly confined to such of the author’s opinions and conclusions as have direct reference to the arts; they seldom interfere with the scientific propositions, even where these have been considered most vulnerable.

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

It may naturally be asked whether, in proposing to treat of colours, light itself should not first engage our attention: to this we briefly and frankly answer that since so much has already been said on the subject of light, it can hardly be desirable to multiply repetitions by again going over the same ground.

Indeed, strictly speaking, it is useless to attempt to express the nature of a thing abstractedly. Effects we can perceive, and a complete history of those effects would, in fact, sufficiently we should think of both as belonging to nature as a whole, for it is nature as a whole which manifests itself by their means in an especial manner to the sense of sight.

The completeness of nature displays itself to another sense in a similar way. Let the eye be closed, let the sense of hearing be excited, and from the lightest breath to the wildest din, from the simplest sound to the highest harmony, from the most vehement and impassioned cry to the gentlest word of reason, still it is Nature that speaks and manifests her presence, her power, her pervading life and the vastness of her relations; so that a blind man to whom the infinite visible is denied, can still comprehend an infinite vitality by means of another organ.

And thus as we descend the scale of being, Nature speaks to other senses — to known, misunderstood, and unknown senses: so speaks she with herself and to us in a thousand modes. To the attentive observer she is nowhere dead nor silent; she has even a secret agent in inflexible matter, in a metal, the smallest portions of which tell us what is passing in the entire mass. However manifold, complicated, and unintelligible this language may often seem to us, yet its elements remain ever the same. With light poise and counterpoise, Nature oscillates within her prescribed limits, yet thus arise all the varieties and conditions of the phenomena which are presented to us in space and time.

Infinitely various are the means by which we become acquainted with these general movements and tendencies: now as a simple repulsion and attraction, now as an upsparkling and vanishing light, as undulation in the air, as commotion in matter, as oxydation and deoxydation; but always, uniting or separating, the great purpose is found to be to excite and promote existence in some form or other.

The observers of nature finding, however, that this poise and counterpoise are respectively unequal in effect, have endeavoured to represent such a relation in terms. They have everywhere remarked and spoken of a greater and lesser principle, an action and resistance, a doing and suffering, an advancing and retiring, a violent and moderating power; and thus a symbolical language has arisen, which, from its close analogy, may be employed as equivalent to a direct and appropriate terminology.

To apply these designations, this language of Nature to the subject we have undertaken; to enrich and amplify this language by means of the theory of colours and the variety of their phenomena, and thus facilitate the communication of higher theoretical views, was the principal aim of the present treatise.

The work itself is divided into three parts. The first contains the outline of a theory of colours. In this, the innumerable cases which present themselves to the observer are collected under certain leading phenomena, according to an arrangement which will be explained in the Introduction; and here it may be remarked, that although we have adhered throughout to experiment, and throughout considered it as our basis, yet the theoretical views which led to the arrangement alluded to, could not but be stated. It is sometimes unreasonably required by persons who do not even themselves attend to such a condition, that experimental information should be submitted without any connecting theory to the reader or scholar, who is himself to form his conclusions as he may list. Surely the mere inspection of a subject can profit us but little. Every act of seeing leads to consideration, consideration to reflection, reflection to combination, and thus it may be said that in every attentive look on nature we already theorise. But in order to guard against the possible abuse of this abstract view, in order that the practical deductions we look to should be really useful, we should theorise without forgetting that we are so doing, we should theorise with mental self-possession, and, to use a bold word, with irony.

In the second part, we examine the Newtonian theory; a theory which by its ascendancy and consideration has hitherto impeded a free inquiry into the phenomena of colours. We combat that hypothesis, for although it is no longer found available, it still retains a traditional authority in the world. Its real relations to its subject will require to be plainly pointed out; the old errors must be cleared away, if the theory of colours is not still to remain in the rear of so many other better investigated departments of natural science. Since, however, this second part of our work may appear somewhat dry as regards its matter, and perhaps too vehement and excited in its manner, we may here be permitted to introduce a sort of allegory in a lighter style, as a prelude to that graver portion, and as some excuse for the earnestness alluded to.

We compare the Newtonian theory of colours to an old castle, which was at first constructed by its architect with youthful precipitation; it was, however, gradually enlarged and equipped by him according to the exigencies of time and circumstances, and moreover was still further fortified and secured in consequence of feuds and hostile demonstrations.

The same system was pursued by his successors and heirs: their increased wants within, the harassing vigilance of their opponents without, and various accidents compelled them in some places to build near, in others in connexion with the fabric, and thus to extend the original plan.

It became necessary to connect all these incongruous parts and additions by the strangest galleries, halls and passages. All damages, whether inflicted by the hand of the enemy or the power of time, were quickly made good. As occasion required, they deepened the moats, raised the walls, and took care there should be no lack of towers, battlements, and embrasures. This care and these exertions gave rise to a prejudice in favour of the great importance of the fortress, and still upheld that prejudice, although the arts of building and fortification were by this time very much advanced, and people had learnt to construct much better dwellings and defences in other cases. But the old castle was chiefly held in honour because it had never been taken, because it had repulsed so many assaults, had baffled so many hostile operations, and had always preserved its virgin renown. This renown, this influence lasts even now: it occurs to no one that the old castle is become uninhabitable. Its great durations, Its costly construction, are still constantly spoken of. Pilgrims wend their way to it; hasty sketches of it are shown in all schools, and it is thus recommended to the reverence of susceptible youth. Meanwhile, the building itself is already abandoned; its only inmates are a few invalids, who in simple seriousness imagine that they are prepared for war.

Thus there is no question here respecting a tedious siege or a doubtful war; so far from it we find this eighth wonder of the world already nodding to its fall as a deserted piece of antiquity, and begin at once, without further ceremony, to dismantle it from gable and roof downwards; that the sun may at last shine into the old nest of rats and owls, and exhibit to the eye of the wondering traveller that labyrinthine, incongruous style of building, with its scanty make-shift contrivances, the result of accident and emergency, its intentional artifice and clumsy repairs. Such an inspection will, however, only be possible when wall after wall, arch after arch, is demolished, the rubbish being at once cleared away as well as it can be.

To effect this, and to level the site where it is possible to do so, to arrange the materials thus acquired, so that they can be hereafter again employed for a new building, is the arduous duty we have undertaken in this Second Part. Should we succeed, by a cheerful application of all possible ability and dexterity, in razing this Bastille, and in gaining a free space, it is thus by no means intended at once to cover the site again and to encumber it with a new structure; we propose rather to make use of this area for the purpose of passing in review a pleasing and varied series of illustrative figures.

The third part is thus devoted to the historical account of early inquirers and investigators. As we before expressed the opinion that the history of an individual displays his character, so it may here be well affirmed that the history of science is science itself. We cannot clearly be aware of what we possess till we have the means of knowing what others possessed before us. We cannot really and honestly rejoice in the advantages of our own time if we know not how to appreciate the advantages of former periods. But it was impossible to write, or even to prepare the way for a history of the theory of colours while the Newtonian theory existed; for no aristocratic presumption has ever looked down on those who were not of its order, with such intolerable arrogance as that betrayed by the Newtonian school in deciding on all that had been done in earlier times and all that was done around it. With disgust and indignation we find Priestley, in his History of Optics, like many before and after him, dating the success of all researches into the world of colours from the epoch of a decomposed ray of light, or what pretended to be so; looking down with a supercilious air on the ancient and less modern inquirers, who, after all, had proceeded quietly in the right road, and who have transmitted to us observations and thoughts in detail which we can neither arrange better nor conceive more justly.

We have a right to expect from one who proposes to give the history of any science, that he inform us how the phenomena of which it treats were gradually known, and what was imagined, conjectured, assumed, or thought respecting them, To state all this in due connexion is. by no means an easy task; need we say that to write a history at all is always a hazardous affair; with the most honest intention there is always a danger of being dishonest; for in such an undertaking, a writer tacitly announces at the outset that he means to place some things in light, others in shade. The author has, nevertheless, long derived pleasure from the prosecution of his task: but as it is the intention only that presents itself to the mind as a whole, while the execution is generally accomplished portion by portion, he is compelled to admit that instead of a history he furnishes only materials for one. These materials consist in translations, extracts, original and borrowed comments, hints, and notes; a collection, in short, which, if not answering all that is required, has at least the merit of having been made with earnestness and interest. Lastly, such materials, — not altogether untouched it is true, but still not exhausted, — may be more satisfactory to the reflecting reader in the state in which they are, as he can easily combine them according to his own judgment.

This third part, containing the history of the science, does not, however, thus conclude the subject: a fourth supplementary portion is added. This contains a recapitulation or revision; with a view to which, chiefly, the paragraphs are headed numerically. In the execution of a work of this kind some things may be forgotten, some are of necessity omitted, so as not to distract the attention, some can only be arrived at as corollaries, and others may require to be exemplified and verified: on all these accounts, postscripts, additions and corrections are indispensable. This part contains, besides, some detached essays; for example, that on the atmospheric colours; for as these are introduced in the theory itself without any classification, they are here presented to the mind’s eye at one view. Again, if this essay invites the reader to consult Nature herself, another is intended to recommend the artificial aids of science by circumstantially describing the apparatus which will in future be necessary to assist researches into the theory of colours.

In conclusion, it only remains to speak of the plates which are added at the end of the work; and here we confess we are reminded of that incompleteness and imperfection which the present undertaking has, in common with all others of its class; for as a good play can be in fact only half transmitted to writing, a great part of its effect depending on the scene, the personal qualities of the actor, the powers of his voice, the peculiarities of his gestures, and even the spirit and favourable humour of the spectators; so it is, in a still greater degree, with a book which treats of the appearances of nature. To be enjoyed, to be turned to account, Nature herself must be present to the reader, either really, or by the help of a lively imagination. Indeed, the author should in such cases communicate his observations orally, exhibiting the phenomena he describes — as a text, in the first instance, — partly as they appear to us unsought, partly as they may be presented by contrivance to serve in particular illustration. Explanation and description could not then fail to produce a lively impression.

The plates which generally accompany works like the present are thus a most inadequate substitute for all this; a physical phenomenon exhibiting its effects on all sides is not to be arrested in lines nor denoted by a section. No one ever dreams of explaining chemical experiments with figures; yet it is customary in physical researches nearly allied to these, because the object is thus found to be in some degree answered. In many cases, however, such diagrams represent mere notions; they are symbolical resources, hieroglyphic modes of communication, which by degrees assume the place of the phenomena and of Nature herself, and thus rather hinder than promote true knowledge. In the present instance we could not dispense with plates, but we have endeavoured so to construct them that they may be confidently referred to for the explanation of the didactic and polemical portions. Some of these may even be considered as forming part of th apparatus before mentioned.

We now therefore refer the reader to the work itself; first, only repeating a request which many an author has already made in vain, and which the modern German reader, especially, so seldom grants: —

Si quid novisti rectius istis

Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

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INTRODUCTION.

The desire of knowledge is first stimulated in us when remarkable phenomena attract our attention. In order that this attention be continued, it is necessary that we should feel some interest in exercising it, and thus by degrees we become better acquainted with the object of our curiosity. During this process of observation we remark at first only a vast variety which presses indiscriminately on our view; we are forced to separate, to distinguish, and again to combine; by which means at last a certain order arises which admits of being surveyed with more or less satisfaction.

To accomplish this, only in a certain degree, in any department, requires an unremitting and close application; and we find, for this reason, that men prefer substituting a general theoretical view, or some system of explanation, for the facts themselves, instead of taking the trouble to make themselves first acquainted with cases in detail and then constructing a whole.

The attempt to describe and class the phenomena of colours has been only twice made: first by Theophrastus, and in modern times by Boyle. The pretensions of the present essay to the third place will hardly be disputed.

Our historical survey enters into further details. Here we merely observe that in the last century such a classification was not to be thought of, because Newton had based his hypothesis on a phenomenon exhibited in a complicated and secondary state; and to this the other cases that forced themselves on the attention were contrived to be referred, when they could not be passed over in silence; just as an astronomer would do, if from whim he were to place the moon in the centre of our system; he would be compelled to make the earth, sun, and planets revolve round the lesser body, and be forced to disguise and gloss over the error of his first assumption by ingenious calculations and plausible statements.

In our prefatory observations we assumed the reader to be acquainted with what was known respecting light; here we assume the same with regard to the eye. We observed that all nature manifests itself by means of colours to the sense of sight. We now assert, extraordinary as it may in some degree appear, that the eye sees no form, inasmuch as light, shade, and colour together constitute that which to our vision distinguishes object from object, and the parts of an object from each other. From these three, light, shade, and colour, we construct the visible world, and thus, at the same time, make painting possible, an art which has the power of producing on a flat surface a much more perfect visible world than the actual one can be.

The eye may be said to owe its existence to light, which calls forth, as it were, a sense that is akin to itself; the eye, in short, is formed with reference to light, to be fit for the action of light; the light it contains corresponding with the light without.

We are here reminded of a significant adage in constant use with the ancient Ionian school — ”Like is only known by Like;” and again, of the words of an old mystic writer, which may be thus rendered, “If the eye were not sunny, how could we perceive light? If God’s own strength lived not in us, how could we delight in Divine things?” This immediate affinity between light and the eye will be denied by none; to consider them as identical in substance is less easy to comprehend. It will be more intelligible to assert that a dormant light resides in the eye, and that it may be excited by the slightest cause from within or from without. In darkness we can, by an effort of imagination, call up the brightest images; in dreams objects appear to us as in broad daylight; awake, the slightest external action of light is perceptible, and if the organ suffers an actual shock, light and colours spring forth. Here, however, those who are wont to proceed according to a certain method, may perhaps observe that as yet we have not decidedly explained what colour is. This question, like the definition of light and the eye, we would for the present evade, and would appeal to our inquiry itself, where we have circumstantially shown how colour is produced. We have only therefore to repeat that colour is a law of nature in relation with the sense of sight. We must assume, too, that every one has this sense, that every one knows the operation of nature on it, for to a blind man it would be impossible to speak of colours.

That we may not, however, appear too anxious to shun such an explanation, we would re-state what has been said as follows: colour is an elementary phenomenon in nature adapted to the sense of vision; a phenomenon which, like all others, exhibits itself by separation and contrast, by commixture and union, by augmentation and neutralization, by communication and dissolution: under these general terms its nature may be best comprehended.

We do not press this mode of stating the subject on any one. Those who, like ourselves, find it convenient, will readily adopt it; but we have no desire to enter the lists hereafter in its defence. From time immemorial it has been dangerous to treat of colour; so much so, that one of our predecessors ventured on a certain occasion to say, “The ox becomes furious if a red cloth is shown to him; but the philosopher, who speaks of colour only in a general way, begins to rave.”

Nevertheless, if we are to proceed to give some account of our work, to which we have appealed, we must begin by explaining how we have classed the different conditions under which colour is produced. We found three modes in which it appears; three classes of colours, or rather three exhibitions of them all. The distinctions of these classes are easily expressed.

Thus, in the first instance, we considered colours, as far as they may be said to belong to the eye itself, and to depend on an action and re-action of the organ; next, they attracted our attention as perceived in, or by means of, colourless mediums; and lastly, where we could consider them as belonging to particular substances. We have denominated the first, physiological, the second, physical, the third, chemical colours. The first are fleeting and not to be arrested; the next are passing, but still for a while enduring; the last may be made permanent for any length of time.

Having separated these classes and kept them as distinct as possible, with a view to a clear, didactic exposition, we have been enabled at the same time to exhibit them in an unbroken series, to connect the fleeting with the somewhat more enduring, and these again with the permanent hues; and thus, after having carefully attended to a distinct classification in the first instance, to do away with it again when a larger view was desirable.

In a fourth division of our work we have therefore treated generally what was previously detailed under various particular conditions, and have thus, in fact, given a sketch for a future theory of colours. We will here only anticipate our statements so far as to observe, that light and darkness, brightness and obscurity, or if a more general expression is preferred, light and its absence, are necessary to the production of colour. Next to the light, a colour appears which we call yellow; another appears next to the darkness, which we name blue, When these, in their purest state, are so mixed that they are exactly equal, they produce a third colour called green. Each of the two first-named colours can however of itself produce a new tint by being condensed or darkened. They thus acquire a reddish appearance which can be increased to so great a degree that the original blue or yellow is hardly to be recognised in it: but the intensest and purest red, especially in physical cases, is produced when the two extremes of the yellow-red and blue-red are united. This is the actual state of the appearance and generation of colours. But we can also assume an existing red in addition to the definite existing blue and yellow, and we can produce contrariwise, by mixing, what we directly produced by augmentation or deepening. With these three or six colours, which may be conveniently included in a circle, the elementary doctrine of colours is alone concerned. All other modifications, which may be extended to infinity, have reference more to the application, — have reference to the technical operations of the painter and dyer, and the various purposes of artificial life. To point out another general quality, we may observe that colours throughout are to be considered as half-lights, as half-shadows, on which account if they are so mixed as reciprocally to destroy their specific hues, a shadowy tint, a grey, is produced.

In the fifth division of our inquiry we had proposed to point out the relations in which we should wish our doctrine of colours to stand to other pursuits. Important as this part of our work is, it is perhaps on this very account not so successful as we could wish. Yet when we reflect that strictly speaking these relations cannot be described before they exist, we may console ourselves if we have in some degree failed in endeavouring for the first time to define them. For undoubtedly we should first wait to see how those whom we have endeavoured to serve, to whom we have intended to make an agreeable and useful offering, bow such persons, we say, will accept the result of our utmost exertion: whether they will adopt it, whether they will make use of it and follow it up, or whether they will repel, reject, and suffer it to remain unassisted and neglected.

Meanwhile, we venture to express what we believe and hope. From the philosopher we believe we merit thanks for having traced the phenomena of colours to their first sources, to the circumstances under which they simply appear and are, and beyond which no further explanation respecting them is possible. It will, besides, be gratifying to him that we have arranged the appearances described in a form that admits of being easily surveyed, even should he not altogether approve of the arrangement itself.

The medical practitioner, especially him whose study it is to watch over the organ of sight, to preserve it, to assist its defects and to cure its disorders, we reckon to make especially our friend. In the chapter on the physiological colours, in the Appendix relating to those that are more strictly pathological, be will find himself quite in his own province. We are not without hopes of seeing the physiological phenomena, — a hitherto neglected, and, we may add, most important branch of the theory of colours, — completely investigated through the exertions of those individuals who in our own times are treating this department with success.

The investigator of nature should receive us cordially, since we enable him to exhibit the doctrine of colours in the series of other elementary phenomena, and at the same time enable him to make use of a corresponding nomenclature, nay, almost the same words and designations as under the other rubrics. It is true we give him rather more trouble as a teacher, for the chapter of colours is not now to be dismissed as heretofore with a few paragraphs and experiments; nor will the scholar submit to be so scantily entertained as he has hitherto been, without murmuring. On the other hand, an advantage will afterwards arise out of this: for if the Newtonian doctrine was easily learnt, insurmountable difficulties presented themselves in its application. Our theory is perhaps more difficult to comprehend, but once known, all is accomplished, for it carries its application along with it.

The chemist who looks upon colours as indications by which he may detect the more secret properties of material things, has hitherto found much inconvenience in the denomination and description of colours; nay, some have been induced after closer and nicer examination to look upon colour as an uncertain and fallacious critterion in chemical operations. Yet we hope by means of our arrangement and the nomenclature before alluded to, to bring colour again into credit, and to awaken the conviction that a progressive, augmenting, mutable quality, a quality which admits of alteration even to inversion, is not fallacious, but rather calculated to bring to light the most delicate operations of nature.

In looking a little further round us, we are not without fears that we may fail to satisfy another class of scientific men. By an extraordinary combination of circumstances the theory of colours has been drawn into the province and before the tribunal of the mathematician, a tribunal to which it cannot be said to be amenable. This was owing to its affinity with the other laws of vision which the mathematician was legitimately called’, upon to treat. It was owing, again, to another circumstance: a great mathematician had investigated the theory of colours, and having been mistaken in his observations as an experimentalist, he employed the whole force of his talent to give consistency to this mistake. Were both these circumstances considered, all misunderstanding would presently be removed, and the mathematician would willingly cooperate with us, especially in the physical department of the theory.

To the practical man, to the dyer, on the other hand, our labour must be altogether acceptable; for it was precisely those who reflected on the facts resulting from the operations of dyeing who were the least satisfied with the old theory: they were the first who perceived the insufficiency of the Newtonian doctrine, The conclusions of men are very different according to the mode in which they approach a science or branch of knowledge; from which side, through which door they enter. The literally practical man, the manufacturer, whose attention is constantly and forcibly called to the facts which occur under his eye, who experiences benefit or detriment from the application of his convictions, to whom loss of time and money is not indifferent, who is desirous of advancing, who aims at equaling or surpassing what others have accomplished, — such a person feels the unsoundness and erroneousness of a theory much sooner than the man of letters, in whose eyes words consecrated by authority are at last equivalent to solid coin; than the mathematician, whose formula always remains infallible, even although the foundation on which it is constructed may not square with it. Again, to carry on the figure before employed, in entering this theory from the side of painting, from the side of aesthetic colouring generally, we shall be found to have accomplished a most thankworthy office for the artist. In the sixth part we have endeavoured to define the effects of colour as addressed at once to the eye and mind, with a view to making them more available for the purposes of art. Although much in this portion, and indeed throughout, has been suffered to remain as a sketch, it should be remembered that all theory can in strictness only point out leading principles, under the guidance of which, practice may proceed with vigour and be enabled to attain legitimate results.

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PART I. PHYSIOLOGICAL COLOURS.

1

We naturally place these colours first, because they belong altogether, or in a great degree, to the subject — to the eye itself. They are the foundation of the whole doctrine, and open to our view the chromatic harmony on which so much difference of opinion has existed. They have been hitherto looked upon as extrinsic and casual, as illusion and infirmity: their appearances have been known from ancient date; but, as they were too evanescent to be arrested, they were banished into the region of phantoms, and under this idea have been very variously described.

2

Thus they are called coloreur adventicii by Boyle; imaginarii and phantastici by Rizetti; by Buffon, couleurs accidentelles; by Scherfer, scheinfarben (apparent colours); ocular illusions and deceptions of sight by many; by Hamberger, vitia fugitiva; by Darwin, ocular spectra.

3

We have called them physiological because they belong to the eye in a healthy state; because we consider them as the necessary conditions of vision; the lively alternating action of which, with reference to external objects and a principle within it, is thus plainly indicated.

4

To these we subjoin the pathological colours, which, like all deviations from a constant law, afford a more complete insight into the nature of the physiological colours.

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I. Effects of Light and Darkness On the Eye.

5

The retina, after being acted upon by light or darkness, is found to be in two different states, which are entirely opposed to each other.

6

If we keep the eyes open in a totally dark place, a certain sense of privation is experienced. The organ is abandoned to itself; it retires into itself. That stimulating and grateful contact is wanting by means of which it is connected with the external world, and becomes part of a whole.

7

If we look on a white, strongly illumined surface, the eye is dazzled, and for a time is incapable of distinguishing objects moderately lighted.

8

The whole of the retina is acted on in each of these extreme states, and thus we can only experience one of these effects at a time. In the one case (6) we found the organ in the utmost relaxation and susceptibility; in the other (7) in an overstrained state, and scarcely susceptible at all.

9

If we pass suddenly from the one state to the other, even without supposing these to be the extremes, but only, perhaps, a change from bright to dusky, the difference is remarkable, and we find that the effects last for some time.

10

In passing from bright daylight to a dusky place we distinguish nothing at first: by degrees the eye recovers its susceptibility; strong eyes sooner than weak ones; the former in a minute, while the latter may require seven or eight minutes.

11

The fact that the eye is not susceptible to impressions of light, if we pass from light to comparative darkness, has led to curious mistakes in scientific observations. Thus an observer, whose eyes required some time to recover their tone, was long under the impression that rotten wood did not emit light at noon-day, even in a dark room. The fact was, he did not see the faint light, because he was in the habit of passing from bright sunshine to the dark room, and only subsequently remained so long there that the eye had time to recover itself.

The same may have happened to Doctor Wall, who, in the daytime, even in a dark room, could hardly perceive the electric light of amber.

Our not seeing the stars by day, as well as the improved appearance of pictures seen through a double tube, is also to be attributed to the same cause.

12

If we pass from a totally dark place to one illumined by the sun, we are dazzled. In coming from a lesser degree of darkness to light that is not dazzling, we perceive all objects clearer and better: hence eyes that have been in a state of repose are in all cases better able to perceive moderately distinct appearances. Prisoners who have been long confined in darkness acquire so great a susceptibility of the retina, that even in the dark (probably a darkness very slightly illumined) they can still distinguish objects.

13

In the act which we call seeing, the retina is at one and the same time in different and even opposite states. The greatest brightness, short of dazzling, acts near the greatest darkness. In this state we at once perceive all the intermediate gradations of chiaro-scuro, and all the varieties of hues.

14

We will proceed in due order to consider and examine these elements of the visible world, as well as the relation in which the organ itself stands to them, and for this purpose we take the simplest objects.

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II. Effects of Black and White Objects On the Eye.

15

IN the same manner as the retina generally is affected by brightness and darkness, so it is affected by single bright or dark objects. If light and dark produce different results on the whole retina, so black and white objects seen at the same time produce the same states together which light and dark occasioned in succession.

16

A dark object appears smaller than a bright one of the same size. Let a white disk be placed on a black ground, and a black disk on a white ground, both being exactly similar in size; let them be seen together at some distance, and we shall pronounce the last to be about a fifth part smaller than the other. If the black circle be made larger by so much, they will appear equal.

17

Thus Tycho de Brahe remarked that the moon in conjunction (the darker state) appears about a fifth part smaller than when in opposition (the bright full state). The first crescent appears to belong to a larger disk than the remaining dark portion, which can sometimes be distinguished at the period of the new moon. Black dresses make people appear smaller than light ones. Lights seen behind an edge make an apparent notch in it. A ruler, behind which the flame of a light just appears, seems to us indented. The rising or setting sun appears to make a notch in the horizon.

18

Black, as the equivalent of darkness, leaves the organ in a state of repose; white, as the representative of light, excites it. We may, perhaps, conclude from the above experiment (16) that the unexcited retina, if left to itself, is drawn together, and occupies a less space than in its active state, produced by the excitement of light.

Hence Kepler says very beautifully: “Certum est vel in retina caussa picture, veal in spiritibus caussi impressionis, exsistere dilatationem lucidorum.” — Paralip. in Viteiionem, p. 220. Scherfer expresses a similar conjecture.-Note A.

19

However this may be, both impressions derived from such objects remain in the organ itself, and last for some time, even when the external cause is removed. In ordinary experience we scarcely notice this, for objects are seldom presented to us which are very strongly relieved from each other, and we avoid looking at those appearances that dazzle the sight. In glancing from one object to another; the succession of images appears to us distinct; we are not aware that some portion of the impression derived from the object first contemplated passes to that which is next looked at.

20

If in the morning, on waking, when the eye is very susceptible, we look intently at the bars of a window relieved against the dawning sky, and then shut our eyes or look towards a totally dark place, we shall see a dark cross on a light ground before us for some time.

21

Every image occupies a certain space on the retina, and of course a greater or less space in proportion as the object is seen near or at a distance. If we shut the eyes immediately after looking at the sun we shall be surprised to find how small the image it leaves appears.

22

If, on the other hand, we turn the open eye towards the side of a room, and consider the visionary image in relation to other objects, we shall always see it larger in proportion to the distance of the surface on which it is thrown. This is easily explained by the laws of perspective, according to which a small object near covers a great one at a distance.

23

The duration of these visionary impressions varies with the powers or structure of the eye in different individuals, just as the time necessary for the recovery of the tone of the retina varies in passing from brightness to darkness (10): it can be measured by minutes and seconds, indeed much more exactly than it could formerly have been by causing a lighted linstock to revolve rapidly, so as to appear a circle. — Note B.

24

But the force with which an impinging light impresses the eye is especially worthy of attention. The image of the sun lasts longest; other objects, of various degrees of brightness, leave the traces of their appearance on the eye for a proportionate time.

25

These images disappear by degrees, and diminish at once in distinctness and in size.

26

They are reduced from the contour inwards, and the impression on some persons has been that in square images the angles become gradually blunted till at last a diminished round image floats before the eye.

27

Such an image, when its impression is no more observable, can, immediately after, be again revived on the retina by opening and shutting the eye, thus alternately exciting and resting it.

Images may remain on the retina in morbid affections of the eye for fourteen, seventeen minutes, or even longer. This indicates extreme weakness of the organ, its inability to recover itself; while visions of persons or things which are the objects of love or aversion indicate the connexion between sense and thought.

29

If, while the image of the window-bars before mentioned lasts, we look upon a light grey surface, the cross will then appear light and the panes dark. In the first case (20) the image was like the original picture, so that the visionary impression also could continue unchanged; but in the present instance our attention is excited by a contrary effect being produced. Various examples have been given by observers of nature.

30

The scientific men who made observations in the Cordilleras saw a bright appearance round the shadows of their heads on some clouds. This example is a case in point; for, while they fixed their eyes on the dark shadow, and at the same time moved from the spot, the compensatory light image appeared to float round the real dark one. If we look at a black disk on a light grey surface, we shall presently, by changing the direction of the eyes in the slightest degree, see a bright halo floating round the dark circle.

A similar circumstance happened to myself: for while, as I sat in the open air, I was talking to a man who stood at a little distance from me relieved on a grey sky, it appeared to me, as I slightly altered the direction of my eyes, after having for some time looked fixedly at him, that his head was encircled with a dazzling light.

In the same way probably might be explained the circumstance that persons crossing dewy meadows at sunrise see a brightness round each other’s heads; the brightness in this case may be also iridescent, as the phenomena of refraction come into the account. Thus again it has been asserted that the shadows of a balloon thrown on clouds were bordered with bright and somewhat variegated circles.

Beccaria made use of a paper kite in some experiments on electricity. Round this kite appeared a small shining cloud varying in size; the same brightness was even observed round part of the string. Sometimes it disappeared, and if the kite moved faster the light appeared to float to and fro for a few moments on the place before occupied. This appearance, which could not be explained by those who observed it at the time, was the image which the eye retained of the kite relieved as a dark mass on a bright sky; that image being changed into a light mass on a comparatively dark background.

In optical and especially in chromatic experiments, where the observer has to do with bright lights whether colourless or coloured, great care should be taken that the spectrum which the eye retains in consequence of a previous observation does not mix with the succeeding one, and thus affect the distinctness and purity of the impression.

31

These appearances have been explained as follows: That portion of the retina on which the dark cross (29) was impressed is to be considered in a state of repose and susceptibility. On this portion therefore the moderately light surface acted in a more lively manner than on the rest of the retina, which had just been impressed with the light through the panes, and which, having thus been excited by a much stronger brightness, could only view the grey surface as a dark.

32

This mode of explanation appears sufficient for the cases in question, but, in the consideration of phenomena hereafter to be adduced, we are forced to trace the effects to higher sources.

33

The eye after sleep exhibits its vital elasticity more especially by its tendency to alternate its impressions, which in the simplest form change from dark to light, and from light to dark. The eye cannot for a moment remain in a particular state determined by the object it looks upon. On the contrary, it is forced to a sort of opposition, which, in contrasting extreme with extreme, intermediate degree with intermediate degree, at the same time combines these opposite impressions, and thus ever tends to a whole, whether the impressions are successive, or simultaneous and confined to one image.

34

Perhaps the peculiarly grateful sensation which we experience in looking at the skillfully treated chiaroscuro of colourless pictures and similar works of art arises chiefly from the simultaneous impression of a whole, which by the organ itself is sought, rather than arrived at, in succession, and which, whatever may be the result, can never be arrested.

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III. Grey Surfaces and Objects.

35

A moderate light is essential to many chromatic experiments. This can be presently obtained by surfaces more or less grey, and thus we have at once to make ourselves acquainted with this simplest kind of middle tint, with regard to which it is hardly necessary to observe, that in many cases a white surface in shadow, or in a low light, may be considered equivalent to a grey.

36

Since a grey surface is intermediate between brightness and darkness, it admits of our illustrating a phenomenon before described (29) by an easy experiment.

37

Let a black object be held before a grey surface, and let the spectator, after looking steadfastly at it, keep his eyes unmoved while it is taken away: the space it occupied appears much lighter. Let a white object be held up in the same manner: on taking it away the space it occupied will appear much darker than the rest of the surface. Let the spectator in both cases turn his eyes this way and that on the surface, the visionary images will move in like manner.

38

A grey object on a black ground appears much brighter than the same object on a white ground. If both comparisons are seen together the spectator can hardly persuade himself that the two greys are identical. We believe this again to be a proof of the great excitability of the retina, and of the silent resistance which every vital principle is forced to exhibit when any definite or immutable state is presented to it. Thus inspiration already presupposes expiration; thus every systole its diastole. It is the universal formula of life which manifests itself in this as in all other cases. When darkness is presented to the eye it demands brightness, and vice versa: it shows its vital energy, its fitness to receive the impression of the object, precisely by spontaneously tending to an opposite state.

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IV. Dazzling Colourless Objects.

39

If we look at a dazzling, altogether colourless object, it makes a strong lasting impression, and its after-vision is accompanied by an appearance of colour.

40

Let a room be made as dark as possible; let there be a circular opening in the window-shutter about three inches in diameter, which may be closed or not at pleasure. The sun being suffered to shine through this on a white surface, let the spectator from some little distance fix his eyes on the bright circle thus admitted. The hole being then closed, let him look towards the darkest part of the room; a circular image will now be seen to float before him. The middle of this circle will appear bright, colourless, or somewhat yellow, but the border will at the same moment appear red.

After a time this red, increasing towards the centre, covers the whole circle, and at last the bright central point. No sooner, however, is the whole circle red than the edge begins to be blue, and the blue gradually encroaches inwards on the red. When the whole is blue the edge becomes dark and colourless. This darker edge again slowly encroaches on the blue till the whole circle appears colourless. The image then becomes gradually fainter, and at the same time diminishes in size. Here again we see how the retina recovers itself by a succession of vibrations after the powerful external impression it received. (25, 26.)

41

By several repetitions similar in result, I found the comparative duration of these appearances in my own case to be as follows: —

I looked on the bright circle five seconds, and then, having closed the aperture, saw the coloured visionary circle floating before me. After thirteen seconds it was altogether red; twenty-nine seconds next elapsed till the whole was blue, and forty-eight seconds till it appeared colourless. By shutting and opening the eye I constantly revived the image, so that it did not quite disappear till seven minutes had elapsed.

Future observers may find these periods shorter or longer as their eyes may be stronger or weaker (23), but it would be very remarkable if, notwithstanding such variations, a corresponding proportion as to relative duration should be found to exist.

42

But this remarkable phenomenon no sooner excites our attention than we observe a new modification of it. If we receive the impression of the bright circle as before, and then look on a light grey surface in a moderately lighted room, an image again floats before us; but in this instance a dark one: by degrees it is encircled by a green border that gradually spreads inwards over the whole circle, as the red did in the former instance. As soon as this has taken place a dingy yellow appears, and, filling the space as the blue did before, is finally lost in a negative shade.

43

These two experiments may be combined by placing a black and a white plane surface next each other in a moderately lighted room, and then looking alternately on one and the other as long as the impression of the light circle lasts: the spectator will then perceive at first a red and green image alternately, and afterwards the other changes. After a little practice the two opposite colours may be perceived at once, by causing the floating image to fall on the junction of the two planes. This can be more conveniently done if the planes are at some distance, for the spectrum then appears larger.

44

I happened to be in a forge towards evening at the moment when a glowing mass of iron was placed on the anvil; I had fixed my eyes steadfastly on it, and, turning round, I looked accidentally into an open coal. shed: a large red image now floated before my eyes, and, as I turned them from the dark opening to the light boards of which the shed was constructed, the image appeared half green, half red, according as it had a lighter or darker ground behind it, I did not at that time take notice of the subsequent changes of this appearance.

45

The after-vision occasioned by a total dazzling of the retina corresponds with that of a circumscribed bright object. The red colour seen by persons who are dazzled with snow belongs to this class of phenomena, as well as the singularly beautiful green colour which dark objects seem to wear after looking long on white paper in the sun. The details of such experiments may be investigated hereafter by those whose young eyes are capable of enduring such trials further for the sake of science.

46

With these examples we may also class the black letters which in the evening light appear red. Perhaps we might insert under the same category the story that drops of blood appeared on the table at which Henry IV. of France had seated himself with the Duc de Guise to play at dice.

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V. Coloured Objects.

47

We have hitherto seen the physiological colours displayed in the after-vision of colourless bright objects, and also in the after-vision of general colourless brightness; we shall now find analogous appearances if a given colour be presented to the eye: in considering this, all that has been hitherto detailed must be present to our recollection.

48

The impression of coloured objects remains in the eye like that of colourless ones, but in this case the energy of the retina, stimulated as it is to produce the opposite colour, will be more apparent.

49

Let a small piece of bright-coloured paper or silk stuff be held before a moderately lighted white surface; let the observer look steadfastly on the small coloured object, and let it be taken away after a time while his eyes remain unmoved; the spectrum of another colour will then be visible on the white plane. The coloured paper may be also left in its place while the eye is directed to another part of the white plane; the same spectrum will be visible there too, for it arises from an image which now belongs to the eye.

50

In order at once to see what colour will be evoked by this contrast, the chromatic circle  may be referred to. The colours are here arranged in a general way according to the natural order, and the arrangement will be found to be directly applicable in the present case; for the colours diametrically opposed to each other in this diagram are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands purple; orange, blue; red, green; and vice versa: thus again all intermediate gradations reciprocally evoke each other; the simpler colour demanding the compound, and vice versa. — Note C.

51

The cases here under consideration occur oftener than we are aware in ordinary life; indeed, an attentive observer sees these appearances everywhere, while, on the other hand, the uninstructed, like our predecessors, consider them as temporary visual defects, sometimes even as symptoms of disorders in the eye, thus exciting serious apprehensions. A few remarkable instances may here be inserted.

52

I had entered an inn towards evening, and, as a well-favoured girl, with a brilliantly fair complexion, black hair, and a scarlet bodice, came into the room, I looked attentively at her as she stood before me at some distance in half shadow. As she presently afterwards turned away, I saw on the white wall, which was now before me, a black face surrounded with a bright light, while the dress of the perfectly distinct figure appeared of a beautiful sea-green.

53

Among the materials for optical experiments, there are portraits with colours and shadows exactly opposite to the appearance of nature. The spectator, after having looked at one of these for a time, will see the visionary figure tolerably true to nature. This is conformable to the same principles, and consistent with experience, for, in the former instance, a negress with a white head-dress would have given me a white face surrounded with black. In the case of the painted figures, however, which are commonly small, the parts are not distinguishable by every one in the after-image.

54

A phenomenon which has before excited attention among the observers of nature is to be attributed, I am persuaded, to the same cause.

It has been stated that certain flowers, towards evening in summer, coruscate, become phosphorescent, or emit a momentary light. Some persons have described their observation of this minutely. I had often endeavoured to witness, it myself, and had even resorted to artificial contrivances to produce it.

On the 19th of June, 1799, late in the evening, when the twilight was deepening into a clear night, as I was walking up and down the garden with a friend, we very distinctly observed a flame-like appearance near the oriental poppy, the flowers of which are remarkable for their powerful red colour. We approached the place and looked attentively at the flowers, but could perceive nothing further, till at last, by passing and repassing repeatedly, while we looked sideways on them, we succeeded in renewing the appearance as often as we pleased. It proved to be a physiological phenomenon, such as others we have described, and the apparent coruscation was nothing but the spectrum of the flower in the compensatory blue-green colour.

In looking directly at a flower the image is not produced, but it appears immediately as the direction of the eye is altered. Again, by looking sideways on the object, a double image is seen for a moment, for the spectrum then appears near and on the real object.

The twilight accounts for the eye being in a perfect state of repose, and thus very susceptible, and the colour of the poppy is sufficiently powerful in the summer twilight of the longest days to act with full effect and produce a compensatory image. I have no doubt these appearances might be reduced to experiment, and the same effect produced by pieces of coloured paper. Those who wish to take the most effectual means for observing the appearance in nature — suppose in a garden — should fix the eyes on the bright flowers selected for the purpose, and, immediately after, look on the gravel path. This will be seen studded with spots of the opposite colour. The experiment is practicable on a cloudy day, and even in the brightest sunshine, for the sun-light, by enhancing the brilliancy of the flower, renders it fit to produce the compensatory colour sufficiently distinct to be perceptible even in a bright light. Thus, peonies produce beautiful green, marigolds vivid blue spectra.

55

As the opposite colour is produced by a constant law in experiments with coloured objects on portions of the retina, so the same effect takes place when the whole retina is impressed with a single colour. We may convince ourselves of this by means of coloured glasses. If we look long through a blue pane of glass, everything will afterwards appear in sunshine to the naked eye, even if the sky is grey and the scene colourless. In like manner, in taking off green spectacles, we see all objects in a red light. Every decided colour does a certain violence to the eye, and forces the organ to opposition.

56

We have hitherto seen the opposite colours producing each other successively on the retina: it now remains to show by experiment that the same effects can exist simultaneously. If a coloured object impinges on one part of the retina, the remaining portion at the same moment has a tendency to produce the compensatory colour. To pursue a former experiment, if we look on a yellow piece of paper placed on a white surface, the remaining part of the organ has already a tendency to produce a purple hue on the colourless surface: in this case the small portion of yellow is not powerful enough to produce this appearance distinctly, but, if a white paper is placed on a yellow wall, we shall see the white tinged with a purple hue.

57

Although this experiment may be made with any colours, yet red and green are particularly recommended for it, because these colours seem powerfully to evoke each other. Numerous instances occur in daily experience. If a green paper is seen through striped or flowered muslin, the stripes or flowers will appear reddish. A grey building seen through green pallisades appears in like manner reddish. A modification of this tint in the agitated sea is also a compensatory colour: the light side of the waves appears green in its own colour, and the shadowed side is tinged with the opposite hue. The different direction of the waves with reference to the eye produces the same effect. Objects seen through an opening in a red or green curtain appear to wear the opposite hue. These appearances will present themselves to the attentive observer on all occasions, even to an unpleasant degree.

58

Having made ourselves acquainted with the simultaneous exhibition of these effects in direct cases, we shall find that we can also observe Them by indirect means. If we place a piece of paper of a bright orange colour on the white surface, we shall, after looking intently at .it, scarcely perceive the compensatory colour on the rest of the surface: but when we take the orange paper away, and when the blue spectrum appears in its place, immediately as this spectrum becomes fully apparent, the rest of the surface will be overspread, as if by a flash, with a reddish-yellow light, thus exhibiting to the spectator in a lively manner the productive energy of the organ, in constant conformity with the same law.

59

As the compensatory colours easily appear, where they do not exist in nature, near and after the original opposite ones, so they are rendered more intense where they happen to mix with a similar real hue. In a court which was paved with grey limestone flags, between which grass had grown, the grass appeared of an extremely beautiful green when the evening clouds threw a scarcely perceptible reddish light on the pavement. In an opposite case we find, in walking through meadows, where we see scarcely anything but green, the stems of trees and the roads often gleam with a reddish hue. This tone is not uncommon in the works of landscape painters, especially those who practice in water-colours: they probably see it in nature, and thus, unconsciously imitating it, their colouring is criticised as unnatural.

60

These phenomena are of the greatest importance, since they direct our attention to the laws of vision, and are a necessary preparation for future observations on colours. They show that the eye especially demands completeness, and seeks to eke out the colorific circle in itself. The purple or violet colour suggested by yellow contains red and blue; orange, which responds to blue, is composed of yellow and red; green, uniting blue and yellow, demands red; and so through all gradations of the most complicated combinations. That we are compelled in this case to assume three leading colours has been already remarked by other observers.

61

When in this completeness the elements of which it is composed are still appreciable by the eye, the result is justly called harmony. We shall subsequently endeavour to show how the theory of the harmony of colours may be deduced from these phenomena, and bow, simply through these qualities, colours may be capable of being applied to aesthetic purposes. This will be shown when we have gone through the whole circle of our observations, returning to the point from which we started.

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VI. Coloured Shadows.

62

Before, however, we proceed further, we have yet to observe some very remarkable cases of the vivacity with which the suggested colours appear in the neighbourhood of others: we allude to coloured shadows. To arrive at these we first turn our attention to shadows that are colourless or negative.

63

A shadow cast by the sun, in its full brightness, on a white surface, gives us no impression of colour; it appears black, or, if a contrary light (here assumed to differ only in degree) can act upon it, it is only weaker, half-lighted, grey.

64

Two conditions are necessary for the existence of coloured shadows: first, that the principal light tinge the white surface with some hue; secondly, that a contrary light illumine to a certain extent the cast shadow.

65

Let a short, lighted candle be placed at twilight on a sheet of white paper. Between it and the declining daylight let a pencil be placed upright, so that its shadow thrown by the candle may be lighted, but not overcome, by the weak daylight: the shadow will appear of the most beautiful blue.

66

That this shadow is blue is immediately evident; but we can only persuade ourselves by some attention that the white paper acts as a reddish yellow, by means of which the complemental blue is excited in the eye. — Note D.

67

In all coloured shadows, therefore, we must presuppose a colour excited or suggested by the hue of the surface on which the shadow is thrown. This may be easily found to be the case by attentive consideration, but we may convince ourselves at once by the following experiment.

68

Place two candles at night opposite each other on a white surface; hold a thin rod between them upright, so that two shadows be cast by it; take a coloured glass and hold it before one of the lights, so that the white paper appear coloured; at the same moment the shadow cast by the coloured light and slightly illumined by the colourless one will exhibit the complemental hue.

69

An ‘important consideration suggests itself here, to which we shall frequently have occasion to return. Colour itself is a degree of darkness; hence Kircher is perfectly right in calling it lumen opacaturn. As it is allied to shadow, so it combines readily with it; it appears to us readily in and by means of shadow the moment a suggesting cause presents itself. We could not refrain from adverting at once to a fact which we propose to trace and develop hereafter. — Note E.

70

Select the moment in twilight when the light of the sky is still powerful enough to cast a shadow which cannot be entirely effaced by the light of a candle. The candle may be so placed that a double shadow shall be visible, one from the candle towards the daylight, and another from the daylight towards the candle. If the former is blue the latter will appear orange-yellow: this orange-yellow is in fact, however, only the yellow-red light of the candle diffused over the whole paper, and which becomes visible in shadow.

71

This is best exemplified by the former experiment with two candles and coloured glasses. The surprising readiness with which shadow assumes a colour will again invite our attention in the further consideration of reflections and elsewhere.

72

Thus the phenomena of coloured shadows may be traced to their cause without difficulty. Henceforth let any one who sees an instance of the kind observe only with what hue the light surface on which they are thrown is tinged. Nay, the colour of the shadow may be considered as a chromatoscope of the illumined surface, for the spectator may always assume the colour of the light to be the opposite of that of the shadow, and by an attentive examination may ascertain this to be the fact in every instance.

73

These appearances have been a source of great perplexity to former observers: for, as they were remarked chiefly in the open air, where they commonly appeared blue, they were attributed to a certain inherent blue or blue colouring quality in the air. The inquirer can, however, convince himself, by the experiment with the candle in a room, that no kind of blue light or reflection is necessary to produce the effect in question. The experiment may be made on a cloudy day with white curtains drawn before the light, and in a room where no trace of blue exists, and the blue shadow will be only so much the more beautiful.

74

De Saussure, in the description of his ascent of Mont Blanc, says, “A second remark, which may not be uninteresting, relates to the colour of the shadows. These, notwithstanding the most attentive observation, we never found dark blue, although this had been frequently the case in the plain. On the contrary, in fifty-nine instances we saw them once yellowish, six times pale bluish, eighteen times colourless or black, and thirty-four times pale violet. Some natural philosophers suppose that these colours arise from accidental vapours diffused in the air, which communicate their own hues to the shadows; not that the colours of the shadows are occasioned by the reflection of any given sky colour or interposition of any given air colour: the above observations seem to favour this opinion. “The instances given by De Saussure may be now explained and classed with analogous examples without difficulty.

At a great elevation the sky was generally free from vapours, the sun shone in full force on the snow, so that it appeared perfectly white to the eye: in this case they saw the shadows quite colourless. If the air was charged, with a certain degree of vapour, in consequence of which the light snow would assume a yellowish tone, the shadows were violet-coloured, and this effect, it appears, occurred oftenest. They saw also bluish shadows, but this happened less frequently; and that the blue and violet were pale was owing to the surrounding brightness, by which the strength of the shadows was mitigated. Once only they saw the shadow yellowish: in this case, as we have already seen (70), the shadow is cast by a colourless light, and slightly illumined by a coloured one.

75

In travelling over the Harz in winter, I happened to descend from the Brocken towards evening; the wide slopes extending above and below me, the heath, every insulated tree and projecting rock, and all masses of both, were covered with snow or hoar-frost. The sun was sinking towards the Oder ponds. During the day, owing to the yellowish hue of the snow, shadows tending to violet had already been observable; these might now be pronounced to be decidedly blue, as the illumined parts exhibited a yellow deepening to orange.

But as the sun at last was about to set, and its rays, greatly mitigated by the thicker vapours, began to diffuse a most beautiful red colour over the whole scene around me, the shadow colour changed to a green, in lightness to be compared to a sea-green, in beauty to the green of the emerald. The appearance became more and more vivid: one might have imagined oneself in a fairy world, for every object had clothed itself in the two vivid and so beautifully harmonising colours, till at last, as the sun went down, the magnificent spectacle was lost in a grey twilight, and by degrees in a clear moon and starlight night.

76

One of the most beautiful instances of coloured shadows may be observed during the full moon. The candle-light and moon-light may be contrived to be exactly equal in force; both shadows may be exhibited with equal strength and clearness, so that both colours balance each other perfectly. A white surface being placed opposite the full moon, and the candle being placed a little on one side at a due distance, an opaque body is held before the white plane. A double shadow will then be seen: that cast by the moon and illumined by the candle-light will be a powerful red-yellow; and contrariwise, that cast by the candle and illumined by the moon will appear of the most beautiful blue. The shadow, composed of the union of the two shadows, where they cross each other, is black. The yellow shadow (74) cannot perhaps be exhibited in a more striking manlier. The immediate vicinity of the blue and the interposing black shadow make the appearance the more agreeable. It will even be found, if the eye dwells long on these colours, that they mutually evoke and enhance each other, the increasing red in the one still producing its contrast, viz. a kind of sea-green.

77

We are here led to remark that in this, and in all cases, a moment or two may perhaps be necessary to produce the complemental colour. The retina must be first thoroughly impressed with the demanding hue before the responding one can be distinctly observable.

78

When divers are under water, and the sunlight shines into the diving-bell, everything is seen in a red light (the cause of which will be explained hereafter), while the shadows appear green. The very same phenomenon which I observed on a high mountain (75) is presented to others in the depths of the sea, and thus Nature throughout is in harmony with herself.

79

Some observations and experiments which equally illustrate what has been stated with regard to coloured objects and coloured shadows may be here added. Let a white paper blind be fastened inside the window on a winter evening; in this blind let there be an opening, through which the snow of some neighbouring roof can be seen. Towards dusk let a candle be brought into the room; the snow seen through the opening will then appear perfectly blue, because the paper is tinged with warm yellow by the candle-light. The snow seen through the aperture is here equivalent to a shadow illumined by a contrary light (76), and may also represent a grey disk on a coloured surface (56).

80

Another very interesting experiment may conclude these examples. If we take a piece of green glass of some thickness, and hold it so that the window bars be reflected in it, they will appear double owing to the thickness of the glass. The image which is reflected from the under surface of the glass will be green; the image which is reflected from the upper surface, and which should be colourless, will appear red. The experiment may be very satisfactorily made by pouring water into a vessel, the inner surface of which can act as a mirror; for both reflections may first be seen colourless while the water is pure, and then by tinging it, they will exhibit two opposite hues.

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VII. Faint Lights.

81

Light, in its full force, appears purely white, and it gives this impression also in its highest degree of dazzling splendour. Light, which is not so powerful, can also, under various conditions, remain colourless. Several naturalists and mathematicians have endeavoured to measure its degrees — Lambert, Bouguer, Rumfort.

82

Yet an appearance of colour presently manifests itself in fainter lights, for in their relation to absolute light they resemble the coloured spectra of dazzling objects (39).

83

A light of any kind becomes weaker, either when its own force, from Whatever cause, is diminished, or when the eye is so circumstanced or placed, that it cannot be sufficiently impressed by the action of the light. Those appearances which may be called objective, come under the head of physical colours. We will only advert here to the transition from white to red heat in glowing iron. We may also observe that the flames of lights at night appear redder in proportion to their distance from the eye. — Note F.

84

Candle-light at night acts as yellow when seen near; we can perceive this by the effect it produces on other colours. At night a pale yellow is hardly to be distinguished from white; blue approaches to green, and rose-colour to orange.

85

Candle-light at twilight acts powerfully as a yellow light: this is best proved by the purple blue shadows which, under these circumstances, are evoked by the eye.

86

The retina may be so excited by a strong light that it cannot perceive fainter lights (11): if it perceive these they appear coloured: hence candle-light by day appears reddish, thus resembling, in its relation to fuller light, the spectrum of a dazzling object; nay, if at night we look long and intently on the flame of a light, it appears to increase in redness.

87

There are faint lights which, notwithstanding their moderate lustre, give an impression of a white, or, at the most, of a light yellow appearance on the retina; such as the moon in its full splendour. Rotten wood has even a kind of bluish light. All this will hereafter be the subject of further remarks.

88

If at night we place a light near a white or greyish wall .so that the surface be illumined from this central point to some extent, we find, on observing the spreading light at some distance, that the boundary of the illumined surface appears to be surrounded with a yellow circle, which on the outside tends to red-yellow. We thus observe that when light direct or reflected does not act in its full force, it gives an impression of yellow, of reddish, and lastly even of red. Here we find the transition to halos which we are accustomed to see in some mode or other round luminous points.

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VIII. Subjective Halos.

89

Halos may be divided into subjective and objective. The latter will be considered under the physical colours; the first only belong here. These are distinguished from the objective halos by the circumstance of their vanishing when the point of light which produces them on the retina is covered.

90

We have before noticed the impression of a luminous object on the retina, and seen that it appears larger: but the effect is not at an end here, it is not confined to the impression of the image; an expansive action also takes place, spreading from the centre.

91

That a nimbus of this kind is produced round the luminous image in the eye may be best seen in a dark room, if we look towards a moderately large opening in the window-shutter. In this case the bright image is surrounded by a circular misty light. I saw such a halo bounded by a yellow and yellow-red circle on opening my eyes at dawn, on an occasion when I passed several nights in a bed-carriage.

92

Halos appear most vivid when the eye is susceptible from having been in a state of repose. A dark background also heightens their appearance. Both causes account for our seeing them so strong if a light is presented to the eyes on waking at night. These conditions were combined when Descartes after sleeping, as he sat in a ship, remarked such a vividly-coloured halo round the light.

93

A light must shine moderately, not dazzle, in order to produce the impression of a halo in the eye; at all events the halos of dazzling lights cannot be observed. We see a splendour of this kind round the image of the sun reflected from the surface of water.

94

A halo of this description, attentively observed, is found to be encircled towards its edge with a yellow border: but even here the expansive action, before alluded to, is not at an end, but appears still to extend in varied circles.

95

Several cases seem to indicate a circular action of the retina, whether owing to the round form of the eye itself and its different parts, or to some other cause.

96

If the eye is pressed only in a slight degree from the inner corner, darker or lighter circles appear. At night, even without pressure, we can sometimes perceive a succession of such circles emerging from, or spreading over, each other.

97

We have already seen that a yellow border is apparent round the white space illumined by a light placed near it. This may be a kind of objective halo. (88.)

98

Subjective halos may be considered as the result of a conflict between the light and a living surface. From the conflict between the exciting principle and the excited, an undulating motion arises, which may be illustrated by a comparison with the circles on water. The stone thrown in drives the water in all directions; the effect attains a maximum, it reacts, and being opposed, continues under the surface. The effect goes on, culminates again, and thus the circles are repeated. If we have ever remarked the concentric rings which appear in a glass of water on trying to produce a tone by rubbing the edge; if we call to mind the intermitting pulsations in the reverberations of bells, we shall approach a conception of what may take place on the retina when the image of a luminous object impinges on it, not to mention that as a living and elastic structure, it has already a circular principle in its organisation. — Note G.

99

The bright circular space which appears round the shining object is yellow, ending in red: then follows a greenish circle, which is terminated by a red border. This appears to be the usual phenomenon where the luminous body is somewhat considerable in size. These halos become greater the more distant we are from the luminous object.

100

Halos may, however, appear extremely small and numerous when the impinging image is minute, yet powerful, in its effect. The experiment is best made with a piece of gold-leaf placed on the ground and illumined by the sun. In these cases the halos appear in variegated rays. The iridescent appearance produced in the eye when the sun pierces through the leaves of trees seems also to belong to the same class of phenomena.

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PATHOLOGICAL COLOURS: APPENDIX.

101

We are now sufficiently acquainted with the physiological colours to distinguish them from the pathological. We know what appearances belong to the eye in a healthy state, and are necessary to enable the organ to exert its complete vitality and activity.

102

Morbid phenomena indicate in like manner the existence of organic and physical laws: for if a living being deviates from those rules with reference to which it is constructed, it still seeks to agree with the ‘general vitality of nature in conformity with general laws, and throughout its whole course still proves the constancy of those principles on which the universe has existed, and by which it is held together.

103

We will here first advert to a very remarkable state in which the vision of many persons is found to be. As it presents a deviation from the ordinary mode of seeing colours, it might be fairly classed under morbid impressions; but as it is consistent in itself, as it often occurs, may extend to several members of a family, and probably does not admit of cure, we may consider it as bordering only on the nosological cases, and therefore place it first.

104

I was acquainted with two individuals not more than twenty years of age, who were thus affected: both had bluish-grey eyes, an acute sight for near and distant objects, by day-light and candle-light, and their mode of seeing colours was in the main quite similar.

105

They agreed with the rest of the world in denominating white, black, and grey in the usual manner. Both saw white untinged with any hue. One saw a somewhat brownish appearance in black, and in grey a somewhat reddish tinge. In general they appeared to have a very delicate perception of the gradations of light and dark.

106

They appeared to see yellow, red-yellow, and yellow-red, like others: in the last case they said they saw the yellow passing as it were over the red as if glazed: some thickly-ground carmine, which had dried in a saucer, they called red.

107

But now a striking difference presented itself. If the carmine was passed thinly over the white saucer, they would compare the light colour thus produced to the colour of the sky, and call it blue. if a rose was shown them beside it, they would, in like manner, call it blue; and in all the trials which were made, it appeared that they could not distinguish light blue from rose-colour. They confounded rose-colour, blue, and violet on all occasions: these colours only appeared to them to be distinguished from each other by delicate shades of lighter, darker, intenser, or fainter appearance.

108

Again they could not distinguish green from dark orange, nor, more especially, from a red brown.

109

If any one, accidentally conversing with these individuals, happened to question them about surrounding objects, their answers occasioned the greatest perplexity, and the interrogator began to fancy his own wits were out of order. With some method we may, however, approach to a nearer knowledge of the law of this deviation from the general law.

110

These persons, as may be gathered from what has been stated, saw fewer colours than other people: hence arose the confusion of different colours. They called the sky rose-colour, and the rose blue, or vice versa. The question now is: did they see both blue or both rose-colour? did they see green orange, or orange green?

111

This singular enigma appears to solve itself, if we assume that they saw no blue, but, instead of it, a light pure red, a rose-colour. We can comprehend what would be the result of this by means of the chromatic diagram.

112

If we take away blue from the chromatic circle we shall miss violet and green as well. Pure red occupies the place of blue and violet, and in again mixing with yellow the red produces orange where green should be.

113

Professing to be satisfied with this mode of explanation, we have named this remarkable deviation from ordinary vision “Acyanoblepsia.”  We have prepared some coloured figures for its further elucidation, and in explaining these we shall add some further details. Among the examples will be found a landscape, coloured in the mode in which the individuals alluded to appeared to see nature: the sky rose-colour, and all that should be green varying from yellow to brown red, nearly as foliage appears to us in autumn — Note H.

114

We now proceed to speak of morbid and other extraordinary affections of the retina, by which the eye may be susceptible of an appearance of light without external light, reserving for a future occasion the consideration of galvanic light.

115

If the eye receives a blow, sparks seem to spread from it. In some states of body, again, when the blood is heated, and the system much excited, if the eye is pressed first gently, and then more and more strongly, a dazzling and intolerable light may be excited.

116

If those who have been recently couched experience pain and heat in the eye, they frequently see fiery flashes and sparks: these symptoms last sometimes for a week or fortnight, or till the pain and heat diminish.

117

A person suffering from earache saw sparks and balls of light in the eye during each attack, as long as the pain lasted.

118

Persons suffering from worms often experience extraordinary appearances in the eye, sometimes sparks of fire, sometimes spectres of light, sometimes frightful figures, which they cannot by an effort of the will cease to see: sometimes these appearances are double.

119

Hypochondriacs frequently see dark objects, such as threads, hairs, spiders, flies, wasps. These appearances also exhibit themselves in the incipient hard cataract. Many see semitransparent small tubes, forms like wings of insects, bubbles of water of various sizes, which fall slowly down, if the eye is raised: sometimes these congregate together so as to resemble the spawn of frogs; sometimes they appear as complete spheres, sometimes in the form of lenses.

120

As light appeared, in the former instances, without external light, so also these images appear without corresponding external objects. The images are sometimes transient, sometimes they last during the patient’s life. Colour, again, frequently accompanies these impressions: for hypochondriacs often see yellow-red stripes in the eye: these are generally more vivid and numerous in the morning, or when fasting.

121

We have before seen that the impression of any object may remain for a time in the eye: this we have found to be a physiological phenomenon (23): the excessive duration of such an impression, on the other hand, may be considered as morbid.

122

The weaker the organ the longer the impression of the image lasts. The retina does not so soon recover itself; and the effect may be considered as a kind of paralysis (28).

123

This is not to be wondered at in the case of dazzling lights. If any one looks at the sun, he may retain the image in his eyes for several days. Boyle relates an instance of ten years.

124

The same takes place, in a certain degree regard to objects that are not dazzling. Busch relates of himself that the image of an engraving, complete in all its parts, was impressed on his eye for seventeen minutes.

125

A person inclined to fulness of blood retained the image of a bright red calico, with white spots, many minutes in the eye, and saw it float before everything like a veil. It only disappeared by rubbing the eye for some time.

126

Scherfer observes that the red colour, which is the consequence of a powerful impression of light, may last for some hours.

127

As we can produce an appearance of light on the retina by pressure on the eyeball, so by a gentle pressure a red colour appears, thus corresponding with the after-image of an impression of light.

128

Many sick persons, on awaking, see everything in the colour of the morning sky, as if through a red veil: so, if in the evening they doze and wake again, the same appearance presents itself. It remains for some minutes, and always disappears if the eye is rubbed a little. Red stars and balls sometimes accompany the impression. This state may last for a considerable time.

129

The aeronauts, particularly Zambeccari and his companions, relate that they saw the moon blood-red at the highest elevation. As they had ascended above the vapours of the earth, through which we see the moon and sun naturally of such a colour, it may be suspected that this appearance may be classed with the pathological colours. The senses, namely, may be so influenced by an unusual state, that the whole nervous system, and particularly the retina, may sink into a kind of inertness and inexcitability. Hence it is not impossible that the moon might act as a very subdued light, and thus produce the impression of the red colour. The sun even appeared blood-red to the aeronauts of Hamburg. If those who are at some elevation in a balloon scarcely hear each other speak, may not this, too, be attributed to the inexcitable state of the nerves as well as to the thinness of the air?

130

Objects are often seen by sick persons in variegated colours. Boyle relates an instance of a lady, who, after a fall by which an eye was bruised, saw all objects, but especially white objects, glittering in colours, even to an intolerable degree.

131

Physicians give the name of “Chrupsia” to an affection of the sight, occurring in typhoid maladies. In these cases the patients state that they see the boundaries of objects coloured where light and dark meet. A change probably takes place in the humours of the eye, through which their achromatism is affected.

132

In cases of milky cataract, a very turbid crystalline lens causes the patient to see a red light. In a case of this kind, which was treated by the application of electricity, the red light changed by degrees to yellow, and at last to white, when the patient again began to distinguish objects. These changes of themselves warranted the conclusion that the turbid state of the lens was gradually approaching the transparent state. We shall be enabled easily to trace this effect to its source as soon as we become better acquainted with the physical colours. 133. If again it may be assumed that a jaundiced patient sees through an actually yellow-coloured humour, we are at once referred to the department of chemical colours, and it is thus evident that we can only thoroughly investigate the chapter of pathological colours when we have made ourselves acquainted with the whole range of the remaining phenomena. What has been adduced may therefore suffice for the present, till we resume the further consideration of this portion of our subject.

134

In conclusion we may, however, at once advert to some peculiar states or dispositions of the organ. There are painters who, instead of rendering the colours of nature, diffuse a general tone, a warm or cold hue, over the picture. In some, again, a predilection for certain colours displays itself; in others a want of feeling for harmony.

135

Lastly, it is also worthy of remark, that savage nations, uneducated people, and children have a great predilection for vivid colours; that animals are excited to rage by certain colours; that people of refinement avoid vivid colours in their dress and the objects that are about them, and seem inclined to banish them altogether from their presence. — Note I

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PART II. PHYSICAL COLOURS.

136

WE give this designation to colours which are produced by certain material mediums: these mediums, however, have no colour themselves, and may be either transparent, semi-transparent yet transmitting light, or altogether opaque. The colours in question are thus produced in the eye through such external given causes, or are merely reflected to the eye when by whatever means they are already produced without us. Although we thus ascribe to them a certain objective character, their distinctive quality still consists in their being transient, and not to be arrested.

137

They are called by former investigators colores apparentes, fluxi, fugitivi, phantastici, falsi, variantes. They are also called speciosi and emphatici, on account of their striking splendour. They are immediately connected with the physiological colours, and appear to have but little more reality: for, while in the production of the physiological colours the eye itself was chiefly efficient, and we could only perceive the phenomena thus evoked within ourselves, but not without us, we have now to consider the fact that colours are produced in the eye by means of colourless objects; that we thus too have a colourless surface before us which is acted upon as the retina itself is, and that we can perceive the appearance produced upon it without us. In such a process, however, every observation will convince us that we have to do with colours in a progressive and mutable, but not in a final or complete, state.

138

Hence, in directing our attention to these physical colours, we find it quite possible to place an objective phenomenon beside a subjective one, and often by means of the union of the two successfully to penetrate farther into the nature of the appearance.

139

Thus, in the observations by which we become acquainted with the physical colours, the eye is not to be considered as acting alone; nor is the light ever to be considered in immediate relation with the eye: but we direct our attention especially to the various effects produced by mediums, those mediums being themselves colourless.

140

Light under these circumstances may be affected by three conditions. First, when it flashes back from the surface of a medium; in considering which catoptrical experiments invite our attention. Secondly, when it passes by the edge of a medium: the phenomena thus produced were formerly called perioptical; we prefer the term paroptical. Thirdly, when it passes through either a merely light-transmitting or an actually transparent body; thus constituting a class of appearances on which dioptrical experiments are founded. We have called a fourth class of physical colours epoptical, as the phenomena exhibit themselves on the colourless surface of bodies under various conditions, without previous or actual dye — Note K.

141

In examining these Categories with reference to our three leading divisions, according to which we consider the phenomena of colours in a physiological, physical, or chemical view, we find that the catoptrical colours are closely connected with the physiological; the paroptical are already somewhat more distinct and independent; the dioptrical exhibit themselves as entirely and strictly physical, and as having a decidedly objective character; the epoptical, although still only apparent, may be considered as the transition to the chemical colours.

142

If we were desirous of prosecuting our investigation strictly in the order of nature, we ought to proceed according to the classification which has just been made; but in didactic treatises it is not of so much consequence to connect as to duly distinguish the various divisions of a subject, in order that at last, when every single class and case has been presented to the mind, the whole may be embraced in one comprehensive view. We therefore turn our attention forthwith to the dioptrical class, in order at once to give the reader the full impression of the physical colours, and to exhibit their characteristics the more strikingly.

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IX. Dioptrical Colours.

143

COLOURS are called dioptrical when a colourless medium is necessary to produce them; the medium must be such that light and darkness can act through it either on the eye or on opposite surfaces. It is thus required that the medium should be transparent, or at least capable, to a certain degree, of transmitting light.

144

According to these conditions we divide the dioptrical phenomena into two classes, placing in the first those which are produced by means of imperfectly transparent, yet light-transmitting mediums; and in the second such as are exhibited when the medium is in the highest degree transparent.

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X. Dioptrical Colours of the First Class.

145

SPACE, if we assume it to be empty, would have the quality of absolute transparency to our vision. If this space is filled so that the eye cannot perceive that it is so, there exists a more or less material transparent medium, which may be of the nature of air and gas, may be fluid or even solid.

146

The pure and light-transmitting semi-transparent medium is only an accumulated form of the transparent medium. It may therefore be presented to us in three modes.

147

The extreme degree of this accumulation is white; the simplest, brightest, first, opaque occupation of space.

148

Transparency itself, empirically considered, is already the first degree of the opposite state. The intermediate degrees from this point to opaque white are infinite.

149

At whatever point short of opacity we arrest the thickening medium, it exhibits simple and remarkable phenomena when placed in relation with light and darkness.

150

The highest degree of light, such as that of the sun, of phosphorus burning in oxygen, is dazzling and colourless: so the light of the fixed stars is for the most part colourless. This light, however, seen through a medium but very slightly thickened, appears to us yellow. If the density of such a medium be increased, or if its volume become greater, we shall see the light gradually assume a yellow-red hue, which at last deepens to a ruby-colour. — Note L.

151

If on the other hand darkness is seen through a semi-transparent medium, which is itself illumined by a light striking on it, a blue colour appears: this becomes lighter and paler as the density of the medium is increased, but on the contrary appears darker and deeper the more transparent the medium becomes: in the least degree of dimness short of absolute transparence, always supposing a perfectly colourless medium, this deep blue approaches the most beautiful violet.

152

If this effect takes place in the eye as here described, and may thus be pronounced to be subjective, it remains further to convince ourselves of this by objective phenomena. For a light thus mitigated and subdued illumines all objects in like manner with a yellow, yellow-red, or red hue; and, although the effect of darkness through the non-transparent medium does not exhibit itself so powerfully, yet the blue sky displays itself in the camera obscura very distinctly on white paper, as well as every other material colour.

153

In examining the cases in which this important leading phenomenon appears, we naturally mention the atmospheric colours first: most of these may be here introduced in order.

154

The sun seen through a certain degree of vapour appears with a yellow disk; the centre is often dazzlingly yellow when the edges are already red. The orb seen through a thick yellow mist appears ruby-red (as was the case in 1794, even in the north); the same appearance is still more decided, owing to the state of the atmosphere, when the scirocco prevails in southern climates: the clouds generally surrounding the sun in the latter case are of the same colour, which is reflected again on all objects.

The red hues of morning and evening are owing to the same cause. The sun is announced by a red light, in shining through a greater mass of vapours. The higher he rises, the yellower and brighter the light becomes.

155

If the darkness of infinite space is seen through atmospheric vapours illumined by the day-light, the blue colour appears. On high mountains the sky appears by day intensely blue, owing to the few thin vapours that float before the endless dark space: as soon as we descend in ‘valleys, the blue becomes lighter; till at last, in certain regions, and in consequence of increasing vapours, it altogether changes to a very pale blue.

156

The mountains, in like manner, appear to us blue; for, as we see them at so great a distance that we no longer distinguish the local tints, and as no light reflected from their surface acts on our vision, they are equivalent to mere dark objects, which, owing to the interposed vapours, appear blue.

157

So we find the shadowed parts of nearer objects are blue when the air is charged with thin vapours.

158

The snow-mountains, on the other hand, at a great distance, still appear white, or approaching to a yellowish hue, because they act on our eyes as brightness seen through atmospheric vapour.

159

The blue appearance at the lower part of the flame of a candle belongs to the same class of phenomena. If the flame be held before a white ground, no blue will be seen, but this colour will immediately appear if the flame is opposed to a black ground. This phenomenon may be exhibited most strikingly with a spoonful of lighted spirits of wine. We may thus consider the lower part of the flame as equivalent to the vapour which, although infinitely thin, is still apparent before the dark surface; it is so thin, that one may easily see to read through it: on the other hand, the point of the flame which conceals objects from our sight is to be considered as a self-illuminating body.

160

Lastly, smoke is also to be considered as a semi-transparent medium, which appears to us yellow or reddish before a light ground, but blue before a dark one.

161

If we now turn our attention to fluid mediums, we find that water, deprived in a very slight degree of its transparency, produces the same effects.

162

The infusion of the lignum nephriticum (guilandina Linnaei), which formerly excited so munch attention, is only a semi-transparent liquor, which in dark wooden cups must appear blue, but held towards the sun in a transparent glass must exhibit a yellow appearance.

163

A drop of scented water, of spirit varnish, of several metallic solutions, may be employed to give various degrees of opacity to water for such experiments, Spirit of soap perhaps answers best.

164

The bottom of the sea appears to divers of a red colour in bright sunshine: in this case the water, owing to its depth, acts as a semi-transparent medium. Under these circumstances, they find the shadows green, which is the complemental colour.

165

Among solid mediums the opal attracts our attention first: its colours are, at least, partly to be explained by the circumstance that it is, in fact, a semi-transparent medium, through which sometimes light, sometimes dark, substrata are visible.

166

For these experiments, however, the opal-glass (vitrum astroides, girasole) is the most desirable material. It is prepared in various ways, and its semi-opacity is produced by metallic oxydes. The same effect is produced also by melting pulverised and calcined bones together with the glass, on which account it is also known by the name of beinglas; but, prepared in this mode, it easily becomes too opaque.

167

This glass may be adapted for experiments in various ways: it may either be made in a very slight degree non-transparent, in which case the light seen through various layers placed one upon the other may be deepened from the lightest yellow to the deepest red, or, if made originally more opaque, it may be employed in thinner or thicker laminae. The experiments may be successfully made in both ways:fin order, however, to see the bright blue colour, the glass should neither be too opaque nor too thick. For, as it is quite natural that darkness must act weakly through the semi-transparent medium, so this medium, if too thick, soon approaches whiteness.

168

Panes of glass throw a yellow light on objects through those parts where they happen to be semi-opaque, and these same parts appear blue if we look at a dark object through them.

169

Smoked glass may be also mentioned here, and is, in like manner, to be considered as a semi-opaque medium. It exhibits the sun more or less ruby-coloured; and, although this appearance may be attributed to the black-brown colour of the soot, we may still convince ourselves that a semi-transparent medium here acts if we hold such a glass moderately smoked, and lit by the sun on the unsmoked side, before a dark object, for we shall then perceive a bluish appearance.

170

A striking experiment may be made in a dark room with sheets of parchment. If we fasten a piece of parchment before the opening in the window-shutter when the sun shines, it will appear nearly white; by adding a second, a yellowish colour appears, which still increases as more leaves are added, till at last it changes to red.

171

A similar effect, owing to the state of the crystalline lens in milky cataract, has been already adverted to (131).

172

Having now, in tracing these phenomena, arrived at the effect of a degree of opacity scarcely capable of transmitting light, we may here mention a singular appearance which was owing to a momentary state of this kind.

A portrait of a celebrated theologian had been painted some years before the circumstance to which we allude, by an artist who was known to have considerable skill in the management of his materials. The very reverend individual was represented in a rich velvet dress, which was not a little admired, and which attracted the eye of the spectator almost more than the face. The picture, however, from the effect of the smoke of lamps and dust, had lost much of its original vivacity. It was, therefore, placed in the hands of a painter, who was to clean it, and give it a fresh coat of varnish. This person began his operations by carefully washing the picture with a sponge: no sooner, however, had he gone over the surface once or twice, and wiped away the first dirt, than to his amazement the black velvet dress changed suddenly to a light blue plush, which gave the ecclesiastic a very secular, though somewhat old-fashioned, appearance. The painter did not venture to go on with his washing: he could not comprehend how a light blue should be the ground of the deepest black, still less how he could so suddenly have removed a glazing colour capable of converting the one tint to the other.

At all events, he was not a little disconcerted at having spoilt the picture to such an extent. Nothing to characterize the ecclesiastic remained but the richly-curled round wig, which made the exchange of a faded plush for a handsome new velvet dress far from desirable. Meanwhile, the mischief appeared irreparable, and the good artist, having turned the picture to the wall, retired to rest with a mind ill at ease. But what was his joy the next morning, when, on examining the picture, he beheld the black velvet dress again in its full splendour. He could not refrain from again wetting a corner, upon which the blue colour again appeared, and after a time vanished. On hearing of this phenomenon,. I went at once to see the miraculous picture. A wet sponge was passed over it in my presence, and the change quickly took place. I saw a somewhat faded, but decidedly light blue plush dress, the folds under the arm being indicated by some brown strokes.

I explained this appearance to myself by the doctrine of the semi-opaque medium. The painter, in order to give additional depth to his black, may have passed some particular varnish over it: on being washed, this varnish imbibed some moisture, and hence became semi-opaque, in consequence of which the black underneath immediately appeared blue. Perhaps those who are practically acquainted with the effect of varnishes may, through accident or contrivance, arrive at some means of exhibiting this singular appearance, as an experiment, to those who are fond of investigating natural phenomena. Notwithstanding many attempts, I could not myself succeed in reproducing it.

173

Having now traced the most splendid instances of atmospheric appearances, as well as other less striking yet sufficiently remarkable cases, to the leading examples of semi-transparent mediums, we have no doubt that attentive observers of nature will carry such researches further, and accustom themselves to trace and explain the various appearances which present themselves in every-day experience on the same principle: we may also hope that such investigators will provide themselves with an adequate apparatus in order to place remarkable facts before the eyes of others who may be desirous of information.

174

We venture, once for all, to call the leading appearance in question, as generally described in the foregoing pages, a primordial and elementary phenomenon; and we may here be permitted at once to state what we understand by the term.

175

The circumstances which come under our notice in ordinary observation are, for the most part, insulated cases, which, with some attention, of being classed under general leading facts. These again range themselves under theoretical rubrics which are more comprehensive, and through which we become better acquainted with certain indispensable conditions of appearances in detail. From henceforth everything is gradually arranged under higher rules and laws, which, however, are not to be made intelligible by words and hypotheses to the understanding merely, but, at the same time, by real phenomena to the senses. We call these primordial phenomena, because nothing appreciable by the senses lies beyond them, on the contrary, they are perfectly fit to be considered as a fixed point to which we first ascended, step by step, and from which we may, in like manner, descend to the commonest case of every-day experience. Such an original phenomenon is that which has lately engaged our attention. We see on the one side light, brightness; on the other darkness, obscurity: we bring the semi-transparent medium between the two, and from these contrasts and this medium the colours develop themselves, contrasted, in like manner, but soon, through a reciprocal relation, directly tending again to a point of union.

176

With this conviction we look upon the mistake that has been committed in the investigation of this subject to be a very serious one, inasmuch as a secondary phenomenon has been thus placed higher in order — the primordial phenomenon has been degraded to an inferior place; nay, the secondary phenomenon has been placed at the head, a compound effect has been treated as simple, a simple appearance as compound: owing to this contradiction, the most capricious complication and perplexity have been introduced into physical inquiries, the effects of which are still apparent.

177

But when even such a primordial phenomenon is arrived at, the evil still is that we refuse to recognise it as such, that we still aim at something beyond, although it would become us to confess that we are arrived at the limits of experimental knowledge. Let the observer of nature suffer the primordial phenomenon to remain undisturbed in its beauty; let the philosopher admit it into his department, and he will find that important elementary facts are a worthier basis for further operations than insulated cases, opinions, and hypotheses. — Note M.

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XI. Dioptrical Colours of the Second Class. — Refraction.

178

DIOPTRICAL colours of both classes are closely connected, as will presently appear on a little examination. Those of the first class appeared through semi-transparent mediums, those of the second class will now appear through transparent mediums. But since every substance, however transparent, may be already considered to partake of the opposite quality (as every accumulation of a medium called transparent proves), so the near affinity of the two classes is sufficiently manifest.

179

We will, however, first consider transparent mediums abstractedly as such, as entirely free from any degree of opacity, and direct our whole attention to a phenomenon which here presents itself, and which is known by the name of refraction.

180

In treating of the physiological colours, we have already had occasion to vindicate what were formerly called illusions of sight, as the active energies of the healthy and duly efficient eye (2), and we are now again invited to consider similar instances confirming the constancy of the laws of vision.

181

Throughout nature, as presented to the senses, everything depends on the relation which things bear to each other, but especially on the relation which man, the most important of these, bears to the rest. Hence the world divides itself into two parts, and the human being as subject, stands opposed to the object. Thus the practical man exhausts himself in the accumulation of facts, the thinker in speculation; each being called upon to sustain a conflict which admits of no peace and no decision.

182

But still the main point always is, whether the relations are truly seen. As our senses, if healthy, are the surest witnesses of external relations, so we may be convinced that, in all instances where they appear to contradict reality, they lay the greater and surer stress on true relations. Thus a distant object appears to us smaller; and precisely by this means we are aware of distance. We produced coloured appearances on colourless objects, through colourless mediums, and at the same moment our attention was called to the degree of opacity in the medium.

183

Thus the different degrees of opacity in so-called transparent mediums, nay, even other physical and chemical properties belonging to them, are known to our vision by means of refraction, and invite us to make further trials in order to penetrate more completely by physical and chemical means into those secrets which are already opened to our view on one side.

184

Objects seen through mediums more or less transparent do not appear to us in the place which they should occupy according to the laws of perspective. On this fact the dioptrical colours of the second class depend.

185

Those laws of vision which admit of being expressed in mathematical formulae are based on the principle that, as light proceeds in straight lines, it must be possible to draw a straight line from the eye to any given object in order that it be seen. If, therefore, a case arises in which the light arrives to us in a bent or broken line, that we see the object by means of a bent or broken line, we are at once informed that the medium between the eye and the object is denser, or that it has assumed this or that foreign nature.

186

This deviation from the law of right-lined vision is known by the general term of refraction; and, although we may take it for granted that our readers are sufficiently acquainted with its effects, yet we will here once more briefly exhibit it in its objective and subjective point of view.

187

Let the sun shine diagonally into an empty cubical vessel, so that the opposite side be illumined, but not the bottom: let water be then poured into this vessel, and the direction of the light will be immediately altered; for a part of the bottom is shone upon. At the point where the light enters the thicker medium it deviates from its rectilinear direction, and appears broken: hence the phenomenon is called the breaking (brechung) or refraction. Thus much of the objective experiment.

188

We arrive at the subjective fact in the following mode: — Let the eye be substituted for the sun: let the sight be directed in like manner diagonally over one side, so that the opposite inner side be entirely seen, while no part of the bottom is visible. On pouring in water the eye will perceive a part of the bottom; and this takes place without our being aware that we do not see in a straight line; for the bottom appears to us raised, and hence we give the term elevation (hebung) to the subjective phenomenon. Some points, which are particularly remarkable with reference to this, will be adverted to hereafter.

189

Were we now to express this phenomenon generally, we might here repeat, in conformity with the view lately taken, that the relation of the objects is changed or deranged.

190

But as it is our intention at present to separate the objective from the subjective appearances, we first express the phenomenon in a subjective form, and say, — a derangement or displacement of the object seen, or to be seen, takes place.

191

But that which is seen without a limiting outline may be thus affected’ without our perceiving the change. On the other hand, if what we look at has a visible termination, we have an evident indication that a displacement occurs. If, therefore, we wish to ascertain the relation or degree of such a displacement, we must chiefly confine ourselves to the alteration of surfaces with visible boundaries; in other words, to the displacement of circumscribed objects.

192

The general effect may take place through parallel mediums, for every parallel medium displaces the object by bringing it perpendicularly towards the eye. The apparent change of position is, however, more observable through mediums that are not parallel.

193

These latter may be perfectly spherical, or may be employed in the form of convex or concave lenses. We shall make use of all these as occasion may require in our experiments. But as they not only displace the object from its position, but alter it in various ways, we shall, in most cases, prefer employing mediums with surfaces, not, indeed, parallel with reference to each other, but still altogether plane, namely, prisms. These have a triangle for their base, and may, it is true, be considered as portions of a lens, but they are particularly available for our experiments, inasmuch as they very perceptibly displace the object from its position, without producing a remarkable distortion.

194

And now, in order to conduct our observations with as much exactness as possible, and to avoid all confusion and ambiguity, we confine ourselves at first to

SUBJECTIVE EXPERIMENTS,

in which, namely, the object is seen by the observer through a refracting medium. As soon as we have treated these in due series, the objective experiments will follow in similar order.

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XII. Refraction Without the Appearance of Colour.

195

Refraction can visibly take place without our perceiving an appearance of colour. To whatever extent a colourless or uniformly coloured surface may be altered as to its position by refraction, no colour consequent upon refraction appears within it, provided it has no outline or boundary. We may convince ourselves of this in various ways.

196

Place a glass cube on any larger surface, and look through the glass perpendicularly or obliquely, the unbroken surface opposite the eye appears altogether raised, but no colour exhibits itself. If we look at a pure grey or blue sky or a uniformly white or coloured wall through a prism, the portion of the surface which the eye thus embraces will be altogether changed as to its position, without our therefore observing the smallest appearance of colour.

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XIII. Conditions of the Appearance of Colour.

197

ALTHOUGH in the foregoing experiments we have found all unbroken surfaces, large or small, colourless, yet at the outlines or boundaries, where the surface is relieved upon a darker or lighter object, we observe a coloured appearance.

198

Outline, as well as surface, is necessary to constitute a figure or circumscribed object. We therefore express the leading fact thu: circumscribed objects must be displaced by refraction in order to the exhibition of an appearance of colour.

199

We place before us the simplest object, a light disk on a dark ground (A). A displacement occurs with regard to this object, if we apparently extend its outline from the centre by magnifying it. This may be done with any convex glass, and in this case we see a blue edge (B).

200

We can, to appearance, contract the circumference of the same light disk towards the centre by diminishing the object; the edge will then appear yellow (C). This may be done with a concave glass, which, however, should not be ground thin like common eye-glasses, but must have some substance. In order, however, to make this experiment at once with the convex glass, let a smaller black disk be inserted within the light disk on a black ground. If we magnify the black disk on a white ground with a convex glass, the same result takes place as if we diminished the white disk; for we extend the black outline upon the white, and we thus perceive the yellow edge together with the blue edge (D).

201

These two appearances, the blue and yellow, exhibit themselves in and upon the white: they both assume a reddish hue, in proportion as they mingle with the black.

202

In this short statement we have described the primordial phenomena of all appearance of colour occasioned by refraction. These undoubtedly may be repeated, varied, and rendered more striking; may be combined, complicated, confused; but, after all, may be still restored to their original simplicity.

203

In examining the process of the experiment just given, we find that in the one case we have, to appearance, extended the white edge upon the dark surface; in the other we have extended the dark edge upon the white surface, supplanting one by the other, pushing one over the other. We will now endeavour, step by step, to analyse these and similar cases.

204

If we cause the white disk to move, in appearance, entirely from its place, which can be done effectually by prisms, it will be coloured according to the direction in which it apparently moves, in conformity with the above laws. If we look at the disk a through a prism, so that it appear moved to 6, the outer edge will appear blue and blue-red, according to the law of the figure (fig, 1), the other edge being yellow, and yellow-red, according to the law of the figure c (fig. 1). For in the first case the white figure is, as it were, extended over the dark boundary, and in the other case the dark boundary is passed over the white figure. The same happens if the disk is, to appearance, moved from a to c, from a to d, and so throughout the circle.

205

As it is with the simple effect, so it is with more complicated appearances. If we look through a horizontal prism (a b) at a white disk placed at some distance behind it at e, the disk will be raised to f, and coloured according to the above law. If we remove this prism, and look through a vertical one (c d) at the same disk, it will appear at h, and coloured according to the same law. If we place the two prisms one upon the other, the disk will appear displaced diagonally, in conformity with a general law of nature, and will be coloured as before; that is, according to its movement in the direction, e. g.:

206

If we attentively examine these opposite coloured edges, we find that they only appear in the direction of the apparent change of place. A round figure leaves us in some degree uncertain as to this: a quadrangular figure removes all doubt.

207

The quadrangular figure a  moved in the direction a b, or a d, exhibits no colour on the sides which are parallel with the direction in which it moves: on the other hand, if moved in the direction a c, parallel with its diagonal, all the edges of the figure appear coloured.

208

Thus, a former position (203) is here confirmed; viz. to produce colour, an object must be so displaced that the light edges be apparently carried over a dark surface, the dark edge’s over a light surface, the figure over its boundary, the boundary over the figure. But if the rectilinear boundaries of a figure could be indefinitely extended by refraction, so that figure and background might only pursue their course next, but not over each other, no colour would appear, not even if they were prolonged to infinity.

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XIV. Conditions Under Which the Appearance of Colour Increases.

209

We have seen in the foregoing experiments that all appearance of colour occasioned by refraction depends on the condition that the boundary or edge be moved in upon the object itself, or the object itself over the ground, that the figure should be, as it were, carried over itself, or over the ground. And we shall now find that, by increased displacement of the object, the appearance of colour exhibits itself in a greater degree. This takes place in subjective experiments, to which, for the present, we confine ourselves, under the following conditions.

210

First, if, in looking through parallel mediums, the eye is directed more obliquely.

Secondly, if the surfaces of the medium are no longer parallel, but form a more or less acute

Thirdly, owing to the increased proportion of the medium, whether parallel mediums be increased in size, or whether the angle be increased, provided it does not attain a right angle,

Fourthly, owing to the distance of the eye armed with a refracting medium from the object to be displaced,

Fifthly, owing to a chemical property that may be communicated to the glass, and which may be afterwards increased in effect.

211

The greatest change of place, short of considerable distortion of the object, is produced by means of prisms, and this is the reason why the appearance of colour can be exhibited most powerfully through glasses of this form. Yet we will not, in employing them, suffer ourselves to be dazzled by the splendid appearances they exhibit, but keep the above well-established, simple principles calmly in view.

212

The colour which is outside, or foremost, in the apparent change of an object by refraction, is always the broader, and we will henceforth call this a border: the colour that remains next the outline is the narrower, and this we will call an edge.

213

If we move a dark boundary towards a light surface, the yellow broader border is foremost, and the narrower yellow-red edge follows close to the outline, If we move a light boundary towards a dark surface, the broader violet border is foremost, and the narrower blue edge follows.

214

If the object is large, its centre remains uncoloured. Its inner surface is then to be considered as unlimited (195): it is displaced, but not otherwise altered: but if the object is so narrow, that under the above conditions the yellow border can reach the blue edge, the space between the outlines will be entirely covered with colour. If we make this experiment with a white stripe on a black ground, the two extremes will presently meet, and thus produce green. We shall then see the following series of colours: —

Yellow-red.

Yellow.

Green

Blue

Blue-red.

215

If we place a black band, or stripe, on white paper, the violet border will spread till it meets the yellow-red edge. In this case the intermediate black is effaced (as the intermediate white was in the last experiment), and in its stead a splendid pure red will appear. The series of colours will now be as follows: -

Blue.

Blue-red

Red.

Yellow-red.

Yellow.

216

The yellow and blue, in the first case (214), can by degrees meet so fully, that the two colours blend entirely in green, and the order will then be,

Yellow-red.

Green.

Blue-red

In the second case (215), under similar circumstances, we see only

Blue.

Red.

Yellow.

This appearance is best exhibited by refracting the bars of a window when they are relieved on a grey sky.

217

In all this we are never to forget that this appearance is not to be considered as a complete or final state, but always as a progressive, increasing, and, in many senses, controllable appearance. Thus we find that, by the negation of the above five conditions, it gradually decreases, and at last disappears altogether.

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XV. Explanation of the Foregoing Phenomena.

218

Before we proceed further, it is incumbent on us to explain the first tolerably simple phenomenon, and to show its connexion with the principles first laid down, in order that the observer of nature may be enabled clearly to comprehend the more complicated appearances that follow.

219

In the first place, it is necessary to remember that we have to do with circumscribed objects. In the act of seeing, generally, it is the circumscribed visible which chiefly invites our observation; and in the present instance, in speaking of the appearance of colour, as occasioned by refraction, the circumscribed visible, the detached object solely occupies out attention.

220

For our chromatic exhibitions we can, however, divide objects generally into primary and secondary. The expressions of themselves denote what we understand by them, but our meaning will be rendered still more plain by what follows.

221

Primary objects may be considered firstly as original, as images which are impressed on the eye by things before it, and which assure us of their reality. To these the secondary images may be opposed as derived images, which remain in the organ when the object itself is taken away; those apparent after-images, which have been circumstantially treated of in the doctrine of physiological colours.

222

The primary images, again, may be considered as direct images, which, like the original impressions, are conveyed immediately from the object to the eye. In contradistinction to these, the secondary images may be considered as indirect, being only conveyed to us, as it were, at second-hand from a reflecting surface. These are the mirrored, or catoptrical, images, which in certain cases can also become double images:

223

When, namely, the reflecting body is, transparent, and has two parallel surfaces, one behind the other: in such a case, an image may be reflected to the eye from both surfaces, and thus arise double images, inasmuch as the upper image does not quite cover the under one: this may take place in various ways.

Let a playing-card be held before a mirror. We shall at first see’ the distinct image of the card, but the edge of the whole card, as well as that of every spot upon it, will be bounded on one side with a border, which is the beginning of the second reflection. This effect varies in different mirrors, according to the different thickness of the glass, and the accidents of polishing. If a person wearing a white waistcoat, with the remaining part of his dress dark, stands before certain mirrors, the border appears very distinctly, and in like manner the metal buttons on dark cloth exhibit the double reflection very evidently.

224

The reader who has made himself acquainted with our former descriptions of experiments (80) will the more readily follow the present statement. The window-bars reflected by plates of glass appear double, and by increased thickness of the glass, and a due adaptation of the angle of reflection, the two reflections may be entirely separated from each other. So a vase full of water, with a plane mirror-like bottom, reflects any object twice, the two reflections being more or less separated under the same conditions. In these cases it is to be observed that, where the two reflections cover each other, the perfect vivid image is reflected, but where they are separated’ they exhibit only weak, transparent, and shadowy images.

225

If we wish to know which is the under and which the upper image, we have only to take a coloured medium, for then a light object reflected from the under surface is of the colour of the medium, while that reflected from the upper surface presents the complemental colour. With dark objects it is the reverse; hence black and white surfaces may be here also conveniently employed. How easily the double images assume and evoke colours will here again be striking.

226

Thirdly, the primary images may be considered as principal images, while the secondary can be, as it were, annexed to these as accessory images. Such an accessory image produces a sort of double form; except that it does not separate itself from the principal object, although it may be said to be always endeavouring to do to. It is with secondary images of this last description that we have to do in prismatic appearances.

227

A surface without a boundary exhibits no appearance of colour when refracted (195). Whatever is seen must be circumscribed by an outline to produce this effect. In other words a figure, an object, is required; this object undergoes an apparent change of place by refraction: the change is however not complete, not clean, not sharp; but incomplete, inasmuch as an accessory image only is produced.

228

In examining every appearance of nature, but especially in examining an important and striking one, we should not remain in one spot, we should not confine ourselves to the insulated fact, nor dwell on it exclusively, but look round through all nature to see where something similar, something’ that has affinity to it, appears: for it is only by combining analogies that we gradually arrive at a whole which speaks for itself, and requires no further explanation.

229

Thus we here call to mind that in certain cases refraction unquestionably produces double images, as is the case in Iceland spar: similar double images are also apparent in cases of refraction through large rock crystals, and in other instances; phenomena which have not hitherto been sufficiently observed.

230

But since in the case under consideration (227) the question relates not to double but to accessory images, we refer to a phenomenon already adverted to, but not yet thoroughly investigated. We allude to an earlier experiment, in which it .appeared that a sort of conflict took place in regard to the retina between a light object and its dark ground, and between a dark object and its light ground (16). The light object in this case appeared larger, the dark one smaller.

231

By a more exact observation of this phenomenon we may remark that the forms are not sharply distinguished from the ground, but that they appear with a kind of grey, in some degree, coloured edge; in short, with an accessory image. If, then, objects seen only with the naked eye produce such effects, what may not take place when a dense medium is interposed? It is not that alone which presents itself to us in obvious operation which produces and suffers effects, but likewise all principles that have a mutual relation only of some sort are efficient accordingly, and indeed often in a very high degree.

232

Thus when refraction produces its effect on an object there appears an accessory image next the object itself: the real form thus refracted seems even to linger behind, as if resisting the change of place; but the accessory image seems to advance, and extends itself more or less in the mode already shown (212-216).

233

We also remarked (224) that in double images the fainter appear only half substantial, having a kind of transparent, evanescent character, just as the fainter shades of double shadows must always appear as half-shadows. These latter assume colours easily, and produce them readily (69), the former also (80); and the same takes place in the instance of accessory images, which, it is true, do not altogether quit the real object, but still advance or extend from it as half-substantial images, and hence can appear coloured so quickly and so powerfully.

234

That the prismatic appearance is in fact an accessory image we may convince ourselves in more than one mode. It corresponds exactly with the form of the object itself. Whether the object be bounded by a straight line or a curve, indented or waving, the form of the accessory image corresponds throughout exactly with the form of the object.

235

Again, not only the form but other qualities of the object are communicated to the accessory image. If the object is sharply relieved from its ground, like white on black, the coloured accessory image in like manner appears in its greatest force. It is vivid, distinct, and powerful; but it is most especially powerful when a luminous object is shown on a dark ground, which may be contrived in various ways.

236

But if the object is but faintly distinguished from the ground, like grey objects on black or white, or even on each other, the accessory image is also faint, and, when the original difference of tint or force is slight, becomes hardly discernible.

237

The appearances which are observable when coloured objects are relieved on light, dark, or coloured grounds are, moreover, well worthy of attention. In this case a union takes place between the apparent colour of the accessory image and the real colour of the object; a compound colour is the result, which is either assisted and enhanced by the accordance, or neutralised by the opposition of its ingredients.

238

But the common and general characteristic both of the double and accessory image is semi-transparence. The tendency of a transparent medium to become only half transparent, or merely light-transmitting, has been before adverted to (147, 148). Let the reader assume that he sees within or through such a medium a visionary image, and he will at once pronounce this latter to be a semi-transparent image.

239

Thus the colours produced by refraction may be fitly explained by the doctrine of the semitransparent mediums. For where dark passes over light, as the border of the semi-transparent accessory image advances, yellow appears; and, on the other hand, where a light outline passes over the dark background, blue appears (150, 151). 240

The advancing foremost colour is always the broader. Thus the yellow spreads over the light with a broad border, but the yellow-red appears as a narrower stripe and is next the dark, according to the doctrine of augmentation, as an effect of shade.

241

On the opposite side the condensed blue is next the edge, while the advancing border, spreading as a thinner veil over the black, produces the violet colour, precisely on the principles before explained in treating of semi-transparent mediums, principles which will hereafter be found equally efficient in many other cases.

242

Since an analysis like the present requires to be confirmed by ocular demonstration, we beg every reader to make himself acquainted with the experiments hitherto adduced, not in a superficial manner, but fairly and thoroughly. We have not placed arbitrary signs before him instead of the appearances themselves; no modes of expression are here proposed for hisadoption which may be repeated for ever without the exercise of thought and without leading any one to think; but we invite him to examine intelligible appearances, which must be present to the eye and mind, in order to enable him clearly to trace these appearances to their origin, and to explain them to himself and to others.

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XVI. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour.

243

We need only take the five conditions (210) under which the appearance of colour increases in the contrary order, to produce the contrary or decreasing state; it may be as well, however, briefly to describe and review the corresponding modifications which are presented to the eye,

244

At the highest point of complete junction of the opposite edges, the colours appear as follows (216): —

Yellow-Red. Blue. Green. Red. Blue-red. Yellow.

245

Where the junction is less complete, the appearance is as follows (214, 215): —

Yellow-red. Blue. Yellow. Blue-red. Green. Red. Blue. Yellow-red. Blue-red. Yellow.

Here, therfore, the surface still appears completely coloured, but neither series is to be considered as an elementary series, always developing itself in the same manner and in the same degrees; on the contrary, they can and should be resolved into their elements; and, in doing this, we become better acquainted with their nature and character.

246

These elements then are (199, 200, 201) —

Yellow-red. Blue. Yellow. Blue-red. White. Black. Blue. Yellow-red. Blue-red. Yellow.

Here the surface itself, the original object, which has been hitherto completely covered, and as it were lost, again appears in the centre of the colours, asserts its right, and enables us fully to recognise the secondary nature of the accessory images which exhibit themselves as “edges” and “borders.” — Note N.

247

We can make these edges and borders as narrow as we please; nay, we can still have refraction in reserve after having done away with all appearance of colour at the boundary of the object.

Having now sufficiently investigated the exhibition of colour in this phenomenon, we repeat that we cannot admit it to be an elementary phenomenon. On the contrary, we have traced it to an antecedent and a simpler one; we have derived it, in connexion with the theory of secondary images, from the primordial phenomenon of light and darkness, as affected or acted upon by semi-transparent mediums. Thus prepared, we proceed to describe the appearances which refraction produces on grey and coloured objects, and this will complete the section of subjective phenomena.

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XVII. Grey Objects Displaced By Refraction.

248

Hitherto we have confined our attention to black and white objects relieved on respectively opposite grounds, as seen through the prism, because the coloured edges and borders are most clearly displayed in such cases. We now repeat these experiments with grey objects, and again find similar results.

249

As we called black the equivalent of darkness, and white the representative of light (18), so we now venture to say that grey represents half-shadow, which partakes more or less of light and darkness, and thus stands between the two. We invite the reader to call to mind the following facts as bearing on our present view.

250

Grey objects appear lighter on a black than on a white ground (33); they appear as a light on a black ground, and larger; as a dark on the white ground, and smaller. (16.)

251

The darker the grey the more it appears as a faint light on black, as a strong dark on white, and vice versa; hence the accessory images of dark-grey on black are faint, on white strong: so the accessory images of light-grey on white are faint, on black strong.

252

Grey on black, seen through the prism, will exhibit the same appearances as white on black; the edges are coloured according to the same law, only the borders appear fainter. If we relieve grey on white, we have the same edges and borders which would be produced if we saw black on white through the prism. — Note O.

253

Various shades of grey placed next each other in gradation will exhibit at their edges, either blue and violet only, or red and yellow only, according as the darker grey is placed over or under.

254

A series of such shades of grey placed horizontally next each other will be coloured conformably to the same law according as the whole series is relieved, on a black or white ground above or below.

255

The observer may see the phenomena exhibited by the prism at one glance, by enlarging the plate intended to illustrate this section.

256

It is of great importance duly to examine and consider another experiment in which a grey object is placed partly on a black and partly on a white surface, so that the line of division passes vertically through the object.

257

The colours will appear on this grey object in conformity with the usual law, but according to the opposite relation of the light to the dark, and will be contrasted in a line. For as the grey is as a light to the black, so it exhibits the red and yellow above the blue and violet below: again, as the grey is as a dark to the white, the blue and violet appear above the red and yellow below. This experiment will be found of great importance with reference to the next chapter.

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XVIII. Coloured Objects Displaced By Refraction.

258

An unlimited coloured surface exhibits no prismatic colour in addition to its own hue, thus not at all differing from a black, white, or grey surface. To produce the appearance of colour, light and dark boundaries must act on it either accidentally or by contrivance. Hence experiments and observations on coloured surfaces, as seen through the prism, can only be made when such surfaces are separated by an outline from another differently tinted surface, in short when circumscribed objects are coloured,

259

All colours, whatever they may be, correspond so far with grey, that they appear darker than white and lighter than black. This shade-like quality of colour has been already alluded to (69), and will become more and more evident. If then we begin by placing coloured objects on black and white surfaces, and examine them through the prism, we shall again have all that we have seen exhibited with grey surfaces.

260

If we displace a coloured object by refraction, there appears, as in the case of colourless objects and according to the same laws, an accessory image. This accessory image retains, as far as colour is concerned, its usual nature, and acts on one side as a blue and blue-red, on the opposite side as a yellow and yellow-red. Hence the apparent colour of the edge and border will be either homogeneous with the real colour of the object, or not so. In the first case the apparent image identifies itself with the real one, and appears to increase it, while, in the second case, the real image may be vitiated, rendered indistinct, and reduced in size by the apparent image. We proceed to review the cases in which these effects are most strikingly exhibited.

261

If we take a coloured drawing enlarged from the plate, which illustrates this experiment, and examine the red and blue squares placed next each other on a black ground, through the prism as usual, we shall find that as both colours are lighter than the ground, similarly coloured edges and borders will appear above and below, at the outlines of both, only they will not appear equally distinct to the eye.

262

Red is proportionally much lighter on black than blue is. The colours of the edges will therefore appear stronger on the red than on the blue, which here acts as a dark-grey, but little different from black.. (251.)

263

The extreme red edge will identify itself with the vermilion colour of the square, which will thus appear a little elongated in this direction; while the yellow border immediately underneath it only gives the red surface a more brilliant appearance, and is not distinguished without attentive observation.

264

On the other hand the red edge and yellow border are heterogeneous with the blue square; a dull red appears at the edge, and a dull green mingles with the figure, and thus the blue square seems, at a hasty glance, to be comparatively diminished on this side.

265

At the lower outline of the two squares a blue edge and a violet border will appear, and will produce the contrary effect; for the blue edge, which is heterogeneous with the warm red surface, will vitiate it and produce a neutral colour, so that the red on this side appears comparatively reduced and driven upwards, and the violet border on the black is scarcely perceptible.

266

On the other hand, the blue apparent edge will identify itself with the blue square, and not only not reduce, but extend it. The blue edge and even the violet border next it have the apparent effect of increasing the surface, and elongating it in that direction.

267

The effect of homogeneous and heterogeneous edges, as I have now minutely described it, is so powerful and singular that the two squares at the first glance seem pushed out of their relative horizontal position and moved in opposite directions, the red upwards, the blue downwards. But no one who is accustomed to observe experiments in a certain succession, and respectively to connect and trace them, will suffer himself to be deceived by such an unreal effect.

268

A just impression with regard to this important phenomenon will, however, much depend on some nice and even troublesome conditions, which are necessary to produce the illusion in question. Paper should be tinged with vermilion or the best minium for the red square, and with deep indigo for the blue square. The blue and red prismatic edges will then unite imperceptibly with the real surfaces where they are respectively homogeneous; where they are not, they vitiate the colours of the squares without producing a very distinct middle tint. The real red should not incline too much to yellow, otherwise the apparent deep red edge above will be too distinct; at the same time it should be somewhat yellow, otherwise the transition to the yellow border will be too observable. The blue must not be light, otherwise the red edge will be visible, and the yellow border will produce a too decided green, while the violet border underneath would not give us the impression of being part of an elongated light blue square.

269

All this will be treated more circumstantially hereafter, when we speak of the apparatus intended to facilitate the experiments connected with this part of our subject. Every inquirer should prepare the figures himself, in order fairly to exhibit this specimen of ocular deception, and at the same time to convince himself that the coloured edges, even in this case, cannot escape accurate examination.

270

Meanwhile various other combinations, as exhibited in the plate, are fully calculated to remove all doubt on this point in the mind of every attentive observer.

271

If, for instance, we look at a white square, next the blue one, on a black ground, the prismatic hues of the opposite edges of the white, which here occupies the place of the red in the former experiment, will exhibit themselves in their utmost force. The red edge extends itself above the level of the blue almost in a greater degree than was the case with the red square itself in the former experiment. The lower blue edge, again, is visible in its full force next the white, while, on the other hand, it cannot be distinguished next the blue square. The violet border underneath is also much more apparent on the white than on the blue.

272

If the observer now compares these double squares, carefully prepared and arranged one above the other, the red with the white, the two blue squares together, the blue with the red, the blue with the white, he will clearly perceive the relations of these surfaces to their coloured edges and borders.

273

The edges and their relations to the coloured surfaces appear still more striking if we look at the coloured squares and a black square on a white ground; for in this case the illusion before mentioned ceases altogether, and the effect of the edges is as visible as in any case that has come under our observation. Let the blue and red squares be first examined through the prism. In both the blue edge now appears above; this edge, homogeneous with the blue surface, unites with it, and appears to extend it upwards, only the blue edge, owing to its lightness, is somewhat too distinct in its upper portion; the violet border underneath it is also sufficiently evident on the blue. The apparent blue edge is, on the other hand, heterogeneous with the red square; it is neutralised by contrast, and is scarcely visible; meanwhile the violet border, uniting with the real red, produces a hue resembling that of the peach-blossom.

274

If thus, owing to the above causes, the upper outlines of these squares do not appear level with each other, the correspondence of the under outlines is the more observable; for since both colours, the red and the blue, are darks compared with the white (as in the former case they were light compared with the black), the red edge with its yellow border appears very distinctly under both. It exhibits itself under the warm red surface in its full force, and under the dark blue nearly as it appears under the black: as may be seen if we compare the edges and borders of the figures placed one above the other on the white ground.

275

In order to present these experiments with the greatest variety and perspicuity, squares of various colours are so arranged that the boundary of the black and white passes through them vertically. According to the laws now known to us, especially in their application to coloured objects, we shall find the squares as usual doubly coloured at each edge; each square will appear to be split in two, and to be elongated upwards or downwards. We may here call to mind the experiment with the grey figure seen in like manner on the line of division between black and white (257).

276

A phenomenon was before exhibited, even to illusion, in the instance of a red and blue square on a black ground; in the present experiment the elongation upwards and downwards of two differently coloured figures is apparent in the two halves of one and the same figure of one and the same colour. Thus we are still referred to the coloured edges and borders, and to the effects of their homogeneous and heterogeneous relations with respect to the real colours of the objects.

277

I leave it to observers themselves to compare the various gradations of coloured squares, placed half on black half on white, only inviting their attention to the apparent alteration which takes place in contrary directions; for red and yellow appear elongated upwards if on a black ground, downwards if on a white; blue, downwards if on a black ground, upwards if on a white. All which, however, is quite in accordance with the diffusely detailed examples above given.

278

Let the observer now turn the figures so that the before-mentioned squares placed on the line of division between black and white may be in a horizontal series; the black above, the white underneath. On looking at these squares through the prism, he will observe that the red square gains, by the addition of two red edges; on more accurate examination he will observe the yellow border on the red figure, and the lower yellow border upon the white will be perfectly apparent.

279

The upper red edge on the blue square is on the other hand hardly visible; the yellow border next it produces a dull green by mingling with the figure; the lower red edge and the yellow border are displayed in lively colours.

280

After observing that the red figure in these cases appears to gain by an addition on both Sides, while the dark blue, on one side at least, loses something; we shall see the contrary effect produced by turning the same figures upside down, so that the white ground be above, the black below.

281

For as the homogeneous edges and borders now appear above and below the blue square, this appears elongated, and a portion of the surface itself seems even more brilliantly coloured: it is only by attentive observation that we can distinguish the edges and borders from the colour of the figure itself.

282

The yellow and red squares, on the other hand, are comparatively reduced by the heterogeneous edges in this position of the figures, and their colours are, to a certain extent, vitiated. The blue edge in both is almost invisible. The violet border appears as a beautiful peach-blossom hue on the red, as a very pale colour of the same kind on the yellow; both the lower edges are green; dull on the red, vivid on the yellow; the violet border is but faintly perceptible under the red, but is more apparent under the yellow.

283

Every inquirer should make it a point to be thoroughly acquainted with all the appearances here adduced, and not consider it irksome to follow out a single phenomenon through so many modifying circumstances. These experiments, it is true, may be multiplied to infinity by differently coloured figures, upon and between differently coloured grounds. Under all such circumstances, however, it will be evident to every attentive observer that coloured squares only appear relatively altered, or elongated, or reduced by the prism, because an addition of homogeneous or heterogeneous edges produces an illusion. The inquirer will now be enabled to do away with this illusion if he has the patience to go through the experiments one after the other, always comparing the effects together, and satisfying himself of their correspondence.

Experiments with coloured objects might have been contrived in various ways: why they have been exhibited precisely in the above mode, and with so much minuteness, will be seen hereafter. The phenomena, although formerly not unknown, were much misunderstood; and it was necessary to investigate them thoroughly to render some portions of our intended historical view clearer. 284

In conclusion, we will mention a contrivance by means of which our scientific readers may be enabled to see these appearances distinctly at one view, and even in their greatest splendour. Cut in a piece of pasteboard five perfectly similar square openings of about an inch, next each other, exactly in a horizontal line: behind these openings place five coloured glasses in the natural order, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Let the series thus adjusted be fastened in an opening of the camera obscura, so that the bright sky may be seen through the squares, or that the sun may shine on them; they will thus appear very powerfully coloured. Let the spectator now examine them through the prism, and observe the appearances, already

familiar by the foregoing experiments, with coloured objects, namely, the partly assisting, partly neutralising effects of the edges and borders, and the consequent apparent elongation or reduction of the coloured squares with reference to the horizontal line. The results witnessed by the observer in this case, entirely correspond with those in the cases before analysed; we do not, therefore, go through them again in detail, especially as we shall find frequent occasions hereafter to return to the subject. — Note P.

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XIX. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism.

285

Formerly when much that is regular and constant in nature was considered as mere aberration and accident, the colours arising from refraction were but little attended to, and were looked upon as an appearance attributable to particular local circumstances.

286

But after it had been assumed that this appearance of colour accompanies refraction at all times, it was natural that it should be considered as intimately and exclusively connected with that phenomenon; the belief obtaining that the measure of the coloured appearance was in proportion to the measure of the refraction, and that they must advance pare passu with each other,

287

If, again, philosophers ascribed the phenomenon of a stronger or weaker refraction, not indeed wholly, but in some degree, to the different density of the medium, (as purer atmospheric air, air charged with vapours, water, glass, according to their increasing density, increase the so-called refraction, or displacement of the object;) so they could hardly doubt that the appearance of colour must increase in the same proportion; and hence took it for granted, in combining different mediums which were to counteract refraction, that as long as refraction existed, the appearance of colour must take place, and that as soon as the colour disappeared, the refraction also must cease.

288

Afterwards it was, however, discovered that this relation which was assumed to correspond, was, in fact, dissimilar; that two mediums can refract an object with equal power, and yet produce very dissimilar coloured borders.

289

It was found that, in addition to the physical principle to which refraction was ascribed, a chemical one was also to be taken into the account. We propose to pursue this subject hereafter, in the chemical division of our inquiry, and we shall have to describe the particulars of this important discovery in our history of the doctrine of colours. What follows may suffice for the present.

290

In mediums of similar or nearly similar refracting power, we find the remarkable circumstance that a greater and lesser appearance of colour can be produced by. a chemical treatment; the greater effect is owing, namely, to acids, the lesser to alkalis. If metallic oxydes are introduced into a common mass of glass, the Coloured appearance through such glasses becomes greatly increased without any perceptible change of refracting power. That the lesser effect, again, is produced by alkalis, may be easily supposed.

291

Those kinds of glass which were first employed after the discovery, are called flint and crown glass; the first produces the stronger, the second the fainter appearance of colour.

292

We shall make use of both these denominations as technical terms in our present statement, and assume that the refractive power of both is the same, but that flint-glass produces the coloured appearance more strongly by one-third than the crown-glass. The diagram (Plate 3, fig. 2,) may serve in illustration.

293

A black surface is here divided into compartments for more convenient demonstration: let the spectator imagine five white squares between the parallel lines a, b, and c, d. The square No, 1, is presented to the naked eye unmoved from its place,

294

But let the square No. 2, seen through a crown-glass prism g, be supposed to be displaced by refraction three compartments, exhibiting the coloured borders to a certain extent; again, let the square No. 3, seen through a flint glass prism h, in like manner be moved downwards three compartments, when it will exhibit the coloured borders by about a third wider than No. 2.

295

Again, let us suppose that the square No. 4, has, like No. 2, been moved downwards three compartments by a prism of crown-glass, and that then by an oppositely placed prism h, of flint-glass, it has been again raised to its former situation, where it now stands.

296

Here, it is true, the refraction is done away with by the opposition of the two; but as the prism h, in displacing the square by refraction through three compartments, produces coloured borders wider by a third than those produced by the prism g, so, notwithstanding the refraction is neutralised, there must be an excess of coloured border remaining. (The position of this colour, as usual, depends on the direction of the apparent motion (204) communicated to the square by the prism h, and, consequently, it is the reverse of the appearance in the two squares 2 and 3, which have been moved in an opposite direction.) This excess of colour we have called Hyperchromatism, and from this the achromatic state may be immediately arrived at.

297

For assuming that it was the square No. 5 which was removed three compartments from its first supposed place, like No. 2, by a prism of crown-glass g, it would only be necessary to reduce the angle of a prism of flint-glass h, and to connect it, reversed, to the prism g, in order to raise the square No. 5 two degrees or compartments; by which means the Hyperchromatism of the first case would cease, the figure would not quite return to its first position, and yet be already colourless. The prolonged lines of the united prisms, under No. 5, show that a single complete prism remains: again, we have only to suppose the lines curved, and an object-glass presents itself. Such is the principle of the achromatic telescopes.

298

For these experiments, a small prism composed of three different prisms, as prepared in England, is extremely well adapted. It is to be hoped our own opticians will in future enable every friend of science to provide himself with this necessary instrument,

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XX. Advantages of Subjective Experiments.-Transition to the Objective.

299

We have presented the appearances of colour as exhibited by refraction, first, by means of subjective experiments; and we have so far arrived at a definite result, that we have been enabled to deduce the phenomena in question from the doctrine of semitransparent’ mediums and double images.

300

In statements which have reference to nature, everything depends on ocular inspection, and these experiments are the more satisfactory as they may be easily and conveniently made. Every amateur can procure his apparatus without much trouble or cost, and if he is a tolerable adept in pasteboard contrivances, he may even prepare a great part of his machinery himself. A few plain surfaces, on which black, white, grey, and coloured objects may be exhibited alternately on a light and dark ground, are all that is necessary. The spectator fixes them before him, examines the appearances at the edge of the figures conveniently, and as long as he pleases; he retires to a greater distance, again approaches, and accurately observes the progressive states of the phenomena.

301

Besides this, the appearances may be observed with sufficient exactness through small prisms, which need not be of the purest glass. The other desirable requisites in these glass instruments will, however, be pointed out in the section which treats of the apparatus.

302

A great advantage in these experiments, again, is, that they can be made at any hour of the day in any room, whatever aspect it may have. We have no need to wait for sunshine, which in general is not very propitious to northern observers.

303

The objective experiments, on the contrary, necessarily require the sun-light which, even when it is to be had, may not always have the most desirable relation with the apparatus placed opposite to it. Sometimes the sun is too high, sometimes too low, and withal only a short time in the meridian of the best situated room. It changes its direction during the observation; the observer is forced to alter his own position and that of his apparatus, in consequence of which the experiments in many cases become uncertain. If the sun shines through the prism it exhibits all inequalities, lines, and bubbles in the glass, and thus the appearance is rendered confused, dim, and discoloured.

304

Yet both kinds of experiments must be investigated with equal accuracy. They appear to be opposed to each other, and yet are always parallel. What one order of experiments exhibits the other exhibits likewise, and yet each has its peculiar capabilities, by means of which certain effects of nature are made known to us in more than one way.

305

In the next place there are important phenomena which may be exhibited by the union of subjective and objective experiments. The latter experiments again have this advantage, that we can in most cases represent them by diagrams, and present to view the component relations of the phenomena. In proceeding, therefore, to describe the objective experiments, we shall so arrange them that they may always correspond with the analogous subjective examples; for this reason, too, we annex to the number of each paragraph the number of the former corresponding one. But we set out by observing generally that the reader must consult the plates, that the scientific investigator must be familiar with the apparatus in order that the twin-phenomena in one mode or the other may be placed before them.

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XXI.Refraction Without the Appearance of Colour.

306 (195, 196).

That refraction may exhibit its effects without producing an appearance of colour, is not to be demonstrated so perfectly in objective as in subjective experiments. We have, it is true, unlimited spaces which we can look at through the prism, and thus convince ourselves that no colour appears where there is no boundary; but we have no unlimited source of light which we can cause to act through the prism. Our light comes to us from circumscribed bodies; and the sun, which chiefly produces our prismatic appearances, is itself only a small, circumscribed, luminous object

307

We may, however, consider every larger opening through which the sun shines, every larger medium through which the sun-light is transmitted and made to deviate from its course, as so far unlimited that we can confine our attention to the centre of the surface without considering its boundaries,

308 (197)

If we place a large water-prism in tilde large bright space is refracted upwards by it on the plane intended to receive the image, and the middle of this illumined space will be colourless. The same effect may be produced if we make the experiment with glass prisms having angles of few degrees: the appearance may be produced even through glass prisms, whose refracting angle is sixty degrees, provided we place the recipient surface near enough.

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XXII.Conditions of the Appearance of Colour.

309 (198)

Although, then, the illumined space before mentioned appears indeed refracted and moved from its place, but not coloured, yet on the horizontal edges of this space we observe a coloured appearance. That here again the colour is solely owing to the displacement of a circumscribed object may require to be more fully proved.

The luminous body which here acts is circumscribed: the sun, while it shines and diffuses light, is still an insulated object. However small the opening in the lid of a camera obscura be made, still the whole image of the sun will penetrate it. The light which streams from all parts of the sun’s disk, will cross itself in the smallest opening, and form the angle which corresponds with the sun’s apparent diameter. On the outside we have a cone narrowing to the orifice; within, this apex spreads again, producing on an opposite surface a round image, which still increases in size in proportion to the distance of the recipient surface from the apex. This image, together with all other objects of the external landscape, appears reversed on the white surface in question in a dark room.

310

How little therefore we have here to do with single sun-rays, bundles or fasces of rays, cylinders of rays, pencils, or whatever else of the kind may be imagined, is strikingly evident. For the convenience of certain diagrams the sun-light may be assumed to arrive in parallel lines, but it is known that this is only a fiction; a fiction quite allowable where the difference between the assumption and the true appearance is unimportant; but we should take care not to suffer such a postulate to be equivalent to a fact, and proceed to further operations on such a fictitious basis.

311

Let the aperture in the window-shutter be now enlarged at pleasure, let it be made round or square, nay, let the whole shutter be opened, and let the sun shine into the room through the whole window; the space which the sun illumines will always be larger according to the angle which its diameter makes; and thus even the whole space illumined by the sun through the largest window is only the image of the sun plus the size of the opening. We shall hereafter have occasion to return to this.

312 (199)

If we transmit the image of the sun through convex glasses we contract it towards the focus. In this case, according to the laws before explained, a yellow border and a yellow-red edge must appear when the spectrum is thrown on white paper, But as this experiment is dazzling and inconvenient, it may be made more agreeably with the image of the full moon. On contracting this orb by means of a convex glass, the coloured edge appears in the greatest splendor; for the moon transmits a mitigated light in the first instance, and can thus the more readily produce colour which to a certain extent accompanies the subduing of light: at the same time the eye of the observer is only gently and agreeably excited.

313 (200)

If we transmit a luminous image through concave glasses, it is dilated. Here the image appears edged with blue.

314

The two opposite appearances may be produced by a convex glass, simultaneously or in succession; simultaneously by fastening an opaque disk in the centre of the convex glass, and then transmitting the sun’s image. In this case the luminous image and the black disk within it are both contracted, and, consequently, the opposite colours must appear. Again, we can present this contrast in succession by first contracting the luminous image towards the focus, and then suffering it to expand again beyond the focus, when it will immediately exhibit a blue edge.

315 (201)

Here too what was observed in the subjective experiments is again to be remarked, namely, that blue and yellow appear in and upon the white, and that both assume a reddish appearance in proportion as they mingle with the black.

316 (202, 203)

These elementary phenomena occur in all subsequent objective experiments, as they constituted the groundwork of the subjective ones. The process too which takes place is the same; a light boundary is carried over a dark surface, a dark surface is carried over a light boundary. The edges must advance, and as it were push over each other in these experiments as in the former ones.

317 (204)

If we admit the sun’s image through a larger or smaller opening into the dark room, if we transmit it through a prism so placed that its refracting angle, as usual, is underneath; the luminous image, instead of proceeding in a straight line to the floor, is refracted upwards on a vertical surface placed to receive it. This is the moment to take notice of the opposite modes in which the subjective and objective refractions of the object appear.

318

If we look through a prism, held with its refracting angle underneath, at an object above us, the object is moved downwards; whereas a luminous image refracted through the same prism is moved upwards. This, which we here merely mention as a matter of fact for the sake of brevity, is easily explained by the laws of refraction and elevation.

319

The luminous object being moved from its place in this manner, the coloured borders appear in the order, and according to the laws before explained. The violet border is always foremost, and thus in objective cases proceeds upwards, in subjective cases downwards.

320 (205)

The observer may convince himself in like manner of the mode in which the appearance of colour takes place in the diagonal direction when the displacement is effected by means of two prisms, as has been plainly enough shown in the subjective example; for this experiment, however, prisms should be procured of few degrees, say about fifteen.

321 (206, 207)

That the colouring of the image takes place here too, according to the direction in which it moves, will be apparent if we make a square opening of moderate size in a shutter, and cause the luminous image to pass through a water-prism; the spectrum being moved first in the horizontal and vertical directions, then diagonally, the coloured edges will change their position accordingly.

322 (208)

Whence it is again evident that to produce colour the boundaries must be carried over each other, not merely move side by side.

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XXIII.Conditions of the Increase of Colour.

323 (209)

Here too an increased displacement of the object produces a greater appearance of colour.

324 (210)

This increased displacement occurs,

1. By a more oblique direction of the impinging luminous object through mediums with parallel surfaces,

2. By changing the parallel form for one more or less acute angled.

3. By increased proportion of the medium, whether parallel or acute angled; partly because the object is by this means more powerfully displaced, partly because an effect depending on the mere mass co-operates.

4. By the distance of the recipient surface from the refracting medium so that the coloured spectrum emerging from the prism may be said to have a longer way to travel,

5. When a chemical property produces its effects under all these circumstances: this we have already entered into more fully under the head of achromatism and hyperchromatism.

325 (211)

The objective experiments have this advantage that the progressive states of the phenomenon may be arrested and clearly represented by diagrams, which is not the case with the subjective experiments.

326

We can observe the luminous image after it has emerged from the prism, step by step, and mark its increasing colour by receiving it on a plane at different distances, thus exhibiting before our eyes various sections of this cone, with an elliptical base: again, the phenomenon may at once be rendered beautifully visible throughout its whole course in the following manner: — Let a cloud of fine white dust be excited along the line in which the image passes through the dark space; the cloud is best produced by fine, perfectly dry, hair-powder. The more or less coloured appearance will now be painted on the white atoms, and presented its whole length and breadth to the eye of the spectator.

327

By this means we have prepared some diagrams, which will be found among the plates. In these the appearance is exhibited from its first origin, and by these the spectator can clearly comprehend why the luminous image is so much more powerfully coloured through prisms than through parallel mediums.

328 (212)

At the two opposite outlines of the image an opposite appearance presents itself, beginning from an acute angle; the appearance spreads as it proceeds further in space, according to this angle. On one side, in the direction in which the luminous image is moved, a violet border advances on the dark, a narrower blue edge remains next the outline of the image. On the opposite side a yellow border advances into the light of the image itself, and a yellow-red edge remains at the outline.

329 (213)

Here, therefore, the movement of the dark against the light, of the light against the dark, may he clearly observed.

330 (214)

The centre of a large object remains long uncoloured, especially with mediums of less density and smaller angles; but at last the opposite borders and edges touch each other, upon which a green appears in the centre of the luminous image.

331 (215)

Objective experiments have been usually made with the sun’s image: an objective experiment with a dark object has hitherto scarcely been thought of. We have, however, prepared a convenient contrivance for this also. Let the large water-prism before alluded to be placed in the sun, and let a round pasteboard disk be fastened either inside or outside. The coloured appearance will again take place at the outline, beginning according to the usual law; the edges will appear, they will spread in the same proportion, and when they meet, red will appear in the centre. An intercepting square may be added near the round disk, and placed in any direction ad libitum, and the spectator can again convince himself of what has been before so often described.

332 (216)

If we take away these dark objects from the prism, in which case, however, the glass is to be carefully cleaned, and hold a rod or a large pencil before the centre of the horizontal prism, we shall then accomplish the complete immixture of the violet border and the yellow-red edge, and see only the three colours, the external blue, and yellow, and the central red.

333

If again we cut a long horizontal opening in the middle of a piece of pasteboard, fastened on the prism, and then cause the sunlight to pass through it, we shall accomplish the complete union of the yellow border with the blue edge upon the light, and only see yellow-red, green and violet. The details of this are further entered into in the description of the plates.

334 (217)

The prismatic appearance is thus by no means complete and final when the luminous image emerges from the prism. It is then only that we perceive its elements in contrast; for as it increases these contrasting elements unite, and are at last intimately joined. The section of this phenomenon arrested on a plane surface is different at every degree of distance from the prism; so that the notion of an immutable series of colours, or of a pervading similar proportion between them, cannot be a question for a moment.

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XXIV. Explanation of the Foregoing Phenomena.

335 (218)

As we have already entered into this analysis circumstantially while treating of the subjective experiments, as all that was of force there is equally valid here, it will require no long details in addition to show that the phenomena, which are entirely parallel in the two cases, may also be traced precisely to the same sources.

336 (219)

That in objective experiments also we have to do with circumscribed images, has been already demonstrated at large. The sun may shine through the smallest opening, yet the image of the whole disk penetrates beyond. The largest prism may be placed in the open sun-light, yet it is still the sun’s image that is bounded by the edges of the refracting surfaces, and produces the accessory images of this boundary. We may fasten pasteboard, with many openings cut in it, before the water-prism, yet we still merely see multiplied images which, after having been moved from their place by refraction, exhibit coloured edges and borders, and in these mere accessory images.

337 (235)

In subjective experiments we have seen that objects strongly relieved from each other produce a very lively appearance of colour, and this will be the case in objective experiments in a much more vivid and splendid degree. The sun’s image is the most powerful brightness we know; hence its accessory image will be energetic in proportion, and notwithstanding its really secondary dimmed and darkened character, must be still very brilliant. The colours thrown by the sun-light through the prism on any object, carry a powerful light with them, for they have the highest and most intense source of light, as it were, for their ground.

338

That we are warranted in calling even these accessory images semi-transparent, thus deducing the appearances from the doctrine of the semi-transparent mediums, will be clear to every one who has followed us thus far, but particularly to those who have supplied themselves with the necessary apparatus, so as to be enabled at all times to witness the precision and vivacity with which semi-transparent mediums act.

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XXV. Decrease of the Appearance of Colour.

339 (243)

If we could afford to be concise in the description of the decreasing coloured appearance in subjective cases, we may here be permitted to proceed with still greater brevity while we refer to the former distinct statement. One circumstance, only on account of its great importance, may be here recommended to the reader’s especial attention as a leading point of our whole thesis,

340 (244, 247)

The decline of the prismatic appearance must be preceded by its separation, by its resolution into its elements. At a due distance from the prism, the image of the sun being entirely coloured, the blue and yellow at length mix completely, and we see only yellow-red, green, and blue-red. If we bring the recipient surface nearer to the refracting medium, yellow and blue appear again, and we see the five colours with their gradations. At a still shorter distance the yellow and blue separate from each other entirely, the green vanishes, and the image itself appears, colourless, between the coloured edges and borders. The nearer we bring the recipient surface to Axe prism, the narrower the edges and borders become, till at last, when in contact with the prism, they are reduced to nothing.

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XXVI.Grey Objects.

341 (218)

We have exhibited grey objects as very important to our inquiry in the subjective experiments. They show, by the faintness of the accessory images, that these same images are in all cases derived from the principal object. If we wish here, too, to carry on the objective experiments parallel with the others, we may conveniently do this by placing a more or less dull ground glass before the opening through which the sun’s image enters. By this means a subdued image would be produced, which on being refracted would exhibit much duller colours on the recipient plane than those immediately derived from the sun’s disk; and thus, even from the intense sun-image, only a faint accessory image would appear, proportioned to the mitigation of the light by the glass. This experiment, it is true, will only again and again confirm what is already sufficiently familiar to us

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XXVII. Coloured Objects.

342 (260)

There are various modes of producing coloured images in objective experiments. In the first place, we can fix coloured glass before the opening, by which means a coloured image is at once produced; secondly, we can fill the water-prism with coloured fluids; thirdly, we can cause the colours, already produced in their full vivacity by the prism, to pass through proportionate small openings in a tin plate, and thus prepare small circumscribed colours for a second operation. This last mode is the most difficult; for owing to the continual progress of the sun, the image cannot be arrested in any direction at will. The second method has also its inconveniences, since not all coloured liquids can be prepared perfectly bright and clear. On these accounts the first is to be preferred, and deserves the more to be adopted because natural philosophers have hitherto chosen to consider the colours produced from the sun-light through the prism, those produced through liquids and glasses, and those which are already fixed on paper or cloth, as exhibiting effects equally to be depended on, and equally available in demonstration.

343

As it is thus merely necessary that should be coloured; so the large water-prism before alluded to affords us the best means of effecting this. A pasteboard screen may be contrived to slide before the large surfaces of the prism, through which, in the first instance, the light passes uncoloured. In this screen openings of various forms may be cut, in order to produce different images, and consequently different accessory images. This being done, we need only fix coloured glasses before the openings, in order to observe what effect refraction produces on coloured images in an objective sense.

344

A series of glasses may be prepared in a mode similar to that before described (284); these should be accurately contrived to slide in the grooves of the large water-prism. Let the sun then shine through them, and the coloured images refracted upwards will appear bordered and edged, and will vary accordingly: for these borders and edges will be exhibited quite distinctly on some images, and on others will be mixed with the specific colour of the glass, which they will either enhance or neutralize. Every observer will be enabled to convince himself here again that we have only to do with the same simple phenomenon so circumstantially described subjectively and objectively.

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XXVIII. Achromatism and Hyperchromatism.

345 (285, 290)

It is possible to make the hyperchromatic and achromatic experiments objectively as well as subjectively. After what has been already stated, a short description of the method will suffice, especially as we take it for granted that the compound prism before mentioned is in the hands of the observer.

346

Let the sun’s image pass through an acute-angled prism of few degrees, prepared from crown-glass, so that the spectrum be refracted upwards on an opposite surface; the edges will appear coloured, according to the constant law, namely, the violet and blue above and outside, the yellow and yellow-red below and within the image. As the refracting angle of this prism is undermost, let another proportionate prism of flint-glass be placed against it, with its refracting angle uppermost. The sun’s image will by this means be again moved to its place, where, owing to the excess of the colouring power of the prism of flint-glass, it will still appear a little coloured, and, in consequence of the direction in which it has been moved, the blue and violet, will now appear underneath and outside, the yellow and yellow-red above and inside.

347

If the whole image be now moved a little upwards by a proportionate prism of crown-glass, the hyperchromatism will disappear, the sun’s image will be moved from its place, and yet will appear colourless.

348

With an achromatic object-glass composed of three glasses, this experiment may be made step by step, if we do not mind taking out the glasses from their setting. The two convex glasses of crown-glass in contracting the sun’s image towards the focus, the concave glass of flint-glass in dilating the image beyond it, exhibit at the edges the usual colours. A convex glass united with a concave one, exhibits the colours according to the law of the latter. If all three glasses are placed together, whether we contract the sun’s image towards the focus, or suffer it to dilate beyond the focus, coloured edges never appear, and the achromatic effect intended by the optician is, in this case, again attained.

349

But as the crown-glass has always a greenish tint, and as a tendency to this hue may be more decided in large and strong object-glasses, and under certain circumstances produce the compensatory red, (which, however, in repeated experiments with several instruments of this kind did not occur to us,) philosophers have resorted to the most extraordinary triodes of explaining such a result; and having been compelled, in support of their system, theoretically to prove the impossibility of achromatic telescopes, have felt a kind of satisfaction in having some apparent ground for denying so great an improvement. Of this, however, we can only treat circumstantially in our historical account of these discoveries.

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XXIX. Combination of Surjective and Orjective Experiments.

350

Having shown above (318) that refraction, considered objectively and subjectively, must act in opposite directions, it will follow that if we combine the experiments, the effects will reciprocally destroy each other.

351

Let the sun’s image be thrown upwards on vertical plane, through a horizontally-placed prism. If the prism is long enough to admit of the spectator also looking through it, he will see the image elevated by the objective refraction again depressed, and in the same place in which it appeared without refraction.

352

Here a remarkable case presents itself, but at the same time a natural result of a general law. For since, as often before stated, the objective sun’s image thrown on the vertical plane is not an ultimate or unchangeable state of the phenomenon, so in the above operation the image is not only depressed when seen through the prism, but its edges and borders are entirely robbed of their hues, and the spectrum is reduced to a colourless circular form.

353

By employing two perfectly similar prisms placed next each other, for this experiment, we can transmit the sun’s image through one, and look through the other.

354

If the spectator advances nearer with the prism through which he looks, the image is again elevated, and by degrees becomes coloured according to the law of the first prism. If he again retires till he has brought the image to the neutralized point, and then retires still farther away, the image, which had become round and colourless, moves still more downwards and becomes coloured in the opposite sense, so that if we look through the prism and upon the refracted spectrum at the same time, we see the same image coloured according to subjective and objective laws.

355

The modes in which this experiment may be varied are obvious. If the refracting angle of the prism, through which the sun’s image was objectively elevated, is greater than that of the prism through which the observer looks, he must retire to a much greater distance, in order to depress the coloured image so low on the vertical plane that it shall appear colourless, and vice versa.

356

It will be easily seen that we may exhibit achromatic and hyperchromatic effects in a similar manner, and we leave it to the amateur to follow out such researches more fully. Other complicated experiments in which prisms and lenses are employed together, others again, in which objective and subjective experiments are variously intermixed, we merle for occasion, when it will be our object to trace such effects to the simple phenomena with which we are now sufficiently familiar.

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XXXX. Transition.

357

In looking back on the description and analysis of dioptrical colours, we do not repent either that we have treated them so circumstantially, or that we have taken them into consideration before the other physical colours, out of the order we ourselves laid down. Yet, before we quit this branch of our inquiry, it may be as well to state the reasons that have weighed with us,

358

If some apology is necessary for having treated the theory of the dioptrical colours, particularly those of the second class, so diffusely, we should observe, that the exposition of any branch of knowledge is to be considered partly with reference to the intrinsic importance of the subject, and partly with reference to the particular necessities of the time in which the inquiry is undertaken. In our own case we were forced to keep both these considerations constantly in view. In the first place we had to state a mass of experiments with our consequent convictions; next, it was our especial aim to exhibit certain phenomena (known, it is true, but misunderstood, and above all, exhibited in false connection,) in that natural and progressive development which is strictly and truly conformable ‘to observation; in order that hereafter, in our polemical or historical investigations, we might be enabled to bring a complete preparatory analysis to bear on, and elucidate, our general view. The details we have entered into were on this account unavoidable; they may be considered as a reluctant consequence of the occasion. Hereafter, when philosophers will look upon a simple principle as simple, a combined effect as combined; when they will acknowledge the first elementary, and the second ‘complicated states, for what they are; then, indeed, all this statement may be abridged to a narrower form; a labour which, should we ourselves not be able to accomplish it, we bequeath to the active interest of contemporaries and posterity.

359

With respect to the order of the chapters, it should, be remembered that natural phenomena, which are even allied to each other, are not connected in any particular sequence or constant series; their efficient causes act in a narrow circle, so that it is in some sort indifferent what phenomenon is first or last considered; the main point is, that all should be as far as possible present to us, in order that we may embrace them at last from one point of view, partly according to their nature, partly according to generally received methods.

360

Yet, in the present particular instance, it may be asserted that the dioptrical colours are justly placed at the head of the physical colours; not only on account of their striking splendour and their importance in other respects, but because, in tracing these to their source, much was necessarily entered into which will assist our subsequent enquiries.

361

For, hitherto, light has been considered as a kind of abstract principle, existing and acting independently; to a certain extent self-modified, and on the slightest cause, producing colours out of itself. To divert the votaries of physical science from this mode of viewing the subject; to make them attentive to the fact, that in prismatic and other appearances we have not to do with light as an uncircumscribed and modifying principle, but as circumscribed and modified; that we have to do with a luminous image; with images or circumscribed objects generally, whether light or dark: this was the purpose we had in view, and such is the problem to be solved.

362

All that takes place in dioptrical cases, — especially those of the second class which are connected with the phenomena of refraction, — is now sufficiently familiar to us, and will serve as an introduction to what follows.

363

Catoptrical appearances remind us of the physiological logical phenomena, but as we ascribe a more objective character to the former, we thought ourselves justified in classing them with the physical examples. It is of importance, however, to remember that here again it is not light, in an abstract sense, but a luminous image that we have to consider.

364

In proceeding onwards to the paroptrical class, the reader, if duly acquainted with the foregoing facts, will be pleased to find himself once more in the region of circumscribed forms. The shadows of bodies, especially, as secondary images, so exactly accompanying the object, will serve greatly to elucidate analogous appearances.

365

We will not, however, anticipate these statements, but proceed as heretofore in what we consider the regular course.

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XXXI. Catoptrical Colours.

366

Catoptrical colours are such as appear in consequence of a mirror-like reflection. We assume, in the first place, that the light itself, .as well as the ,surface from which it is reflected, is perfectly colourless. In this sense the appearances in question come under the head of physical colours. They arise in consequence of reflection, as we found the dioptrical colours of the second class appear by means of refraction. Without further general definitions, we turn our attention at once to particular cases, and .to the conditions which are essential to the exhibition of these phenomena.

367

If we unroll a coil of bright steel-wire, and after suffering it to spring confusedly together again, place it at a window in the light, we shall see the prominent parts of the circles and convolutions illumined, but neither resplendent nor iridescent. But if the sun shines on the wire, this light will be condensed into a point, and we perceive a small resplendent image of the sun, which, when seen near, exhibits no colour. On retiring a little, however, and fixing the eyes on this refulgent appearance, we discern several small mirrored suns, coloured in the most varied manner; and although the impression is that green and red predominate, yet, on a more accurate inspection, we find that the other colours are also present,

368

If we take an eye-glass, and examine the appearance through it, we find the colours have vanished, as well as the radiating splendour in which they were seen, and we perceive only the small luminous points, the repeated images of the sun. We thus find that the impression is subjective in its nature, and that the appearance is allied to those which we have adverted to under the name of radiating halos (100).

369

We can, however, exhibit this phenomenon objectively. Let a piece of white paper be fastened beneath a small aperture in the lid of a camera-obscura, and when the sun shines through this aperture, let the confusedly-rolled steel-wire be held in the light, so that it be opposite to the paper. The sun-light will impinge on and in the circles of the wire, and will not, as in the concentrating lens of the eye, display itself in a point; but, as the paper can receive the reflection of .the light in every part of its surface will be seen in hair-like lines, which are also iridescent.

370

This experiment is purely catoptrical; for as we cannot imagine that the light penetrates the surface of the steel, and thus undergoes a change, we are soon convinced that we have here a mere reflection which, in its subjective character, is connected with the theory of faintly acting lights, and the after-image of dazzling lights, and as far as it can be considered objective, announces even in the minutest appearances, a real effect, independent of the action and reaction of the eye.

371

We have seen that to produce these effects not merely light but a powerful light is necessary; that this powerful light again is not an abstract and general quality, but a circumscribed light, a luminous image. We can convince ourselves still further of this by analogous cases.

372

A polished surface of silver placed in the sun reflects a dazzling light, but in this case no colour is seen. If, however, we slightly scratch the surface, an iridescent appearance, in which green and red are conspicuous, will be exhibited at a certain angle. In chased and carved metals the effect is striking: yet it may be remarked throughout that, in order to its appearance, some form, some alternation of light and dark must co-operate with the reflection; thus a window-bar, the stem of a tree, an accidentally or purposely interposed object produces a perceptible effect. This appearance, too, may be exhibited objectively in the camera-obscura.

373

If we cause a polished plated surface to he so acted on by aqua fortis that the copper within is touched, and the surface itself thus rendered rough, and if the sun’s image be then reflected from it, the splendour will be reverberated from every minutest prominence, and the surface will appear iridescent. So, if we hold a sheet of black unglazed paper in the sun, and look at it attentively, it will be seen to glisten in its minutest points with the most vivid colours.

374

All these examples are referable to the same conditions. In the first case the luminous image is reflected from a thin line; in the second probably from sharp edges; in the third from very small points. In all a very powerful and circumscribed light is requisite. For all these appearances of colour again it is necessary that the eye should be at a due distance from the reflecting points.

375

If these observations are made with the microscope, the appearance will be greatly increased in force and splendour, for we then see the smallest portion of the surfaces, lit by the sun, glittering in these colours of reflection, which, allied to the hues of refraction, now attain their highest degree of brilliancy. In such cases we may observe a vermiform iridescence on the surface of organic bodies, the further description of which will be given hereafter.

376

Lastly, the colours which are chiefly exhibited in reflection are red and green, whence we may ‘infer that the linear appearance especially consists of a thin line of red, bounded by blue on one side and yellow on the other. If these triple lines approach very near together, the intermediate space must appear green; a phenomenon which will often occur to us as we proceed.

377

We frequently meet with these colours in nature. The colours of the spider’s web might be considered exactly of the same class with those reflected from the steel wire, except that the non-translucent quality of the former is not so certain as in the case of steel; on which account some have been inclined’ to class the colours of the spider’s web with the phenomena of refraction.

378

In mother-of-pearl we perceive infinitely fine organic fibres and lamellae in juxtaposition, from which, as from the scratched silver before alluded to, varied colours, but especially red and green, may arise.

379

The changing colours of the plumage of birds may also be mentioned here, although in all organic instances a chemical principle and an adaptation of the colour to the structure may be assumed; considerations to which we shall return in treating of chemical colours.

380

That the appearances of objective halos also approximate catoptrical phenomena will be readily admitted, while we again do not deny that refraction as well may here come into the account. For the present we restrict ourselves to one or two observations; hereafter we may be enabled to make a fuller application of general principles to particular examples.

381

We first call to mind the yellow and red circles produced on a white or grey wall by a light placed near it (88). Light when reflected appears subdued, and a subdued light excites the impression of yellow, and subsequently of red.

382

Let the wall be illumined by a candle placed quite close to it. The farther the light is diffused the fainter it becomes; but it is still the effect of the flame, the continuation of its action, the dilated effect of its image. We might, therefore, very fairly call these circles reiterated images, because they constitute the successive boundaries of the action of the light, and yet at the same time only present an extended image of the flame.

383

If the sky is white and luminous round the sun owing to the atmosphere being filled with light vapours; if mists or clouds pass before the moon, the reflection of the disk mirrors itself in them; the halos we then perceive are single or double, smaller or greater, sometimes very large, often colourless, sometimes coloured,

384

I witnessed a very beautiful halo round the moon the 15th of November, 1799, when the barometer stood high; the sky was cloudy and vapoury. The halo was completely coloured, and the circles were concentric round the light as in subjective halos. That this halo was objective I was presently convinced by covering the moon’s disk, when the same circles were nevertheless perfectly visible.

385

The different extent of the halos appears to have a relation with the, proximity or distance of the vapour from the eye of the observer.

386

As window-panes lightly breathed upon increase the brilliancy of subjective halos, and in some degree give them an objective character, so, perhaps, with a simple contrivance in winter, during a quickly freezing temperature, a more exact definition of this might be arrived at,

387

How much reason we have in considering these circles to insist on the image and its effects, is apparent in the phenomenon of the so-called double suns. Similar double images always occur in certain points of halos and circles, and only present in a circumscribed form what takes place in a more general way in the whole circle. All this will be more conveniently treated in connexion with the appearance of the rainbow, — Note Q.

388

In conclusion it is only necessary to point out the affinity between the catoptrical and paroptical colours. We call those paroptical colours which appear when the light passes by the edge of an opaque colourless body. How nearly these are allied to the dioptrical colours of the second class will be easily seen by those who are convinced with us that the colours of refraction take place only at the edges of objects. The affinity again between the catoptrical and par-optical colours will be evident in the following chapter.

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XXXII. Paroptical Colours.

389

The paroptical colours have been hitherto called perioptical, because a peculiar effect of light was supposed to take place as it were round the object, and was ascribed to a certain flexibility of the light to and from the object.

390

These colours again may be divided into subjective and objective, because they appear partly without us, as it were, painted on surfaces, and partly within us, immediately on the retina. In this chapter we shall find it more to our purpose to take the objective cases first, since the subjective are so closely connected with other appearances already known to us, that it is hardly possible to separate them,

391

The paroptical colours then are so called because the light must pass by an outline or edge to produce them. They do not, however, always appear in this case; to produce the effect very particular conditions are necessary besides.

392

It is also to be observed that in this instance again light does not act as an abstract diffusion (361), the sun shines towards an edge. The volume of light poured from the sun-image passes by the edge of a substance, and occasions shadows. Within these shadows we shall presently find colours appear.

393

But, above all, we should make the experiments and observations that bear upon our present inquiry in the fullest light. We, therefore, place the observer in the open air before we conduct him to the limits of a dark room.

394

A person walking in sun-shine in a garden, or on any level path, may observe that his shadow only appears sharply defined next the foot on which he rests; farther from this point, especially round the head, it melts away into the bright ground. For as the sun-light proceeds not only from the middle of the sun, hut also acts cross-wise from the two extremes of every diameter, an objective parallax takes place which produces a half-shadow on both sides of the object,

395

If the person walking raises and spreads his hand, he distinctly sees in the shadow of each finger the diverging separation of the two half-shadows outwards, and the diminution of the principal shadow inwards, both being effects of the cross action of the light.

396

This experiment may be repeated and varied before a smooth wall, with rods of different thicknesses, and again with balls; we shall always find that the farther the object is removed from the surface of the wall, the more the weak double shadow spreads, and the more the forcible main shadow diminishes, till at last the main shadow appears quite effaced, and even the double shadows become so faint, that they almost disappear; at a still greater distance they are, in fact, imperceptible.

397

That this is caused by the cross-action of the light we may easily convince ourselves; for the shadow of a pointed object plainly exhibits two points. We must thus never lose sight of the fact that in this case the whole sun-image acts, produces shadows, changes them to double shadows, and finally obliterates them.

398

Instead of solid bodies let us now take openings cut of various given sizes next each other, and let the sun shine through them on a plane surface at some little distance; we shall find that the bright image produced by the sun on the surface, is larger than the opening; this is because one edge of the sun shines towards the opposite edge of the opening, while the other edge of the disk is excluded on that side. Hence the bright image is more weakly lighted towards the edges.

399

If we take square openings of any size we please, we shall find that the bright image on a surface nine feet from the opening, is on every side about an inch larger than the opening; thus nearly corresponding with the angle of the apparent diameter of the sun.

400

That the brightness should gradually diminish towards the edges of the image is quite natural, for at last only a minimum of the light can act cross-wise from the sun’s circumference through the edge of the aperture.

401

Thus we here again see how much reason we have in actual observation to guard against the assumption of parallel rays, bundles and fasces of rays, and the like hypothetical notions.

402

We might rather consider the splendour of the sun, or of any light, as an infinite specular multiplication of the circumscribed luminous image, whence it may be explained that all square openings through which the sun shines, at certain distances, according as the apertures are greater or smaller, must give a round image of light,

403

The above experiments may be repeated through openings of various shapes and sizes, and the same effect will always take place at proportionate distances, In all these cases, however, we may still observe that in a full light and while the sun merely shines past an edge, no colour is apparent.

404

We therefore proceed to experiments with a subdued light, which is essential to the appearance of colour. Let a small opening be made in the window-shutter of a dark room; let the crossing sun-light which enters, be received on a surface of white paper, and we shall find that the smaller the opening is, the dimmer the light image will be. This is quite obvious, because the paper does not receive light from the whole sun, but partially from single points of its disk.

405

If we look attentively at this dim image of the sun, we find it still dimmer towards the outlines where a yellow border is perceptible. The colour is still more apparent if a vapour or a transparent cloud passes before the sun, thus subduing and dimming its brightness. The halo on the wall, the effect of the decreasing brightness of a light placed near it, is here forced on our recollection. (88.)

406

If we examine the image more accurately, we perceive that this yellow border is not the only appearance of colour; we can see, besides, a bluish circle, if not even a halo-like repetition of the coloured border. If the room is quite dark, we discern that the sky next the sun also has its effect: we see the blue sky, nay, even the whole landscape, on the paper, and are thus again convinced that as far as regards the sun, we have here only to do with a luminous image.

407

If we take a somewhat larger square opening, so large that the image of the sun shining through it does not immediately become round, we may distinctly observe the half-shadows of every edge or side, the junction of these in the corners, and their colours; just as in the above-mentioned appearance with the round opening,

408

We have now subdued a parallactic light by causing it to shine through small apertures, but we have not taken from it its parallactic character; so that it can produce double shadows of bodies, although with diminished power. These double shadows which we have hitherto been describing, follow each other in light and dark, coloured and colourless circles, and produce repeated, nay, almost innumerable halos. These effects have been often represented in drawings and engravings. By placing needles, hairs, and other small bodies, in the subdued light, the numerous halo-like double shadows may be increased; thus observed, they have been ascribed to an alternating flexile action of the light, and the same assumption has been employed to explain the obliteration of the central shadow, and the appearance of a light in the place of the dark.

409

For ourselves, we maintain that these again are parallactic double shadows, which appear edged with coloured borders and halos.

410

After having seen and investigated the foregoing phenomena, we can proceed to the experiments with knife-blades, exhibiting effects which may be referred to the contact and parallactic mutual intersection of the half-shadows and halos already familiar to us.

411

Lastly, the observer may follow out the experiments with hairs, needles, and wires, in the half-light produced as before described by the sun, as well as in that derived from the blue sky, and indicated on the white paper. He will thus make himself still better acquainted with the true nature of this phenomenon.

412

But since in these experiments everything depends on our being persuaded of the parallactic action of the light, we can make this more evident by means of two sources of light, the two shadows from which intersect each other, and may be altogether separated. By day this may be contrived with two small openings in a window-shutter; by night, with two candles. There are even accidental effects in interiors, on opening and closing shutters, by means of which we can better observe these appearances than with the most careful apparatus. But still, all and each of these may be reduced to experiment by preparing a box which the observer can look into from above, and gradually diminishing the openings after having caused a double light to shine in. In this case, as might be expected, the coloured shadow, considered under the physiological colours, appears very easily.

413

It is necessary to remember, generally, what has been before stated with regard to the nature of double shadows, half-lights, and the like. Experiments also should especially be made with different shades of grey placed next each other, where every stripe will appear light by a darker, and dark by a lighter stripe next it. If at night, with three or more lights, we produce shadows which cross each other successively, we can observe this phenomenon very distinctly, and we shall be convinced that the physiological case before more fully treated, here comes into the account (38).

414

To what extent the appearances that accompany the paroptical colours, may be derived from the doctrine of subdued lights, from half-shadows, and from the physiological disposition of the retina, or whether we shall be forced to take refuge in certain intrinsic qualities of light, as has hitherto been done, time may teach. Suffice it here to have pointed out the conditions under which the paroptical colours appear, and we may hope that our allusion to their connexion with the facts before adduced by us will not remain unnoticed by the observers of nature.

415

The affinity of the paroptical colours with the dioptrical of the second class will also be readily seen and followed up by every reflecting investigator. Here, as in those instances, we have to do with edges or boundaries; here, as in those instances, with a light, which appears at the outline. How natural, therefore, it is to conclude that the paroptical effects may be heightened, strengthened, and enriched by the dioptrical. Since, however, the luminous image actually shines through the medium, we can here only have to do with objective cases of refraction: it is these which are strictly allied to the paroptical cases. The subjective cases of refraction, where we see objects through the medium, are quite distinct from the paroptical.

We have already recommended them on account of their clearness and simplicity.

416

The connexion between the paroptical colours and the catoptrical may be already inferred from what has been said: for as the catoptrical colours only appear on scratches, points, steel-wire, and delicate threads, so it is nearly the same case as if the light shone past an edge. The light must always be reflected from an edge in order to produce colour. Here again, as before pointed out, the partial action of the luminous image and the subduing of the light are both to be taken into the account.

417

We add but few observations on the subjective paroptical colours, because these may be classed partly with the physiological colours, partly with the dioptrical of the second order. The greater part hardly seem to belong here, but, when attentively considered, they still diffuse a satisfactory light over the whole doctrine, and establish its connexion,

418

If we hold a ruler before the eyes so that the flame of a light just appears above it, we see the ruler as it were indented and notched at the place where the light appears. This seems deducible from the expansive power of light acting on the retina (18).

419

The same phenomenon on a large scale is exhibited at sun-rise; for when the orb appears distinctly, but not too powerfully, so that we can still look at it, it always makes a sharp indentation in the horizon.

420

If, when the sky is grey, we approach a window, so that the dark cross of the window-bars be relieved on the sky; if after fixing the eyes on the horizontal bar we bend the head a little forward; on half closing the eyes as we look up, we shall presently perceive a bright yellow-red border under the bar, and a bright light-blue one above it. The duller and more monotonous the grey of the sky, the more dusky the room, and, consequently, the more previously unexcited the eye, the livelier the appearance will be; but it may be seen by an attentive observer even in bright daylight.

421

If we move the head backwards while half closing the eyes, so that the horizontal bar be seen below, the phenomenon will appear reversed. The upper edge will appear yellow, the under edge blue.

422

Such observations are best made in a dark room. If white paper is spread before the opening where the solar microscope is commonly fastened, the lower edge of the circle will appear blue, the upper yellow, even while the eyes are quite open, or only by half-closing them so far that a halo no longer appears round the white. If the head is moved backwards the colours are reversed.

423

These phenomena seem to prove that the humours of the eye are in fact only really achromatic in the centre where vision takes place, but that towards the circumference, and in unusual motions of the eyes, as in looking horizontally when the head is bent backwards or forwards, a chromatic tendency remains, especially when distinctly relieved objects are thus looked at. Hence such phenomena may be considered as allied to the dioptrical colours of the second class.

424

Similar colours appear if we look on black and white objects, through a pin-hole in a card. Instead of a white object we may take the minute light aperture in the tin plate of a camera obscura, as prepared for paroptical experiments.

425

If we look through a tube, the farther end of which is contracted or variously indented, the same colours appear.

426

The following phenomena appear to me to be more nearly allied to the paroptical appearances. If we hold up a needle near the eye, the point appears double. A particularly remarkable effect again is produced if we look towards a grey sky through the blades of knives prepared for paroptical experiments. We seem to look through a gauze; a multitude of threads appear to the eye; these are in fact only the reiterated images of the sharp edges, each of which is successively modified by the next, or perhaps modified in a parallactic sense by the oppositely acting one, the whole mass being thus changed to a thread-like appearance.

427

Lastly, it is to be remarked that if we look through the blades towards a minute light in the window-shutter, coloured stripes and halos appear on the retina as on the paper.

428

The present chapter may be here terminated, the less reluctantly, as a friend has undertaken to investigate this subject by further experiments. In our recapitulation, in the description of the plates and apparatus, we hope hereafter to give an account of his observations.

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XXXIII. Epoptical Colours.

429

We have hitherto had to do with colours which appear with vivacity, but which immediately vanish again when certain conditions cease. We have now to become acquainted with others, which it is true are still to be considered as transient, but which, under certain circumstances, become so fixed that, even after the conditions which first occasioned their appearance cease, they still remain, and thus constitute the link between the physical and the chemical colours.

430

They appear from various causes on the surface of a colourless body, originally, without communication, die or immersion ; and we now proceed to trace them, from their faintest indication to their most permanent state, through the different conditions of their appearance, which for easier survey we here at once summarily state.

431

First condition. — The contact of two smooth surfaces of hard transparent bodies,

First case: if masses or plates of glass, or if lenses are pressed against each other.

Second case: if a crack takes place in a solid mass of glass, chrystal, or ice.

Third case: if lamellae of transparent stones become separated.

Second condition. — If a surface of glass or a polished stone is breathed upon.

Third condition. — The combination of the two last; first, breathing on the glass, then placing another plate of glass upon it, thus exciting the colours by pressure; then removing the upper glass, upon which the colours begin to fade and vanish with the breath,

Fourth condition. — Bubbles of various liquids, soap; chocolate, beer, wine, fine glass bubbles.

Fifth condition. — Very fine pellicles and lamellae, produced by the decomposition — of minerals and metals. The pellicles of lime, the surface of stagnant water, especially if impregnated with iron, and again pellicles of oil on water, especially of varnish on aqua fortis.

Sixth condition. — If metals are heated; the operation of imparting tints to steel and other metals,

Seventh condition. — If the surface of glass is beginning to decompose.

432

First condition, first case. If two convex glasses, or a convex and plane glass, or, best of all, a convex and concave glass come in contact, concentric coloured circles appear. The phenomenon exhibits itself immediately on the slightest pressure, and may then be gradually carried through various successive states. We will describe the complete appearance at once, as we shall then be better enabled to follow the different states through which it passes.

433

The centre is colourless; where the glasses are, so to speak, united in one by the strongest pressure, a dark grey point appears with a silver white space round it: then follow, in decreasing distances, various insulated rings, all consisting of three colours, which are in immediate contact with each other. Each of these rings, of which perhaps three or four might be counted, is yellow on the inner side, blue on the outer, and red in the centre. Between two rings there appears a silver white interval. The rings which are farthest from the centre are always nearer together: they are composed of red and green without a perceptible white space between them.

434

We will now observe the appearances in their gradual formation, beginning from the slightest pressure.

435

On the slightest pressure the centre itself appears of a green colour. Then follow as far as the concentric circles extend, red and green rings. They are wide, accordingly, and no trace of a silver white space is to be seen between them. The green is produced by the blue of an imperfectly developed circle, mixing with the yellow of the first circle. All the remaining circles are, in this slight contact, broad; their yellow and blue edges mix together, thus producing a beautiful green. The red, however, of each circle, remains pure and untouched; hence the whole series is composed of, these two colours.

436

A somewhat stronger pressure separates the first circle by a slight interval from the imperfectly developed one: it is thus detached, and may be said to appear in a complete state. The centre is now a blue point; for the yellow of the first circle is now separated from this central point by a silver white space. From the centre of the blue a red appears, which is thus, in all cases, bounded on the outside by its blue edge. The second and third rings from the centre are quite detached. Where deviations from this order present themselves, the observer will be enabled to account for them, from what has been or remains to be stated.

437

On a stronger pressure the centre becomes yellow; this yellow is surrounded by a red and blue edge at last, the yellow also retires from the centre; the innermost circle is formed and is bounded with yellow. The whole centre itself now appears silver white, till at last, on the strongest pressure, the dark point appears, and the phenomenon, as described at first, is complete.

438

The relative size of the concentric circles and their intervals depends on the form of the glasses which are pressed together.

439

We remarked above, that the coloured centre is, in fact, an undeveloped circle. It is, however, often found, on the slightest pressure, that several undeveloped circles exist there, as it were, in the germ; these can be successively developed before the eye of the observer.

440

The regularity of these rings is owing to the form of the convex glasses, and the diameter of the coloured appearance depends on the greater or lesser section of a circle on which a lens is polished. We easily conclude from this, that by pressing plane glasses together, irregular appearances only will be produced; the colours, in fact, undulate like watered silks, and spread from the point of pressure in all directions. Yet, the phenomenon as thus exhibited is much more splendid than in the former instance, and cannot fail to strike every spectator. If we make the experiment in this mode, we shall distinctly see, as in the other case, that, on a slight pressure, the green and red waves appear; on a stronger, stripes of blue, red, and yellow, become detached. At first, the outer sides of these stripes touch; on increased pressure they are separated by a silver white space.

441

Before we proceed to a further description of this phenomenon, we may point out the most convenient mode of exhibiting it. Place a large convex glass on a table near the window; upon this glass lay a plate of well-polished mirror-glass, about the size of a playing-card, and the mere weight of the plate will press sufficiently to produce one or other of the phenomena above described. So, also, by the different weight of plates of glass, by other accidental circumstances, for instance, by slipping the plate on the side of the convex glass where the pressure cannot be so strong as in the centre, all the gradations above described can be produced in succession.

442

In order to observe the phenomenon it is necessary to look obliquely on the surface where it appears. But, above all, it is to be remarked that by stooping still more, and looking at the appearance under a more acute angle, the circles not only grow larger but other circles are developed from the centre, of which no trace is to be discovered when we look perpendicularly, even through the strongest magnifiers.

443

In order to exhibit the phenomenon in its greatest beauty, the utmost attention should be paid to the cleanness of the glasses. If the experiment is made with plate-glass adapted for mirrors, the glass should be handled with gloves. The inner surfaces, which must come in contact with the utmost nicety, may be most conveniently cleaned before the experiment, and the outer surfaces should be kept clean while the pressure is increased.

444

From what has been said it will be seen that an exact contact of two smooth surfaces is necessary. Polished glasses are best adapted for the purpose. Plates of glass exhibit the most brilliant colours when they fit closely together, and for this reason the phenomenon will increase in beauty if exhibited under an air-pump, by exhausting the air,

445

The appearance of the coloured rings may be produced in the greatest perfection by placing a convex and concave glass together which have been ground on similar segments of circles. I have never seen the effect more brilliant than with the object-glass of an achromatic telescope, in which the crown-glass and flint-glass were necessarily in the closest contact.

446

A remarkable appearance takes place when dissimilar surfaces are pressed together; for example, a polished crystal and a plate of glass. The appearance does not at all exhibit itself in large flowing waves, as in the combination of glass with glass, but it is small and angular, and, as it were, disjointed: thus it appears that the surface of the polished crystal, which consists of infinitely small sections of lamellie, does not come so uninterruptedly in contact with the glass as another glass-plate would.

447

The appearance of colour vanishes on the strongest pressure, which so intimately unites the two surfaces that they appear to make but one substance. It is this which occasions the dark centre, because the pressed lens no longer reflects any light from this point; for the very same point, when seen against the light, is perfectly clear and transparent. On relaxing the pressure, the colours, in like manner, gradually diminish, and disappear entirely when the surfaces are separated.

448

These same appearances occur in two similar cases. If entirely transparent masses become partially separated, the surfaces of their parts being still sufficiently in contact, we see the same circles and waves more or less. They may be produced in great beauty by plunging a hot mass of glass in water; the different fissures and cracks enabling us to observe the colours in various forms. Nature often exhibits the same phenomena in split rock crystals.

449

This appearance, again, frequently displays itself in the mineral world in those kinds of stone which by nature have a tendency to exfoliate. These original lamellae are, it is true, so intimately united, that stones of this kind appear altogether transparent and colourless, yet, the internal layers become separated, from various accidental causes, without altogether destroying the contact: thus the appearance, which is now familiar to us by the foregoing description, often occurs in nature, particularly in calcareous spars; the specularis, adularia, and other minerals of similar structure. Hence it shows an ignorance of the proximate causes of an appearance so often accidentally produced, to consider it so important in mineralogy, and to attach especial value to the specimens exhibiting it.

450

We have yet to speak of the very remarkable inversion of this appearance, as related by men of science. If, namely, instead of looking at the colours by a reflected light, we examine them by a transmitted light, the opposite colours are said to appear, and in a mode corresponding with that which we have before described as physiological; the colours evoking each other. Instead of blue, we should thus see red-yellow; instead of red, green, &c., and vice versa &c. We reserve experiments in detail, the rather as we have ourselves still some doubts on this point.

451

If we were now called upon to give some general explanation of these epoptical colours, as they appear under the first condition, and to show their connexion with the previously detailed physical phenomena, we might proceed to do so as follows: —

452

The glasses employed for the experiments are to be regarded as the utmost possible practical approach to transparence. By the intimate contact, however, occasioned by the pressure applied to them, their surfaces, we are persuaded, immediately become in a very slight degree dimmed. Within this semi-transparence the colours immediately appear, and every circle comprehends the whole scale; for when the two opposites, yellow and blue, are united by their red extremities, pure red appears: the green, on the other hand, as in prismatic experiments, when yellow and blue touch.

453

We have already repeatedly found that where colour exists at all, the whole scale is soon called into existence; a similar principle may be said to lurk in the nature of every physical phenomenon; it already follows, from the idea of polar opposition, from which an elementary unity or completeness results.

454

The fact that a colour exhibited by transmitted light is different from that displayed by reflected light, reminds us of those dioptrical colours of the first class which we found were produced precisely in the same way through semi-opacity. That here, too, a diminution of transparency exists there can scarcely be a doubt; for the adhesion of the perfectly smooth plates of glass (an adhesion so strong that they remain hanging to each other) produces a degree of union which deprives each of the two surfaces, in some degree, of its smoothness and transparence. The fullest proof may, however, be found in the fact that in the centre, where the lens is most strongly pressed on the other glass, and where a perfect union is accomplished, a complete transparence takes place, in which we no longer perceive any colour. All this may be hereafter confirmed in a recapitulation of the whole.

455

Second condition. — If after breathing on a plate of glass, the breath is merely wiped away with the finger, and if we then again immediately breathe on the glass, we see very vivid colours gliding through each other; these, as the moisture evaporates, change their place, and at last vanish altogether. If this operation is repeated, the colours are more vivid and beautiful, and remain longer than they did the first time.

456

Quickly as this appearance passes, and confused as it appears to be, I have yet remarked the following effects: — At first all the principal colours appear with their combinations; on breathing more strongly, the appearance may be perceived in some order. In this succession it may be remarked, that when the breath in evaporating becomes contracted from all sides towards the centre, the blue colour vanishes last.

457

The phenomenon appears most readily between the minute lines, which the action of passing the fingers leaves on the clear surface; a somewhat rough state of the surface of the glass is otherwise requisite. On some glass the appearance may be produced by merely breathing; in other cases the wiping with the fingers is necessary: I have even met with polished mirror-glasses, one side of which immediately showed the colours vividly; the other not. To judge from some remaining pieces, the former was originally the front of the glass, the latter the side which was covered with quicksilver.

458

These experiments may be best made in cold weather, because the glass may be more quickly and distinctly breathed upon, and the breath evaporates more suddenly. In severe frost the phenomenon may be observed on a large scale while traveling in a carriage; the glasses being well cleaned, and all closed. The breath of the persons within is very gently diffused over the glass, and immediately produces the most vivid play of colours. How far they may present a regular succession I have not been able to remark; but they appear particularly vivid when they have a dark object as a background. This alternation of colours does not, however, last long; for as soon as the breath gathers in drops, or freezes to points of ice, the appearance is at once at an end.

459

Third condition. — The two foregoing experiments of the pressure and breathing may be united; namely, by breathing on a plate of glass, and immediately after pressing the other upon it. The colours then appear as in the case of two glasses unbreathed upon, with this difference, that the moisture occasions here and there an interruption of the undulations. On pushing one glass away from the other the moisture appears iridescent as it evaporates.

460

It might, however, be asserted that this combined experiment exhibits no more than each single experiment; for it appears the colours excited by pressure disappear in proportion as the glasses are less in contact, and the moisture then evaporates with its own colours.

461

Fourth condition, — Iridescent appearances are observable in almost all bubbles; soap-bubbles are the most commonly known, and the effect in question is thus exhibited in the easiest mode; but it may be observed in wine, beer, in pure spirit, and again, especially, in the froth of chocolate.

462

As in the above cases we required an infinitely narrow space between two surfaces which are in contact, so we can consider the pellicle of the soap-bubble as an infinitely thin lamina between two elastic bodies; for the appearance in fact takes place between the air within, which distends the bubble, and the atmospheric air.

463

The bubble when first produced is colourless; then coloured stripes, like those in marble paper, begin to appear: these at length spread over the whole surface, or rather are driven round it as it is distended.

464

In a single bubble, suffered to hang from the straw or tube, the appearance of colour is difficult to observe, for the quick rotation prevents any accurate observation, and all the colours seem to mix together; yet we can perceive that the colours begin at the orifice of the tube. The solution itself may, however, be blown into carefully, so that only one bubble shall appear. This remains white (colourless) if not much agitated; but if the solution is not too watery, circles appear round the perpendicular axis of the bubble; these being near each other, are commonly composed alternately of green and red. Lastly, several bubbles may be produced together by the same means; in this case the colours appear on the sides where two bubbles have pressed each other flat.

465

The bubbles of chocolate-froth may perhaps be even more conveniently observed than those of soap; though smaller, they remain longer. In these, owing to the heat, an impulse, a movement, is produced and sustained, which appears necessary to the development and succession of the appearances.

466

If the bubble is small, or shut in between others, coloured lines chase each other over the surface, resembling marbled paper; all the colours of the scale are seen to pass through each other; the pure, the augmented, the combined, all distinctly clear and beautiful. In small bubbles the appearance lasts for a considerable time.

467

If the bubble is larger, or if it becomes by degrees detached, owing to the bursting of others near, we perceive that this impulsion and attraction of the colours has, as it were, an end in view; for on the highest point of the bubble we see a small circle appear, which is yellow in the centre; the other remaining coloured lines move constantly round this with a vermicular action.

468

In a short time the circle enlarges and sinks downwards on all sides; in the centre the yellow remains; below and on the outside it becomes red, and soon blue; below this again appears a new circle of the same series of colours: if they approximate sufficiently, a green is produced by the union of the border-colours.

469

When I could count three such leading circles, the centre was colourless, and this space became by degrees larger as the circles sank lower, till at last the bubble burst.

470

Fifth condition. — Very delicate pellicles may be formed in various ways: on these films we discover a very lively play of colours, either in the usual order, or more confusedly passing through each other. The water in which lime has been slaked soon skims over with a coloured pellicle: the same happens on the surface of stagnant water, especially if impregnated with iron. The lamellae of the fine tartar which adheres to bottles, especially in red French wine, exhibit the most brilliant colours, on being exposed to the light, if carefully detached. Drops of oil on water, brandy, and other fluids, produce also similar circles and brilliant effects: but the most beautiful experiment that can be made is the following: — Let aqua fortis, not too strong, be poured into a flat saucer, and then with a brush drop on it some of the varnish used by engravers to cover certain portions during the process of biting their plates. After quick commotion there presently appears a film which spreads itself oat in circles, and immediately produces the most vivid appearances of colour.

471

Sixth condition. — When metals are heated, colours rapidly succeeding each other appear on the surface: these colours can, however, be arrested at will.

472

If a piece of polished steel is heated, it will, at a certain degree of warmth, be overspread with yellow. If taken suddenly away from the fire, this yellow remains.

As the steel becomes hotter, the yellow appears darker, intenser, and presently passes into red. This is difficult to arrest, for it hastens very quickly to bright blue.

474

This beautiful blue is to be arrested if the steel is suddenly taken out of the heat and buried in ashes. The blue steel works are produced in this way. If, again, the steel is held longer over the fire, it soon becomes a light blue, and so it remains.

475

These colours pass like a breath over the plate of steel; each seems to fly before the other, but, in reality, each successive hue is constantly developed from the preceding one.

476

If we hold a penknife in the flame of a light, a coloured stripe will appear across the blade. The portion of the stripe which was nearest to the flame is light blue; this melts into blue-red; the red is in the centre; then follow yellow-red and yellow.

477

This phenomenon is deducible from the preceding ones; for the portion of the blade next the handle is less heated than the end which is in the flame, and thus all the colours which in other cases exhibited themselves in succession, must here appear at once, and may thus be permanently preserved.

478

Robert Boyle gives this succession of colours as follows: — ”A florido flavo ad flavum saturum et rubescentem (quem artifices sanguineum vocant) inde ad languidum, postea ad saturiorem cyaneum.” This would be quite correct if the words “languidus” and “saturior” were to change places. How far the observation is correct, that the different colours have a relation to the degree of temper which the metal afterwards acquires, we leave to others to decide. The colours are here only indications of the different degrees of heat. — Note R.

479

When lead is calcined, the surface is first greyish. This greyish powder, with greater heat, becomes yellow, and then orange. Silver, too, exhibits colours when heated; the fracture of silver in the process of refining belongs to the same class of examples. When metallic glasses melt, colours in like manner appear on the surface.

480

Seventh condition. — When the surface of glass becomes decomposed. The accidental opacity (blindwerden) of glass has been already noticed: the term (blindwerden) is employed to denote that the surface of the glass is so affected as to appear dim to us.

481

White glass becomes “blind” soonest; cast, and afterwards polished glass is also liable to be so affected; the bluish less, the green least.

482

Of the two sides of a plate of glass one is called the mirror side; it is that which in the oven lies uppermost, on which one may observe roundish elevations: it is smoother than the other, which is undermost in the oven, and on which scratches may be sometimes observed. On this account the ‘mirror side is placed facing the interior of rooms, because it is less affected by the moisture adhering to it from within, than the other would be, and the glass is thus less liable to become “blind.”

483

This half-opacity or dimness of the glass assumes by degrees an appearance of colour which may become very vivid, and in which perhaps a certain succession, or otherwise regular order, might be discovered.

484

Having thus traced the physical colours from their simplest effects to the present instances, where these fleeting appearances are found to be fixed in bodies, we are, in fact, arrived at the point where the chemical colours begin; nay, we have in some sort already passed those limits; a circumstance which may excite a favourable prejudice for the consistency of our statement. By way of conclusion to this part of our inquiry, we subjoin a general observation, which may not be without its bearing on the common connecting principle of the phenomena that have been adduced.

485

The colouring of steel and the appearances analogous to it, might perhaps be easily deduced from the doctrine of the semi-opaque mediums. Polished steel reflects light powerfully: we may consider the colour produced by the heat as a slight degree of dimness: hence a bright yellow must immediately appear; this, as the dimness increases, must still appear deeper, more condensed, and redder, and at last pure and ruby-red. The colour has now reached the extreme point of depth, and if we suppose the same degree of semi-opacity still to continue, the dimness would now spread itself over a dark ground, first producing a violet, then a dark-blue, and at last a light-blue, and thus complete the series of the appearances.

We will not assert that this mode of explanation will suffice in all cases; our object is rather to point out the road by which the all-comprehensive formula, the very key of the enigma, may be at last discovered. — Note S.

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PART III. CHEMICAL COLOURS.

486

We give this denomination to colours which we can produce, and more or less fix, in certain bodies; which we can render more intense, which we can again take away and communicate to other bodies, and to which, therefore, we ascribe a certain permanency: duration is their prevailing characteristic.

487

In this view the chemical colours were formerly distinguished with various epithets; they were called colorer proprii, corporei, materiales, veri, permanentes,

488

In the preceding chapter we observed how the fluctuating and transient nature of the physical colours becomes gradually fixed, thus forming the natural transition to our present subject.

489

Colour becomes fixed in bodies more or less permanently; superficially, or thoroughly.

490

All bodies are susceptible of colour; it can either be excited, rendered intense, and gradually fixed in them, or at least communicated to them.

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XXXIV. Chemical Contrast.

491

In the examination of coloured appearances we had occasion everywhere to take notice of a principle of contrast: so again, in approaching the precincts of chemistry, we find a chemical contrast of a remarkable nature. We speak here, with reference to our present purpose, only of that which is comprehended under the general names of acid and alkali.

492

We characterised the chromatic contrast, in conformity with all other physical contrasts as a more and less; ascribing the plus to the yellow side, the minus to the blue; and we now find that these two divisions correspond with the chemical contrasts. The yellow and yellow-red affect the acids, the blue and blue-red the alkalis; thus the phenomena of chemical colours, although still necessarily mixed up with other considerations, admit of being traced with sufficient simplicity.

493

The principal phenomena in chemical colours are produced by the oxydation of metals, and it will be seen how important this consideration is at the outset. Other facts which come into the account, and which are worthy of attention, will be examined under separate heads; in doing this we, however, expressly state that we only propose to offer some preparatory suggestions to the chemist in a very general way, without entering into the nicer chemical problems and questions, or presuming to decide on them. Our object is only to give a sketch of the mode in which, according to our conviction, the chemical theory of colours may be connected with general physics.

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XXXV. White.

494

In treating of the dioptrical colours of the first class (155) we have already in some degree anticipated this subject. Transparent substances may be said to be in the highest class of inorganic matter. With these, colourless semi-transparence is closely connected, and white may be considered the last opaque degree of this.

495

Pure water crystallised to snow appears white, for the transparence of the separate parts makes no transparent whole. Various crystallised salts, when deprived to a certain extent of moisture, appear as a white powder. The accidentally opaque state of a pure transparent substance might be called white; thus pounded glass appears as a white powder. The cessation of a combining power, and the exhibition of the atomic quality of the substance might at the same time be taken into account.

496

The known undecomposed earths are, in their pure state, all white. They pass to a state of transparence by natural crystallization. Silex becomes rock-crystal; argile, mica; magnesia, talc; calcareous earth and barytes appear transparent in various spars. — Note T.

497

AS in the colour of mineral bodies the metallic oxydes will often invite our attention, we observe, in conclusion, that metals, when slightly oxydated, at first appear white, as lead is converted to white lead by vegetable acid.

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XXXVI. Black.

498

Black is not exhibited in so elementary a state as white. We meet with it in the vegetable kingdom in semi-combustion; and charcoal, a substance especially worthy of attention on other accounts, exhibits a black colour. Again, if woods — for example, boards, owing to the action of light, air , and moisture, are deprived in part of their combustibility, there appears first the grey then the black colour. So again, we can convert even portions of animal substance to charcoal by semi-combustion.

499

In the same manner we often find that a sub-oxydation takes place in metals when the black colour is to be produced. Various metals, particularly iron, become black by slight oxydation, by vinegar, by mild acid fermentations; for example, a decoction of rice, &c.

500

Again, it may be inferred that a de-oxydation may produce black. This occurs in the preparation of ink, which becomes yellow by the solution of iron in strong sulphuric acid, but when partly de-oxydised by the infusion of gall-nuts, appears black.

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XXXVII. First Excitation of Colour.

501

In the division of physical colours, where semitransparent mediums were considered, we saw colours antecedently to white and black. In the present case we assume a white and black already produced and fixed; and the question is, how colour can be excited in them ?

502

Here, too, we can say, white that becomes darkened or dimmed inclines to yellow; black, as it becomes lighter, inclines to blue. — Note U.

503

Yellow appears on the active (plus) side, immediately in the light, the bright, the white. All white surfaces easily assume a yellow tinge; paper, linen, wool, silk, wax: transparent fluids again, which have a tendency to combustion, easily become yellow; in other words they easily pass into a very slight state of semi-transparence.

504

So again the excitement on the passive side, the tendency to obscure, dark, black, is immediately accompanied with blue, or rather with a reddish-blue. Iron dissolved in sulphuric acid, and much diluted with water, if held to the light in a glass, exhibits a beautiful violet colour as soon as a few drops only of the infusion of gall-nuts are added. This colour presents the peculiar hues of the dark topaz, the orphninon of a burnt-red, as the ancients expressed it.

505

Whether any colour can be excited in the pure earths by the chemical operations of nature and art, without the admixture of metallic oxydes, is an important question, generally, indeed, answered in the negative. It is perhaps connected with the question — to what extent changes may be produced in the earths through oxydation

506

Undoubtedly the negation of the above question is confirmed by the circumstance that wherever mineral colours are found, some trace of metal, especially of iron, shows itself; we are thus naturally led to consider how easily iron becomes oxydised, how easily the oxyde of iron assumes different colours, how infinitely divisible it is, and how quickly it communicates its colour. It were to be wished, notwithstanding, that new experiments could be made in regard to the above point, so as either to confirm or remove any doubt.

507

However this may be, the susceptibility of the earths with regard to colours already existing is very great; aluminous earth is thus particularly distinguished.

508

In proceeding to consider the metals, which in the inorganic world have the almost exclusive prerogative of appearing coloured, we find that, in their pure, independent, natural state, they are already distinguished from the pure earths by a tendency to some one colour or other.

509

While silver approximates most to pure white, — nay, really represents pure white, heightened by metallic splendor, — steel, tin, lead, and so forth, incline towards pale blue-grey; gold, on the other hand, deepens to pure yellow, copper approaches a red hue, which, under certain circumstances, increases almost to bright’ red, but which again returns to a yellow golden colour when combined with zinc.

510

But if metals in their pure state have so specific a determination towards this or that exhibition of colour, they are, through the effect of oxydation, in some degree reduced to a common character; for the elementary colours now come forth in their purity, and although this or that metal appears to have a particular tendency to this or that colour, we find some that can go through the whole circle of hues, others, that are capable of exhibiting more than one colour; tin, however, is distinguished by its comparative inaptitude to become coloured. We propose to give a table hereafter, showing how far the different metals can be more or less made to exhibit the different colours.

511

When the clean, smooth surface of a pure metal, on being heated, becomes overspread with a mantling colour, which passes through a series of appearances as the heat increases, this, we are persuaded, indicates the aptitude of the metal to pass through the whole range of colours. We find this phenomenon most beautifully exhibited in polished steel; but silver, copper, brass, lead, and tin, easily present similar appearances. A superficial oxydation is probably here taking place, as may be inferred from the effects of the operation when continued, especially in the more easily oxydizable metals.

512

The same conclusion may be drawn from the fact that iron is more easily oxydizable by acid liquids when it is red hot, for in this case the two effects concur with each other. We observe, again, that steel, accordingly as it is hardened in different stages of its colorification, may exhibit a difference of elasticity: this is quite natural, for the various appearances of colour indicate various degrees of heat.

513

If we look beyond this superficial mantling, this pellicle of colour, we observe that as metals are oxydized throughout their masses, white or black appears with the first degree of heat, as may be seen in white lead, iron, and quicksilver.

514

If we examine further, and look for the actual exhibition of colour, we find it most frequently on the plus side. The mantling, so often mentioned, of smooth metallic surfaces begins with yellow. Iron passes presently into yellow ochre, lead from white lead to massicot, quicksilver from aethiops to yellow turbith. The solutions’ of gold and platinum in acids are yellow,

515

The exhibitions on the minus side are less frequent. Copper slightly oxydized appears blue. In the preparation of Prussian-blue, alkalis are employed.

516.

Generally, however, these appearances of colour are of so mutable a nature that chemists look upon them as deceptive tests, at least in the nicer gradations. For ourselves, as we can only treat of these matters in a general way, we merely observe that the appearances of colour in metals may be classed according to their origin, manifold appearance, and cessation, as various results of oxydation, hyper-oxydation, ab-oxydation, and de-oxydation.

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XXXVIII. Augmentation of Colour.

517

The augmentation of colour exhibits itself as a condensation, a fulness, a darkening of the hue. We have before seen, in treating of colourless mediums, that by increasing the degree of opacity in the medium, we can deepen a bright object from the lightest yellow to the intensest ruby-red. Blue, on the other hand, increases to the most beautiful violet, if we rarefy and diminish a semi-opaque medium, itself lighted, but through which we see darkness (150, 151).

518

If the colour is positive, a similar colour appears in the intenser state. Thus if we fill a white porcelain cup with a pure yellow liquor, the fluid will appear to become gradually redder towards the bottom, and at last appears orange. If we pour a pure blue solution into another cup, the upper portion will exhibit a sky-blue, that towards the bottom, a beautiful violet. If the cup is placed in the sun, the shadowed side, even of the upper portion, is already violet. If we throw a shadow with the hand, or any other substance, over the illumined portion, the shadow in like manner appears reddish.

519

This is one of the most important appearances connected with the doctrine of colours, for we here manifestly find that a difference of quantity produces a corresponding qualified impression on our senses. In speaking of the last class of epoptical colours (452, 485), we stated our conjecture that the colouring of steel might perhaps be traced to the doctrine of the semitransparent mediums, and we would here again recall this to the reader’s recollection.

520

All chemical augmentation of colour, again, is the immediate consequence of continued excitation. The augmentation advances constantly and unremittingly, and it is to be observed that the increase of intenseness is most common on the plus side. Yellow iron ochre increases, as well by fire as by other operations, to a very strong red: massicot is increased to red lead, turbith to vermilion, which last attains a very high degree of the yellow-red. An intimate saturation of the metal by the acid, and its separation to infinity, take place together with the above effects,

521

The augmentation on the minus side is less frequent; but we observe that the more pure and condensed the Prussian blue or cobalt glass is prepared, the more readily it assumes a red-. dish hue and inclines to the violet.

522

The French have a happy expression for the less perceptible tendency of yellow and blue towards red: they say the colour has “un veil de rouge,” which we might perhaps express by a reddish glance (einen rötblichen blick).

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XXXIX. Culmination.

523

This is the consequence of still progressing augmentation. Red, in which neither yellow nor blue is to be detected, here constitutes the acme.

524

If we wish to select a striking example of a culmination on the plus side, we again find it in the coloured steel, which attains the bright red acme, and can be arrested at this point,

525

Were we here to employ the terminology before proposed, we should say that the first oxydation produces yellow, the hyper-oxydation yellow-red; that here a kind of maximum exists, and that then an ab-oxydation, and lastly a deoxydation takes place.

526

High degrees of oxydation produce a bright red. Gold in solution, precipitated by a solution of tin, appears bright red: oxyde of arsenic, in combination with sulphur, produces a ruby colour.

527

How far, however, a kind of sub-oxydation may co-operate in some culminations, is matter for inquiry; for an influence of alkalis on the yellow-red also appears to produce the culmination; the colour reaching the acme by being forced towards the minus side.

528

The Dutch prepare a colour known by the name of vermilion, from the best Hungarian cinnabar, which exhibits the brightest yellow-red. This vermilion is still only a cinnabar, which, however, approximates the pure red, and it may be conjectured that alkalis are used to bring it nearer to the culminating point.

529

Vegetable juices, treated in this way, offer very striking examples of the above effects. The colouring-matter of turmeric, annotto, dyer’s saffron, and other vegetables, being extracted with spirits of wine, exhibits tints of yellow, yellow-red, and hyacinth-red; these, by the admixture of alkalis, pass to the culminating point, and even beyond it to blue-red.

530

No instance of a culmination on the minus side has come to my knowledge in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. In the animal kingdom the juice of the murex is remarkable; of its augmentation and culmination on the minus side, we shall hereafter have occasion to speak.

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XL. Fluctuation.

531

The mutability of colour is so great, that even those pigments, which may have been considered to be defined and arrested, still admit of slight variations on one side or the other. This mutability is most remarkable near the culminating point, and is effected in a very striking manner by the alternate employment of acids and alkalis.

532

To express this appearance in dyeing, the French make use of the word “virer,” to turn from one side to the other; they thus very adroitly convey an idea which others attempt to express by terms indicating the component hues.

533

The effect produced with litmus is one of the most known and striking of this kind. This colouring substance is rendered red-blue by Means of alkalis. The red-blue is very readily changed to red-yellow by means of acids, and again returns to its first state by again employing alkalis. The question whether a culminating point is to be discovered and arrested by nice experiments, is left to those who are practised in these operations. Dyeing, especially scarlet-dyeing, might afford a variety of examples of this fluctuation.

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XLI.Passage Through the Whole Scale.

534

The first excitation and gradual increase of colour take place more on the plus than on the minus side. So, also, in passing through the whole scale, colour exhibits itself most on the plus side,

535

A passage of this kind, regular and evident to the senses, from yellow through red to blue, is apparent in the colouring of steel.

536

The metals may be arrested at various points of the colorific circle by various degrees and kinds of oxydation.

537

As they also appear green, a question arises whether chemists know any instance in the mineral kingdom of a constant transition from yellow, through green, to blue, and’ vice versa. Oxyde of iron, melted with glass, produces first a green, and with a more powerful heat, a blue colour.

538

We may here observe of green generally, that it appears, especially in an atomic sense, and certainly in a pure state, when we mix blue and yellow: but, again, an impure and dirty yellow soon gives us the impression of green; yellow and black already produce green; this, however, is owing to the affinity between black and blue. An imperfect yellow, such as that of sulphur, gives us the impression of a greenish hue: thus, again, an imperfect blue appears green. The green of wine bottles arises, it appears, from an imperfect union of the oxyde of iron with the glass. If we produce a more complete union by greater heat, a beautiful blue-glass is the result,

539

From all this it appears that a certain chasm exists in nature between yellow and blue, the opposite characters of which, it is true, may be done away atomically by due immixture, and, thus combined, to green; but the true reconciliation between yellow and blue, it seems, only takes place by means of red.

540

The process, however, which appears unattainable in inorganic substances, we shall find to be possible when we turn our attention to organic productions; for in these, the passage through the whole circle from yellow, through green and blue, to red, really takes place.

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XLII. Inversion.

541

Again, an immediate inversion of change to the totally opposite hue, is a very remarkable appearance which sometimes occurs; at present, we are merely enabled to adduce what follows.

542

The mineral chameleon, a name which has been given to an oxyde of manganese, may be considered, in its perfectly dry state, as a green powder. If we strew it in water, the green colour displays itself very beautifully in the first moment of solution, but it changes presently to the bright red opposite to green, without any apparent intermediate state.

543

The same occurs with the sympathetic ink, which may be considered a reddish liquid, but which, when dried by warmth, appears as a green colour on paper.

544

In fact, this phenomenon appears to be owing to the conflict between a dry and moist state, as has been already observed, if we are not mistaken, by the chemists. We may look to the improvements of time to point out what may further be deduced from these phenomena, and to show what other facts they may be connected with.

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XLIII. Fixation.

545

Mutable as we have hitherto found colour to be, even as a substance, yet under certain circumstances it may at last be fixed.

546

There are bodies capable of being entirely converted into colouring matter: here it may be said that the colour fixes itself in its own substance, stops at a certain point, and is there defined. Such colouring substances are found throughout nature; the vegetable world affords a great quantity of examples, among which some are particularly distinguished, and may be considered as the representatives of the rest; such as, on the active side, madder, on the passive side, indigo.

547

In order to make these materials available in use, it is necessary that the colouring quality in them should be intimately condensed, and the tinging substance refined, practically speaking, to an infinite divisibility. This is accomplished in various ways, and particularly by the well-known means of fermentation and decomposition.

548

These colouring substances now attach themselves again to other bodies. Thus, in the mineral kingdom they adhere to earths and metallic oxydes; they unite in melting with glasses; and in this case, as the light is transmitted through them, they appear in the greatest beauty, while an eternal duration may be ascribed to them,

549

They fasten on vegetable and animal bodies with more or less power, and remain more or less permanently; partly owing to their nature, — as yellow, for instance, is more evanescent than blue, — or owing to the nature of the substance on which they appear. They last less in vegetable than in animal substances, and even within this latter kingdom there are again varieties. Hemp or cotton threads, silk or wool, exhibit very different relations to colouring substances.

550

Here comes into the account the important operation of employing mordants, which may be considered as the intermediate agents between the colour and the recipient substance; various works on dyeing speak of this circumstantially. Suffice it to have alluded to processes by ‘means of which the colour retains a permanency only to be destroyed with the substance, and which may even increase in brightness and beauty by use.

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XLIV. Intermixture, Real.

551

EVERY intermixture pre-supposes a specific state of colour; and thus when we speak of intermixture, we here understand it in. an atomic sense. We must first have before us certain bodies arrested at any given point of the colorific circle, before we can produce gradations by their union.

552

Yellow, blue, and red, may be assumed as pure elementary colours, already existing; from these, violet, orange, and green, are the simplest combined results.

553

Some persons have taken much pains to define these intermixtures more accurately, by relations of number, measure, and weight, but nothing very profitable has been thus accomplished.

554

Painting consists, strictly speaking, in the intermixture of such specific colouring bodies and their infinite possible combinations — combinations which can only be appreciated by the nicest, most practised eye, and only accomplished under its influence.

555

The intimate combination of these ingredients is effected, in the first instance, through the most perfect comminution of the material by means of grinding, washing, &c., as well as by vehicles or liquid mediums which hold together the pulverized substance, and combine organically, as it were, the unorganic; such are the oils, resins, &c. — Note V.

556

If all the colours are mixed together they retain their general character as , and as they are no longer seen next each other, no completeness, no harmony, is experienced; the result is grey, which, like apparent colour, always appears somewhat darker than white, and somewhat lighter than black.

557

This grey may be produced in various ways. By mixing yellow and blue to an emerald green, and then adding pure red, till all three neutralize each other; or, by placing the primitive and intermediate colours next each other in a certain proportion, and afterwards mixing them.

558

That all the colours mixed together produce white, is an absurdity which people have credulously been accustomed to repeat for a century, in opposition to the evidence of their senses.

559

Colours when mixed together retain their original darkness. The darker the colours, the darker will be the grey resulting from their union, till at last this grey approaches black. The lighter the colours the lighter will be the grey, which at last approaches white.

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XLV. Intermixture, Apparent.

560

The intermixture, which is only apparent, naturally invites our attention in connexion with the foregoing; it is in many respects important, and, indeed, the intermixture which we have distinguished as real, might be considered as merely apparent. For the elements of which the combined colour consists are only too small to be considered as distinct parts. Yellow and blue powders mingled together appear green to the naked eye, but through a magnifying glass we can still perceive yellow and blue distinct from each other. Thus yellow and blue stripes seen at a distance, present a green mass; the same observation is applicable with regard to the intermixture of other specific colours.

561

In the description of our apparatus we shall have occasion to mention the wheel by means of which the apparent intermixture is produced by rapid movement. Various colours are arranged near each other round the edge of a disk, which is made to revolve with velocity, and thus by having several such disks ready, every possible intermixture can be presented to the eye, as well as the mixture of all colours to grey, darker or lighter, according to the depth of the tints as above explained.

562

Physiological colours admit, in like manner, of being mixed with others. If, for example, we produce the blue shadow (65) on a light yellow paper, the surface will appear green. The same happens with regard to the other colours if the necessary preparations are attended to.

563

If, when the eye is impressed with visionary images that last for a while, we look on coloured surfaces, an intermixture also takes place; the spectrum is determined to a new colour which is composed of the two.

564

Physical colours also admit of combination. Here might be adduced’ the experiments in which many-coloured images are seen through the prism, as we have before shown in detail (258, 284).

565

Those who have prosecuted these inquiries have, however, paid most attention to the appearances which take place when the prismatic colours are thrown on coloured surfaces.

566

What is seen under these circumstances is quite simple. In the first place it must be remembered that the prismatic colours are much more vivid than the colours of the surface on which they are thrown. Secondly, we have to consider that the prismatic colours may be either homogeneous or heterogeneous, with the recipient surface. In the former case the surface deepens and enhances them, and is itself enhanced in return, as a coloured stone is displayed by a similarly coloured foil. In the opposite case each vitiates, disturbs, and destroys the other.

567

These experiments may be repeated with coloured glasses, by causing the sun-light to shine through them on coloured surfaces. In every instance similar results will appear.

568

The same effect takes place when we look on coloured objects through coloured glasses; the colours being thus according to the same conditions enhanced, subdued, or neutralized.

569

If the prismatic colours are suffered to pass through coloured glasses, the appearances that take place are perfectly analogous; in these cases more or less force, more or less light and dark, the clearness and cleanness of the glass are all to be allowed for, as they produce many delicate varieties of effect: these will not escape the notice of every accurate observer who takes sufficient interest in the inquiry to go through the experiments.

570

It is scarcely necessary to mention that several coloured glasses, as well as oiled or transparent papers, placed over each other, may be made to produce and exhibit every kind of intermixture at pleasure.

571

Lastly, the operation of glazing in painting belongs to this kind of intermixture; by this means a much more refined union may be produced than that arising from the mechanical, atomic mixture which is commonly employed.

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XLVI. Communication, Actual.

572

Having now provided the colouring materials, as before shown, a further question arises how to communicate these to colourless substances: the answer is of the greatest importance from the connexion of the object with the ordinary wants of men, with useful purposes, and with commercial and technical interests.

573

Here, again, the dark quality of every colour again comes into the account. From a yellow that is very near to white, through orange, and the hue of minium to pure red and carmine, through all gradations of violet to the deepest blue which is almost identified with black, colour still increases in darkness. Blue once defined, admits of being diluted, made light, united with yellow, and then, as green, it approaches the light side of the scale: but this is by no means according to its own nature.

574

In the physiological colours we have already seen that they are less than the light, inasmuch as they are a repetition of an impression of light, nay, at last they leave this impression quite as a dark. In physical experiments the employment of semi-transparent mediums, the effect of semi-transparent accessory images, taught us that in such cases we have to do with a subdued light, with a transition to darkness,

575

In treating of the chemical origin of pigments we found that the same effect was produced on the very first excitement. The yellow tinge which mantles over the steel, already darkens the shining surface. In changing white lead to massicot it is evident that the yellow is darker than white.

576

This process is in the highest degree delicate; the growing intenseness, as it still increases, tinges the substance more and more intimately and powerfully, and thus indicates the extreme fineness, and the infinite divisibility of the coloured atoms.

577

The colours which approach the dark side, and consequently, blue in particular, can be made to approximate to black; in fact, a very perfect Prussian blue, or an indigo acted on by vitriolic acid appears almost as a black.

578

A remarkable appearance may be here’ adverted to; pigments, in their deepest and most condensed state, especially those produced from the vegetable kingdom, such as the indigo just mentioned, or madder carried to its intensest hue, no longer show their own colour; on the contrary, a decided metallic shine is seen on their surface, in which the physiological compensatory colour appears,

579

All good indigo exhibits a copper-colour in its fracture, a circumstance attended to, as a known characteristic, in trade. Again, the indigo which has been acted on by sulphuric acid, if thickly laid on, or suffered to dry so that neither white paper nor the porcelain can appear through, exhibits a colour approaching to orange.

580

The bright red Spanish rouge, probably prepared from madder, exhibits on its surface a perfectly green, metallic shine. If this colour, or the blue before mentioned, is washed with a pencil on porcelain or paper, it is seen in its real state owing to the bright ground shining through.

581

Coloured liquids appear black when no lightis transmitted through them, as we may easily see in cubic tin vessels with glass bottoms. In these every transparent-coloured infusion will appear black and colourless if we place a black surface under them.

582

If we contrive that the image of a flame be reflected from the bottom, the image will appear coloured. If we lift up the vessel and suffer the transmitted light to fall on white paper under it, the colour of the liquid appears on the paper. Every light ground seen through such a coloured medium exhibits the colour of the medium.

583

Thus every colour, in order to be seen, must have a light within or behind it. Hence the lighter and brighter the grounds are, the more brilliant the colours appear. If we pass lac-varnish over a shining white metal surface, as the so-called foils are prepared, the splendor of the colour is displayed by this internally reflected light as powerfully as in any prismatic experiment; nay, the force of the physical colours is owing principally to the circumstance at light is always acting with and behind the

584

Lichtenberg, who of necessity followed the received theory, owing to the time and circumstances in which he lived, was yet too good an observer, and too acute not to explain and classify, after his fashion, what was evident to his senses. He says, in the preface to Delaval, “It appears to me also, on other grounds, probable, that our organ, in order to be impressed by a colour, must at the same time be impressed by all light (white).”

585

To procure white as a ground is the chief business of the dyer. Every colour may be easily communicated to colourless earths, especially to alum: but the dyer has especially to do with animal and vegetable products as the ground of his operations.

586

Everything living tends to colour — to local, specific colour, to effect, to opacity — pervading the minutest atoms. Everything in which life is extinct approximates to white (494), to the abstract, the general state, to clearness, to transparence.

587

How this is put in practice in technical operations remains to be adverted to in the chapter on the privation of colour. With regard to thecommunication of colour, we have especially to bear in mind that animals and vegetables, in a living state, produce colours, and hence their substances, if deprived of colours, can the more readily re-assume them.

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XLVII. Communication, Apparent.

588

The communication of colours, real as well as apparent, corresponds, as may easily be seen, with their intermixture: we need not, therefore, repeat what has been already sufficiently entered into.

589

Yet we .may here point out more circumstantially the importance of an apparent communication which takes place by means of reflection. This phenomenon is well known, but still it is pregnant with inferences, and is of the greatest importance both to the investigator of nature and to the painter.

590

Let a surface coloured with any one of the positive colours be placed in the sun, and let its reflection be thrown on other colourless objects. This reflection is a kind of subdued light, a half-light, a half-shadow, which, in a subdued state, reflects the colours in question.

591

If this reflection acts on light surfaces, it is so far overpowered that we can scarcely perceive the colour which accompanies it; but if it acts on shadowed portions, a sort of magical union takes place with the , Shadow is the proper element of colour, and in this case a subdued colour approaches it, lighting up, tinging, and enlivening it. And thus arises an appearance, as powerful as agreeable, which may render the most pleasing service to the painter who knows how to make use of it. These are the types of the so-called reflexes, which were only noticed late in the history of art, and which have been too seldom employed in their full variety.

592

The schoolmen called these colours colorer nationales and intentionales, and the history of the doctrine of colours will generally show that the old inquirers already observed the phenomena well enough, and knew bow to distinguish them properly, although the whole method of treating such subjects is very different from ours.

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XLVIII. Extraction.

593

Colour may be extracted from substances, whether they possess it naturally or by communication, in various ways. We have thus the power to remove it intentionally for a useful purpose, but, on the other hand, it often flies contrary to our wish,

594

Not only are the elementary earths in their natural state white, but vegetable and animal substances can be reduced to a white state without disturbing their texture. A pure white is very desirable for various uses, as in the instance of our preferring to use linen and cotton stuffs uncoloured. In like manner some silk stuffs, paper, and other substances, are the more agreeable the whiter they can be. Again, the chief basis of all dyeing consists in white grounds. For these reasons manufacturers, aided by accident and contrivance, have devoted themselves assiduously to discover means of extracting colour: infinite experiments have been made in connexion with this object, and many important facts have been arrived at. It is in accomplishing this entire extraction of colour that the operation of bleaching consists, which is very generally practised empirically or methodically. We will here shortly state the leading principles.

596

Light is considered as one of the first means of extracting colour from substances, and not only the sun-light, but the mere powerless day-light: for as both lights — the direct light of the sun, as well as the derived light of the sky kindle Bologna phosphorus, so both act on coloured surfaces. Whether the light attacks the colour allied to it, and, as it were, kindles and consumes it, thus reducing the definite quality to a general state, or whether some other operation, unknown to us, takes place, it is clear that light exercises a great power on coloured surfaces, and bleaches them more or less. Here, however, the different colours exhibit a different degree of durability; yellow, especially if prepared from certain materials, is, in this case, the first to fly.

597

o Not only light, but air, and especially water, act strongly in destroying colour. It has been even asserted that thread, well soaked and spread on the grass at night, bleaches better than that which is exposed, after soaking, to the sun-light. Thus, in this case, water proves to be a solving and conducting agent, removing the accidental quality, and restoring the substance to a general or colourless state.

598

The extraction of colour is also effected by re-agents. Spirits of wine has a peculiar tendency to attract the juice which tinges plants, and becomes coloured with it often in a very permanent manner. Sulphuric acid is very efficient in removing colour, especially from wool and silk, and every one is acquainted with the use of sulphur vapours in bleaching.

599

The strongest acids have been recommended more recently as more expeditious agents in bleaching.

600

The alkaline re-agents produce the same effects by contrary means — lixiviums alone, oils and fat combined with lixiviums to soap, and so forth.

601. Before we dismiss this subject, we observe that it may be well worth while to make certain delicate experiments as to how far light and air exhibit their action in the removal of colour. It might be possible to expose coloured substances to the light under glass bells, without air, or filled with common or particular kinds of air. The colours might be those of known fugacity, and it might be observed whether any of the volatilized colour attached itself to the glass or was otherwise perceptible as a deposit or precipitate; whether, again, in such a case, this appearance would be perfectly like that which had gradually ceased to be visible, or whether it had suffered any change. Skilful experimentalists might devise various contrivances with a view to such researches.

602

Having thus first considered the operations of nature as subservient to our purposes, we add a few observations on the modes in which they act against us.

603

The art of painting is so circumstanced that the most beautiful results of mind and labour are altered and destroyed in various ways by time. Hence great pains have been always taken to find durable pigments, and so to unite them with each other and with their ground, that their permanency might be further insured. The technical history of the schools of painting affords sufficient information on this point.

604

We may here, too, mention a minor art, to which, in relation to dyeing, we are much indebted, namely, the weaving of tapestry. As the manufacturers were enabled to imitate the most delicate shades of pictures, and hence often brought the most variously coloured materials together, it was soon observed that the colours were not all equally durable, but that some faded from the tapestry more quickly than others. Hence the most diligent efforts were made to ensure an equal permanency to all the colours and their gradations. This object was especially promoted in France, under Colbert, whose regulations to this effect constitute an epoch in the history of dyeing. The gay Aye which only aimed at a transient beauty, was practised by a particular guild. On the other hand, great pains were taken to define the technical processes which promised durability.

And thus, after considering the artificial ex-traction, the evanescence, and the perishable nature of brilliant appearances of colour, we are again returned to the desideratum of permanency.

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XLIX. Nomenclature.

605

AFTER what has been adduced respecting the origin, the increase, and the affinity of colours, we may be better enabled to judge what nomenclature would be desirable in future, and what might be retained of that hitherto in use.

606

The nomenclature of colours, like all other modes of designation, but especially those employed to distinguish the objects of sense, proceeded in the first instance from particular to general, and from general back again to particular terms. The name of the species became a generic name to which the individual’ was again referred.

607

This method might have been followed in consequence of the mutability and uncertainty of ancient modes of expression, especially since, in the early ages, more reliance may be sup-posed to have been placed on the vivid impressions of sense. The qualities of objects were described indistinctly, because they were impressed clearly on every imagination.

608

The pure chromatic circle was limited, it is true; but, specific as it was, it appears to have been applied to innumerable objects, while it was circumscribed by qualifying characteristics. If we take a glance at the copiousness of the Greek and Roman terms, we shall perceive how mutable the words were, and how easily each was adapted to almost every point in the colorific circle. — Note W.

609

In modern ages terms for many new gradations were introduced in consequence of the various operations of dyeing. Even the colours of fashion and their designations, represented an endless series of specific hues. We shall, on occasion, employ the chromatic terminology of modern languages, whence it will appear that the Tam has gradually been to introduce more exact definitions, and to individualise and arrest a fixed and specific state by language equally distinct.

610

With regard to the German terminology, it has the advantage of possessing four mono-syllabic names no longer to be traced to their origin, viz., yellow (Gelb), blue, red, green. They represent the most general idea of colour to the imagination, without reference to any very specific modification.

611

If we were to add two other qualifying terms to each of these four, as thus — red-yellow, and yellow-red, red-blue and blue-red, yellow-green and green-yellow, blue-green and green-blue, we should express the gradations of the chromatic circle with sufficient distinctness; and if we were to add the designations of light and dark, and again define, in some measure, the degree of purity or its opposite by the mono-syllables black, white, grey, brown, we should have a tolerably sufficient range of expressions to describe the ordinary appearances presented to us, without troubling ourselves whether they were produced dynamically or atomically.

612

The specific and proper terms in use might, however, still be conveniently employed, and we have thus made use of the words orange and violet. We have in like manner employed the word “purpor” to designate a pure central red, because the secretion of the murex or “purpura” is to be carried to the highest point of culmination by the action of the sun-light on fine linen saturated with the juice.

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L. Minerals.

613

THE colours of minerals are all of a chemical nature, and thus the modes in which they are produced may be explained in a general way by what has been said on the subject of chemical colours.

614

Among the external characteristics of minerals, the description of their colours occupies the first place; and great pains have been taken, in the spirit of modern times, to define and arrest every such appearance exactly : by this means, however, new difficulties, it appears to us, have been created, which occasion no little inconvenience in practice.

615

It is true, this precision, when we reflect how it arose, carries with it its own excuse. The painter has at all times been privileged in the use of colours. The few specific hues, in themselves, admitted of no change; but from these, innumerable gradations were artificially produced which imitated the surface of natural objects. It was, therefore, not to be wondered at that these gradations should also be adopted as criterions, and that the artist should be invited to produce tinted patterns with which the objects of nature might be compared, and according to which they were to receive their designations.

616

But, after all, the terminology of colours which has been introduced in mineralogy, is open to many objections. The terms, for instance, have not been borrowed from the mineral kingdom, as was possible enough in most cases, but from all kinds of visible objects. Too many specific terms have been adopted; and in seeking to establish new definitions by combining these, the nomenclators have not reflected that they thus altogether efface the image from the imagination, and the idea from the understanding. Lastly, these individual designations of colours, employed to a certain extent as elementary definitions, are not arranged in the best manner as regards their respective derivation from each other : hence, the scholar must learn every single designation, and impress an almost lifeless but positive language on his memory. The further consideration of this would be too foreign to our present subject.

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LI. Plants.

617

The colours of organic bodies in general may be considered as a higher kind of chemical operation, for which reason the ancients employed the word concoction, to designate the process. All the elementary colours, as well as the combined and secondary hues, appear on the surface of organic productions, while on the other hand, the interior, if not colourless, appears, strictly speaking, negative when brought to the light. As we propose to communicate our views respecting organic nature, to a certain extent, in another place, we only insert here what has been before connected with the doctrine of colours, while it may serve as an introduction to the further consideration of the views alluded to : and first, of plants.

618

Seeds, bulbs, roots, and what is generally shut out from the light, or immediately surrounded by the earth, appear, for the most part, white.

619

Plants reared from seed, in darkness, are white, or approaching to yellow. Light, on the other hand, in acting on their colours, acts at the same time on their form.

620

Plants which grow in darkness make, it is true, long shoots from joint to joint : but the stems between two joints are thus longer than they should be; no side stems are produced, and the metamorphosis of the plant does not take place.

621

Light, on the other hand, places it at once in an active state; the plant appears green, and the course of the metamorphosis proceeds uninterruptedly to the period of reproduction,

622

We know that the leaves of the stem are only preparations and pre-significations of the instruments of florification and fructification, and accordingly we can already see colours in the leaves of the stem which, as it were, announce the flower from afar, as is the case in the amaranthus.

623

There are white flowers whose petals have wrought or refilled themselves to the greatest purity; there are coloured ones, in which the elementary hues may be said to fluctuate to and fro. There are some which, in tending to the higher state, have only partially emancipated themselves from the green of the plant.

624

Flowers of the same genus, and even of the same kind, are found of all colours. Roses, and particularly mallows, for example, vary through a great portion of the colorific circle from white to yellow, then through red-yellow to bright red, and from thence to the darkest hue it can exhibit as it approaches blue.

625

Others already begin from a higher degree in the scale, as, for example, the poppy, which is yellow-red in the first instance, and which afterwards approaches a violet hue.

626

Yet the same colours in species, varieties, and even in families and classes, if not constant, are still predominant, especially the yellow colour : blue is throughout rarer.

627

A process somewhat similar takes place in the juicy capsule of the fruit, for it increases in colour from the green, through the yellowish and yellow, up to the highest red, the colour of the rind thus indicating the degree of ripeness. Some are coloured all round, some only on the sunny side, in which last case the augmentation of the yellow into red, — the gradations crowding in and upon each other, — may be very well observed.

628

Many fruits, too, are coloured internally; pure red juices, especially, are common.

629

The colour which is found superficially in the flower and penetratingly in the fruit, spreads itself through all the remaining parts, colouring the roots and the juices of the stem, and this with a very rich and powerful hue.

630

So, again, the colour of the wood passes from yellow through the different degrees of red up to pure red and on to brown. Blue woods are unknown to me; and thus in this degree of organisation the active side exhibits itself powerfully, although both principles appear balanced in the general green of the plant.

631

We have seen above that the germ pushing from the earth is generally white and yellowish, but that by means of the action of light and air it acquires a green colour. The same happens with young leaves of trees, as may be seen, for example, in the birch, the young leaves of which are yellowish, and if boiled, yield a beautiful yellow juice : afterwards they become greener, while the leaves of other trees become gradually blue-green.

632

Thus a yellow ingredient appears to belong more essentially to leaves than a blue one; for this last vanishes in the autumn, and the yellow of the leaf appears changed to a brown colour. Still more remarkable, however, are the particular cases where leaves in autumn again become pure yellow, and others increase to the brightest red.

633

Other plants, again, may, by artificial treatment be entirely converted to a colouring matter, which is as fine, active, and infinitely divisible as any other. Indigo and madder, with which so much is effected, are examples : lichens are also used for dyes.

634

To this fact another stands immediately opposed; we can, namely, extract the colouring part of plants, and, as it were, exhibit it apart, while the organisation does not on this account appear to suffer at all. The colours of flowers may be extracted by spirits of wine, and tinge it; the petals meanwhile becoming white.

635

There are various modes of acting on flowers and their juices by re-agents. This has been done by Boyle in many experiments. Roses are bleached by sulphur, and may be restored to their first state by other acids; roses are turned green by the smoke of tobacco.

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LII. Worms, Insects, Fishes.

636

WITH regard to creatures belonging to the lower degrees of organisation, we may first observe that worms, which live in the earth and remain in darkness and cold moisture, are imperfectly negatively coloured; worms bred in warm moisture and darkness are colourless; light seems expressly necessary to the definite exhibition of colour.

637

Creatures which live in water, which, although a very dense medium, suffers sufficient light to pass through it, appear more or less coloured. Zoophytes, which appear to animate the purest calcareous earth, are mostly white; yet we find corals deepened into the most beautiful yellow-red: in other cells of worms this colour increases nearly to bright red.

638

The shells of the crustaceous tribe are beautifully designed and coloured, yet it is to be remarked that neither land-snails nor the shells of crustacea of fresh water, are adorned with such bright colours as those of the sea.

639

In examining shells, particularly such as are spiral, we find that a series of animal organs, similar to each other, must have moved increasingly forward, and in turning on an axis, produced the shell in a series of chambers, divisions, tubes, and prominences, according to a plan for ever growing larger. We remark, however, that a tinging juice must have accompanied the development of these organs, a juice which marked the surface of the shell, probably through the immediate co-operation of the sea-water, with coloured lines, points, spots, and shadings: this must have taken place at regular intervals, and thus left the indications of increasing growth lastingly on the exterior; meanwhile the interior is generally found white or only faintly coloured.

640

That such a juice is to be found in shell-fish is, besides, sufficiently proved by experience; for the creatures furnish it in its liquid and colouring state : the juice of the ink-fish is an example. But a much stronger is exhibited in the red juice found in many shell-fish, which was so famous in ancient times, and has been employed with advantage by the moderns. There is, it appears, in the entrails of many of the crustaceous tribe a certain vessel which is filled with a red juice; this contains a very strong and durable colouring substance, so much so that the entire creature may be crushed and boiled, and yet out of this broth a sufficiently strong tinging liquid may be extracted. But the little vessel filled with colour may be separated from the animal, by which means of course a concentrated juice is gained.

641

This juice has the property that when exposed to light and air it appears first yellowish, then greenish; it then passes to blue, then to a violet, gradually growing redder; and lastly, by the action of the sun, and especially if transferred to cambric, it assumes a pure bright red colour,

642

Thus we should here have an augmentation, even to culmination, on the minus side, which we cannot easily meet with in inorganic cases; indeed, we might almost call this example a passage through the whole scale, and we are persuaded that by due experiments the entire revolution of the circle might really be effected, for there is no doubt that by acids duly employed, the pure red may be pushed beyond the culminating point towards scarlet.

643

This juice appears on the one hand to be connected with the phenomena of reproduction, eggs being found, the embryos of future shell-fish, which contain a similar colouring principle. On the other hand, in animals ranking higher in the scale of being, the secretion appears to bear some relation to the development of the blood. The blood exhibits similar properties in regard to colour; in its thinnest state it appears yellow; thickened, as it is found in the veins, it appears red; while the arterial blood exhibits a brighter red, probably owing to the oxydation which takes place by means of breathing. The venous blood approaches more to violet, and by this mutability denotes the tendency to that augmentation and progression which are now familiar to us.

644

Before we quit the element whence we derived the foregoing examples, we may add a few observations on fishes, whose scaly surface is coloured either altogether in stripes, or in spots, and still oftener exhibits a certain iridescent appearance, indicating the affinity of the scales with the coats of shell-fish, mother-of-pearl, and even the pearl itself. At the same time it should not be forgotten that warmer climates, the influence of which extends to the watery regions, produce, embellish, and enhance these colours in fishes in a still greater degree.

645

In Otaheite, Forster observed fishes with beautifully iridescent surfaces, and this effect was especially apparent at the moment when the fish died. We may here call to mind the hues of the chameleon, and other similar appearances; for when similar facts are presented together, we are better enabled to trace them.

646

Lastly, although not strictly in the same class, the iridescent appearance of certain molusc may be mentioned, as well as the phosphorescence which, in some marine creatures, it is said becomes iridescent just before it vanishes.

647

We now turn our attention to those creatures which belong to light, air and dry warmth, and it is here that we first find ourselves in the living region of colours. Here, in exquisitely organised parts, the elementary colours present themselves in their greatest purity and beauty.

They indicate, however, that the creatures they adorn, are still low in the scale of organisation, precisely because these colours can thus appear, as it were, unwrought. Here,, too, heat seems to contribute much to their development.

648

We find insects which may be considered altogether as concentrated colouring matter; among these, the cochineals especially are celebrated; with regard to these we observe that their mode of settling on vegetables, and even nestling in them, at the same time produces those excrescences which are so useful as mordants in fixing colours.

649

But the power of colour, accompanied by regular organisation, exhibits itself in the most striking manner in those insects which require a perfect metamorphosis for their development — in scarabeaei, and especially in butterflies.

650

These last, which might be called true productions of light and air, often exhibit the most beautiful colours, even in their chrysalis state, indicating the future colours of the butterfly; a consideration which, if pursued further hereafter, must undoubtedly afford a satisfactory insight into many a secret of organised being.

651

If, again, we examine the wings of the butterfly more accurately, and in its net-like web discover the rudiments of an arm, and observe further the mode in which this, as it were, flattened arm is covered with tender plumage and constituted an organ of flying; we believe we recognise a law according to which the great variety of tints is regulated. This will be a subject for further investigation hereafter.

652

That, again, heat generally has an influence on the size of the creature, on the accomplishment of the form, and on the greater beauty of the colours, hardly needs to be remarked.

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LIII. Birds.

653

THE more we approach the higher organisations, the more it becomes necessary to limit ourselves to a few passing observations; for all the natural conditions of such organised beings are the result of so many premises, that, without having at least hinted at these, our remarks would only. appear daring, and at the same time insufficient.

654

We find in plants, that the consummate flower and fruit are, as it were, rooted in the stem, and that they are nourished by more perfect juices than the original roots first afforded; we remark, too, that parasitical plants which derive their support from organised structures, exhibit themselves especially endowed as to their energies and qualities. We might in some sense compare the feathers of birds with plants of this description; the feathers spring up as a last structural result from the surface of a body which has yet much in reserve for the completion of the external economy, and thus are very richly endowed organs.

655

The quills not only grow proportionally to a considerable size, but are throughout branched, by which means they properly become feathers, and many of these feathered branches are again subdivided; thus, again, recalling the structure of plants.

656

The feathers are very different in shape and size, but each still remains the same organ, forming and transforming itself according to the constitution of the part of the body from which it springs.

657

With the form, the colour also becomes changed, and a certain law regulates the general order of hues as well as that particular distribution by which a single feather becomes party coloured. It is from this that all combination of variegated plumage arises, and whence, at last, the eyes in the peacock’s tail are produced. It is a result similar to that which we have already unfolded in treating of the metamorphosis of plants, and which we shall take an early opportunity to prove.

658

Although time and circumstances compel us here to pass by this organic law, yet we are bound to refer to the chemical operations which commonly exhibit themselves in the tinting of feathers in a mode now sufficiently known to us,

659

Plumage is of all colours, yet, on the whole, yellow deepening to red is commoner than blue.

660

The operation of light on the feathers and their colours, is to be remarked in all cases. Thus, for example, the feathers on the breast of certain parrots, are strictly yellow; the scale-like anterior portion, which is acted on by the light, is deepened from yellow to red. The breast of such a bird appears bright-red, but if we blow into the feathers the yellow appears.

661

The exposed portion of the feathers is in all cases very different from that which, in a quiet state, is covered; it is only the exposed portion, for instance, in ravens, which exhibits the iridescent appearance; the covered portion does not : from which indication, the feathers of the tail when ruffled together, may be at once placed in the natural order again.

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LIV. Mammalia and Human Beings.

662

HERE the elementary colours begin to leave us altogether. We are arrived at the highest degree of the scale, and shall not dwell on its characteristics long,

663

An animal of this class is distinguished among the examples of organised being, Every thing that exhibits itself about him is living. Of the internal structure we do not speak, but confine ourselves briefly to the surface. The hairs are already distinguished from feathers, inasmuch as they belong more to the skin, inasmuch as they are simple, thread-like, not branched. They are however, like feathers, shorter, longer, softer, and firmer, colourless or coloured, and all this in conformity to laws which might be defined.

664

White and black, yellow, yellow-red and brown, alternate in various modifications, but they never appear in such a state as to remind us of the elementary hues. On the contrary,

they are all broken colours subdued by organic concoction, and thus denote, more or less, the perfection of life in the being they belong to.

665

One of the most important considerations connected with morphology, so far as it relates to surfaces, is this, that even in quadrupeds the spots of the skin have a relation with the parts underneath them. Capriciously as nature here appears, on a hasty examination, to operate, she nevertheless consistently observes a secret law. The development and application of this, it is true, are reserved only for accurate and careful investigation and sincere co-operation.

666

If in some animals portions appear variegated with positive colours, this of itself shows how far such creatures are removed from a perfect organisation; for, it may be said, the nobler a creature is, the more all the mere material of which he is composed, is disguised by being wrought together; the more essentially his surface corresponds with the internal organisation, the less can it exhibit the elementary colours. Where all tends to make up a perfect whole, any detached specific developments cannot tale place.

667

Of man we have little to say, for he is entirely distinct from the general physiological results of which we now treat. So much in this case is in affinity with the internal structure, that the surface can only be sparingly endowed.

668

When we consider that brutes are rather encumbered than advantageously provided with intercutaneous muscles; when we see that much that is superfluous tends to the surface,

for instance, large ears and tails, as well as hair, manes, tufts; we see that nature, in such cases, had much to give away and to lavish.

669

On the contrary, the general surface of the human form is smooth and clean, and thus in the most perfect examples the beautiful forms are apparent; for it may be remarked in passing, that a superfluity of hair on the chest, arms, and lower limbs, rather indicates weakness than strength. Poets only have sometimes been induced, probably by the example of the ferine nature, so strong in other respects, to extol similar attributes in their rough heroes.

670

But we have here chiefly to speak of colour, and observe that the colour of the human skin, in all its varieties, is never an elementary colour, but presents, by means of organic concoction, a highly complicated result. — Note X.

671

That the colour of the skin and hair has relation with the differences of character, is beyond question; and we are led to conjecture that the circumstance of one or other organic system predominating, produces the varieties we see. A similar hypothesis may be applied to nations, in which case it might perhaps be observed, that certain colours correspond with certain confirmations, which has always been observed of the negro physiognomy,

672

Lastly, we might here consider the problematical question, whether all human forms and hues are not equally beautiful, and whether custom and self-conceit are not the causes why one is preferred to another? We venture, however, after what has been adduced, to assert that the white man, that is, he whose surface varies from white to reddish, yellowish, brownish, in short, whose surface appears most neutral in hue and least inclines to any particular or positive colour, is the most beautiful. On the same principle a similar point of perfection in human conformation may be defined hereafter, when the question relates to form. We do not

imagine that this long-disputed question is to be thus, once for all, settled, for there are persons enough who have reason to leave this significancy of the exterior in doubt; but we thus express a conclusion, derived from observation and reflection, such as might suggest itself to a mind aiming at a satisfactory decision. We subjoin a few observations connected with the elementary chemical doctrine of colours. — Note Y.

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LV. Physical and Chemical Effects of the Transmission of Light Through Coloured Mediums.

673

The physical and chemical effects of colourless light are known, so that it is unnecessary here to describe them at length. Colourless light exhibits itself under various conditions as exciting warmth, as imparting a luminous quality to certain bodies, as promoting oxydation and de-oxydation. In the modes and degrees of these effects many varieties take place, but no difference is found indicating a principle of contrast such as we find in the transmission of coloured light. We proceed briefly to advert to this.

674

Let the temperature of a dark room be observed by means of a very sensible air thermometer; if the bulb is then brought to the direct sum light as it shines into, the room, nothing is more natural than that the fluid should indicate a much higher degree of warmth. If upon this we interpose coloured glasses, it follows again quite naturally that the degree of warmth must be lowered; first, because the operation of the direct light is already somewhat impeded by the glass, and again, more especially, because a coloured glass, as a dark medium, admits less light through it.

675

But here a difference in the excitation of warmth exhibits itself to the attentive observer, according to the colour of the glass. The yellow and the yellow-red glasses produce a higher temperature than the blue and blue-red, the difference being considerable.

676

This experiment may be made with the prismatic spectrum. The temperature of the room being first remarked on the thermometer, the blue coloured light is made to fall on the bulb, when a somewhat higher degree of warmth is exhibited, which still increases as the other colours are gradually brought to act on the mercury. If the experiment is made with the water-prism, so that the white light can be retained in the centre, this, refracted indeed, but not yet coloured light, is the warmest; the other colours, stand in relation to each other as before.

677

As we here merely describe, without undertaking to deduce or explain this phenomenon, we only remark in passing, that the pure light is by no means abruptly and entirely at an end with the red division in the spectrum, but that a refracted light is still to be observed deviating from its course and, as it were, insinuating itself beyond the prismatic image, so that on closer examination it will hardly be found necessary to take refuge in invisible rays and their refraction,

678

The communication of light by means of coloured mediums exhibits the same difference. The light communicates itself to Bologna phosphorus through blue and violet glasses, but by no means through yellow and yellow-red glasses. It has been even remarked that the phosphori which have been rendered luminous under violet and blue glasses, become sooner extinguished when afterwards placed under yellow and yellow-red glasses than those which have been suffered to remain in a dark room without any further influence.

679

These experiments, like the foregoing, may also be made by means of the prismatic spectrum, when the same results take place.

680

To ascertain the effect of coloured light on oxydation and de-oxydation, the following means may be employed: — Let moist, perfectly white muriate of silver be spread on a strip of paper; place it in the light, so that it may become to a certain degree grey, and then cut it in three portions. Of these, one may be preserved in a book, as a specimen of this state; let another be placed under a yellow-red, and the third under a blue-red glass. The last will become a darker grey, and exhibit a de-oxydation; the other, under the yellow-red glass, will, on the contrary, become a lighter grey, and thus approach nearer to the original state of more perfect oxydation. The change in both may. be ascertained by a comparison with the unaltered specimen.

681

An excellent apparatus has been contrived to perform these experiments with the prismatic image. The results are analogous to those already mentioned, and we shall hereafter give the particulars, making use of the labours of an accurate observer, who has been for some time carefully prosecuting these experiments.

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LVI. Chemical Effect in Dioptrical Achromatism.

682

WE first invite our readers to turn to what has been before observed on this subject (285, 298), to avoid unnecessary repetition here.

683

We can thus give a glass the property of producing much wider coloured edges without refracting more strongly than before, that is, without displacing the object much more perceptibly.

684

This property is communicated to the glass by means of metallic oxydes. Minium, melted and thoroughly united with a pure glass, produces this effect, and thus flint-glass (291) is prepared with oxyde of lead. Experiments of this kind have been carried farther, and the so-called butter of antimony, which, according to a new preparation, may be exhibited as a pure fluid, has been made use of in hollow lenses and prisms, producing a very strong appearance of colour with a very moderate refraction, and presenting the effect which we have called hyperchromatism in a very vivid manner.

685

In common glass, the alkaline nature obviously preponderates, since it is chiefly composed of sand and alkaline salts; hence a series of experiments, exhibiting the relation of perfectly alkaline fluids to perfect acids, might lead to useful results.

686

For, could the maximum and minimum be found, it would be a question whether a refracting medium could not be discovered, in which the increasing and diminishing appearance of colour, (an effect almost independent of refraction,) could not be done away with altogether, while the displacement of the object would be unaltered.

687

How desirable, therefore, it would be with regard to this last point, as well as for the elucidation of the whole of this third division our work, and, indeed, for the elucidation of the doctrine of colours generally, that those who occupied in chemical researches, with new vie’ ever opening to them, should take this subject in hand, pursuing into more delicate combinations what we have only roughly hinted at, a] prosecuting their inquiries with reference science as a whole.

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PART IV.  GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

688

We have hitherto, in a manner forcibly, kept phenomena asunder, which, partly from their nature, partly in accordance with our mental habits, have, as it were, constantly sought to be reunited. We have exhibited them in three divisions. We have considered colours, first, as transient, the result of an action and reaction in the eye itself; next, as passing effects of colourless, light-transmitting, transparent, or opaque mediums on light; especially on the luminous image; lastly, we arrived at the point where we could securely pronounce them as permanent, and actually inherent in bodies.

689

In following this order we have as far as possible endeavoured to define, to separate, and to class the appearances. But now that we need no longer be apprehensive of mixing or confounding them, we may proceed, first, to state the general nature of these appearances considered abstractedly, as an independent circle of facts, and, in the next place, to show how this particular circle is connected with other classes of analogous phenomena in nature.

690

We have observed that colour under many conditions appears very easily. The susceptibility of the eye with regard to light, the constant reaction of the retina against it, produce instantaneously a slight iridescence. Every subdued light may be considered as coloured, nay, we ought to call any light coloured, inasmuch as it is seen. Colourless light, colourless surfaces, are, in some sort, abstract ideas in actual experience we can hardly be said to be aware of them. — Note Z.

691

If light impinges on a colourless body, is reflected from it or passes through it, colour immediately appears; but it is necessary here to remember what has been so often urged by us, namely, that the leading conditions of refraction, reflection, &?tic.c., are not of themselves sufficient to produce the appearance. Sometimes, it is true, light acts with these merely as light, but oftener as a defined, circumscribed appearance, as a luminous image. The semi-opacity of the medium is often a necessary condition; while half, and double shadows, are required for many coloured appearances. In all cases, however, colour appears instantaneously. We find, again, that by means of pressure, breathing heat (432, 470, by various kinds of motion and alteration on smooth clean surfaces (461), as well as on colourless fluids (470), colour is immediately produced.

692

The slightest change has only to take place in the component parts of bodies, whether by immixture with other particles or other such effects, and colour either makes its appearance or becomes changed.

693

The physical colours, and especially those of the prism, were formerly called “colores emphatici,” on account of their extraordinary beauty and force. Strictly speaking, however, a high degree of effect may be ascribed to all appearances of colour, assuming that they are exhibited under the purest and most perfect conditions.

694

The dark nature of colour, its full rich quality, is what produces the grave, and at the same time fascinating impression we sometimes experience, and as colour is to be considered a condition of light, so it cannot dispense with light as the co-operating cause of its appearance, as its basis or ground; as a power thus displaying and manifesting colour.

695

The existence and the relatively definite character of colour are one and the same thing. Light displays itself and the face of nature, as it were, with a general indifference, informing us as to surrounding objects perhaps devoid of interest or importance; but colour is at all times specific, characteristic, significant.

696

Considered in a general point of view, colour is determined towards one of two sides- It thus presents a contrast which we call a polarity, and which we may fitly designate by the expressions plus and minus.

Plus. Minus. Yellow. Blue. Action. Negation. Light. Shadow. Brightness. Darkness. Force. Weakness. Warmth. Coldness. Proximity. Distance. Repulsion Attraction. Affinity with acids Affinity with alkalis

Wirkung, Beraubung; the last would be more literally rendered privation. The author has already frequently made use of the terms active and passive as equivalent to plus and minus. — T.

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Combination of the Two Principles.

697

If these specific, contrasted principles are combined, the respective qualities do not therefore destroy each other : for if in this intermixture the ingredients are so perfectly balanced that neither is to be distinctly recognised, the union again acquires a specific character; it appears as a quality by itself in which we no longer think of combination. This union we call green.

698

Thus, if two opposite phenomena springing from the same source do not destroy each other when combined, but in their union present a third appreciable and pleasing appearance, this result at once indicates their harmonious relation. The more perfect result yet remains to be adverted to.

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Augmentation to Red.

699

Blue and yellow do not admit of increased intensity without presently exhibiting a new appearance in addition to their own. Each colour, in its lightest state, is a dark; if condensed it must become darker, but this effect no sooner takes place than the hue assumes an appearance which we designate by the word reddish.

700

This appearance still increases, so that when the highest degree of intensity is attained it predominates over the original hue. A powerful impression of light leaves the sensation of red on the retina. In the prismatic yellow-red which springs directly from the yellow, we hardly recognise the yellow.

701

This deepening takes place again by means of colourless semi-transparent mediums, and here we see the effect in its utmost purity and extent. Transparent fluids, coloured with any given hues, in a series of glass-vessels, exhibit it very strikingly. The augmentation is unremittingly rapid and constant; it is universal, and obtains in physiological as well as in physical and chemical colours.

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Junction of the Two Augmented Extremes.

702

As the extremes of the simple contrast produce a beautiful and agreeable appearance by their union, so the deepened extremes on being united, will present a still more fascinating colour; indeed, it might naturally be expected that we should here find the acme of the whole phenomenon.

703

And such is the fact, for pure red appears; colour to which, from its excellence, we have appropriated the term “purpur.”

704

There are various modes in which pure red may appear. By bringing together the violet edge and yellow-red border in prismatic experiments, by continued augmentation in chemical operations, and by the organic contrast in physiological effects.

705

As a pigment it cannot be produced by intermixture or union, but only by arresting the hue in substances chemically acted on, at the high culminating point. Hence the painter is justified in assuming that there are three primitive colours from which he combines all the others. The natural philosopher, on the other hand, assumes only two elementary colours, from which he, in like manner, develops and combines the rest.

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Completeness the Result of Variety in Colour.

706

The various appearances of colour arrested in their different degrees, and seen in juxtaposition, produce a whole. This totality is harmony to the eye.

707

The chromatic circle has been gradually presented to us; the various relations of its progression are apparent to us. Two pure original principles in contrast, are the foundation of the whole; an augmentation manifests itself by means of which both approach a third state; hence there exists on both sides a lowest and highest, a simplest and most qualified state. Again, two combinations present themselves; first that of the simple primitive contrasts, then that of the deepened contrasts.

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Harmony of the Complete State.

708

The whole ingredients of the chromatic scale, seen in juxtaposition, produce an harmonious impression on the eye. The difference between the physical contrast and harmonious opposition in all its extent should not be overlooked. The first resides in the pure restricted original dualism, considered in its antagonizing elements; the other results from the the fully developed effects of the complete state.

709

Every single opposition in order to be harmonious must comprehend the whole. The physiological experiments are sufficiently convincing on this point. A development of all the possible contrasts of the chromatic scale will be shortly given.

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Facility With Which Colour May Be Made to Tend Either to the Plus or Minus Side.

710

We have already had occasion to take notice of the mutability of colour in considering its so-called augmentation and progressive variations round the whole circle; but the hues even pass and repass from one side to the other, rapidly and of necessity.

711

Physiological colours are different in appearance as they happen to fall on a dark or On a light ground. In physical colours the combination of the objective and subjective experiments is very remarkable. The epoptical colours, it appears, are contrasted according as the light shines through or upon them. To what extent the chemical colours may be changed by fire and alkalis, has been sufficiently shown in its proper place.

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Evanescence of Colour.

712

All that has been adverted to as subsequent to rapid excitation and definition of colour, immixture’’, augmentation, combination, separation, not forgetting the law of compensatory harmony, all takes place with the greatest rapidity and facility; but with equal quickness colour again altogether disappears.

713

The physiological appearances are in no wise to be arrested; the physical last only as long as the external condition lasts; even the chemical colours have great mutability, they may be made to pass and repass from one side to the other by means of opposite re-agents, and may even be annihilated altogether.

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Permanance of Colour.

714

The chemical colours afford evidence of very great duration. Colours fixed in glass by fusion, and by nature in gems, defy all time and re-action.

715

The art of dyeing again fixes colour very powerfully. The hues of pigments which might otherwise be easily rendered mutable by re-agents, may be communicated to substances in the greatest permanency by means of mordants.

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PART V. RELATION TO OTHER PURSUITS

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Relation to Philosophy.

716

THE investigator of nature cannot be required to be a philosopher, but it is expected that he should so far have attained the habit of philosophizing, as to distinguish himself essentially from the world, in order to associate himself with it again in a higher sense. He should form to himself a method in accordance with observation, but he should take heed not to reduce observation to mere notion, to substitute words for this notion, and to use and deal with these words as if they were things. He should be acquainted with the labours of philosophers, in order to follow up the phenomena which have been the subject of his observation, into the philosophic region.

717

It cannot be required that the philosopher should be a naturalist, and yet his co-operation in physical researches is as necessary as it is desirable. He needs not air acquaintance with details for this, but only a clear view of those conclusions where insulated facts meet.

718

We have before (175) alluded to this important consideration, and repeat it here when it is in its place. The worst that can happen to physical science as well as to many other kinds of knowledge is, that men should treat a secondary phenomenon as a primordial one, and (since it is impossible derive the original fact from the secondary state), seek to explain what is in reality the cause by an effect made to usurp its place. Hence arises an endless confusion, a mere verbiage, a constant endeavour to seek and to find subterfuges whenever truth presents itself and threatens to be overpowering.

719

While the observer, the investigator of nature, is thus dissatisfied in finding that the appearances he sees still contradict a received theory, the philosopher can calmly continue to operate in his abstract department on a false result, for no result is so false but that it can be made to appear valid, as form without substance, by some means or other.

720

If, on the other hand, the investigator of nature can attain to the knowledge of that which we have called a primordial phenomenon, he is safe; and the philosopher with him. The investigator of nature is safe, since his persuaded that he has here arrived at the limits of his science, that he finds himself at the height of experimental research; a height whence he can look back upon the details of observation in all its steps, and forwards into, if he cannot enter, the regions of theory. The philosopher is safe, for he receives from the experimentalist an ultimate fact, which, in his hands, now becomes an elementary one. He now justly pays little attention to appearances which are understood to be secondary, whether he already finds them scientifically arranged, or whether they present themselves to his casual observation scattered and confused. Should he even be inclined to go over this experimental ground himself, and not be averse to examination in detail, he does this conveniently, instead of lingering too long in the consideration of secondary and intermediate circumstances, or hastily passing them over without becoming accurately acquainted with them.

721

To place the doctrine of colours nearer, in this sense, within the philosopher’s reach, was the author’s wish; and although the execution of his purpose, from various causes, does not correspond with his intention, he will still keep this object in view in an intended recapitulation as well as in the polemical and historical. portions of his work; for he will have to return to the consideration of this point hereafter, on an occasion where it will be necessary to speak with less reserve.

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Relation to Mathematics.

722

It may be expected that the investigator of nature, who proposes to treat the science of natural philosophy in its entire range, should be a mathematician. In the middle ages, mathematics was the chief organ by means of which men hoped to master the secrets of nature, and even now, geometry in certain departments of physics, is justly considered of first importance.

723

The author can boast of no attainments of this kind, and on this account confines himself to departments of science which are independent of geometry; departments which in modern times have been opened up far and wide.

724

It will be universally allowed that mathematics, one of the noblest auxiliaries which can be employed by man, has, in one point of view, been of the greatest use to the physical sciences; but that, by a false application of its methods, it has, in many respects, been prejudicial to them, is also not to be denied; we find it here and there reluctantly admitted.

725

The theory of colours, in particular, has suffered much, and its progress has been incalculably retarded by having been mixed up with: optics generally, a science which cannot dispense with mathematics; whereas the theory of colours, in strictness, may be investigated quite independently of optics.

726

But besides this there was an additional evil. A great mathematician was possessed with an entirely false notion on the physical origin of colours; yet, owing to his great authority as a geometer, the mistakes which he committed as an experimentalist long became sanctioned in the eyes of a world ever fettered in prejudices,

727

The author of the present inquiry has endeavoured throughout to keep the theory of colours distinct from the mathematics, although there are evidently certain points where the assistance of geometry would be desirable. Had not the unprejudiced mathematicians, with whom he has had, or still has, the good fortune to be acquainted, been prevented by other occupations from making common cause with him, his work would not have wanted some merit in this respect. But this very want may be in the end advantageous, since it may now become the object of the enlightened mathematician to ascertain where the doctrine of colours is in need of his aid, and how he can contribute the means at his command with a view to the complete elucidation of this branch of physics.

728

In general it were to be wished that the Germans, who render such good service to science, while they adopt all that is good from other nations, could by degrees accustom themselves to work in concert. We live, it must be confessed, in an age, the habits of which are directly opposed to such a wish. Every one seeks, not only to be original in his views, but to be independent of the labours of others, or at least to persuade himself that he is so, even in the course of his life and occupation. It is very often remarked that men who undoubtedly have accomplished much, quote themselves only, their own writings, journals, and compendiums; whereas it would be far more advantageous for the individual, and for the world, if many were devoted to a common pursuit. The conduct of our neighbours the French is, in this respect, worthy of imitation; we have a pleasing instance in Cuvier’s preface to his “Tableau Elémentaire de l’Histoire Naturelle des Animaux.”

729

He who has observed science and its progress with an unprejudiced eye, might even ask whether it is desirable that so many occupations and aims, though allied to each other, should be united in one person, and whether it would not be more suitable for the limited powers of the human mind to distinguish, for example, the investigator and inventor, from him who employs and applies the result of experiment? Astronomers, who devote themselves to the observation of the heavens and the discovery or enumeration of stars, have in modern times formed, to a certain extent, a distinct class from those who calculate the orbits, consider the universe in its connexion, and more accurately define its laws. The history of the doctrine of colours will often lead us back to these considerations.

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Relation to the Technical Operations of the Dyer.

730

If in our labours we have gone out of the province of the mathematician, we have, on the other hand, endeavoured to meet the practical views of the dyer; and although the chapter which treats of colour in a chemical point of view is not the most complete and circumstantial, yet in that portion, as well as in our general observations respecting colour, the dyer will find his views assisted far more than by the theory hitherto in vogue, which failed to afford him any assistance.

731

It is curious, in this view, to take a glance at the works containing directions on the art of dyeing. As the Catholic, on entering his temple, sprinkles himself with holy water, and after bending the knee, proceeds ‘perhaps to converse with his friends on his affairs, without any especial devotion; so all the treatises on dyeing begin with a respectful allusion to the accredited theory, without afterwards exhihiting a single trace of any principle deduced from this theory, or showing that it has thrown light on any part of the art, or that it offers any useful hints in furtherance of practical methods.

732

On the other hand, there are men who, after having become thoroughly and experimentally acquainted with the nature of dyes, have not been able to reconcile their observations with the received theory; who have, in short, discovered its weak points, and sought for a general view more consonant to nature and experience. When we come to the names of Castel and Giilich, in our historical review, we shall have occasion to enter into this more fully, and an opportunity will then present itself to show that an assiduous experience in taking advantage of every accident may, in fact, be said almost to exhaust the knowledge of the province to which it is confined. The high and complete result is then submitted to the theorist, who, if he examines facts with accuracy, and reasons with candour, will find such materials eminently useful as a basis for his conclusions.-Note AA.

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Relation to Physiology and Pathology.

733

If the phenomena adduced in the chapter where colours were considered in a physiological and pathological view are for the most part generally known, still some new views, mixed up with them, will not be unacceptable to the physiologist. We especially hope to have given him cause to be satisfied by classing certain phenomena which stood alone, under analogous facts, and thus, in some measure, to have prepared the way for his further investigations.

734

The appendix on pathological colours, again, is admitted to be scanty and unconnected. We reflect, however, that Germany can boast of men who are not only highly experienced in this department, but are likewise so distinguished for general cultivation, that it can cost them but little to revise this portion, to complete what has been sketched, and at the same time to connect it with the higher facts of organisation.

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Relation to Natural History.

735

If we may at all hope that natural history will gradually be modified by the principle of deducing the ordinary appearances of nature from higher phenomena, the author believes he may have given some hints and introductory views bearing on this object also. As colour, in its infinite variety, exhibits itself on the surface of living beings, it becomes an important part of the outward indications, by means of which we can discover what passes underneath.

736

In one point of view it is certainly not to be too much relied on, on account of its indefinite and mutable nature; yet even this mutability, inasmuch as it exhibits itself as a constant quality, again becomes a criterion of a mutable vitality; and the author wishes nothing more than that time may be granted him to develop the results of his observations on this subject more fully; here they would not be in their place.

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Relation to General Physics.

737

The state in which general physics now is, appears, again, particularly favorable to our labours; for natural philosophy, owing to indefatigable and variously directed research, has gradually attained such eminence, that it appears not impossible to refer a boundless empiricism to one centre.

738

Without referring to subjects which are too far removed from our own province, we observe that the formulae under which the elementary’ appearances of nature are expressed, altogether tend in this direction; and it is easy to see that through this correspondence of expression, a correspondence in meaning will necessarily be soon arrived at.

739

True observers of nature, however they may differ in opinion in other respects, will agree that all which presents itself as appearance, all that we meet with as phenomenon, must either indicate an original division which is capable of union, or an original unity which admits of division, and that the phenomenon will present itself accordingly. To divide the united, to unite the divided, is the life of nature; this is the eternal systole and diastole, the eternal collapsion and expansion, the inspiration and expiration of the world in which we live and move.

740

It is hardly necessary to observe that what we here express as number and restrict to dualism is to be understood in a higher sense; the appearance of a third, a fourth order of facts progressively developing themselves is to be similarly understood; but actual observation should, above all, be the basis of all these expressions.

741

Iron is known to us as a peculiar substance, different from other substances : in its ordinary state we look upon it as a mere material remarkable only on account of its fitness for various uses and applications. How little, however, is necessary to do away with the comparative insignificancy of this substance. A two-fold power is called forth, which, while it tends again to a state of union, and, as it were, seeks itself, acquires a kind of magical relation with its like, and propagates this double property, which is in fact but a principle of reunion, throughout all bodies of the same kind. We here first observe the mere substance, iron; we see the division that takes place in it propagate itself and disappear, and again easily become re-excited. This, according to our mode of thinking, is a primordial phenomenon in immediate relation with its idea, and which acknowledges nothing earthly beyond it.

742

Electricity is again peculiarly characterised. As a mere quality we are unacquainted with it; for us it is a nothing, a zero, a mere point, which, however, dwells in all apparent existences, and at the same time is the point of origin whence, on the slightest stimulus, a double appearance presents itself, an appearance which only manifests itself to vanish. The conditions under which this manifestation is excited are infinitely varied, according to the nature of particular bodies. From the rudest mechanical friction of very different substances with one another, to the mere contiguity of two entirely similar bodies, the phenomenon is present and stirring, nay, striking and powerful, and so decided and specific, that when we employ the terms or formulae polarity, plus and minus, for north and south, for glass and resin, we do so justifiably and in conformity with nature.

743

This phenomenon, although it especially affects the surface, is yet by no means superficial. It influences the tendency or determination of material qualities, and connects itself in immediate co-operation with the important double phenomenon which takes place so universally in chemistry, — oxydation, and de-oxydation.

744

To introduce and include the appearances of colour in this series, this circle of phenomena was the object of our labours. What we have not succeeded in others will accomplish. We found a primordial vast contrast between light and darkness, which may be more generally expressed by light and its absence. We looked for the intermediate state, and sought by means of it to compose the visible world of light, shade, and colour. In the prosecution of this we employed various terms applicable to the development of the phenomena, terms which we adopted from the theories of magnetism, of electricity, and of chemistry. It was necessary, however, to extend this terminology, since we found ourselves in an abstract region, and had to express more complicated relations.

745

If electricity and galvanism, in their general character, are distinguished as superior to the more limited exhibition of magnetic phenomena, it may be said that colour, although coming under similar laws, is still superior; for since it addresses itself to the noble sense of vision, its perfections are more generally displayed. Compare, the varied effects which result from the augmentation of yellow and blue to red, from the combination of these two higher extremes to pure red, and the union of the two inferior extremes to green. What a far more varied scheme is apparent here than that in which magnetism and electricity are comprehended. These last phenomena may be said to be inferior again on another accounts; for though they penetrate and give life to the universe, they cannot address themselves to man in a higher sense in order to his employing them aesthetically. The general, simple, physical law must first be elevated and diversified itself in order to be available for elevated uses.

746

If the reader, in this spirit, recalls what has been stated by us throughout, generally and in detail, with regard to colour, he will himself pursue and unfold what has been here only lightly hinted at. He will augur well for science, technical processes, and art, if it should prove possible to rescue the attractive subject of the doctrine of colours from the atomic restriction and isolation in which it has been banished, in order to restore it to the general dynamic flow of life and action which the present age loves to recognise in nature. These considerations will press upon us more strongly — when, in the historical portion, we shall have to speak of many an enterprising and intelligent man who failed to possess his Contemporaries with his convictions.

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Relation to the Theory of Music.

747

Before we proceed to the moral associations of colour, and the Aesthetic influences arising from them, we have here to say a few words on its relation to melody, That a certain relation exists between the two, has been always felt; this is proved by the frequent comparisons we meet with, sometimes as passing allusions, sometimes as circumstantial parallels. The error which writers have fallen into in trying to establish this analogy we would thus define :

748

Colour and sound do not admit of being directly compared together in any way, but both are referable to a higher formula, both are derivable, although each for itself, from this higher law. They are like two rivers which have their source in one and the same mountain, but subsequently pursue their way under totally different conditions in two totally different regions, so that throughout the whole course of both no two points can be compared. Both are general, elementary effects acting according to the general law of separation and tendency to union, of undulation and oscillation, yet acting thus in wholly different provinces, in different modes, on different elementary mediums, for different senses. — Note BB.

749

Could some investigator rightly adopt the method in which we have connected the doctrine of colours with natural philosophy generally, and happily supply what has escaped or been missed by us, the theory of sound, we are persuaded, might be perfectly connected with general physics : at present it stands, as it were, isolated within the circle of science.

750

It is true it would be an undertaking of the greatest difficulty to do away with the positive character which we are now accustomed to attribute to music a character resulting from the achievements, of practical skill, from accidental, mathematical, esthetical influences — and to substitute for all this a merely physical inquiry tending to resolve the science into its first elements. Yet considering the point at which science and art are now arrived, considering the many excellent preparatory investigations that have been made relative to this subject, we may perhaps still see it accomplished.

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Concluding Observations On Terminology.

751

We never sufficiently reflect that a language, strictly speaking, can only be symbolical and figurative, that it can never express things directly, but only, as it were, reflectedly. This is especially the case in speaking of qualities which are only imperfectly presented to observation, which might rather be called powers than objects, and which are ever in movement throughout nature. They are not to be arrested, and yet we find it necessary to describe them; hence we look for all kinds of formulae in order, figuratively at least, to define them.

752

Metaphysical formulae have breadth as well as depth, but on this very account they require a corresponding import; the danger here is vagueness. Mathematical expressions may in many cases be very conveniently and happily employed, but there is always an inflexibility in them, and we presently feel their inadequacy; for even in elementary cases we are very soon conscious of an incommensurable idea; they are, besides, only intelligible to those who are especially conversant in the sciences to which such formula are appropriated. The terms of the science of mechanics are more addressed to the ordinary mind, but they are ordinary in other senses, and always have something unpolished; they destroy the inward life to offer from without an insufficient substitute for it. The formula of the corpuscular theories are nearly allied to the last; through them the mutable becomes rigid, description and expression uncouth : while, again, moral terms, which undoubtedly can express nicer relations, have the effect of mere symbols in the end, and are in danger of being lost in a play of wit.

753

If, however, a writer could use all these modes of description and expression with perfect command, and thus give forth the result of his observations on the phenomena of nature in a diversified language; if he could preserve himself from predilections, still embodying a lively meaning in as animated an expression, we might look for much instruction communicated in the most agreeable of forms.

754

Yet, how difficult it is to avoid substituting the sign for the thing; how difficult to keep the essential quality still living before us, and not to kill it with the word. With all this, we are exposed in modern times to a still greater danger by adopting expressions and terminologies from all branches of knowledge and science to embody our views of simple nature. Astronomy, cosmology, geology, natural history, nay religion and mysticism, are called in in aid; and how often do we not find a general idea and an elementary state rather hidden and obscured than elucidated and brought nearer to us by the employment of terms, the application of which is strictly specific and secondary. We are quite aware of the necessity which led to the introduction and general adoption of such a language, we also know that it has become in a certain sense indispensable; but it is only a moderate, unpretending recourse to it, with an internal conviction of its fitness, that can recommend it.

755

After all, the most desirable principle would be that writers should borrow the expressions employed to describe the details of a given province of investigation from ‘the province itself; treating the simplest phenomenon as an elementary formula, and deriving and developing the more complicated designations from this.

756

The necessity and suitableness of such a conventional language where the elementary sign expresses the appearance itself, has been duly appreciated by extending, for instance, the application of the term polarity, which is borrowed from the magnet to electricity, &c. The plus and minus which may be substituted for this, have found as suitable an application to many phenomena; even the musician, probably without troubling himself about these other departments, has been naturally led to express the leading difference in the modes of melody by major and minor.

757

For ourselves we have long wished to intro. duce the term polarity into the doctrine of colours; with what right and in what sense, the present work may show. Perhaps we may hereafter find room to connect the elementary phenomena together according to our mode, by a similar use of symbolical terms, terms which must at all times convey the directly corresponding idea; we shall thus render more explicit what has been here only alluded to generally, and perhaps too vaguely expressed.

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PART VI. EFFECT OF COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO MORAL ASSOCIATIONS.

758

Since colour occupies so important a place in the series of elementary phenomena, filling as it does the limited circle assigned to it with fullest variety, we shall not be surprised to find that its effects are at all times decided and significant, and that they are immediately associated with the emotions of the mind. We shall not be surprised to find that these appearances presented singly, are specific, that in combination they may produce an harmonious, characteristic, often even an inharmonious effect on the eye, by means of which they act on the mind; producing this impression in their most general elementary character, without relation to the nature or form of the object on whose surface they are apparent. Hence, colour considered as an element of art, may be made subservient to the highest esthetical ends. — Note CC.

759

People experience a great delight in colour, generally. The eye requires it as much as it requires light. We have only to remember the refreshing sensation we experience, if on a cloudy day the sun illumines a single portion of the scene before us and displays its colours. That healing powers were ascribed to coloured gems, may have arisen from the experience of this indefinable pleasure.

760

The colours which we see on objects are not qualities entirely strange to the eye; the organ is not thus merely habituated to the impression; no, it is always predisposed to produce colour of itself, and experiences a sensation of delight if something analogous to its own nature is offered to it from without; if its susceptibility is distinctly determined towards a given state.

761

From some of our earlier observations we can conclude, that general impressions produced by single colours cannot be changed, that they act specifically, and mast produce definite, specific states in the living organ.

762

They likewise produce a corresponding influence on the mind. Experience teaches us that particular colours excite particular states of feeling. It is related of a witty Frenchman, “Il prétendoit que son ton de conversation avec Madame étoit change depuis qu’elle avoi change .en cramoisi le meuble de son cabinet qui étoit bleu.”

763

In order to experience these influences completely, the eye should be entirely surrounded with one colour; we should be in a room of one colour, or look through a coloured glass. We are then identified with the hue, it attunes the eye and mind in mere unison with itself.

764

The colours on the plus side are yellow, red- yellow (orange), yellow-red (minium, cinnabar). The feelings they excite are quick, lively, aspiring.

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Yellow.

765

This is the colour nearest the light. It appears on the slightest mitigation of light, whether by semi-transparent mediums or faint reflection from white surfaces. In prismatic experiments it extends itself alone and widely in the light space, and while the two poles remain separated from each ‘other, before it mixes with blue to produce green it is to be seen in its utmost purity and beauty. How the chemical yellow develops itself in and upon the white, has been circumstantially described in its proper place.

766

In its highest purity it always carries with it the nature of brightness, and has a serene, gay, softly exciting character.

767

In this state, applied to dress, hangings, carpeting, &c., it is agreeable. Gold in its perfectly unmixed state, especially when the effect of polish is superadded, gives us a new and high idea of this colour; in like manner, a strong yellow, as it appears on satin, has a magnificent and noble effect.

768

We find from experience, again, that yellow excites a warm and agreeable impression. Hence in painting it belongs to the illumined and emphatic side.

769

This impression of warmth may be experienced in a very lively manner if we look at a landscape through a yellow glass, particularly on a grey winter’s day. The eye is gladdened, the heart expanded and cheered, a glow seems at once to breathe towards us.

770

If, however, this colour in its pure and bright state is agreeable and gladdening, and in it utmost power is serene and noble, it is, on the other hand, extremely liable to contamination and produces a very disagreeable effect if it is sullied, or in some degree tends to the minti side. Thus, the colour of sulphur, which incline to green, has a something unpleasant in it.

771

When a yellow colour is communicated to dull and coarse surfaces, such as common cloth, felt or the like, on which it does not appear with full energy, the disagreeable effect alluded to it apparent. By a slight and scarcely perceptible change, the beautiful impression of fire and gold, is transformed into one not undeserving the epithet foul; and the colour of honour and joy, reversed to that of ignominy and aversion. To this impression the yellow hats of bankrupt and the yellow circles on the mantles of Jews may have owed their origin.

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Red-Yellow.

772

As no colour can be considered as stationary so we can very easily augment yellow into red dish by condensing or darkening it. The colon increases in energy, and appears in red-yellow more powerful and splendid.

773

All that we have said of yellow is applicable here in a higher degree. The red-yellow gives an impression of warmth and gladness, since it represents the hue of the intenser glow of fire, and of the milder radiance of the setting sun. Hence it is agreeable around us, and again, as clothing, in greater or less degrees is cheerful and magnificent. A slight tendency to red immediately gives a new character to yellow, and while .the English and Germans content themselves with bright pale yellow colours in leather, the French, as Castel has remarked, prefer a yellow enhanced to red; indeed, in general, everything in colour is agreeable to them which belongs to the active side.

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Yellow-Red.

774

As pure yellow passes very easily to red-yellow, so the deepening of this last to yellow-red is not to be arrested. The agreeable, cheerful sensation which red-yellow excites, increases to an intolerably powerful impression in bright yellow-red.

775

The active side is here in its highest energy, and it is not to be wondered at that impetuous, robust, uneducated men, should be especially pleased with this colour. Among savage nations the inclination for it has been universally remarked, and when children, left to themselves begin to use tints, they never spare vermilion and minium.

776

In looking steadfastly at a perfectly yellow-red surface, the colour seems actually to penetrate the organ. It produces an extreme excitement, and still acts thus when somewhat darkened. A yellow-red cloth disturbs and enrages animals. I have known men of education to whom its effect was intolerable if they chanced to see a person dressed in a scarlet cloak on a grey, cloudy day.

777

The colours on the minus side are blue, red-blue, and blue-red. They produce a restless, susceptible, anxious impression.

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Blue.

778

As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it.

779

This colour has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful, but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.

780

As the upper sky and distant mountains appear blue, so a blue surface seems to retire from us.

781

But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.

782

Blue gives us an impression of cold, and thus, again, reminds us of shade, We have before spoken of its affinity with black.

783

Rooms which are hung with pure blue, appear in some degree larger, but at the same time empty and cold.

784

The appearance of objects seen through a blue glass is gloomy and melancholy.

785

When blue partakes in some degree of the plus side, the effect is not disagreeable, Sea-green is rather a pleasing colour.

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Red-Blue.

786

We found yellow very soon tending to the intense state, and we observe the same progression in blue.

787

Blue deepens very mildly into red, and thus acquires a somewhat active character, although it is on the passive side. Its exciting power is, however, of a very different kind from that of the red-yellow. It may be said to disturb rather than enliven.

788

As augmentation itself is not to be arrested, so we feel an inclination to follow the progress of the colour, not, however, as in the case of the red-yellow, to see it still increase in the active sense, but to find a point to rest in.

789

In a very attenuated state, this colour is known to us under the name of lilac; but even in this degree it has a something lively without gladness.

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Blue-Red.

790

This unquiet feeling increases as the hue progresses, and it may be safely assumed, that a carpet of a perfectly pure deep blue-red would be intolerable. On this account, when it is used for dress, ribbons, or other ornaments, it is employed in a very attenuated and light state, and thus displays its character as above defined, in a peculiarly attractive manner.

791

As the higher dignitaries of the church have appropriated this unquiet colour to themselves, we may venture to say that it unceasingly aspires to the cardinal’s red through the restless degrees of a still impatient progression.

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Red.

792

We are here to forget everything that borders on yellow or blue. We are to imagine an absolutely pure red, like fine carmine suffered to dry on white porcelain. We have called this colour “purpur” by way Of distinction, although we are quite aware that the purple of the ancients inclined more to blue.

793

Whoever is acquainted with the prismatic origin of red, will not think it paradoxical if we assert that this colour partly actual, partly potential, includes all the other colours.

794

We have remarked a constant progress o: augmentation in yellow and blue, and seen what impressions were produced by the various states hence it may naturally be inferred that now, the junction of the deepened extremes, a feeling of satisfaction must succeed; and thus, in physical phenomena, this highest of all appearance of colour arises from the junction of two contrasted extremes which have gradually prepared themselves for a union.

795

As a pigment, on the other hand, it presents itself to us already formed, and is most perfect as a hue in cochineal; a substance which, however, by chemical action may be made to tend to the plus or the minus side, and may be considered to have attained the central point in the best carmine.

796

The effect of this colour is as peculiar as its nature. It conveys an impression of gravity and dignity, and at the same time of grace and attractiveness. The first in its dark deep state the latter in its light attenuated tint; and thus the dignity of age and the amiableness of youth may adorn itself with degrees of the same hue.

797

History relates many instances of the jealousy of sovereigns with regard to the quality of red. Surrounding accompaniments of this colour have always a grave and magnificent effect.

798

The red glass exhibits a bright landscape in so dreadful a hue as to inspire sentiments of awe.

799

Kermes and cochineal, the two materials chiefly employed in dyeing to produce this colour, incline more or less to the plus or minus state, and may be made to pass and repass the culminating point by the action of acids and alkalis : it is to be observed that the French arrest their operations on the active side, as is proved by the French scarlet, which inclines to yellow. The Italians, on the other hand, remain on the passive side, for their scarlet has a tinge of blue.

800

By means of a similar alkaline treatment, the so-called crimson is produced; a colour which the French must be particularly prejudiced against, since they employ the expressions — ”Sot en cramoisi, méchant en cramoisi,” to mark the extreme of the silly and the reprehensible.

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Green.

801

If yellow and blue, which we consider as the most fundamental and simple colours, are united as they first appear, in the first state of their action, the colour which we call green is the result.

802

The eye experiences a distinctly grateful impression from this colour. If the two elementary colours are mixed in perfect equality so that neither predominates, the eye and the mind repose on the result of this junction as upon a simple colour. The beholder has neither the wish nor the power to imagine a state beyond it. Hence for rooms to live in constantly, the green colour is most generally selected.

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Completeness and Harmony.

803

We have hitherto assumed, for the sake of clearer explanation, that the eye can be compelled to assimilate or identify itself with a single colour; but this can only be possible for an ,instant.

804

For when we find ourselves surrounded by a given colour which excites its corresponding sensation on the eye, and compels us by its presence to remain in a state identical with it, this state is soon found to be forced, and the organ unwillingly remains in it.

805

When the eye sees a colour it is immediately excited, and it is its nature, spontaneously and of necessity, at once to produce another, which with the original colour comprehends the whole chromatic scale. A single colour excites, by a specific sensation, the tendency to universality,

806

To experience this completeness, to satisfy itself, the eye seeks for a colorless space next every hue in order to produce the complementally hue upon it.

807

In this resides the fundamental law of all harmony of colours, of which every one may convince himself by making himself accurately acquainted with the experiments which we have described in the chapter on the physiological colours.

808

If, again, the entire scale is presented to the eye externally, the impression is gladdening since the result of its own operation is presented to it in reality. We turn our attention, therefore, in the first place, to this harmonious juxtaposition.

809

As a very simple means of comprehending the principle of this, the reader has only to imagine a moveable diametrical index in the colorific circle. The index, as it revolves round the whole circle, indicates at its two extreme the complemental colours, which, after all, ma: be reduced to three contrasts.

810

Yellow demands Red-blue, Blue “Red-yellow, Red “Green,

and contrariwise.

811

In proportion as one end of the supposed index deviates from the central intensity of the colours, arranged as they are in the natural order, so the opposite end changes its place the contrasted gradation, and by such a simple contrivance the complemental colours may be indicated at any given point. A chromatic circle might be made for this purpose, not confined, like our own, to the leading colours, but exhibiting them with their transitions in an unbroken series. This would not be without its use, for we are here considering a very important point which deserves all our attention.

812

We before stated that the eye could be in some degree pathologically affected by being long confined to a single colour; that, again, definite moral impressions were thus produced, at one time lively and aspiring, at another susceptible and anxious — now exalted to grand associations, now reduced to ordinary ones. We now observe that the demand for completeness, which is inherent in the organ, frees us from this restraint; the eye relieves itself by producing the opposite of the single colour forced upon it, and thus attains the entire impression which is so satisfactory to it.

813

Simple, therefore, as these strictly harmonious contrasts are, as presented to us in the narrow circle, the hint is important, that nature tends to emancipate the sense from confined impressions by suggesting and producing I whole, and that in this instance we have a natural phenomenon immediately applicable esthetic purposes.

814

While, therefore, we may assert that the chromatic scale, as given by us, produces an agreeable impression by its ingredient hues, we will here remark that those have been mistaken who have hitherto adduced the rainbow as an example of the entire scale; for the chief colour pure red, is deficient in it, and cannot be produced, since in this phenomenon, as well as in the ordinary prismatic series, the yellow-red and blue-red cannot attain to a union.

815

Nature perhaps exhibits no general phenomenon where the scale is in complete comb nation. By artificial experiments such a appearance may be produced in its prefer splendour. The mode, however, in which the entire series is connected in a circle, is rendered most intelligible by tints on paper, till after much experience and practice, aided by du susceptibility of the organ, we become penetrate with the idea of this harmony, and feel it present in our minds.

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Characteristic Combinations.

816

Besides these pure, harmonious, self-developed combinations, which always carry the conditions of completeness with them, there are others which may be arbitrarily produced, and which may be most easily described by observing that they are to be found in the colorific circle, not by diameters, but by chords, in such a manner that an intermediate colour is passed over.

817

We call these combinations characteristic because they have all a certain significancy and tend to excite a definite impression; an impression, however, which does not altogether satisfy, inasmuch as every characteristic quality of necessity presents itself only as a part of a whole, with which it has a relation, but into which it cannot be resolved,

818

As we are acquainted with the impressions produced by the colours singly as well as in their harmonious relations, we may at once conclude that the character of the arbitrary combinations will be very different from each other as regards their significancy. We proceed to review them separately.

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Yellow and Blue.

819

This is the simplest of such combinations. It may be said that it contains too little, since every trace of red is wanting in it, it defective as compared with the whole scale. This view it may be called poor, and as the two contrasting elements are in their lowest state, may be said to be ordinary; yet it is recommended by its proximity to green — in short, bycontaining the ingredients of an ultimate stab

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Yellow and Red.

820

This is a somewhat preponderating combintion, but it has a serene and magnificent effect. The two extremes of the active side are seen together without conveying any idea of progression from one to the other. As the rest of their combination in pigments is yellow-red, so they in some degree represent this colour.

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Blue and Red.

821

The two ends of the passive side with the excess of the upper end of the active aid. The effect of this juxtaposition approaches that of the blue-red produced by their union.

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Yellow-Red and Blue-Red.

822

These, when placed together, as the deepened extremes of both sides, have something exciting, elevated : they give us a presentiment of red, which in physical experiments is produced by their union.

823

These four combinations have also the common quality of producing the intermediate colour of our colorific circle by their union, a union which actually takes place if they are opposed to each other in small quantities and seen from a distance. A surface covered with narrow blue and yellow stripes appear green at a certain distance.

824

If, again, the eye sees blue and yellow next each other, it finds itself in a peculiar disposition to produce green without accomplishing it, while it neither experiences a satisfactory sensation in contemplating the detached colours, nor an impression of completeness in the two.

825

Thus it will be seen that it was not without reason we called these combinations characteristic; the more so, since the character of each combination must have a relation to that of 1 single colours of which it consists.

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Combinations Non-Characteristic.

826

We now turn our attention to the last kind combinations. These are easily found in the circle; they are indicated by shorter chords, 1 in this case we do not pass over an entire intermediate colour, but only the transition from one to the other.

827

These combinations may justly be called no characteristic, inasmuch as the colours are too nearly alike for their impression to be significant. Yet most of these recommend themselves to a certain degree, since they indicate a progressive state, though its relations can hard be appreciable.

828

Thus yellow and yellow-red, yellow-red at red, blue and blue-red, blue-red and red, reprsent the nearest degrees of augmentation at culmination, and in certain relations as to quantity may produce no unpleasant effect.

829

The juxtaposition of yellow and green has always something ordinary, but in a cheerful sense; blue and green, on the other hand, is ordinary in a repulsive sense. Our good fore-fathers called these last fool’s colours.

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Relation of the Combinations to Light and Dark.

830

These combinations may be very much varied by making both colours light or both dark, or one light and the other dark; in which modifications, however, all that has been found true in a general sense is applicable to each particular case. With regard to the infinite variety thus produced, we merely observe:

831

The colours of the active side placed next to black gain in energy, those of the passive side lose. The active conjoined with white and brightness lose in strength, the passive gain in cheerfulness. Red and green with black appear dark and grave; with white they appear gay.

832

To this we may add that all colours may be more or less broken or neutralised, may to a certain degree be rendered nameless, and thus combined partly together and partly with pure colours; but although the relations may thus be varied to infinity, still all that is applicable with regard to the pure colours will be applicable in these cases.

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Considerations Derived From the Evidence of Experience and History.

833

The principles of the harmony of colours having been thus far defined, it may not be irrelevant to review what has been adduced in connexion with experience and historical examples.

834

The principles in question have been derived from the constitution of our nature and the constant relations which are found to obtain in chromatic phenomena. In experience we find much that is in conformity with these principles, and much that is opposed to them.

835

Men in a state of nature, uncivilised nations, children, have a great fondness for colours in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red: they are also pleased with the motley. By this expression we understand the juxtaposition of vivid colours without an harmonious balance; but if this balance is observed, through instinct or accident, an agreeable effect may be produced. I remember a Hessian officer, returned from America, who had painted his face with the positive colours, in the manner of the Indians; a kind of completeness or due balance was thus produced, the effect of which was not disagreeable.

836

The inhabitants of the south of Europe make use of very brilliant colours for their dresses. The circumstance of their procuring silk stuffs at a cheap rate is favourable to this propensity. The women, especially, with their bright-coloured bodices and ribbons, are always in harmony with the scenery, since they cannot possibly surpass the splendour of the sky and landscape.

837

The history of dyeing teaches us that certain technical conveniences and advantages have had great influence on the costume of nations. We find that the Germans wear blue very generally because it is a permanent colour in cloth; so in many districts all the country people wear green twill, because that material takes a green dye well. If a traveler were to pay attention to these circumstances, he might collect some amusing and curious facts.

838

Colours, as connected with particular frames of mind, are again a consequence of peculiar character and circumstances. Lively nations like the French for instance, love intense clothes especially on the active side; sedate nations like the English and Germans, wear straw coloured or leather-coloured yellow accompanied with dark blue. Nations aiming dignity of appearance, the Spaniards and &?lians for instance, suffer the red colour of their mantles to incline to the passive side.

839

In dress we associate the character of the colour with the character of the person. We may thus observe the relation of colours single and in combination, to the colour of the complexion, age, and station.

840

The female sex in youth is attached to rose colour and sea-green, in age to violet and dark green. The fair-haired prefer violet, as oppose to light yellow, the brunettes, blue, as opposed to yellow-red, and all on good grounds. The Roman emperors were extremely jealous with regard to their purple. The robe of the Chinese Emperor is orange embroidered with red; his attendants and the ministers of religion wear citron-yellow.

841

People of refinement have a disinclination to colours. This may be owing partly to weakness of sight, partly to the uncertainty of taste, which readily takes refuge in absolute negation. Women now appear almost universally in white and men in black.

842

An observation, very generally applicable, may not be out of place here, namely, that man, desirous as he is of being distinguished, is quite as willing to be lost among his fellows.

843

Black was intended to remind the Venetian noblemen of republican equality.

844

To what degree the cloudy sky of northern climates may have gradually banished colour may also admit of explanation.

845

The scale of positive colours is obviously soon exhausted; on the other hand, the neutral, subdued, so-called fashionable colours present infinitely varying degrees and shades, most of which are not unpleasing.

It is also to be remarked that ladies, in wearing positive colours, are in danger of making I complexion which may not be very bright still less so, and thus to preserve a due balance with such brilliant accompaniments, they are induced to heighten their complexions artificially.

847

An amusing inquiry might be made which would lead to a critique of uniforms, liveries cockades, and other distinctions, according t, the principles above hinted at. It might b observed, generally, that such dresses and insignia should not be composed of harmonious colours. Uniforms should be characteristic an dignified; liveries might be ordinary and striking to the eye. Examples both good and bad, would not be wanting, since the scale of colour usually employed for such purposes is limited and its varieties have been often enough tried.

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Aesthetic Influence.

848

From the moral associations connected wit the appearance of colours, single or combine their aesthetic influence may now be deduced for the artist. We shall touch the most essential points to lie attended to after first considering the general condition of pictorial representation, light and shade, with which the appearance of colour is immediately connected.

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Chiaro-Scuro.

849

We apply the term chiaro-scuro (Helldunkel) to the appearance of material objects when the mere effect produced on them by light and shade is considered. — Note DD.

850

In a narrower sense a mass of shadow lighted by &?reflexes is often thus designated; but we . here use the expression in its first and more general sense.

851

The separation of light and dark from all appearance of colour is possible and necessary. The artist will solve the mystery of imitation sooner by first considering light and dark independently of colour, and making himself acquainted with it in its whole extent.

852

Chiaro-scuro exhibits the substance as substance, inasmuch as light and shade inform us as to degrees of density.

853

We have here to consider the highest light the middle tint, and the shadow, and in the shadow of the object itself, the shadow casts on other objects, and the illumined shadow or reflexion.

854

The globe is well adapted for the general exmplification of the nature of chiaro-scuro, it is not altogether sufficient. The softened unity of such complete rotundity tends to vapoury, and in order to serve as a principle affects of art, it should be composed of plane surfaces, so as to define the gradations more.

855

The Italians call this manner “il piazzos;” in German it might be called “das Flächen hafte.” If, therefore, the sphere is a pet example of natural chiaro-scuro, a polygon would exhibit the artist-like treatment in w all kinds of lights, half-lights, shadows, and reflexions, would be appreciable. — Note EE

856

The bunch of grapes is recognised as a good example of a picturesque completeness in chiaro-scuro, the more so as it is fitted, from its form to represent a principal group; but it is only available for the master who can see in it what he has the power of producing.

857

In order to make the first idea intelligible to the beginner, (for it is difficult to consider it abstractedly even in a polygon,) we may take a cube, the three sides of which that are seen represent the light, the middle tint, and the shadow in distinct order.

858

To proceed again to the chiaro-scuro of a more complicated figure, we might select the example of an open book, which presents a greater diversity.

859

We find the antique statues of the best time treated very much with reference to these effects. The parts intended to receive the light are wrought with simplicity, the portion originally in shade is, on the other hand, in more distinct surfaces to make them susceptible of a variety of reflexions; here the example of the polygon will be remembered.-Note FF.

860

The pictures of Herculaneum and the Aldobrandini marriage are examples of antique painting in the same style.

861

Modern examples may be found in single figures by Raphael, in entire works by Correggio, and also by the Flemish masters, especially Rubens.

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Tendency to Colour.

862

A picture in black and white seldom makes its appearance; some works of Polidoro are examples of this kind of art. Such works, inasmuch as they can attain form and keeping, are estimable, but they have little attraction for the eye, since their very existence supposes a violent abstraction.

863

If the artist abandons himself to his feeling, colour presently announces itself. Black no sooner inclines to blue than the eye demands yellow, which the artist instinctively modifies, and introduces partly pure in the light, partly reddened and subdued as brown, in the reflexes, thus enlivening the whole. — Note GG.

864

All kinds of camayeu, or colour on similar colour, end in the introduction either of a complemental contrast, or some variety of hue. Thus, Polidoro in his black and white frescoes sometimes introduced a yellow vase, or something of the kind.

865

In general it may be observed that men have at all times instinctively striven after colour in the practice of the art. We need only observe daily, how soon amateurs proceed from colourless to coloured materials- Paolo Uccello painted coloured landscapes to colourless figures. — Note HH.

866

Even the sculpture of the ancients could not be exempt from the influence of this propensity. The Egyptians painted their bas-reliefs; statues had eyes of coloured stones. Porphyry draperies were added to marble heads and extremities, and variegated stalactites were used for the pedestals of busts. The Jesuits did not fail to compose the statue of their S. Luigi, in Rome, in this manner, and the most modern sculpture distinguishes the flesh from the drapery by staining the latter.

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Keeping.

867

If linear perspective displays the gradation of objects in their apparent size as affected by distance, aerial perspective shows us their gradation in greater or less distinctness, as affect by the same cause.

868

Although from the nature of the organ sight, we cannot see distant objects so distinct as nearer ones, yet aerial perspective is ground strictly on the important fact that all mediums called transparent are in some degree dim.

869

The atmosphere is thus always, more or less semi-transparent. This quality is remarkable in southern climates, even when the barometer is high, the weather dry, and the sky cloudless for a very pronounced gradation is observable between objects but little removed from each other.

870

The appearance on a large scale is known every one; the painter, however, sees or believes he sees, the gradation in the slight varieties of distance. He exemplifies it practically by making a distinction, for instance, the features of a face according to their relative position as regards the plane of the picture. The direction of the light is attended to in lit manner. This is considered to produce a gradation from side to side, while keeping has reference to depth, to the comparative distinctness of near and distant things.

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Colouring.

871

In proceeding to consider this subject, we assume that the painter is generally acquainted with our sketch of the theory of colours, and that he has made himself well acquainted with certain chapters and rubrics which especially concern him. He will thus be enabled to make use of theory as well as practice in recognising the principles of effect in nature, and in employing the means of art.

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Colour in General Nature.

872

The first indication of colour announces itself in nature together with the gradations of aerial perspective; for aerial perspective is intimately connected with the doctrine of semi-transparent mediums. We see the sky, distant objects and even comparatively near shadows, blue. At the same moment, the illuminating and illuminated objects appear yellow, gradually deepening to red. In many cases the physiological suggestion of contrasts comes into the account, and an entirely colourless landscape, by means of these assisting and counteracting tendencies, appears to our eyes completely coloured.

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Colour of Particular Objects.

873

Local colours are composed of the general elementary colours; but these are determined or specified according to the properties of substances and surfaces on which they appear: this specification is infinite.

874

Thus, there is at once a great difference between silk and wool similarly dyed. Every kind of preparation and texture produces corresponding modifications. Roughness, smoothness, polish, all are to be considered.

875

It is therefore one of the pernicious prejudice of art that the skilful painter must never attend to the material of draperies, but always represent, as it were, only abstract folds. Is not a characteristic variety thus done away with, an is the portrait of Leo X. less excellent because velvet, satin, and moreen, are imitated in the relative effect?

876

In the productions of nature, colours appear more or less modified, specified, even indivdualised: this may be readily observed in minerals and plants, in the feathers of birds and the skins of beasts.

877

The chief art of the painter is always to imitate the actual appearance of the definite hue, doing away with the recollection of the elementary ingredients of colour. This difficulty is in no instance greater than in the imitation of the surface of the human figure.

878

The colour of flesh, as a whole, belongs to the active side, yet the bluish of the passive side mingles with it. The colour is altogether removed from the elementary state and neutralised by organisation.

879

To bring the colouring of general nature into harmony with the colouring of a given object, will perhaps be more attainable for the judicious artist after the consideration of what has been pointed out in the foregoing theory. For the most fancifully beautiful and varied appearances may still be made true to the principles of nature.

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Characteristic Colouring.

880

The combination of coloured objects, as well as the colour of their ground, should depend on considerations which the artist pre-establishes for himself. Here a reference to the effect c colours singly or combined, on the feelings, is especially necessary. On this account the painter should possess himself with the idea e the general dualism, as well as of particular contrasts, not forgetting what has been adverted to with regard to the qualities of colours.

881

The characteristic in colour may be comprehended under three leading rubrics, which we here define as the powerful, the soft, and the splendid.

882

The first is produced by the preponderance e the active side, the second by that of the passive side, and the third by completeness, by the exhibition of the whole chromatic scale in due balance.

883

The powerful impression is attained by yellow yellow-red, and red, which last colour is to be arrested on the plus side. But little violet am blue, still less green, are admissible. The soft effect is produced by blue, violet, and red, whit] in this case is arrested on the minus side; a moderate addition of yellow and yellow-red, but much green may be admitted.

884

If it is proposed to produce both these effects in their full significancy, the complemental colours may be excluded to a minimum, and only so much of them may be suffered to appear as is indispensable to convey an impression of completeness.

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Harmonious Colouring.

885

Although the two characteristic divisions as above defined may in some sense be also called harmonious, the harmonious effect, properly $o called, only takes place when all the colours are exhibited together in due balance.

886

In this way the splendid as well as the agreeable may be produced; both of these, however, have of necessity a certain generalised effect, and in this sense may be considered the reverse of the characteristic.

887

This is the reason why the colouring of most modern painters is without character, for, while they follow their general instinctive feeling only, the last result of such a tendency must be mere completeness; this, they more or less attain, but thus at the same time neglect the characteristic impression which the subject might demand.

888

But if the principles before alluded to are kept in view, it must be apparent that a distinct style of colour may be adopted on safe grounds for every subject. The application requires, it is true, infinite modifications, which can only succeed in the hands of genius.

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Genuine Tone.

889

If the word tone, or rather tune, is to be still borrowed in future from music, and applied to colouring, it might be used in a better sense than heretofore.

890

For it would not be unreasonable to compare a painting of powerful effect, with a piece of music in a sharp key; a painting of soft effect with a piece of music in a flat key, while other equivalents might be found for the modifications of these two leading modes.

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False Tone.

891

The word tone has been hitherto understood to mean a veil of a particular colour spread over the whole picture; it was generally yellow, for the painter instinctively pushed the effect towards the powerful side.

892

If we look at a picture through a yellow glass it will appear in this tone. It is worth while to make this experiment again and again, in order to observe what takes place in such an operation. It is a sort of artificial light, deepening, and at the same time darkening the plus side, and neutralising the minus side.

893

This spurious tone is produced instinctively through uncertainty as to the means of attaining a genuine effect; so that instead of completeness, monotony is the result.

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Weak Colouring.

894

It is owing to the same uncertainty that the colours are sometimes so much broken as to have the effect of a grey camayeu, the handling being at the same time as delicate as possible.

895

The harmonious contrasts are often found to be very happily felt in such pictures, but without spirit, owing to a dread of the motley.

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The Motley.

896

A picture may easily become party-colored or motley, when the colours are placed next e other in their full force, as it were only mechanically and according to uncertain impression.

897

If, on the other hand, weak colours are combined biped, even although they may be dissonant, the effect, as a matter of course, is not striking. The uncertainty of the artist is communicated to the spectator, who, on his side, can neither praise nor censure.

898

It is also important to observe that the colours may be disposed rightly in themselves, but that a work may still appear motley, if they falsely arranged in relation to light and shade.

899

This may the more easily occur as light a shade are already defined in the drawing, a are, as it were, comprehended in it, while the colour still remains open to selection.

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Dread of Theory.

900.

A dread of, nay, a decided aversion for theoretical views respecting colour and everything belonging to it, has been hitherto found to exist among painters; a prejudice for which, after all, they were not to be blamed; for what has been hitherto called theory was groundless, vacillating, and akin to empiricism. We hope that our labours may tend to diminish this prejudice, and stimulate the artist practically to prove and embody the principles that have been explained.

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Ultimate Aim.

901

But without a comprehensive view of the whole of our theory, the ultimate object will not be attained. Let the artist penetrate himself with all that we have stated. It is only by means of harmonious relations in light and shade, in keeping, in true and characteristic colouring, that a picture can be considered complete, in the sense we have now learnt to attach to the term.

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Grounds.

902

It was the practice of the earlier artists to paint on light grounds. This ground consisted of gypsum, and was thickly spread on linen or panel, and then levigated. After the outline was drawn, the subject was washed in with a blackish or brownish colour. Pictures prepare in this manner for colouring are still in existence, by Leonardo da Vinci, and Fra Bartolomeo; there are also several by Guido. — Note II.

903

When the artist proceeded to colour, and had to represent white draperies, he sometimes suffered the ground to remain untouched. Titian did this latterly when he had attained the greatest certainty in practice, and could accomplish much with little labour. The whitish ground was left as a middle tint, the shadows painted in, and the high lights touched on. — Note KK.

904

In the process of colouring, the preparation merely washed as it were underneath, was always effective. A drapery, for example, was painted with a transparent colour, the white ground shone through it and gave the colon] life, so the parts previously prepared for shadows exhibited the colour subdued, without being mixed or sullied.

905.

This method had many advantages; for the painter had a light ground for the light portions of his work and a dark ground for the shadowed portions. The whole picture was prepared; the artist could work with thin colours in the shadows, and had always an internal light to give value to his tints. In our own time painting in water colours depends on the same principles.

906

Indeed a light ground is now generally employed in oil-painting, because middle tints are thus found to be more transparent, and are in some degree enlivened by a bright ground; the shadows, again, do not so easily become black.

907

It was the practice for a time to paint on dark grounds. Tintoret probably introduced them. Titian’s best pictures are not painted on a dark ground.

908.

The ground in question was red-brown, and when the subject was drawn upon it, the strongest shadows were laid in; the colours of the lights impacted very thickly in the bright parts, and scumbled towards the shadows, so that the dark ground appeared through the thin colour as a middle tint. Effect was attained in finishing by frequently going over the bright parts and touching on the high lights.

909

If this method especially recommended itself in practice on account of the rapidity it allowed of, yet it had pernicious consequences. The strong ground increased and became darker and the light colours losing their brightness degrees, gave the shadowed portions more and more preponderance. The middle tints became darker and darker, and the shadows at last quite obscure. The strongly impacted lights alone remained bright, and we now see only 1 spots on the painting. The pictures of Bolognese school, and of Caravaggio, of sufficient examples of these results.

910

We may here in conclusion observe, 1 glazing derives its effect from treating the prepared colour underneath as a light ground. By this operation colours may have the effect of being mixed to the eye, may be enhanced, may acquire what is called tone; but they thus necessarily become darker.

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Pigments.

911.

We receive these from the hands of the mist and the investigator of nature. Much been recorded respecting colouring substances, which is familiar to all by means of the press. But such directions require to be revised from time to time. The master meanwhile communicates his experience in these matters to his scholar, and artists generally to each other.

912

Those pigments which according to their nature are the most permanent, are naturally much sought after, but the mode of employing them also contributes much to the duration of a picture. The fewest possible colouring materials are to be employed, and the simplest methods of using them cannot be sufficiently recommended.

913

For from the multitude of pigments colouring has suffered much. Every pigment has its peculiar nature as regards its effect on the eye; besides this it has its peculiar quality, requiring a corresponding technical method in its application. The former circumstance is a reason why harmony is more difficult of attainment with many materials than with few, the latter, why chemical action and re-action may take place among the colouring substances.

914.

We may refer, besides, to some false tendencies which the artists suffer themselves to be led away with. Painters are always looking for new colouring substances, and believe when such a substance is discovered that they have made an advance in the art. They have a great curiosity to know the practical methods of the old masters, and lose much time in the search. Towards the end of the last century we were thus long tormented with wax-painting. Others turn their attention to the discovery of new methods, through which nothing new is accomplished; for, after all, it is the feeling of the artist only that informs every kind of technical process.

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Allegorical, Symbolical, Mystical Application of Colour.

915

It has been circumstantially shown above, that every colour produces a distinct impression on the mind, and thus addresses at once the eye and feelings. Hence it follows that colour may be employed for certain moral and aesthetic ends.

916

Such an application, coinciding entirely with nature, might be called symbolical, since the colour would be employed in conformity with its effect, and would at once express its meaning. If, for example, pure red were assumed to designate majesty, there can be no doubt that this would be admitted to be a just and expressive symbol. All this has been already sufficiently entered into.

917

Another application is nearly allied to this; it might be called the allegorical application. In this there is more of accident and caprice, inasmuch as the meaning of the sign must be first communicated to us before we know what it is to signify; what idea, for instance, is attached to the green colour, which has been appropriated to hope?

918

That, lastly, colour may have a mystical allusion, may be readily surmised, for since every diagram in which the variety of colours may be represented points to those primordial relations which belong both to nature and the organ of vision, there can be no doubt that these may be made use of as a language, in cases where it is proposed to express similar primordial relations which do not present themselves to the senses in so powerful and varied a manner. The mathematician extols the value and applicability of the triangle; the triangle is revered by the mystic; much admits of being expressed in it by diagrams, and, among other things, the law of the phenomena of colours; in this case, indeed we presently arrive at the ancient mysterious hexagon.

919

When the distinction of yellow and blue is duly comprehended, and especially the augmentation into red, by means of which the opposite qualities tend towards each other and become united in a third; then, certainly, an especially mysterious interpretation will suggest itself, since a spiritual meaning may be connected with these facts; and when we find the two separate principles producing green on the one hand and red in their intenser state, we can hardly refrain from thinking in the first case on the earthly, in the last on the heavenly, generation of the Elohim. — Note LL.

920

But we shall do better not to expose ourselves, in conclusion, to the suspicion of enthusiasm; since, if our doctrine of colours finds favour, applications and allusions, allegorical, symbolical, and mystical, will not fail to be made, in conformity with the spirit of the age.

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Concluding Observations.

In reviewing this labour, which has occupied me long, and which at last I give but as a sketch, I am reminded of a wish once expressed by a careful writer, who observed that he would gladly see his works printed at once as he conceived them, in order then to go to the task with a fresh eye; since everything defective presents itself to us more obviously in print than even in the cleanest manuscript. This feeling may be imagined to be stronger in my case, since I had not even an opportunity of going through a fair transcript of my work before its publication, these pages having been put together at a time when a quiet, collected state of mind was out of the question.

Some of the explanations I was desirous of giving are to be found in the introduction, but in the portion of my work to be devoted to the history of the doctrine of colours, I hope to give a more detailed account of my investigations and the vicissitudes they underwent. One inquiry, however, may not be out of place here; the consideration, namely, of the question, what can a man accomplish who cannot devote his whole life to scientific pursuits? what can he perform as a temporary guest on an estate not his own, for the advantage of the proprietor?

When we consider art in its higher character, we might wish that masters only had to do with it, that scholars should be trained by the severest study, that amateurs might feel themselves happy in reverentially approaching precincts. For a work of art should be effusion of genius, the artist should evoke substance and form from his inmost being, t his materials with sovereign command, make use of external influences only to accomplish his powers.

But if the professor in this case has m reasons for respecting the dilettante, the ma science has every motive to be still more in gent, since the amateur here is capable of contributing what may be satisfactory and use The sciences depend much more on experiment than art, and for mere experiment many a tart’ is qualified. Scientific results are arrived at by many means, and cannot dispense v many hands, many heads. Science may communicated, the treasure may be inherited and what is acquired by one may be appropriated by many. Hence no one perhaps ought to be reluctant to offer his contributions. How much do we not owe to accident, to mere practice, to momentary observation. All who endowed only with habits of attention, women, children, are capable of communicating striking and true remarks.

In science it cannot therefore be required that he who endeavours to furnish something its aid should devote his whole life to it, should survey and investigate it in all its extent; for this, in most cases, would be a severe condition even for the initiated. But if we look through the history of science in general, especially the history of physics, we shall find that many important acquisitions have been made by single inquirers, in single departments, and very often by unprofessional observers.

To whatever direction a man may be determined by inclination or accident, whatever class of phenomena especially strike him, excite his interest, fix his attention, and occupy him, the result will still be for the advantage of science: for every new relation that comes to light, every new mode of investigation, even the imperfect attempt, even error itself is available; it may stimulate other observers and is never without its use as influencing future inquiry.

With this feeling the author himself may look back without regret on his endeavours. From this consideration he can derive some encouragement for the prosecution of the remainder of his task; and although not satisfied with the result of his efforts, yet re-assured by the sincerity of his intentions, he ventures to recommend his past and future labours to the interest of his contemporaries and posterity.

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NOTES.

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Note A. — Par. 18.

LEONARDO DA VINCI observes that “a light object relieved on a dark ground appears magnified;” and again, “Objects seen at a distance appear out of proportion; this is because the light parts transmit their rays to the eye more powerfully than the dark. A woman’s white head-dress once appeared to me much wider than her shoulders, owing to their being dressed in black.” It is now generally admitted that the excitation produced by light is propagated on the retina a little beyond the outline of the image. Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has devoted a very interesting special memoir to the description and explanation of phenomena of this nature. See his ‘ Mémoire sur l’Irradiation,’ published in the 11th vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Brussels.” — S. F.

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Note B. — Par. 23.

“The duration of ocular spectra produced by strongly exciting the retina, may be conveniently measured by minutes and seconds; but to ascertain the duration of more evanescent phenomena, recourse must be had to other means. The Chevalier d’Arcy (Mem. de l’Acad. des Sc.1765,) endeavoured to ascertain the duration of the impression produced by a glowing coal in the following manner. He attached it to the circumference of a wheel, the velocity of which was gradually increased until the apparent trace of the object formed a complete circle, and then measured the duration of a revolution, which was obviously that of the impression. To ascertain the duration of a revolution it is sufficient merely to know the number of revolutions described in a given time. Recently more refined experiments of the same kind have been made by Professors Plateau and Wheatstone.” — S. F.

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Note C. — Par. 50.

Every treatise on the harmonious combination of colours contains the diagram of the chromatic circle more or less elaborately constructed. These diagrams, if intended to exhibit the contrasts produced by the action and re-action of the retina, have one common defect. The opposite colours are made equal in intensity; whereas the complemental colour pictured on the retina is always less vivid, and always darker or lighter than the original colour. This variety undoubtedly accords more with harmonious effects in painting.

The opposition of two pure hues of equal intensity, differing only in the abstract quality of colour, would immediately be pronounced crude and inharmonious. It would not, however, be strictly correct to say that such a contrast is too violent; on the contrary, it appears the contrast is not carried far enough, for though differing in colour, the two hues may be exactly similar in purity and intensity. Complete contrast, on the other hand, supposes dissimilarity in all respects.

In addition to the mere difference of hue, the eye, it seems, requires difference in the lightness or darkness of the hue. The spectrum of a colour relieved as a dark on a light ground, is a light colour on a dark ground, and vice versa. Thus, if we look at a bright red wafer on the whitest surface, the complemental image will be still lighter than the white surface; if the same wafer is placed on a black surface, the complemental image will be still darker. The colour of both these spectra may be called greenish, but it is evident that a colour must be scarcely appreciable as such, if it is lighter than white and darker than black. It is, however, to be remarked, that the white surface round the light greenish image seems tinged with a reddish hue, and the black surface round the dark image becomes slightly illuminated with the same colour, thus in both cases assisting to render the image apparent (58).

The difficulty or impossibility of describing degrees of colour in words, has also had a tendency to mislead, by conveying the idea of more positive hues than the physiological contrast warrants. Thus, supposing scarlet to be relieved as a dark, the complemental colour is so light in degree and so faint in colour, that it should be called a pearly grey; whereas the theorists, looking at the quality of colour abstractedly, would call it a green- blue, and the diagram would falsely present such a hue equal in intensity to scarlet, or as nearly equal as possible.

Even the difference of mass which good taste requires may be suggested by the physiological phenomena, for unless the complemental image is suffered to fall on a surface precisely as near to the eye as that on which the original colour was displayed, it appears larger or smaller than the original object (22), and this in a rapidly increasing proportion. Lastly, the shape itself soon becomes changed (26).

That vivid colour demands the comparative absence of colour, either on a lighter or darker scale, as its contrast, may be inferred again from the fact that bright colourless objects produce strongly coloured spectra. In darkness, the spectrum which is first white, or nearly white, is followed by red: in light, the spectrum which is first black, is followed by green (39-44). All colour, as the author observes (259), is to be considered as half-light, inasmuch as it is in every case lighter than black and darker than whit Hence no contrast of colour with colour, or even of colour with black or white, can be so great (as regards lightness or darkness) as the contrast of black and white, or light an dark abstractedly. This distinction between the difference of degree and the differences of kind is important, since just application of contrast in colour may be counteracted by an undue difference in lightness or darkness. The mere contrast of colour is happily employed in some of Guides lighter pictures, but if intense darks had been opposed to hi delicate carnations, their comparative whiteness would have been unpleasantly apparent. On the other hand, the flesh colour in Giorgione, Sebastian del Piombo (his best imitator), and Titian, was sometimes so extremely glowing that the deepest colours, and black, were indispensable accompaniments. The manner of Titian as distinguished from his imitation of Giorgione, is golden rather than fiery, arc his biographers are quite correct in saying that he was font of opposing red (lake) and blue to his flesh. The correspondence of these contrasts with the physiological phenomena will be immediately apparent, while the occasion] practice of Rubens in opposing bright red to a still cooler flesh-colour, will be seen to be equally consistent.

The effect of white drapery (the comparative absence of colour) in enhancing the glow of Titian’s flesh-colour, has been frequently pointed out: the shadows of white thus opposed to flesh, often present, again, the physiological contrast, however delicately, according to the hue of the carnation. The lights, on the other hand, are not, and probably never were, quite white, but from the first, partook of the quality of depth, a quality assumed by the colourists to pervade every part of a picture more or less.

It was before observed that the description of colours in words may often convey ideas of too positive a nature, and it may be remarked generally that the colours employed by the great masters are, in their ultimate effect, more or less subdued or broken. The physiological contrasts are, however, still applicable in the most comparatively neutral scale.

Again, the works of the colourists show that these oppositions are not confined to large masses (except perhaps in works to be seen only at a great distance); on the contrary, they are more or less apparent in every part, and when at last the direct and intentional operations of the artist may have been insufficient to produce them in their minuter degrees, the accidental results of glazing and other methods may be said to extend the contrasts to infinity. In such productions, where every smallest portion is an epitome of the whole, the eye still appreciates the fascinating effect of contrast, and the work is pronounced to be true and complete, in the best sense of the words.

The Venetian method of scumbling and glazing exhibits these minuter contrasts within each other, and is thus generally considered more refined than the system of breaking the colours, since it ensures a fuller gradation of hues, and produces another class of contrasts, those, namely, which result from degrees of transparence and opacity. In some of the Flemish and Dutch masters, and sometimes in Reynolds, the two methods are combined in great perfection.

The chromatic diagram does not appear to be older than the last century. It is one of those happy adaptations exacter principles to the objects of taste which might ha been expected from Leonardo da Vinci. That its true principle was duly felt is abundantly evident from the work of the colourists, as well as from the general observation of early writers. The more practical directions occasion ally to be met with in the treatises of Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci and others, are conformable to the same system. Some Italian works, not written by painter which pretend to describe this harmony, are, however, very imperfect. A passage in Lodovico Dolce’s Dialogue on Colours is perhaps the only one worth quoting. “He says that writer,” who wishes to combine colours that a agreeable to the eye, will put grey next dusky orange; yellow-green next rose-colour; blue next orange; dark purple black, next dark-green; white next black, and white next flesh-colour.” The Dialogue on Painting, by the same author, has the reputation of containing some of Titian’s precepts: if the above passage may be traced to the same source, it must be confessed that it is almost the only one the kind in the treatise from which it is taken.

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Note D. — Par. 66.

In some of these cases there can be no doubt that Goethe attributes the contrast too exclusively to the physiological cause, without making sufficient allowance for the actual difference in the colour of the lights. The purely physical nature of some coloured shadows was pointed out by Pohlmann; and Dr. Eckermann took some pains to convince Goethe of the necessity of making such a distinction. Goethe at first adhered to his extreme view, but some time afterwards confessed to Dr. Eckermann, that in the case of the blue shadows of snow (74), the reflection of the sky was undoubtedly to be taken into the account — ”Both causes may, however, operate together,” he observed, “and the contrast which a warm yellow light demands may heighten the effect of the blue.” This was all his opponent contended.

With a few such exceptions, the general theory of Goethe with regard to coloured shadows is undoubtedly correct; the experiments with two candles (68), and with coloured glass and fluids (80), as well as the observations on the shadows of snow (75), are conclusive, for in all these cases only one light is actually changed in colour, while the other still assumes the complemental hue. “Coloured shadows,” Dr. J. Miller observes, “are usually ascribed to the physiological influence of contrast; the complementary colour presented by the shadow being regarded as the effect of internal causes acting on that part of the retina, and not of the impression of coloured rays from without. This explanation is the one adopted by Rumford, Goethe, Grotthuss, Brandes, Tourtual, Pohlmann, and most authors who have studied the subject.”

In the Historical Part the author gives an account of a scarce French work, “Observations sur les Ombres Colorées,” Paris, 1782. The writer concludes that “the colour of shadows is as much owing to the light that causes them as to that which (more faintly) illumines them.”

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Note E — Par. 69.

This opinion of the author is frequently repeated (201, 312, 591), and as it seems at first sight to be at variance with a received principle of art, it may be as well at once to examine it.

In order to see the general proposition in its true point of view, it will be necessary to forget the arbitrary distinctions of light and shade, and to consider all such modifications between highest brightness and absolute darkness only as so many lesser degrees of light. The author, indeed, by the word shadow, always understands a lesser light.

The received notion, as stated by Du Fresnoy, is much too positive and unconditional, and is only true when we understand the “displaying” light to comprehend certain degrees of half or reflected light, and the “destroying” shade to mean the intensest degree of obscurity.

There are degrees of brightness which destroy colour as well as degrees of darkness. In general, colour resides in a mitigated light, but a very little observation shows us that different colours require different degrees of light to display them. Leonardo da Vinci frequently inculcates the general. principle above alluded to, but he as frequently qualifies it; for he not only remarks that the highest light may be comparative privation of colour, but observes, with great truth, that some hues are best displayed in their fully illumined parts, some in their reflections, and some in their half-lights; and again, that every colour is most beautiful when lit by reflections from its own surface, or from a hue similar to its own.

The Venetians went further than Leonardo in this view and practice; and he seems to allude to them when he criticises certain painters, who, in aiming at clearness and fulness of colour, neglected what, in his eyes, was of superior importance, namely, gradation and force of chiaro-scuro.

That increase of colour supposes increase of darkness, as so often stated by Goethe, may be granted without difficulty. To what extent, on the other hand, increase of darkness, or rather diminution of light, is accompanied by increase of colour, is a question which has been variously answered by various schools. Examples of the total negation of the principle are not wanting, nor are they confined to the infancy of the art. Instances, again, of the opposite tendency are frequent in Venetian and early Flemish pictures resembling the augmenting richness of gems or of stained glass: indeed, it is not impossible that the increase of colour in shade, which is so remarkable in the pictures alluded to, may have been originally suggested by the rich and fascinating effect of stained glass; and the Venetians, in this as in many other respects, may have improved on a hint borrowed from the early German painters, many of whom painted on glass.

At all events, the principle of still increasing in colour in certain hues seems to have been adopted in Flanders and in Venice at an early period; while Giorgione, in carrying the style to the most daring extent, still recommended it by corresponding grandeur of treatment in other respects.

The same general tendency, except that the technical methods are less transparent, is, however, very striking in some of the painters of the school of Umbria, the instructors or early companions of Raphael. The influence of these examples, as well as that of Fra Bartolommeo, in Florence, is distinctly to be traced in the works of the great artist just named, but neither is so marked as the effect of his emulation of a Venetian painter at a later period. The glowing colour, sometimes bordering on exaggeration, which Raphael adopted in Rome, is undoubtedly to be attributed to the rivalry of Sebastian del Piombo. This painter, the best of Giorgione’s imitators, arrived in Rome, invited by Agostini Chigi, in 1511, and the most powerful of Raphael’s frescoes, the Heliodorus and Mass of Bolsena, as well as some portraits in the same style, were painted in the two following years. In the hands of some of Raphael’s scholars, again, this extreme warmth was occasionally carried to excess, particularly by Pierino del Vaga, with whom it often degenerated into redness. The representative of the glowing manner in Florence was Fra Bartolommeo, and, in the same quality, considered abstractedly, some painters of the school of Ferrara were second to none.

In another Note (par. 177) some further considerations are offered, which may partly explain the prevalence of this style in the beginning of the sixteenth century; here we merely add, that the conditions under which the appearance itself is most apparent in nature are perhaps more obvious in Venice than elsewhere. The colour of general nature may be observed in all places with almost equal convenience, but with regard to an important quality in living nature, namely, the colour of flesh, perhaps there are no circumstances in which its effects at different distances can be so conveniently compared as when the observer and the observed gradually approach and glide past each other on so smooth an element and in so undisturbed a manner as on the canals and in the gondolas of Venice; the complexions, from the peculiar mellow carnations of the Italian women to the sun-burnt features and limbs of the mariners, presenting at the same time the fullest variety in another sense.

At a certain distance — the colour being always assumed to be unimpaired by interposed atmosphere — the reflections appear kindled to intenser warmth; the fiery glow of Giorgione is strikingly apparent; the colour is seen in its largest relation; the macchia, an expression so emphatically used by Italian writers, appears in all its quantity, and the reflections being the focus of warmth, the hue seems to deepen in shade.

A nearer view gives the detail of cooler tints more perceptibly, and the forms are at the same time more distinct. Hence Lanzi is quite correct when, in distinguishing the style of Titian from that of Giorgione, he says that Titian’s was at once more defined and less fiery. In a still nearer observation the eye detects the minute lights which Leonardo da Vinci says are incompatible with effects such as those we have described, and which, accordingly, we never find in Giorgione and Titian. This large impression of colour, which seems to require the condition of comparative distance for its full effect, was most fitly employed by the same great artists in works painted in the open air or for large altar-pieces. Their celebrated frescoes on the exterior of the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi at Venice, to judge from their faint remains and the descriptions of earlier writers, were remarkable for extreme warmth in the shadows. The old frescoes in the open air throughout Friuli have often the same character, and, owing to the fulness of effect which this treatment ensures, are conspicuous at a very great distance.

In assuming that the Venetian painters may have acquired a taste for this breadth of colour under the circumstances above alluded to, it is moreover to be remembered that the time for this agreeable study was the evening; when the sun had already set behind the hills of Bassano; when the light was glowing but diffused; when shadows were soft — conditions all agreeing with the character of their colouring: above all, when the hour invited the fairer portion of the population to betake themselves their gondolas to the lagunes. The scene of this “promenade” was to the north of Venice, the quarter in Titian at one time lived. A letter exists written by Francesco Priscianese, giving an account of his supping the great painter in company with Jacopo Nardi, Pietro Aretino, the sculptor Sansovino, and others. The writer speaks of the beauty of the garden, where the table prepared, looking over the lagunes towards Murano, “which part of the sea,” he continues, “as soon as the sun down, was covered with a thousand gondolas, graced beautiful women, and enlivened by the harmony of voices and instruments, which lasted till midnight, formic pleasing accompaniment to our cheerful repast.”

To return to Goethe: perhaps the foregoing remarks warrant the conclusion that his idea of colour in shadow is not irreconcilable with the occasional practice of the painters. The highest examples of the style thus defined are, or were, to be found in the works of Giorgione and Titian, and hence the style itself, though “within that circle” few “dare walk,” is to be considered the grandest and most perfect. Its possible defects or abuse are not to be dissembled: in addition to the danger of exaggeration it is seldom united with’ the plenitude of light and shade, or with roundness; yet, where fine examples of both modes of treatment may be compared, the charm of colour has perhaps the advantage. The difficulty of uniting qualities so different in their nature, is proved by the very rare instances in which it has been accomplished. Tintoret in endeavouring to add chiaro-scuro to Venetian colour, in almost every instance fell short of the glowing richness of Titian. Giacomo Bassan and his imitators, even in their dark effect, still had the principle of the gem in view: their light, b certain hues, is the minimum of colour, their lower tones are rich, their darks intense, and all is sparkling. Of the great painters who, beginning, on the other hand, with chiaro-scuro, sought to combine with it the full richness of colour, Correggio, in the opinion of many, approached perfection nearest; but we may perhaps conclude with greater justice that the desired excellence was more completely attained by Rembrandt than by any of the Italians.

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Note F. — Par. 88.

The author, in these instances, seems to be anticipation his subsequent explanations on the effect of semi-transparent mediums. For an explanation of the general view container in these paragraphs respecting the gradual increase of colour from high light, see the last Note.

The anonymous French work before alluded to, among other interesting examples, contains a chapter on shadow: cast by the upper light of the sky and coloured by the setting sun. The effect of this remarkable combination is that the light on a wall is most coloured immediately under a projecting roof, and becomes comparatively neutralised in proportion to its distance from the edge of the darkest shade.

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Note G. — Par. 98.

“The simplest case of the phenomenon, which Goethe calls a subjective halo, and one which at once explains its cause, is the following. Regard a red wafer on a sheet of white paper, keeping the eye steadfastly fixed on a point at its center. When the retina is fatigued, withdraw the head a little from the paper, and a green halo will appear to surround the wafer. By this slight increase of distance the image of the wafer itself on the retina becomes smaller, and the ocular spectrum which before coincided with the direct image, being now relatively larger, is seen as a surrounding ring.” — S. F. Goethe mentions cases of this kind, but does not class them with subjective halos. See Par. 30.

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Note H. — Par. 113.

“Cases of this kind are by no means uncommon. Several interesting ones are related in Sir John Herschell’s article on Light in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitans. Careful investigation has, however, shown that this defect of vision arises in most, if not in all cases, from an inability to perceive the red, not the blue rays. The terms are so confounded by the individuals thus affected, that the comparison of colours in their presence is the only criterion.” — S. F.

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Note I. — Par. 135.

The author more than once admits that this chapter on “Pathological Colours” is very incomplete, and expresses a wish (Par. 734) that some medical physiologists would investigate the subject further. This was afterwards in a great degree accomplished by Dr. Johannes Muller, in his memoir “Uber die Phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen.” Coblentz, 1826. Similar phenomena have been also investigated with great labour and success by Purkinje. For a collection of extraordinary facts of the kind recorded by these writers, the reader may consult Scott’s Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. The instances adduced by Muller and others are, however, intended to prove the inherent capacity of the organ of vision to produce light and colours. In some maladies of the eye, the patient, it seems, suffers the constant presence of light without external 1ight. The exciting principle in this case is thus proved to within, and the conclusion of the physiologists is that external light is only one of the causes which produce luminous and coloured impressions. That this view was anticipated by Newton may be gathered from the ‘concluding query” in the third book of his Optics.

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Note K. — Par. 140.

“Catoptrical colours. The colours included under this head are principally those of fibres and grooved surface they can be produced artificially by cutting parallel grooves on a surface of metal from 2000 to 10,000 in the inch. See Brewster’s Optics,’ p 120. The colours called by Goethe paroptical, correspond with those produced by the diffraction or inflection of light in the received theory. — See Brewster, p. 95. The phenomena included under the title “Epoptical Colours,’ are generally known as the colours of thin plates. They vary with the thickness of the film, and thin colour seen by reflection always differs from that seen 1 transmission. The laws of these phenomena have been thoroughly investigated. See Nobili, and Brewster, p. 100 — S. F.

The colours produced by the transmission of polarised light through chrystalised mediums, were described by Goethe, in his mode, subsequently to the publication of his general theory, under the name of Entoptic Colours. See note to Par. 485

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Note L. — Par. 150.

We have in this and the next paragraph the outline Goethe’s system. The examples that follow seem to establish the doctrine here laid down, but there are mar cases which it appears cannot be explained on such principles: hence, philosophers generally prefer the theory I absorption, according to which it appears that certain mediums have the property of absorbing some of the component rays of white light, while they allow the passage of others.”

Whether all the facts adduced by Goethe — for instance, that recorded in Par. 172, are to be explained by this doctrine, we leave to the investigators of nature to determine. Dr. Eckermann, in conversing with Goethe, thus described the two leading phenomena (156, 158) as seen by him in the Alps. “At a distance of eighteen or twenty miles at midday in bright sunshine, the snow appeared yellow or even reddish, while the dark parts of the mountain, free from snow, were of the most decided blue. The appearances did not surprise me, for I could have predicted that the mass of the interposed medium would give a deep yellow tone to the white snow, but I was pleased to witness the effect, since it so entirely contradicted the erroneous views of some philosophers, who assert that the air has a blue-tinging quality. The observation, said Goethe, is of importance, and contradicts the error you allude to completely.”

The same writer has some observations to the same effect on the colour of the Rhone at Geneva. A circumstance of an amusing nature which he relates in confirmation of Goethe’s theory, deserves to be inserted. Here (at Strasburg), passing by a shop, I saw a little glass bust of Napoleon, which, relieved as it was against the dark interior of the room, exhibited every gradation of blue, from milky light blue to deep violet. I foresaw that the bust seen from within the shop with the light behind it, would present every degree of yellow, and I could not resist walking in and addressing the owner, though perfectly unknown to me. My first glance was directed to the bust, in which, to my great joy, I saw at once the most brilliant colour the warmer kind, from the palest yellow to dark ruby red. I eagerly asked if I might be allowed to purchase the bust; the owner replied that he had only lately brought it with him from Paris, from a similar attachment to the emperor to that which I appeared to feel, but, as my ardour seemed far to surpass his, I deserved to possess it. So invaluable did this treasure seem in my eyes, that I could not help looking at the good man with wonder as he put the bust into my hands for a few franks. I sent it, together with a curious medal which I had bought in Milan, as a present to Goethe and when at Frankfort received the following letter from him.” The letter, which Dr. Eckermann gives entire, thus concludes — ”When you return to Weimar you shall the bust in bright sunshine, and while the transparent countenance exhibits a quiet blue, the thick mass of breast and epaulettes glows with every gradation of warmth, from the most powerful ruby-red downwards; and as the granite statue of Memnon uttered harmonious sounds, so the dim glass image displays itself in the pomp of colours. The hero is victorious still in supporting the Farbenlehre.”

One effect of Goethe’s theory has been to invite the attention of scientific men to facts and appearances which had before been unnoticed or unexplained. To the aim cases may be added the very common, but very important fact in painting, that a light warm colour, passed in a semi-transparent state over a dark one, produces a cold, bluish hue, while the operation reversed, produces extreme warmth. On the judicious application of both these effects, but especially of the latter, the richness and brilliancy of the best-coloured pictures greatly depends. The principle is to be recognised in the productions of schools apparently opposite in their methods. Thus the practice of leaving the ground, through which a light colour is apparent, as a means of ensuring warmth and depth, is very common among the Dutch and Flemish painters. The Italians, again, who preferred a solid under-painting, speak of internal light as the most fascinating quality in colour. When the ground is entirely covered by solid painting, as in the works of some colourists, the warmest tints in shadows and reflections have been found necessary to represent it. This was the practice of Rembrandt frequently, and of Reynolds universally, but the glow of their general colour is still owing to its being repeatedly or ultimately enriched on the above principle. Lastly, the works of those masters who were accustomed to paint on dark grounds are often heavy and opaque; and even where this influence of the ground was overcome, the effects of time must be constantly diminishing the warmth of their colouring as the surface becomes rubbed and the dark ground more apparent through it. The practice of painting on dark grounds was intended by the Carracci to compel the students of their school to aim at the direct imitation of the model, and to acquire the use of the brush; for the dark ground could only be overcome by very solid painting. The result answered their expectations as far as dexterity of pencil was concerned, but the method was fatal to brilliancy of colour. An intelligent writer of the seventeenth century relates that Guido adopted his extremely light style from seeing the rapid change in some works of the Carracci soon after they were done. It is important, however, to remark, that Guido’s remedy was external rather than internal brilliancy; and it is evident that so powerless a brightness as white paint can only quire the splendour of light by great contrast, and, albs all, by being seen through external darkness. The secret of Van Eyck and his contemporaries is always assumed to consist in the vehicle (varnish or oils) he employed; but a far more important condition of the splendour of colour the works of those masters was the careful preservation of internal light by painting thinly, but ultimately with great force, on white grounds. In some of the early Flemish pictures in the Royal Gallery at Munich, it may be observed, that wherever an alteration was made by the painter so that a light colour is painted over a dark one, the colour is as opaque as in any of the more modern pictures which are generally contrasted with such works. No quality in the vehicle could prevent this opacity under such circumstances; and on the other hand, provided the internal splendour is by any means preserved, the vehicle is comparatively unimportant.

It matters not (say the authorities on these points) whether the effect in question is attained by painting thinly over the ground, in the manner of the early Flemish painter and sometimes of Rubens, or by painting a solid light preparation to be afterwards toned to richness in the manner the Venetians. Among the mechanical causes of the clearness of colours superposed on a light preparation may be mentioned that of careful grinding. All writers on art who have descended to practical details have insisted on this. From the appearance of some Venetian pictures it may be conjectured that the colours of the solid under-painting were sometimes less perfectly ground than the scumbling colours (the light having to pass through the one and to b reflected from the other). The Flemish painters appear to have used carefully-ground pigments universally. This is very evident in Flemish copies from Raphael, which, though equally impasted with the originals, are to be detected, among other indications, by the finely-ground colours employed.

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Note M. — Par. 177.

Without entering further into the scientific merits or demerits of this chapter on the “First Class of Dioptrical Colours,” it is to be observed that several of the examples correspond with the observations of Leonardo da Vinci, and again with those of a much older authority, namely, Aristotle. Goethe himself admits, and it has been remarked by others, that his theory, in many respects, closely resembles that of Aristotle: indeed he confesses that at one time he had an intention of merely paraphrasing that philosopher’s Treatise on Colours.

We have already remarked (Note on par. 150) that Goethe’s notion with regard to the production of warm colours, by the interposition of dark transparent mediums before a light ground, agrees with the practice of the best schools in colouring; and it is not impossible that the same reasons which may make this part of the doctrine generally acceptable to artists now, may have recommended the very similar theory of Aristotle to the painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: at all events, it appears that the ancient theory was known to those painters.

It is unnecessary to dwell on the fact that the doctrines of Aristotle were enthusiastically embraced and generally inculcated at the period in question; but it has not been observed that the Italian writers who translated, paraphrased, and commented on Aristotle’s Treatise on Colours in particular, were in several instances the personal friends of distinguished painters. Celio Calcagnini had the highest admiration for Raphael; Lodovico Dolce was the eulogist of Titian; Portius, whose amicable relations with the Florentine painters may be inferred from various circumstances, lectured at Florence on the Aristotelian doctrines early in the sixteenth century. The Italian translations were later, but still prove that these studies were undertaken with reference to the arts, for one of them is dedicated to painter Cigoli.

The writers on art, from Leon Battista Alberti to Borghini, without mentioning later authorities, either tacitly coincide with the Aristotelian doctrine, or openly profess to explain it. It is true this is not always done in the clearest manner, and some of these writers might say with Lodovico Dolce, “I speak of colours, not as a painter, for that would be the province of the divine Titian.”

Leonardo da Vinci in his writings, as in everything else, appears as an original genius. He now and then alludes generally to opinions of “philosophers,” but he quotes no authority ancient or modern. Nevertheless, a passage on the nature of colours, particularly where he speaks of the colours of the elements, appears to be copied from Leon Battista Alberti, and from the mode in which some of Leonardo’s propositions are stated, it has been supposed that he had been accustomed at Florence to the form of the Aristotelian philosophy. At all events, some of the most important of his observations respecting light and colours, have a great analogy with those contained in the treatise in question. The following examples will be sufficient to prove this coincidence; the corresponding passages in Goethe are indicated, as usual, by the numbers of the paragraphs; the references to Leonardo’s treatise are given at the bottom of the page.

ARISTOTLE.

“A vivid and brilliant red appears when the weak rays of the sun are tempered by subdued and shadowy white.” — 154.

LEONARDO.

“The air which is between the sun and the earth at sunrise or sun-set, always invests what is beyond it more than any other (higher) portion of the air: this is because it is whiter.”

A bright object loses its whiteness in proportion to its distance from the eye much more when it is illuminated by the sun, for it partakes of the colour of the sun mingled with the colour (tempered by the mass) of the air interposed between the eye and the brightness.

ARISTOTLE.

“If light is overspread with much obscurity, a red colour appears; if the light is brilliant and vivid, this red changes to a flame-colour.” 150, 160.

LEONARDO.

“This (the effect of transparent colours on various grounds) is evident in smoke, which is blue when seen against black, but when it is opposed to the (light) blue sky, it appears brownish and reddening.”

ARISTOTLE.

“White surfaces as a ground for colours, have the effect of making the pigments appear in greater splendour.” — 594, 902.

LEONARDO.

“To exhibit colours in their beauty, the whitest ground should be prepared. I speak of colours that are (more or less) transparent.”

ARISTOTLE.

“The air near us appears colourless; but when seen in depth, owing to its thinness it appears blue; for where the light is deficient (beyond it), the air is affected by the darkness and appears blue: in a very accumulated state, however, it appears, as is the case with water, quite white.” — 155, 158.

LEONARDO.

“The blue of the atmosphere is owing to the mass of illuminated air interposed between the darkness above and the earth. The air in itself has no colour, but assumes qualities according to the nature of the objects which are beyond it. The blue of the atmosphere will be the more intense in proportion to the degree of darkness beyond it:” elsewhere — ”if the air had not darkness beyond it, it would be white.”

ARISTOTLE.

“We see no colour in its pure state, but every hue is variously intermingled with others: even when it is uninfluenced by other colours, the effect of light and shade modifies it in various ways, so that it undergoes alterations and appears unlike itself. Thus, bodies seen in shade or in light, in more pronounced or softer sun-shine, with their surfaces inclined this way or that, with every change exhibit a different colour.”

LEONARDO.

“No substance will ever exhibit its own hue unless the light which illumines it is entirely similar in colour. It very rarely happens that the shadows of opaque bodies are really similar (in colour) to the illumined parts. The surface of every substance partakes of as many hues as are reflected from surrounding objects.”

ARISTOTLE.

“So, again, with regard to the light of fire, of the moon, or of lamps, each has a different colour, which is variously combined with differently coloured objects.”

LEONARDO.

“We can scarcely ever say that the surface of illumined bodies exhibits the real colour of those bodies. Take a white band and place it in the dark, and let it receive light by means of three apertures from the sun, from fire, and from the sky : the white band will be tricoloured.”

ARISTOTLE.

“When the light falls on any object and assumes (for example) a red or green tint, it is again reflected on other substances, thus undergoing a new change But this effect, though it really takes place, is not appreciable by the eye : though the light thus reflected to the eye is composed of a variety of colours, the principal of these only are distinguishable.”

LEONARDO.

“No colour reflected on the surface of another colour, tinges that surface with its own colour (merely), but will be mixed with various other reflections impinging on the same surface :” but such effects, he observes elsewhere, “are scarcely, if at all, distinguishable in a very diffused light.”

ARISTOTLE.

“Thus, all combinations of colours are owing to three causes; the light, the medium through which the light appears, such as water or air, and lastly the local colour from which the light happens to be reflected.”

LEONARDO.

“All illumined objects partake of the colour of the light they receive.

“Every opaque surface partakes of the colour of the intervening transparent medium, according to the density of such medium and the distance between the eye and the object.

“The medium is of two kinds; either it has a surface, like water, &c., or it is without a common surface, like the air.”

In the observations on trees and plants more points of resemblance might be quoted; the passages corresponding with Goethe’s views are much more numerous.

It is remarkable that Leonardo, in opposition, it seems to some authorities,  agrees with Aristotle in reckoning black and white as colours, placing them at the beginning and end of the scale. Like Aristotle, again, he frequently makes use of the term black, for obscurity; he even goes further, for he seems to consider that blue may be produced by the actual mixture of black and white, provided they are pure. The ancient author, however, explains himself on this point as follows — ”We must not attempt to make our observations on these effects by mixing colours as painters mix them but by remarking the appearances as produced by the rays of light mingling with each other.”

When we consider that Leonardo’s Treatise professes to embrace the subject of imitation in painting, and that Aristotle’s briefly examines the physical nature and appearance of colours, it must be admitted that the latter sustains above comparison with advantage; and it is somewhat extraordinary that observations indicating so refined a knowledge of nature, as regards the picturesque, should not have been taken into the account, for such appears to be fact, in the various opinions and conjectures that have been expressed from time to time on the painting of the Greeks. The treatise in question must have been written when Apelles painted, or immediately before; and as a proof that Aristotle’s remarks on the effect of semi-transparent mediums were not lost on the artists of his time, the following passage from Pliny is subjoined, for, though it is well known, it acquires additional interest from the foregoing extracts.

“He (Apelles) passed a dark colour over his pictures when finished, so thin that it increased the splendour of the tints, while it protected the surface from dust and dirt: it could only be seen on looking into the picture. The effect of this operation, judiciously managed, was to prevent the colours from being too glaring, and to give the spectator the impression of looking through a transparent crystal. At the same time it seemed almost imperceptibly to add a certain dignity of tone to colours that were too florid.” “This,” says Reynolds, “is a true and artist-like description of glazing or stumbling, such as was practised by Titian and the rest of the Venetian painters — ”The account of Pliny has, in this instance, internal evidence of truth, but it is fully confirmed by the following passage in Aristotle Another mode in which the effect of colours is exhibited is when they appear through each other, as painters employ them when they glaze  a (dark) colour over a lighter one; just as the sun, which is in itself white, assumes a red colour when seen through darkness and smoke. This operation also ensures a variety of colours, for there will be a certain ratio between those which are on the surface and those which are in depth” — De Sensu et Sensili.

Aristotle’s notion respecting the derivation of colours from white and black may perhaps be illustrated by the following opinion on the very similar theory of Goethe.

“Goethe and Seebeck regard colour as resulting from the mixture of white and black, and ascribe to the different colours a quality of darkness , by the different degrees of which they are distinguished, passing from white black through the gradations of yellow, orange, red, viol and blue, while green appears to be intermediate again between yellow and blue. This remark, though it has influence in weakening the theory of colours proposed I Newton, is certainly correct, having been confirmed expel mentally by the researches of Herschell, who ascertaining the relative intensity of the different coloured rays by ills urinating objects under the microscope by their means, &c

“Another certain proof of the difference in brightness of the different coloured rays is afforded by the phenomena ocular spectra. If, after gazing at the sun, the eyes as closed so as to exclude the light, the image of the sun al pears at first as a luminous or white spectrum upon a dark ground, but it gradually passes through the series of colour to black, that is to say, until it can no longer be distinguished from the dark field of vision; and the colons which it assumes are successively those intermediate between white and black in the order of their illuminating; power or brightness, namely, yellow, orange, red, violet and blue. If, on the other hand, after looking for some, time at the sun we turn our eyes towards a white surface the image of the sun is seen at first as a black spectrun upon the white surface, and gradually passes through the different colours from the darkest to the lightest, and a last becomes white, so that it can no longer be distinguished from the white surface” — See par. 40, 44.

It is not impossible that Aristotle’s enumeration of the colours may have been derived from, or confirmed by, this very experiment. Speaking of the after-image of colours he says, “The impression not only exists in the sensorium in the act of perceiving, but remains when the organ is at rest. Thus if we look long and intently on any object, when we change the direction of the eyes a responding colour follows. If we look at the sun, or any other very bright object, and afterwards shut our eyes, we shall, as if in ordinary vision, first see a colour of the same kind; this will presently be changed to a red colour, then to purple, and so on till it ends in black and disappears.” — De Insomniis.

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Note N. — Par. 246.

“The appearance of white in the centre, according to the Newtonian theory, arises from each line of rays forming its own spectrum. These spectra, superposing each other on all the middle part, leave uncorrected (unneutralised) colours only at the two edges.” — S. F.

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Note O. — Par. 252.

These experiments with grey objects, which exhibit different colours as they are on dark or light grounds, were suggested, Goethe tells us, by an observation of Antonius Lucas, of Lüttich, one of Newton’s opponents, and, in the opinion of the author, one of the few who made any well-founded objections Lucas remarks, that the sun acts merely as a circumscribed image in the prismatic experiments, and that if the same sun had a lighter background than itself, the colours of the prism would be reversed. Thus in Goethe’s experiments, when the grey disk is on a dark ground, it is edged with blue on being magnified; when on a light ground it is edged with yellow. Goethe acknowledges that Lucas had in some measure anticipated his own theory. — Vol. ii. p. 440.

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Note P. — Par. 284.

The earnestness and pertinacity with which Goethe insisted that the different colours are not subject to different degrees of refrangibility are at least calculated to prove that he was himself convinced on the subject, and, however extraordinary it may seem, his conviction appears to have be the result of infinite experiments and the fullest ocular evidence. He returns to the question in the controversial division of his work, in the historical part, and again in the description of the plates. In the first he endeavours show that Newton’s experiment with the blue and red pap depends entirely on the colours being so contrived as appear elongated or curtailed by the prismatic borders. “If,” he says, “we take a light-blue instead of a dark on the illusion (in the latter case) is at once evident According to the Newtonian theory the yellow-red (red) is the least refrangible colour, the violet the most refrangible Why, then, does Newton place a blue paper instead of violet next the red? If the fact were as he states it, the difference in the refrangibility of the yellow-red and viol, would be greater than in the case of the yellow-red an blue. But here comes in the circumstance that a violet paper conceals the prismatic borders less than a dark-blue paper, as every observer may now easily convince himself &c. — Polemischer Theil, par. 4.5. Desaguliers, in repeating the experiment, confessed that if the ground of the colours was not black, the effect did not take place so well Goethe adds, “not only not so well, but not at all.” — Historischer Theil, p.459. Lucas of Lüttich, one of Newton’ first opponents, denied that two differently-coloured silks are different in distinctness when seen in the microscope. Another experiment proposed by him, to show the unsoundness of the doctrine of various refrangibility, was the following: — Let a tin plate painted with the prismatic Colours in stripes be placed in an empty cubical vessel, so that from the spectator’s point of view the colours may be just hidden by the rim. On pouring water into this vessel all the colours become visible in the same degree; whereas it was contended, if the Newtonian doctrine were true, some colours would be apparent before others. — Historischer Theil, p. 434.

Such are the arguments and experiments adduced by Goethe on this subject; they have all probably been answered. In his analysis of Newton’s celebrated Experimentum Crucis, he shows again that by reversing the prismatic colours (refracting a dark instead of a light object), the colours that are the most refrangible in Newton’s experiment become the least so, and vice versa.

Without reference to this objection, it is now admitted that “the difference of colour is not a test of difference of refrangibility, and the conclusion deduced by Newton is no longer admissible as a general truth, that to the same degree of refrangibility ever belongs the same colour, and to the same colour ever belongs the same degree of refrangibility.” — Brewster’s Optics, p. 72.

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Note Q. — Par. 387.

With the exception of two very inconclusive letters to Sulpice Boisserée, and some incidental observations in the conclusion of the historical portion under the head of entoptic colours, Goethe never returned to the rainbow. Among the plates he gave the diagram of Antonius de Dominis. An interesting chapter on halos, parhelia, and paraselenae, will be found in Brewster’s Optics, p. 270.

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Note R. — Par. 478.

The most complete exhibition of the colouring or mantling of metals was attained by the late Cav. Nobili, professor of physical science in Florence. The general mode in which these colours are produced is thus explained by him: —

“A point of platinum is placed vertically at the distance of about half a line above a lamina of the same metal laid horizontally at the bottom of a vessel of glass or porcelain. Into this vessel a solution of acetate of lead is poured so to cover not only the lamina of platinum, but two or three lines of the point as well. Lastly, the point is put in communication with the negative pole of a battery, and lamina with the positive pole. At the moment in which the circuit is completed a series of coloured rings is produced on the lamina under the point similar to those o served by Newton in lenses pressed together.”

The scale of colours thus produced corresponds very nearly with that observed by Newton and others in LI plates and films, but it is fuller, for it extends to forty-four tints. The following list, as given by Nobili, is divided by him into four series to agree with those of Newton: the numbers in brackets are those of Newton’s scale. The Italian terms are untranslated, because the colours in some cases present very delicate transitions.

First Series.

1 Biondo argentino (4). 6. Fulvo acceso.

2. Biondo. 7. Rosso di rame (6). 

3. Biondo d’oro. 8. Ocria. 

4. Biondo acceso (5). 9. Ocria violacea. 

5. Fulvo. 10. Rosso violaceo (7). 

Second Series.

11. Violetto (8). 20. Giallo acceso.

12. Indaco 10). 21. Giallorancio. 

13. Blu carico. 22. Rancio (13). 

14. Blu. 23. Rancio-rossiccio. 

15. Blu chiaro (11). 24. Rancio-rosso. 

16. Celeste. 25. Rosso-rancio. 

17. Celeste-giallognolo. 26. Lacca-rancia (14). 

18. Giallo chiarissimo (12). 27. Lacca. 

19. Giallo. 28. Lacca accesa (13). 

Third Series.

29. Lacca-purpurea (16). 34. Verde-giallo (20).

30. Lacca-turchiniccia (17). 35. Verde-rancio. 

31. Porpora-verdognola (18). 36. Rancio-verde (21). 

32. Verde (19). 37. Rancio-roseo. 

33. Verde giallognolo. 38. Lacca-rosea (22). 

Fourth Series.

39. Lacca-violacea (24). 43. Verde-giallo rossiccio

40. Violaceo-verdognolo (25). (28). 

41. Verde (26). 44. Lacca-rosea (30).

42. Verde-giallo (27). 

“These tints,” Professor Nobili observes, “are disposed according to the order of the thin mantlings which occasion them; the colour of the thinnest film is numbered 1; then follow in order those produced by a gradual thickening of the medium. I cannot deceive myself in this arrangement, for the thin films which produce the colours are all applied with the same electro-chemical process. The battery, the solution, the distances, &c., are always the same; the only difference is the time the effect is suffered to last. This is a mere instant for the colour of No. 1, a little longer for No. 2, and so on, increasing for the succeeding numbers. Other criterions, however, are not wanting to ascertain the place to which each tint belongs.”

The scale differs from that of Newton, inasmuch as there is no blue in Nobili’s first series and no green in the second: green only appears in the third and fourth series. “The first series,’ says the Professor, “is remarkable for the fire and metallic appearance of its tints, the second for clearness and brilliancy, the third and fourth for force and richness.” The fourth, he observes, has the qualities of the third in a somewhat lesser degree, but the two greens are very nearly alike.

It is to be observed, that red and green are the principal ingredients in the third and fourth series, blue and yell in the second and first.

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Note S. — Par. 485.

A chapter on entoptic colours, contained in the supplement to Goethe’s works, was translated with the intent of inserting it among the notes, but on the whole it thought most advisable to omit it. Like many other parts of the “Doctrine of Colours” it might have served as a specimen of what may be achieved by accurate observation unassisted by a mathematical foundation. The whole theory of the polarization of light has, however, been so fully investigated since Goethe’s time, that the chapter in question would probably have been found to contain very little to interest scientific readers, for whom it seems chiefly to have been intended. One observation occurs in it which indeed has more reference to the arts; in order to make this intelligible, the leading experiment must be first be described, and for this purpose the following extracts may serve.

3.

“The experiment, in its simplest form, is to be made follows: — let a tolerably thick piece of plate-glass be cut into several squares of an inch and a half; let these heated to a red heat and then suddenly cooled. The squares of glass which do not split in this operation are now fit to produce the entoptic colours.

4.

“In our mode of exhibiting the phenomenon, the c server is, above all, to betake himself, with his apparatus to the open air. All dark rooms, all small apertures (foramina exigua), are again to be given up. A pure, cloudless sky is the source whence we are to derive a satisfactory insight into these appearances.

5.

“The atmosphere being clear, let the observer lay the squares above described on a black surface, so placing them that two sides may be parallel with the plane of vision. When the sun is low, let him hold the squares so as to reflect to the eye that portion of the sky opposite to the sun, and he will then perceive four dark points in the four corners of a light space. If, after this, he turn towards the quarters of the sky at right angles with that where his first observation was made, he will see four bright points on a dark ground: between the two regions the figures appear to fluctuate.

6.

“From this simple reflection we now proceed to another, which, but little more complicated, exhibits the appearance much more distinctly. A solid cube of glass, or in its stead a cube composed of several plates, is placed on a black mirror, or held a little inclined above it, at sun-rise or sun-set. The reflection of the sky being now suffered to fall through the cube on the mirror, the appearance above described will appear more distinctly. The reflection of the sky opposite to the sun presents four dark points on a light ground; the two lateral portions of the sky present the contrary appearance, namely, four light points on a dark ground. The space not occupied by the corner points appears in the first case as a white cross, in the other as a black cross, expressions hereafter employed in describing the phenomena. Before sun-rise or after sun-set, in a very subdued light, the white cross appears on the side sun also.

“We thus conclude that the direct reflection of the sun produces a light figure, which we call a white cross; the oblique reflection gives a dark figure, which we call a black cross. If we make the experiment all round the sky, we shall find that a fluctuation takes place in the intermediate regions.”

We pass over a variety of observations on the modes of exhibiting this phenomenon, the natural transparent substances which exhibit it best, and the detail of the colours seen within them, and proceed to an instance where the author was enabled to distinguish the “direct” from the “oblique” reflection by means of the entoptic apparatus, in a painter’s study.

40.

“An excellent artist, unfortunately too soon taken from us, Ferdinand Jagemann, who, with other qualifications had a fine eye for light and shade, colour and keeping, had built himself a painting-room for large as well as small works. The single high window was to the north, facing the most open sky, and it was thought that all necessary requisites had been sufficiently attended to.

“But after our friend had worked for some time, it appeared to him, in painting portraits, that the faces he copied were not equally well lighted at all hours of the day, and yet his sitters always occupied the same place, and the serenity of the atmosphere was unaltered.

“The variations of the favourable and unfavourable light had their periods during the day. Early in the morning the light appeared most unpleasantly grey and unsatisfactory; it became better, till at last, about an hour before noon, the objects had acquired a totally different appearance. Everything presented itself to the eye of the artist in its greatest perfection, as he would most wish to transfer it to canvas. In the afternoon this beautiful appearance vanished — the light became worse, even in the brightest day, without any change having taken place in the atmosphere.

“ As soon as I heard of this circumstance, I at once connected it in my own mind with the phenomena which I had been so long observing, and hastened to prove, by a physical experiment, what a clear-sighted artist had discovered entirely of himself, to his own surprise and astonishment.

“I had the second entoptic apparatus brought to the spot, and the effect on this was what might be conjectured from the above statement. At mid-day, when the artist saw his model best lighted, the north, direct reflection gave the white cross; in the morning and evening, on the other hand, when the unfavourable oblique light was so unpleasant to him, the cube showed the black cross; in the intermediate hours the state of transition was apparent.”

The author proceeds to recall to his memory instances where works of art had struck him by the beauty of their appearance owing to the light coming from the quarter opposite the sun, in “direct reflection,” and adds, “Since these decided effects are thus traceable to their cause, the friends of art, in looking at and exhibiting pictures, may enhance the enjoyment to themselves and others by attending to a fortunate reflection.”

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Note T. — Par. 496.

“Since Goethe wrote, all the earths have been decomposed, and have been shown to be metallic bases united with oxygen; but this does not invalidate his statement.” — S. F.

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Note U. — Par. 502.

The cold nature of black and its affinity to blue assumed by the author throughout; if the quality is opaque and consequently greyish, such an affinity is obvious, in many fine pictures, intense black seems to be considered as the last effect of heat, and in accompanying crimson orange may be said rather to present a difference of degree than a difference of kind. In looking at the great picture of the globe, we find this last result produced in climates where the sun has greatest power, as we find it the immediate effect of fire. The light parts of black animals often of a mellow colour; the spots and stripes on skins and shells are generally surrounded by a warm hue, are brown before they are absolutely black. In combustion, the blackness which announces the complete ignition, is preceded always by the same mellow, orange colour. The representation of this process was probably intended by the Greeks in the black and subdued orange of their vases: indeed, the very colours may have been first produced in the kiln. But without supposing that they w retained merely from this accident, the fact that the con nation itself is extremely harmonious, would be sufficient to account for its adoption. Many of the remarks Aristotle and Theophrastus on the production of black are derived from the observation of the action of fire, and on one occasion, the former distinctly alludes to the terra cotta kiln. That the above opinion as to the nature black was prevalent in the sixteenth century, may be in ferred from Lomazzo, who observes, — ”Quanto all’ origine e generazione de’ colori, la frigiditi è la madre della bianchezza: il cadore è padre del nero.” The positive coldness of black may be said to begin when it approaches grey. When Leonardo da Vinci says that black is most beautiful in shade, he probably means to define its most intense and transparent state, when it is furthest removed from grey.

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Note V. — Par. 555.

The nature of vehicles or liquid mediums to combine with the substance of colours, has been frequently discussed by modern writers on art, and may perhaps be said to have received as much attention as it deserves. Reynolds smiles at the notion of our not having materials equal to those of former times, and indeed, although the methods of individuals will always differ, there seems no reason to suppose that any great technical secret has been lost. In these inquiries, however, which relate merely to the mechanical causes of bright and durable colouring, the skill of the painter in the adequate employment of the higher resources of his art is, as if by common consent, left out of the account, and without departing from this mode of considering the question, we would merely repeat a conviction before expressed, viz. that the preservation of internal brightness, a quality compatible with various methods, has had more to do with the splendour and durability of finely coloured pictures than any vehicle. The observations that follow are therefore merely intended to show how far the older written authorities on this subject agree with the results of modern investigation, without at all assuming that the old methods, if known, need be implicitly followed.

On a careful examination of the earlier pictures, it is said that a resinous substance appears to have been mingled with the colours together with the oil; that the fracture of the indurated pigment is shining, and that the surface resists the ordinary solvents. This admixture of resinous solutions or varnishes with the solid colours is not alluded to, as far as we have seen, by any of the writers on Italian practice, but as the method corresponds with that now prevalent in England, the above hypothesis is not likely to be objected to for the present.

Various local circumstances and relations might seem to warrant the supposition that the Venetian painters used resinous substances. An important branch of commerce between the mountains of Friuli and Venice still consists in the turpentine or fir-resin. Similar substances produced from various trees, and known under the common name of balsams, were imported from the East through Venice, for general use, before the American balsams in some degree superseded them; and a Venetian painter, Marco Boschini, in his description of the Archipelago, does not omit to speak of the abundance of mastic produced in the island of Scio.

The testimonies, direct or indirect, against the employment of any such substances by the Venetian painters, in the solid part of their work, seem, notwithstanding, very conclusive; we begin with the writer just named. In his principal composition, a poem describing the practice and the productions of the Venetian painters, Boschini speaks of certain colours which they shunned, and adds In like manner (they avoided) shining liquids and varnishes, which I should rather call lackers; for the surface of flesh, if natural and unadorned, assuredly does not shine, nature speaks as to this plainly.” After alluding to the possible alteration of this natural appearance by means of cosmetics, he continues: “Foreign artists set such great store by these varnishes, that a shining surface seems to them the only desirable quality in art. What trash it is they prize! fir-resin, mastic, and sandarach, and larch-resin (not to say treacle), stuff fit to polish boots. If those great painters of ours had to represent armour, a gold vase, a mirror, or anything of the kind, they made it shine with (simple) colours.”

This writer so frequently alludes to the Flemish painters, of whose great reputation he sometimes seems jealous, that the above strong expression of opinion may have been pointed at them. On the other hand it is to be observed that the term forestieri, strangers, does not necessarily mean transalpine foreigners, but includes those Italians who were not of the Venetian state. The directions given by Raphael Borghini, and after him by Armenini respecting the use and preparation of varnishes made from the very materials in question, may thus have been comprehended in the censure, especially as some of these recipes were copied and republished in Venice by Bisagno, in 1642 — that is, only six years before Boschini’s poem appeared.

Ridolfi’s Lives of the Venetian Painters (1648) may be mentioned with the two last. His only observation respecting the vehicle is, that Giovanni Bellini, after introducing himself by an artifice into the painting-room of Antonello da Messina, saw that painter dip his brush from time to time in linseed oil. This story, related about two hundred years after the supposed event, is certainly not to be adduced as very striking evidence in any way.

Among the next writers, in order of time prior to Bisagno, may be mentioned Canepario(1619). His work, “De Atramentis” contains a variety of recipes for different purposes: one chapter, De atramentia diverscoloribus, has a more direct reference to painting. His observations under this head are by no means confined to the preparation of transparent colours, but he says little on the subject of varnishes. After describing a mode of preserving white of egg, he says, “Others are accustomed to mix colours in liquid varnish and linseed, or nut-oil; for a liquid and oily varnish binds the (different layers of) colours better together, and thus forms a very fit glazing material.” On the subject of oils he observes, that linseed oil was in great request among painters; who, however, were of opinion that nut-oil excelled it “in giving brilliancy to pictures, in preserving them better, and in rendering the colours more vivid.”

Lomazzo (a Milanese) says nothing on the subject of vehicles in his principal work, but in his “Idea del Tempio della Pittura,”: he speaks of grinding the colours “in nut-oil, and spike-oil, and other things,” the “and” here evidently means or, and by “other things” we are perhaps to understand other oils, poppy oil, drying oils, &c.

The directions of Raphael Borghini and Vasari cannot certainly be considered conclusive as to the practice of the Venetians, but they are very clear on the subject of varnish. These writers may be considered the earliest Italian authorities who have entered much into practical methods. In the few observations on the subject of vehicles in Leonardo da Vinci’s treatise, “there is nothing,” as M. Merimée observes, “to show that he was in the habit of mixing varnish with his colours.” Cennini says but little on the subject of oil-painting; Leon Battista Alberti is theoretical rather than practical, and the published extracts of Lorenzo Ghiberti’s MS. chiefly relate to sculpture.

Borghini and Vasari agree in recommending nut-oil preference to linseed-oil; both recommend adding varnish to the colours in painting on walls in oil, “because the work does not then require to be varnished afterwards but in the ordinary modes of painting on panel or clot the varnish is omitted. Borghini expressly says, that c alone (senza più) is to be employed; he also recommends a very sparing use of it.

The treatise of Armenini (1587) was published Ravenna, and he himself was of Faenza, so that his authority, again, cannot be considered decisive as to the Venetia practice. After all, he recommends the addition of “conmon varnish” only for the ground or preparation, as a consolidating medium, for the glazing colours, and for thus dark pigments which are slow in drying. Many of his directions are copied from the writers last named; the recipes for varnishes, in particular, are to be found in Borghini. Christoforo Sorte (1580) briefly alludes to the subject in question. After speaking of the methods of distemper, he observes that the same colours may be used oil, except that instead of mixing them with size, they are mixed on the palette with nut-oil, or (if slow in drying) with boiled linseed-oil: he does not mention varnish. The Italian writers next in order are earlier than Vasari, an( may therefore be considered original, but they are all very concise.

The treatise of Michael Angelo Biondo (1549) remarkable for its historical mistakes, is not without interest in other respects. The list of colours he gives is, in all probability, a catalogue of those in general use in Venice at the period he wrote. With regard to the vehicle, be merely mentions oil and size as the mediums for the two distinct methods of oil-painting and distemper, and does not speak of varnish. The passages in the Dialogue of Doni (1549), which relate to the subject in question, are to the same effect. “In colouring in oil,” he observes, “the most brilliant colours (that we see in pictures) are prepared by merely mixing them with the end of a knife on the palette.” Speaking of the perishable nature of works in oil-painting as compared with sculpture, he says, that the plaster of Paris (gesso) and mastic, with other ingredients of which the ground is prepared, are liable to decay, &c.; and elsewhere, in comparing painting in general with mosaic, that in the former the colours “must of necessity be mixed with various things, such as oils, gums, white or yolk of egg, and juice of figs, all which tend to impair the beauty of the tints.” This catalogue of vehicles is derived from all kinds of painting to enforce the argument, and is by no means to be understood as belonging to one and the same method.

An interesting little work still in the form of a dialogue (Fabio and Lauro), appeared a year earlier; the author, Paolo Pino, was a Venetian painter. In speaking of the practical methods Fabio observes, as usual, that oil-painting is of all modes of imitation the most perfect, but his reasons for this opinion seem to have a reference to the Venetian practice of going over the work repeatedly. Lauro ask whether it is not possible to paint in oil on the dry wall, a Sebastian del Piombo did. Fabio answers, “the work cannot last, for the solidity of the plaster is impenetrable and the colours, whether in oil or distemper, cannot pan the surface.” This might seem to warrant the inference that absorbent grounds were prepared for oil-painting, bin there are proofs enough that resins as well as oil were used with the gesso to make the preparation compact. See Doni, Armenini, &c. This writer, again, does not speak of varnish. These appear to be the chief Venetian and Italian authorities of the sixteenth and part of the following century; and although Boschini wrote latest, he appears to have had his information from good sources, and more than once distinctly quotes Palma Giovane.

In all these instances it will be seen that there is no allusion to the immixture of varnishes with the solid colours, except in painting on walls in oil, and that the processes of distemper and oil are always considered as separate arts. On the other hand, the prohibition of Boschini cannot be understood to be universal, for it is quite certain that the Venetians varnished their pictures when done. After Titian had finished his whole-length portrait of Pope Paul III. it was placed in the sun to be varnished. Again, in the archives of the church of S. Niccolo at Treviso a sum is noted (Sept. 21, 1521), “per far la vernise da invernisar la Pala dell’ altar grando,” and the same day a second entry appears of a payment to a painter, “per esser venuto a dar la vernise alla Pala,” &c. It is to be observed that in both these cases the pictures were varnished as soon as done; the varnish employed was perhaps the thin compound of naphtha (oglio di sasso) and melted turpentine (oglio d’abezzo), described by Borghini, and after him by Armenini: the last-named writer remarks that he had seen this varnish used by the best painters in Lombardy, and had heard that it was preferred by Correggio. The consequence of this immediate varnishing may have been that the warm resinous liquid, whatever it was, became united with the colours, and thus at a future time the pigment may have acquired a consistency capable of resisting the ordinary solvents. Not only was the surface of the picture required to be warm, but the varnish was applied soon after it was taken from the fire.

Many of the treatises above quoted contain directions for making the colours dry: some of these recipes, and many in addition, are to be found in Palomino, who, however defective as an historian has left very copious practical details, evidently of ancient date. His drying recipes are numerous, and although sugar of lead does not appear, cardenillo (verdigris), which is perhaps as objectionable, is admitted to be the best of all dryers. It may excite some surprise that the Spanish painters should have bestowed so much attention on this subject in a climate like theirs, but the rapidity of their execution must have often required such an assistance.

One circumstance alluded to by Palomino, in his very minute practical directions, deserves to be mentioned. After saying what colours should be preserved in their saucers under water, and what colours should be merely covered with oiled paper because the water injures them, he proceeds to communicate “a curious mode of preserving oil-colours,” and of transporting them from place to place. The important secret is to tie them in bladders, the mode of doing which be enters into with great minuteness, as if the invention was recent. It is true, Christoforo Sorte, in describing his practice in water-colour drawing, says he was in the habit of preserving a certain vegetable green with gum-water in a bladder; but as the method was obviously new to Palomino, there seems sufficient reason to believe that oil-colours, when once ground, had, up to his time, been kept in saucers and preserved under water. Among the items of expense in the Treviso document before alluded to, we find “a pan and saucers for the painters.” This is in accordance with Cennini’s directions, and the same system appears to have been followed till after 1700.

The Flemish accounts of the early practice of oil-painting are all later than Vasari. Van Mander, in correcting the Italian historian in his dates, still follows his narrative in other respects verbatim. If Vasari’s story is to be accepted as true, it might be inferred that the Flemish secret consisted in an oil varnish like copal. Vasari says, that Van Eyck boiled the oils with other ingredients; that the colours, when mixed with this kind of oil, had a very firm consistence; that the surface of the pictures so executed had a lustre, so that they needed no varnish when done; and that the colours were in no danger from water.

Certain colours, as is well known, if mixed with oil alone, may be washed off after a considerable time. Leonardo da Vinci remarks, that verdigris may be thus removed. Carmine, Palomino observes, may be washed off after six years. It is on this account the Italian writers recommend the use of varnish with certain colours, and it appears the Venetians, and perhaps the Italians generally, employed it solely in such cases. But it is somewhat extraordinary that Vasari should teach a mode of painting in oil so different in its results (inasmuch as the work thus required varnish at last) from the Flemish method which he so much extols — a method which he says the Italians long endeavoured to find out in vain. If they knew it, it is evident, assuming his account to be correct, that they did not practice it.

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Note W. — Par. 608.

In the second volume Goethe gives the nomenclature of the Greeks and Romans at some length. The general notions of the ancients with regard to colours are thus described: — ”The ancients derive all colours from white and black, from light and darkness. They say, all colours are between white and black, and are mixed out of these. We must not, however, suppose that they understand by this a mere atomic mixture, although they occasionally use the word ; for in the remarkable passages, where they wish to express a kind of reciprocal (dynamic) action of the two contrasting principles, they employ the words , union, , combination; thus, again, the mutual influence of light and darkness, and of colours among each other, is described by the word , an expression of similar import.

“The varieties of colours are differently enumerated; some mention seven, others twelve, but without giving the complete list. From a consideration of the terminology both of the Greeks and Romans, it appears that they sometimes employed general for specific terms, and vice

“Their denominations of colours are not permanently and precisely defined, but mutable and fluctuating, for they are employed even with regard to similar colours both on the plus and minus side. Their yellow, on the one hand, inclines to red, on the other to blue; the blue is sometimes green, sometimes red; the red is at one time yellow, at another blue. Pure red (purpur) fluctuates between warm red and blue, sometimes inclining to scarlet, sometimes to violet.

“Thus the ancients not only seem to have looked upon colour as a mutable and fleeting quality, but appear to have had a presentiment of the (physical and chemical) effects of augmentation and re-action. In speaking of colours they make use of expressions which indicate this knowledge; they make yellow redden, because its augmentation tends to red; they make red become yellow, for it often returns thus to its origin.

“The hues thus specified undergo new modifications. The colours arrested at a given point are attenuated by a stronger light darkened by a shadow, nay, deepened and condensed in themselves. For the gradations which thus arise the name of the species only is often given, but the more generic terms are also employed. Every colour, of whatever kind, can, according to the same view, be multiplied into itself, condensed, enriched, and will in consequence appear more or less dark. The ancients called colour in this state,” &c. Then follow the designations of general states of colour and those of specific hues.

Another essay on the notions of the ancients respecting the origin and nature of colour generally, shows how nearly Goethe himself has followed in the same track. The dilating effect of light objects, the action and reaction of the retina, the coloured after-image, the general law of contrast, the effect of semi-transparent mediums in producing warm or cold colours as they are interposed before a dark or light background — all this is either distinctly expressed or hinted at; “but,” continues Goethe, “how a single element divides itself into two, remained a secret for them. They knew the nature of the magnet, in amber, only as attraction; polarity was not yet distinctly evident to them. And in very modern times have we not found that scientific men have still given their almost exclusive attention to attraction, and considered the immediately excited repulsion only as a mere after-action?”

An essay on the Painting of the Ancients was contributed by Heinrich Meyer.

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Note X. — Par. 670.

This agrees with the general recommendation so often given by high authorities in art, to avoid a tinted look in the colour of flesh. The great example of Rubens, whose practice was sometimes an exception to this, may however show that no rule of art is to be blindly or exclusively adhered to. Reynolds, nevertheless, in the midst of his admiration for this great painter, considered the example dangerous, and more than once expresses himself to this effect, observing on one occasion that Rubens, like Baroccio, is sometimes open to the criticism made on an ancient painter, namely, that his figures looked as if they fed on roses.

Lodovico Dolce, who is supposed to have given the viva voce precepts of Titian in his Dialogue,  makes Aretino say: “I would generally banish from my pictures those vermilion cheeks with coral lips; for faces thus treated look like masks. Propertius, reproving his Cynthia for using cosmetics, desires that her complexion might exhibit the simplicity and purity of colour which is seen in the works of Apelles.”

Those who have written on the practice of painting have always recommended the use of few colours for flesh. Reynolds and others quote even ancient authorities as recorded by Pliny, and Boschini gives several descriptions of the method of the Venetians, and particularly of Titian, to the same effect. “They used,” he says, “earths more than any other colour, and at the utmost only added a little vermilion, minium, and lake, abhorring as a pestilence biadetti, gialli santi, smaltini, verdi-ozzurri, giallolini.” Elsewhere he says, “Earths should be used rather than other colours:” after repeating the above prohibited list he adds, “I speak of the imitation of flesh, for in other things every colour is good;” again, “Our great Titian used to say that he who wishes to be a painter should be acquainted with three colours, white, black, and red.” Assuming this account to be a little exaggerated, it is still to be observed that the monotony to which the use of few colours would seem to tend, is prevented by the nature of the Venetian process, which was sufficiently conformable to Goethe’s doctrine; the gradations being multiplied, and the effect of the colours heightened by using them as semi-opaque mediums. Immediately after the passage last quoted we read, “.He also gave this true precept, that to produce a lively colouring in flesh it is not possible to finish at once.” As these particulars may not be known to all, we add some further abridged extracts explaining the order and methods of these different operations.

“The Venetian painters,” says this writer, “after having drawn in their subject, got in the masses with very solid colour, without making use of nature or statues. Their great object in this stage of their work was to distinguish the advancing and retiring portions, that the figures might be relieved by means of chiaro-scuro — one of the most important departments of colour and form, and indeed of invention. Having decided on their scheme of effect, when this preparation was dry, they consulted nature and the antique; not servilely, but with the aid of a few lines on paper (quatrro segni in carta) they corrected their figures without any other model. Then returning to their brushes, they began to paint smartly on this preparation, producing the colour of flesh.” The passage before quoted follows, stating that they used earths chiefly, that they carefully avoided certain colours, “and likewise varnishes and whatever produces a shining surface: When this second painting was dry, they proceeded to scumble over this or that figure with a low tint to make the one next it come forward, giving another, at the same time, an additional light — for example, on a head, a hand, or a foot, thus detaching them, so to speak, from the canvas.” (Tintoret’s Prigionia di S. Rocco is here quoted.) “By thus still multiplying these well-understood retouchings where required, on the dry surface, (a secco) they reduced the whole to harmony. In this operation they took care not to cover entire figures, but rather went on gemming them (gioielandole) with vigorous touches. In the shadows, too, they infused vigour frequently by glazing with asphaltum, always leaving great masses in middle-tint, with many darks, in addition to the partial glazings, and few lights.”

The introduction to the subject of Venetian colouring, in the poem by the same author, is also worth transcribing, but as the style is quaint and very concise, a translation is necessarily a paraphrase.

“The art of colouring has the imitation of qualities for its object; not all qualities, but those secondary ones which are appreciable by the sense of sight. The eye especially sees colours, the imitation of nature in painting is therefore justly called colouring; but the painter arrives at his end by indirect means. He gives the varieties of tone in masses; he smartly impinges lights, he clothes his preparation with more delicate local hues, he unites, he glazes: thus everything depends on the method, on the process. For if we look at colour abstractedly, the most positive may be called the most beautiful, but if we keep the end of imitation in view, this shallow conclusion falls to the ground. The refined Venetian manner is very different from mere direct, sedulous imitation. Every one who has a good eye may arrive at such results, but to attain the manner of Paolo, of Bassan, of Palma, Tintoret, or Titian, is a very different undertaking.”

The effects of semi-transparent mediums in some natural productions seem alluded to in the following passage — ”Nature sometimes accidentally imitates figures in stones and other substances, and although they are necessarily incomplete in form, yet the principle of effect (depth) resembles the Venetian practice.” In a passage that follows there appears to be an allusion to the production of the atmospheric colours by semi-transparent mediums.

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Note Y. — Par. 672.

The author’s conclusion here is unsatisfactory, for the colour of the black races may be considered at least quite as negative as that of Europeans. It would be safer to say that the white skin is more beautiful than the black, because it is more capable of indications of life, and indications of emotion. A degree of light which would fail to exhibit the finer varieties of form on a dark surface, would be sufficient to display them on a light one; and the delicate mantlings of colour, whether the result of action or emotion, are more perceptible for the same reason.

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Note Z. — Par. 690.

The author appears to mean that a degree of brightness which the organ can bear at all, must of necessity be removed from dazzling, white light. The slightest tinge of colour to this brightness, implies that it is seen through a medium, and thus, in painting, the lightest, whitest surface should partake of the quality of depth. Goethe’s view here again accords, it must be admitted, with the practice of the best colourists, and with the precepts of the highest authorities. — See Note C.

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Note AA. — Par. 732.

Ample details respecting the opinions of Louis Bertrand Castel, a Jesuit, are given in the historical part. The co-incidence of some of his views with those of Goethe is often apparent: he objects, for instance, to the arbitrary selection of the Newtonian spectrum; observing that the colours change with every change of distance between the prism and the recipient surface. — Farbenl. vol. ii. p. 527. Jeremias Friedrich Güllich was a dyer in the neighbourhood of Stutgardt: he published an elaborate work on the technical details of his own pursuit. — Farbenl.. vol. ii. p. 630.

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Note BB. — Par. 748.

Goethe, in his account of Castel, suppresses the learned Jesuit’s attempt at colorific music (the claveqin oculaire), founded on the Newtonian doctrine. Castel was complimented, perhaps ironically, on having been the first to remark that there were but three principal colours. In asserting his claim to the discovery, he admits that there is nothing new. In fact, the notion of three colours is to be found in Aristotle; for that philosopher enumerates no more in speaking of the rainbow, and Seneca calls them by their right names. Compare with Dante, Parad. c. 33. The relation between colours and sounds is in like manner adverted to by Aristotle; he says — ”It is possible that colours may stand in relation to each other in the same manner as concords in music, for the colours which are (to each other) in proportions corresponding with the musical concords, are those which appear to be the most agreeable.” In the latter part of the 16th century, Arcimboldo, a Milanese painter, invented a colorific music; an account of his principles and method will be found in a treatise on painting which appeared about the same time. “Ammaestrato dal qual ordine Mauro Cremonese dalla viola, musico dell’ Imperadore Ridolfo II. trovo sul gravicembalo tutte quelle consonanze che dall’ Arcimboldo erano segnate coi colorii sopra una carta.”

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Note CC. — Par. 758.

The moral associations of colours have always been a more favourite subject with poets than with painters. This is to be traced to the materials and means of description as distinguished from those of representation. An image is more distinct for the mind when it is compared with something that resembles it. An object is more distinct for the eye when it is compared with something that differs from it. Association is the auxiliary in the one case, contrast in the other. The poet, of necessity, succeeds best in conveying the impression of external things by the aid of analogous rather than of opposite qualities: so far from losing their effect by this means, the images gain in distinctness. Comparisons that are utterly false and groundless never strike us as such if the great end is accomplished of placing the thing described more vividly before the imagination. In the common language of laudatory description the colour of flesh is like snow mixed with vermilion: these are the words used by Aretino in one of his letters in speaking of a figure of St. John, by Titian. Similar instances without end might be quoted from poets: even a contrast can only be strongly conveyed in description by another contrast that resembles it On the other hand it would be easy to show that whenever poets have attempted the painter’s method of direct contrast, the image has failed to be striking, for the mind’s eye cannot see the relation between two colours.

Under the same category of effect produced by association may be classed the moral qualities in which poets have judiciously taken refuge when describing visible forms and colours, to avoid competition with the painters’ elements, or rather to attain their end more completely. But a little examination would show that very pleasing moral associations may be connected with colours which would be far from agreeable to the eye. All light, positive colours, light-green, light-purple, white, are pleasing to the mind’s eye, and no degree of dazzling splendour is offensive. The moment, however, we have to do with the actual sense of vision, the susceptibility of the eye itself is to be considered, the law of comparison is reversed, colours become striking by being opposed to what they are not, and their moral associations are not owing to the colours themselves, but to the modifications such colours undergo in consequence of what surrounds them. This view, so naturally consequent on the principles the author has himself arrived at, appears to be overlooked in the chapter under consideration, the remarks in which, in other respects, are acute and ingenious.

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Note DD. — Par. 849.

According to the usual acceptation of the term chiaro-scuro in the artist world, it means not only the mutable effects produced by light and shade, but also the permanent differences in brightness and darkness which are owing to the varieties of local colour.

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Note EE. — Par. 855.

The mannered treatment of light and shade here alluded to by the author is very seldom to be met with in the works of the colourists; the taste may have first arisen from the use of plaster-casts, and was most prevalent in France and Italy in the early part of the last century. Piazzetta represented it in Venice, Subleyras in Rome. In France “Restout taught his pupils that a globe ought to be represented as a polyhedron. Greuze most implicitly adopted the doctrine, and in practice showed that he considered the round cheeks of a young girl or an infant as bodies cut into facettes.”

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Note FF. — Par. 859.

All this was no doubt suggested by Heinrich Meyer, whose chief occupation in Rome, at one time, was making sepia drawings from sculpture (see Goethe’s Italianische Reise). It is hardly necessary to say that the observation respecting the treatment of the surface in the antique statues is very fanciful.

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Note GG. — Par. 863.

This observation might have been suggested by the drawings of Claude, which, with the slightest means, exhibit an harmonious balance of warm and cold.

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Note HH. — Par. 865.

The colouring of Paolo Uccello, according to Vasari’s account of him, was occasionally so remarkable that he might perhaps have been fairly included among the instances of defective vision given by the author. His skill in perspective, indicating an eye for gradation, may be also reckoned among the points of resemblance (see Par. 105).

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Note II. — Par. 902.

The quotation before given from Boschini shows that the method described by the author, and which is true with regard to some of the Florentine painters, was not practised by the Venetians, for their first painting was very solid. It agrees, however, with the manner of Rubens, many of whose works sufficiently corroborate the account of his process given by Descamps. “In the early state of Rubens’s pictures,” says that writer, “everything appeared like a thin wash; but although he often made use of the ground in producing his tones, the canvas was entirely covered more or less with colour.” In this system of leaving the shadows transparent from the first, with the ground shining through them, it would have been obviously destructive of richness to use white mixed with the darks, the brightness, in fact, already existed underneath. Hence the well-known precept of Rubens to avoid white in the shadows, a precept, like many others, belonging to a particular practice, and involving all the conditions of that practice. Scarmiglione, whose Aristotelian treatise on colour was published in Germany when Rubens was three-and-twenty, observes, “Painters, with consummate art, lock up the bright colours with dark ones, and, on the other hand, employ white, the poison of a picture, very sparingly.” (Artificiosissimè pictores claros obscuris obsepiant et contra candido picturartum veneno summè parcentes, &c.

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Note KK. — Par. 903.

The practice here alluded to is more frequently observable in slight works by Paul Veronese. His ground was often pure white, and in some of his works it is left as such. Titian’s white ground was covered with a light warm colour, probably at first, and appears to have been similar to that to which Armenini gives the preference, namely, “quella che tira al color di carne chiarissima con un non so che di fiammeggiante.”

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Note LL. — Par. 919.

The notion which the author has here ventured to express may have been suggested by the remarkable passage in the last canto of Dante’s “Paradiso” —

“Nella profonda e chiara masiatenza,

Dell’ alto lume parvemi tie gini 

Di tie colon i e china continenza,” &c. 

After the concluding paragraph the author inserts a letter from a landscape-painter, Philipp Otto Runge, which is intended to show that those who imitate nature may arrive at principles analogous to those of the “Farbenlehre.”

MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

Translated by Bailey Saunders

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

LIFE AND CHARACTER

LITERATURE AND ART

SCIENCE

NATURE: APHORISMS

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

I

The translation of Goethe’s “Prose Maxims” now offered to the public is the first attempt that has yet been made to present the greater part of these incomparable sayings in English. In the complete collection they are over a thousand in number, and not more perhaps than a hundred and fifty have already found their way into our language, whether as contributions to magazines here and in America, or in volumes of miscellaneous extract from Goethe’s writings. Some are at times quoted as though they were common literary property. To say that they are important as a whole would be a feeble tribute to a work eloquent for itself, and beyond the need of praise; but so deep is the wisdom of these maxims, so wide their reach, so compact a product are they of Goethe’s wonderful genius, that it is something of a reproach to literature to find the most of them left untranslated for the sixty years they have been before the world. From one point of view, the neglect they have suffered is in no way surprising: they are too high and severe to be popular so soon; and when they meet with a wide acceptance as with other great works, much of it will rest upon authority. But even for the deeper side of his writings, Goethe has not been denied a fair measure of popular success. No other author of the last two centuries holds so high a place, or, as an inevitable consequence, has been attacked by so large an army of editors and commentators; and it might well be supposed by now that no corner of his work, and least of all one of the best, had remained almost unnoticed, and to the majority unknown. Many of these maxims were early translated into French, but with little success; and even in Germany it was only so late as the year 1870 that they appeared in a separate form, with the addition of some sort of critical comment and a brief explanation of their origin and history.

But although to what is called the reading public these maxims are as yet, no less in fact than in metaphor, a closed book, its pages have long been a source of profit and delight to some of those who are best able to estimate their value. What that value is, I shall presently endeavour to explain. No one, I think, can perceive their worth without also discerning how nearly they touch the needs of our own day, and how greatly they may help us in facing certain problems of life and conduct, some of them, in truth, as old as the world itself, which appear to us now with peculiar force and subtlety.

It was in this respect that they were warmly recommended to me some years ago by my excellent friend, Professor Harnack, the historian of Dogma, a writer with a fine and prudent enthusiasm for all ennobling literature. It is to him that I owe the resolve to perform for the maxims, as far as I could, the office of translator; a humble office, but not, as I have good reason to know, without its difficulty, or, as I venture to hope, without its use. Of many of them the language is hardly lucid even to a German, and I have gratefully to acknowledge the assistance I have received from the privilege of discussing them with so distinguished a man of letters.

To Professor Huxley I am also deeply indebted. I owe him much for friendly encouragement, and still more for help of an altogether invaluable kind; for in its measure of knowledge and skill, it is admittedly beyond the power of any other living Englishman. The maxims deal, not alone with Life and Character, where most of them are admirable, but also with certain aspects of Science and Art; and these are matters in which I could exercise no judgment myself, although I understood that, while many of the maxims on Science and Art were attractive, they were not all of great merit. Professor Huxley not only did me the honour to select the maxims on Science, but he was further good enough to assist me with them, and to read and approve the translation as it now stands. The weight and the interest of his authority will thus give additional value to that section of the book, and also do much to overcome the objections that exist to making a selection at all.

For a selection is a necessary evil. It is an evil because, even if it leaves the best, it takes away something of a man’s work; if it shows us the heights he has reached, it obliterates the steps of his ascent; it endangers thoughts that may be important but imperfectly understood; and it hinders a fair and complete judgment. But in the end it is a necessity: we are concerned chiefly with the best and clearest results, and it is only the few who care to follow the elaborate details of effort and progress, often painful and obscure. There is no author with whom, for most readers, selection is so necessary as it is with Goethe; and in no other kind of literature is it so amply justified or so clearly desirable as where the aim is to state broad truths of life and conduct and method in a manner admitting of no mistake or uncertainty. When a writer attempts achievements, as Goethe did, in almost every field of thought, it need be no surprise to any one who has heard of human fallibility that in solid results he is not equally successful everywhere. In deciding what shall be omitted, there is no difficulty with maxims which time has shown to be wrong or defective; they have only an historical interest. But great care is necessary with others that are tentative, questionable, or obscure enough to need the light of a commentary, sometimes dubious; where for most of us there is never much profit and always occasion for stumbling. I count it a singular piece of good fortune that the choice of the scientific maxims should be undertaken by so eminent a judge of their practical value, who is also a scholar in the language and a great admirer of Goethe in his other and better known productions. For if a writer of this immense versatility cannot always hope to touch the highest goal, it is well that all his efforts should be weighed in a later day by the best and friendliest knowledge.

The maxims on Art were at first a matter of some little difficulty. It is plain, I think, that they are below the others in value and interest; and in any collection of sayings the less there is of general worth, the more delicate becomes the task of choosing the best. If I omitted them all, the selection would not be duly representative, and it seemed likely that some at least were worthy of being preserved, if only to illustrate Goethe’s theories. I therefore sought the best advice; and here again I have to tender my thanks for assistance second to none in skill and authority, — that of Sir Frederick Leighton, kindly given under circumstances which much increase my obligation. For it is my duty to say that Sir Frederick Leighton had no desire, but rather reluctance, to make a selection from maxims on Art which he was often not prepared to endorse, or to regard as in any way commensurate with Goethe’s genius; and nevertheless he did me the honour to point out a few which I might insert, as being of interest partly for their own sake, partly also for the name of their author.

The maxims on Science and Art are, however, when taken together, hardly a fifth of this volume. The others I have selected on the simple and I hope blameless principle of omitting only what is clearly unimportant, antiquated, of past or passing interest, of purely personal reference, or of a nature too abstruse to stand without notes of explanation, which I should be sorry to place at the foot of any of these pages. I have also omitted eleven maxims drawn from Hippocrates On Diet; fifteen containing an appreciation of Sterne, together with some twenty more which Goethe himself translated from a curious work wrongly attributed to that writer. It will be convenient if I state that I have thus omitted some hundred and twenty out of the six hundred and fifty-five which make up the section styled in the original Ethisches, which I translate by Life and Character, the section which also contains the maxims on Literature, now collected and placed in a separate section with those on Art. Sir Frederick Leighton chose thirty-five out of a hundred and eighteen on Art, and Professor Huxley seventy-six out of two hundred and eighty on Science.

II

Having thus acknowledged but in no way discharged a triple debt of gratitude, it will be next in order if I briefly state the history of the work which now appears in an English dress, before attempting to speak of its nature and value.

The publication of the maxims belongs to the later, that is to say, the last thirty, years of Goethe’s life; and the greater number of them appeared only in the last ten, while some are posthumous.

It is impossible to say with certainty at what period he began the observations which were afterwards to come before the world in this shape; nor is the question of any real interest except to pedantic students of such matters. It is probable that, like most writers, Goethe was in the habit of noting transient thoughts of his own, as well as opinions of others that suggested more than they actually conveyed; and of preserving for further use what he had thus, in his own words, written himself and appropriated from elsewhere — Eigenes and Angeeignetes. The maxims grew out of a collection of this character. It was a habit formed probably in early life, for somewhere in the Lehrjahre — a work of eighteen years’ duration, but begun at the age of twenty-seven — he makes Wilhelm Meister speak of the value of it. But there are reasons for thinking that most of the maxims, as they now stand, were not alone published but also composed in his last years. The unity of meaning which stamps them with a common aim; the similarity of the calm, dispassionate language in which they are written; the didactic tone that colours them throughout, combine to show that they are among the last and ripest fruits of his genius. Some were certainly composed between the ages of fifty and sixty; more still between that and seventy; while there is evidence, both internal and external, proving that many and perhaps most of them were his final reflections on life and the world. This it is that adds so much to their interest for as he himself finely says in one of the last of them, “in a tranquil mind thoughts rise up at the close of life hitherto unthinkable; like blessed inward voices alighting in glory on the summits of the past.”

But whenever all or any of them were written, and whatever revision they may have undergone, none were published until 1809, when Goethe was sixty years of age. It was then that he brought out Die Wahlverwandschaften. A few of the maxims on Life and Character were there inserted as forming two extracts from a journal often quoted in the earlier part of the story. “About this time,” writes Goethe, as he introduces the first of these extracts, “outward events are seldomer noted in Ottilie’s diary, whilst maxims and sentences on life in general, and drawn from it, become more frequent. But,” he adds, “as most of them can hardly be due to her own reflections, it is likely that some one had given her a book or paper, from which she wrote out anything that pleased her.” A few more maxims appeared eight years later in Kunst und Alterthum, a magazine founded by Goethe in 1816 and devoted to the discussion of artistic questions; and a larger number first saw the light in the same publication at various dates until its extinction in 1828. Some of the observations on Science had meanwhile been incorporated with two treatises on branches of that subject.

Eckermann tells a curious story of the way in which Goethe then continued the publication of the maxims. Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre had appeared in its first form in 1821. Afterwards, in 1829, Goethe decided to remodel and lengthen it, and to make two volumes out of what had originally been only one. His secretary was employed to copy it out in its revised form. He wrote in a large hand, which gave the impression that the story might well fill even three volumes; and directions to this effect were sent to the publisher. But it was soon discovered that the last two volumes would be very thin, and the publisher asked for more manuscript. Goethe, in some perplexity, sent for Eckermann, and producing two large bundles of unpublished papers, containing, as he said, some very important things, — ”opinions on life, literature, science and art, all mingled together,” proposed to him to lengthen out the volumes by inserting selections from them. “You might,” he suggested, “fill the gaps in the Wanderjahre by making up some six or eight sheets from these detached pieces. Strictly speaking, they have nothing to do with the story; but we may justify the proceeding by the fact that I mention an archive in Makarie’s house, in which such miscellanies are preserved. In this way we shall not only get over our difficulty, but find a good vehicle for giving much interesting matter to the world.” Eckermann approved the plan, and divided his selection into two parts; and when the new edition of the Wanderjahre appeared, one of them was styled Aus Makariens Archiv, and the other Betrachtungen im Sinne der Wanderer: Kunst, Ethisches, Natur. The remainder of the unpublished maxims appeared posthumously, either in the Nachgelassene Werke in 1833, or in the quarto edition of 1836.

Instructions had been given to Eckermann to collect all the maxims, arrange them under different heads, and include them in appropriate volumes; but he resolved to deviate from his instructions to the extent of publishing them all together; and the alteration is certainly an advantage. A slight re-arrangement was made by von Loeper, who was deterred from undertaking a more radical one, although he thought it might be done with profit, by the consideration that when a literary work of undesigned and fortuitous form has lived any number of years in a certain shape, that fact alone is a weighty argument against any change in it. In a translation, perhaps, where the work is presented anew and to a fresh public, the change might be allowable; and I should have undertaken it, had there not been a more serious reason, which von Loeper also urges, against any attempt at systematic re-arrangement: the further fact, namely, that many of the maxims have a mixed character, placing them above our distinctions of scientific and ethical, and making it difficult to decide under which heading they ought to fall. I have, therefore, generally followed the traditional order; with this exception, that, for obvious reasons, the maxims dealing with Literature are here placed together; and as only a few of those on Art appear in these pages, I have included them in the same section. In one or two cases I have united closely connected maxims which are separated in the original; and, for the sake of a short title, I have slightly narrowed the meaning of the word Spruch, which applies to any kind of shrewd saying, whether it be strictly a maxim or an aphorism. Some little liberties of this kind may, I think, be taken by a translator anxious to put the work before his own public in an orderly and convenient form.

The last section in this book requires a word of explanation. It is a little essay on Nature which is to be found with a variety of other fragments in the last volume of Goethe’s collected works. Too short to stand by itself, if it appears at all, it must be in company with kindred matter; and as a series of aphorisms, presenting a poetic view of Nature unsurpassed in its union of beauty and insight, it is no inappropriate appendage to the maxims on Science. It is little known, and it deserves to be widely known. I venture to think that even in Germany the ordinary reader is unaware of its existence. For us in England it was, so to speak, discovered by Professor Huxley, who many years ago gave a translation of it as a proem to a scientific periodical. Perhaps that proem may yet be recovered as good salvage from the waters of oblivion, which sooner or later overwhelm all magazines. Meanwhile I put forward this version.

For sixty years this essay has stood unquestioned in Goethe’s works; but doubt has recently been cast on its authorship. The account hitherto given rests upon the excellent ground of Goethe’s own declaration. The essay, it appears, was written about the year 1780, and offered to the Duchess Amalia. Some time after her death it was found amongst her papers, and sent to Goethe in May, 1828, when, as he wrote to his friend the Chancellor von Müller, he could not remember having composed it; although he recognised the writing as that of a person of whose services he used to avail himself some forty years previously. That at so great a distance of time a prolific author could not recall the composition of so short a piece is not, indeed, improbable; but Goethe proceeded to say that it agreed very well with the pantheistic ideas which occupied him at the age of thirty, and that his insight then might be called a comparative, which was thus forced to express its strife towards an as yet unattained superlative. Notwithstanding this declaration, the essay is now claimed as the production of a certain Swiss friend of Goethe’s, by name Tobler, on external evidence which need not be examined here, and on the internal evidence afforded by the style, which is certainly more pointed and antithetic than is usual with Goethe. But a master of language who attempted every kind of composition may well have attempted this; and even those who credit an otherwise unknown person with the actual writing of the essay candidly admit that it is based upon conversations with Goethe. It is so clearly inspired with his genius that he can hardly be forced to yield the credit of it to another.

III

It is no wish or business of mine to introduce these maxims by adding one more to the innumerable essays, some of them admirable, which have been written on Goethe. I have found the translation of one of his works a harder and certainly a more profitable task than a general discourse on them all; and I profoundly believe that, rather than read what has been written on Goethe, it is very much better to read Goethe himself. It is in this belief that I hope the present translation may help in a small way to increase the direct knowledge of him in this country. But there are some remarks which I may be allowed to make on the nature and use of maxims, and the peculiar value of those of Goethe; so far, at least, as they deal with life and character and with literature. If Professor Huxley could be induced to publish the comments which he made to me as I read him the scientific maxims, besides being the best of introductions to that section of the book, they would form a keen and clear review of Goethe’s scientific achievements, and an emphatic testimony to his wonderful anticipations of later theories.

Between a maxim, an aphorism, and an apophthegm, and in a more obvious degree, between these and an adage and a proverb, the etymologist and the lexicographer may easily find a distinction. But they are, one and all, fragments of the wisdom of life, treasured up in short, pithy sentences that state or define some general truth of experience; and perhaps with an adage and a maxim, enjoin its practice as a matter of conduct. In the literature of every age there have been writers who, instead of following a less severe method, thus briefly record the lessons taught them by a wide view of the doings of men; from the dim, far-off beginnings of Ptah Hotep the Egyptian to the authors of the Proverbs of Solomon and the Book of Wisdom, from Theognis and Plutarch downwards to our own time. They give us the shrewdest of their thoughts, detached from the facts which gave them birth. But the professed writers of maxims are not the only or always the best authors of them. There is no great writer who is not rich in wise sentences; where we have the advantage of seeing for ourselves the train of thought that induced and the occasion that called them forth. Terse and pregnant sayings are scattered innumerably through the pages of the finest poets, the great orators, philosophers, and historians, wherever they touch the highest level of truth and insight; be it in the lofty interpretation of life, the defence of action or policy, the analysis of character and conduct, or the record of progress; and then it is that large ideas and wide observations take on imperceptibly the nature of maxim or aphorism, illumining, like points of light, whole fields of thought and experience. And the test of their value is that they lose little or nothing by being deprived of their particular context and presented as truths of general import. A collection of proverbs, shrewd sayings, and pointed expressions, taken from the whole range of Greek and Latin literature, was made by the industry of Erasmus in his great folio of Adagia; and perhaps some future student, as diligent as he, may gather up the aphoristic wisdom in the writings of modern times. Goethe himself has in all his great works a wealth of aphorism unsurpassed by any other writer whatever, even though it be Montaigne or Bacon or Shakespeare; and sayings of his not to be found in this collection are some of the best that he uttered.

The besetting sin of the maxim-writer is to exaggerate one side of a matter by neglecting another; to secure point and emphasis of style, by limiting the range of thought; and hence it is that most maxims present but a portion of truth and cannot be received unqualified. They must often be brought back to the test of life itself, and confronted and compared with other sides of the experience they profess to embody. And when a maxim stands this trial and proves its worth, it is not every one to whom it is of value. To some it may be a positive evil. It makes the strongest appeal to those who never see more than one aspect of anything, hardening their hearts and blunting their minds; and even to those who could make a good use of it, there are times when it may mislead and be dangerous. Maxims in their application seem to need something of the physician’s art: they must be handled with care, and applied with discretion. Like powerful drugs they may act with beneficent effect on a hardy constitution; they may brace it to effort, or calm the fever of a misguided activity; but great is the mischief they work where the mind is weak or disorganised. As a medicine may save a man at one time that would kill him at another, so the wise counsel of to-day may easily become the poisonous suggestion of to-morrow.

With writers who depend for effect on mere qualities of style and ignore the weightier matters of depth and truth of observation, Goethe has nothing in common; nor with those who vainly imagine that insight is a kind of art, with a method that may be learned and applied. By constant practice a man of literary talent may, it is true, attain a fair mastery of language terse and attractive, and then set himself, if he will, to the deliberate creation of aphoristic wisdom or a philosophy of proverbs; mistaking the dexterous handling of a commonplace for the true process of discovery. The popular literature of the last generation supplies a terrible instance of the length to which the manufacture of maxims can thus be carried, for a time with immense success; and we have seen how a few years suffice to carry them and their author to obscurity. How different is the true process! The maxim that increases knowledge and enriches literature is of slow and rare appearance; it springs from a fine faculty of observation which is in no one’s arbitrament, and only less rare than the gift of utterance which adds charm to a thought that itself strikes home with the power of impregnable truth. No amount or intensity of effort will alone produce it; but to the mind of genius it comes like a sudden revelation, flashing its light on a long course of patient attention. “What we call Discovery,” says Goethe, “is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth. It is a synthesis of world and mind, giving the most blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of things.”

It is, then, depth and truth and sanity of observation which chiefly mark these sayings of Goethe. It is no concern of his to dazzle the mind by the brilliance of his wit; nor does he labour to say things because they are striking, but only because they are true. He is always in contact with realities, always aiming at truth; and he takes a kindly and a generous view of the world. He has none of the despair that depresses, none of the malice that destroys. There are writers who profess to honour a lofty ideal by a cynical disparagement of everything that falls short of it; who unveil the selfish recesses of the heart as a mistaken stimulus to its virtues; who pay their tribute to great work by belittling human endeavour. Goethe shows us a more excellent way. Touched with a profound feeling of the worth of life, the wisdom of order, the nobility of effort, he gives us an ideal to pursue and shows us the means of pursuing it. Out of the fulness of a large experience, unique in the history of literature, he unfolds the scheme of a practicable perfection, and enforces the lessons he has learned from the steady, passionless, and undaunted observation of human affairs.

To Goethe these sayings were merely reflections or opinions; it is his literary executors and his editors who called them by more ambitious titles, so as to challenge a comparison with certain other famous books of wise thought. They are the reflections of a long life rich in all the intellectual treasures of the world, in its versatility amazing, in its insight well-nigh fathomless; a life that, in his own words, approached the infinite by following the finite on every side. Such a man need only speak to utter something important; and we on our part need only remember how wide was the range of his knowledge, how full and complete his existence, to set the utmost value on his reflections at the end of it. But that he knew nothing of the pinch of poverty and was spared the horrors of disease, that he suffered no great misfortune, and basked in the bright side of the world, free from the ills that come to most men, there was no page of the book of life that was not thrown open to him. The things of the mind, the things of art, the things of nature — in their theory and in their practice he had worked at them all; regarding them as so many varied manifestations of an eternal Idea in itself inscrutable and here unattainable. There was no kind of literature with which he was unfamiliar, whether it was ancient or modern, of the East or of the West; and the great spiritual influences of the world, Hebraism, Hellenism, Christianity, Mediævalism, — at one or another time in his life he was in touch with them all, and found his account in them all. In matters of learning he was occupied with nothing but what was actual and concrete; it was only to abstract studies, to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, that he was indifferent; in his own phrase, he never thought about thinking. There was hardly any branch of the natural science of his day that he did not cultivate, that he did not himself practise; geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, anatomy, meteorology, optics; and he made some remarkable discoveries and the strangest prophecies. To Art he gave a life-long devotion. While still a youth, he wrote an important essay on Gothic architecture; he engraved, drew, painted, and for a time took up sculpture. In all the higher forms of Art, with the single exception of music, he had so much practical interest that he often doubted whether in following Literature he had not mistaken, or at least unduly narrowed, the sphere of his activity. He was little abroad, but no one ever profited more by his travels than Goethe. Twice he went to Italy, and what a change of mind was produced by that change of sky! Rome was to him a new birth, a new conception of life. And besides Literature, Science, and Art, he busied himself with Administration, with the duties of the Court, with the practical details of the Theatre; but out of them all he learned something himself and taught something to others. He lived the fullest life granted to man. He had a youth of the wildest enthusiasm and romance; a prime of a classic austerity, of a calm earnestness; a majestic age of the ripest wisdom, when there came to him, as it were a second youth, with something of the fire of the old romantic feeling lighted up in him anew. And out of all these prodigious efforts in so many directions, he passed unharmed, and never lost himself. He steadily pursued his own task and refused to be drawn aside. He stood aloof from the controversies of his time. The battles of belief, philosophical systems, French Revolutions, Wars of Liberation, struggles of democracy and nationality, — these things moved him little or not at all. But he is not on that account to be held, as some foolish critics have held him, indifferent, selfish, or less serious, or less complete a man than his fellows. He did the best in any one’s power: he resolutely kept to his own business, and, neither heating nor resting, worked at his own high aims, in the struggle not merely to learn and to know, but to act and to do. He felt profoundly that the best anyone can achieve for himself is often the best he can achieve for others. The whole moral of Wilhelm Meister is that a man’s first and greatest duty, whether to others or to himself, is to see that his business in life is a worthy one and suited to his capacities. If he discovers his vocation and pursues it steadily, he will make his outer life of the greatest use and service to the world, and at the same time produce the utmost harmony within. That was what Goethe tried to do in his own person, and he laboured at his self-imposed task with a perseverance, a real unselfishness, and a determination entirely admirable.

It is almost the last fruit of this life of concentrated activity, the final outcome of this indomitable character, that is here put before us. And we shall find that to the complex phenomena of the world Goethe applied no other measure but reason and the nature and needs of man. With a full consciousness of the mysteries that surround our existence, he never made the futile endeavour to pass beyond the bounds of present knowledge and experience, or to resolve contradictions by manipulating the facts. In these detached reflections he does, indeed, propound a theory and sketch out a system of conduct; but they cannot, like the Thoughts of Pascal, for instance, be brought under a single and definite point of view. They are a mirror of life itself, and the inner and outer facts of life in all their diversity. The unity they possess is the unity that is stamped upon them by the all-embracing personality of their author, always and unweariedly striving to make his life systematic, distinct, and fruitful; and to judge them as a whole, a man must be able to fathom so great a genius. But to every one in every walk of life Goethe has a word of wise counsel, as though he understood every form of existence and could enter into its needs. In a fine passage in the Wanderjahre, he likens the thought that thus in wondrous fashion takes a thousand particular shapes, to a mass of quicksilver, which, as it falls, separates into innumerable globules, spreading out on all sides. And while these sayings may present thoughts in seeming contradiction one with another, as the moment that called them forth presented this or that side of experience, their inmost nature is a common tendency to realise a great ideal of life. It is little they owe to the form in which they are cast; they are not the elements of an artistic whole which must be seized before we can understand the full meaning of its parts. They are a miscellaneous record of the shrewdest observation; and to read them as they should be read, a few at a time, is like the opportunity of repeated converse with a man of extraordinary gifts, great insight, and the widest culture, who touches profoundly and suggestively now on this, now on that aspect of life and the world and the progress of knowledge. It is the fruit of his own experience that Goethe gives us; and we shall do well to think of it as he himself thought of another book, and to bear in mind that “every word which we take in a general sense and apply to ourselves, had, under certain circumstances of time and place, a peculiar, special and directly individual references.”

Goethe is no exception to the rest of mankind in not being equally wise at all times, and in the maxims there are degrees of value: they do not all shine with the like brilliance. Some of them are valuable only for what they suggest; of some, again, it is easy to see that, they appear as matters of speculation rather than as certainties. They raise difficulties, ask for criticism, if possible, correction; or, it may be, they call attention to the contrary view and invite a harmony of opposites. Some of them make a great demand upon our ability “to understand a proverb and the interpretation; the words of the wise and their dark sayings.” Their value sometimes depends on the way they are viewed, the culture brought to their understanding, the temper in which they are approached. We look at them, and at first admire; we change our point of view, and find something to criticise and dispute. The obscurity of maxims, as Goethe reminds us, is only relative; not everything can be explained to the reader which was present to the mind of the writer. Some of them seem at first to be of little interest; on one side they may even repel, but from another they attract again, and win perhaps a partial approval. They seem to move as we change our position, and to be without fixed or certain character. But some, again, are so clear and unmistakable, so immeasurably above criticism or objection, that like the furthest of the stars they have no parallax: whatever position we take, their light is steadfast.

Let no one suppose that in the main Goethe’s reflections on life had never been made before; that it was not so, no one knew better than he. As a preface and note of warning to them all, he reiterates the words of the preacher: “there is no new thing under the sun.” Yes! says Goethe, there is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again. “It is only when we are faithful,” he says elsewhere, “in arresting and noting our present thoughts, that we have any joy in tradition; since we find the best thoughts already uttered, the finest feelings already expressed. This it is that gives us the perception of that harmonious agreement to which man is called, and to which he must conform, often against his will as he is much too fond of fancying that the world begins afresh with himself.” What Goethe means is that we shall do best to find out the truth of all things for ourselves, for on one side truth is individual; and that we shall be happy if our individual truth is also universal, or accords with the wisest thought of the past. It is in this practical light that we must view the maxims, and not as mere academic generalities. It is easy to read them in an hour and forget them as soon; easy to view them with a tepid interest as the work of a great author; but no one will fully understand the value of any of them, who has not experience enough to know its truth. Well is it for us if with the experience we also gain the truth! If any one should say that some of these maxims are very obvious, and so simply true as almost to be platitudes, I would bid him remember that the best education is often to discover these very simple truths for oneself, and learn to see how much there is in commonplaces. For those who have grown old in the world are never weary of telling us that the further we go, the more we shall find, in general, that the same things will happen to us as have happened to others; and it will then be our advantage if we have the same reflections, best of all if we come of ourselves to the same conclusions, as the wisest of those who have gone before us; next best, if we can really and intelligently follow in the footsteps of their thought.

But although the matter of Goethe’s sayings is not original in the sense of being new to the world — while it was original for him, since he discovered it for himself and on his own path, their manner is something new, and their range is unparalleled. Take any other set of maxims you will, nowhere is there so wide an outlook, nowhere so just an estimate of human difficulties, nowhere an aim at once so lofty and so practicable. Nowhere is there a larger, stronger, healthier, more tolerant view of life and the world, or an atmosphere clearer of the mists that too often obscure and distort our vision. And in their expression, nowhere is there so little of the besetting sin to sacrifice truth to effect. Goethe has none of the shallow malice and uncharitable candour that with writers of an earlier age passed for the practical wisdom of every day; and we need only contrast his maxims with the similar work of La Rochefoucauld, Helvetius, and Chamfort, admirable as they may be in their exposure of human selfishness, to determine on which side is the greater service to mankind. How different the views of the world taken by how many writers! — the secret of it all is that the men themselves are different.

It was said of Goethe that his heart, which few knew, was as great as his intellect, which all knew. Certainly his writings and not least his maxims are a profound example of the truth that in the last resort it is moral rather than intellectual qualities that make great literature. It is not to be denied that much may be done by a mere facility of style, a command of words, a fine taste, a wide acquaintance with the turns and resources of language; but in the end the effect is produced by the man himself, his character and his strength. To the strenuous, earnest man, like Goethe, the world offers a stirring spectacle and provides a great opportunity; and he grasps and uses them both to the best of his peculiar capacity. It is diversity of temperament dealing with partial knowledge that makes so many and such various doctrines. A man’s views of life are, in short, those which he deserves to have, and his writings are cast in the mould of his character. It is no more strange that the authors of books should give us such varied pictures of the humanity around us, than that painters should conceive natural objects so differently. Literature, too, is like a gallery of landscape and portrait: it is the same world which is presented, the same men and things; but the way of looking at it varies with the artist; who, whatever his training may have been, will see in Nature what he brings to it himself. Ars est homo additus naturæ. If this be truly to define the essence and method of Art, it is equally true to say that Literature is man added to life; and, here as there, everything depends on the character and capacity of the man.

No one has as yet said that he doubts Goethe’s capacity, although there are many who have solemnly pronounced him uninteresting. The critic who can read Goethe’s works with real attention, and then venture to call them dull, is simply showing that he has no call to the office he assumes, or no interest in literature of the highest class. What is true, of course, is that Goethe is profoundly serious, and he is, therefore, not always entertaining; but that is enough to make him pass for dull in the eyes of those who take literature only as a pastime, — a substitute for a cigar, or something to lull them to sleep when they are tired. But another and more formidable accusation is made against Goethe which affects his character, and would go far to destroy the value of his writings if it were true; but to many it is curiously inconsistent with the other charge of being dull. It is that he is immoral. Now of all the great writers of the world, Goethe is admittedly the greatest teacher. He is essentially and frankly didactic; and nowhere is there so large and worthy a body of literature from a single pen which is informed with so high and so serious a purpose. Roundly to call its author immoral is a charge which sufficiently refutes itself by its own ignorance and absurdity. The charge comes, as a rule, from those who judge life by the needs and duties of a young girl, and they confound the whole of morality — character and conduct in all relations to one’s fellow-men — with one section of it. They forget that Goethe was a man of the old régime; that his faults were those of his time and class. They forget that an extreme repugnance to all monasticism, asceticism, and Roman Catholicism in general, naturally led him to pay a diminished regard to the one virtue of which the Christian world is sometimes apt to exaggerate the importance, and on which it is often ready to hang all the law and the prophets. To some, again, Goethe appears to be a supremely selfish wizard, dissecting human passion in the coldest blood, and making poetical capital out of the emotional tortures he caused in others. This, too, is a charge which the merest acquaintance with his life and work must of necessity refute: it is too simple a slander to be seriously discussed. Since these are charges which have, however, kept many estimable people from reading Goethe, it may be some consolation to them to know that the maxims are entirely free from any possibility of objection on this ground.

The element of moral teaching which runs through Goethe’s mature works like a golden thread, re-appears in the maxims free and detached from the poetic and romantic environment which in such varied shapes is woven around it in Werther, Tasso, Meister, above all in Faust. To do the next duty; to meet the claims of each day; to persist with a single mind and unwearied effort on a definite, positive, productive path; cheerfully to renounce what is denied us, and vigorously to make the best of what we have; to restrain vague desires and uncertain aims; to cease bewailing the vanity of all things and the fleeting nature of this our world, and do what we can to make our stay in it of lasting use, — these are lessons which will always be needed, and all the more needed as life becomes increasingly complex. They are taught in the maxims with a great variety of application, and nowhere so concisely summarised as in one of them. “The mind endowed with active powers,” so it runs, “and keeping with a practical object to the task that lies nearest, is the worthiest there is on earth.”

Goethe has been called, and with truth, the prophet of culture; but the word is often misunderstood. We cannot too clearly see that what is here meant is not a mere range of intellectual knowledge, pursued with idolatrous devotion: it is moral discipline, a practical endeavour, forming wise thought and noble character. And this is the product, not of learning, but of work: if we are to know and realise what there is in us, and make the best of it, our aim must be practical and creative. “Let every man,” he urges, “ask himself with which of his faculties he can and will somehow influence his age.” And again: “From this time forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no longer a furtherance. By the time a man has taken note of everything, he has lost himself.” The culture of which he speaks is not mainly intellectual. We use the word in a way that is apt to limit and conceal its meaning, and we often apply it to a strange form of mental growth, at once stunted and overfed, to which, if we may judge by its fruits, any breath of real culture would be fatal. It has nothing to do with learning in the general and narrow sense of the word, or with the often pernicious effects of mere learning. In the language of the hour we are wont to give the exclusive name of culture to a wide acquaintance with books and languages; whether or not it results, as it has before now resulted, in a want of culture in character and outward demeanour, in airs of conceit, in foolish arrogance, in malice and acrimony.

A uniform activity with a moral aim — that, in Goethe’s view, is the highest we can achieve in life. “Character in matters great and small consists,” he says, “in a man steadily pursuing the things of which he feels himself capable.” It is the gospel of work: our endeavour must be to realise our best self in deed and action; to strive until our personality attains, in Aristotle’s word, its entelechy; its full development. By this alone can we resolve all the doubts and hesitations and conflicts within that undermine and destroy the soul. “Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth.” And with all our doing, what should be the goal of our activity? In no wise our own self, our own weal. “A man is happy only when he delights in the good-will of others,” and we must of a truth “give up existence in order to exist”; we must never suppose that happiness is identical with personal welfare. In the moral sphere we need, as Kant taught, a categorical imperative; but, says Goethe, that is not the end of the matter; it is only the beginning. We must widen our conception of duty and recognise a perfect morality only “where a man loves what he commands himself to do.” “Voluntary dependence is the best state, and how should that be possible without love?” And just in the same sense Goethe refuses to regard all self-denial as virtuous, but only the self-denial that leads to some useful end. All other forms of it are immoral, since they stunt and cramp the free development of what is best in us — the desire, namely, to deal effectively with our present life, and make the most and fairest of it.

And here it is that Goethe’s moral code is fused with his religious belief. “Piety,” he says, “is not an end but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquillity of soul.” This is the piety he preaches; not the morbid introspection that leads to no useful end, the state of brooding melancholy, the timorous self-abasement, the anxious speculation as to some other condition of being. And this tranquillity of soul, Goethe taught that it should be ours, in spite of the thousand ills of life which give us pause in our optimism. It is attained by the firm assurance that, somewhere and somehow, a power exists that makes for moral good; that our moral endeavours are met, so to speak, half-way by a moral order in the universe, which comes to the aid of individual effort. And the sum and substance of his teaching, whether in the maxims or in any other of his mature productions, is that we must resign ourselves to this power, in gratitude and reverence towards it and all its manifestations in whatever is good and beautiful. This is Goethe’s strong faith, his perfect and serene trust. He finely shadows it forth in the closing words of Pandora, where Eos proclaims that the work of the gods is to lead our efforts to the eternal good, and that we must give them free play: —

Was zu wünschen ist, ihr unten fühlt es;
Was zu geben sei, die wissen’s droben.
Gross beginnet ihr Titanen; aber leiten
Zu dem ewig Guten, ewig Schönen,
Ist der Götter Werk; die lasst gewähren.

And so too in Faust: it is the long struggle to realise an Ideal, dimly seen on life’s labyrinthine way of error, that leads at last to the perfect redemption: —

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen.

And throughout the perplexities of life and the world, where all things are but signs and tokens of some inner and hidden reality, it is the ideal of love and service, das Ewig-Weibliche, that draws us on.

But this assurance cannot be reached by a mere theory; and Goethe is not slow to declare how he views attempts to reach it in that way. “Credo Deum! that,” he reminds us here, “is a fine, a worthy thing to say; but to recognise God when and where he reveals himself, is the only true bliss on earth.” All else is mystery. We are not born, as he said to Eckermann, to solve the problems of the world, but to find out where the problem begins, and then to keep within the limits of what we can grasp. The problem, he urged, is transformed into a postulate: if we cannot get a solution theoretically, we can get it in the experience of practical life. We reach it by the use of an “active scepticism,” of which he says that “it continually aims at overcoming itself and arriving by means of regulated experience at a kind of conditioned certainty.” But he would have nothing to do with doctrinal systems, and, like Schiller, professed none of the forms of religion from a feeling of religion itself. To see how he views some particular questions of theology the reader may turn with profit to his maxims on the Reformation and early Christianity, and to his admirable remarks on the use and abuse of the Bible. The basis of religion was for him its own earnestness; and it was not always needful, he held, for truth to take a definite shape: “it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony.” “I believe,” he said to Eckermann, “in God and Nature and the victory of good over evil; but I was also asked to believe that three was one, and one was three. That jarred upon my feeling for truth; and I did not see how it could have helped me in the least.” As for letting our minds roam beyond this present life, he thought there was actual danger in it; although he looked for a future existence, a continuation of work and activity, in which what is here incomplete should reach its full development. And whatever be the secrets of the universe, assuredly the best we can do is to do our best here; and the worst of blasphemies is to regard this life as altogether vanity; for as these pages tell us, “it would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God.”

In Goethe we pass, as over a bridge, from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth; but though he lived to see a third of the nineteenth century, he hardly belongs to it. Of its political characteristics he had few or none. He was no democrat. As the prophet of inward culture, he took the French Revolution for a disturbance, an interruption, and not a development in the progress of the world’s history; and for all its horrors and the pernicious demoralisation of its leaders, he had the profoundest aversion. But afterwards he came to see that it had beneficial results; that a revolution is ultimately never the fault of the people, but of the injustice and incapacity of the government; and that where there is a real necessity for a great reform, the old leaven must be rooted out. But he knew the danger of such a process, and he indicates it here in an admirable saying: “Before the French Revolution it was all effort; afterwards it all changed to demand”; and this may be supplemented by his opinion on the nature of revolutionary sentiments: “Men think they would be well-off if they were not ruled, and fail to perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others.” And if he, had thus no theoretical sympathy with democratic movements, he had little feeling for that other great political tendency of our time — nationality; convinced as he was that interest in the weal and woe of another people is always a mark of the highest culture. But apart from politics there is one characteristic of our own time in which he fully and especially shares, if only for the reason that he did much himself to produce it; and herein he has influenced us profoundly and is influencing us still. The nineteenth century has this advantage over every preceding age, that in it for the first time honest doubt, instead of distinguishing a few, has become a common virtue. Goethe is one of the surest and safest of those who have led the transition. “We praise the eighteenth century,” he writes, “for concerning itself chiefly with analysis. The task remaining to the nineteenth is to discover the false syntheses which prevail, and to analyse their contents anew.” Of the aim of analysis and the proper course of inquiry, no one has given a better account than Goethe in what he says, in the words I have quoted, about active scepticism; and in the sphere of morals and religion it will perhaps be found hereafter that he has contributed, in some degree at least, to the attainment of that “conditioned certainty,” for which, as we hope, all our efforts are made.

In the maxims on Literature there is some excellent criticism on literary methods, and much that may well be taken to heart by certain writers of our own day. Goethe had little but rebuke for the whole of the romantic movement, which began in his old age. The German form of it he thought unnatural, and at best a conventional imitation of an earlier period; and the French form, of which Victor Hugo was then the rising star, he thought a perversion of naturalism, an exaggeration of it until it became insipid or merely revolting. To Byron alone he gave the tribute of the most ungrudging admiration: in the opposition between classicism and romanticism, he declined to take him for a follower of either, but as the complete representative of his own time. The maxim that “the classical is health, and the romantic, disease,” may not altogether commend itself to us now; but with wonderful insight Goethe foresaw the direction in which the romantic movement would lead. “The romantic,” he says here, “is already fallen into its own abysm. It is hard to imagine anything more degraded than the worst of the new productions.” If he could have said this two generations ago, what would he have said now? How could he have spoken without contempt of those who make all that is common and unclean in itself a subject with which literature may properly be occupied? These are the writers who profess to be realists, under a completely mistaken notion of what realism means, as applied to art; and to them the chief realities seem to be just the very things that decent people keep out of sight. They forget that in literature, as in all art, the dominating realities are the highest Ideals. As an antidote to this poison of corruption Goethe pointed to the ancient world, and bid us study there the types of the loftiest manhood. “Bodies which rot while they are still alive and are edified by the detailed contemplation of their own decay; dead men who remain in the world for the ruin of others, and feed their death on the living — to this,” he exclaimed, “have come our makers of literature. When the same thing happened in antiquity, it was only as a strange token of some rare disease; but with the moderns the disease has become endemic and epidemic.” Akin to these pseudo-realists, and coming under the same ban, are some of our modern novel-writers who do, indeed, avoid the depth of degradation, but try to move the feelings by dwelling in a similar fashion on matters which are not, and never can be, fit subjects of literary treatment; such as painful deaths by horrible distempers, or the minute details of prolonged operations. It is poor skill that cannot find material enough in the moral sufferings of men and women, and is driven to seek effect in descriptions of disease and surgery. Surely in any literature worthy of the name these are topics which a richer imagination and a more prolific art would have found unnecessary, and better taste would have left undescribed.

To another class of writers — those who handle a pretty pen without having anything definite to present, or anything important to say, Goethe has also an applicable word. It is a class which is always increasing in number, and tends to increase in talent. We may admit that second- or third-rate work, especially in poetry, was never before done so well as it is done now; and still we may find some useful truth in a distinction which Goethe drew for the benefit of the minor poets and the minor prose-writers of his own age. “Productions are now possible,” he said, “which, without being bad, have no value. They have no value, because they contain nothing; and they are not bad, because a general form of good workmanship is present to the author’s mind.” In one of the many neglected volumes of his miscellaneous writings Goethe has a series of admirable notes for a proposed work on Dilettantism; and there the reader, if he is interested in Goethe’s literary criticism, will find some instructive remarks in close connection with this aphorism, and also certain rules for discriminating between good and indifferent work which ought to receive the most attentive study. And the stylists who neglect plain language for a mosaic of curious phrase and overstrained epithet, may profitably remember that, as Goethe here says, “it is not language in itself which is correct or forcible or elegant, but the mind that is embodied in it.”

“Translators,” he tells us, “sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty and rouse an irresistible longing for the original.” To them also he gives a piece of excellent advice: “The translator must proceed until he reaches the untranslatable.” This is a counsel of exhortation as well as of warning. It bids the translator spare no effort, but tells him that at a certain point his efforts are of no avail. But none the less, Goethe might have added, the faithful translator must strive as if this hindrance to perfection did not exist; for it is thus only that he, or any one else, can do anything worth doing. On methods of translation much may be said, and it is sometimes urged, in a given case, that it is not literal or that it is too free. A distinguished writer has recently laid down that a translation should reproduce every word and phrase and sentence of the original as accurately as a delicate tracing reproduces the lines of a drawing. This is advice which may hold in the school-room, but, I venture to maintain, nowhere else. In so far as every language has a peculiar genius, a literal translation must necessarily be a bad one; and any faithful translation will of its nature be free. In other words, a translator will err if he slavishly adheres to mere expression; he must have complete liberty to give his author’s meaning and style in the manner which he holds to be truest to the original; and so, in translating from a foreign tongue, it will be well for him to have some knowledge of his own. But he must guard against the abuse of his position: his liberty may become license, and his translation instead of being faithful may be phantastic. The translator’s first and last duty is, then, to efface himself. His first duty is to stand entirely at the point of view of his author’s thought; his last, to find the clearest and nearest expression in his own language both for that thought and for whatever is characteristic in the way of conveying it; neither adding anything of his own nor taking away anything from his author. The best translation is thus a re-embodiment of the author’s spirit, a real metempsychosis. Nothing can be done without ideals, and this is the ideal at which the present translation aims. That it fails of its aim and has many defects, no one knows better than the translator himself; and he can only cherish the hope that where he falls short he is sometimes close to the confines of what cannot be translated.

December 2, 1892.

LIFE AND CHARACTER

I

1

There is nothing worth thinking but it has been thought before; we must only try to think it again.

2

How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking, but by doing. Try to do your duty, and you will know at once what you are worth.

3

But what is your duty? The claims of the day.

4

The world of reason is to be regarded as a great and immortal being, who ceaselessly works out what is necessary, and so makes himself lord also over what is accidental.

5

The longer I live, the more it grieves me to see man, who occupies his supreme place for the very purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity, — to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably over everything.

6

Be genuine and strenuous; earn for yourself, and look for, grace from those in high places; from the powerful, favour; from the active and the good, advancement; from the many, affection; from the individual, love.

7

Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are. If I know what your business is, I know what can be made of you.

8

Every man must think after his own fashion; for on his own path he finds a truth, or a kind of truth, which helps him through life. But he must not give himself the rein; he must control himself; mere naked instinct does not become him.

9

Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy.

10

In the works of mankind, as in those of nature, it is really the motive which is chiefly worth attention.

11

Men get out of countenance with themselves and others because they treat the means as the end, and so, from sheer doing, do nothing, or, perhaps, just what they would have avoided.

12

Our plans and designs should be so perfect in truth and beauty, that in touching them the world could only mar. We should thus have the advantage of setting right what is wrong, and restoring what is destroyed.

13

It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half-, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.

14

It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape; it is enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.

15

General ideas and great conceit are always in a fair way to bring about terrible misfortune.

16

You cannot play the flute by blowing alone: you must use your fingers.

17

In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in the same way it can be said that there are men who are incomplete and imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of proportion to their actions and achievements.

18

The most insignificant man can be complete if he works within the limits of his capacities, innate or acquired; but even fine talents can be obscured, neutralised, and destroyed by lack of this indispensable requirement of symmetry. This is a mischief which will often occur in modern times; for who will be able to come up to the claims of an age so full and intense as this, and one too that moves so rapidly?

19

It is only men of practical ability, knowing their powers and using them with moderation and prudence, who will be successful in worldly affairs.

20

It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

21

From time to time I meet with a youth in whom I can wish for no alteration or improvement, only I am sorry to see how often his nature makes him quite ready to swim with the stream of the time; and it is on this that I would always insist, that man in his fragile boat has the rudder placed in his hand, just that he may not be at the mercy of the waves, but follow the direction of his own insight.

22

But how is a young man to come of himself to see blame in things which every one is busy with, which every one approves and promotes? Why should he not follow his natural bent and go in the same direction as they?

23

I must hold it for the greatest calamity of our time, which lets nothing come to maturity, that one moment is consumed by the next, and the day spent in the day; so that a man is always living from hand to mouth, without having anything to show for it. Have we not already newspapers for every hour of the day! A good head could assuredly intercalate one or other of them. They publish abroad everything that every one does, or is busy with or meditating; nay, his very designs are thereby dragged into publicity. No one can rejoice or be sorry, but as a pastime for others; and so it goes on from house to house, from city to city, from kingdom to kingdom, and at last from one hemisphere to the other, — all in post haste.

24

As little as you can stifle a steam-engine, so little can you do this in the moral sphere either. The activity of commerce, the rush and rustle of paper-money, the swelling-up of debts to pay debts — all these are the monstrous elements to which in these days a young man is exposed. Well is it for him if he is gifted by nature with a sober, quiet temperament; neither to make claims on the world out of all proportion to his position, nor yet let the world determine it.

25

But on all sides he is threatened by the spirit of the day, and nothing is more needful than to make him see early enough the direction in which his will has to steer.

26

The significance of the most harmless words and actions grows with the years, and if I see any one about me for any length of time, I always try to show him the difference there is between sincerity, confidence, and indiscretion; nay, that in truth there is no difference at all, but a gentle transition from what is most innocent to what is most hurtful; a transition which must be perceived or rather felt.

27

Herein we must exercise our tact; otherwise in the very way in which we have won the favour of mankind, we run the risk of trifling it away again unawares. This is a lesson which a man learns quite well for himself in the course of life, but only after having paid a dear price for it; nor can he, unhappily, spare his posterity a like expenditure.

28

Love of truth shows itself in this, that a man knows how to find and value the good in everything.

29

Character calls forth character.

30

If I am to listen to another man’s opinion, it must be expressed positively. Of things problematical I have enough in myself.

31

Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.

32

I keep silence about many things, for I do not want to put people out of countenance; and I am well content if they are pleased with things that annoy me.

33

Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.

34

A man is really alive only when he delights in the good-will of others.

35

Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquillity of soul.

36

Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.

37

When a man is old he must do more than when he was young.

38

To fulfil a duty is still always to feel it as a debt, for it is never quite satisfying to oneself.

39

Defects are perceived only by one who has no love; therefore, to see them, a man must become uncharitable, but not more so than is necessary for the purpose.

40

The greatest piece of good fortune is that which corrects our deficiencies and redeems our mistakes.

41

Reading ought to mean understanding; writing ought to mean knowing something; believing ought to mean comprehending; when you desire a thing, you will have to take it; when you demand it, you will not get it; and when you are experienced, you ought to be useful to others.

42

The stream is friendly to the miller whom it serves; it likes to pour over the mill wheels; what is the good of it stealing through the valley in apathy?

43

Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth. The growing child is wise in this sense.

44

Theory is in itself of no use, except in so far as it makes us believe in the connection of phenomena.

45

When a man asks too much and delights in complication, he is exposed to perplexity.

46

Thinking by means of analogies is not to be condemned. Analogy has this advantage, that it comes to no conclusion, and does not, in truth, aim at finality at all. Induction, on the contrary, is fatal, for it sets up an object and keeps it in view, and, working on towards it, drags false and true with it in its train.

47

The absent works upon us by tradition. The usual form of it may be called historical; a higher form, akin to the imaginative faculty, is the mythical. If some third form of it is to be sought behind this last, and it has any meaning, it is transformed into the mystical. It also easily becomes sentimental, so that we appropriate to our use only what suits us.

48

In contemplation as in action, we must distinguish between what may be attained and what is unattainable. Without this, little can be achieved, either in life or in knowledge.

49

‘Le sense commun est le génie de l’humanité.’

Common-sense, which is here put forward as the genius of humanity, must be examined first of all in the way it shows itself. If we inquire the purpose to which humanity puts it, we find as follows: Humanity is conditioned by needs. If they are not satisfied, men become impatient; and if they are, it seems not to affect them. The normal man moves between these two states, and he applies his understanding — his so-called common-sense — to the satisfaction of his needs. When his needs are satisfied, his task is to fill up the waste spaces of indifference. Here, too, he is successful, if his needs are confined to what is nearest and most necessary. But if they rise and pass beyond the sphere of ordinary wants, common-sense is no longer sufficient; it is a genius no more, and humanity enters on the region of error.

50

There is no piece of foolishness but it can be corrected by intelligence or accident; no piece of wisdom but it can miscarry by lack of intelligence or by accident.

51

Every great idea is a tyrant when it first appears; hence the advantages which it produces change all too quickly into disadvantages. It is possible, then, to defend and praise any institution that exists, if its beginnings are brought to remembrance, and it is shown that everything which was true of it at the beginning is true of it still.

52

Lessing, who chafed under the sense of various limitations, makes one of his characters say: No one must do anything. A clever pious man said: If a man wills something, he must do it. A third, who was, it is true, an educated man, added: Will follows upon insight. The whole circle of knowledge, will, and necessity was thus believed to have been completed. But, as a rule, a man’s knowledge, of whatever kind it may be, determines what he shall do and what he shall leave undone, and so it is that there is no more terrible sight than ignorance in action.

53

There are two powers that make for peace: what is right, and what is fitting.

54

Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual, law to society.

55

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

II

56

If a man is to achieve all that is asked of him, he must take himself for more than he is, and as long as he does not carry it to an absurd length, we willingly put up with it.

57

Work makes companionship.

58

People whip curds to see if they cannot make cream of them.

59

It is much easier to put yourself in the position of a mind taken up with the most absolute error, than of one which mirrors to itself half-truths.

60

Wisdom lies only in truth.

61

When I err, every one can see it; but not when I lie.

62

Is not the world full enough of riddles already, without our making riddles too out of the simplest phenomena?

63

‘The finest hair throws a shadow.’ Erasmus.

64

What I have tried to do in my life through false tendencies, I have at last learned to understand.

65

Generosity wins favour for every one, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

66

Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time — the dust that is soon to be laid forever.

67

Men do not come to know one another easily, even with the best will and the best purpose. And then ill-will comes in and distorts everything.

68

We should know one another better if one man were not so anxious to put himself on an equality with another.

69

Eminent men are therefore in a worse plight than others; for, as we cannot compare ourselves with them, we are on the watch for them.

70

In the world the point is, not to know men, but at any given moment to be cleverer than the man who stands before you. You can prove this at every fair and from every charlatan.

71

Not everywhere where there is water, are there frogs; but where you have frogs, there you will find water.

72

Error is quite right as long as we are young, but we must not carry it on with us into our old age.

Whims and eccentricities that grow stale are all useless, rank nonsense.

a73

In the formation of species Nature gets, as it were, into a cul-de-sac; she cannot make her way through, and is disinclined to turn back. Hence the stubbornness of national character.

74

Every one has something in his nature which, if he were to express it openly, would of necessity give offence.

75

If a man thinks about his physical or moral condition, he generally finds that he is ill.

76

Nature asks that a man should sometimes be stupefied without going to sleep; hence the pleasure in the smoking of tobacco, the drinking of brandy, the use of opiates.

77

The man who is up and doing should see to it that what he does is right. Whether or not right is done, is a matter which should not trouble him.

78

Many a man knocks about on the wall with his hammer, and believes that he hits the right nail on the head every time.

79

Painting and tattooing of the body is a return to animalism.

80

History-writing is a way of getting rid of the past.

81

What a man does not understand, he does not possess.

82

Not every one who has a pregnant thought delivered to him becomes productive; it probably makes him think of something with which he is quite familiar.

83

Favour, as a symbol of sovereignty, is exercised by weak men.

84

Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.

85

Memory may vanish so long as at the moment judgment does not fail you.

86

No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time.

87

Instead of contradicting my words people ought to act in my spirit.

88

Those who oppose intellectual truths do but stir up the fire, and the cinders fly about and burn what they had else not touched.

89

Man would not be the finest creature in the world if he were not too fine for it.

90

What a long time people were vainly disputing about the Antipodes!

91

Certain minds must be allowed their peculiarities.

92

Snow is false purity.

93

Whoso shrinks from ideas ends by having nothing but sensations.

94

Those from whom we are always learning are rightly called our masters; but not every one who teaches us deserves this title.

95

It is with you as with the sea: the most varied names are given to what is in the end only salt water.

96

It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so; but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the public has no nose at all.

97

There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all pleasure.

98

If we do any real good, it is mostly clam, vi, et precario.

99

Dirt glitters as long as the sun shines.

100

It is difficult to be just to the passing moment. We are bored by it if it is neither good nor bad; but the good moment lays a task upon us, and the bad moment a burden.

101

He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning.

102

So obstinately contradictory is man that you cannot compel him to his advantage, yet he yields before everything that forces him to his hurt.

103

Forethought is simple, afterthought manifold.

104

A state of things in which every day brings some new trouble is not the right one.

105

When people suffer by failing to look before them, nothing is commoner than trying to look out for some possible remedy.

106

The Hindoos of the Desert make a solemn vow to eat no fish.

107

To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.

108

It is as certain as it is strange that truth and error come from one and the same source. Thus it is that we are often not at liberty to do violence to error, because at the same time we do violence to truth.

109

Truth belongs to the man, error to his age. This is why it has been said that, while the misfortune of the age caused his error, the force of his soul made him emerge from the error with glory.

110

Every one has his peculiarities and cannot get rid of them; and yet many a one is destroyed by his peculiarities, and those too of the most innocent kind.

111

If a man does think too much of himself, he is more than he believes himself to be.

112

In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature.

113

When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

114

I pity those who make much ado about the transitory nature of all things and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to value both.

115

A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more.

116

It used to happen, and still happens, to me to take no pleasure in a work of art at the first sight of it, because it is too much for me; but if I suspect any merit in it, I try to get at it; and then I never fail to make the most gratifying discoveries, — to find new qualities in the work itself and new faculties in myself.

117

Faith is private capital, kept in one’s own house. There are public savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.

118

Real obscurantism is not to hinder the spread of what is true, clear, and useful, but to bring into vogue what is false.

119

During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest must join in submitting itself.

120

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

121

‘The wise have much in common with one another.’ Æschylus.

122

The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not exactly hit upon the right way of saying it.

123

Because a man speaks, he thinks he is able to speak about language.

124

One need only grow old to become gentler in one’s judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself.

125

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.

126

Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before them in a graceful attitude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob?

127

Some one asked Timon about the education of his children. ‘Let them,’ he said, ‘be instructed in that which they will never understand.’

128

There are people whom I wish well, and would that I could wish better.

129

By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still loved.

130

Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns so soon to hatred.

131

There is something magical in rhythm; it even makes us believe that we possess the sublime.

132

Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end by becoming pedantry.

133

No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the master, — that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art is helped.

134

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that they forfeit their originality in recognising a truth which has already been recognised by others.

135

Scholars are generally malignant when they are refuting others; and if they think a man is making a mistake, they straightway look upon him as their mortal enemy.

136

Beauty can never really understand itself.

III

137

It is much easier to recognise error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one.

138

We all live on the past, and through the past are destroyed.

139

We are no sooner about to learn some great lesson than we take refuge in our own innate poverty of soul, and yet for all that the lesson has not been quite in vain.

140

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill-will and envy.

141

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

142

Confidences are strange things. If you listen only to one man, it is possible that he is deceived or mistaken; if you listen to many, they are in a like case; and, generally, you cannot get at the truth at all.

143

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how much determination he is capable.

144

An honourable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of the most cunning jobber.

145

If a man feels no love, he must learn how to flatter; otherwise he will not succeed.

146

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him.

147

The masses cannot dispense with men of ability, and such men are always a burden to them.

148

If a man spreads my failings abroad, he is my master, even though he were my servant.

149

Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet.

150

If you lay duties upon people and give them no rights, you must pay them well.

151

I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial.

152

Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.

153

We are all so limited that we always think we are right; and so we may conceive of an extraordinary mind which not only errs but has a positive delight in error.

154

It is very rare to find pure and steady activity in the accomplishment of what is good and right. We usually see pedantry trying to keep back, and audacity trying to go on too fast.

155

Word and picture are correlatives which are continually in quest of each other, as is sufficiently evident in the case of metaphors and similes. So from all time what was said or sung inwardly to the ear had to be presented equally to the eye. And so in childish days we see word and picture in continual balance; in the book of the law and in the way of salvation, in the Bible and in the spelling-book. When something was spoken which could not be pictured, and something pictured which could not be spoken, all went well; but mistakes were often made, and a word was used instead of a picture; and thence arose those monsters of symbolical mysticism, which are doubly an evil.

156

For the man of the world a collection of anecdotes and maxims is of the greatest value, if he knows how to intersperse the one in his conversation at fitting moments, and remember the other when a case arises for their application.

157

When you lose interest in anything, you also lose the memory for it.

158

The world is a bell with a crack in it; it rattles, but does not ring.

159

The importunity of young dilettanti must be borne with good-will; for as they grow old they become the truest worshippers of Art and the Master.

160

People have to become really bad before they care for nothing but mischief, and delight in it.

161

Clever people are the best encyclopædia.

162

There are people who make no mistakes because they never wish to do anything worth doing.

163

If I know my relation to myself and the outer world, I call it truth. Every man can have his own peculiar truth; and yet it is always the same.

164

No one is the master of any truly productive energy; and all men must let it work on by itself.

165

A man never understands how anthropomorphic he is.

166

A difference which offers nothing to the understanding is no difference at all.

167

A man cannot live for every one; least of all for those with whom he would not care to live.

168

If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.

169

Things that are mysterious are not yet miracles.

170

‘Converts are not in my good books.’

171

A frivolous impulsive encouragement of problematical talents was a mistake of my early years; and I have never been able to abandon it altogether.

172

I should like to be honest with you, without our falling out; but it will not do. You act wrongly, and fall between two stools; you win no adherents and lose your friends. What is to be the end of it?

173

It is all one whether you are of high or of humble origin. You will always have to pay for your humanity.

174

When I hear people speak of liberal ideas, it is always a wonder to me that men are so readily put off with empty verbiage. An idea cannot be liberal; but it may be potent, vigorous, exclusive, in order to fulfil its mission of being productive. Still less can a concept be liberal; for a concept has quite another mission. Where, however, we must look for liberality, is in the sentiments; and the sentiments are the inner man as he lives and moves. A man’s sentiments, however, are rarely liberal, because they proceed directly from him personally, and from his immediate relations and requirements. Further we will not write, and let us apply this test to what we hear every day.

175

If a clever man commits a folly, it is not a small one.

176

There is a poetry without figures of speech, which is a single figure of speech.

177

I went on troubling myself about general ideas until I learnt to understand the particular achievements of the best men.

178

It is only when a man knows little, that he knows anything at all. With knowledge grows doubt.

179

The errors of a man are what make him really lovable.

180

There are men who love their like and seek it; others love their opposite and follow after it.

181

If a man has always let himself think the world as bad as the adversary represents it to be, he must have become a miserable person.

182

Ill-favour and hatred limit the spectator to the surface, even when keen perception is added unto them; but when keen perception unites with good-will and love, it gets at the heart of man and the world; nay, it may hope to reach the highest goal of all.

183

Raw matter is seen by every one; the contents are found only by him who has his eyes about him; and the form is a secret to the majority.

184

We may learn to know the world as we please: it will always retain a bright and a dark side.

185

Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word.

186

As in Rome there is, apart from the Romans, a population of statues, so apart from this real world there is a world of illusion, almost more potent, in which most men live.

187

Mankind is like the Red Sea: the staff has scarcely parted the waves asunder, before they flow together again.

188

Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return.

189

Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.

190

We readily bow to antiquity, but not to posterity. It is only a father that does not grudge talent to his son.

191

There is no virtue in subordinating oneself; but there is virtue in descending, and in recognising anything as above us, which is beneath us.

192

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

193

All our pursuits and actions are a wearying process. Well is it for him who wearies not.

194

Hope is the second soul of the unhappy.

195

Love is a true renovator.

196

Mankind is not without a wish to serve; hence the chivalry of the French is a servitude.

197

In the theatre the pleasure of what we see and hear restrains our reflections.

198

There is no limit to the increase of experience, but theories cannot become clearer and more complete in just the same sense. The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of the human faculties. Hence there is no way of looking at the world, but it recurs, and the curious thing happens, that with increased experience a limited theory may again come into favour.

It is always the same world which stands open to observation, which is continually being contemplated or guessed at; and it is always the same men who live in the true or in the false; more at their ease in the latter than in the former.

199

Truth is at variance with our natures, but not so error; and for a very simple reason. Truth requires us to recognise ourselves as limited, but error flatters us with the belief that in one way or another we are subject to no bounds at all.

200

That some men think they can still do what they have been able to do, is natural enough; that others think they can do what they have never been able to do, is singular, but not rare.

201

At all times it has not been the age, but individuals alone, who have worked for knowledge. It was the age which put Socrates to death by poison, the age which burnt Huss. The ages have always remained alike.

202

That is true Symbolism, where the more particular represents the more general, not as a dream or shade, but as a vivid, instantaneous revelation of the Inscrutable.

203

Everything of an abstract or symbolic nature, as soon as it is challenged by realities, ends by consuming them and itself. So credit consumes both money and itself.

204

Mastery often passes for egoism.

205

With Protestants, as soon as good works cease and their merit is denied, sentimentality takes their place.

206

If a man knows where to get good advice, it is as though he could supply it himself.

207

The use of mottoes is to indicate something we have not attained, but strive to attain. It is right to keep them always before our eyes.

208

‘If a man cannot lift a stone himself, let him leave it, even though he has some one to help him.’

209

Despotism promotes general self-government, because from top to bottom it makes the individual responsible, and so produces the highest degree of activity.

210

A man must pay dear for his errors if he wishes to get rid of them, and even then he is lucky.

211

Enthusiasm is of the greatest value, so long as we are not carried away by it.

212

School itself is the only true preparation for it.

213

Error is related to truth as sleep to waking. I have observed that on awakening from error a man turns again to truth as with new vigour.

214

Every one suffers who does not work for himself. A man works for others to have them share in his joy.

215

Men’s prejudices rest upon their character for the time being and cannot be overcome, as being part and parcel of themselves. Neither evidence nor common-sense nor reason has the slightest influence upon them.

216

Characters often make a law of their failings. Men who know the world have said that when prudence is only fear in disguise, its scruples cannot be conquered. The weak often have revolutionary sentiments; they think they would be well off if they were not ruled, and fail to perceive that they can rule neither themselves nor others.

217

Common-sense is born pure in the healthy man, is self-developed, and is revealed by a resolute perception and recognition of what is necessary and useful. Practical men and women avail themselves of it with confidence. Where it is absent, both sexes find anything necessary when they desire it, and useful when it gives them pleasure.

218

All men, as they attain freedom, give play to their errors. The strong do too much, and the weak too little.

219

The conflict of the old, the existing, the continuing, with development, improvement, and reform, is always the same. Order of every kind turns at last to pedantry, and to get rid of the one, people destroy the other; and so it goes on for a while, until people perceive that order must be established anew. Classicism and Romanticism; close corporations and freedom of trade; the maintenance of large estates and the division of the land, — it is always the same conflict which ends by producing a new one. The best policy of those in power would be so to moderate this conflict as to let it right itself without the destruction of either element. But this has not been granted to men, and it seems not to be the will of God.

220

A great work limits us for the moment, because we feel it above our powers; and only in so far as we afterwards incorporate it with our culture, and make it part of our mind and heart, does it become a dear and worthy object.

221

It is no wonder that we all more or less delight in the mediocre, because it leaves us in peace: it gives us the comfortable feeling of intercourse with what is like ourselves.

222

There is no use in reproving vulgarity, for it never changes.

223

We cannot escape a contradiction in ourselves; we must try to resolve it. If the contradiction comes from others, it does not affect us: it is their affair.

224

There are many things in the world that are at once good and excellent, but they do not come into contact.

225

Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.

226

When men have to do with women, they get spun off like a distaff.

227

It may well be that a man is at times horribly threshed by misfortunes, public and private: but the reckless flail of Fate, when it beats the rich sheaves, crushes only the straw; and the corn feels nothing of it and dances merrily on the floor, careless whether its way is to the mill or the furrow.

228

However probable it is that a desire may be fulfilled, there is always a doubt; and so when the desire is realised, it is always surprising.

229

Absurdities presented with good taste rouse disgust and admiration.

230

Of the best society it used to be said: their speech instructs the mind, and their silence the feelings.

231

Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.

232

Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

233

We treat the aged with consideration, as we treat children.

234

An old man loses one of the greatest of human privileges: he is no more judged by his peers.

235

In the matter of knowledge, it has happened to me as to one who rises early, and in the dark impatiently awaits the dawn, and then the sun; but is blinded when it appears.

236

Great primeval powers, evolved in time or in eternity, work on unceasingly: whether to weal or to woe, is a matter of chance.

IV

237

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

238

Of the Absolute in the theoretical sense, I do not venture to speak; but this I maintain: that if a man recognises it in its manifestation, and always keeps his gaze fixed upon it, he will experience very great reward.

239

To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.

240

Napoleon lived wholly in a great idea, but he was unable to take conscious hold of it. After utterly disavowing all ideals and denying them any reality, he zealously strove to realise them. His clear, incorruptible intellect could not, however, tolerate such a perpetual conflict within; and there is much value in the thoughts which he was compelled, as it were, to utter, and which are expressed very peculiarly and with much charm.

241

He considered the idea as a thing of the mind, that had, it is true, no reality, but still, on passing away, left a residuum — a caput mortuum — to which some reality could not be altogether refused. We may think this a very perverse and material notion; but when he entertained his friends with the neverending consequences of his life and actions, in full belief and confidence in them, he expressed himself quite differently. Then, indeed, he was ready to admit that life produces life; that a fruitful act has effects to all time. He took pleasure in confessing that he had given a great impulse, a new direction, to the course of the world’s affairs.

242

It always remains a very remarkable fact that men whose whole personality is almost all idea, are so extremely shy of all phantasy. In this case was Hamann, who could not bear the mention of “things of another world.” He took occasion to express himself on this point in a certain paragraph, which he wrote in fourteen different ways; and still, apparently, he was never quite satisfied with it.

Two of these attempts have been preserved to us; a third we have ourselves attempted, which we are induced to print here by the preceding observations.

243

Man is placed as a real being in the midst of a real world, and endowed with such organs that he can perceive and produce the real and also the possible.

All healthy men have the conviction of their own existence and of an existence around them. However, even the brain contains a hollow spot, that is to say, a place in which no object is mirrored; just as in the eye itself there is a little spot that does not see. If a man pays particular attention to this spot and is absorbed in it, he falls into a state of mental sickness, has presentiments of “things of another world,” which are, in reality, no things at all; possessing neither form nor limit, but alarming him like dark, empty tracts of night, and pursuing him as something more than phantoms, if he does not tear himself free from them.

244

To the several perversities of the day a man should always oppose only the great masses of universal history.

245

No one can live much with children without finding that they always react to any outward influence upon them.

246

With any specially childish nature the reaction is even passionate, while its action is energetic.

247

That is why children’s lives are a series of refined judgments, not to say prejudices; and to efface a rapid but partial perception in order to make way for a more general one, time is necessary. To bear this in mind is one of the teacher’s greatest duties.

248

Friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life may vary.

V

249

In the world people take a man at his own estimate; but he must estimate himself at something. Disagreeableness is more easily tolerated than insignificance.

250

You can force anything on society so long as it has no sequel.

251

We do not learn to know men if they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are.

252

That we have many criticisms to make on those who visit us, and that, as soon as they depart, we pass no very amiable judgment upon them, seems to me almost natural; for we have, so to speak, a right to measure them by our own standard. Even intelligent and fair-minded men hardly refrain from sharp censure on such occasions.

253

But if, on the contrary, we have been in their homes, and have seen them in their surroundings and habits and the circumstances which are necessary and inevitable for them; if we have seen the kind of influence they exert on those around them, or how they behave, it is only ignorance and ill-will that can find food for ridicule in what must appear to us in more than one sense worthy of respect.

254

What we call conduct and good manners obtains for us that which otherwise is to be obtained only by force, or not even by force.

255

Women’s society is the element of good manners.

256

How can the character, the peculiar nature of a man, be compatible with good manners?

257

It is through his good manners that a man’s peculiar nature should be made all the more conspicuous. Every one likes distinction, but it should not be disagreeable.

258

The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need.

259

No one is more troublesome than an awkward civilian. As his business is not with anything brutal or coarse, he might be expected to show delicacy of feeling.

260

When we live with people who have a delicate sense of what is fitting, we get quite anxious about them if anything happens to disturb this sense.

261

No one would come into a room with spectacles on his nose, if he knew that women at once lose any inclination to look at or talk to him.

262

A familiar in the place of a respectful demeanour is always ridiculous.

263

There is no outward sign of politeness that will be found to lack some deep moral foundation. The right kind of education would be that which conveyed the sign and the foundation at the same time.

264

A man’s manners are the mirror in which he shows his portrait.

265

There is a politeness of the heart, and it is allied to love. It produces the most agreeable politeness of outward demeanour.

266

Voluntary dependence is the best state, and how should that be possible without love?

267

We are never further from our wishes than when we fancy we possess the object of them.

268

No one is more of a slave than he who thinks himself free without being so.

269

A man has only to declare himself free to feel at the same moment that he is limited. Should he venture to declare himself limited, he feels himself free.

270

Against the great superiority of another there is no remedy but love.

271

It is a terrible thing for an eminent man to be gloried in by fools.

272

It is said that no man is a hero to his valet. That is only because a hero can be recognised only by a hero. The valet will probably know how to appreciate his like, — his fellow-valet.

273

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

274

The greatest men are linked to their age by some weak point.

275

We generally take men to be more dangerous than they are.

276

Fools and wise folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.

277

To see a difficult thing lightly handled gives us the impression of the impossible.

278

Difficulties increase the nearer we come to our aim.

279

Sowing is not so painful as reaping.

280

We are fond of looking to the future, because our secret wishes make us apt to turn in our favour the uncertainties which move about in it hither and thither.

281

It is not easy to be in any great assembly without thinking that the chance which brings so many people together will also make us meet our friends.

282

A man may live never so retired a life but he becomes a debtor or a creditor before he is aware of it.

283

If anyone meets us who owes us a debt of gratitude, it immediately crosses our mind. How often can we meet some one to whom we owe gratitude, without thinking of it!

284

To communicate oneself is Nature; to receive a communication as it is given is Culture.

285

No one would speak much in society if he were aware how often we misunderstand others.

286

It is only because we have not understood a thing that we cannot repeat it without alteration.

287

To make a long speech in the presence of others without flattering your audience, is to rouse dislike.

288

Every word that we utter rouses its contrary.

289

Contradiction and flattery make, both of them, bad conversation.

290

The pleasantest society is that in which there exists a genial deference amongst the members one towards another.

291

By nothing do men show their character more than by the things they laugh at.

292

The ridiculous springs from a moral contrast innocently presented to the senses.

293

The sensual man often laughs when there is nothing to laugh at. Whatever it is that moves him, he shows that he is pleased with himself.

294

An intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, a wise man hardly anything.

295

A man well on in years was reproved for still troubling himself about young women. ‘It is the only means,’ he replied, ‘of regaining one’s youth; and that is something every one wishes to do.’

296

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

297

Certain faults are necessary to the individual if he is to exist. We should not like old friends to give up certain peculiarities.

298

It is said of a man that he will soon die, when he acts in any way unlike himself.

299

What kind of faults in ourselves should we retain, nay, even cultivate? Those which rather flatter other people than offend them.

300

The passions are good or bad qualities, only intensified.

301

Our passions are, in truth, like the phoenix. When the old one burns away, the new one rises out of its ashes at once.

302

Great passions are hopeless diseases. That which could cure them is the first thing to make them really dangerous.

303

Passion is enhanced and tempered by avowal. In nothing, perhaps, is the middle course more desirable than in confidence and reticence towards those we love.

304

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except God can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.

305

It is failings that show human nature, and merits that distinguish the individual; faults and misfortunes we all have in common; virtues belong to each one separately.

VI

306

The secret places in the way of life may not and cannot be revealed: there are rocks of offence on which every traveller must stumble. But the poet points to where they are.

307

It would not be worth while to see seventy years if all the wisdom of this world were foolishness with God.

308

The true is Godlike: we do not see it itself; we must guess at it through its manifestations.

309

The real scholar learns how to evolve the unknown from the known, and draws near the master.

310

In the smithy the iron is softened by blowing up the fire, and taking the dross from the bar. As soon as it is purified, it is beaten and pressed, and becomes firm again by the addition of fresh water. The same thing happens to a man at the hands of his teacher.

311

What belongs to a man, he cannot get rid of, even though he throws it away.

312

Of true religions there are only two: one of them recognises and worships the Holy that without form or shape dwells in and around us; and the other recognises and worships it in its fairest form. Everything that lies between these two is idolatry.

313

It is undeniable that in the Reformation the human mind tried to free itself; and the renaissance of Greek and Roman antiquity brought about the wish and longing for a freer, more seemly, and elegant life. The movement was favoured in no small degree by the fact that men’s hearts aimed at returning to a certain simple state of nature, while the imagination sought to concentrate itself.

314

The Saints were all at once driven from heaven; and senses, thought, and heart were turned from a divine mother with a tender child, to the grown man doing good and suffering evil, who was later transfigured into a being half-divine in its nature, and then recognised and honoured as God himself. He stood against a background where the Creator had opened out the universe; a spiritual influence went out from him; his sufferings were adopted as an example, and his transfiguration was the pledge of everlastingness.

315

As a coal is revived by incense, so prayer revives the hopes of the heart.

316

From a strict point of view we must have a reformation of ourselves every day, and protest against others, even though it be in no religious sense.

317

It should be our earnest endeavour to use words coinciding as closely as possible with what we feel, see, think, experience, imagine, and reason. It is an endeavour which we cannot evade, and which is daily to be renewed.

Let every man examine himself, and he will find this a much harder task than he might suppose; for, unhappily, a man usually takes words as mere make-shifts; his knowledge and his thought are in most cases better than his method of expression.

False, irrelevant, and futile ideas may arise in ourselves and others, or find their way into us from without. Let us persist in the effort to remove them as far as we can, by plain and honest purpose.

318

As we grow older, the ordeals grow greater.

319

Where I cannot be moral, my power is gone.

320

A man is not deceived by others, he deceives himself.

321

Laws are all made by old people and by men. Youths and women want the exceptions, old people the rules.

322

It is not the intelligent man who rules, but intelligence; not the wise man, but wisdom.

323

To praise a man is to put oneself on his level.

324

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.

325

Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian antiquities are never more than curiosities; it is well to make acquaintance with them; but in point of moral and æsthetic culture they can help us little.

326

The German runs no greater danger than to advance with and by the example of his neighbours. There is perhaps no nation that is fitter for the process of self-development; so that it has proved of the greatest advantage to Germany to have obtained the notice of the world so late.

327

Even men of insight do not see that they try to explain things which lie at the foundation of our experience, and in which we must simply acquiesce.

Yet still the attempt may have its advantage, as otherwise we should break off our researches too soon.

328

From this time forward, if a man does not apply himself to some art or handiwork, he will be in a bad way. In the rapid changes of the world, knowledge is no longer a furtherance; by the time a man has taken note of everything, he has lost himself.

329

Besides, in these days the world forces universal culture upon us, and so we need not trouble ourselves further about it; we must appropriate some particular culture.

330

The greatest difficulties lie where we do not look for them.

331

Our interest in public events is mostly the merest philistinism.

332

Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.

333

Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt! This is so strange an utterance, that it could only have come from one who fancied himself autochthonous. The man who looks upon it as an honour to be descended from wise ancestors, will allow them at least as much common-sense as he allows himself.

334

Strictly speaking, everything depends upon a man’s intentions; where these exist, thoughts appear; and as the intentions are, so are the thoughts.

335

If a man lives long in a high position, he does not, it is true, experience all that a man can experience; but he experiences things like them, and perhaps some things that have no parallel elsewhere.

VII

336

The first and last thing that is required of genius is love of truth.

337

To be and remain true to oneself and others, is to possess the noblest attribute of the greatest talents.

338

Great talents are the best means of conciliation.

339

The action of genius is in a way ubiquitous: towards general truths before experience, and towards particular truths after it.

340

An active scepticism is one which constantly aims at overcoming itself, and arriving by means of regulated experience at a kind of conditioned certainty.

341

The general nature of the sceptical mind is its tendency to inquire whether any particular predicate really attaches to any particular object; and the purpose of the inquiry is safely to apply in practice what has thus been discovered and proved.

342

The mind endowed with active powers and keeping with a practical object to the task that lies nearest, is the worthiest there is on earth.

343

Perfection is the measure of heaven, and the wish to be perfect the measure of man.

344

Not only what is born with him, but also what he acquires, makes the man.

345

A man is well equipped for all the real necessities of life if he trusts his senses, and so cultivates them that they remain worthy of being trusted.

346

The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives.

347

The lower animal is taught by its organs; man teaches his organs, and dominates them.

348

All direct invitation to live up to ideals is of doubtful value, particularly if addressed to women. Whatever the reason of it may be, a man of any importance collects round him a seraglio of a more or less religious, moral, and æsthetic character.

349

When a great idea enters the world as a Gospel, it becomes an offence to the multitude, which stagnates in pedantry; and to those who have much learning but little depth, it is folly.

350

Every idea appears at first as a strange visitor, and when it begins to be realised, it is hardly distinguishable from phantasy and phantastery.

351

This it is that has been called, in a good and in a bad sense, ideology; and this is why the ideologist is so repugnant to the hard-working, practical man of every day.

352

You may recognise the utility of an idea, and yet not quite understand how to make a perfect use of it.

353

Credo Deum! That is a fine, a worthy thing to say; but to recognise God where and as he reveals himself, is the only true bliss on earth.

354

Kepler said: ‘My wish is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside me.’ The good man was not aware that in that very moment the divine in him stood in the closest connection with the divine in the Universe.

355

What is predestination? It is this: God is mightier and wiser than we are, and so he does with us as he pleases.

356

Toleration should, strictly speaking, be only a passing mood; it ought to lead to acknowledgment and appreciation. To tolerate a person is to affront him.

357

Faith, Love, and Hope once felt, in a quiet sociable hour, a plastic impulse in their nature; they worked together and created a lovely image, a Pandora in the higher sense, Patience.

358

‘I stumbled over the roots of the tree which I planted.’ It must have been an old forester who said that.

359

A leaf blown by the wind often looks like a bird.

360

Does the sparrow know how the stork feels?

361

Lamps make oil-spots, and candles want snuffing; it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain.

362

If you miss the first button-hole, you will not succeed in buttoning up your coat.

363

A burnt child dreads the fire; an old man who has often been singed is afraid of warming himself.

364

It is not worth while to do anything for the world that we have with us, as the existing order may in a moment pass away. It is for the past and the future that we must work: for the past, to acknowledge its merits; for the future, to try to increase its value.

365

Let every man ask himself with which of his faculties he can and will somehow influence his age.

366

Let no one think that people have waited for him as for the Saviour.

367

Character in matters great and small consists in a man steadily pursuing the things of which he feels himself capable.

368

The man who wants to be active and has to be so, need only think of what is fitting at the moment, and he will make his way without difficulty. This is where women have the advantage, if they understand it.

369

The moment is a kind of public; a man must deceive it into believing that he is doing something; then it leaves us alone to go our way in secret; whereat its grandchildren cannot fail to be astonished.

370

There are men who put their knowledge in the place of insight.

371

In some states, as a consequence of the violent movements experienced in almost all directions, there has come about a certain overpressure in the system of education, the harm of which will be more generally felt hereafter; though even now it is perfectly well recognised by capable and honest authorities. Capable men live in a sort of despair over the fact that they are bound by the rules of their office to teach and communicate things which they look upon as useless and hurtful.

372

There is no sadder sight than the direct striving after the unconditioned in this thoroughly conditioned world.

373

Before the Revolution it was all effort; afterwards it all changed to demand.

374

Can a nation become ripe? That is a strange question. I would answer, Yes! if all the men could be born thirty years of age. But as youth will always be too forward and old age too backward, the really mature man is always hemmed in between them, and has to resort to strange devices to make his way through.

375

It does not look well for monarchs to speak through the press, for power should act and not talk. The projects of the liberal party always bear being read: the man who is overpowered may at least express his views in speech, because he cannot act. When Mazarin was shown some satirical songs on a new tax, ‘Let them sing,’ said he, ‘as long as they pay.’

376

Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one’s personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one’s individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whom it befits.

377

The most important matters of feeling as of reason, of experience as of reflection, should be treated of only by word of mouth. The spoken word at once dies if it is not kept alive by some other word following on it and suited to the hearer. Observe what happens in social converse. If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation. With the written word the case is still worse. No one cares to read anything to which he is not already to some extent accustomed: he demands the known and the familiar under an altered form. Still the written word has this advantage, that it lasts and can await the time when it is allowed to take effect.

378

Both what is reasonable and what is unreasonable have to undergo the like contradiction.

379

Dialectic is the culture of the spirit of contradiction, which is given to man that he may learn to perceive the differences between things.

380

With those who are really of like disposition with himself a man cannot long be at variance; he will always come to an agreement again. With those who are really of adverse disposition, he may in vain try to preserve harmony; he will always come to a separation again.

381

Opponents fancy they refute us when they repeat their own opinion and pay no attention to ours.

382

People who contradict and dispute should now and then remember that not every mode of speech is intelligible to every one.

383

Every man hears only what he understands.

384

I am quite prepared to find that many a reader will disagree with me; but when he has a thing before him in black and white, he must let it stand. Another reader may perhaps take up the very same copy and agree with me.

385

The truest liberality is appreciation.

386

For the strenuous man the difficulty is to recognise the merits of elder contemporaries and not let himself be hindered by their defects.

387

Some men think about the defects of their friends, and there is nothing to be gained by it. I have always paid attention to the merits of my enemies, and found it an advantage.

388

There are many men who fancy they understand whatever they experience.

389

The public must be treated like women: they must be told absolutely nothing but what they like to hear.

390

Every age of man has a certain philosophy answering to it. The child comes out as a realist: he finds himself as convinced that pears and apples exist as that he himself exists. The youth in a storm of inner passion is forced to turn his gaze within, and feel in advance what he is going to be: he is changed into an idealist. But the man has every reason to become a sceptic: he does well to doubt whether the means he has chosen to his end are the right ones. Before and during action he has every reason for keeping his understanding mobile, that he may not afterwards have to grieve over a false choice. Yet when he grows old he will always confess himself a mystic: he sees that so much seems to depend on chance; that folly succeeds and wisdom fails; that good and evil fortune are brought unexpectedly to the same level; so it is and so it has been, and old age acquiesces in that which is and was and will be.

391

When a man grows old he must consciously remain at a certain stage.

392

It does not become an old man to run after the fashion, either in thought or in dress. But he must know where he is, and what the others are aiming at.

What is called fashion is the tradition of the moment. All tradition carries with it a certain necessity for people to put themselves on a level with it.

393

We have long been busy with the critique of reason. I should like to see a critique of common-sense. It would be a real benefit to mankind if we could convincingly prove to the ordinary intelligence how far it can go; and that is just as much as it fully requires for life on this earth.

394

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect: they both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.

395

All practical men try to bring the world under their hands; all thinkers, under their heads. How far each succeeds, they may both see for themselves.

396

Shall we say that a man thinks only when he cannot think out that of which he is thinking?

397

What is invention or discovery? It is the conclusion of what we were looking for.

398

It is with history as with nature and with everything of any depth, it may be past, present, or future: the further we seriously pursue it, the more difficult are the problems that appear. The man who is not afraid of them, but attacks them bravely, has a feeling of higher culture and greater ease the further he progresses.

399

Every phenomenon is within our reach if we treat it as an inclined plane, which is of easy ascent, though the thick end of the wedge may be steep and inaccessible.

400

If a man would enter upon some course of knowledge, he must either be deceived or deceive himself, unless external necessity irresistibly determines him. Who would become a physician if, at one and the same time, he saw before him all the horrible sights that await him?

401

How many years must a man do nothing before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!

402

Duty: where a man loves what he commands himself to do.

LITERATURE AND ART

403

When Madame Roland was on the scaffold, she asked for pen and paper, to note the peculiar thoughts that hovered about her on the last journey. It is a pity they were refused, for in a tranquil mind thoughts rise up at the close of life hitherto unthinkable; like blessed inward voices, alighting in glory on the summits of the past.

404

Literature is a fragment of fragments: the least of what happened and was spoken, has been written; and of the things that have been written, very few have been preserved.

405

And yet, with all the fragmentary nature of literature, we find thousand fold repetition; which shows how limited is man’s mind and destiny.

406

Excellent work is unfathomable, approach it as you will.

407

It is not language in itself which is correct or forcible or elegant, but the mind that is embodied in it; and so it is not for a man to determine whether he will give his calculations or speeches or poems the desired qualities: the question is whether Nature has given him the intellectual and moral qualities which fit him for the work, — the intellectual power of observation and insight, the moral power of repelling the evil spirits that might hinder him from paying respect to truth.

408

The appeal to posterity springs from the pure, strong feeling of the existence of something imperishable; something that, even though it be not at once recognised, will in the end be gratified by finding the minority turn into a majority.

409

When a new literature succeeds, it obscures the effect of an earlier one, and its own effect predominates; so that it is well, from time to time, to look back. What is original in us is best preserved and quickened if we do not lose sight of those who have gone before us.

410

The most original authors of modern times are so, not because they produce what is new, but only because they are able to say things the like of which seem never to have been said before.

411

Thus the best sign of originality lies in taking up a subject and then developing it so fully as to make every one confess that he would hardly have found so much in it.

412

There are many thoughts that come only from general culture, like buds from green branches. When roses bloom, you see them blooming everywhere.

413

Lucidity is a due distribution of light and shade.’ Hamann.

414

A man who has no acquaintance with foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

415

We must remember that there are many men who, without being productive, are anxious to say something important, and the results are most curious.

416

Deep and earnest thinkers are in a difficult position with regard to the public.

417

Some books seem to have been written, not to teach us anything, but to let us know that the author has known something.

418

An author can show no greater respect for his public than by never bringing it what it expects, but what he himself thinks right and proper in that stage of his own and others’ culture in which for the time he finds himself.

419

The so-called Nature-poets are men of active talent, with a fresh stimulus and reaction from an over-cultured, stagnant, mannered epoch of art. They cannot avoid commonplace.

420

Productions are now possible which, without being bad, have no value. They have no value, because they contain nothing; and they are not bad, because a general form of good-workmanship is present to the author’s mind.

421

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

422

A romance is a subjective epic in which the author begs leave to treat the world after his own ideas. The only question is, whether he has any ideas; the rest will follow of itself.

423

Subjective or so-called sentimental poetry has now been admitted to an equality with objective and descriptive. This was inevitable; because otherwise the whole of modern poetry would have to be discarded. It is now obvious that when men of truly poetical genius appear, they will describe more of the particular feelings of the inner life than of the general facts of the great life of the world. This has already taken place to such a degree that we have a poetry without figures of speech, which can by no means be refused all praise.

424

Superstition is the poetry of life, and so it does not hurt the poet to be superstitious.

425

That glorious hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, is really an appeal to genius. That is why it speaks so powerfully to men of intellect and power.

426

Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible longing for the original.

427

A Spinoza in poetry becomes a Machiavelli in philosophy.

428

Against the three unities there is nothing to be said, if the subject is very simple; but there are times when thrice three unities, skilfully interwoven, produce a very pleasant effect.

429

The sentimentality of the English is humorous and tender; of the French, popular and pathetic; of the Germans, naïve and realistic.

430

Mysticism is the scholastic of the heart, the dialectic of the feelings.

431

If a man sets out to reproach an author with obscurity, he should first of all examine his own mind, to see if he is himself all clearness within. Twilight makes even plain writing illegible.

432

It is with books as with new acquaintances. At first we are highly delighted, if we find a general agreement, — if we are pleasantly moved on any of the chief sides of our existence. With a closer acquaintance differences come to light; and then reasonable conduct mainly consists in not shrinking back at once, as may happen in youth, but in keeping firm hold of the things in which we agree, and being quite clear about the things in which we differ, without on that account desiring any union.

433

In psychological reflection the greatest difficulty is this: that inner and outer must always be viewed in parallel lines, or, rather, interwoven. It is a continual systole and diastole, an inspiration and an expiration of the living soul. If this cannot be put into words, it should be carefully marked and noted.

434

My relations with Schiller rested on the decided tendency of both of us towards a single aim, and our common activity rested on the diversity of the means by which we endeavoured to attain that aim.

435

Once when a slight difference was mentioned between us, of which I was reminded by a passage in a letter of his, I made the following reflections: There is a great difference between a poet seeking the particular for the universal, and seeing the universal in the particular. The one gives rise to Allegory, where the particular serves only as instance or example of the general; but the other is the true nature of Poetry, namely, the expression of the particular without any thought of, or reference to, the general. If a man grasps the particular vividly, he also grasps the general, without being aware of it at the time; or he may make the discovery long afterwards.

436

There may be eclectic philosophers, but not an eclectic philosophy.

437

But every one is an eclectic who, out of the things that surround and take place about him, appropriates what is suited to his nature; and this is what is meant by culture and progress, in matters of theory or practice.

438

Various maxims of the ancients, which we are wont to repeat again and again, had a meaning quite different from that which is apt to attach to them in later times.

439

The saying that no one who is unacquainted with or a stranger to geometry should enter the philosopher’s school, does not mean that a man must become a mathematician to attain the wisdom of the world.

440

Geometry is here taken in its primary elements, such as are contained in Euclid and laid before every beginner; and then it is the most perfect propædeutic and introduction to philosophy.

441

When a boy begins to understand that an invisible point must always come before a visible one, and that the shortest way between two points is a straight line, before he can draw it on his paper with a pencil, he experiences a certain pride and pleasure. And he is not wrong; for he has the source of all thought opened to him; idea and reality, potentia et actu, are become clear; the philosopher has no new discovery to bring him; as a mathematician, he has found the basis of all thought for himself.

442

And if we turn to that significant utterance, Know thyself, we must not explain it in an ascetic sense. It is in nowise the self-knowledge of our modern hypochondrists, humorists, and self-tormentors. It simply means: pay some attention to yourself; take note of yourself; so that you may know how you come to stand towards those like you and towards the world. This involves no psychological torture; every capable man knows and feels what it means. It is a piece of good advice which every one will find of the greatest advantage in practice.

443

Let us remember how great the ancients were; and especially how the Socratic school holds up to us the source and standard of all life and action, and bids us not indulge in empty speculation, but live and do.

444

So long as our scholastic education takes us back to antiquity and furthers the study of the Greek and Latin languages, we may congratulate ourselves that these studies, so necessary for the higher culture, will never disappear.

445

If we set our gaze on antiquity and earnestly study it, in the desire to form ourselves thereon, we get the feeling as if it were only then that we really became men.

446

The pedagogue, in trying to write and speak Latin, has a higher and grander idea of himself than would be permissible in ordinary life.

447

In the presence of antiquity, the mind that is susceptible to poetry and art feels itself placed in the most pleasing ideal state of nature; and even to this day the Homeric hymns have the power of freeing us, at any rate, for moments, from the frightful burden which the tradition of several thousand years has rolled upon us.

448

There is no such thing as patriotic art and patriotic science. Both art and science belong, like all things great and good, to the whole world, and can be furthered only by a free and general interchange of ideas among contemporaries, with continual reference to the heritage of the past as it is known to us.

449

Poetical talent is given to peasant as well as to knight; all that is required is that each shall grasp his position and treat it worthily.

450

An historic sense means a sense so cultured that, in valuing the deserts and merits of its own time, it takes account also of the past.

451

The best that history gives us is the enthusiasm it arouses.

452

The historian’s duty is twofold: first towards himself, then towards his readers. As regards himself, he must carefully examine into the things that could have happened; and, for the reader’s sake, he must determine what actually did happen. His action towards himself is a matter between himself and his colleagues; but the public must not see into the secret that there is little in history which can be said to be positively determined.

453

The historian’s duty is to separate the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain, and the doubtful from that which cannot be accepted.

454

It is seldom that any one of great age becomes historical to himself, and finds his contemporaries become historical to him, so that he neither cares nor is able to argue with any one.

455

On a closer examination of the matter, it will be found that the historian does not easily grasp history as something historical. In whatever age he may live, the historian always writes as though he himself had been present at the time of which he treats, instead of simply narrating the facts and movements of that time. Even the mere chronicler only points more or less to his own limitations, or the peculiarities of his town or monastery or age.

456

We really learn only from those books which we cannot criticise. The author of a book which we could criticise would have to learn from us.

457

That is the reason why the Bible will never lose its power; because, as long as the world lasts, no one can stand up and say: I grasp it as a whole and understand all the parts of it. But we say humbly: as a whole it is worthy of respect, and in all its parts it is applicable.

458

There is and will be much discussion as to the use and harm of circulating the Bible. One thing is clear to me: mischief will result, as heretofore, by using it phantastically as a system of dogma; benefit, as heretofore, by a loving acceptance of its teachings.

459

I am convinced that the Bible will always be more beautiful the more it is understood; the more, that is, we see and observe that every word which we take in a general sense and apply specially to ourselves, had, under certain circumstances of time and place, a peculiar, special, and directly individual reference.

460

The incurable evil of religious controversy is that while one party wants to connect the highest interest of humanity with fables and phrases, the other tries to rest it on things that satisfy no one.

461

If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.

462

The classical is health; and the romantic, disease.

463

Ovid remained classical even in exile: it is not in himself that he sees misfortune, but in his banishment from the metropolis of the world.

464

The romantic is already fallen into its own abysm. It is hard to imagine anything more degraded than the worst of the new productions.

465

Bodies which rot while they are still alive, and are edified by the detailed contemplation of their own decay; dead men who remain in the world for the ruin of others, and feed their death on the living, — to this have come our makers of literature.

When the same thing happened in antiquity, it was only as a strange token of some rare disease; but with the moderns the disease has become endemic and epidemic.

466

Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.

467

What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves!

468

The things that are true, good, excellent, are simple and always alike, whatever their appearance may be. But the error that we blame is extremely manifold and varying; it is in conflict not only with the good and the true, but also with itself; it is self-contradictory. Thus it is that the words of blame in our literature must necessarily outnumber the words of praise.

469

The Greeks, whose poetry and rhetoric was of a simple and positive character, express approval more often than disapproval. With the Latin writers it is the contrary; and the more poetry and the arts of speech decay, the more will blame swell and praise shrink.

470

‘What are tragedies but the versified passions of people who make Heaven knows what out of the external world?’

471

There are certain empirical enthusiasts who are quite right in showing their enthusiasm over new productions that are good; but they are as ecstatic as if there were no other good work in the world at all.

472

In Sakontala the poet appears in his highest function. As the representative of the most natural condition of things, the finest mode of life, the purest moral endeavour, the worthiest majesty, and the most solemn worship, he ventures on common and ridiculous contrasts.

473

Shakespeare’s Henry IV. If everything were lost that has ever been preserved to us of this kind of writing, the arts of poetry and rhetoric could be completely restored out of this one play.

474

Shakespeare’s finest dramas are wanting here and there in facility: they are something more than they should be, and for that very reason indicate the great poet.

475

Shakespeare is dangerous reading for budding talents: he compels them to reproduce him, and they fancy they are producing themselves.

476

Yorick Sterne was the finest spirit that ever worked. To read him is to attain a fine feeling of freedom; his humour is inimitable, and it is not every kind of humour that frees the soul.

477

The peculiar value of so-called popular ballads is that their motives are drawn direct from nature. This, however, is an advantage of which the poet of culture could also avail himself, if he knew how to do it.

478

But in popular ballads there is always this advantage, that in the art of saying things shortly uneducated men are always better skilled than those who are in the strict sense of the word educated.

479

Gemüth = Heart. The translator must proceed until he reaches the untranslatable; and then only will he have an idea of the foreign nation and the foreign tongue.

480

When we say of a landscape that it has a romantic character, it is the secret feeling of the sublime taking the form of the past, or, what is the same thing, of solitude, absence, or seclusion.

481

The Beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of nature, which, without its presence, would never have been revealed.

482

It is said: Artist, study nature! But it is no trifle to develop the noble out of the commonplace, or beauty out of uniformity.

483

When Nature begins to reveal her open secret to a man, he feels an irresistible longing for her worthiest interpreter, Art.

484

For all other Arts we must make some allowance; but to Greek Art alone we are always debtors.

485

There is no surer way of evading the world than by Art; and no surer way of uniting with it than by Art.

486

Even in the moments of highest happiness and deepest misery we need the Artist.

487

False tendencies of the senses are a kind of desire after realism, always better than that false tendency which expresses itself as idealistic longing.

488

The dignity of Art appears perhaps most conspicuously in Music; for in Music there is no material to be deducted. It is wholly form and intrinsic value, and it raises and ennobles all that it expresses.

489

It is only by Art, and especially by Poetry, that the imagination is regulated. Nothing is more frightful than imagination without taste.

490

If we were to despise Art on the ground that it is an imitation of Nature, it might be answered that Nature also imitates much else; further, that Art does not exactly imitate that which can be seen by the eyes, but goes back to that element of reason of which Nature consists and according to which Nature acts.

491

Further, the Arts also produce much out of themselves, and, on the other hand, add much where Nature fails in perfection, in that they possess beauty in themselves. So it was that Pheidias could sculpture a god although he had nothing that could be seen by the eye to imitate, but grasped the appearance which Zeus himself would have if he were to come before our eyes.

492

Art rests upon a kind of religious sense: it is deeply and ineradicably in earnest. Thus it is that Art so willingly goes hand in hand with Religion.

493

A noble philosopher spoke of architecture as frozen music; and it was inevitable that many people should shake their heads over his remark. We believe that no better repetition of this fine thought can be given than by calling architecture a speechless music.

494

Art is essentially noble; therefore the artist has nothing to fear from a low or common subject. Nay, by taking it up, he ennobles it; and so it is that we see the greatest artists boldly exercising their sovereign rights.

495

In every artist there is a germ of daring, without which no talent is conceivable.

496

All the artists who are already known to me from so many sides, I propose to consider exclusively from the ethical side; to explain from the subject-matter and method of their work the part played therein by time and place, nation and master, and their own indestructible personality; to mould them to what they became and to preserve them in what they were.

497

Art is a medium of what no tongue can utter; and thus it seems a piece of folly to try to convey its meaning afresh by means of words. But, by trying to do so, the understanding gains; and this, again, benefits the faculty in practice.

498

An artist who produces valuable work is not always able to give an account of his own or others’ performances.

499

We know of no world except in relation to mankind; and we wish for no Art that does not bear the mark of this relation.

500

Higher aims are in themselves more valuable, even if unfulfilled, than lower ones quite attained.

501

Blunt naïvety, stubborn vigour, scrupulous observance of rule, and any other epithets which may apply to older German Art, are a part of every earlier and simpler artistic method. The older Venetians, Florentines, and others had it all too.

502

Because Albrecht Dürer, with his incomparable talent, could never rise to the idea of the symmetry of beauty, or even to the thought of a fitting conformity to the object in view, are we never to spurn the ground!

503

Albrecht Dürer had the advantage of a very profound realistic perception, an affectionate human sympathy with all present conditions. He was kept back by a gloomy phantasy, devoid both of form and foundation.

504

It would be interesting to show how Martin Schön stands near him, and how the merits of German Art were restricted to these two; and useful also to show that it was not evening every day.

505

In every Italian school the butterfly breaks loose from the chrysalis.

506

After Klopstock released us from rhyme, and Voss gave us models of prose, are we to make doggerel again like Hans Sachs?

507

Let us be many-sided! Turnips are good, but they are best mixed with chestnuts. And these two noble products of the earth grow far apart.

508

In every kind of Art there is a degree of excellence which may be reached, so to speak, by the mere use of one’s own natural talents. But at the same time it is impossible to go beyond that point, unless Art comes to one’s aid.

509

In the presence of Nature even moderate talent is always possessed of insight; hence drawings from Nature that are at all carefully done always give pleasure.

510

To make many sketches issue at last in a complete work is something that not even the best artists always achieve.

511

In the sphere of true Art there is no preparatory school, but there is a way of preparation; and the best preparation is the interest of the most insignificant pupil in the work of the master. Colour-grinders have often made excellent painters.

512

If an artist grasps Nature aright and contrives to give its form a nobler, freer grace, no one will understand the source of his inspiration, and every one will swear that he has taken it from the antique.

513

In studying the human form, let the painter reject what is exaggerated, false, and mechanical; but let him learn to grasp of what infinite grace the human body is capable.

514

Kant taught us the critique of the reason. We must have a critique of the senses if Art in general, and especially German Art, is ever to regain its tone and move forward on the path of life and happiness.

SCIENCE

515

In the sphere of natural science let us remember that we have always to deal with an insoluble problem. Let us prove keen and honest in attending to anything which is in any way brought to our notice, most of all when it does not fit in with our previous ideas. For it is only thereby that we perceive the problem, which does indeed lie in nature, but still more in man.

516

A man cannot well stand by himself, and so he is glad to join a party; because if he does not find rest there, he at any rate finds quiet and safety.

517

It is a misfortune to pass at once from observation to conclusion, and to regard both as of equal value; but it befalls many a student.

518

In the history of science and throughout the whole course of its progress we see certain epochs following one another more or less rapidly. Some important view is expressed, it may be original or only revived; sooner or later it receives recognition; fellow workers spring up; the outcome of it finds its way into the schools; it is taught and handed down; and we observe, unhappily, that it does not in the least matter whether the view be true or false. In either case its course is the same; in either case it comes in the end to be a mere phrase, a lifeless word stamped on the memory.

519

First let a man teach himself, and then he will be taught by others.

520

Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words. We may surmise, or even see quite well, that such theories are make-shifts; but do not passion and party-spirit love a make-shift at all times? And rightly, too, because they stand in so much need of it.

521

It is difficult to know how to treat the errors of the age. If a man oppose them, he stands alone; if he surrender to them, they bring him neither joy nor credit.

522

There are some hundred Christian sects, every one of them acknowledging God and the Lord in its own way, without troubling themselves further about one another. In the study of nature, nay, in every study, things must of necessity come to the same pass. For what is the meaning of every one speaking of toleration, and trying to prevent others from thinking and expressing themselves after their own fashion?

523

To communicate knowledge by means of analogy appears to me a process equally useful and pleasant. The analogous case is not there to force itself on the attention or prove anything; it offers a comparison with some other case, but is not in union with it. Several analogous cases do not join to form a seried row: they are like good society, which always suggests more than it grants.

524

To err is to be as though truth did not exist. To lay bare the error to oneself and others is retrospective discovery.

525

With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organised afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.

526

When we find facts within our knowledge exhibited by some new method, or even, it may be, described in a foreign language, they receive a peculiar charm of novelty and wear a fresh air.

527

If two masters of the same art differ in their statement of it, in all likelihood the insoluble problem lies midway between them.

528

The orbits of certainties touch one another; but in the interstices there is room enough for error to go forth and prevail.

529

We more readily confess to errors, mistakes, and shortcomings in our conduct than in our thought.

530

And the reason of it is that the conscience is humble and even takes a pleasure in being ashamed. But the intellect is proud, and if forced to recant is driven to despair.

531

This also explains how it is that truths which have been recognised are at first tacitly admitted, and then gradually spread, so that the very thing which was obstinately denied appears at last as something quite natural.

532

Ignorant people raise questions which were answered by the wise thousands of years ago.

533

When a man sees a phenomenon before him, his thoughts often range beyond it; when he hears it only talked about, he has no thoughts at all.

534

Authority. Man cannot exist without it, and yet it brings in its train just as much of error as of truth. It perpetuates one by one things which should pass away one by one; it rejects that which should be preserved and allows it to pass away; and it is chiefly to blame for mankind’s want of progress.

535

Authority — the fact, namely, that something has already happened or been said or decided, is of great value; but it is only a pedant who demands authority for everything.

536

An old foundation is worthy of all respect, but it must not take from us the right to build afresh wherever we will.

537

Our advice is that every man should remain in the path he has struck out for himself, and refuse to be overawed by authority, hampered by prevalent opinion, or carried away by fashion.

538

The various branches of knowledge always tend as a whole to stray away from life, and return thither only by a roundabout way.

539

For they are, in truth, text-books of life: they gather outer and inner experiences into a general and connected whole.

540

An important fact, an ingenious aperçu, occupies a very great number of men, at first only to make acquaintance with it; then to understand it; and afterwards to work it out and carry it further.

541

On the appearance of anything new the mass of people ask: What is the use of it? And they are not wrong. For it is only through the use of anything that they can perceive its value.

542

The truly wise ask what the thing is in itself and in relation to other things, and do not trouble themselves about the use of it, — in other words, about the way in which it may be applied to the necessities of existence and what is already known. This will soon be discovered by minds of a very different order — minds that feel the joy of living, and are keen, adroit, and practical.

543

Every investigator must before all things look upon himself as one who is summoned to serve on a jury. He has only to consider how far the statement of the case is complete and clearly set forth by the evidence. Then he draws his conclusion and gives his vote, whether it be that his opinion coincides with that of the foreman or not.

544

And in acting thus he remains equally at ease whether the majority agree with him or he finds himself in a minority. For he has done what he could: he has expressed his convictions; and he is not master of the minds or hearts of others.

545

In the world of science, however, these sentiments have never been of much account. There everything depends on making opinion prevail and dominate; few men are really independent; the majority draws the individual after it.

546

The history of philosophy, of science, of religion, all shows that opinions spread in masses, but that that always comes to the front which is more easily grasped, that is to say, is most suited and agreeable to the human mind in its ordinary condition. Nay, he who has practised self-culture in the higher sense may always reckon upon meeting an adverse majority.

547

There is much that is true which does not admit of being calculated; just as there are a great many things that cannot be brought to the test of a decisive experiment.

548

It is just for this that man stands so high, that what could not otherwise be brought to light should be brought to light in him.

What is a musical string, and all its mechanical division, in comparison with the musician’s ear? May we not also say, what are the elementary phenomena of nature itself compared with man, who must control and modify them all before he can in any way assimilate them to himself?

549

To a new truth there is nothing more hurtful than an old error.

550

The ultimate origin of things is completely beyond our faculties; hence when we see anything come into being, we look upon it as having been already there. This is why we find the theory of emboîtement intelligible.

551

There are many problems in natural science on which we cannot fittingly speak unless we call metaphysics to our aid; but not the wisdom of the schools, which consists in mere verbiage. It is that which was before physics, exists with it, and will be after it.

552

Since men are really interested in nothing but their own opinions, every one who puts forward an opinion looks about him right and left for means of strengthening himself and others in it. A man avails himself of the truth so long as it is serviceable; but he seizes on what is false with a passionate eloquence as soon as he can make a momentary use of it; whether it be to dazzle others with it as a kind of half-truth, or to employ it as a stopgap for effecting an apparent union between things that have been disjointed. This experience at first caused me annoyance, and then sorrow; and now it is a source of mischievous satisfaction. I have pledged myself never again to expose a proceeding of this kind.

553

Everything that we call Invention or Discovery in the higher sense of the word is the serious exercise and activity of an original feeling for truth, which, after a long course of silent cultivation, suddenly flashes out into fruitful knowledge. It is a revelation working from within on the outer world, and lets a man feel that he is made in the image of God. It is a synthesis of World and Mind, giving the most blessed assurance of the eternal harmony of things.

554

A man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible; otherwise he would not try to fathom it.

555

There are pedants who are also rascals, and they are the worst of all.

556

A man does not need to have seen or experienced everything himself. But if he is to commit himself to another’s experiences and his way of putting them, let him consider that he has to do with three things — the object in question and two subjects.

557

The supreme achievement would be to see that stating a fact is starting a theory.

558

If I acquiesce at last in some ultimate fact of nature, it is, no doubt, only resignation; but it makes a great difference whether the resignation takes place at the limits of human faculty, or within the hypothetical boundaries of my own narrow individuality.

559

If we look at the problems raised by Aristotle, we are astonished at his gift of observation. What wonderful eyes the Greeks had for many things! Only they committed the mistake of being over-hasty, of passing straightway from the phenomenon to the explanation of it, and thereby produced certain theories that are quite inadequate. But this is the mistake of all times, and still made in our own day.

560

Hypotheses are cradle-songs by which the teacher lulls his scholars to sleep. The thoughtful and honest observer is always learning more and more of his limitations; he sees that the further knowledge spreads, the more numerous are the problems that make their appearance.

561

Our mistake is that we doubt what is certain and want to establish what is uncertain. My maxim in the study of Nature is this: hold fast what is certain and keep a watch on what is uncertain.

562

What a master a man would be in his own subject if he taught nothing useless!

563

The greatest piece of folly is that every man thinks himself compelled to hand down what people think they have known.

564

If many a man did not feel obliged to repeat what is untrue, because he has said it once, the world would have been quite different.

565

Every man looks at the world lying ready before him, ordered and fashioned into a complete whole, as after all but an element out of which his endeavour is to create a special world suited to himself. Capable men lay hold of the world without hesitation and try to shape their course as best they can; others dally over it, and some doubt even of their own existence.

The man who felt the full force of this fundamental truth would dispute with no one, but look upon another’s mode of thought equally with his own, as merely a phenomenon. For we find almost daily that one man can think with ease what another cannot possibly think at all; and that, too, not in matters which might have some sort of effect upon their common weal or woe, but in things which cannot touch them at all.

566

There is nothing more odious than the majority; it consists of a few powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them, without in the least knowing their own mind.

567

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn, and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also with impatience; looking forward with longing to the advent of the full and final light, but, nevertheless, having to turn away his eyes when the sun appeared, unable to bear the splendour he had awaited with so much desire.

568

We praise the eighteenth century for concerning itself chiefly with analysis. The task remaining to the nineteenth is to discover the false syntheses which prevail, and to analyse their contents anew.

569

A school may be regarded as a single individual who talks to himself for a hundred years, and takes an extraordinary pleasure in his own being, however foolish and silly it may be.

570

In science it is a service of the highest merit to seek out those fragmentary truths attained by the ancients, and to develop them further.

571

If a man devotes himself to the promotion of science, he is firstly opposed, and then he is informed that his ground is already occupied. At first men will allow no value to what we tell them, and then they behave as if they knew it all themselves.

572

Nature fills all space with her limitless productivity. If we observe merely our own earth, everything that we call evil and unfortunate is so because Nature cannot provide room for everything that comes into existence, and still less endow it with permanence.

573

Everything that comes into being seeks room for itself and desires duration: hence it drives something else from its place and shortens its duration.

574

There is so much of cryptogamy in phanerogamy that centuries will not decipher it.

575

What a true saying it is that he who wants to deceive mankind must before all things make absurdity plausible.

576

The further knowledge advances, the nearer we come to the unfathomable: the more we know how to use our knowledge, the better we see that the unfathomable is of no practical use.

577

The finest achievement for a man of thought is to have fathomed what may be fathomed, and quietly to revere the unfathomable.

578

The discerning man who acknowledges his limitations is not far off perfection.

579

There are two things of which a man cannot be careful enough: of obstinacy if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of incompetency, if he goes beyond it.

580

Incompetency is a greater obstacle to perfection than one would think.

581

The century advances; but every individual begins anew.

582

What friends do with us and for us is a real part of our life; for it strengthens and advances our personality. The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.

583

A man cannot live with every one, and therefore he cannot live for every one. To see this truth aright is to place a high value upon one’s friends, and not to hate or persecute one’s enemies. Nay, there is hardly any greater advantage for a man to gain than to find out, if he can, the merits of his opponents: it gives him a decided ascendency over them.

584

Every one knows how to value what he has attained in life; most of all the man who thinks and reflects in his old age. He has a comfortable feeling that it is something of which no one can rob him.

585

The best metempsychosis is for us to appear again in others.

586

It is very seldom that we satisfy ourselves; all the more consoling is it to have satisfied others.

587

We look back upon our life only as on a thing of broken pieces, because our misses and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have done, and attained.

588

The sympathetic youth sees nothing of this; he reads, enjoys, and uses the youth of one who has gone before him, and rejoices in it with all his heart, as though he had once been what he now is.

589

Science helps us before all things in this, that it somewhat lightens the feeling of wonder with which Nature fills us; then, however, as life becomes more and more complex, it creates new facilities for the avoidance of what would do us harm and the promotion of what will do us good.

590

It is always our eyes alone, our way of looking at things. Nature alone knows what she means now, and what she had meant in the past.

NATURE: APHORISMS

Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we are weary and fall from her arms.

She creates new forms without end: what exists now, never was before; what was, comes not again; all is new and yet always the old.

We live in the midst of her and are strangers. She speaks to us unceasingly and betrays not her secret. We are always influencing her and yet can do her no violence.

Individuality seems to be all her aim, and she cares nought for individuals. She is always building and always destroying, and her workshop is not to be approached.

Nature lives in her children only, and the mother, where is she? She is the sole artist, — out of the simplest materials the greatest diversity; attaining, with no trace of effort, the finest perfection, the closest precision, always softly veiled. Each of her works has an essence of its own; every shape that she takes is in idea utterly isolated; and yet all forms one.

She plays a drama; whether she sees it herself, we know not; and yet she plays it for us, who stand but a little way off.

There is constant life in her, motion and development; and yet she remains where she was. She is eternally changing, nor for a moment does she stand still. Of rest she knows nothing, and to all stagnation she has affixed her curse. She is steadfast; her step is measured, her exceptions rare, her laws immutable.

She has thought, and she ponders unceasingly; not as a man, but as Nature. The meaning of the whole she keeps to herself, and no one can learn it of her.

Men are all in her, and she in all men. With all she plays a friendly game, and rejoices the more a man wins from her. With many her game is so secret, that she brings it to an end before they are aware of it.

Even what is most unnatural is Nature; even the coarsest Philistinism has something of her genius. Who does not see her everywhere, sees her nowhere aright.

She loves herself, and clings eternally to herself with eyes and hearts innumerable. She has divided herself that she may be her own delight. She is ever making new creatures spring up to delight in her, and imparts herself insatiably.

She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and others, she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows her in confidence, she presses him to her heart as it were her child.

Her children are numberless. To no one of them is she altogether niggardly; but she has her favourites, on whom she lavishes much, and for whom she makes many a sacrifice. Over the great she has spread the shield of her protection.

She spurts forth her creatures out of nothing, and tells them not whence they come and whither they go. They have only to go their way: she knows the path.

Her springs of action are few, but they never wear out: they are always working, always manifold.

The drama she plays is always new, because she is always bringing new spectators. Life is her fairest invention, and Death is her device for having life in abundance.

She envelops man in darkness, and urges him constantly to the light. She makes him dependent on the earth, heavy and sluggish, and always rouses him up afresh.

She creates wants, because she loves movement. How marvellous that she gains it all so easily! Every want is a benefit, soon satisfied, soon growing again. If she gives more, it is a new source of desire; but the balance quickly rights itself.

Every moment she starts on the longest journeys, and every moment reaches her goal.

She amuses herself with a vain show; but to us her play is all-important.

She lets every child work at her, every fool judge of her, and thousands pass her by and see nothing; and she has her joy in them all, and in them all finds her account.

Man obeys her laws even in opposing them: he works with her even when he wants to work against her.

Everything she gives is found to be good, for first of all she makes it indispensable. She lingers, that we may long for presence; she hurries by, that we may not grow weary of her.

Speech or language she has none; but she creates tongues and hearts through which she feels and speaks.

Her crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.

She is all things. She rewards herself and punishes herself; and in herself rejoices and is distressed. She is rough and gentle, loving and terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present. Past or Future she knows not. The Present is her Eternity. She is kind. I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to notice her cunning.

She is whole and yet never finished. As she works now, so can she work for ever.

To every one she appears in a form of his own. She hides herself in a thousand names and terms, and is always the same.

She has placed me in this world; she will also lead me out of it. I trust myself to her. She may do with me as she pleases. She will not hate her work. I did not speak of her. No! what is true and what is false, she has spoken it all. Everything is her fault, everything is her merit.

The Criticism

GOETHE – THE WRITER by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I find a provision in the constitution of the world for the writer or secretary, who is to report the doings of the miraculous spirit of life that everywhere throbs and works. His office is a reception of the facts into the mind, and then a selection of the eminent and characteristic experiences.

Nature will be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sculpture in the sand or the stone. Not a foot steps into the snow, or along the ground, but prints in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march. Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds; the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

In nature, this self-registration is incessant, and the narrative is the print of the seal. It neither exceeds nor comes short of the fact. But nature strives upward; and, in man, the report is something more than print of the seal. It is a new and finer form of the original. The record is alive, as that which it recorded is alive. In man, the memory is a kind of looking-glass, which, having received the images of surrounding objects, is touched with life, and disposes them in a new order. The facts which transpired do not lie in it inert; but some subside, and others shine; so that soon we have a new picture, composed of the eminent experiences. The man cooperates. He loves to communicate; and that which is for him to say lies as a load on his heart until it is delivered. But, besides the universal joy of conversation, some men are born with exalted powers for this second creation. Men are born to write. The gardener saves every slip, and seed, and peach-stone; his vocation is to be a planter of plants. Not less does the writer attend his affairs. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him as a model, and sits for its picture. He counts it all nonsense that they say, that some things are undescribable. He believes that all that can be thought can be written, first or last; and he would report the Holy Ghost, or attempt it. Nothing so broad, so subtle, or so dear, but comes therefore commended to his pen, — and he will write. In his eyes, a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the possibility of being reported. In conversation, in calamity, he finds new materials; as our German poet said, “some god gave me the power to paint what I suffer.” He draws his rents from rage and pain. By acting rashly, he buys the power of talking wisely. Vexations, and a tempest of passion, only fill his sails; as the good Luther writes, “When I am angry I can pray well, and preach well;” and if we knew the genesis of fine-strokes of eloquence, they might recall the complaisance of Sultan Amurath, who struck off some Persian heads, that his physician, Vesalius, might see the spasms in the muscles of the neck. His failures are the preparation of his victories. A new thought, or a crisis of passion, apprises him that all that he has yet learned and written is exoteric — is not the fact, but some rumor of the fact. What then? Does he throw away the pen? No; he begins again to describe in the new light which has shined on him, — if, by some means, he may yet save some true word. Nature conspires. Whatever can be thought can be spoken, and still rises for utterance, though to rude and stammering organs. If they cannot compass it, it waits and works, until, at last, it moulds them to its perfect will, and is articulated.

This striving after imitative expression, which one meets everywhere, is significant of the aim of nature, but is mere stenography. There are higher degrees, and nature has more splendid endowments for those whom she elects to a superior office; for the class of scholars or writers, who see connection where the multitude see fragments, and who are impelled to exhibit the facts in order, and so to supply the axis on which the frame of things turns. Nature has dearly at heart the formation of the speculative man, or scholar. It is an end never lost sight of, and is prepared in the original casting of things. He is no permissive or accidental appearance, but an organic agent, one of the estates of the realm, provided and prepared from of old and from everlasting, in the knitting and contexture of things. Presentiments, impulses, cheer him. There is a certain heat in the breast, which attends the perception of a primary truth, which is the shining of the spiritual sun down into the shaft of the mine. Every thought which dawns on the mind, in the moment of its emergency announces its own rank, — whether it is some whimsy, or whether it is a power.

If he have his incitements, there is, on the other side, invitation and need enough of his gift. Society has, at all times, the same want, namely, of one sane man with adequate powers of expression to held up each object of monomania in its right relation. The ambitious and mercenary bring their last new mumbo-jumbo, whether tariff, Texas, railroad, Romanism, mesmerism, or California; and, by detaching the object from its relations, easily succeed in making it seen in a glare; and a multitude go mad about it, and they are not to be reproved or cured by the opposite multitude, who are kept from this particular insanity by an equal frenzy on another crochet. But let one man have the comprehensive eye that can replace this isolated prodigy in its right neighborhood and bearings, — the illusion vanishes, and the returning reason of the community thanks the reason of the monitor.

The scholar is the man of the ages, but he must also wish, with other men, to stand well with his contemporaries. But there is a certain ridicule, among superficial people, thrown on the scholars or clerisy, which is of no import, unless the scholars heed it. In this country, the emphasis of conversation, and of public opinion, commends the practical man; and the solid portion of the community is named with significant respect in every circle. Our people are of Bonaparte’s opinion concerning ideologists. Ideas are subversive of social order and comfort, and at last make a fool of the possessor. It is believed, the ordering a cargo of goods from New York to Smyrna; or, the running up and down to procure a company of subscribers to set a-going five or ten thousand spindles; or, the negotiations of a caucus, and the practising on the prejudices and facility of country-people, to secure their votes in November,  —  is practical and commendable.

If I were to compare action of a much higher strain with a life of contemplation, I should not venture to pronounce with much confidence in favor of the former. Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defense of his life of thought and prayer. A certain partiality, a headiness, and loss of balance, is the tax which all action must pay. Act, if you like,  —  but you do it at your peril. Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action. What they have done commits and enforces them to do the same again. The first act, which was to be an experiment, becomes a sacrament. The fiery reformer embodies his aspiration in some rite or covenant, and he and his friends cleave to the form and lose the aspiration. The Quaker has established Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monastery and his dance; and, although each prates of spirit, there is no spirit, but repetition, which is anti-spiritual. But where are his new things of today? In actions of enthusiasm, this drawback appears: but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly, in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty, and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. The Hindoos write in their sacred books, “Children only, and not the learned, speak of the speculative and the practical faculties as two. They are but one, for both obtain the selfsame end, and the place which is gained by the followers of the one is gained by the followers of the other. That man seeth, who seeth that the speculative and the practical doctrines are one.” For great action must draw on the spiritual nature. The measure of action is the sentiment from which it proceeds. The greatest action may easily be one of the most private circumstances.

This disparagement will not come from the leaders, but from inferior persons. The robust gentlemen who stand at the head of the practical class, share the ideas of the time, and have too much sympathy with the speculative class. It is not from men excellent in any kind, that disparagement of any other is to be looked for. With such, Talleyrand’s question is ever the main one; not, is he rich? is he committed? is he well-meaning? has he this or that faculty? is he of the movement? is he of the establishment?  —  but, Is he anybody? does he stand for something? He must be good of his kind. That is all that Talleyrand, all that State-street, all that the common sense of mankind asks. Be real and admirable, not as we know, but as you know. Able men do not care in what kind a man is able, so only that he is able. A master likes a master, and does not stipulate whether it be orator, artist, craftsman, or king.

Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class. And it is not to be denied that men are cordial in their recognition and welcome of intellectual accomplishments. Still the writer does not stand with us on any commanding ground. I think this to be his own fault. A pound passes for a pound. There have been times when he was a sacred person; he wrote Bibles; the first hymns; the codes; the epics; tragic songs; Sibylline verses; Chaldean oracles; Laconian sentences inscribed on temple walls. Every word was true, and woke the nations to new life. He wrote without levity, and without choice. Every word was carved, before his eyes, into the earth and sky; and the sun and stars were only letters of the same purport; and of no more necessity. But how can he be honored, when he does not honor himself; when he loses himself in the crowd; when he is no longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public; when he must sustain with shameless advocacy some bad government, or must bark, all the year round, in opposition; or write conventional criticism, or profligate novels; or, at any rate, write without thought, and without recurrence, by day and night, to the sources of inspiration?

Some reply to these questions may be furnished by looking over the list of men of literary genius in our age. Among these, no more instructive name occurs than that of Goethe, to represent the power and duties of the scholar or writer.

I described Bonaparte as a representative of the popular external life and aims of the nineteenth century. Its other half, its poet, is Goethe, a man quite domesticated in the century, breathing its air, enjoying its fruits, impossible at any earlier time, and taking away, by his colossal parts, the reproach of weakness, which, but for him, would lie on the intellectual works of the period. He appears at a time when a general culture has spread itself, and has smoothed down all sharp individual traits; when, in the absence of heroic characters, a social comfort and cooperation have come in. There is no poet, but scores of poetic writers; no Columbus, but hundreds of post-captains, with transit-telescope, barometer, and concentrated soup and pemmican; no Demosthenes, no Chatham, but any number of clever parliamentary and forensic debaters; no prophet or saint, but colleges of divinity; no learned man, but learned societies, a cheap press, reading-rooms, and book-clubs, without number. There was never such a miscellany of facts. The world extends itself like American trade. We conceive Greek or Roman life,  —  life in the middle ages  —  to be a simple and comprehensive affair; but modern life to respect a multitude of things, which is distracting.

Goethe was the philosopher of this multiplicity; hundred-handed, Argus-eyed, able and happy to cope with this rolling miscellany of facts and sciences, and, by his own versatility, to dispose of them with ease; a manly mind, unembarrassed by the variety of coats of convention with which life had got encrusted, easily able by his subtlety to pierce these, and to draw his strength from nature, with which he lived in full communion. What is strange, too, he lived in a small town, in a petty state, in a defeated state, and in a time when Germany played no such leading part in the world’s affairs as to swell the bosom of her sons with any metropolitan pride, such as might have cheered a French, or English, or, once, a Roman or Attic genius. Yet there is no trace of provincial limitation in his muse. He is not a debtor to his position, but was born with a free and controlling genius.

The Helena, or the second part of Faust, is a philosophy of literature set in poetry; the work of one who found himself the master of histories, mythologies, philosophies, sciences, and national literatures, in the encyclopaedical manner in which modern erudition, with its international intercourse of the whole earth’s population, researches into Indian, Etruscan, and all Cyclopaean arts, geology, chemistry, astronomy; and every one of these kingdoms assuming a certain aerial and poetic character, by reason of the multitude. One looks at a king with reverence; but if one should chance to be at a congress of kings, the eye would take liberties with the peculiarities of each. These are not wild miraculous songs, but elaborate forms, to which the poet has confided the results of eighty years of observation. This reflective and critical wisdom makes the poem more truly the flower of this time. It dates itself. Still he is a poet,  —  poet of a prouder laurel than any contemporary, and under this plague of microscopes (for he seems to see out of every pore of his skin), strikes the harp with a hero’s strength and grace.

The wonder of the book is its superior intelligence. In the menstruum of this man’s wit, the past and the present ages, and their religions, politics, and modes of thinking, are dissolved into archetypes and ideas. What new mythologies sail through his head! The Greeks said, that Alexander went as far as Chaos; Goethe went, only the other day, as far; and one step farther he hazarded, and brought himself safe back. There is a heart-cheering freedom in his speculation. The immense horizon which journeys with us lends its majesties to trifles, and to matters of convenience and necessity, as to solemn and festal performances. He was the soul of his century. If that was learned, and had become, by population, compact organization, and drill of parts, one great Exploring Expedition, accumulating a glut of facts and fruits too fast for any hitherto-existing savants to classify, this man’s mind had ample chambers for the distribution of all. He had a power to unite the detached atoms again by their own law. He has clothed our modern existence with poetry. Amid littleness and detail, he detected the Genius of life, the old cunning Proteus, nestling close beside us, and showed that the dullness and prose we ascribe to the age was only another of his masks:  —  “His very flight is presence in disguise:” that he had put off a gay uniform for a fatigue dress, and was not a whit less vivacious or rich in Liverpool or the Hague, than once in Rome or Antioch. He sought him in public squares and main streets, in boulevards and hotels; and, in the solidest kingdom of routine and the senses, he showed the lurking daemonic power; that, in actions of routine, a thread of mythology and fable spins itself; and this, by tracing the pedigree of every usage and practice, every institution, utensil, and means, home to its origin in the structure of man. He had an extreme impatience of conjecture, and of rhetoric. “I have guesses enough of my own; if a man write a book, let him set down only what he knows.” He writes in the plainest and lowest tone, omitting a great deal more than he writes, and putting ever a thing for a word. He has explained the distinction between the antique and the modern spirit and art. He has defined art, its scope and laws. He has said the best things about nature that ever were said. He treats nature as the old philosophers, as the seven wise masters did,  —  and, with whatever loss of French tabulation and dissection, poetry and humanity remain to us; and they have some doctorial skill. Eyes are better, on the whole, than telescopes or microscopes. He has contributed a key to many parts of nature, through the rare turn for unity and simplicity in his mind. Thus Goethe suggested the leading idea of modern botany, that a leaf, or the eye of a leaf, is the unit of botany, and that every part of the plant is only a transformed leaf to meet a new condition; and, by varying the conditions, a leaf may be converted into any other organ, and any other organ into a leaf. In like manner, in osteology, he assumed that one vertebra of the spine might be considered the unit of the skeleton; the head was only the uppermost vertebra transformed. “The plant goes from knot to knot, closing, at last, with the flower and the seed. So the tape-worm, the caterpillar, goes from knot to knot, and closes with the head. Men and the higher animals are built up through the vertebrae, the powers being concentrated in the head.” In optics, again, he rejected the artificial theory of seven colors, and considered that every color was the mixture of light and darkness in new proportions. It is really of very little consequence what topic he writes upon. He sees at every pore, and has a certain gravitation toward truth. He will realize what you say. He hates to be trifled with, and to be made to say over again some old wife’s fable, that has had possession of men’s faith these thousand years. He may as well see if it is true as another. He sifts it. I am here, he would say, to be the measure and judge of these things. Why should I take them on trust? And, therefore, what he says of religion, of passion, of marriage, of manners, property, of paper money, of periods or beliefs, of omens, of luck, or whatever else, refuses to be forgotten.

Take the most remarkable example that could occur of this tendency to verify every term in popular use. The Devil had played an important part in mythology in all times. Goethe would have no word that does not cover a thing. The same measure will still serve: “I have never heard of any crime which I might not have committed.” So he flies at the throat of this imp. He shall be real; he shall be modern; he shall be European; he shall dress like a gentleman, and accept the manner, and walk in the streets, and be well initiated in the life of Vienna, and of Heidelberg, in 1820,  —  or he shall not exist. Accordingly, he stripped him of mythologic gear, of horns, cloven foot, harpoon tail, brimstone, and blue-fire, and, instead of looking in books and pictures, looked for him in his own mind, in every shade of coldness, selfishness, and unbelief that, in crowds, or in solitude, darkens over the human thought,  —  and found that the portrait gained reality and terror by everything he added, and by everything he took away. He found that the essence of this hobgoblin, which had hovered in shadow about the habitations of men, ever since they were men, was pure intellect, applied,  —  as always there is a tendency,  —  to the service of the senses: and he flung into literature, in his Mephistopheles, the first organic figure that has been added for some ages, and which will remain as long as the Prometheus. I have no design to enter into any analysis of his numerous works. They consist of translations, criticisms, dramas, lyric and every other description of poems, literary journals, and portraits of distinguished men. Yet I cannot omit to specify the Wilhelm Meister.

Wilhelm Meister is a novel in every sense, the first of its kind, called by its admirers the only delineation of modern society,  —  as if other novels, those of Scott, for example, dealt with costume and condition, this with the spirit of life. It is a book over which some veil is still drawn. It is read by very intelligent persons with wonder and delight. It is preferred by some such to Hamlet, as a work of genius. I suppose no book of this century can compare with it in its delicious sweetness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying it with so many and so solid thoughts, just insights into life, and manners, and characters; so many good hints for the conduct of life, so many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere, and never a trace of rhetoric or dullness. A very provoking book to the curiosity of young men of genius, but a very unsatisfactory one. Lovers of light reading, those who look in it for the entertainment they find in a romance, are disappointed. On the other hand, those who begin it with the higher hope to read in it a worthy history of genius, and the just award of the laurels to its toils and denials, have also reason to complain. We had an English romance here, not long ago, professing to embody the hope of a new age, and to unfold the political hope of the party called “Young England,” in which the only reward of virtue is a seat in parliament, and a peerage. Goethe’s romance has a conclusion as lame and immoral. George Sand, in Consuelo and its continuation, has sketched a truer and more dignified picture. In the progress of the story, the characters of the hero and heroine expand at a rate that shivers the porcelain chess-table of aristocratic convention: they quit the society and habits of their rank; they lose their wealth; they become the servants of great ideas, and of the most generous social ends; until, at last, the hero, who is the center and fountain of an association for the rendering of the noblest benefits to the human race, no longer answers to his own titled name: it sounds foreign and remote in his ear.

“I am only man,” he says; “I breathe and work for man,” and this in poverty and extreme sacrifices. Goethe’s hero, on the contrary, has so many weaknesses and impurities, and keeps such bad company, that the sober English public, when the book was translated, were disgusted. And yet it is so crammed with wisdom, with knowledge of the world, and with knowledge of laws; the persons so truly and subtly drawn, and with such few strokes, and not a word too much, the book remains ever so new and unexhausted, that we must even let it go its way, and be willing to get what good from it we can, assured that it has only begun its office, and has millions of readers yet to serve.

The argument is the passage of a democrat to the aristocracy, using both words in their best sense. And this passage is not made in any mean or creeping way, but through the hall door. Nature and character assist, and the rank is made real by sense and probity in the nobles. No generous youth can escape this charm of reality in the book, so that it is highly stimulating to intellect and courage. The ardent and holy Novalis characterized the book as “thoroughly modern and prosaic; the romantic is completely leveled in it; so is the poetry of nature; the wonderful. The book treats only of the ordinary affairs of men: it is a poeticized civic and domestic story. The wonderful in it is expressly treated as fiction and enthusiastic dreaming:”  —  and yet, what is also characteristic, Novalis soon returned to this book, and it remained his favorite reading to the end of his life.

What distinguishes Goethe for French and English readers, is a property which he shares with his nation,  —  a habitual reference to interior truth. In England and in America there is a respect for talent; and, if it is exerted in support of any ascertained or intelligible interest or party, or in regular opposition to any, the public is satisfied. In France, there is even a greater delight in intellectual brilliancy, for its own sake. And, in all these countries, men of talent write from talent. It is enough if the understanding is occupied, the taste propitiated,  —  so many columns so many hours, filled in a lively and creditable way. The German intellect wants the French sprightliness, the fine practical understanding of the English, and the American adventure; but it has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial performance, but asks steadily, To what end? A German public asks for a controlling sincerity. Here is activity of thought; but what is it for? What does the man mean? Whence, whence, all these thoughts?

Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise; holding things because they are things. If he cannot rightly express himself to-day, the same things subsist, and will open themselves to-morrow. There lies the burden on his mind  —  the burden of truth to be declared,  —  more or less understood; and it constitutes his business and calling in the world, to see those facts through, and to make them known. What signifies that he trips and stammers; that his voice is harsh or hissing; that this method or his tropes are inadequate? That message will find method and imagery, articulation and melody. Though he were dumb, it would speak. If not,  —  if there be no such God’s word in the man,  —  what care we how adroit, how fluent, how brilliant he is?

It makes a great difference to the force of any sentence, whether there be a man behind it, or no. In the learned journal, in the influential newspaper, I discern no form; only some irresponsible shadow; oftener some monied corporation, or some dangler, who hopes, in the mask and robes of his paragraph, to pass for somebody. But, through every clause and part of speech of a right book, I meet the eyes of the most determined of men: his force and terror inundate every word: the commas and dashes are alive; so that the writing is athletic and nimble,  —  can go far and live long.

In England and America, one may be an adept in the writing of a Greek or Latin poet, without any poetic taste or fire. That a man has spent years on Plato and Proclus, does not afford a presumption that he holds heroic opinions, or undervalues the fashions of his town. But the German nation have the most ridiculous good faith on these subjects: the student, out of the lecture-room, still broods on the lessons; and the professor cannot divest himself of the fancy, that the truths of philosophy have some application to Berlin and Munich. This earnestness enables them to out-see men of much more talent. Hence, almost all the valuable distinctions which are current in higher conversation, have been derived to us from Germany. But, whilst men distinguished for wit and learning, in England and France, adopt their study and their side with a certain levity, and are not understood to be very deeply engaged, from grounds of character, to the topic or the part they espouse,  —  Goethe, the head and body of the German nation, does not speak from talent, but the truth shines through: he is very wise, though his talent often veils his wisdom. However excellent his sentence is, he has somewhat better in view. It awakens my curiosity. He has the formidable independence which converse with truth gives: hear you, or forbear, his fact abides; and your interest in the writer is not confined to his story, and he dismissed from memory, when he has performed his task creditably, as a baker when he has left his loaf; but his work is the least part of him. The old Eternal Genius who built the world has confided himself more to this man than to any other. I dare not say that Goethe ascended to the highest grounds from which genius has spoken. He has not worshipped the highest unity; he is incapable of a self-surrender to the moral sentiment. There are nobler strains in poetry than any he has sounded. There are writers poorer in talent, whose tone is purer, and more touches the heart. Goethe can never be dear to men. His is not even the devotion to pure truth; but to truth for the sake of culture. He has no aims less large than the conquest of universal nature, of universal truth, to be his portion; a man not to be bribed, nor deceived, nor overawed; of a stoical self- command and self-denial, and having one test for all men,  —  What can you teach me? All possessions are valued by him for that only; rank, privileges, health, time, being itself.

He is the type of culture, the amateur of all arts, and sciences, and events; artistic, but not artist; spiritual, but not spiritualist. There is nothing he had not right to know; there is no weapon in the army of universal genius he did not take into his hand, but with peremptory heed that he should not be for a moment prejudiced by his instruments. He lays a ray of light under every fact, and between himself and his dearest property. From him nothing was hid, nothing withholden. The lurking daemons sat to him, and the saint who saw the daemons; and the metaphysical elements took form. “Piety itself is no aim, but only a means whereby, through purest inward peace, we may attain to highest culture.” And his penetration of every secret of the fine arts will make Goethe still more statuesque. His affections help him, like women employed by Cicero to worm out the secret of conspirators. Enmities he has none. Enemy of him you may be,  —  if so you shall teach him aught which your good-will cannot,  —  were it only what experience will accrue from your ruin. Enemy and welcome, but enemy on high terms. He cannot hate anybody; his time is worth too much. Temperamental antagonisms may be suffered, but like feuds of emperors, who fight dignifiedly across kingdoms.

His autobiography, under the title of “Poetry and Truth Out of My Life,” is the expression of the idea,  —  now familiar to the world through the German mind, but a novelty to England, Old and New, when that book appeared,  —  that a man exists for culture; not for what he can accomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him. The reaction of things on the man is the only noteworthy result. An intellectual man can see himself as a third person; therefore his faults and delusions interest him equally with his successes. Though he wishes to prosper in affairs, he wishes more to know the history and destiny of man; whilst the clouds of egotists drifting about him are only interested in a low success. This idea reigns in the Dichtung und Wahrheit, and directs the selection of the incidents; and nowise the external importance of events, the rank of the personages, or the bulk of incomes. Of course, the book affords slender materials for what would be reckoned with us a “Life of Goethe;”  —  few dates; no correspondence; no details of offices or employments; no light on his marriage; and, a period of ten years, that should be the most active in his life, after his settlement at Weimar, is sunk in silence. Meantime, certain love-affairs, that came to nothing, as people say, have the strangest importance: he crowds us with detail:  —  certain whimsical opinions, cosmogonies, and religions of his own invention, and, especially his relations to remarkable minds, and to critical epochs of thought:  —  these he magnifies. His “Daily and Yearly Journal,” his “Italian Travels,” his “Campaign in France” and the historical part of his “Theory of Colors,” have the same interest. In the last, he rapidly notices Kepler, Roger Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Voltaire, etc.; and the charm of this portion of the book consists in the simplest statement of the relation betwixt these grandees of European scientific history and himself; the mere drawing of the lines from Goethe to Kepler, from Goethe to Bacon, from Goethe to Newton. The drawing of the line is for the time and person, a solution of the formidable problem, and gives pleasure when Iphigenia and Faust do not, without any cost of invention comparable to that of Iphigenia and Faust. This law giver of art is not an artist. Was it that he knew too much, that his sight was microscopic, and interfered with the just perspective, the seeing of the whole? He is fragmentary; a writer of occasional poems, and of an encyclopaedia of sentences. When he sits down to write a drama or a tale, he collects and sorts his observations from a hundred sides, and combines them into the body as fitly as he can. A great deal refuses to incorporate: this he adds loosely, as letters, of the parties, leaves from their journals, or the like. A great deal still is left that will not find any place. This the bookbinder alone can give any cohesion to: and, hence, notwithstanding the looseness of many of his works, we have volumes of detached paragraphs, aphorisms, xenien, etc.

I suppose the worldly tone of his tales grew out of the calculations of self-culture. It was the infirmity of an admirable scholar, who loved the world out of gratitude; who knew where libraries, galleries, architecture, laboratories, savants, and leisure, were to be had, and who did not quite trust the compensations of poverty and nakedness. Socrates loved Athens; Montaigne, Paris; and Madame de Stael said, she was only vulnerable on that side (namely, of Paris). It has its favorable aspect. All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted and sickly, that one is ever wishing them somewhere else. We seldom see anybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live. There is a slight blush of shame on the cheek of good men and aspiring men, and a spice of caricature. But this man was entirely at home and happy in his century and the world. None was so fit to live, or more heartily enjoyed the game. In this aim of culture, which is the genius of his works, is their power. The idea of absolute, eternal truth, without reference to my own enlargement by it, is higher. The surrender to the torrent, of poetic inspiration is higher; but compared with any motives on which books are written in England and America, this is very truth, and has the power to inspire which belongs to truth. Thus has he brought back to a book some of its ancient might and dignity.

Goethe, coming into an over-civilized time and country, when original talent was oppressed under the load of books, and mechanical auxiliaries, and the distracting variety of claims, taught men how to dispose of this mountainous miscellany, and make it subservient. I join Napoleon with him, as being both representatives of the impatience and reaction of nature against the morgue of conventions,  —  two stern realists, who, with their scholars, have severally set the axe at the root of the tree of cant and seeming, for this time, and for all time. This cheerful laborer, with no external popularity or provocation, drawing his motive and his plan from his own breast, tasked himself with stints for a giant, and, without relaxation or rest, except by alternating his pursuits, worked on for eighty years with the steadiness of his first zeal.

It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity. Man is the most composite of all creatures: the wheel-insect, volvox globator, is at the other extreme. We shall learn to draw rents and revenues from the immense patrimony of the old and recent ages. Goethe teaches courage, and the equivalence of all times: that the disadvantages of any epoch exist only to the faint-hearted. Genius hovers with his sunshine and music close by the darkest and deafest eras. No mortgage, no attainder, will hold on men or hours. The world is young; the former great men call to us affectionately. We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens and the earthly world. The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life, in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.

THE END.

GOETHE by C. E. Vaughan

The brief account here given of the work of Goethe was originally published as part of the introduction to the volume of translations called German Romance, which was published in 1827. It is now commonly printed as an appendix to the first volume of Carlyle’s Miscellanies. Carlyle was probably never at his best when he gave himself to the study of a particular author. His genius rather lay in the more general aspects of his work, and in the force with which he gave an entirely new turn to the currents of English criticism. Of his studies upon particular authors, the essay on Burns is perhaps the most complete and the most penetrating. But it is too long for the purposes of this selection. Nor is it amiss that he should here be represented by a work which may remind us that, among his services to English letters, to have opened the stores of German poetry and thought was by no means the least memorable.

Of a nature so rare and complex as Goethe’s it is difficult to form a true comprehension; difficult even to express what comprehension one has formed. In Goethe’s mind, the first aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its vastness and unmeasured strength. This man rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery energies of a most passionate soul lie silent in the centre of his being; a trembling sensibility has been inured to stand, without flinching or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or control him. The brightest and most capricious fancy, the most piercing and inquisitive intellect, the wildest and deepest imagination; the highest thrills of joy, the bitterest pangs of sorrow: all these are his, he is not theirs. While he moves every heart from its steadfastness, his own is firm and still: the words that search into the inmost recesses of our nature, he pronounces with a tone of coldness and equanimity; in the deepest pathos he weeps not, or his tears are like water trickling from a rock of adamant. He is king of himself and of his world; nor does he rule it like a vulgar great man, like a Napoleon or Charles Twelfth, by the mere brute exertion of his will, grounded on no principle, or on a false one: his faculties and feelings are not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union under the mild sway of Reason; as the fierce primeval elements of Nature were stilled at the coming of Light, and bound together, under its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent Creation.

This is the true Rest of man; no stunted unbelieving callousness, no reckless surrender to blind Force, no opiate delusion; but the harmonious adjustment of Necessity and Accident, of what is changeable and what is unchangeable in our destiny; the calm supremacy of the spirit over its circumstances; the dim aim of every human soul, the full attainment of only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to any; but the wise are wise because they think no price too high for it. Goethe’s inward home has been reared by slow and laborious efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful basis: for his peace is not from blindness, but from clear vision; not from uncertain hope of alteration, but from sure insight into what cannot alter. His world seems once to have been desolate and baleful as that of the darkest sceptic: but he has covered it anew with beauty and solemnity, derived from deeper sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. He has inquired fearlessly, and fearlessly searched out and denied the False; but he has not forgotten, what is equally essential and infinitely harder, to search out and admit the True. His heart is still full of warmth, though his head is clear and cold; the world for him is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it with no false colours; his fellow-creatures are still objects of reverence and love, though their basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his. To reconcile these contradictions is the task of all good men, each for himself, in his own way and manner; a task which, in our age, is encompassed with difficulties peculiar to the time; and which Goethe seems to have accomplished with a success that few can rival. A mind so in unity with itself, even though it were a poor and small one, would arrest our attention, and win some kind regard from us; but when this mind ranks among the strongest and most complicated of the species, it becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of deep instruction.

Such a mind as Goethe’s is the fruit not only of a royal endowment by nature, but also of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In Goethe’s original form of spirit we discern the highest gifts of manhood, without any deficiency of the lower: he has an eye and a heart equally for the sublime, the common, and the ridiculous; the elements at once of a poet, a thinker, and a wit. Of his culture we have often spoken already; and it deserves again to be held up to praise and imitation. This, as he himself unostentatiously confesses, has been the soul of all his conduct, the great enterprise of his life; and few that understand him will be apt to deny that he has prospered. As a writer, his resources have been accumulated from nearly all the provinces of human intellect and activity; and he has trained himself to use these complicated instruments with a light expertness which we might have admired in the professor of a solitary department. Freedom, and grace, and smiling earnestness are the characteristics of his works: the matter of them flows along in chaste abundance, in the softest combination; and their style is referred to by native critics as the highest specimen of the German tongue. On this latter point the vote of a stranger may well be deemed unavailing; but the charms of Goethe’s style lie deeper than the mere words; for language, in the hands of a master, is the express image of thought, or rather it is the body of which thought is the soul; the former rises into being together with the latter, and the graces of the one are shadowed forth in the movements of the other. Goethe’s language, even to a foreigner, is full of character and secondary meanings; polished, yet vernacular and cordial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, ancient, and true-hearted men: in poetry, brief, sharp, simple, and expressive; in prose, perhaps still more pleasing; for it is at once concise and full, rich, clear, unpretending and melodious; and the sense, not presented in alternating flashes, piece after piece revealed and withdrawn, rises before us as in continuous dawning, and stands at last simultaneously complete, and bathed in the mellowest and ruddiest sunshine. It brings to mind what the prose of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Browne, would have been, had they written under the good, without the bad influences, of that French precision, which has polished and attenuated, trimmed and impoverished, all modern languages; made our meaning clear, and too often shallow as well as clear.

But Goethe’s culture as a writer is perhaps less remarkable than his culture as a man. He has learned not in head only, but also in heart: not from Art and Literature, but also by action and passion, in the rugged school of Experience. If asked what was the grand characteristic of his writings, we should not say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has seen, and suffered, and done, speaks to us of what it has tried and conquered. A gay delineation will give us notice of dark and toilsome experiences, of business done in the great deep of the spirit; a maxim, trivial to the careless eye, will rise with light and solution over long perplexed periods of our own history. It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the life of one man becomes a possession to all. Here is a mind of the most subtle and tumultuous elements; but it is governed in peaceful diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal faculties work softly together for good and noble ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher; for he loves and has practised as a man the wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. Composure and cheerful seriousness seem to breathe over all his character. There is no whining over human woes: it is understood that we must simply all strive to alleviate or remove them. There is no noisy battling for opinions; but a persevering effort to make Truth lovely, and recommend her, by a thousand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his personal manners we can easily believe the universal report, as often given in the way of censure as of praise, that he is a man of consummate breeding and the stateliest presence: for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we might almost say majestic repose, and serene humanity, is visible throughout his works. In no line of them does he speak with asperity of any man; scarcely ever even of a thing. He knows the good, and loves it; he knows the bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither case with violence: his love is calm and active; his rejection is implied, rather than pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. The noblest and the basest he not only seems to comprehend, but to personate and body forth in their most secret lineaments: hence actions and opinions appear to him as they are, with all the circumstances which extenuate or endear them to the hearts where they originated and are entertained. This also is the spirit of our Shakespeare, and perhaps of every great dramatic poet. Shakespeare is no sectarian; to all he deals with equity and mercy; because he knows all, and his heart is wide enough for all. In his mind the world is a whole; he figures it as Providence governs it; and to him it is not strange that the sun should be caused to shine on the evil and the good, and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Goethe has been called the German Voltaire; but it is a name which does him wrong, and describes him ill. Except in the corresponding variety of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, perhaps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot be compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all, that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltaire did not dream of. To say nothing of his dignified and truthful character as a man, he belongs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher class than this enfant gate du monde qu’il gata. He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a teacher and a reverencer; not a destroyer, but a builder-up; not a wit only, but a wise man. Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with even epigrammatic truth: Il a plus que personne l’esprit que tout le monde a. Voltaire was the cleverest of all past and present men; but a great man is something more, and this he surely was not.

As poets, the two live not in the same hemisphere, not in the same world. Of Voltaire’s poetry, it were blindness to deny the polished intellectual vigour, the logical symmetry, the flashes that from time to time give it the colour, if not the warmth, of fire: but it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe is a poet; in a sense of which the French literature has never afforded any example. We may venture to say of him, that his province is high and peculiar; higher than any poet but himself, for several generations, has so far succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly attempted. In reading Goethe’s poetry, it perpetually strikes us that we are reading the poetry of our own day and generation. No demands are made on our credulity; the light, the science, the scepticism of the age, are not hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary poetic forms; there are no supernal, no infernal influences, for Faust is an apparent rather than a real exception: but there is the barren prose of the nineteenth century, the vulgar life which we are all leading; and it starts into strange beauty in his hands; and we pause in delighted wonder to behold the flower of Poesy blooming in that parched and rugged soil. This is the end of his Mignons and Harpers, of his Tassos and Meisters. Poetry, as he views it, exists not in time or place, but in the spirit of man; and Art, with Nature, is now to perform for the poet, what Nature alone performed of old. The divinities and demons, the witches, spectres, and fairies, are vanished from the world, never again to be recalled: but the Imagination which created these still lives, and will forever live in man’s soul; and can again pour its wizard light over the Universe, and summon forth enchantments as lovely or impressive, and which its sister faculties will not contradict. To say that Goethe has accomplished all this, would be to say that his genius is greater than was ever given to any man: for if it was a high and glorious mind, or rather series of minds, that peopled the first ages with their peculiar forms of poetry, it must be a series of minds much higher and more glorious that shall so people the present. The angels and demons that can lay prostrate our hearts in the nineteenth century must be of another and more cunning fashion than those that subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted, to have begun this enterprise, may be accounted the greatest praise. That Goethe ever meditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no direct evidence: but indeed such is the end and aim of high poetry at all times and seasons; for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but the purest truth; and if he would lead captive our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part of it, he must address us on interests that are, not that were, ours; and in a dialect which finds a response, and not a contradiction, within our bosoms.

How Goethe has fulfilled these conditions in addressing us, an inspection of his works, but no description, can inform us. Let me advise the reader to study them, and see. If he come to the task with an opinion that poetry is an amusement, a passive recreation; that its highest object is to supply a languid mind with fantastic shows and indolent emotions, his measure of enjoyment is likely to be scanty, and his criticisms will be loud, angry, and manifold. But if he know and believe that poetry is the essence of all science, and requires the purest of all studies; if he recollect that the new may not always be the false; that the excellence which can be seen in a moment is not usually a very deep one; above all, if his own heart be full of feelings and experiences, for which he finds no name and no solution, but which lie in pain imprisoned and unuttered in his breast, till the Word be spoken, the spell that is to unbind them, and bring them forth to liberty and light; then, if I mistake not, he will find that in this Goethe there is a new world set before his eyes; a world of Earnestness and Sport, of solemn cliff and gay plain; some such temple  —  far inferior, as it may well be, in magnificence and beauty, but a temple of the same architecture  —  some such temple for the Spirit of our age, as the Shakespeares and Spensers have raised for the Spirit of theirs.

This seems a bold assertion: but it is not made without deliberation, and such conviction as it has stood within my means to obtain. If it invite discussion, and forward the discovery of the truth in this matter, its best purpose will be answered. Goethe’s genius is a study for other minds than have yet seriously engaged with it among us. By and by, apparently ere long, he will be tried and judged righteously; he himself, and no cloud instead of him; for he comes to us in such a questionable shape, that silence and neglect will not always serve our purpose. England, the chosen home of justice in all its senses, where the humblest merit has been acknowledged, and the highest fault not unduly punished, will do no injustice to this extraordinary man. And if, when her impartial sentence has been pronounced and sanctioned, it shall appear that Goethe’s earliest admirers have wandered too far into the language of panegyric, I hope it may be reckoned no unpardonable sin. It is spirit-stirring rather than spirit-sharpening, to consider that there is one of the Prophets here with us in our own day: that a man who is to be numbered with the Sages and Sacri Vates, the Shakespeares, the Tassos, the Cervanteses of the world, is looking on the things which we look on, has dealt with the very thoughts which we have to deal with, is reigning in serene dominion over the perplexities and contradictions in which we are still painfully entangled.

That Goethe’s mind is full of inconsistencies and shortcomings, can be a secret to no one who has heard of the Fall of Adam. Nor would it be difficult, in this place, to muster a long catalogue of darknesses defacing our perception of this brightness: but it might be still less profitable than it is difficult; for in Goethe’s writings, as in those of all true masters, an apparent blemish is apt, after maturer study, to pass into a beauty. His works cannot be judged in fractions, for each of them is conceived and written as a whole; the humble and common may be no less essential there than the high and splendid: it is only Chinese pictures that have no shade. There is a maxim, far better known than practised, that to detect faults is a much lower occupation than to recognize merits. We may add also, that though far easier in the execution, it is not a whit more certain in the result. What is the detecting of a fault, but the feeling of an incongruity, of a contradiction, which may exist in ourselves as well as in the object? Who shall say in which? None but he who sees this object as it is, and himself as he is. We have all heard of the critic fly; but none of us doubts the compass of his own vision. It is thus that a high work of art, still more that a high and original mind, may at all times calculate on much sorriest criticism. In looking at an extraordinary man, it were good for an ordinary man to be sure of seeing him, before attempting to oversee him. Having ascertained that Goethe is an object deserving study, it will be time to censure his faults when we have clearly estimated his merits; and if we are wise judges, not till then.

GOETHE by John Cowper Powys

As the enigmatic wisdom of Goethe been exhausted  —  after these years  —  and after the sudden transits across our sky of more flashing meteors? Ah! I deem not yet. Still he holds the entrance to the mysterious Gate, over the portals of which is written, not “Lasciate ogni speranza!” but “Think of Living!” A thunder-rifted heart he bears, but victory, not defeat, looks forth from his wide, outward-gazing eyes! One hand holds the skull, engraved with all the secret symbols of man’s ascent out of the bosom of Nature; engraved, yes!  —  by all the cunningest tools of Science and her unwearied research; but the other, raised aloft, noble and welcoming, carries the laurel crown of the triumph of Imagination!

So, between Truth and Poetry  —  “im ganzen guten, schonen,”  —  stands our Lord of Life!

Exhausted, the wisdom of Goethe? Ah, no!  —  hardly fathomed yet, in its uppermost levels! If it were really possible to put into words the whole complex world of impressions and visions, of secrets and methods, which that name suggests, one would be a wiser disciple than Eckermann. Fragment by fragment, morsel by morsel, the great Figure limns itself against the shadow of the years.

Is it too presumptuous a task to seek to evoke  —  taking first one impression of him and then another, first one reaction and then another  —  what this mysterious Name has come to mean for us? One hears the word “cosmic” whispered. It is whispered too often in these days. But “cosmic,” with its Whitmanesque, modern connotation, does not exactly fit Goethe. Goethe did not often abandon himself in Dionysian fury to the ultimate Elements. When he did  —  in his earlier youth  —  before the hardening process of his Italian Journey had sealed his protection from such romantic lapses  —  it was not quite in the strained, desperate, modern manner. One feels certain, thinking of what he was, at Frankfurt, at Leipsig, at Strassburg, at Weimar, that he always kept a clear, cool, Apollonian head, mad and amorous though his escapades may seem!

I do not fancy that ever once did Goethe really “give himself away,” or lose the foursquare solidity of his balance in any wild staggering to left or right. No; the Goethean temper, the Goethean attitude, cannot be described as “cosmic,” while that word implies a certain complete yielding to a vague earth-worship. There was nothing vague about Goethe’s intimacy, if I may put it so, with the Earth. He and It seemed destined to understand one another most serenely, in a shrewd and deliberate conspiracy!

The Goethean attitude to the Universe is too self-poised and self-centered to be adequately rendered by any word that suggests complete abandonment. It is too  —  what shall I say?  —  too sly and demonic  —  too much inside the little secrets of the great Mother  —  to be summed up in a word that suggests a sort of Titanic whirlwind of embraces. And yet, on the other hand, it is quite as easy to exaggerate the Olympian aspect of Goethe. When this is carried too far, something in him, something extraordinarily characteristic, evaporates, like a thin stream of Parnassian smoke.

How shall I express what this is? Perhaps it is the German in him. For, in spite of all Nietzsche’s Mediterraneanizing of this Superman, Goethe was profoundly and inveterately German. The Rhine-Maidens rocked him in his cradle and, though he might journey to Rome or Troy or Carthage, it was to the Rhine-Maidens that he returned. Yes, I do not think that those understand him best who keep bowing to the ground and muttering “Olympian”!

Am I carrying this particular taper-light of discrimination too far when I say that there is, to the Celtic mind at least, something humorously naive and childlike in Goethe, mixed in, queerly enough, with all his rich, mellow, and even worldly, wisdom? One overtakes him, now and then, and catches him, as it were, off his guard, in little pathetic lapses into a curious simplicity  —  a simplicity grave-eyed, portentious and solemn  —  almost like that of some great Infant-Faun, trying very seriously to learn the difficult syllables of our human “Categorical Imperative”! World-child, as he was, the magic of the universe pouring through him, one sometimes feels a strange, dim hope with regard to that dubious general Issue, when we find him so confident about the presence of the mysterious Being he worshipped; and so transparently certain of his personal survival after Death!

There is no one, except Leonardo Da Vinci, in the whole history of our Planet, who gives us quite that sense of a person possessed of some secret illumination not granted to the rest of the world. There is much reassurance in this. More than has been, perhaps, realized. For it is probable that “in his caves of ice,” Leonardo also felt himself indestructible by the Arch-Enemy. One thinks of those Cabalistic words of old Glanville, “Man does not yield himself to Death  —  save by the weakness of his mortal Will.”

Goethe collecting fossils and crystals and specimens of rock-strata; Goethe visiting Botanical Gardens and pondering on the Metamorphosis of Plants; Goethe climbing Strassburg Cathedral-Spire; Goethe meeting the Phantom of Himself as he returned from the arms of Frederika; Goethe “experiencing the sensation” of crossing the “Firing-Line”; Goethe “announcing” to Eckermann that that worthy man had better avoid undertaking any “great” literary work; Goethe sending Frau von Stein sausages from his breakfast-table; Goethe consoling himself in the Storm by observing his birth-star Lucifer, and thinking of the Lake of Galilee, are pictures of noble and humorous memory which reconcile one to the Comedy of Living!

How vividly returns to me  —  your pardon, reader!  —  the first time I read “The Sorrows of Werter” in that little “Three-penny” edition published by Messrs. Cassell! It was in a Barge, towed by three Horses, on the River, between Langport and Bridgewater, in the County of Somerset! The majority of the company were as rowdy a set of good-humored Bean-Feasters as ever drank thin beer in a ramshackle tavern. But there was one of them  —  this is twenty-five years ago, reader!  —  a girl as fragile as a peeled Willow-wand  —  and teased by the rude badinage of our companions we sheltered  —  as the friendly mists rose  —  under a great Tarpaulin at the barge’s stern. Where is that girl now, I wonder? Is she alive? Will she ever blush with anger at being thus gently lifted up, from beneath the kind Somersetshire mists, into an hour’s publicity? Who can tell? We are all passing one another, in mist-darkened barges, swift or slow. She is a wraith, a shadow, a receding phantom; but I wave my hand to her over the years! I shall always associate her with Lotte; and I never smell the peculiar smell of Tarpaulin without thinking of “the Sorrows of Werter.”

“Werter” has certainly the very droop and bewilderment of youth’s first passion. It is good to plunge one’s hands, when one has grown cynical and old, into that innocent, if somewhat turbid, fountain. When we pass to “Wilhelm Meister,” we are in quite a different world. The earlier part of this book has the very stamp of the Goethean “truth and poetry.” One can read it side by side with the great “Autobiography” and find the shrewd insight and oracular wisdom quite equally convincing in the invention and the reality. What an unmistakable and unique character all these imaginary persons of Goethe’s stories have! They are so different from any other persons in fiction! Wherein does the difference lie? It is hard to say. In a sense, they are more life-like and real. In another sense, they are more fantastic. Sometimes they seem mere dolls  —  like the figures in his own puppet-show  —  and we can literally “see the puppets dallying.”

Jarno is a queer companion for a man to have. And what of the lady who, when she was asked whether she had ever loved, answered, “never or always”? Phillina is a very loving and an extremely vivacious wench. Goethe’s sublime unconsciousness of ordinary moral qualms is never better observed than in the story of this extravagant young minx. Then, in the midst of it all, the arresting, ambiguous little figure of poor Mignon! What does she do  —  a child of pure lyrical poetry  —  a thing out of the old ballads  —  in this queer, grave, indecent company? That elaborate description of Mignon’s funeral so carefully arranged by the Aesthetic “Uncle,” has it not all the curious qualities of the Goethean vein  —  its clairvoyant insight into the under-truth of Nature  —  its cold-blooded pre-occupation with “Art”  —  its gentle irony  —  its mania for exact detail? The “gentle irony” of which I speak has its opportunity in the account of the “Beautiful Soul” or “Fair Saint.” It reads, in places, like the tender dissection of a lovely corpse by a genial, elderly Doctor.

But the passage which, for me, is most precious is that Apprentice’s “Indenture.” I suppose in no other single paragraph of human prose is there so much concentrated wisdom. “To act is easy  —  to think is hard!” How extraordinarily true that is! But it is not the precise tune of the strenuous preachers of our time! The whole idea of the “Pedagogic Province,” ruled over by that admirable Abbé, is so exquisitely in Goethe’s most wise and yet most simple manner! The passage about the “Three Reverences” and the “Creed” is as good an instance of that sublime Spinozistic way of dealing with the current religion as that amazing remark he made once to Eckerman about his own faith: “When I want scientific unity, I am a Pantheist. When I desire poetical multifariousness, I am a Polytheist. And when my moral nature requires a Personal God  —  there is room for That also?”

When one comes to speak of Faust, it is necessary for us to remember the words the great man himself used to his follower in speaking of this masterpiece. Eckermann teased him for interpretations. “What,” said he to Goethe, “is the leading Idea in the Poem?” “Do you suppose,” answered the Sage, “that a thing into which I have put the Life-Blood of all my days is able to be summoned up in anything so narrow and limited as an Idea?”

Personally, I do not hesitate to say that I think Faust is the most permanently interesting of all the works that have proceeded from the human brain.

Its attitude to life is one which ultimately has more to strengthen and sustain and put courage  —  if not the Devil  —  into us than anything I know. When I meet a man who shall tell me that the Philosophy of his life is the Philosophy of Faust, I bow down humbly before him. I did meet such a man once. I think he was a Commercial Traveller from Buffalo.

How wisely Goethe deals in Faust with the problem  —  if it be a problem  —  of Evil! His suggestion seems to be that the spirit of Evil in the world  —  “part of that Nothing out of which came the All”  —  plays an absolutely essential role. “By means of it God fulfils his most cherished purposes.” Had Faust not seduced poor little Gretchen, he would never have passed as far as he did along the road of Initiation, and the spirit of his Victim  —  in her translunar Apotheosis  —  would not have been there to lift him Heavenwards at the last. And yet no one could say that Goethe disparages the enormity of Faust’s crime. That ineffable retort of Mephistopheles, when, on those “black horses,” they are whirled through the night to her dungeon, “She is not the first,” has the essence of all pity and wrath in its cruel sting. Mephistopheles himself is the most interesting of all Devils. And he is so because, although he knows perfectly well  —  queer Son of Chaos as he is  —  that he is bound to be defeated, he yet goes on upon his evil way, and continues to resist the great stream of Life which, according to his view, had better never have broken loose from primeval Nothingness.

That is ultimately Goethe’s contribution to the disputes about what we call “God.” The name does not matter. “Feeling is all in all. The name is sound and smoke.” “God,” or “the Good,” is to Goethe simply the eternal stream of life, working slowly upwards, onwards, to unknown goals. All that opposes itself to this Life-stream is evil. Morality, a man-made local convention, is our present blundering method of assisting this great Force, and preventing its sterility, or dissipation. In his conception of the nature of this Life-stream Goethe is more Catholic and more subtle than Nietzsche.

Self-realization? Certainly! That is an aspect of it which was not likely to be forgotten by the great Egoist whose sole object, as he confessed, was to “build up the Pyramid of his Existence” from the broadest possible base. But not only self-realization. The “dying to live” of the Christian, as well as “the rising above one’s body” of the Platonist, have their part there. Ascetism itself, with all its degrees of passionate or philosophical purity, is as much an evocation of the world-spirit  —  of the essential nature of the System of Things  —  as is the other.

It is, of course, ultimately, quite a mad hope to desire to convert “the Spirit that Denies.” He, too, under the Lord, is an accomplice of the Life-stream. He helps it forward, even while he opposes himself to it, just as a bulwark of submerged rocks make the tide leap landward with more foaming fury!

Goethe’s idea of the “Eternal Feminine” leading us “upward and on” is not at all the sentimental nonsense which Nietzsche fancied it. In a profound sense it is absolutely true. Nor need the more anti-feminist among us be troubled by such a Truth. We have just seen that the Devil himself is a means, and a very essential means, for leading us “upward and on.”

Goethe is perfectly right. The “love of women,” though a destructive force, and a frightful force as far as certain kinds of “art” and “philosophy” are concerned, cannot be looked upon as anything but “a provocation to creation,” when the whole large scheme of existence is taken into account.

I think myself that it is easy to make too much of Goethe’s Pantheism. The Being he worshipped was simply “Whatever Mystery” lies behind the ocean of Life. And if no “mystery” lies behind the ocean of life,  —  very well! A Goethean disciple is able, then, to worship Life, with no mystery behind it! It is rather the custom among clever, tiresome people to disparage that second part of Faust, with its world-panoramic procession of all the gods and demi-gods and angels and demons that have ever visited this earth. I do not disparage it. I have never found it dull. Dull would he be, as “the fat weed that rots itself in case on Lethe’s wharf,” who found nothing curious and provocative about these Sirens and Centaurs and Lemures and Larvae and Cabiri and Phorkyads! I can myself endure very pleasantly even the society of those “Blessed Boys” which some have found so distressing. As for the Devil, in the end, making “indecent overtures” to the little Heavenly Butterflies, who pelt him with roses  —  even that does not confuse my mind or distract my senses. It is the “other side of the Moon”  —  the under-mask of the world-comedy, and the incidental “saving” of Dr. Faust is not more essential in the great mad game!

Read Faust, both portions of it, dear reader, and see if you do not feel, with me, that, in the last resort, one leaves this rich, strange poem with a nobler courage to endure life, and a larger view of its amazing possibilities!

I wonder if that curious novel of Goethe’s called the “Elective Affinities” is perused as widely as it deserves? That extraordinary company of people! And the patient, portentious interest Goethe compels us to take in the laying out of gardens and the beautifying of church-yards! “The Captain,” “the Architect”  —  not to speak of the two bewildering women  —  do they not suggest fantastic figures out of one’s memories of remotest childhood? I suppose to a world-child like Goethe, watching, with grave super-human interest, all our little pre-occupations, we have all of us something of the sweet pedantry of these people  —  we are all of us “Captains” and “Architects” with some odd twist in our quiet heads.

The solemn immorality, amounting to outrageous indecency, of those scenes between the assorted lovers when they make “double” love, and behind the mask of their legitimate attachments follow their “elective affinities,” is a thing that may well stagger the puritan reader. The puritan reader will, indeed, like old Carlyle, be tempted more than once to fling these grave, unblushing chronicles, with their deep, oracular wisdom and their shameless details, into the dust-heap. But it were wiser to refrain. After all, one cannot conceal from one’s self that things are like that  —  and if the hyaena’s howl, from the filthy marshes of earth’s weird edge and the thick saliva on his oozing jaws, nauseates our preciosity, and besmirches our self-esteem, we must remember that this is the way the Lord of “the Prologue in Heaven” has willed that the scavengers of life’s cesspools go about their work!

Probably it will not be the “indecency” of certain things in Goethe that will most offend our modern taste; it will be that curious, grave pre-occupation of his, so objective and stiff, with artistic details, and architectural details, and theatrical details!

One must remember his noble saying, “Earnestness alone makes life Eternity” and that other “saying” about Art having, as its main purpose, the turning of the “Transitory” into the “Permanent”! If the Transitory is really to be turned into the Permanent, we must take ourselves and our work very seriously indeed!

And such “seriousness,” such high, patient, unwearied seriousness, is, after all, Goethe’s bequest to our flippant and fanciful generation. He knows well enough our deepest doubt, our most harrowing scepticism. He has long ago “been through all that.” But he has “returned”  —  not exactly like Nietzsche, with a fierce, scornful, dramatic cry, to a contemptuous “superficiality”  —  he has returned to the actual possibilities that the world offers, “superficial” and otherwise, of turning the whole strange business into a solid, four-square “work of art.” We must reject “evil,” quietly and ironically; not because it is condemned by human morality, but because “we have our work to do”! We must live in “the good” and “the true,” not because it is our “duty” so to do, but because only along this particular line does the “energy without agitation” of the “abysmal mothers” communicate itself to our labour.

And so we come back, like the grief-stricken children over Mignon’s grave, to Life and Life’s toil. There only, in the inflexible development of what taste, of what discernment, of what power, of what method, of what demonic genius, we may have been granted by the gods, lies “the cosmic secret.” That is all we have in our human hands, that malleable stuff out of which Fate made us  —  and only in the shrewd, unwearied use of that shall we prove our love to the Being “who cannot love us in return” and make our illusion of Free-Will part of his universal Purpose!

GOETHE’S FAUST by George Santayana

In approaching the third of our philosophical poets, there is a scruple that may cross the mind. Lucretius was undoubtedly a philosophical poet; his whole poem is devoted to expounding and defending a system of philosophy. In Dante the case is almost as plain. The Divine Comedy is a moral and personal fable; yet not only are many passages explicitly philosophical, but the whole is inspired and controlled by the most definite of religious systems and of moral codes. Dante, too, is unmistakably a philosophical poet. But was Goethe a philosopher? And is Faust a philosophical poem?

If we say so, it must be by giving a certain latitude to our terms. Goethe was the wisest of mankind; too wise, perhaps, to be a philosopher in the technical sense, or to try to harness this wild world in a brain-spun terminology. It is true that he was all his life a follower of Spinoza, and that he may be termed, without hesitation, a naturalist in philosophy and a pantheist. His adherence to the general attitude of Spinoza, however, did not exclude a great plasticity and freedom in his own views, even on the most fundamental points. Thus Goethe did not admit the mechanical interpretation of nature advocated by Spinoza. He also assigned, at least to privileged souls, like his own, a more personal sort of immortality than Spinoza allowed. Moreover, he harboured a generous sympathy with the dramatic explanations of nature and history current in the Germany of his day. Yet such transcendental idealism, making the world the expression of a spiritual endeavour, was a total reversal of that conviction, so profound in Spinoza, that all moral energies are resident in particular creatures, themselves sparks in an absolutely infinite and purposeless world. In a word, Goethe was not a systematic philosopher. His feeling for the march of things and for the significance of great personages and great ideas was indeed philosophical, although more romantic than scientific. His thoughts upon life were fresh and miscellaneous. They voiced the genius and learning of his age. They did not express a firm personal attitude, radical and unified, and transmissible to other times and persons. For philosophers, after all, have this advantage over men of letters, that their minds, being more organic, can more easily propagate themselves. They scatter less influence, but more seeds.

If from Goethe we turn to Faust  —  and it is as the author of Faust only that we shall consider him  —  the situation is not less ambiguous. In the play, as the young Goethe first wrote it, philosophy appeared in the first line,  —  Hab nun ach die Philosophey; but it appeared there, and throughout the piece, merely as a human experience, a passion or an illusion, a fund of images or an ambitious art. Later, it is true, under the spell of fashion and of Schiller, Goethe surrounded his original scenes with others, like the prologue in heaven, or the apotheosis of Faust, in which a philosophy of life was indicated; namely, that he who strives strays, yet in that straying finds his salvation. This idea left standing all that satirical and Mephistophelian wisdom with which the whole poem abounds, the later parts no less than the earlier. Frankly, it was a moral that adorned the tale, without having been the seed of it, and without even expressing fairly the spirit which it breathes. Faust remained an essentially romantic poem, written to give vent to a pregnant and vivid genius, to touch the heart, to bewilder the mind with a carnival of images, to amuse, to thrill, to humanize; and, if we must speak of philosophy, there were many express maxims in the poem, and many insights, half betrayed, that exceeded in philosophic value the belated and official moral which the author affixed to it, and which he himself warned us not to take too seriously.

Faust is, then, no philosophical poem, after an open or deliberate fashion; and yet it offers a solution to the moral problem of existence as truly as do the poems of Lucretius and Dante. Heard philosophies are sweet, but those unheard may be sweeter. They may be more unmixed and more profound for being adopted unconsciously, for being lived rather than taught. This is not merely to say what might be said of every work of art and of every natural object, that it could be made the starting-point for a chain of inferences that should reveal the whole universe, like the flower in the crannied wall. It is to say, rather, that the vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best-chosen words.

Now Faust is the foam on the top of two great waves of human aspiration, merging and heaping themselves up together,  —  the wave of romanticism rising from the depths of northern traditions and genius, and the wave of a new paganism coming from Greece over Italy. These are not philosophies to be read into Faust by the critic; they are passions seething in the drama. It is the drama of a philosophical adventure; a rebellion against convention; a flight to nature, to tenderness, to beauty; and then a return to convention again, with a feeling that nature, tenderness, and beauty, unless found there, will not be found at all. Goethe never depicts, as Dante does, the object his hero is pursuing; he is satisfied with depicting the pursuit. Like Lessing, in his famous apologue, he prefers the pursuit of the ideal to the ideal itself; perhaps, as in the case of Lessing, because the hope of realizing the ideal, and the interest in realizing it, were beginning to forsake him.

The case is somewhat as that of Dante would have been if, instead of recognizing and loving Beatrice at first sight and rising into a vision of the eternal world, ready-made and perfectly ordered, Dante had passed from love to love, from donna gentile to donna gentile, always longing for the eyes of Beatrice without ever meeting them. The Divine Comedy would then have been only human, yet it might have suggested and required the very consummation that the Divine Comedy depicts; and without expressing this consummation, our human comedy might have furnished materials and momentum for it, such that, if ever that consummation came to be expressed, it would be more deeply felt and more adequately understood. Dante gives us a philosophical goal, and we have to recall and retrace the journey; Goethe gives us a philosophic journey, and we have to divine the goal.

Goethe is a romantic poet; he is a novelist in verse. He is a philosopher of experience as it comes to the individual; the philosopher of life, as action, memory, or soliloquy may put life before each of us in turn. Now the zest of romanticism consists in taking what you know is an independent and ancient world as if it were material for your private emotions. The savage or the animal, who should not be aware of nature or history at all, could not be romantic about them, nor about himself. He would be blandly idiotic, and take everything quite unsuspectingly for what it was in him. The romanticist, then, should be a civilized man, so that his primitiveness and egotism may have something paradoxical and conscious about them; and so that his life may contain a rich experience, and his reflection may play with all varieties of sentiment and thought. At the same time, in his inmost genius, he should be a barbarian, a child, a transcendentalist, so that his life may seem to him absolutely fresh, self-determined, unforeseen, and unforeseeable. It is part of his inspiration to believe that he creates a new heaven and a new earth with each revolution in his moods or in his purposes. He ignores, or seeks to ignore, all the conditions of life, until perhaps by living he personally discovers them. Like Faust, he flouts science, and is minded to make trial of magic, which renders a man’s will master of the universe in which he seems to live. He disowns all authority, save that mysteriously exercised over him by his deep faith in himself. He is always honest and brave; but he is always different, and absolves himself from his past as soon as he has outgrown or forgotten it. He is inclined to be wayward and foolhardy, justifying himself on the ground that all experience is interesting, that the springs of it are inexhaustible and always pure, and that the future of his soul is infinite. In the romantic hero the civilized man and the barbarian must be combined; he should be the heir to all civilization, and, nevertheless, he should take life arrogantly and egotistically, as if it were an absolute personal experiment.

This singular combination was strikingly exemplified in Doctor Johannes Faustus, a figure half historical, half legendary, familiar to Goethe in his boyhood in puppet-shows and chapbooks. An adventurer in the romantic as well as in the vulgar sense of the word, somewhat like Paracelsus or Giordano Bruno, Doctor Faustus had felt the mystery of nature, had scorned authority, had credited magic, had lived by imposture, and had fled from the police. His blasphemous boasts and rascally conduct, together with his magic arts, had made him even in his lifetime a scandalous and interesting personage. He was scarcely dead when legends gathered about his name. It was published abroad that he had sold his soul to the devil, in exchange for twenty-four years of wild pleasures upon earth.

This legend purported to offer a terrible and edifying example, a warning to all Christians to avoid the snares of science, of pleasure, and of ambition. These things had sent Doctor Faustus into hell-fire; his corpse, found face downward, could not be turned over upon its back. Nevertheless, we may suspect that even at the beginning people recognized in Doctor Faustus a braver brother, a somewhat enviable reprobate who had dared to relish the good things of this life above the sad joys vaguely promised for the other. All that the Renaissance valued was here represented as in the devil’s gift; and the man in the street might well doubt whether it was religion or worldly life that was thereby made the more unlovely. Doubtless the Lutheran authors of the first chapbook felt, and felt rightly, that those fine things which tempted Faustus were unevangelical, pagan, and popish; yet they could not cease altogether to admire and even to covet them, especially when the first ardours of the Old-Christian revival had had time to cool.

Marlowe, who wrote only a few years later, made a beginning in the rehabilitation of the hero. His Faustus is still damned, but he is transformed into the sort of personage that Aristotle approves of for the hero of tragedy, essentially human and noble, but led astray by some excusable vice or error. Marlowe’s public would see in Doctor Faustus a man and a Christian like themselves, carried a bit too far by ambition and the love of pleasure. He is no radical unbeliever, no natural mate for the devil, conscienceless and heathen, like the typical villain of the Renaissance. On the contrary, he has become a good Protestant, and holds manfully to all those parts of the creed which express his spontaneous affections. A good angel is often overheard whispering in his ear; and if the bad angel finally prevails, it is in spite of continual remorse and hesitation on the Doctor’s part. This excellent Faustus is damned by accident or by predestination; he is brow-beaten by the devil and forbidden to repent When he has really repented. The terror of the conclusion is thereby heightened; we see an essentially good man, because in a moment of infatuation he had signed away his soul, driven against his will to despair and damnation. The alternative of a happy solution lies almost at hand; and it is only a lingering taste for the lurid and the horrible, ingrained in this sort of melodrama, that sends him shrieking to hell.

What makes Marlowe’s conclusion the more violent and the more unphilosophical is the fact that, to any one not dominated by convention, the good angel, in the dialogue, seems to have so much the worse of the argument. All he has to offer is sour admonition and external warnings:

O Faustus, lay that damned book aside,
And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul,
And heap God’s heavy wrath upon thy head.
Read, read, the Scriptures; that is blasphemy....
Sweet Faustus, think of heaven, and heavenly things.

To which the evil angel replies:

No, Faustus, think of honour and of wealth.

And in another place:

Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,
Wherein all nature’s treasure is contained.
Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements.

There can be no doubt that the devil here represents the natural ideal of Faustus, or of any child of the Renaissance; he appeals to the vague but healthy ambitions of a young soul, that would make trial of the world. In other words, this devil represents the true good, and it is no wonder if the honest Faustus cannot resist his suggestions. We like him for his love of life, for his trust in nature, for his enthusiasm for beauty. He speaks for us all when he cries:

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Even his irreverent pranks, being directed against the pope, endear him the more to an anti-clerical public; and he appeals to courtiers and cavaliers by his lofty poetical scorn for such crabbed professions as the law, medicine, or theology. In a word, Marlowe’s Faustus is a martyr to everything that the Renaissance prized,  —  power, curious knowledge, enterprise, wealth, and beauty.

How thoroughly Marlowe and Goethe are on the way towards reversing the Christian philosophy of life may be seen if we compare Faust for a moment (as, in other respects, has often been done) with The Wonder-working Magician of Calderon. This earlier hero, St. Cyprian of Antioch, is like Faust in being a scholar, signing away his soul to the devil, practising magic, embracing the ghost of beauty, and being ultimately saved. Here the analogy ends. Cyprian, far from being disgusted with all theory, and particularly with theology, is a pagan philosopher eagerly seeking God, and working his way, with full faith in his method, toward Christian orthodoxy. He floors the devil in scholastic argument about the unity of God, his power, wisdom, and goodness. He falls in love, and sells his soul merely in the hope of satisfying his passion. He studies magic chiefly for the same reason; but magic cannot overrule the free-will of the Christian lady he loves (a modern and very Spanish one, though supposed to adorn ancient Antioch). The devil can supply only a false phantasm of her person, and as Cyprian approaches her and lifts her veil, he finds a hideous death’s-head beneath; for God can work miracles to cap those of any magician, and can beat the devil at his own game. Thunderstruck at this portent, Cyprian becomes a Christian. Half-naked, ecstatic, taken for a madman, he bears witness loudly and persistently to the power, wisdom, and goodness of the one true God; and, since the persecution of Decius is then going on, he is hurried away to martyrdom. His lady, sentenced also for the same cause, encourages him by her heroic attitude and words. Their earthly passion is dead; but their souls are united in death and in immortality.

In this drama we see magic checkmated by miracles, doubt yielding to faith, purity resisting temptation, passion transformed into zeal, and all the glories of the world collapsing before disillusion and asceticism. These glories are nothing, the poet tells us, but dust, ashes, smoke, and air.

The contrast with Goethe’s Faust could not be more complete. Both poets take the greatest liberties with their chronology, yet the spirit of their dramas is remarkably true to the respective ages in which they are supposed to occur. Calderon glorifies the movement from paganism to Christianity. The philosophy in which that movement culminated  —  Catholic orthodoxy  —  still dominates the poet’s mind, not in a perfunctory way, but so as to kindle his imagination, and render his personages sublime and his verses rapturous. Goethe’s Faust, on the contrary, glorifies the return from Christianity to paganism. It shows the spirit of the Renaissance liberating the soul, and bursting the bonds of traditional faith and traditional morals. This spirit, after manifesting itself brilliantly at the time of the historical Faust, had seemed to be smothered in the great world during the seventeenth century. Men’s characters and laws had reaffirmed their old allegiance to Christianity, and the Renaissance survived only abstractly, in scholarship or the fine arts, to which it continued to lend a certain classic or pseudo-classic elegance. In Goethe’s time, however, a second Renaissance was taking place in the souls of men. The love of life, primal and adventurous, was gathering head in many an individual. In the romantic movement and in the French Revolution, this love of life freed itself from the politic compromises and conventions that had been stifling it for two hundred years. Goethe’s hero embodies this second, romantic emancipation of the mind, too long an unwilling pupil of Christian tradition. He cries for air, for nature, for all experience. Cyprian, on the other hand, an unwilling pupil of paganism, had yearned for truth, for solitude, and for heaven.

Such was the legend that, to the great good fortune of mankind, fascinated the young Goethe, and took root in his fancy. Around it gathered the experiences and insights of sixty well-filled years: Faust became the poetical autobiography and the philosophic testament of Goethe. He stuffed it with every enthusiasm that diversified his own life, from the great alternative of romantic or classical art, down to the controversy between Neptunism and Vulcanism in geology, and to his fatherly admiration for Lord Byron. Yet in spite of the liberties he took with the legend, and the personal turn he gave it, nothing in its historical associations escaped him. His life in Frankfort and in Strassburg had made the mediaeval scene familiar to his fancy; Herder had communicated to him an imaginative cult for all that was national and characteristic in art and manners; the spell of Gothic architecture had fallen on him; and he had learned to feel in Shakespeare the infinite strength of suggestion in details, in multitudinous glimpses, in lifelike medleys of sadness and mirth, in a humble realism in externals, amid lyric and metaphysical outpourings of the passions. The sense for classic beauty which had inspired Marlowe with immortal lines, and was later to inspire his own Helena, was as yet dormant; but instead he had caught the humanitarian craze, then prevalent, for defending and idealizing the victims of law and society, among others, the poor girl who, to escape disgrace, did away with her new-born child. Such a victim of a selfish seducer and a Pharisaical public was to add a desirable touch of femininity and pathos to the story of Faust: Gretchen was to take the place, at least for the nonce, of the coveted Helen.

This Gretchen was to be no common creature, but one endowed with all the innocence, sweetness, intelligence, fire, and fortitude which Goethe was finding, or thought he was finding, in his own Gretchens, Kätchens, and Frederickes. For the young Goethe, though very learned, was no mere student of books; to his human competence and power to succeed, he joined the gusts of feeling, the irresponsible raptures, the sudden sorrows, of a genuine poet. He was a true lover, and a wayward one. He could delve into magic with awe, in a Faust-like spirit of adventure; he could burn offerings in his attic to the rising sun; he could plunge into Christian mysticism; and there could well up, on occasion, from the deep store of his unconscious mind, floods of words, of images, and of tears. He was a genius, if ever there was one; and this genius, in all its freshness, was poured into the composition of Faust,  —  the most kindred of themes, the most picturesque and magical of romances.

In Goethe’s first version of the poem, before the story of Gretchen, we find the studious Faust, as in Marlowe, soliloquizing on the vanity of the sciences. They grasp nothing of the genuine truth; they are verbal shams. They have not even brought Faust fame or riches. Perhaps magic might do better. The air was full of spirits; could they be summoned to our aid, possibly the secrets of nature might be unlocked. We might reach true science, and through it undreamt-of power over the material world. For Nature, according to Goethe, really has secrets. She is not all open to eventual inspection; she is no mere mechanism of minute parts and statable laws. Our last view of her, like our first glimpse, must be interpreted; from the sum of her manifestations we must divine her soul. Therefore only a poetic and rhetorical art, like magic, has any chance of unveiling her, and of bringing us face to face with the truth.

In this invocation of spirits, as Goethe’s Faust makes it, there is no question of selling, or even of risking, the soul. This Faust, unlike Marlowe’s, has no faith and no fear. From the point of view of the church he is damned already as an unbeliever; but, as an unbeliever, he is looking for salvation in another quarter. Like the bolder spirits of the Renaissance, he is hoping to find in universal nature, infinite, placid, non-censorious, an escape from the prison-house of Christian doctrine and Christian law. His magic arts are the sacrament that will initiate him into his new religion, the religion of nature. He turns to nature also in another sense, more characteristic of the age of Goethe than of that of Faust. He longs for grandiose solitudes. He feels that moonlight, caves, mountains, driving clouds, would be his best medicine and his best counsellors. The souls of Rousseau, Byron, and Shelley are pre-incarnate in this Faust, the epitome of all romantic rebellions. They coexist there with the souls of Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno. The wild aspects of nature, he thinks, will melt and renew his heart, while magic reveals the mysteries of cosmic law and helps him to exploit them.

Full of these hopes, Faust opens his book of magic at the sign of the Macrocosm: it shows him the mechanism of the world, all forces and events playing into one another and forming an infinite chain. The spectacle entrances him; he seems to have attained one of his dearest ambitions. But here he comes at once upon the other half, or, as Hegel would call it, the other moment, of the romantic life. Every romantic ideal, once realized, disenchants. No matter what we attain, our dissatisfaction must be perpetual. Thus the vision of the universe, which Faust now has before him, is, he remembers, only a vision; it is a theory or conception. It is not a rendering of the inner life of the world as Shakespeare, for instance, feels and renders it. Experience; as it comes to him who lives and works, is not given by that theoretical vision; in science experience is turned into so many reviewed events, the passage of so much substance through so many forms. But Faust does not want an image or description of reality; he yearns to enact and to become the reality itself.

In this new search, he fixes his eye on the sign of the Earth-Spirit, which seems more propitious to his present wish. This sign is the key to all experience. All experience tempts Faust; he shrinks from nothing that any mortal may have endured; he is ready to undertake everything that any mortal may have done. In all men he would live; and with the last man he will be content to die. So mighty is his yearning for experience that the Earth-Spirit is softened and appears at his bidding. In a red flame he sees its monstrous visage, and his enthusiasm is turned to horror. Outspread before him is the furious, indiscriminate cataract of life, the merciless flux, the infinite variety, the absolute inconstancy of it. This general life is not for any individual to rehearse; it I bursts all bounds of personality. Each man may assimilate that part only which falls within his understanding, only that aspect which things wear from his particular angle, and to his particular interests. Du gleichst, the Earth-Spirit cries to him,  —  du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst, nicht mir.

This saying  —  that the life possible and good for man is the life of reason, not the life of nature  —  is a hard one to the romantic, unintellectual, insatiable Faust. He thinks, like many another philosopher of feeling, that since his is a part of the sum of experience, the whole of experience should be akin to his. But in fact the opposite is far nearer the truth. Man is constituted by his limitations, by his station contrasted with all other stations, and his purposes chosen from amongst all other purposes. Any great scope he can attain must be due to his powers of representation. His understanding may render him universal; his life never can. Faust, as he hears this sentence from the departing Earth-Spirit, collapses under it. He feels impotent to gainsay what the tumult of the world is thundering at him, but he will not accept on authority so unwelcome and chastening a truth. All his long experience to come will scarcely suffice to convince him of it.

These are the chief philosophical ideas that appear in the two earlier versions of Goethe’s Faust,  —  the Urfaust and the Fragment. What Mephistopheles says to the young student is only a clever expansion of what Faust had said in his first monologue about the vanity of science and of the learned professions. Mephistopheles, too, finds theory ashen, and the tree of life green and full of golden fruit; only, having more experience than Faust of the second disenchanting moment in the romantic dialectic, he foresees that this golden fruit also will turn to ashes in the mouth, as it did in the garden of Eden. Science is folly, but life is no better; for after all is not science a part of life?

When we turn to the first part in its final shape, or to the entire drama, we find many changes and additions that seem to transform the romantic picture of the opening scene, and to offer us a rounded philosophy. The changes, however, are more in expression than in ultimate substance, and the additions are chiefly new illustrations of the ancient theme. Critics who study the Entstehungsgeschichte of works of art help us to analyze them more intelligently and reproduce more accurately what, at various times, may have been the intention of their authors. Yet these bits of information would be dearly bought if we were distracted by them from what gives poetic value and individual character to the result  —  its total idiosyncrasy, its place in the moral world. The place in the moral world of Goethe’s Faust as a whole is just the place which the opening scene gave it in the beginning. It fills more space, it touches more historical and poetic matters; but its centre is the old centre, and its result the old result. It remains romantic in its pictures and in its philosophy.

The first addition that promises to throw new light on the idea of the drama is the Prologue in Heaven. In imitation of The Book of Job, we find the morning stars  —  the three archangels  —  singing together; and then follows a very agreeable and humorous conversation between the Lord and Mephistopheles. The scene is in the style of mediaeval religious plays, and this circumstance might lead us to suppose that the point at issue was the salvation of Faust’s soul. But that, in the literal sense, is far from being the case. As in Job, the question is what sentiments the tempted mortal will maintain during this life, not what fate will afterwards overtake his disembodied spirit. Dead men, Mephistopheles observes, do not interest him. He is not a devil from a subterranean hell, concerned, out of pique or ambition, to increase the population of tortured shades in that fabulous region. He dwells in the atmosphere of earth; he knows nothing of the suns or the worlds, the life of man is his element. He remains  —  what he was in the first versions of the play  —  a part of the Earth-Spirit, one of its embodiments. His particular office, as we shall see presently, is to precipitate that continual destruction which is involved in the continual renewal of life. He finds it very foolish of Faust to demand everything and be satisfied with nothing; and his wager is that Faust may be brought to demand nothing and be satisfied with what chance throws in his way, that he shall lick the dust, and lick it with pleasure, that he shall renounce the dignity of willing what is not and cannot be, and crawl about, like the serpent, basking in the comforts of the moment.

Against this, the Lord pronounces Faust to be his servant,  —  the servant, that is, of an ideal,  —  and declares that whoever strives after an ideal must needs go astray; yet in his necessary errors, the good man never misses the right road. In other words, to have an ideal to strive for, and, like Faust, never to be satisfied, is itself the salvation of man. Faust does not yet know this. He half believes there is some concrete and ultimate good beyond, and so is bitter and violent in his dissatisfaction; but in due season he will come to clearness on this subject, and understand that only he deserves freedom and life who must daily win them afresh. Mephistopheles himself, with his mockeries and seductions, helps to keep the world moving and men wide awake. Imperfection is all that is possible in the world of action; but the angels may gather up and fix in thought the perfect forms approached or suggested by existence.

In the two earlier versions of Faust, Mephistopheles appears without introduction; we find him amusing himself by giving ambiguous advice to an innocent scholar, and accompanying Faust in his wanderings. His mocking tone and miraculous powers mark him at once as the devil of the legend; but several passages prove that he is a deputy of the Earth-Spirit evoked by Faust in the beginning. That he should be both devil and world-demon ought not to surprise the learned. The devils of popular mediaeval religion were not cut out of whole cloth: they were simply the Neoplatonic demons of the air, together with the gods of Olympus and the more ancient chthonic deities, blackened by sectarian zeal, and degraded by a coarse and timid imagination. Many of these pagan sprites, indeed, had been originally impish and mischievous, since not all the aspects of nature are lovely or propitious, nor all the dreams of men. But as a whole they were without malice in their irresponsible, elemental life,  —  winged powers darting through space between the earth and the moon. They were not dwellers in a subterranean hell; they were not tormentors nor tormented. Often they swarmed and sang blithely, as they do in Faust and even in the Wonder-working Magician; and if at other times they croaked or hooted, it was like frogs and owls, less lovely creatures than humming-birds, but not less natural.

One of these less amiable spirits of the atmosphere, especially of its ambient fire, is the Mephistopheles of Goethe. Why he delighted in evil rather than in good he himself explains in a profound and ingenious fashion. Darkness or nothingness, he says, existed alone before the birth of light. Nothingness or darkness still remains the fundamental and, to his mind, the better part of that mixture of being and privation which we call existence. Nothing that exists can be preserved, nor does it deserve to be; therefore it would have been better if nothing had ever existed. To deny the value of whatever is, and to wish to destroy it, according to him, is the only rational ambition; he is the spirit that denies continually, he is the everlasting No. This spirit  —  which we might compare with the Mars of Lucretius  —  has great power in the world; every change, in one of its aspects, expresses it, since in one of its aspects, every change is the destruction of something. This spirit is always willing evil, for it wills death, with all the folly, crime, and despair that minister to death. But in willing evil, it is always accomplishing good; for these evils make for nothingness, and nothingness is the true good. The famous couplet  — 

Ein Teil von jener Kraft
Die stets das Böse will, und stets das Gute schafft  — 

is far from expressing the Hegelian commonplace with which it is usually identified. It does not mean that destruction serves a good purpose after all because it clears the way for “something higher.” Mephistopheles is not one of those philosophers who think change and evolution a good in themselves. He does not admit that his activity, while aiming at evil, contributes unintentionally to the good. It contributes to the good intentionally, because the evil it does is, in his opinion, less than the evil it cures. He is the cruel surgeon to the disease of life.

If he admitted the other interpretation, he would be ipso facto converted to the view of the Lord in the Prologue. His naughtiness would become, in his own eyes, a needful service in the cause of life,  —  a condition of life being really vital and worth living. He might then continue his sly operations and biting witticisms, without one drop more of kindness, and yet be sanctioned in everything by the Absolute, and adopt the smile and halo of the optimist. He would have perceived that he was the spice of life, the yeast and red pepper of the world, necessary to the perfect savour of the providential concoction. As it is, Mephistopheles is far more modest. He says that he wills evil, because what he wills is contrary to what his victims will; he is the great contradictor, the blaster of young hopes. Yet he does good, because these young hopes, if let alone, would lead to misery and absurdity. His contradiction nips the folly of living in the bud. To be sure, as he goes on to acknowledge, the destructive power never wins a decisive victory. While everything falls successively beneath his sickle, the seeds of life are being scattered perpetually behind his back. The Lucretian Venus has her innings, as well as the Lucretian Mars. The eternal see-saw, the ancient flux, continues without end and without abatement.

Thus Mephistopheles has a philosophy, and is justified and consistent in his own eyes; yet in the course of the drama he wears various masks and has various moods. All he says and does cannot be made altogether compatible with the essence of his mind, as Goethe finally conceived it. The dramatic figure of Mephistopheles had been fixed long before in its graphic characteristics. Mephistopheles, for instance, is extremely old; he feels older than the universe. There is nothing new for him; he has no illusions. His feeling for anyone he sees is choked, as happens to old people, by his feelings for the infinite number of persons he remembers. He is heartless, because he is impersonal and universal. He is altogether inhuman; he has not the shames nor the tastes of man. He often assumes the form of a dog,  —  it is his favourite mask in this earthly carnival. He is not averse to the witches’ kitchen, with its senseless din and obscenity. He puts up good-naturedly with the grotesque etiquette of the spirit-world, observes all the rules about signing contracts in blood, knocking thrice, and respecting pentagrams. Why should he not? Dogs and demons of the air are forms of the Earth-Spirit as much as man; man has no special dignity that Mephistopheles should respect. Man’s morality is one of the moralities, his conventions are not less absurd than the conventions of other monkeys. Mephistopheles has no prejudice against the snake; he understands and he despises his cousin, the snake, also. He understands and he despises himself; he has had time to know himself thoroughly.

His understanding, however, is not impartial, because he is the advocate of death; he cannot sympathize with the other half of the Earth-Spirit, which he does not represent,  —  the creative, propulsive, enamoured side, the side that worships the ideal, the love that makes the world go round. What enchants an ingenuous soul can only amuse Mephistopheles; what torments it gives him a sardonic satisfaction. Thus he comes to be in fact a sour and mocking devil. At other times, when he opposes the silliness and romanticism of Faust, he seems to be the spokesman of all experience and reason; as when he warns Faust that to be at all you must be something in particular. Yet even this he says by way of checking and denying Faust’s passion for the infinite. The soberest truth, when unwelcome, may seem to the sentimental as diabolical as the most cynical lie; so that in spite of the very unequal justness of his various sentiments, Mephistopheles retains his dramatic unity. We recognize his tone and, under whatever mask, we think him a villain and find him delightful.

Such is the spirit, and such are the conditions, in which Faust undertakes his adventures. He thirsts for all experience, including all experience of evil; he fears no hell; and he hopes for no happiness. He trusts in magic; that is, he believes, or is willing to make believe, that apart from any settled conditions laid down by nature or God, personal will can evoke the experience it covets by its sheer force and assurance. His bond with Mephistopheles is an expression of this romantic faith. It is no bargain to buy pleasures on earth at the cost of torments hereafter; for neither Goethe, nor Faust, nor Mephistopheles believes that such pleasures are worth having, or such torments possible.

The first taste Faust gets of the world is in Auerbach’s cellar, and he finds it at once unpalatable. His mature and disdainful mind cannot be amused by the sodden merriment he sees there. He is without that simplicity and heartiness which might find even drunken gaiety attractive; to put up with such follies, one must know nothing, like Brander, or everything, like Mephistopheles. Faust still feels the “pathos of distance;” he is acutely conscious of something incomparably noble just out of reach. In the witches’ kitchen, which he next visits, pleasure is still more ugly and shallow; here the din is even more nonsensical, and the fancy more obscene. Yet Faust comes forth with two points gained in his romantic rehabilitation; he has taken the elixir of youth and he has seen the image of Helen in a mirror. He is henceforth in love with ideal beauty, and being young again, he is able to find ideal beauty in the first woman he sees.

The great episode of Gretchen follows; and when he leaves her (after the duel with her brother) to view the wild revels of the Walpurgisnacht, his youth for a moment catches the contagion of that orgy. His love of ideal beauty, which remains unsatisfied, saves him, however, from any lasting illusion. He sees a little red mouse running out of the mouth of a nymph he is pursuing, and his momentary inclination turns to aversion. When he goes back to Gretchen in her prison, it is too late for him to do more than recognize the ruin he has brought about,  —  Gretchen dishonoured, her mother poisoned, her brother killed, her child drowned by her in a pond, and she herself about to be executed. Gretchen, who is the only true Christian in this poem, refuses to be rescued, because she wishes to offer her voluntary death in propitiation for her grave, though almost involuntary, offences.

This is the end of Faust’s career through the world of private interests,  —  the little world,  —  and we may well ask what has been the fruit of his experiments so far. What strength or experience has he amassed for his further adventures? The answer is to be found in the first scene of the second part, where Goethe reaches his highest potency as a poet and as a philosopher. We are transported to a remote, magnificent, virgin country. It is evening, and Faust is lying, weary but restless, on a flowering hillside. Kindly spirits of nature are hovering above his head. Ariel, their leader, bids them bring solace to the troubled hero. It is enough he was unfortunate  —  they make no question whether he was a saint or a sinner. The spirits in chorus then sing four lovely stanzas, one for each watch of the night. The first invokes peace, forgetfulness, surrender to the healing influence of sleep. Pity and remorse, they seem to say, in the words of Spinoza, are evil and vain; failure is incidental; error is innocent. Nature has no memory; forgive yourself, and you are forgiven. The song of the second watch merges the unhappy soul again in the infinite incorruptible substance of nature. The stars, great or little, twinkling or pure, fill the sky with their ordered peace, and the sea with their trembling reflection. In this universal circulation there is no private will, no permanent division. In the next watch we find the plastic stress of nature beginning to reassert itself; seeds swell, sap mounts up the thawing branches, buds grow full; everything recovers a fresh individuality and a tender, untried will. Finally, the song of the fourth watch bids the flowers open their petals and Faust his eyes. Forces renewed in repose should tempt a new career. Nature is open to the brave, to the intelligent; all may be noble, who dare to be so.

Soothed by these ministrations, Faust awakes full of new strength and ambition. He watches with rapture the sunlight touch the mountain-tops and creep down gradually into the valleys. When it reaches him, he turns to look directly at the sun; but he is dazzled. He seems to remember the Earth-Spirit that had once allured and then rejected him. We wish, he says, to kindle our torch of life, and we produce a conflagration, a monstrous medley of joy and sorrow, love and hate. Let us turn our backs upon the sun, upon infinite force and infinite existence. Fitter for our eyes the waterfall over against it, the torrent of human affairs, broken into a myriad rills. Upon the mists that rise from it the sunlight paints a rainbow, always vanishing, but always restored. This is the true image of rational human achievement. We have our life in the iridescence of the world. Or, as Shelley has said it for us,  — 

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity,
Until death tramples it to fragments.

This death, however, is itself unstable. The Lucretian Venus, by reshaping our senses and instincts, builds that coloured dome once more. The rainbow is renewed, as the mists rise again or the wind dies down, and creation is glorious as on the first day.

This is Goethe’s theory of rejuvenation and immortality. It is thoroughly naturalistic. There is a life after death, but only for such souls as have enough scope to identify themselves with those forms which nature, in her uncertain oscillations, always tends to reproduce. A deep mind has deep roots in nature,  —  it will bloom many times over. But what a deep mind carries over into its next incarnation  —  perhaps in some remote sphere  —  is not its conventional merits and demerits, its load of remorse, or its sordid memories. These are washed away in its new baptism. What remains is only what was deep in that deep mind, so deep that new situations may again imply and admit it.

When, after the scene with the Earth-Spirit, Faust thought of suicide, he regarded it as a means to escape from oppressive conditions and to begin a fresh life under conditions wholly different and unknown. It was as if a man in middle life, disgusted with his profession, should abandon it to take up another. Such a resolution is serious. It expresses a great dissatisfaction with things as they stand, but it also expresses a great hope. Death, for Faust, is an adventure, like any other; and if, contrary to his presumption, this adventure should prove the last, that, too, is a risk he is willing to run. Accordingly, as he lifted the poison to his lips, he drank to the dawn, to a new springtime of existence. It was by no means the saddest nor the weakest moment of his life.

Although the sound of an Easter hymn checked him, bringing sentimental memories of a religion in which he no longer believed, the transformation scene he looked for was only postponed. There is not much difference between dying as he had thought to die and living as he was about to live. Venomous essences, artificially brewed, were hardly necessary to bring him to a new life; the adventures he was entering upon were suicidal enough, for he was to strive without hope of attainment, and to proceed by passionate wilfulness or magic, without accepting the discipline of art or reason. Now, at the close of the first part, he has drained this poisoned life to the dregs, and the fever into which he falls carries him of itself into a new existence. He is not grown better or more reasonable; he is simply starting afresh, like a new day or a new person. It contains, however, the fundamental part of his character; his will remains wayward, but indomitable, and his achievements remain fruitless. Only he will henceforth be romantic on a broader stage, that of history and civilization; and his magic will summon before him illusions somewhat more intellectual, counterfeits of beauty and of power. His old loves have blown over, like the storms of a bygone year; and with only a dreamlike memory of his past errors, he goes forth to meet a new day.

Among the allurements which, in the old legend, prompted Faust to sell his soul to the devil, one was the beauty of woman. The poor recluse, grown gray among his parchments, had never noticed real women, or had not found them beautiful. Pedantic child that he was, when he thought of the beauty of woman, he thought only of Helen of Troy. And Helen, to the Faust of the legend, was simply what Venus might be to Tannhäuser,  —  a woman more ravishing than other ravishing women. She was the supreme instance of a vulgar thing. The young Goethe, however, who was a poet and a true German, and loved with his soul, was not attracted by this ideal. He gave his Faust a tenderer love,  —  a love of the heart as well as of the senses. Later, also, when Goethe took up the old legend again in a more antiquarian spirit, and restored Helen to her place in it, he transformed her from a symbol of feminine beauty alone into a symbol for all beauty, and especially for the highest beauty, that of Hellas. The second love of Faust is the passion for classicism.

This passion in a romantic age is not so paradoxical as it may sound. Winckelmann and the philologians were restoring something ancient. It was the romantic passion for all experience  —  for the faded experience of the ancients also  —  that made, for them, the poetry and the charm of antiquity. How dignified everything was in those heroic days! How noble, serene, and abstracted! How pure the blind eyes of statues, how chaste the white folds of the marble drapery! Greece was a remote, fascinating vision, the most romantic thing in the history of mankind. The sad, delicious emotion one felt before a ruined temple was as sentimental as anything one could feel before a ruined castle, but more elegant and more choice. It was sentimentality in marble. The heroes of the Iliad were idealized in the same way as the savages of Rousseau were idealized, or as the robbers of Schiller.

The romantic classicism of the Napoleonic era lies between the polite classicism of the French seventeenth century and the archaeological classicism of our present Grecians. French classicism had been quite indifferent to the picturesque aspects of ancient life; it could tolerate on the stage an Achilles in a periwig and laces. What the French tragedians had adopted from the ancients was something inward, a standard of character and motive, or a criterion of taste. They studied harmony and restraint, not because these had been Greek qualities, but because they were qualities essentially reasonable and beautiful, naturally belonging, even in modern times, to a cultivated society and a cultivated poet. Again, the admiration for Greece which is common in our time among people of judgement differs from that of Goethe and his age; for if we admire the artistic expression of ancient life in poetry or sculpture, we know that these manifestations were made possible by a long political and moral discipline, and that, in spite of that discipline, ancient art remained very mixed, and often grotesque and impure.

For Goethe, however, as for Byron, Greece was less a past civilization, to be studied scientifically, than a living idea, a summons to new forms of art and of sentiment. Goethe was never so romantic as when he was classical. His distichs are like theatrical gestures; he feels the sweep of his toga as he rounds them off. His Iphigenia is a sentimental dream  —  verflucht human, as he himself came to feel; and his Helena is an evocation of magic, magical not merely by accident and in the story, but essentially so, in her ghostly semi-consciousness and glassy beauty. The apparent incongruities of the scenes in which she appears, surrounded by German knights in the court of a feudal castle, are not real incongruities. For this Helen is not a thing of the past; she is the present dream and affectation of things classical in a romantic era. Faust and his vassals offer Helen the most chivalrous and exaggerated homage; they introduce her, as a play queen, into their society. Faust retires with her to Arcadia,  —  the land of intentional and mid-summer idleness. Here a son, Euphorion, is born to them, a young genius, classic in aspect, but wildly romantic and ungovernable in temper. He scales the highest peaks, pursues by preference the nymphs that flee from him, loves violence and unreason, and finally, thinking to fly, falls headlong, like Icarus, and perishes. His last words call his mother after him, and she follows, leaving her veil and mantle behind, as Euphorion had left his lyre. On the mantle of Helen, which swells into a cloud, Faust is borne back again to his native Germany; its virtue, as he learns, is to lift him above all commonness.

This long allegory is charming enough, as a series of pictures and melodies, to leave the reader content not to interpret it; yet the intention of the poet is clear, if we care to disentangle it. By going down into the bowels of nature, where the earth goddesses dwell, who are the first mothers of all life and of all civilizations alike, we may gather intelligence to comprehend even the most alien existence. Greece, after such a reversion to the elemental, will appear to us in her unmatched simplicity and beauty. The vision will be granted us, although the object we see belongs to a distant past; and if our enthusiasm, like that of Faust, is passionate and indomitable, we may actually persuade the Queen of the Dead to yield up Helen that we may wed her. Our scholarship and philosophy, our faithful imitation of Greek art and literature, may actually render the Greek scene familiar to us. Yet the setting of this recovered genius will still be modern; it will become half modern itself; we shall have to teach Helen to rhyme. The product of this hybrid inspiration will be a romantic soul in the garb of classicism, a lovely wild thing, fated to die young. When this enthusiasm has dashed itself against the hard conditions of life, the beauty of Greece, that was its mother, will also pale before our eyes. We shall be, perforce, content to let it return to the realm of irrevocable past things. Only its garment, the monuments of its art and thought, will remain to raise us, if we have loved them, above all vulgarity in taste and in moral allegiance.

It is an evidence of Goethe’s great wisdom that he felt that romantic classicism must be subordinated or abandoned; that Helen must evaporate, while Faust returned to Germany and to the feeling that after all Gretchen was his true love. At the same time the issue of this wonderful episode is a little disappointing. At the beginning, the vision of Helen in a mirror had inspired Faust with renewed enthusiasm. The sight of her again, in the magic play, had altogether enraptured and overwhelmed him; and this inspiration had come just when, after the death of Gretchen, he had resolved to pursue not all experience, as at first, but rather the best, experience,  —  a hint that the transformations of Faust’s will were expected somehow to constitute a real progress. There was, indeed, among mortals such an infinite need of this incomparable and symbolic Helen, that it could move the very guardians of the dead to mercy and to tears. When we remember all this, we have some reason to expect that a great and permanent improvement in the life and heart of our hero should follow on his obtaining so rare a boon. But to live within Arcadia Helen was not needed; any Phyllis would have served.

Helen, to be sure, leaves some relics behind, by which we may understand that the influence of Greek history, literature, and sculpture may still avail to cultivate the mind and give it an air of distinction. Perhaps in the commonwealth he is about to found, Faust would wish to establish not only dykes and freedom, but also professorships of Greek and archaeological museums. And the lyre of Euphorion, which is also left us, may signify that poems like Byron’s Isles of Greece, Keats’s Grecian Urn, Die Götter Griechenlands of Schiller, and Goethe’s own classical pieces will continue to enrich European literature. This is something, but not enough to lift Faust’s immense enthusiasm for Helen above a crass illusion. That dream of a perfect beauty to be achieved, of a perfect life to be lived according to nature and reason, would have ended in a little scholarship and a little pedantry. Faust would have won Helen in order to hand her over to Wagner.

Helen was queen of Sparta; and although of course the Doric Sparta of Lycurgus was something much later, and had nothing to do with the Sparta of Homer, yet taken symbolically it is the happiest accident that Helen, the type of Greek perfection in beauty, should have been queen of Sparta, the type of Greek perfection in discipline. A Faust that had, truly deserved and understood Helen would have built her an Hellenic city; he would have become himself an ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, a master of men, one of those poets in things, those shapers of well-bred generations and wise laws, of which Plato speaks, contrasting them with Homer and other poets in words only. For the beauty of mind and body that fascinates the romantic classicist, and which inspired the ancient poets themselves, was not a product of idleness and sentimentality, nor of material and forced activity; it was a product of orderly war, religion, gymnastics, and deliberate self-government.

The next turn in Faust’s fortunes actually finds him a trader, a statesman, an empire-builder; and if such a rolling stone could gather any moss, we should expect to see here, if anywhere, the fruits of that “aesthetic education of mankind” which Helen represented. We should expect Faust, who had lain in the lap of absolute beauty, to understand its nature. We should expect him, in eager search after perfection, to establish his state on the distinction between the better and the worse,  —  a distinction never to be abolished or obscured for one who has loved beauty. In other words, he might have established a moral society founding it on great renunciations and on enlightened heroisms, so that the highest beauty might really come down and dwell within that city. But we find nothing of the sort. Faust founds his kingdom because he must do something; and his only ideal of what he hopes to secure for his subjects is that they shall always have something to do. Thus the will to live, in Faust, is not in the least educated by his experience. It changes its objects because it must; the passions of youth yield to those of age; and among all the illusions of his life the most fatuous is the illusion of progress.

It is characteristic of the absolute romantic spirit that when it has finished with something it must invent a new interest. It beats the bush for fresh game; it is always on the verge of being utterly bored. So now that Helen is flown, Mephistopheles must come to the rescue, like an amiable nurse, and propose all sorts of pastimes. Frankfort, Leipzig, Paris, Versailles, are described, with the entertainments that life there might afford; but Faust, who was always difficile, has been rendered more so by his recent splendid adventures. However, a new impulse suddenly arises in his breast. From the mountain-top to which Helen’s mantle has borne him, he can see the German Ocean, with its tides daily covering great stretches of the flat shore, and rendering them brackish and uninhabitable. It would be a fine thing to reclaim those wastes, to plant there a prosperous population. After Greece, Faust has a vision of Holland.

This last ambition of Faust’s is as romantic as the others. He feels the prompting towards political art, as he had felt the prompting towards love or beauty. The notion of transforming things by his will, of leaving for ages his mark upon nature and upon human society, fascinates him; but this passion for activity and power, which some simple-minded commentators dignify with the name of altruism and of living for others, has no steady purpose or standard about it. Goethe is especially lavish in details to prove this point. Magic, the exercise of an unteachable will, is still Faust’s instrument. Mephistopheles, by various arts of illusion, secures the triumph of the emperor in a desperate war which he is carrying on against a justifiable insurrection. As a reward for the aid rendered, Faust receives the shore marches in fief. The necessary dykes and canals are built by magic; the spirits that Mephistopheles commands dig and build them with strange incantations. The commerce that springs up is also illegitimate: piracy is involved in it.

Nor is this all. On some sand-dunes that diversified the original beach, an old man and his wife, Philemon and Baucis, lived before the advent of Faust and his improvements. On the hillock, besides their cottage, there stood a small chapel, with a bell which disturbed Faust in his newly built palace, partly by its importunate sound, partly by its Christian suggestions, and partly by reminding him that he was not master of the country altogether, and that something existed in it not the product of his magical will. The old people would not sell out; and in a fit of impatience Faust orders that they should be evicted by force, and transferred to a better dwelling elsewhere. Mephistopheles and his minions execute these orders somewhat roughly: the cottage and chapel are set on fire, and Philemon and Baucis are consumed in the flames, or buried in the ruins.

Faust regrets this accident; but it is one of those inevitable developments of action which a brave man must face, and forget as soon as possible. He had regretted in the same way the unhappiness of Gretchen, and, presumably, the death of Euphorion; but such is romantic life. His will, though shaken, is not extinguished by such misadventures. He would continue, if life could last, doing things that, in some respect, he would be obliged to regret: but he would banish that regret easily, in the pursuit of some new interest, and, on the whole, he would not regret having been obliged to regret them. Otherwise, he would not have shared the whole experience of mankind, but missed the important experience of self-accusation and of self-recovery.

It is impossible to suppose that the citizens he is establishing behind leaky dykes, so that they may always have something to keep them busy, would have given him unmixed satisfaction if he could really have foreseen their career in its concrete details. Holland is an interesting country, but hardly a spectacle which would long entrance an idealist like Faust, so exacting that he has found the arts and sciences wholly vain, domesticity impossible, and kitchens and beer-cellars beneath consideration. The career of Faust himself had been far more free and active than that of his industrious burghers could ever hope to be. His interest in establishing them is a masterful, irresponsible interest. It is one more arbitrary passion, one more selfish illusion. As he had no conscience in his love, and sought and secured nobody’s happiness, so he has no conscience in his ambition and in his political architecture; but if only his will is done, he does not ask whether, judged by its fruits, it will be worth doing. As his immense dejection at the beginning, when he was a doctor in his laboratory, was not founded on any real misfortune, but on restlessness and a vague infinite ambition, so his ultimate satisfaction in his work is not founded on any good done, but on a passionate wilfulness. He calls the thing he wants for others good, because he now wants to bestow it on them, not because they naturally want it for themselves. Incapable of sympathy, he has a momentary pleasure in policy; and in the last and “highest” expression of his will, in his statesmanship and supposed public spirit, he remains romantic and, if need be, aggressive and criminal.

Meantime, his end is approaching. The smoke from that poor little conflagration turns into shadowy-shapes of want, guilt, care, and death, which come and hover about him. Want is kept off by his wealth, and guilt is transcended by his romantic courage. But care slips through the keyhole, breathes upon him, and blinds him; while death, though he does not see it, follows close upon his heels. Nevertheless, the old man  —  Faust is in his hundredth year  —  is undaunted, and all his thoughts are intent on the future, on the work to which he has set his hand. He orders the digging to proceed on the canals he is building; but the spirits that seem to obey him are getting out of hand, and dig his grave instead.

When he feels death upon him, Faust has one of his most splendid moments of self-assertion. He has stormed through the world, he says, taking with equal thanks the buffets and rewards of fortune; and the last word of wisdom he has learned is that no man deserves life or freedom who does not daily win them anew. He will leave the dykes he has thrown up against the sea to protect the nation he has established; a symbol that their health and freedom must consist in perpetual striving against an indomitable foe. The thought of many generations living in that wholesome danger and labour fills him with satisfaction; he could almost say to this moment, in which that prospect opens before his mind’s eye, “Stay, thou art so fair.” And with these words  —  a last challenge and mock surrender to Mephistopheles  —  he sinks into the grave open at his feet.

Who has won the wager? Faust has almost, though not quite, pronounced the words which were to give Mephistopheles the victory; but the sense of them is new, and Mephistopheles has not succeeded in making Faust surrender his will to will, his indefinite idealism. Since what satisfies Faust is merely the consciousness that this will to will is to be maintained, and that neither he, nor the colonists he has brought into being, will ever lick the dust, and take comfort, without any further aspiration, in the chance pleasures of the moment. Faust has maintained his enthusiasm for a stormy, difficult, and endless life. He has been true to his romantic philosophy.

He is therefore saved, in the sense in which salvation is defined in the Prologue in Heaven, and presently again in the song of the angels that receive his soul when they say: “Whosoever is unflagging in his striving for ever, him we can redeem.” This salvation does not hang on any improvement in Faust’s character,  —  he was sinful to the end, and had been God’s unwitting servant from the very beginning,  —  nor does it lie in any revolution in his fortunes, as if in heaven he were to be differently employed than on earth. He is going to teach life to the souls of young boys, who have died too soon to have had in their own persons any experience of Rathskellers, Gretchens, Helens, and Walpurgisnachts. Teaching (though not exactly in these subjects) had been Doctor Faustus’ original profession; and the weariness of it was what had driven him to magic and almost to suicide, until he had escaped into the great world of adventure outside. Certainly, with his new pupils he will not be more content; his romantic restlessness will not forsake him in heaven. Some fine day he will throw his celestial school-books out of the window, and with his pupils after him, go forth to taste life in some windier region of the clouds.

No, Faust is not saved in the sense of being sanctified or brought to a final, eternal state of bliss. The only improvement in his nature has been that he has passed, at the beginning of the second part, from private to public activities. If, at the end of this part, he expresses a wish to abandon magic and to live like a man among men, in the bosom of real nature, that wish remains merely Platonic. It is a thought that visited Goethe often during his long career, that it is the part of wisdom to accept life under natural conditions rather than to pretend to evoke the conditions of life out of the will to live. This thought, were it held steadfastly, would constitute an advance from transcendentalism to naturalism. But the spirit of nature is itself romantic. It lives spontaneously, bravely, without premeditation, and for the sake of living rather than of enjoying or attaining anything final. And under natural conditions, the vicissitudes of an endless life would be many; and there could be no question of an ultimate goal, nor even of an endless progress in any particular direction. The veering of life is part of its vitality,  —  it is essential to romantic irony and to romantic pluck.

The secret of what is serious in the moral of Faust is to be looked for in Spinoza,  —  the source of what is serious in the philosophy of Goethe. Spinoza has an admirable doctrine, or rather insight, which he calls seeing things under the form of eternity. This faculty is fundamental in the human mind; ordinary perception and memory are cases of it. Therefore, when we use it to deal with ultimate issues, we are not alienated from experience, but, on the contrary, endowed with experience and with its fruits. A thing is seen under the form of eternity when all its parts or stages are conceived in their true relations, and thereby conceived together. The complete biography of Caesar is Caesar seen under the form of eternity. Now the complete biography of Faust, Faust seen under the form of eternity, shows forth his salvation. God and Faust himself, in his last moment of insight, see that to have led such a life, in such a spirit, was to be saved; it was to be the sort of man a man should be. The blots on that life were helpful and necessary blots; the passions of it were necessary and creative passions. To have felt such perpetual dissatisfaction is truly satisfactory; such desire for universal experience is the right experience. You are saved in that you lived well; saved not after you have stopped living well, but during the whole process. Your destiny has been to be the servant of God. That God and your own conscience should pronounce this sentence is your true salvation. Your worthiness is thereby established under the form of eternity.

The play, in its philosophic development, ends here; but Goethe added several more details and scenes, with that abundance, that love, of symbolic pictures and poetic epigrams which characterizes the whole second part. As Faust expires, or rather before he does so, Mephistopheles posts one of his little demons at each aperture of the hero’s body, lest the soul should slip out without being caught. At the same time a bevy of angels descends, scattering the red roses of love and singing its praises. These roses, if they touch Mephistopheles and his demons, turn to balls of fire; and although fire is their familiar element, they are scorched and scared away. The angels are thus enabled to catch the soul of Faust at their leisure, and bear it away triumphantly.

It goes without saying that this fight of little boys over a fluttering butterfly cannot be what really determines the issue of the wager and the salvation of Faust; but Goethe, in his conversations with Eckermann, justifies this intervention of a sort of mechanical accident, by the analogy of Christian doctrine. Grace is needed, besides virtue; and the intercession of Gretchen and the Virgin Mary, like that of the Virgin Mary, Lucia, and Beatrice, in Dante’s case, and the stratagem of the balls of fire, all stand for this external condition of salvation.

This intervention of grace is, at bottom, only a new symbol for the essential justification, under the form of eternity, of what is imperfect and insufficient in time. The chequered and wilful life of Faust is not righteous in any of its parts; yet righteousness is imputed to it as a whole; divine love accepts it as sufficient; speculative reason declares that to be the best possible life which, to humdrum understanding, seems a series of faults and of failures. If the foretaste of his new Holland fills, from a distance, the dying Faust with satisfaction, how much more must the wonderful career of Faust himself deserve to be accepted and envied, and proclaimed to be its own excuse for being! The faults of Faust in time are not counted against him in eternity. His crimes and follies were blessings in disguise. Did they not render his life interesting and fit to make a poem of? Was it not by falling into them, and rising out of them, that Faust was Faust at all? This insight is the higher reason, the divine love, supervening to save him. What ought to be imperfect in time is, i because of its very imperfection there, perfect when I viewed under the form of eternity. To live, to live just as we do, that  —  if we could only realize it  —  is the purpose and the crown of living. We must seek improvement; we must be dissatisfied with ourselves; that is the appointed attitude, the histrionic pose, that is to keep the ball rolling. But while we feel this dissatisfaction we are perfectly satisfactory, and while we play our game and constantly lose it, we are winning the game for God.

Even this scene, however, did not satisfy the prolific fancy of the poet, and he added a final one,  —  the apotheosis or Himmelfahrt of Faust. In the Campo Santo at Pisa Goethe had seen a fresco representing various anchorites dwelling on the flanks of some sacred mountain,  —  Sinai, Carmel, or Athos,  —  each in his little cave or hermitage; and above them, in the large space of sky, flights of angels were seen rising towards the Madonna. Through such a landscape the poet now shows us the soul of Faust carried slowly upwards.

This scene has been regarded as inspired by Catholic ideas, whereas the Prologue in Heaven was Biblical and Protestant; and Goethe himself says that his “poetic intention” could best be rendered by images borrowed from the tradition of the mediaeval church. But in truth there is nothing Catholic about the scene, except the names or titles of the personages. What they say is all sentimental landscape-painting or vague mysticism, such as might go with any somewhat nebulous piety; and much is actually borrowed from Swedenborg. What is Swedenborgian, however,  —  such as the notion of heavenly instruction, passage from sphere to sphere, and looking through other people’s eyes,  —  is in turn a mere form of expression. The “poetic intention” of the author is, as we have seen, altogether Spinozitic. Undoubtedly he conceives that the soul of Faust is to pass, in another world, through some new series of experiences. But that destiny is not his salvation; it is the continuance of his trial. The famous chorus at the very end repeats, with an interesting variation, the same contrast we have seen before between the point of view of time and that of eternity. Everything transitory, says the mystic chorus, is only an image; here (that is, under the form of eternity) the insufficient is turned into something actual and complete; and what seemed in experience an endless pursuit becomes to speculation a perfect fulfilment. The ideal of something infinitely attractive and essentially inexhaustible  —  the eternal feminine, as Goethe calls it  —  draws life on from stage to stage.

Gretchen and Helen had been symbols of this ideal; Goethe’s green old age had felt, to the very last, the charm of woman, the sweetness and the sorrow of loving what he could not hope to possess, and what, in its ideal perfection, necessarily eludes possession. He had reconciled himself, not without tears, to this desire without hope, and, like Piccarda in the Paradiso, he had blessed the hand that gave the passion and denied the happiness. Thus, in dreaming of one satisfaction and renouncing it, he had found a satisfaction of another kind. Faust ends on the same philosophical level on which it began,  —  the level of romanticism. The worth of life lies in pursuit, not in attainment therefore, everything is worth pursuing, and nothing brings satisfaction  —  save this endless destiny itself.

Such is the official moral of Faust, and what we may call its general philosophy. But, as we saw just now, this moral is only an afterthought, and is far from exhausting the philosophic ideas which the poem contains. Here is a scheme for experience; but experience, in filling it out, opens up many vistas; and some of these reveal deeper and higher things than experience itself. The path of the pilgrim and the inns he stops at are neither the whole landscape he sees as he travels, nor the true shrine he is making for. And the incidental philosophy or philosophies of Goethe’s Faust are, to my mind, often better than its ultimate philosophy. The first scene of the second part, for instance, is better, poetically and philosophically, than the last. It shows a deeper sense for the realities of nature and of the soul, and it is more sincere. Goethe there is interpreting nature with Spinoza; he is not dreaming with Swedenborg, nor talking equivocal paradoxes with Hegel.

In fact, the great merit of the romantic attitude in poetry, and of the transcendental method in philosophy, is that they put us back at the beginning of our experience. They disintegrate convention, which is often cumbrous and confused, and restore us to ourselves, to immediate perception and primordial will. That, as it would seem, is the true and inevitable starting-point. Had we not been born, had we not peeped into this world, each out of his personal eggshell, this world might indeed have existed without us, as a thousand undiscoverable worlds may now exist; but for us it would not have existed. This obvious truth would not need to be insisted on but for two reasons: one that conventional knowledge, such as our notions of science and morality afford, is often top-heavy; asserts and imposes on us much more than our experience warrants,  —  our experience, which is our only approach to reality. The other reason is the reverse or counterpart of this; for conventional knowledge often ignores and seems to suppress parts of experience no less actual and important for us as those parts on which the conventional knowledge itself is reared. The public world is too narrow for the soul, as well as too mythical and fabulous. Hence the double critical labour and reawakening which romantic reflection is good for,  —  to cut off the dead branches and feed the starving shoots. This philosophy, as Kant said, is a cathartic: it is purgative and liberating; it is intended to make us start afresh and start right.

It follows that one who has no sympathy with such a philosophy is a comparatively conventional person. He has a second-hand mind. Faust has a first-hand mind, a truly free, sincere, courageous soul. It follows also, however, that one who has no philosophy but this has no wisdom; he can say nothing that is worth carrying away; everything in him is attitude and nothing is achievement. Faust, and especially Mephistopheles, do have other philosophies on top of their transcendentalism; for this is only a method, to be used in reaching conclusions that shall be critically safeguarded and empirically grounded. Such outlooks, such vistas into nature, are scattered liberally through the pages of Faust. Words of wisdom diversify this career of folly, as exquisite scenes fill this tortuous and overloaded drama. The mind has become free and sincere, but it has remained bewildered.

The literary merits of Goethe’s Faust correspond accurately with its philosophical excellences. In the prologue in the theatre Goethe himself has described them; much scenery, much wisdom, some folly, great wealth of incident and characterization; and behind, the soul of a poet singing with all sincerity and fervour the visions of his life. Here is profundity, inwardness, honesty, waywardness; here are the most touching accents of nature, and the most varied assortment of curious lore and grotesque fancies. This work, says Goethe (in a quatrain intended as an epilogue, but not ultimately inserted in the play),  —  this work is like human life: it has a beginning, it has an end; but it has no totality, it is not one whole. How, indeed, should we draw the sum of an infinite experience that is without conditions to determine it, and without goals in which it terminates? Evidently all a poet of pure experience can do is to represent some snatches of it, more or less prolonged; and the more prolonged the experience represented is the more it will be a collection of snatches, and the less the last part of it will have to do with the beginning. Any character which we may attribute to the whole of what we have surveyed would fail to dominate it, if that whole had been larger, and if we had had memory or foresight enough to include other parts of experience differing altogether in kind from the episodes we happen to have lived through. To be miscellaneous, to be indefinite, to be unfinished, is essential to the romantic life. May we not say that it is essential to all life, in its immediacy; and that only in reference to what is not life  —  to objects, ideals, and unanimities that cannot be experienced but may only be conceived  —  can life become rational and truly progressive? Herein we may see the radical and inalienable excellence of romanticism; its sincerity, freedom, richness, and infinity. Herein, too, we may see its limitations, in that it cannot fix or trust any of its ideals, and blindly believes the universe to be as wayward as itself, so that nature and art are always slipping through its fingers. It is obstinately empirical, and will never learn anything from experience.

SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE by David Masson

If there are any two portraits which we all expect to find hung up in the rooms of those whose tastes are regulated by the highest literary culture, they are the portraits of Shakespeare and Goethe.

There are, indeed, many and various gods in our modern Pantheon of genius. It contains rough gods and smooth gods, gods of symmetry and gods of strength, gods great and terrible, gods middling and respectable, and little cupids and toy-gods. Out of this variety each master of a household will select his own Penates, the appropriate gods of his own mantelpiece. The roughest will find some to worship them, and the smallest shall not want domestic adoration. But we suppose a dilettante of the first class, one who, besides excluding from his range of choice the deities of war, and cold thought, and civic action, shall further exclude from it all those even of the gods of modern literature who, whether by reason of their inferior rank, or by reason of their peculiar attributes, fail as models of universal stateliness. What we should expect to see over the mantelpiece of such a rigorous person would be the images of the English Shakespeare and the German Goethe.

On the one side, we will suppose, fixed with due gance against the luxurious crimson of the wall, would be a slab of black marble exhibiting in relief a white plaster-cast of the face of Shakespeare as modelled from the Stratford bust; on the other, in a similar setting, would be a copy, if possible, of the mask of Goethe taken at Weimar after the poet’s death. This would suffice; and the considerate beholder could find no fault with such an arrangement. It is true, reasons might be assigned why a third mask should have been added  —  that of the Italian Dante; in which case Dante and Goethe should have occupied the sides, and Shakespeare should have been placed higher up between. But the master of the house would point out how, in that case, a fine taste would have been pained by the inevitable sense of contrast between the genial mildness of the two Teutonic faces and the severe and scornful melancholy of the poet of the Inferno. The face of the Italian poet, as being so different in kind, must either be reluctantly omitted, he would say, or transferred by itself to the other side of the room. Unless, indeed, with a view to satisfy the claims both of degree and of kind, Shakespeare were to be placed alone over the mantelpiece, and Dante and Goethe in company on the opposite wall, where, there being but two, the contrast would be rather agreeable than otherwise! On the whole, however, and without prejudice to new arrangements in the course of future decorations, he is content that it should be as it is.

And so, reader, for the present are we. Let us enter together, then, if it seems worth while, the room of this imaginary dilettante during his absence; let us turn the key in the lock, so that he may not come in to interrupt us; and let us look for a little time at the two masks he has provided for us over the mantelpiece, receiving such reflections as they may suggest. Doubtless we have often looked at the two masks before; but that matters little.

As we gaze at the first of the two masks, what is it that we see? A face full in contour, of good oval shape, the individual features small in proportion to the entire countenance, the greater part of which is made up of an ample and rounded forehead and a somewhat abundant mouth and chin. The general impression is that rather of rich, fine, and very mobile tissue, than of large or decided bone. This, together with the length of the upper lip, and the absence of any set expression, imparts to the face an air of lax and luxurious calmness. It is clearly a passive face rather than an active face, a face across which moods may pass and repass rather than a face grooved and charactered into any one permanent show of relation to the outer world. Placed beside the mask of Cromwell, it would fail to impress, not only as being less massive and energetic, but also as being in every way less marked and determinate. It is the face, we repeat, of a literary man, one of those faces which depend for their power to impress less on the sculptor’s favourite circumstance of distinct osseous form than on the changing hue and aspect of the living flesh. And yet it is, even in form, quite a peculiar face. Instead of being, as in the ordinary thousand and one portraits of Shakespeare, a mere general face which anybody or nobody might have had, the face in the mask (and the singular portrait in the first folio edition of the poet’s works corroborates it) is a face which every call-boy about the Globe Theatre must have carried about with him in his imagination, without any trouble, as specifically Mr. Shakespeare’s face. In complexion, as we imagine it, it was rather fair than dark; and yet not very fair either, if we are to believe Shakespeare himself (Sonnet 62)  — 

“But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chopped with tanned antiquity  —  “

a passage, however, in which, from the nature of the mood in which it was written, we are to suppose exaggeration for the worse. In short, the face of Shakespeare, so far as we can infer what it was from the homely Stratford bust, was a genuine and even comely, but still unusual, English face, distinguished by a kind of ripe intellectual fulness in the general outline, comparative smallness in the individual features, and a look of gentle and humane repose.

Goethe’s face is different. The whole size of the head is perhaps less, but the proportion of the face to the head is greater, and there is more of that determinate form which arises from prominence and strength in the bony structure. The features are individually larger, and present in their combination more of that deliberate beauty of outline which can be conveyed with effect in sculpture. The expression, however, is also that of calm intellectual repose; and, in the absence of harshness or undue concentration of the parts, one is at liberty to discover the proof that this also was the face of a man whose life was spent rather in a career of thought and literary effort than in a career of active and laborious strife. Yet the face, with all its power of fine susceptibility, is not so passive as that of Shakespeare. Its passiveness is more the passiveness of self-control, and less that of natural constitution; the susceptibilities pass and repass over a firmer basis of permanent character; the tremors among the nervous tissues do not reach to such depths of sheer nervous dissolution, but sooner make impact against the solid bone. The calm in the one face is more that of habitual softness and ease of humour; the calm in the other is more that of dignified, though tolerant, self-composure. It would have been more easy, one thinks, to take liberties with Shakespeare in his presence than to attempt a similar thing in the presence of Goethe. The one carried himself with the air of a man often diffident of himself, and whom, therefore, a foolish or impudent stranger might very well mistake till he saw him roused; the other wore, with all his kindness and blandness, a fixed stateliness of mien and look that would have checked undue familiarity from the first. Add to all this that the face of Goethe, at least in later life, was browner and more wrinkled; his hair more dark; his eye also nearer the black and lustrous in species, if less mysteriously vague and deep; and his person perhaps the taller and more symmetrically made.

But a truce to these guesses! What do we actually know respecting those two men, whose masks, the preserved similitudes of the living features with which they once fronted the world, are now before us? Let us turn first to the one and then to the other, till, as we gaze at these poor eyeless images, which are all we now have, some vision of the lives and minds they typify shall swim into our ken.

Shakespeare, this Englishman who died two hundred and sixty years ago, what is he now to us his countrymen, who ought to know him best? A great name, in the first place, of which we are proud! That this little foggy island of England should have given birth to such a man is of itself a moiety of our acquittance among the nations. By Frenchmen Shakespeare is accepted as at least equal to their own first; Italians waver between him and Dante; Germans, by race more our brethren, worship him as their own highest product too, though born by chance amongst us. All confess him to have been one of those great spirits, occasionally created, in whom the human faculties seem to have reached that extreme of expansion on the slightest increase beyond which man would burst away into some other mode of being and leave this behind. And why all this? What are the special claims of Shakespeare to this high worship? Through what mode of activity, practised while alive, has he won this immortality after he is dead? The answer is simple. He was an artist, a poet, a dramatist. Having, during some five-and-twenty years of a life not very long, written about forty dramatic pieces, which, after being acted in several London theatres, were printed either by himself or by his executors, he has, by this means, bequeathed to the memory of the human race an immense number of verses, and to its imagination a great variety of ideal characters and creations  —  Lears, Othellos, Hamlets, Falstaffs, Shallows, Imogens, Mirandas, Ariels, Calibans. This, understood in its fullest extent, is what Shakespeare has done. Whatever blank in human affairs, as they now are, would be produced by the immediate withdrawal of all this intellectual capital, together with all the interest that has been accumulated on it: that is the measure of what the world owes to Shakespeare.

This conception, however, while it serves vaguely to indicate to us the greatness of the man, assists us very little in the task of defining his character. In our attempts to do this  —  to ascend, as it were, to the living spring from which have flowed those rich poetic streams  —  we unavoidably rely upon two kinds of authority: the records which inform us of the leading events of his life; and the casual allusions to his person and habits left us by his contemporaries.

To enumerate the ascertained events of Shakespeare’s life is unnecessary here. How he was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in Warwickshire, in April, 1564, the son of a respectable burgess who afterwards became poor; how, having been educated with some care in his native town, he married there, at the age of eighteen, a farmer’s daughter eight years older than himself; how, after employing himself as scrivener or schoolmaster, or something of that kind, in his native county for a few years more, he at length quitted it in his twenty-fourth year, and came up to London, leaving his wife and three children at Stratford; how, connecting himself with the Blackfriars theatre, he commenced the career of a poet and play-writer; how he succeeded so well in this that, after having been a flourishing actor and theatre-proprietor, and a most popular man of genius about town for some seventeen years, he was able to leave the stage while still under forty, and return to Stratford with property sufficient to make him the most considerable man of the place; how he lived here for some twelve years more in the midst of his family, sending up occasionally a new play to town, and otherwise leading the even and tranquil existence of a country gentleman; and how, after having buried his old mother, married his daughters, and seen himself a grandfather at the age of forty-three, he was cut off rather suddenly near his fifty-third birthday, in the year 1616:  —  all this is, or ought to be, as familiar to educated Englishmen of the present day as the letters of the English alphabet. M. Guizot, with a little inaccuracy, has made these leading facts in the life of the English poet tolerably familiar even to our French neighbours.

But, while such facts, if conceived with sufficient distinctness, serve to mark out the life of the poet in general outline, it is rather from the few notices of him that have come down to us from his contemporaries that we derive the more special impressions regarding his character and ways with which we are accustomed to fill up this outline. These notices are various; those of interest may, perhaps, be about a dozen in all; but the only ones that take a very decided hold on the imagination are the three following:  — 

Fuller’s Fancy-picture of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson at the Mermaid Tavern.  —  “Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.”  —  Written, about 1650, by Thomas Fuller, born in 1608.

Aubrey’s Sketch of Shakespeare at second hand.  —  “This William, being inclined naturally to poetry and acting, came to London, I guess, about 18; and was an actor at one of the play-houses, and did act exceedingly well. (Now B. Jonson was never a good actor, but an excellent instructor.) He began early to make essays at dramatic poetry, which at that time was very low; and his plays took well. He was a handsome, well-shaped man; very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit. The humour of the constable in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ he happened to take at Grendon, in Bucks, which is the road from London to Stratford; and there was living that constable about 1642, when I first came to Oxon. Mr. Jos. Howe is of that parish; and knew him. Ben Jonson and he did gather humours of men daily wherever they came.... He was wont to go to his native country once a year. I think I have been told that he left 200l. or 300l. per annum, there and thereabout, to a sister. I have heard Sir William Davenant and Mr. Thomas Shadwell, who is accounted the best comedian we have now, say that he had a most prodigious wit, and did admire his natural parts beyond all other dramatical writers. He was wont to say that he never blotted out a line in his life. Said Ben Jonson, ‘I wish he had blotted out a thousand.’”  —  Written, about 1680, by John Aubrey, born 1625.

Ben Jonson’s own Sketch of Shakespeare.  —  “I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been ‘Would he had blotted a thousand!’; which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: ‘Sufflaminandus erat,’ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter; as when he said, in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, ‘Cæsar, thou dost me wrong,’ he replied, ‘Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause,’ and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.”  —  Ben Jonson’s “Discoveries.”

It is sheer nonsense, with these and other such passages accessible to anybody, to go on repeating, as people seem determined to do, the hackneyed saying of the commentator Steevens, that “all that we know of Shakespeare is, that he was born at Stratford-on-Avon; married and had children there; went to London, where he commenced actor, and wrote plays and poems; returned to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried.” It is our own fault, and not the fault of the materials, if we do not know a great deal more about Shakespeare than that; if we do not realize, for example, these distinct and indubitable facts about him  —  his special reputation among the critics of his time, as a man not so much of erudition as of prodigious natural genius; his gentleness and openness of disposition; his popular and sociable habits; his extreme ease, and, as some thought, negligence in composition; and, above all, and most characteristic of all, his excessive fluency in speech. “He sometimes required stopping,” is Ben Jonson’s expression; and whoever does not see a whole volume of revelation respecting Shakespeare in that single trait has no eye for seeing anything. Let no one ever lose sight of that phrase in trying to imagine Shakespeare.

Still, after all, we cannot be content thus. With regard to such a man we cannot rest satisfied with a mere picture of his exterior in its aspect of repose, or in a few of its common attitudes. We seek, as the phrase is, to penetrate into his heart  —  to detect and to fix in everlasting portraiture that mood of his soul which was ultimate and characteristic; in which, so to speak, he came ready-fashioned from the Creator’s hands; towards which he always sank when alone; and on the ground-melody of which all his thoughts and actions were but voluntary variations. As far short of such a result as would be any notion we could form of the poet Burns from a mere chronological outline of his life, together with a few stories such as are current about his moral irregularities, so far short of a true appreciation of Shakespeare would be that idea of him which we could derive from the scanty fund of the external evidence.

And here it is that, in proceeding to make up the deficiency of the external evidence by going to the only other available source of light on the subject, namely the bequeathed writings of the man himself, we find ourselves obstructed at the outset by an obvious difficulty, which does not exist to the same extent in most other cases. We can, with comparative ease, recognise Burns himself in his works; for Burns is a lyrist, pouring out his own feelings in song, often alluding to himself, and generally under personal agitation when he writes. Shakespeare, on the other hand, is a dramatist, whose function it was not to communicate, but to create. Had he been a dramatist of the same school as Ben Jonson, indeed  —  using the drama as a means of spreading, or, at all events, as a medium through which to insinuate, his opinions, and often indicating his purposes by the very names of his dramatis personæ (as Downright, Merecraft, Eitherside, and the like)  —  then the task would have been easier. But it is not so with Shakespeare. Less than almost any man that ever wrote does he inculcate or dogmatise. He is the very type of the poet. He paints, represents, creates, holds the mirror up to nature; but from opinion, doctrine, controversy, theory, he holds instinctively aloof. In each of his plays there is a “central idea,” to use the favourite term of the German critics  —  that is, a single thought round which all may be exhibited as consciously or unconsciously crystallized; but there is no pervading maxim, no point set forth to be argued or proved. Of none of all the plays can it be said that it is more than any other a vehicle for fixed articles in the creed of Shakespeare.

One quality or attribute of Shakespeare’s genius we do, indeed, contrive to seize out this very difficulty of seizing anything  —  that quality or attribute of many-sidedness of which we have heard so much for the last century and a half. The immense variety of his characters and conceptions, embracing as it does Hamlets and Falstaffs, Kings and Clowns, Prosperos and Dogberrys, and his apparently equal ease in handling them all, are matters that have been noted by one and all of the critics. And thus, while his own character is lost in his incessant shiftings through such a succession of masks, we yet manage, as it were in revenge, to extract from the very impossibility of describing him an adjective which does possess a kind of quasi-descriptive value. It is as if of some one that had baffled all our attempts to investigate him we were to console ourselves by saying that he was a perfect Proteus. We call Shakespeare “many-sided;” not a magazine, nor a young lady at a party, but tells you that; and in adding this to our list of adjectives concerning him we find a certain satisfaction, and even an increase of light.

But it would be cowardice to stop here. The old sea-god Proteus himself, despite his subtlety and versatility, had a real form and character of his own, into which he could be compelled, if one only knew the way. Hear how they served this old gentleman in the Odyssey:

“We at once,
Loud shouting, flew on him, and in our arms
Constrained him fast; nor the sea-prophet old
Called not incontinent his shifts to mind.
First he became a long-maned lion grim;
A dragon then, a panther, a huge boar,
A limpid stream, and an o’ershadowing tree.
We, persevering, held him; till, at length,
The subtle sage, his ineffectual arts
Resigning weary, questioned me and spoke.”

And so with our Proteus. The many-sidedness of the dramatist, let it be well believed and pondered, is but the versatility in form of a certain personal and substantial being, which constitutes the specific mind of the dramatist himself. Precisely as we have insisted that Shakespeare’s face, as the best portraits represent it to us, is no mere general face or face to let, but a good, decided, and even rather singular face, so, we would insist, he had as specific a character, as thoroughly a way of his own in thinking about things and going through his morning and evening hours, as any of ourselves. “Man is only many-sided,” says Goethe, “when he strives after the highest because he must, and descends to the lesser because he will;” that is, as we interpret, when he is borne on in a certain noble direction in all that he does by the very structure of his mind, while, at his option, he may keep planting this fixed path or not with a sportive and flowery border. By the necessity of his nature, Shakespeare was compelled in a certain earnest direction in all that he did; and it is our part to search through the thickets of imagery and gratuitous fiction amid which he spent his life, that this path may be discovered. As the lion, or the limpid stream, or the overshadowing tree, into which Proteus turned himself, was not a real lion, or a real stream, or a real tree, but only Proteus as the one or as the other; so, involved in each of Shakespeare’s characters,  —  in Hamlet, in Falstaff, or in Romeo,  —  involved in some deep manner in each of these diverse characters, is Shakespeare’s own nature. If Shakespeare had not been precisely and wholly Shakespeare, and not any other man actual or conceivable, could Hamlet or Falstaff, or any other of his creations, have been what they are?

But how to evolve Shakespeare from his works, how to compel this Proteus into his proper and native form, is still the question. It is a problem of the highest difficulty. Something, indeed, of the poet’s personal character and views we cannot help gathering as we read his dramas. Passages again and again occur of which, from their peculiar effect upon ourselves, from their conceivable reference to what we know of the poet’s circumstances, or from their evident superfluousness and warmth, we do not hesitate to aver “There speaks the poet’s own heart.” But to show generally how much of the man has passed into the poet, and how it is that his personal bent and peculiarities are to be surely detected inhering in writings whose essential character it is to be arbitrary and universal, is a task from which a critic might well shrink, were he left merely to the ordinary resources of critical ingenuity without any positive and ascertained clue.

In this case, however, all the world ought to know, there is a positive and ascertained clue. Shakespeare has left to us not merely a collection of dramas, the exercises of his creative phantasy in a world of ideal matter, but also certain poems which are assuredly and expressly autobiographic. Criticism seems now pretty conclusively to have determined, what it ought to have determined long ago, that the Sonnets of Shakespeare are, and can possibly be, nothing else than a poetical record of his own feelings and experience  —  a connected series of entries, as it were, in his own diary  —  during a certain period of his London life. This, we say, is conclusively determined and agreed upon; and whoever does not, to some extent, hold this view knows nothing about the subject. Ulrici, who is a genuine investigator, as well as a profound critic, is, of course, right on this point. So, also, in the main, is M. Guizot, although he mars the worth of the conclusion by adducing the foolish theory of Euphuism  —  that is, of the adoption of an affected style of expression in vogue in Shakespeare’s age  —  in order to explain away that which is precisely the most important thing about the Sonnets, and the very thing not to be explained away: namely, the depth and strangeness of their pervading sentiment, and the curious hyperbolism of their style. In truth, it is the very closeness of the contact into which the right view of the Sonnets brings us with Shakespeare, the very value of the information respecting him to which it opens the way, that operates against it. Where we have so eager a desire to know, there we fear to believe, lest what we have once cherished on so great a subject we should be obliged again to give up, or lest, if our imaginations should dare to figure aught too exact and familiar regarding the traits and motions of so royal a spirit, the question should be put to us, what we can know of the halls of a palace, or the mantled tread of a king? Still the fact is as it is. These Sonnets of Shakespeare are autobiographic  —  distinctly, intensely, painfully autobiographic, although in a style and after a fashion of autobiography so peculiar that we can cite only Dante in his Vita Nuova, and Tennyson in his In Memoriam, as having furnished similar examples of it.

We are not going to examine the Sonnets in detail here, nor to tell the story which they involve as a whole. We will indicate generally, however, the impression which, we think, a close investigation of them will infallibly leave on any thoughtful reader, as to the characteristic personal qualities of that mind the larger and more factitious emanations from which still cover and astonish the world.

The general and aggregate effect, then, of these Sonnets, as contributing to our knowledge of Shakespeare as a man, is to antiquate, or at least to reduce very much in value, the common idea of him implied in such phrases as William the Calm, William the Cheerful, and the like. These phrases are true, when understood in a certain very obvious sense; but, if we were to select that designation which would, as we think, express Shakespeare in his most intimate and private relations to man and nature, we should rather say William the Meditative, William the Metaphysical, or William the Melancholy. Let not the reader, full of the just idea of Shakespeare’s wonderful concreteness as a poet, be staggered by the second of these phrases. The phrase is a good phrase; etymologically, it is perhaps the best phrase we could here use; and whatever of inappropriateness there may seem to be in it proceeds from false associations, and will vanish, we hope, before we have done with it. Nor let it be supposed that, in using, as nearly synonymous, the word Melancholy, we mean anything so absurd as that the author of Falstaff was a Werther. What we mean is that there is evidence in the Sonnets, corroborated by other proof on all hands, that the mind of Shakespeare, when left to itself, was apt to sink into that state in which thoughts of what is sad and mysterious in the universe most easily come and go.

At no time, except during sleep, is the mind of any human being completely idle. All men have some natural and congenial mood into which they fall when they are left to talk with themselves. One man recounts the follies of the past day, renewing the relish of them by the recollection; another uses his leisure to hate his enemy and to scheme his discomfiture; a third rehearses in imagination, in order to be prepared, the part which he is to perform on the morrow. Now, at such moments, as we believe, it was the habit of Shakespeare’s mind, obliged thereto by the necessity of its structure, to ponder ceaselessly those quest ions relating to man, his origin, and his destiny, in familiarity with which consists what is called the spiritual element in human nature. It was Shakespeare’s use, as it seems to us, to revert, when he was alone, to that ultimate mood of the soul in which one hovers wistfully on the borders of the finite, vainly pressing against the barriers that separate it from the unknown; that mood in which even what is common and under foot seems part of a vast current mystery, and in which, like Arabian Job of old, one looks by turns at the heaven above, the earth beneath, and one’s own moving body between, interrogating whence it all is, why it all is, and whither it all tends. And this, we say, is Melancholy. It is more. It is that mood of man, which, most of all moods, is thoroughly, grandly, specifically human. That which is the essence of all worth, all beauty, all humour, all genius, is open or secret reference to the supernatural; and this is sorrow. The attitude of a finite creature, contemplating the infinite, can only be that of an exile, grief and wonder blending in a wistful longing for an unknown home.

As we consider this frame of mind to have been characteristic of Shakespeare, so we find that as a poet he has not forgotten to represent it. We have always fancied Hamlet to be a closer translation of Shakespeare’s own character than any other of his personations. The same meditativeness, the same morbid reference at all times to the supernatural, the same inordinate development of the speculative faculty, the same intellectual melancholy, that are seen in the Prince of Denmark, seem to have distinguished Shakespeare. Nor is it possible here to forget that minor and lower form of the same fancy  —  the ornament of As You Like It, the melancholy Jaques.

“Jaques. More, more, I prithee, more.

Amiens. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.

Jaques. I thank it. More, I prithee, more! I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More. I prithee, more!

Amiens. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.

Jaques. I do not desire you to please me; I desire you to sing.

******

Rosalind. They say you are a melancholy fellow.

Jaques. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.

Rosalind. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.

Jaques. Why, ’tis good to be sad and say nothing.

Rosalind. Why, then, ’tis good to be a post.

Jaques. I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.”

Jaques is not Shakespeare; but in writing this description of Jaques Shakespeare drew from his knowledge of himself. His also was a “melancholy of his own,” a “humorous sadness in which his often rumination wrapt him.” In that declared power of Jaques of “sucking melancholy out of a song” the reference of Shakespeare to himself seems almost direct. Nay more, as Rosalind, in rating poor Jaques, tells him on one occasion that he is so abject a fellow that she verily believes he is “out of love with his nativity, and almost chides God for making him of that countenance that he is,” so Shakespeare’s melancholy, in one of his Sonnets (No. 29), takes exactly the same form of self-dissatisfaction.

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet, in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,” &c.

Think of that, reader! That mask of Shakespeare’s face, which we have been discussing, Shakespeare himself did not like; and there were moments in which he was so abject as actually to wish that he had received from Nature another man’s physical features!

If Shakespeare’s melancholy was, like that of Jaques, a complex melancholy, a melancholy “compounded of many simples”  —  extracted perhaps at first from some root of bitter experience in his own life, and then fed, as his Sonnets clearly state, by a habitual sense of his own “outcast” condition in society, and by the sight of a hundred social wrongs around him, into a kind of abject dissatisfaction with himself and his fate  —  yet, in the end, and in its highest form, it was rather, as we have already hinted, the melancholy of Hamlet, a meditative, contemplative melancholy, embracing human life as a whole, the melancholy of a mind incessantly tending from the real (τα φυσικα) to the metaphysical (τα μετα τα φυσικα), and only brought back by external occasion from the metaphysical to the real.

Do not let us quarrel about the words, if we can agree about the thing. Let any competent person whatever read the Sonnets, and then, with their impression on him, pass to the plays, and he will inevitably become aware of Shakespeare’s personal fondness for certain themes or trains of thought, particularly that of the speed and destructiveness of time. Death, vicissitude, the march and tramp of generations across life’s stage, the rotting of human bodies in the earth  —  these and all the other forms of the same thought were familiar to Shakespeare to a degree beyond what is to be seen in the case of any other poet. It seems to have been a habit of his mind, when left to its own tendency, ever to indulge by preference in that oldest of human meditations, which is not yet trite: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble; he cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not.” Let us cite a few examples from the Sonnets:  — 

“When I consider everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.”  — 
Sonnet 15.

“If thou survive my well-contented clay,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall
cover.”  — 
Sonnet 32.

“No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.”  — 
Sonnet 71.

“The wrinkles, which thy glass will truly show,
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth may’st know
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.”  — 
Sonnet 77.

“Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten.”  — 
Sonnet 81.

These are but one or two out of many such passages occurring in the Sonnets. Indeed, it may be said that, whenever Shakespeare pronounces the words time, age, death, and the like, it is with a deep and cutting personal emphasis, quite different from the usual manner of poets in their stereotyped allusions to mortality. Time, in particular, seems to have tenanted his imagination as a kind of grim and hideous personal existence, cruel out of mere malevolence of nature. Death, too, had become to him a kind of actual being or fury, morally unamiable, and deserving of reproach: “that churl Death.”

If we turn to the plays of Shakespeare, we shall find that in them too the same morbid sensitiveness to all associations with mortality is continually breaking out. The vividness, for example, with which Juliet describes the interior of a charnel-house partakes of a spirit of revenge, as if Shakespeare were retaliating, through her, upon an object horrible to himself:  — 

“Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.”

More distinctly revengeful is Romeo’s ejaculation at the tomb:  — 

 “Thou détestable maw, thou womb of Death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open!”

And who does not remember the famous passage in Measure for Measure?  — 

“Claudio.Death is a fearful thing.

Isabella. And shamed life is hateful.

Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbèd ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling: ’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of Death.”

Again in the grave-digging scene in Hamlet we see the same fascinated familiarity of the imagination with all that pertains to churchyards, coffins, and the corruption within them.

“Hamlet. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Horatio. What’s that, my lord?

Hamlet. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ the earth?

Horatio. E’en so.

Hamlet. And smelt so? pah! (Puts down the skull.)

Horatio. E’en so, my lord!

Hamlet. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Horatio. ‘Twere to reason too curiously to consider so.

Hamlet. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus:  —  Alexander died; Alexander was buried; Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!”

Observe how Shakespeare here defends, through Hamlet, his own tendency “too curiously” to consider death. To sum up all, however, let us turn to that unparalleled burst of language in the Tempest, in which the poet has defeated Time itself by chivalrously proclaiming to all time what Time can do:  — 

“And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

This, we contend, is no mere poetic phrenzy, inserted because it was dramatically suitable that Prospero should so express himself at that place; it is the explosion into words of a feeling during which Prospero was forgotten, and Shakespeare swooned into himself. And what is the continuation of the passage but a kind of postscript, describing, under the guise of Prospero, Shakespeare’s own agitation with what he had just written?  — 

“Sir, I am vexed;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled:
Be not disturbed with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell,
And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.”

To our imagination the surmise is that Shakespeare here laid down his pen, and began to pace his chamber, too agitated to write more that night.

In this extreme familiarity with the conception of mortality in general, and perhaps also in this extreme sensitiveness to the thought of death as a matter of personal import, all great poets, and possibly all great men whatever, have to some extent resembled Shakespeare. For these are the feelings of our common nature on which religion and all solemn activity have founded and maintained themselves. Space and Time are the largest and the outermost of all human conceptions; to stand, therefore, incessantly upon these extreme conceptions, as upon the perimeter of a figure, and to view all inwards from them, is the highest exercise of thought to which a human being can attain. Accordingly, in all great poets there may be discerned this familiarity of the imagination with the world figured as a poor little ball pendent in space and moving forward out of a dark past to a future of light or gloom. But in this respect Shakespeare exceeds them all; and in this respect, therefore, no poet is more religious, more spiritual, more profoundly metaphysical, than he. Into an inordinate amount of that outward pressure of the soul against the perimeter of sensible things, infuse the peculiar moral germ of Christianity, and you have the religion of Shakespeare. Thus:  — 

“And our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”  —  Tempest.

Here the poetic imagination sweeps boldly round the universe, severing it as by a soft cloud-line from the infinite Unknown.

“Poor soul! the centre of my sinful earth,
Fooled by those rebel powers that lead thee ‘stray!”
Sonnet 146.

Here the soul, retracting its thoughts from the far and physical, dwells disgustedly on itself.

“The dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns.”  —  Hamlet.

Here the soul, pierced with the new and awful thought of sin, wings out again towards the Infinite, and finds all dark.

“How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are?”  —  Measure for Measure.

Here the silver lamp of hope is hung up within the gloomy sphere, to burn softly and faintly for ever!

And so it is throughout Shakespeare’s writings. Whatever is special or doctrinal is avoided; all that intellectual tackling, so to speak, is struck away that would afford the soul any relief whatever from the whole sensation of the supernatural. Although we cannot, therefore, in honest keeping with popular language, call Shakespeare, as Ulrici does, the most Christian of poets, we believe him to have been the man in modern times who, breathing an atmosphere full of Christian conceptions, and walking amid a civilization studded with Christian institutions, had his whole being tied by the closest personal links to those highest generalities of the universe which the greatest minds in all ages have ever pondered and meditated, and round which Christianity has thrown its clasp of gold.

Shakespeare, then, we hold to have been essentially a meditative, speculative, and even, in his solitary hours, an abject and melancholy man, rather than a man of active, firm, and worldly disposition. Instead of being a calm, stony observer of life and nature, as he has been sometimes represented, we believe him to have been a man of the gentlest and most troublesome affections, of sensibility abnormally keen and deep, full of metaphysical longings, liable above most men to self-distrust, despondency, and mental agitation from causes internal and external, and a prey to many secret and severe experiences which he did not discuss at the Mermaid tavern. This, we say, is no guess; it is a thing certified under his own hand and seal. But, this being allowed, we are willing to agree with all that is said of him, by way of indicating the immense variety of faculties, dispositions, and acquirements, of which his character was built up. Vast intellectual inquisitiveness, the readiest and most universal humour, the truest sagacity and knowledge of the world, the richest and deepest capacity of enjoying all that life presented: all this, as applied to Shakespeare, is a mere string of undeniable commonplaces. The man, as we fancy him, who of all others trod the oftenest the extreme metaphysic walk which bounds our universe in, he was also the man of all others who was related most keenly by every fibre of his being to all the world of the real and the concrete. Better than any man he knew life to be a dream; with as vivid a relish as any man he did his part as one of the dreamers. If at one moment life stood before his mental gaze, an illuminated little speck or disc, softly rounded with mysterious sleep, the next moment this mere span shot out into an illimitable plain, whereon he himself stood  —  a plain covered with forests, parted by seas, studded with cities and huge concourses of men, mapped out into civilizations, over-canopied by stars. Nay, it was precisely because he came and went with such instant transition between the two extremes that he behaved so genially and sympathetically in the latter. It was precisely because he had done the metaphysic feat so completely once for all, and did not bungle on metaphysicizing bit by bit amid the real, that he stood forth in the character of the most concrete of poets. Life is an illusion, a show, a phantasm: well then, that is settled, and I belong to that section of the illusion called London, the seventeenth century, and woody Warwickshire! So he may have said; and he acted accordingly. He walked amid the woods of Warwickshire, and listened to the birds singing in their leafy retreats; he entered the Mermaid tavern with Ben Jonson after the theatre was over, and found himself quite properly related, as one item in the illusion, to that other item in it, a good supper and a cup of canary. He accepted the world as it was, rejoiced in its joys, was pained by its sorrows, reverenced its dignities, respected its laws, and laughed at its whimsies. It was this very strength and intimacy and universality of his relations to the concrete world of nature and life that caused in him that spirit of acquiescence in things as they were, that evident conservatism of temper, that indifference, or perhaps more, to the specific contemporary forms of social and intellectual movement, with which he has sometimes been charged as a fault. The habit of attaching weight to what are called abstractions, of metaphysicizing bit by bit amid the real, is almost an essential feature in the constitution of men who are remarkable for their faith in social progress. It was precisely, therefore, because Shakespeare was such a votary of the concrete, because he walked so firmly on the green and solid sward of that island of life which he knew to be surrounded by a metaphysic sea, that this or that metaphysical proposal with respect to the island itself occupied him but little.

How, then, did Shakespeare relate himself to this concrete world of nature and life in which his lot had been cast? What precise function with regard to it, if not that of an active partisan of progress, did he accept as devolving naturally on him? The answer is easy. Marked out by circumstances, and by his own bent and inclination, from the vast majority of men, who, with greater or less faculty, sometimes perhaps with the greatest, pass their lives in silence, appearing in the world at their time, enjoying it for a season, and returning to the earth again,  —  marked out from among these, and appointed to be one of those whom the whole earth should remember and think of; yet precluded, as we have seen, by his constitution and fortune, from certain modes of attaining to this honour  —  the special function which, in this high place, he saw himself called upon to discharge, and by the discharge of which he has ensured his place in perpetuity, was simply that of expressing what he felt and saw. In other words, Shakespeare was specifically and transcendently a literary man. To say that he was the greatest man that ever lived is to provoke a useless controversy, and comparisons that lead to nothing, between Shakespeare and Cæsar, Shakespeare and Charlemagne, Shakespeare and Cromwell; to say that he was the greatest intellect that ever lived, is to bring the shades of Aristotle and Plato, and Bacon and Newton, and all the other systematic thinkers, grumbling about us, with demands for a definition of intellect, which we are by no means in a position to give; nay, finally, to say that he is the greatest poet that the world has produced (a thing which we would certainly say, were we provoked to it,) would be unnecessarily to hurt the feelings of Homer and Sophocles, Dante and Milton. What we will say, then, and challenge the world to gainsay, is that he was the greatest expresser that ever lived. This is glory enough, and it leaves the other questions open. Other men may have led, on the whole, greater and more impressive lives than he; other men, acting on their fellows through the same medium of speech that he used, may have expended a greater power of thought, and achieved a greater intellectual effect, in one consistent direction; other men, too (though this is very questionable), may have contrived to issue the matter which they did address to the world in more compact and perfect artistic shapes. But no man that ever lived said such splendid things on all subjects universally; no man that ever lived had the faculty of pouring out on all occasions such a flood of the richest and deepest language. He may have had rivals in the art of imagining situations; he had no rival in the power of sending a gush of the appropriate intellectual effusion over the image and body of a situation once conceived. From a jewelled ring on an alderman’s finger to the most mountainous thought or deed of man or demon, nothing suggested itself that his speech could not envelope and enfold with ease. That excessive fluency which astonished Ben Jonson when he listened to Shakespeare in person astonishes the world yet. Abundance, ease, redundance, a plenitude of word, sound, and imagery, which, were the intellect at work only a little less magnificent, would sometimes end in sheer braggartism and bombast, are the characteristics of Shakespeare’s style. Nothing is suppressed, nothing omitted, nothing cancelled. On and on the poet flows; words, thoughts, and fancies crowding on him as fast as he can write, all related to the matter on hand, and all poured forth together, to rise and fall on the waves of an established cadence. Such lightness and ease in the manner, and such prodigious wealth and depth in the matter, are combined in no other writer. How the matter was first accumulated, what proportion of it was the acquired capital of former efforts, and what proportion of it welled up in the poet’s mind during and in virtue of the very act of speech, it is impossible to say; but this at least may be affirmed without fear of contradiction, that there never was a mind in the world from which, when it was pricked by any occasion whatever, there poured forth on the instant such a stream of precious substance intellectually related to it. By his powers of expression, in fact, Shakespeare has beggared all his posterity, and left mere practitioners of expression nothing possible to do. There is perhaps not a thought, or feeling, or situation, really common and generic to human life, on which he has not exercised his prerogative; and, wherever he has once been, woe to the man that comes after him! He has overgrown the whole system and face of things like a universal ivy, which has left no wall uncovered, no pinnacle unclimbed, no chink unpenetrated. Since he lived the concrete world has worn a richer surface. He found it great and beautiful, with stripes here and there of the rough old coat seen through the leafy labours of his predecessors; he left it clothed throughout with the wealth and autumnal luxuriance of his own unparalleled language.

This brings us, by a very natural connexion, to what we have to say of Goethe. For, if, with the foregoing impressions on our mind respecting the character and the function of the great English poet, we turn to the mask of his German successor and admirer, which has been so long waiting our notice, the first question must infallibly be What recognition is it possible that, in such circumstances, we can have left for him? In other words, the first consideration that must be taken into account in any attempt to appreciate Goethe is that he came into a world in which Shakespeare had been before him. For a man who, in the main, was to pursue a course so similar to that which Shakespeare had pursued this was a matter of incalculable importance. Either, on the one hand, the value of all that the second man could do, if he adhered to a course very similar, must suffer from the fact that he was following in the footsteps of a predecessor of such unapproachable excellence; or, on the other hand, the consciousness of this, if it came in time, would be likely to prevent too close a resemblance between the lives of the two men, by giving a special direction and character to the efforts of the second. Hear Goethe himself on this very point:  — 

“We discoursed upon English literature, on the greatness of Shakespeare, and on the unfavourable position held by all English dramatic authors who had appeared after that poetical giant. ‘A dramatic talent of any importance,’ said Goethe, ‘could not forbear to notice Shakespeare’s works; nay, could not forbear to study them. Having studied them, he must be aware that Shakespeare has already exhausted the whole of human nature in all its tendencies, in all its heights and depths, and that, in fact, there remains for him, the aftercomer, nothing more to do. And how could one get courage to put pen to paper, if one were conscious, in an earnest appreciating spirit, that such unfathomable and unattainable excellencies were already in existence? It fared better with me fifty years ago in my own dear Germany. I could soon come to an end with all that then existed; it could not long awe me, or occupy my attention. I soon left behind me German literature, and the study of it, and turned my thoughts to life and to production. So on and on I went, in my own natural development, and on and on I fashioned the productions of epoch after epoch. And, at every step of life and development, my standard of excellence was not much higher than what at such a step I was able to attain. But, had I been born an Englishman, and had all those numerous masterpieces been brought before me in all their power at my first dawn of youthful consciousness, they would have overpowered me, and I should not have known what to do. I could not have gone on with such fresh light-heartedness, but should have had to bethink myself, and look about for a long time to find some new outlet.’”  —  Eckermann’s Conversations of Goethe, i. pp. 114, 115.

All this is very clear and happily expressed. Most Englishmen that have written since Shakespeare have been overawed by the sense of his vast superiority; and Goethe, if he had been an Englishman, would have partaken of the same feeling, and would have been obliged, as he says, to look about for some path in which competition with such a predecessor would have been avoided. Being, however, a German, and coming at a time when German literature had nothing so great to boast of but that an ardent young man could hope to produce something as good or better, the way was certainly open to him to the attainment, in his own nation, of a position analogous to that which Shakespeare had occupied in his. Goethe might, if he had chosen, have aspired to be the Shakespeare of Germany. Had his tastes and faculties pointed in that direction, there was no reason, special to his own nation, that would have made it very incumbent on him to thwart the tendency of his genius and seek about for a new outlet in order to escape injurious comparisons. But, even in such circumstances, to have pursued a course very similar to that of Shakespeare, and to have been animated by a mere ambition to tread in the footsteps of that master, would have been death to all chance of a reputation among the highest. Great writers do not exclusively belong to the country of their birth; the greatest of all are grouped together on a kind of central platform, in the view of all peoples and tongues; and, as in this select assemblage no duplicates are permitted, the man who does never so well a second time that which the world has already canonized a man for doing once has little chance of being admitted to co-equal honours. More especially in the present case would too close a resemblance to the original, whether in manner or in purpose, have been regarded in the end as a reason for inferiority in place. As the poet of one branch of the great Germanic family of mankind, Shakespeare belonged indirectly to the Germans, even before they recognised him; in him all the genuine qualities of Teutonic human nature, as well as the more special characteristics of English genius, were embodied once for all in the particular form which had chanced to be his; and, had Goethe been, in any marked sense, only a repetition of the same form, he might have held his place for some time as the wonder of Germany, but, as soon as the course of events had opened up the communication which was sure to take place at some time between the German and the English literatures, and so made his countrymen acquainted with Shakespeare, he would have lost his extreme brilliance, and become but a star of the second magnitude. In order, then, that Goethe might hold permanently a first rank even among his own countrymen, it was necessary that he should be a man of a genius quite distinct from that of Shakespeare, a man who, having or not having certain Shakespearian qualities, should at all events signalize such qualities as he had by a marked character and function of his own. And, if this was necessary to secure to Goethe a first rank in the literature of Germany, much more was it necessary to ensure him a place as one of the intellectual potentates of the whole modern world. If Goethe was to be admitted into this select company at all, it could not be as a mere younger brother of Shakespeare, but as a man whom Shakespeare himself, when he took him by the hand, would look at with curiosity, as something new in species, produced in the earth since his own time.

Was this, then, the case? Was Goethe, with all his external resemblance in some respects to Shakespeare, a man of such truly individual character, and of so new and marked a function, as to deserve a place among the highest, not in German literature alone, but in the literature of the world as a whole? We do not think that anyone competent to give an opinion will reply in the negative.

A glance at the external circumstances of Goethe’s life alone (and what a contrast there is between the abundance of biographic material respecting Goethe and the scantiness of our information respecting Shakespeare!) will beget the impression that the man who led such a life must have had opportunities for developing a very unusual character. The main facts in the life of Goethe are:  —  that he was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1749, the only surviving son of parents who ranked among the wealthiest in the town; that, having been educated with extreme care, and having received whatever experience could be acquired by an impetuous student-life, free from all ordinary forms of hardship, first at one German town and then at another, he devoted himself, in accordance with his tastes, to a career of literary activity; that, after unwinding himself from several love-affairs, and travelling for the sake of farther culture in Italy and other parts of Europe, he settled in early manhood at Weimar, as the intimate friend and counsellor of the reigning duke of that state; that there, during a long and honoured life, in the course of which he married an inferior housekeeper kind of person, of whom we do not hear much, he prosecuted his literary enterprise with unwearied industry, not only producing poems, novels, dramas, essays, treatises, and criticisms in great profusion from his own pen, but also acting, along with Schiller and others, as a director and guide of the whole contemporary intellectual movement of his native land; and that finally, having outlived all his famous associates, become a widower and a grandfather, and attained the position not only of the acknowledged king and patriarch of German literature, but also, as some thought, of the wisest and most serene intellect of Europe, he died so late as 1832, in the eighty-third year of his age. All this, it will be observed, is very different from the life of the prosperous Warwickshire player, whose existence had illustrated the early part of the seventeenth century in England; and it necessarily denoted, at the same time, a very different cast of mind and temper.

Accordingly, such descriptions as we have of Goethe from those who knew him best convey the idea of a character notably different from that of the English poet. Of Shakespeare personally we have but one uniform account  —  that he was a man of gentle presence and disposition, very good company, and of such boundless fluency and intellectual inventiveness in talk that his hearers could not always stand it, but had sometimes to whistle him down in his flights. In Goethe’s case we have two distinct pictures.

In youth, as all accounts agree in stating, he was one of the most impetuous, bounding, ennui-dispelling natures that ever broke in upon a society of ordinary mortals assembled to kill time. “He came upon you,” said one who knew him well at this period, “like a wolf in the night.” The simile is a splendid one, and it agrees wonderfully with the more subdued representations of his early years given by Goethe himself in his Autobiography. Handsome as an Apollo and welcome everywhere, he bore all before him wherever he went, not only by his talent, but also by an exuberance of animal spirits which swept dulness itself along, took away the breath of those who relied on sarcasm and their cool heads, inspired life and animation into the whole circle, and most especially delighted the ladies. This vivacity became even, at times, a reckless humour, prolific in all kinds of mad freaks and extravagances. Whether this impetuosity kept always within the bounds of mere innocent frolic is a question which we need not here raise. Traditions are certainly afloat of terrible domestic incidents connected with Goethe’s youth, both in Frankfort and in Weimar; but to what extent those traditions are founded on fact is a matter which we have never yet seen any attempt to decide upon evidence. More authentic for us, and equally significant, if we could be sure of our ability to appreciate them rightly, are the stories which Goethe himself tells of his various youthful attachments, and the various ways in which they were concluded. In Goethe’s own narratives of these affairs there is a confession of error, arising out of his disposition passionately to abandon himself to the feelings of the moment without looking forward to the consequences; but whether this confession is to be converted by his critics into the harsher accusation of heartlessness and want of principle is a thing not to be decided by any general rule as to the matter of inconstancy, but by accurate knowledge in each case of the whole circumstances of that case. One thing these love-romances of Goethe’s early life make clear  —  that, for a being of such extreme sensibility as he was, he had a very strong element of self-control. When he gave up Rica or Lilli, it was with tears, and no end of sleepless nights; and yet he gave them up. Shakespeare, we believe (and there is an instance exactly in point in the story of his Sonnets), had no such power of breaking clear from connexions which his judgment disapproved. Remorse and return, self-reproaches for his weakness at one moment followed the next by weakness more abject than before  —  such, by his own confession, was the conduct, in one such case, of our more passive and gentle-hearted poet. Where Shakespeare was “past cure,” and “frantic-mad with evermore unrest,” Goethe but fell into “hypochondria,” which reason and resolution enabled him to overcome. Goethe at twenty-five gave up a young, beautiful and innocent girl, from the conviction that it was better to do so. Shakespeare at thirty-five was the abject slave of a dark-complexioned woman, who was faithless to him, and whom he cursed in his heart. The sensibilities in the German poet moved from the first, as we have already said, over a firmer basis of permanent character.

It is chiefly, however, the Goethe of later life that the world remembers and thinks of. The bounding impetuosity is then gone; or rather it is kept back and restrained, so as to form a calm and steady fund of internal energy, capable sometimes of a flash and outbreak, but generally revealing itself only in labour and its fruits. What was formerly the beauty of an Apollo, graceful, light, and full of motion, is now the beauty of a Jupiter, composed, stately, serene. “What a sublime form!” says Eckermann, describing his first interview with him. “I forgot to speak for looking at him: I could not look enough. His face is so powerful and brown, full of wrinkles, and each wrinkle full of expression. And everywhere there is such nobleness and firmness, such repose and greatness. He spoke in a slow, composed manner, such as you would expect from an aged monarch.” Such is Goethe, as he lasts now in the imagination of the world. Living among statues, books, and pictures; daily doing something for his own culture and for that of the world; daily receiving guests and visitors, whom he entertained and instructed with his wise and deep, yet charming and simple, converse; daily corresponding with friends and strangers, and giving advice or doing a good turn to some young talent or other  —  never was such a mind consecrated so perseveringly and exclusively to the service of Kunst and Literatur. One almost begins to wonder if it was altogether right that an old man should go on, morning after morning, and evening after evening, in such a fashion, talking about art and science and literature as if they were the only interests in the world, taking his guests into corners to have quiet discussions with them on these subjects, and always finding something new and nice to be said about them. Possibly, indeed, this is the fault of those who have reported him, and who only took notes when the discourse turned on what they considered the proper Goethean themes. But that Goethe far outdid Shakespeare in this conscious dedication of himself to a life of the intellect is as certain as the testimony of likelihood can make it. Shakespeare did enjoy his art; it was what, in his pensive hours, as he himself hints, he enjoyed most; and whatever of intellectual ecstasy literary production can bring must surely have been his in those hours when he composed Hamlet and the Tempest. But Shakespeare’s was precisely one of those minds whose strength is a revelation to themselves during the moment of its exercise, rather than a chronic ascertained possession; and from this circumstance, as well as from the attested fact of his carelessness as to the fate of his compositions, we can very well conceive that literature and mental culture formed but a small part of the general system of things in Shakespeare’s daily thoughts, and that he would have been absolutely ashamed of himself if, when anything else, from the state of the weather to the quality of the wine, was within the circle of possible allusion, he had said a word about his own plays. If he had not Sir Walter Scott’s positive conviction that every man ought to be either a laird or a lawyer, casting in authorship as a mere addition if it were to be practised at all, he at least led so full and keen a life, and was drawn forth on so many sides by nature, society, and the unseen, that Literature, out of the actual moments in which he was engaged in it, must have seemed to him a mere bagatelle, a mere fantastic echo of not a tithe of life. In his home in London, or his retirement at Stratford, he wrote on and on, because he could not help doing so, and because it was his business and his solace; but no play seemed to him worth a day of the contemporary actions of men, no description worth a single glance at the Thames or at the deer feeding in the forest, no sonnet worth the tear it was made to embalm. Literature was by no means to him, as it was to Goethe, the main interest of life; nor was he a man so far master of himself as ever to be able to behave as if it were so, and to accept, as Goethe did, all that occurred as so much culture. Yet Shakespeare would have understood Goethe, and would have regarded him, almost with envy, as one of those men who, as being “lords and owners of their faces,” and not mere “stewards,” know how to husband Nature’s gifts best.

“They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit Heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.”  —  Sonnet 94.

If Goethe attained this character, however, it was not because, as it is the fashion to say, he was by nature cold, heartless, and impassive, but because, uniting will and wisdom to his wealth of sensibilities, he had disciplined himself into what he was. A heartless man does not diffuse geniality and kindliness around him, as Goethe did; and a statue is not seized, as Goethe once was, with hæmorrhage in the night, the result of suppressed grief.

That which made Goethe what he was  —  namely, his philosophy of life  —  is to be gathered, in the form of hints, from his various writings and conversations. We present a few important passages here, in what seems their philosophic connexion, as well as the order most suitable for bringing out Goethe’s mode of thought in contrast with that of Shakespeare.

Goethe’s Thoughts of Death.  —  “We had gone round the thicket, and had turned by Tiefurt into the Weimar-road, where we had a view of the setting sun. Goethe was for a while lost in thought; he then said to me, in the words of one of the ancients,

‘Untergehend sogar ist’s immer dieselbige Sonne.’
(Still it continues the self-same sun, even while it is sinking.)

‘At the age of seventy-five,’ continued he, with much cheerfulness, ‘one must, of course, think sometimes of death. But this thought never gives me the least uneasiness, for I am fully convinced that our spirit is a being of a nature quite indestructible, and that its activity continues from eternity to eternity. It is like the sun, which seems to set only to our earthly eyes, but which, in reality, never sets, but shines on unceasingly.’”  —  Eckermann’s Conversations of Goethe, vol. i. p. 161.

Goethe’s Maxim with respect to Metaphysics.  —  “Man is born not to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out where the problem begins, and then to restrain himself within the limits of the comprehensible.”  —  Ibid. vol. i. p. 272.

Goethe’s Theory of the intention of the Supernatural with regard to the Visible.  —  “After all, what does it all come to? God did not retire to rest after the well-known six days of creation, but, on the contrary, is constantly active as on the first. It would have been for Him a poor occupation to compose this heavy world out of simple elements, and to keep it rolling in the sunbeams from year to year, if He had not the plan of founding a nursery for a world of spirits upon this material basis. So He is now constantly active in higher natures to attract the lower ones.”  —  Ibid. vol. ii. p. 426.

Goethe’s Doctrine of Immortality.  —  “Kant has unquestionably done the best service, by drawing the limits beyond which human intellect is not able to penetrate, and leaving at rest the insoluble problems. What a deal have people philosophised about immortality! and how far have they got? I doubt not of our immortality, for nature cannot dispense with the entelecheia. But we are not all, in like manner, immortal; and he who would manifest himself in future as a great entelecheia must be one now.... To me the eternal existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work on incessantly till my death, nature is bound to give me another form of existence when the present one can no longer sustain my spirit.”  —  Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 193, 194, and p. 122.

Goethe’s Image of Life.  —  “Child, child, no more! The coursers of Time, lashed, as it were, by invisible spirits, hurry on the light car of our destiny; and all that we can do is, in cool self-possession, to hold the reins with a firm hand, and to guide the wheels, now to the left, now to the right, avoiding a stone here, or a precipice there. Whither it is hurrying, who can tell? and who, indeed, can remember the point from which it started?”  —  Egmont.

Man’s proper business.  —  “It has at all times been said and repeated that man should strive to know himself. This is a singular requisition; with which no one complies, or indeed ever will comply. Man is by all his senses and efforts directed to externals  —  to the world around him; and he has to know this so far, and to make it so far serviceable, as he requires for his own ends. It is only when he feels joy or sorrow that he knows anything about himself, and only by joy or sorrow is he instructed what to seek and what to shun.”  —  Eckermann’s Conversations of Goethe, vol. ii. p. 180.

The Abstract and the Concrete, and the Subjective and the Objective.  —  “The Germans are certainly strange people. By their deep thoughts and ideas, which they seek in everything, and fix upon everything, they make life much more burdensome than is necessary. Only have the courage to give yourself up to your impressions; allow yourself to be delighted, moved, elevated  —  nay, instructed and inspired by something great; but do not imagine all is vanity if it is not abstract thought and idea.... It was not in my line, as a poet, to strive to embody anything abstract. I received in my mind impressions, and those of a sensual, animated, charming, varied, hundred-fold kind, just as a lively imagination presented them; and I had, as a poet, nothing more to do than artistically to round off and elaborate such views and impressions, and by means of a lively representation so to bring them forward that others might receive the same impressions in hearing or reading my representation of them.... A poet deserves not the name while he only speaks out his few subjective feelings; but as soon as he can appropriate to himself and express the world he is a poet. Then he is inexhaustible, and can be always new; while a subjective nature has soon talked out his little internal material, and is at last ruined by mannerism. People always talk of the study of the ancients; but what does that mean, except that it says ‘Turn your attention to the real world, and try to express it, for that is what the ancients did when they were alive?’ Goethe arose and walked to and fro, while I remained seated at the table, as he likes to see me. He stood a moment at the stove, and then, like one who has reflected, came to me, and, with his finger on his lips, said to me, ‘I will now tell you something which you will often find confirmed in your own experience. All eras in a state of decline and dissolution are subjective; on the other hand, all progressive eras have an objective tendency. Our present time is retrograde, for it is subjective; we see this not merely in poetry, but also in painting and much besides. Every healthy effort, on the contrary, is directed from the inward to the outward world, as you will see in all great eras, which have been really in a state of progression, and all of an objective nature.’”  —  Ibid. vol. i. pp. 415, 416, and pp. 283, 284.

Rule of Individual Activity.  —  “The most reasonable way is for every man to follow his own vocation to which he has been born and which he has learnt, and to avoid hindering others from following theirs. Let the shoemaker abide by his last, the peasant by his plough, and let the king know how to govern; for this is also a business which must be learned, and with which no one should meddle who does not understand it.”  —  Ibid. vol. i. p. 134.

Right and Wrong: The habit of Controversy.  —  “The end of all opposition is negation, and negation is nothing. If I call bad bad, what do I gain? But, if I call good bad, I do a great deal of mischief. He who will work aright must never rail, must not trouble himself at all about what is ill done, but only do well himself. For the great point is not to pull down, but to build up; and in this humanity finds pure joy.”  —  Ibid. vol. i. p. 208.

Goethe’s own Relation to the Disputes of his Time.  —  “‘You have been reproached,’ remarked I, rather inconsiderately, ‘for not taking up arms at that great period [the war with Napoleon], or at least co-operating as a poet.’ ‘Let us leave that point alone, my good friend,’ returned Goethe. ‘It is an absurd world, which knows not what it wants, and which one must allow to have its own way. How could I take up arms without hatred, and how could I hate without youth? If such an emergency had befallen me when twenty years old, I should certainly not have been the last; but it found me as one who had already passed the first sixties. Besides, we cannot all serve our country in the same way; but each does his best, according as God has endowed him. I have toiled hard enough during half a century. I can say that, in those things which nature has appointed for my daily work, I have permitted myself no relaxation night or day, but have always striven, investigated, and done as much, and that as well, as I could. If everyone can say the same of himself, it will prove well with all. I will not say what I think. There is more ill-will towards me hidden beneath that remark than you are aware of. I feel therein a new form of the old hatred with which people have persecuted me, and endeavoured quietly to wound me, for years. I know very well that I am an eyesore to many; that they would all willingly get rid of me; and that, since they cannot touch my talent, they aim at my character. Now, it is said that I am proud; now, egotistical; now, immersed in sensuality; now, without Christianity; and now, without love for my native country and my own dear Germans. You have now known me sufficiently for years, and you feel what all that talk is worth.... The poet, as a man and citizen, will love his native land; but the native land of his poetic powers and poetic action is the good, noble, and beautiful: which is confined to no particular province or country, and which he seizes upon and forms wherever he finds them. Therein he is like the eagle, who hovers with free gaze over whole countries, and to whom it is of no consequence whether the hare on which he pounces is running in Prussia or in Saxony.’”  —  Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 257, 258, and p. 427.

Whoever has read these sentences attentively, and penetrated their meaning in connexion, will see that they reveal a mode of thought somewhat resembling that which we have attributed to Shakespeare, and yet essentially different from it. Both poets are distinguished by this, that they abstained systematically during their lives from the abstract, the dialectical, and the controversial, and devoted themselves, with true feeling and enjoyment, to the concrete, the real, and the unquestioned; and so far there is an obvious resemblance between them. But the manner in which this characteristic was attained was by no means the same in both cases. In Shakespeare, as we have seen, there was a metaphysical longing, a tendency towards the supersensible and invisible, absolutely morbid, if we take ordinary constitutions as the standard of health in this respect; and, if, with all this, he revelled with delight and moved with ease and firmness in the sensuous and actual, it was because the very same soul which pressed with such energy and wailing against the bounds of this life of man was also related with inordinate keenness and intimacy to all that this life spheres in. In Goethe, on the other hand, the tendency to the real existed under easier constitutional conditions, and in a state of such natural preponderance over any concomitant craving for the metaphysical, that it necessarily took, German though he was, a higher place in his estimate of what is desirable in a human character. That world of the real in which Shakespeare delighted, and which he knew so well, seemed to him, all this knowledge and delight notwithstanding, far more evanescent, far more a mere filmy show, far less considerable a shred of all that is, than it did to Goethe. To Shakespeare, as we have already said, life was but as a little island on the bosom of a boundless sea: men must needs know what the island contains, and act as those who have to till and rule it; still, with that expanse of waters all round in view, and that roar of waters ever in the ear, what can men call themselves or pretend their realm to be? “Poor fools of Nature” is the poet’s own phrase  —  the realm so small that it is pitiful to belong to it! Not so with Goethe. To him also, of course, the thought was familiar of a vast region of the supersensible outlying nature and life; but a higher value on the whole was reserved for nature and life, even on the universal scale, by his peculiar habit of conceiving them, not as distinct from the supersensible and contemporaneously begirt by it, but rather, if we may so speak, as a considerable portion, or even duration, of the quondam-supersensible in the new form of the sensible. In other words, Goethe was full of the notion of progress or evolution; the world was to him not a mere spectacle and dominion for the supernatural, but an actual manifestation of the substance of the supernatural itself, on its way through time to new issues. Hence his peculiar notion of immortality; hence his view as to the mere relativeness of the terms right and wrong, good and bad, and the like; and hence also his resolute inculcation of the doctrine, so unpalatable to his countrymen, that men ought to direct their thoughts and efforts to the actual and the outward. Life being the current phase of the universal mystery, the true duty of men could be but to contribute in their various ways to the furtherance of life.

And what then, finally, was Goethe’s own mode of activity in a life thus defined in his general philosophy? Like Shakespeare, he was a literary man; his function was literature. Yes, but in what respect, otherwise than Shakespeare had done before him, did he fulfil this literary function in reference to the world he lived in and enjoyed? In the first place, as all know, he differed from Shakespeare in this, that he did not address the world exclusively in the character of a poet. Besides his poetry, properly so called, Goethe has left behind him numerous prose-writings, ranking under very different heads, abounding with such deep and wise maxims and perceptions, in reference to all things under the sun, as would have entitled him, even had he been no poet, to rank as a sage. So great, indeed, is Goethe as a thinker and a critic that it may very well be disputed whether his prose-writings, as a whole, are not more precious than his poems. But even if we set apart this difference, and regard the two men in their special character as poets or artists, a marked difference is still discernible. Hear Goethe’s own definition of his poetical career and aim.

“Thus began that tendency from which I could not deviate my whole life through: namely, the tendency to turn into an image, into a poem, everything that delighted or troubled me, or otherwise occupied me, and to come to some certain understanding with myself upon it, that I might both rectify my conceptions of external things, and set my mind at rest about them. The faculty of doing this was necessary to no one more than to me, for my natural disposition whirled me constantly from one extreme to the other. All, therefore, that has been put forth by me consists of fragments of a great confession.”  —  Autobiography, vol. i. p. 240.

Shakespeare’s genius we defined to be the genius of universal expression, of clothing objects, circumstances, and feelings with magnificent language, of pouring over the image of any given situation, whether suggested from within or from without, an effusion of the richest intellectual matter that could possibly be related to it. Goethe’s genius, as here defined by himself, was something different and narrower. It was the genius of translation from the subjective into the objective, of clothing real feelings with fictitious circumstance, of giving happy intellectual form to states of mind, so as to dismiss and throw them off. Let this distinction be sufficiently conceived and developed, and a full idea will be obtained of the exact difference between the literary many-sidedness attributed to Shakespeare and that also attributed to Goethe.

GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS by John Tyndall

From Popular Science Monthly Volume 17 June 1880

I.

IN the days of my youth, when life was strong and aspiration high, I found myself standing one fine summer evening beside a statue of Goethe in a German city. Following the current of thought and feeling started by the associations of the place, I eventually came to the conclusion that, judging even from a purely utilitarian point of view, a truly noble work of art was the most suitable memorial for a great man. Such a work appeared to me capable of exciting a motive force within the mind which no purely material influence could generate. There was then labor before me of the most arduous kind. There were formidable practical difficulties to be overcome, and very small means wherewith to overcome them, and yet I felt that no material means could, as regards the task I had undertaken, plant within me a resolve comparable with that which the contemplation of this statue of Goethe was able to arouse.

My reverence for the poet had been awakened by the writings of Mr. Carlyle, and it was afterward confirmed and consolidated by the writings of Goethe himself. But there was one of the poet’s works, which, though it lay directly in the line of my own studies, remained for a long time only imperfectly known to me. My opinion of that work was not formed on hearsay. I dipped into it so far as to make myself acquainted with its style, its logic, and its general aim; but having done this I laid it aside, as something which jarred upon my conception of Goethe’s grandeur. The mind willingly rounds off the image which it venerates, and only acknowledges with reluctance that it is on any side incomplete; and believing that Goethe in the “Farbenlehre” was wrong in his intellectual, and perverse in his moral judgments  —  seeing, above all things, that he had forsaken the lofty impersonal calm which was his chief characteristic, and which had entered into my conception of the godlike in literature  —  I abandoned the “Farbenlehre,” and looked up to Goethe on that side where his greatness was uncontested and supreme.

But in the month of May, 1878, Mr. Carlyle did me the honor of calling upon me twice; and I, not being at home at the time, visited him in Chelsea soon afterward. He was then in his eighty-third year, and, looking in his solemn fashion toward that portal to which we are all so rapidly hastening, he remembered his friends. He then presented to me, as “a farewell gift,” the two octavo volumes of letterpress and the single folio volume, consisting in great part of colored diagrams, which are here before you. Exactly half a century ago these volumes were sent by Goethe to Mr. Carlyle. They embrace the “Farbenlehre”   —   a title which may be translated, though not well translated, “Theory of Colors”   —   and they are accompanied by a long letter, or rather catalogue from Goethe himself, dated the 14th of June, 1830, a little less than two years before his death. My illustrious friend wished me to examine the book, with a view of setting forth what it really contained. This year for the first time I have been able to comply with the desire of Mr. Carlyle; and as I knew that your wish would coincide with his, as to the propriety of making some attempt to weigh the merits of a work which exerted so great an influence in its day, I have not shrunk from the labor of such a review.

The average reading of the late Mr. Buckle is said to have amounted to three volumes a day. But they could not have been volumes like those of the “Farbenlehre.” For the necessity of halting and pondering over its statements was so frequent and the difficulty of coming to any undoubted conclusion regarding Goethe’s real conceptions was often so great as to invoke the expenditure of an inordinate amount of time. I can not even now say with confidence that I fully realize all the thoughts of Goethe. Many of them are strange to the scientific man. They demand for their interpretation a sympathy beyond that required or even tolerated in severe physical research. Two factors, the one external and the other internal, go to the production of every intellectual result. There is the evidence without and there is the mind within on which that evidence impinges. Change either factor, and the result will cease to be the same. In the region of politics, where mere opinion comes so much into play, it is only natural that the same external evidence should produce different convictions in different minds. But in the region of science, where demonstration instead of opinion is paramount, such differences ought hardly to be expected. That they nevertheless occur is strikingly exemplified by the case before us; for the very experimental facts which had previously converted the world to Newton’s views, on appealing to the mind of Goethe, produced a theory of light and colors in violent antagonism, to that of Newton.

Goethe prized the “Farbenlehre” as the most important of his works. “In what I have done as a poet,” he says to Eckermann, “I take no pride, but I am proud of the fact that I am the only person in this century who is acquainted with the difficult science of colors.” If the importance of a work were to be measured by the amount of conscious labor expended in its production, Goethe’s estimate of the “Farbenlehre” would probably be correct. The observations and experiments there recorded astonish us by their variety and number. The amount of reading which he accomplished was obviously vast. He pursued the history of optics, not only along its main streams, but on to its remotest rills. He was animated by the zeal of an apostle, for he believed that a giant imposture was to be overthrown, and that he was the man to accomplish the holy work of destruction. He was also a lover of art, and held that the enunciation of the true principles of color would, in relation to painting, be of lasting importance. Thus positively and negatively he was stimulated to bring all the strength he could command to bear upon this question.

The greater part of the first volume is taken up with Goethe’s own experiments, which are described in nine hundred and twenty paragraphs duly numbered. It is not a consecutive argument, but rather a series of jets of fact and logic emitted at various intervals. I picture the poet in that troublous war-time, walking up and down his Weimar garden, with his hands behind his back, pondering his subject, throwing his experiments and reflections into these terse paragraphs, and turning occasionally into his garden-house to write them down. This first portion of the work embraces three parts, which deal respectively with   —   Physiological or Subjective Colors, with Physical or Prismatic Colors, and with Chemical Colors and Pigments. To these are added a fourth part, bearing the German title “Allgemeine Ansichten nach innen”; a fifth part, entitled “Nachbarliche Verhältnisse,” neighboring relations; and a sixth part, entitled “Sinnlich-sittliche Wirkung der Farbe,” sensuously-moral effect of colors. It is hardly necessary to remark that some of these titles, though doubtless pregnant with meaning to the poet himself, are not likely to commend themselves to the more exacting man of science.

The main divisions of Goethe’s book are subdivided into short sections, bearing titles more or less shadowy from a scientific point of view: Origin of White; Origin of Black; Excitement of Color; Heightening; Culmination; Balancing; Reversion; Fixation; Mixture real; Mixture apparent; Communication actual; Communication apparent. He describes the colors of minerals, plants, worms, insects, fishes, birds, mammals, and men. Hair on the surface of the human body he considers indicative rather of weakness than of strength. The disquisition is continued under the headings: How easily Color arises; How energetic Color may be; Heightening to red; Completeness of Manifold Phenomena; Agreement of Complete Phenomena; How easily Color disappears; How durable Color remains; Relation to Philosophy; Relation to Mathematics; Relation to Physiology and Pathology; Relation to Natural History; Relation to General Physics; Relation to Tones. Then follows a series of sections dealing with the primary colors and their mixtures. These sections relate less to science than to art. The writer treats, among other things, of   —   Æsthetic Effects; Fear of the Theoretical; Grounds and Pigments; Allegorical, Symbolical, and Mystical Use of Colors. The headings alone indicate the enormous industry of the poet; showing at the same time an absence of that scientific definition which he stigmatized as “pedantry” in the case of Newton.

In connection with this subject, Goethe charged himself with all kinds of kindred knowledge. He refers to ocular spectra, quoting Boyle, Buffon, and Darwin; to the paralysis of the eye by light; to its extreme sensitiveness when it awakes in the morning; to irradiation   —   quoting Tycho Brahe on the comparative apparent size of the dark and the illuminated moon. He dwells upon the persistence of impressions upon the retina, and quotes various instances of abnormal duration. He possessed a full and exact knowledge of the phenomena of subjective colors, and described various modes of producing them. He copiously illustrates the production by red of subjective green, and by green of subjective red. Blue produces subjective yellow, and yellow subjective blue. He experimented upon shadows, colored in contrast to surrounding light. The contrasting subjective colors he calls “geforderte Farben,” colors “demanded” by the eye. Goethe gives the following striking illustration of these subjective effects: “I once,” he said, “entered an inn toward evening, when a well-built maiden, with dazzlingly white face, black hair, and scarlet bodice and skirt came toward me. I looked at her sharply in the twilight, and when she moved away, saw upon the white wall opposite a black face with a bright halo round it, while the clothing of the perfectly distinct figure appeared of a beautiful sea-green.” With the instinct of the poet, Goethe discerned in these antitheses an image of the general method of nature. Every action, he says, implies an opposite. Inhalation precedes expiration, and each systole has its corresponding diastole. Such is the eternal formula of life. Under the figure of systole and diastole the rhythm of nature is represented in other portions of the work.

Goethe handled the prism with great skill, and his experiments with it are numberless. He places white rectangles on a black ground, black rectangles on a white ground, and shifts their apparent positions by prismatic refraction. He makes similar experiments with colored rectangles and disks. The shifted image is sometimes projected on a screen, the experiment being then “objective.” It is sometimes looked at directly through the prism, the experiment being then “subjective.” In the production of chromatic effects, he dwells upon the absolute necessity of boundaries   —   ”Gränzen.” The sky may be looked at and shifted by a prism without the production of color; and if the white rectangle on a black ground be only made wide enough, the center remains white after refraction, the colors being confined to the edges. Goethe’s earliest experiment, which led him so hastily to the conclusion that Newton’s theory of colors was wrong, consisted in looking through a prism at the white wall of his own room. He expected to see the whole wall covered with colors, this being, he thought, implied in the theory of Newton. But to his astonishment it remained white, and only when he came to the boundary of a dark or a bright space did the colors reveal themselves. This question of “boundaries” is one of supreme importance to the author of the “Farbenlehre”; the end and aim of his theory being to account for the colored fringes produced at the edges of his refracted images.

Darkness, according to Goethe, had as much to do as light with the production of color. Color was really due to the commingling of both. Not only did his white rectangles upon a black ground yield the colored fringes, but his black rectangles on a white ground did the same. The order of the colors seemed, however, different in the two cases. Let a visiting-card, held in the hand between the eye and a window facing the bright firmament, be looked at through a prism, then supposing the image of the card to be shifted upward by refraction, a red fringe is seen above and a blue one below. Let the back be turned to the window and the card so held that the light shall fall upon it; on being looked at through the prism, blue is seen above and red below. In the first case the fringes are due to the decomposition of the light adjacent to the edge of the card, which simply acts as an opaque body, and might have been actually black. In the second case the light decomposed is that coming from the white surface of the card itself. The first experiment corresponds to that of Goethe with a black rectangle on a white ground; while the second experiment corresponds to Goethe’s white rectangle on a black ground, Both these effects are immediately deducible from Newton’s theory of colors. But this, though explained to him by physicists of great experience and reputation, Goethe could never be brought to see, and he continued to affirm to the end of his life that the results were utterly irreconcilable with the theory of Newton.

In his own explanations Goethe began at the wrong end, inverting the true order of thought, and trying to make the outcome of theory its foundation. Apart from theory, however, his observations are of great interest and variety. He looked to the zenith at midnight, and found before him the blackness of space, while in daylight he saw the blue firmament overhead; and he rightly adopted the conclusion that this coloring of the sky was due to the shining of the sun upon a turbid medium with darkness behind. He by no means understood the physical action of turbid media, but he made a great variety of experiments bearing upon this point. Water, for example, rendered turbid by varnish, soap, or milk, and having a black ground behind it, always appeared blue when shone upon by white light. When, instead of a black background, a bright one was placed behind, so that the light shone, not on, but through the turbid liquid, the blue color disappeared, and he had yellow in its place. Such experiments are capable of endless variation. To this class of effects belongs the painter’s “chill.” A cold, bluish bloom, like that of a plum, is sometimes observed to cover the browns of a varnished picture. This is due to a want of optical continuity in the varnish. Instead of being a coherent layer it is broken up into particles of microscopic smallness, which virtually constitute a turbid medium and send blue light to the eye.

Goethe himself describes a most amusing illustration, or, to use his own language, “a wonderful phenomenon,” due to the temporary action of a turbid medium on a picture: “A portrait of an esteemed theologian was painted several years ago by an artist specially skilled in the treatment of colors. The man stood forth in his dignity clad in a beautiful black velvet coat, which attracted the eyes and awakened the admiration of the beholder almost more than the face itself. Through the action of humidity and dust, however, the picture had lost much of its original splendor. It was therefore handed over to a painter to be cleaned and newly varnished. The painter began by carefully passing a wet sponge over the picture. But he had scarcely thus removed the coarser dirt, when to his astonishment the black velvet suddenly changed into a light-blue plush; the reverend gentleman acquiring thereby a very worldly, if, at the same time, an old-fashioned appearance. The painter would not trust himself to wash further. He could by no means see how a bright blue could underlie a dark black, still less that he could have so rapidly washed away a coating capable of converting a blue like that before him into the black of the original painting.”

Goethe inspected the picture, saw the phenomenon, and explained it. To deepen the hue of the velvet coat the painter had covered it with a special varnish, which, by absorbing part of the water passed over it, was converted into a turbid medium, through which the black behind instantly appeared as blue. To the great joy of the painter, he found that a few hours’ continuance in a dry place restored the primitive black. By the evaporation of the moisture the optical continuity of the varnish (to which essential point Goethe does not refer) was reëstablished, after which it ceased to act as a turbid medium.

This question of turbid media took entire possession of the poet’s mind. It was ever present to his observation. It was illustrated by the azure of noonday, and by the daffodil and crimson of the evening sky. The inimitable lines written at Ilmenau   —   

“Ueber allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh’,
In allen Wipfeln
Spurest Du
Kaum einen Hauch”

suggest a stillness of the atmosphere which would allow the columns of fine smoke from the foresters’ cottages to rise high into the air. He would thus have an opportunity of seeing the upper portion of the column projected against bright clouds, and the lower portion against dark pines, the brownish yellow of the one and the blue of the other being strikingly and at once revealed. He was able to produce artificially at will the colors which he had previously observed in nature. He noticed that when certain bodies were incorporated with glass this substance also played a double part, appearing blue by reflected and yellow by transmitted light. The action of turbid media was to Goethe the ultimate fact   —   the Urphänomen   —   of the world of colors. “We see on the one side Light, and on the other side Darkness. We bring between both Turbidity, and from these opposites develop all colors.”

As long as Goethe remained in the region of fact his observations are of permanent value. But by the coercion of a powerful imagination he forced his turbid media into regions to which they did not belong, and sought to overthrow by their agency the irrefragable demonstrations of Newton. Newton’s theory, as known by everybody, is that white light is composed of a multitude of differently refrangible rays, whose coalescence in certain proportions produces the impression of white. By prismatic analysis these rays are separated from each other, the color of each ray being strictly determined by its refrangibility. The experiments of Newton, whereby he sought to establish this theory, had long appealed with overmastering evidence to every mind trained in the severities of physical investigation. But they did not thus appeal to Goethe. Accepting for the most part the experiments of Newton, he rejected with indignation the conclusions drawn from them, and turned into utter ridicule the notion that white light possessed the composite character ascribed to it. Many of the naturalists of his time supported him, while among philosophers Schelling and Hegel shouted in acclamation over the supposed defeat of Newton. The physicists, however, gave the poet no countenance. Goethe met their scorn with scorn, and under his lash these deniers of his theory, their master included, paid the penalty of their arrogance.

How, then, did he lay down the lines of his own theory? How, out of such meager elements as his yellow, and his blue, and his turbid medium, did he extract the amazing variety and richness of the Newtonian spectrum? Here we must walk circumspectly, for the intellectual atmosphere with which Goethe surrounds himself is by no means free from turbidity. In trying to account for his position, we must make ourselves acquainted with his salient facts, and endeavor to place our minds in sympathy with his mode of regarding them. He found that he could intensify the yellow of his transmitted light by making the turbidity of his medium stronger. A single sheet of diaphanous parchment placed over a hole in his window-shutter appeared whitish. Two sheets appeared yellow, which by the addition of other sheets could be converted into red. It is quite true that by simply sending it through a medium charged with extremely minute particles we can extract from white light a ruby red. The red of the London sun, of which we have had such fine and frequent examples during the late winter, is a case to some extent in point. Goethe did not believe in Newton’s differently refrangible rays. He refused to entertain the notion that the red light obtained by the employment of several sheets of parchment was different in quality from the yellow light obtained with two. The red, according to him, was a mere intensification   —   ”Steigerung”   —   of the yellow. Colors in general consisted, according to Goethe, of light on its way to darkness, and the only difference between yellow and red consisted in the latter being nearer than the former to its final goal.

But how in the production of the spectrum do turbid media come into play? If they exist, where are they? The poet’s answer to this question is subtile in the extreme. He wanders round the answer before he touches it, indulging in various considerations regarding penumbra? and double images, with the apparent aim of breaking down the repugnance to his logic which the mind of his reader is only too likely to entertain. If you place a white card near the surface of a piece of plate-glass, and look obliquely at the image of the card reflected from the two surfaces, you observe two images, which are hazy at the edges and more dense and defined where they overlap. These hazy edges Goethe pressed into his service as turbid media, He fancied that they associated themselves indissolubly with his refracted rectangles   —   that in every case the image of the rectangle was accompanied by a secondary hazy image, a little in advance of the principal one. At one edge, he contended, the advanced secondary image had black behind it, which was converted into blue; while at the other edge it had white behind it, and appeared yellow. When the refracted rectangle is made very narrow, the fringes approach each other and finally overlap. Blue thus mingles with yellow, and the green of the spectrum is the consequence. This, in a nutshell, is the theory of colors developed in the “Farbenlehre.” Goethe obviously regarded the narrowing of the rectangle, of the cylindrical beam, or of the slit of light passing through the prism, which, according to Newton, is the indispensable condition requisite for the production of a pure spectrum, as an impure and complicated mode of illustrating the phenomenon. The elementary fact is, according to Goethe, obtained when we operate with a wide rectangle the edges only of which are colored, while the center remains white. His experiments with the parchment had made him acquainted with the passage of yellow into red as he multiplied his layers; but how this passage occurs in the spectrum he does not explain. That, however, his hazy surfaces   —   his virtual turbid media   —   produced, in some way or other, the observed passage and intensification, Goethe held as firmly, and enunciated as confidently, as if his analysis of the phenomena had been complete.

The fact is, that between double images and turbid media there is no kinship whatever. Turbidity is due to the diffusion, in a transparent medium, of minute particles having a refractive index different from that of the medium. But the act of reflection which produced the penumbral surfaces, whose aid Goethe invoked, did not charge them with such discrete particles. On various former occasions I have tried to set forth the principles on which the chromatic action of turbid media depends. When such media are to be seen blue, the light scattered by the diffused particles, and that only, ought to reach the eye. This feeble light may be compared to a faint whisper which is easily rendered inaudible by a louder noise. The scattered light of the particles is accordingly overpowered, when a stronger light comes, not from the particles, but from a bright surface behind them. Here the light reaches the eye, minus that scattered by the particles. It is therefore the complementary light, or yellow. Both effects are immediately deducible from the principles of the undulatory theory. As a stone in water throws back a larger fraction of a ripple than of a larger wave, so do the excessively minute particles which produce the turbidity scatter more copiously the small waves of the spectrum than the large ones. Light scattered by such particles will therefore always contain a preponderance of the waves which produce the sensation of blue. During its transmission through the turbid medium the white light is more and more robbed of its blue constituents, the transmitted light which reaches the eye being therefore complementary to the blue.

Some of you are, no doubt, aware that it is possible to take matter in the gaseous condition, when its smallest parts are molecules, incapable of being either seen themselves or of scattering any sensible portion of light which impinges on them; that it is possible to shake these molecules asunder by special light-waves, so that their liberated constituents shall coalesce anew and form, not molecules, but particles; that it is possible to cause these particles to grow, from a size bordering on the atomic, to a size which enables them to copiously scatter light. Some of you are aware that in the early stages of their growth, when they are still beyond the grasp of the microscope, such particles, no matter what the substance may be of which they are composed, shed forth a pure firmamental blue; and that from them we can manufacture in the laboratory artificial skies which display all the phenomena, both of color and polarization, of the real firmament.

With regard to the production of the green of the spectrum by the overlapping of yellow and blue, Goethe, like a multitude of others, confounded the mixture of blue and yellow lights with that of blue and yellow pigments. This was an error shared by the world at large. But in Goethe’s own day, Wünsch, of Leipsic, who is ridiculed in the “Farbenlehre,” had corrected the error, and proved the mixture of blue and yellow lights to produce white. Any doubt that might be entertained of Wünsch’s experiments  —  and they are obviously the work of a careful and competent man  —  is entirely removed by the experiments of Helmholtz and others in our own day. Thus, to sum up, Goethe’s theory, if such it may be called, proves incompetent to account even approximately for the Newtonian spectrum. He refers it to turbid media, but no such media come into play. He fails to account for the passage of yellow into red and of blue into violet; while his attempt to deduce the green of the spectrum from the mixture of yellow and blue is contradicted by facts which were extant in his own time.

II.

One hole Goethe did find in Newton’s armor, through which he incessantly worried the Englishman with his lance. Newton had committed himself to the doctrine that refraction without color was impossible. He therefore thought that the object-glasses of telescopes must for ever remain imperfect, achromatism and refraction being incompatible. This inference was proved by Dollond to be wrong. With the same mean refraction, flint-glass produces a longer and richer spectrum than crown-glass. By diminishing the refracting angle of the flint-glass prism, its spectrum may be made equal in length to that of the crown-glass. Causing two such prisms to refract in opposite directions, the colors may be neutralized, while a considerable residue of refraction continues in favor of the crown. Similar combinations are possible in the case of lenses; and hence, as Dollond showed, the possibility of producing a compound achromatic lens. Here, as elsewhere, Goethe proves himself master of the experimental conditions. It is the power of interpretation that he lacks. He flaunts this error regarding achromatism incessantly in the face of Newton and his followers. But the error, which was a real one, leaves Newton’s theory of colors perfectly unimpaired.

Newton’s account of his first experiment with the prism is for ever memorable. “To perform my late promise to you,” he writes to Oldenburg, “I shall without further ceremony acquaint you that in the year 1666 (at which time I applied myself to the grinding of optick-glasses of other figures than spherical) I procured me a triangular glass prism, to try therewith the celebrated phenomena of colors. And in order thereto, having darkened my chamber, and made a small hole in my window-shuts, to let in a convenient quantity of the sun’s light, I placed my prism at its entrance, that it might be thereby refracted to the opposite wall. It was at first a very pleasing divertisement, to view the vivid and intense colors produced thereby; but after a while applying myself to consider them more circumspectly, I became surprised to see them in an oblong form, which, according to the received laws of refractions, I expected should have been circular. They were terminated at the sides with straight lines, but at the ends the decay of light was so gradual that it was difficult to determine justly what was their figure, yet they seemed semicircular. “Comparing the length of this colored spectrum with its breadth, I found it about five times greater; a disproportion so extravagant that it excited me to a more than ordinary curiosity of examining from whence it might proceed.” This curiosity Newton gratified by instituting a series of experimental questions, the answers to which left no doubt upon his mind that the elongation of his spectrum was due to the fact “that light is not similar or homogeneal, but consists of difform rays, some of which are more refrangible than others; so that, without any difference in their incidence on the same medium, some shall be more refracted than others; and therefore that, according to their particular degrees of refrangibility, they were transmitted through the prism to divers parts of the opposite wall. When,” continues Newton, “I understood this, I left off my aforesaid glass-works; for I saw that the perfection of telescopes was hitherto limited, not so much for want of glasses truly figured according to the prescriptions of optick authors, as because that light itself is an heterogeneous mixture of differently refrangible rays; so that were a glass so exactly figured as to collect any one sort of rays into one point, it could not collect those also into the same point, which, having the same incidence upon the same medium, are apt to suffer a different refraction.”

Goethe harped on this string without cessation. “The Newtonian doctrine,” he says, “was really dead the moment achromatism was discovered. Gifted men, our own Klügel, for example, felt this, but expressed themselves in an undecided way. On the other hand, the school which had been long accustomed to support, patch up, and glue their intellects to the views of Newton, had surgeons at hand to embalm the corpse, so that even after death, in the manner of the Egyptians, it should preside, at the banquets of the natural philosophers.”

In dealing with the chromatic aberration of lenses, Goethe proves himself to be less heedful than usual as an experimenter. With the clearest perception of principles, Newton had taken two pieces of cardboard, the one colored a deep red, the other a deep blue. Around those cards he had wound fine black silk, so that the silk formed a series of separate fine dark lines upon the two colored surfaces. He might have drawn black lines over the red and blue, but the silk lines were finer than any that he could draw. Illuminating both surfaces, he placed a lens so as to cast an image of the surfaces upon a white screen. The result was that, when the dark lines were sharply defined upon the red, they were undefined upon the blue; and that, when, by moving the screen, they were rendered distinct upon the blue, they were indistinct upon the red. A distance of an inch and a half separated the focus of red rays from the focus of blue rays, the latter being nearer to the lens than the former. Goethe appears to have attempted a repetition of this experiment; at all events he flatly contradicts Newton, ascribing his result not to the testimony of his bodily eyes, but to that of the prejudiced eyes of his mind. Goethe always saw the dark lines best defined upon the brighter color. It was to him purely a matter of contrast, and not of different refrangibility. He argues caustically that Newton proves too much; for, were he correct, not only would a dioptric telescope be impossible, but, presented to our naked eyes, differently colored objects must appear utterly confusing. Let a house, he says, be supposed to stand in full sunshine; let the roof-tiles be red, the walls yellow, with blue curtains behind the open windows, while a lady with a violet dress steps out of the door. Let us look at the whole from a point in front of the house. The tiles we will suppose appear distinct, but on turning to the lady we should find both the form and the folds of her dress undefined. We must move forward to see her distinctly, and then the red tiles would appear nebulous. And so with regard to the other objects, we must move to and fro in order to see them clearly if Newton’s pretended second experiment were correct. Goethe seems to have forgotten that the human eye is not a rigid lens, and that it is able to adjust itself promptly and without difficulty to differences of distance enormously greater than that due to the different refrangibility of the differently colored rays.

Newton’s theory of colors, it may be remarked, is really less a “theory” than a direct presentation of facts. Given the accepted definition of refraction, it is a matter of fact, and not of theoretic inference, that white light is not “homogeneal,” but composed of differently refrangible rays. The demonstration is ocular and complete. Having palpably decomposed the white light into its constituent colors, Newton recompounded these colors to white light. Both the analysis and the synthesis are matters of fact. The so-called “theory of light and colors” is in this respect very different from the corpuscular theory of light. Newton’s explanation of color stands where it is, whether we accept the corpuscular or the undulatory theory; and it stands because it is at bottom not a theory but a body of fact, to which theory must bow or disappear. Newton himself pointed out that his views of colors were entirely independent of his belief in the “corporiety” of light.

After refraction-colors Goethe turns to those produced by diffraction; and, as far as the phenomena are concerned, he deals very exhaustively with the colors of thin plates. He studies the colors of Newton’s rings both by reflected and transmitted light. He states the conditions under which this class of colors is produced, and illustrates the conditions by special cases. He presses together flat surfaces of glass, observes the flaws in crystals and in ice, refers to the iridescences of oil on water, to those of soap-bubbles, and to the varying colors of tempered steel. He is always rich in facts. But, when he comes to deal with physical theory, the poverty and confusion of his otherwise transcendent mind become conspicuous. His turbid media entangle him everywhere, leading him captive and committing him to almost incredible delusions. The colors of tempered steel, he says, and kindred phenomena, may perhaps be quite conveniently deduced from the action of turbid media. Polished steel powerfully reflects light, and the coloring produced by heating may be regarded as a feeble turbidity, which, acted upon by the polished surface behind, produces a bright yellow. As the turbidity augments, this color becomes dense, until finally it exhibits an intense ruby-red. Supposing this color to reach its greatest proximity to darkness, the turbidity continuing to augment as before, we shall have behind the turbid medium a dark background, which appears first violet, then dark blue, and finally light blue, thus completing the cycle of the phenomena. The mind that could offer such an explanation as this must be qualitatively different from that of the natural philosopher.

The words “quite conveniently deduced,” which I have italicized in the last paragraph, are also used by Goethe in another place. When the results of his experiments on prismatic colors had to be condensed into one commanding inference, he enunciated it thus: “Und so lassen sich die Farben bei Gelegenheit der Refraction aus der Lehre von den trüben Mitteln gar bequem ableiten.” This is the crown of his edifice, and it seems a feeble ending to so much preparation. Kingsley once suggested to Lewes that Goethe might have had a vague feeling that his conclusions were not sound, and that he felt the jealousy incident to imperfect conviction. The ring of conscious demonstration, as it is understood by the man of science, is hardly to be found in the words “gar bequem ableiten.” They fall flaccid upon the ear in comparison with the mind-compelling Q. E. D. of Newton.

Throughout the first 350 pages of his work, wherein he develops and expounds his own theory, Goethe restrains himself with due dignity. Here and there, there is a rumble of discontent against Newton, but there is no sustained ill-temper or denunciation. After, however, having unfolded his own views, he comes to what he calls the “unmasking of the theory of Newton.” Here Goethe deliberately forsakes the path of calm, objective research, and delivers himself over to the guidance of his emotions. He immediately accuses Newton of misusing, as an advocate, his method of exposition. He goes over the propositions in Newton’s “Optics” one by one, and makes even the individual words of the propositions the objects of criticism. He passes on to Newton’s experimental proofs, invoking, as he does so, the complete attention of his readers, if they would be freed to all eternity from the slavery of a doctrine which has imposed upon the world for a hundred years. It might be thought that Goethe had given himself but little trouble to understand the theorems of Newton and the experiments on which they were based. But it would be unjust to charge the poet with any want of diligence in this respect. He repeated Newton’s experiments, and in almost every case obtained his results. But he complained of their incompleteness and lack of logical force. What appears to us as the very perfection of Newton’s art, and absolutely essential to the purity of the experiments, was regarded by Goethe as needless complication and mere torturing of the light. He spared no pains in making himself master of Newton’s data, but he lacked the power of penetrating either their particular significance, or of estimating the force and value of experimental evidence generally.

He will not, he says, shock his readers at the outset by the utterance of a paradox, but he can not withhold the assertion that by experiment nothing can really be proved. Phenomena may be observed and classified; experiments may be accurately executed, and made thus to represent a certain circle of human knowledge; but deductions must be drawn by every man for himself. Opinions of things belong to the individual, and we know only too well that conviction does not depend upon insight, but upon will that man can only assimilate that which is in accordance with his nature, and to which he can yield assent. In knowledge, as in action, says Goethe, prejudice decides all, and prejudice, as its name indicates, is judgment prior to investigation. It is an affirmation or a negation of what corresponds, or is opposed to our own nature. It is the cheerful activity of our living being in its pursuit of truth or of falsehood, as the case may be   —   of all, in short, with which we feel ourselves to be in harmony.

There can be no doubt that Goethe, in thus philosophizing, dipped his bucket into the well of profound self-knowledge. He was obviously stung to the quick by the neglect of the physicists. He had been the idol of the world, and, accustomed as he was to the incense of praise, he felt sorely that any class of men should treat what he thought important with indifference or contempt. He had, it must be admitted, some ground for skepticism as to the rectitude of scientific judgments, seeing that his researches on morphology met at first no response, though they were afterward lauded by scientific men. His anger against Newton incorporates itself in sharp and bitter sarcasm. Through the whole of Newton’s experiments, he says, there runs a display of pedantic accuracy, but how the matter really stands, with Newton’s gift of observation, and with his experimental aptitudes, every man possessing eyes and senses may make himself aware. It may, he says, be boldly asked, Where can the man be found, possessing the extraordinary gifts of Newton, who would suffer himself to be deluded by such a hocus pocus if he had not in the first instance willfully deceived himself? Only those who know the strength of self-deception, and the extent to which it sometimes trenches on dishonesty, are in a condition to explain the conduct of Newton, and of Newton’s school. “To support his unnatural theory,” he continues, “Newton heaps experiment on experiment, fiction upon fiction, seeking to dazzle where he can not convince.”

It may be that Goethe is correct in affirming that the will and prejudice of the individual are all-influential. We must, however, add the qualifying words, “as far as the individual is concerned.” For in science there exists, apart from the individual, objective truth; and the fate of Goethe’s own theory, though commended to us by so great a name, illustrates how, in the progress of humanity, the individual, if he err, is left stranded and forgotten   —   truth, independent of the individual, being more and more grafted on to that tree of knowledge which is the property of the human race.

The imagined ruin of Newton’s theory did not satisfy Goethe’s desire for completeness. He would explore the ground of Newton’s error, and show how it was that one so highly gifted could employ his gifts for the enunciation and diffusion of such unmitigated nonsense. It was impossible to solve the riddle on purely intellectual grounds. Scientific enigmas, he says, are often only capable of ethical solution, and with this maxim in his mind he applies himself, in the second volume of the “Farbenlehre,” to the examination of “Newton’s Persönlichkeit.” He seeks to connect him with, or rather to detach him from, the general character of the English nation that sturdy and competent race which prizes above all things the freedom of individual action. Newton was born in a storm-tossed time   —   none, indeed, more pregnant in the history of the world. He was a year old when Charles I. was beheaded, and he lived to see the First George upon the throne. The shock of parties was in his ears, changes of ministries, parliaments, and armies were occurring before his eyes while the throne itself, instead of passing on by inheritance, was taken possession of by a stranger. What, asks Goethe, are we to think of a man who could put aside the claims, seductions, and passions incident to such a time, for the purpose of tranquilly following out his bias as an investigator?

So singular a character arrests the poet’s attention. He had laid down his theory of colors; he must add to it a theory of Newton. The great German is here at home, and Newton could probably no more have gone into these disquisitions regarding character than Goethe could have developed the physical theories of Newton. He prefaces his sketch of his rival’s character by reflections and considerations regarding character in general. Every living thing, down to the worm that wriggles when trod upon, has a character of its own. In this sense even the weak and cowardly have characters, for they will give up the honor and fame which most men prize highest, so that they may vegetate in safety and comfort. But the word character is usually applied to the case of an individual with great qualities, who pursues his object undeviatingly, and without permitting either difficulty or danger to deflect him from his course.

“Although here, as in other cases,” says Goethe, “it is the exuberant (Ueberschwängliche) that impresses the imagination, it must not be imagined that this attribute has anything to do with moral feeling. The main foundation of the moral law is a good will, which, in accordance with its own nature, is anxious only for the right. The main foundation of character is a strong will, without reference to right or wrong, good or bad, truth or error. It is that quality which every party prizes in its members. A good will cherishes freedom, it has reference to the inner man and to ethical aims. The strong will belongs to nature and has reference to the outer world   —   to action. And, inasmuch as the strong will in this world is swayed and limited by the conditions of life, it may almost be assumed as certain that it is only by accident that the exercise of a strong will and of moral rectitude find themselves in harmony with each other.” In determining Newton’s position in the series of human characters, Goethe helps himself to images borrowed from the physical cohesion of matter. Thus, he says, we have strong, firm, compact, elastic, flexible, rigid or obstinate, and viscous characters. Newton’s character he places under the head of rigid or obstinate, and his theory of colors Goethe pronounces to be a petrified aperçu.

Newton’s assertion of his theory and his unwavering adherence to it to the end of his life Goethe ascribes straight off to moral obliquity on Newton’s part. In the heat of our discussion, he says, we have even ascribed to him a certain dishonesty. Man, he says, is subject to error, but when errors form a series, which is followed pertinaciously, the erring individual becomes false to himself and to others. Nevertheless, reason and conscience will not yield their rights. We may belie them, but they are not deceived. It is not too much to say that, the more moral and rational a man is, the greater will be his tendency to lie when he falls into error, and the vaster will be that error when he makes up his mind to persist in it.

This is all intended to throw light upon Newton, but, when Goethe passes from Newton himself to his followers, the small amount of reserve which he exhibited when dealing with the master entirely disappears. He mocks their blunders as having not even the merit of originality. He heaps scorn on Newton’s imitators. The expression of even a truth, he says, loses grace in repetition, while the repetition of a blunder is impertinent and ridiculous. To liberate one’s self from an error is difficult, sometimes indeed impossible for even the strongest and most gifted minds. But to take up the error of another, and persist in it with stiff-necked obstinacy, is a proof of poor qualities. The obstinacy of a man of originality when he errs may make us angry, but the stupidity of the copyist irritates and renders us miserable. And, if in our strife with Newton we have sometimes passed the bounds of moderation, the whole blame is to be laid upon the school of which Newton was the head, whose incompetence is proportional to its arrogance, whose laziness is proportional to its self-sufficiency, and whose virulence and love of persecution hold each other in perfect equilibrium.

There is a great deal more invective of this kind; but you will probably, and not without sadness, consider this enough. Invective may be a sharp weapon, but over-use blunts its edge. Even when the denunciation is just and true, it is an error of art to indulge in it too long. We not only incur the risk of becoming vapid, but of actually inverting the force of reprobation which we seek to rouse, and of bringing it back by recoil upon ourselves. At suitable intervals, separated from each other by periods of dignified reserve, invective may become a real power of the tongue or pen. But indulged in constantly it degenerates into scolding, and then, instead of being regarded as a proof of strength, it is accepted, even in the case of a Goethe, as an evidence of weakness and lack of self-control.

If it were possible to receive upon a mirror Goethe’s ethical image of Newton and to reflect it back upon its author, then, as regards vehement persistence in wrong thinking, the image would accurately coincide with Goethe himself. It may be said that we can only solve the character of another by the observation of our own. This is true; but in the portraiture of character we are not at liberty to mix together subject and object as Goethe mixed himself with Newton. So much for the purely ethical picture. On the scientific side something more is to be said. I do not know whether psychologists have sufficiently taken into account that, as regards intellectual endowment, vast wealth may coexist with extreme poverty. I do not mean to give utterance here to the truism that the field of culture is so large that the most gifted can master only a portion of it. This would be the case supposing the individual at starting to be, as regards natural capacity and potentiality, rounded like a sphere. Something more radical is here referred to. There are individuals who at starting are not spheres, but hemispheres; or, at least, spheres with a segment sliced away full-orbed on one side, but flat upon the other. Such incompleteness of the mental organization no education can repair. Now, the field of science is sufficiently large, and its studies sufficiently varied, to bring to light in the same individual antitheses of endowment like that here indicated.

So far as science is a work of ordering and classification, so far as it consists in the discovery of analogies and resemblances which escape the common eye   —   of the fundamental identity which often exists among apparently diverse and unrelated things   —   so far, in short, as it is observational, descriptive, and imaginative, Goethe, had he chosen to make his culture exclusively scientific, might have been without a master, perhaps even without a rival. The instincts and capacities of the poet lend themselves freely to the natural history sciences. But, when we have to deal with stringently physical and mechanical conceptions, such instincts and capacities are out of place. It was in this region of mechanical conceptions that Goethe failed. It was on this side that his sphere of capacity was sliced away. He probably was not the only great man who possessed a spirit thus antithetically mixed. Aristotle himself was a mighty classifier, but not a stringent physical reasoner. And, had Newton attempted to produce a “Faust,” the poverty of his intellect on the poetic and dramatic side might have been rendered equally manifest. But here, if not always, Newton abstained from attempting that for which he had no capacity, while the exuberance of Goethe’s nature caused him to undertake a task for which he had neither ordination nor vocation, and in the attempted execution of which his deficiencies became revealed.

One task among many   —   one defeat amid a hundred triumphs. But any recognition on my part of Goethe’s achievements in other realms of intellectual action would, I fear, be regarded as impertinent. You remember the story of the First Napoleon when the Austrian plenipotentiary, in arranging a treaty of peace, began by formally recognizing the French Republic. “Efface that,” said the First Consul; “the French Republic is like the sun; he is blind who fails to recognize it.” And were I to speak of recognizing Goethe’s merits, my effacement would be equally well deserved. “Goethe’s life,” says Carlyle, “if we examine it, is well represented in that emblem of a solar day. Beautifully rose our summer sun, gorgeous in the red, fervid east, scattering the specters and sickly damps, of both of which there were enough to scatter; strong, benignant in his noonday clearness, walking triumphant through the upper realms   —   and now mark also how he sets! ‘So stirbt ein Held’; so dies a hero!”

Two grander illustrations of the aphorism “To err is human” can hardly be pointed out in history than Newton and Goethe. For Newton went astray not only as regards the question of achromatism, but also as regards a vastly larger question touching the nature of light. But though as errors they fall into the same category, the mistake of Newton was qualitatively different from that of Goethe. Newton erred in adopting a wrong mechanical conception in his theory of light, but in doing so he never for a moment quitted the ground of strict scientific method. Goethe erred in seeking to ingraft in his “Farbenlehre” methods altogether foreign to physics on to the treatment of a purely physical theme.

We frequently hear protests made against the cold mechanical mode of dealing with aesthetic phenomena employed by scientific men. The dissection by Newton of the light to which the world owes all its visible beauty and splendor seemed to Goethe a desecration. We find, even in our own day, the endeavor of Helmholtz to arrive at the principles of harmony and discord in music resented as an intrusion of the scientific intellect into a region which ought to be sacred to the human heart. But all this opposition and antagonism has for its essential cause the incompleteness of those with whom it originates. The feelings and aims with which Newton and Goethe respectively approached Nature were radically different, but they had an equal warrant in the constitution of man. As regards our tastes and tendencies, our pleasures and pains, physical and mental, our action and passion, our sorrows, sympathies, and joys, we are the heirs of all the ages that preceded us; and, of the human nature thus handed down, poetry is an element just as much as science. The emotions of man are older than his understanding, and the poet who brightens, purifies, and exalts these emotions, may claim a position in the world at least as high and as well-assured as that of the man of science. They minister to different but to equally permanent needs of human nature; and the incompleteness of which I complain consists in the endeavor on the part of either to exclude the other. There is no fear that the man of science can ever destroy the glory of the lilies of the field; there is no hope that the poet can ever successfully contend against our right to examine, in accordance with scientific method, the agent to which the lily owes its glory. There is no necessary encroachment of the one field upon the other. Nature embraces them both, and man, when he is complete, will exhibit as large a toleration.

EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE by Sir Walter Scott

From Sir Walter Scott’s diary, 1827

February 15.  —  Rheumatism returns with the snow. I had thoughts of going to Abbotsford on Saturday, but if this lasts, it will not do; and, sooth to speak, it ought not to do; though it would do me much pleasure if it would do.

I have a letter from Baron Von Goethe, which I must have read to me; for though I know German, I have forgot their written hand. I make it a rule seldom to read, and never to answer, foreign letters from literary folks. It leads to nothing but the battle-dore and shuttle-cock intercourse of compliments, as light as cork and feathers. But Goethe is different, and a wonderful fellow, the Ariosto at once, and almost the Voltaire of Germany. Who could have told me thirty years ago I should correspond, and be on something like an equal footing, with the author of Goetz? Ay, and who could have told me fifty things else that have befallen me?

Letter from Mr. Carlyle to Sir Walter Scott

 EDINBURGH, 21 COMELY BANK, 13th April 1828.

SIR,  —  In February last I had the honour to receive a letter from Von Goethe, announcing the speedy departure, from Weimar, of a Packet for me, in which, among other valuables, should be found “two medals,” to be delivered “mit verbindlichsten Grüssen” to Sir Walter Scott. By a slow enough conveyance this Kästchen, with its medals in perfect safety, has at length yesterday come to hand, and now lays on me the enviable duty of addressing you.

Among its multifarious contents, the Weimar Box failed not to include a long letter  —  considerable portion of which, as it virtually belongs to yourself, you will now allow me to transcribe. Perhaps it were thriftier in me to reserve this for another occasion; but considering how seldom such a Writer obtains such a Critic, I cannot but reckon it pity that this friendly intercourse between them should be anywise delayed.

 “Sehen Sie Herrn Walter Scott, so sagen Sie ihm auf das verbindlichste in meinem Namen Dank für den lieben heitern Brief, gerade in dem schönen Sinne geschrieben, dass der Mensch dem Menschen werth seyn müsse. So auch habe ich dessen Leben Napoleon’s erhalten und solches in diesen Winterabenden und Nächten von Anfang bis zu Ende mit Aufmerksamkeit durchgelesen.

 “Mir war höchst bedeutend zu sehen, wie sich der erste Erzähler des Jahrhunderts einem so ungemeinen Geschäft unterzieht und uns die überwichtigen Begebenheiten, deren Zeuge zu seyn wir gezwungen wurden, in fertigem Zuge vorüberführt. Die Abtheilung durch Capitel in grosse zusammengehörige Massen giebt den verschlungenen Ereignissen die reinste Fasslichkeit, und so wird dann auch der Vortrag des Einzelnen auf das unschätzbarste deutlich und anschaulich.

 “Ich las es im Original, und da wirkte es ganz eigentlich seiner Natur nach. Es ist ein patriotischer Britte der spricht, der die Handlungen des Feindes nicht wohl mit günstigen Augen ansehen kann, der als ein rechtlicher Staatsbürger zugleich mit den Unternehmungen der Politik auch die Forderungen der Sittlichkeit befriedigt wünscht, der den Gegner, im frechen Laufe des Glücks, mit unseligen Folgen bedroht, und auch im bittersten Verfall ihn kaum bedauern kann.

 “Und so war mir noch ausserdem das Werk von der grössten Bedeutung, indem es mich an das Miterlebte theils erinnerte, theils mir manches Uebersehene nun vorführte, mich auf einem unerwarteten Standpunkt versetzte, mir zu erwägen gab was ich für abgeschlossen hielt, und besonders auch mich befähigte die Gegner dieses wichtigen Werkes, an denen es nicht fehlen kann, zu beurtheilen und die Einwendungen, die sie von ihrer Seite vortragen, zu würdigen.

 Sie sehen hieraus dass zu Ende des Jahres keine höhere Gabe hätte zu mir gelangen können. Es ist dieses Werk mir zu einem goldenen Netz geworden, womit ich die Schattenbilder meines vergangenen Lebens aus den Lethes-Fluthen mit reichem Zuge herauszuforschen mich beschäftige.

 “Ungefähr dasselbige denke ich in dem nächsten Stücke von Kunst und Alterthum zu sagen.”

With regard to the medals, which are, as I expected, the two well-known likenesses of Goethe himself, it could be no hard matter to dispose of them safely here, or transmit them to you, if you required it, without delay: but being in this curious fashion appointed as it were Ambassador between two Kings of Poetry, I would willingly discharge my mission with the solemnity that beseems such a business, and naturally it must flatter my vanity and love of the marvellous, to think that, by means of a Foreigner whom I have never seen, I might now have access to my native Sovereign, whom I have so often seen in public and so often wished that I had claim to see and know in private and near at hand.  —  Till Whitsunday I continue to reside here; and shall hope that some time before that period I may have opportunity to wait on you, and, as my commission bore, to hand you these memorials in person.

Meanwhile I abide your further orders in this matter; and so, with all the regard which belongs to one to whom I in common with other millions owe so much,  —  I have the honour to be,

Sir, most respectfully your servant,

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Besides the two medals specially intended for you, there have come four more, which I am requested generally to dispose of amongst “Wohlwollenden,” Perhaps Mr. Lockhart, whose merits in respect of German Literature, and just appreciation of this its Patriarch and Guide, are no secret, will do me the honour to accept of one and direct me through your means how I am to have it conveyed?

Translation of the Letter from Goethe.

“Should you see Sir Walter Scott, be so kind as return to him my most grateful thanks for his dear and cheerful letter,  —  a letter written in just that beautiful temper which makes one man feel himself to be worth something to another. Say, too, that I received his Life of Napoleon, and have read it this winter  —  in the evening and at night  —  with attention from beginning to end. To me it was full of meaning to observe how the first novelist of the century took upon himself a task and business, so apparently foreign to him, and passed under review with rapid stroke those important events of which it had been our fate to be eye-witnesses. The division into chapters, embracing masses of intimately connected events, gives a clearness to the historical sequence that otherwise might have been only too easily confused, while, at the same time, the individual events in each chapter are described with a clearness and a vividness quite invaluable.

I read the work in the original, and the impression it made upon me was thus free from the disturbing influence of a foreign medium. I found myself listening to the words of a patriotic Briton, who finds it impossible to regard the actions of the enemy with a favourable eye,  —  an honest citizen this, whose desire is, that while political considerations shall always receive due weight, the demands of morality shall never be overlooked; one who, while the enemy is borne along in his wanton course of good fortune, cannot forbear to point with warning finger to the inevitable consequences, and in his bitterest disaster can with difficulty find him worthy of a tear.

The book was in yet another respect of the greatest importance to me, in that it brought back to my remembrance events through which I had lived  —  now showing me much that I had overlooked, now transplanting me to some unexpected standpoint, thus forcing me to reconsider a question which I had looked upon as settled, and in a special manner putting me in a position to pass judgment upon the unfavourable critics of this book  —  for these cannot fail  —  and to estimate at their true value the objections which are sure to be made from their side. From all this you will understand how the end of last year could have brought with it no gift more welcome to me than this book. The work has become to me as it were a golden net, wherewith I can recover from out the waves of Lethe the shadowy pictures of my past life, and in that rich draught I am finding my present employment.

I intend making a few remarks to the same purpose in the next number of Kunst und Alterthum.

The Autobiography

Goethe lived in this house in Weimar, Frauenplan, for 50 years until his death in 1832

TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

PART THE FIRST

FIRST BOOK.

SECOND BOOK.

THE NEW PARIS.

THIRD BOOK.

FOURTH BOOK.

FIFTH BOOK.

PART THE SECOND: OF WHAT ONE WISHES IN YOUTH, WHEN OLD HE HAS IN ABUNDANCE.

SIXTH BOOK.

SEVENTH BOOK.

EIGHTH BOOK.

NINTH BOOK.

‘Goethe in the Roman Campagna’ by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1786

INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

It would appear that for inquirers into Foreign Literature, for all men anxious to see and understand the European world as it lies around them, a great problem is presented in this Goethe; a singular, highly significant phenomenon, and now also means more or less complete for ascertaining its significance. A man of wonderful, nay, unexampled reputation and intellectual influence among forty millions of reflective, serious and cultivated men, invites us to study him; and to determine for ourselves, whether and how far such influence has been salutary, such reputation merited. That this call will one day be answered, that Goethe will be seen and judged of in his real character among us, appears certain enough. His name, long familiar everywhere, has now awakened the attention of critics in all European countries to his works: he is studied wherever true study exists: eagerly studied even in France; nay, some considerable knowledge of his nature and spiritual importance seems already to prevail there.

For ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion, it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to beware that we do not give it too much. This universal sentiment of admiration is wonderful, is interesting enough; but it must not lead us astray. We English stand as yet without the sphere of it; neither will we plunge blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see good, keep aloof from it altogether. Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given; often it is but a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual extrinsic splendour the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to pebbles of no value. A man is in all cases simply the man, of the same intrinsic worth and weakness, whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in the depths of his own consciousness, or be betrumpeted and beshouted from end to end of the habitable globe. These are plain truths, which no one should lose sight of; though, whether in love or in anger, for praise or for condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget them. But least of all can it become the critic to ‘follow a multitude to do evil’ even when that evil is excess of admiration; on the contrary, it will behoove him to lift up his voice, how feeble soever, how unheeded soever, against the common delusion; from which, if he can save, or help to save any mortal, his endeavours will have been repaid.

With these things in some measure before us, we must remind our readers of another influence at work in this affair, and one acting, as we think, in the contrary direction. That pitiful enough desire for ‘originality’ which lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we imagine, lead the critic of Foreign Literature to adopt the negative than the affirmative with regard to Goethe. If a writer indeed feel that he is writing for England alone, invisibly and inaudibly to the rest of the Earth, the temptations may be pretty equally balanced; if he write for some small conclave, which he mistakenly thinks the representative of England, they may sway this way or that, as it chances. But writing in such isolated spirit is no longer possible. Traffic, with its swift ships, is uniting all nations into one; Europe at large is becoming more and more one public; and in this public, the voices for Goethe, compared with those against him, are in the proportion, as we reckon them, both as to the number and value, of perhaps a hundred to one. We take in, not Germany alone, but France and Italy; not the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Manzonis and De Staels. The bias of originality, therefore, may lie to the side of censure; and whoever among us shall step forward, with such knowledge as our common critics have of Goethe, to enlighten the European public, by contradiction in this matter, displays a heroism, which, in estimating his other merits, ought nowise to be forgotten.

Our own view of the case coincides, we confess, in some degree with that of the majority. We reckon that Goethe’s fame has, to a considerable extent, been deserved; that his influence has been of high benefit to his own country; nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to us, and to all other nations. The essential grounds of this opinion, which to explain minutely were a long, indeed boundless task, we may state without many words. We find, then, in Goethe, an Artist, in the high and ancient meaning of that term; in the meaning which it may have borne long ago among the masters of Italian painting, and the fathers of Poetry in England; we say that we trace in the creations of this man, belonging in every sense to our own time, some touches of that old, divine spirit, which had long passed away from among us, nay which, as has often been laboriously demonstrated, was not to return to this world any more.

Or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if we say that in Goethe we discover by far the most striking instance, in our time, of a writer who is, in strict speech, what Philosophy can call a Man. He is neither noble nor plebeian, neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel nor devotee; but the best excellence of all these, joined in pure union; ‘a clear and universal Man.’ Goethe’s poetry is no separate faculty, no mental handicraft; but the voice of the whole harmonious manhood: nay it is the very harmony, the living and life-giving harmony of that rich manhood which forms his poetry. All good men may be called poets in act, or in word; all good poets are so in both. But Goethe besides appears to us as a person of that deep endowment, and gifted vision, of that experience also and sympathy in the ways of all men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only as the literary ornament, but in many respects too as the Teacher and exemplar of his age. For, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has cultivated himself and his art, he has studied how to live and to write, with a fidelity, an unwearied earnestness, of which there is no other living instance; of which, among British poets especially, Wordsworth alone offers any resemblance. And this in our view is the result. To our minds, in these soft, melodious imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wisdom which is proper to this time; the beautiful, the religious Wisdom, which may still, with something of its old impressiveness, speak to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbelieving utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses of the Unseen but not unreal World, that so the Actual and the Ideal may again meet together, and clear Knowledge be again wedded to Religion, in the life and business of men.

Such is our conviction or persuasion with regard to the poetry of Goethe. Could we demonstrate this opinion to be true, could we even exhibit it with that degree of clearness and consistency which it has attained in our own thoughts, Goethe were, on our part, sufficiently recommended to the best attention of all thinking men. But, unhappily, it is not a subject susceptible of demonstration: the merits and characteristics of a Poet are not to be set forth by logic; but to be gathered by personal, and as in this case it must be, by deep and careful inspection of his works. Nay Goethe’s world is everyway so different from ours; it costs us such effort, we have so much to remember, and so much to forget, before we can transfer ourselves in any measure into his peculiar point of vision, that a right study of him, for an Englishman, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. To a reader of the first class, helps may be given, explanations will remove many a difficulty; beauties that lay hidden may be made apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual position, will at length guide him into the proper tract for such an inquiry. All this, however, must be a work of progression and detail. To do our part in it, from time to time, must rank among the best duties of an English Foreign Review. Meanwhile, our present endeavour limits itself within far narrower bounds. We cannot aim to make Goethe known, but only to prove that he is worthy of being known; at most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path by which some knowledge of him may be obtained. A slight glance at his general literary character and procedure, and one or two of his chief productions which throw light on these, must for the present suffice. A French diplomatic personage, contemplating Goethe’s physiognomy, is said to have observed: /Voila un homme qui a eu beaucoup de chagrins./ A truer version of the matter, Goethe himself seems to think, would have been: Here is a man who has struggled toughly; who has /es sich recht sauer werden lassen./ Goethe’s life, whether as a writer and thinker, or as a living active man, has indeed been a life of effort, of earnest toilsome endeavour after all excellence. Accordingly, his intellectual progress, his spiritual and moral history, as it may be gathered from his successive Works, furnishes, with us, no small portion of the pleasure and profit we derive from perusing them. Participating deeply in all the influences of his age, he has from the first, at every new epoch, stood forth to elucidate the new circumstances of the time; to offer the instruction, the solace, which that time required. His literary life divides itself into two portions widely different in character: the products of the first, once so new and original, have long either directly or through the thousand thousand imitations of them, been familiar to us; with the products of the second, equally original, and in our day far more precious, we are yet little acquainted. These two classes of works stand curiously related with each other; at first view, in strong contradiction, yet, in truth, connected together by the strictest sequence. For Goethe has not only suffered and mourned in bitter agony under the spiritual perplexities of his time; but he has also mastered these, he is above them, and has shown others how to rise above them. At one time, we found him in darkness, and now he is in light; he was once an Unbeliever, and now he is a Believer; and he believes, moreover, not by denying his unbelief, but by following it out; not by stopping short, still less turning back, in his inquiries, but by resolutely prosecuting them. This, it appears to us, is a case of singular interest, and rarely exemplified, if at all elsewhere, in these our days. How has this man, to whom the world once offered nothing but blackness, denial and despair, attained to that better vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable only, but full of solemnity and loveliness? How has the belief of a Saint been united in this high and true mind with the clearness of a Sceptic; the devout spirit of a Fenelon made to blend in soft harmony with the gaiety, the sarcasm, the shrewdness of a Voltaire?

Goethe’s two earliest works are /Götz von Berlichingen/ and the /Sorrows of Werter/. The boundless influence and popularity they gained, both at home and abroad, is well known. It was they that established almost at once his literary fame in his own country; and even determined his subsequent private history, for they brought him into contact with the Duke of Weimar; in connection with whom, the Poet, engaged in manifold duties, political as well as literary, has lived for fifty-four years. Their effects over Europe at large were not less striking than in Germany.

‘It would be difficult,’ observes a writer on this subject, ‘to name two books which have exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent literature of Europe, than these two performances of a young author; his first-fruits, the produce of his twenty-fourth year. /Werter/ appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear. As usually happens, too, this same word, once uttered, was soon abundantly repeated; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted through all notes of the gamut, till the sound of it had grown a weariness rather than a pleasure. Sceptical sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, suicide, and desperation, became the staple of literary ware; and though the epidemic, after a long course of years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared with various modifications in other countries, and everywhere abundant traces of its good and bad effects are still to be discerned. The fortune of /Berlichingen with the Iron Hand,/ though less sudden, was by no means less exalted. In his own county, /Götz,/ though he now stands solitary and childless, became the parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and poetico- antiquarian performances; which, though long ago deceased, made noise enough in their day and generation: and with ourselves, his influence has been perhaps still more remarkable. Sir Walter Scott’s first literary enterprise was a translation of /Götz von Berlichingen/; and, if genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe’s the prime cause of /Marmion/ and the /Lady of the Lake/, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has lighted on the right soil! For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.

‘But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, which bring little certainty and little profit, it may be sufficient to observe of /Berlichingen/ and /Werter/, that they stand prominent among the causes, or, at the very least, among the signals of a great change in modern literature. The former directed men’s attention with a new force to the picturesque effects of the Past; and the latter, for the first time, attempted the more accurate delineation of a class of feelings deeply important to modern minds, but for which our elder poetry offered no exponent, and perhaps could offer none, because they are feelings that arise from Passion incapable of being converted into Action, and belong chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated and unbelieving as our own. This, notwithstanding the dash of falsehood which may exist in /Werter/ itself, and the boundless delirium of extravagance which it called forth in others, is a high praise which cannot justly be denied it.’

To the same dark wayward mood, which, in /Werter/, pours itself forth in bitter wailings over human life; and, in /Berlichingen/, appears as a fond and sad looking back into the Past, belong various other productions of Goethe’s; for example, the /Mitschuldigen/, and the first idea of Faust, which, however, was not realized in actual composition till a calmer period of his history. Of this early harsh and crude, yet fervid and genial period, /Werter/ may stand here as the representative; and, viewed in its external and internal relation, will help to illustrate both the writer and the public he was writing for.

At the present day, it would be difficult for us, satisfied, nay sated to nausea, as we have been with the doctrines of Sentimentality, to estimate the boundless interest which /Werter/ must have excited when first given to the world. It was then new in all senses; it was wonderful, yet wished for, both in its own country and in every other. The Literature of Germany had as yet but partially awakened from its long torpor: deep learning, deep reflection, have at no time been wanting there; but the creative spirit had for above a century been almost extinct. Of late, however, the Ramlers, Rabeners, Gellerts, had attained to no inconsiderable polish of style; Klopstock’s /Messias/ had called forth the admiration, and perhaps still more the pride, of the country, as a piece of art; a high enthusiasm was abroad; Lessing had roused the minds of men to a deeper and truer interest in Literature, had even decidedly begun to introduce a heartier, warmer and more expressive style. The Germans were on the alert; in expectation, or at least in full readiness for some far bolder impulse; waiting for the Poet that might speak to them from the heart to the heart. It was in Goethe that such a Poet was to be given them.

Nay, the Literature of other countries, placid, self-satisfied as they might seem, was in an equally expectant condition. Everywhere, as in Germany, there was polish and languor, external glitter and internal vacuity; it was not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul could be warmed. Literature had sunk from its former vocation: it no longer held the mirror up to Nature; no longer reflected, in many-coloured expressive symbols, the actual passions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world in /Castles of Otranto/, in /Epigoniads/ and /Leonidases/, among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. Men thought it right that the heart should swell into magnanimity with Caractacus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. Some pulses of heroical sentiment, a few /un/natural tears might, with conscientious readers, be actually squeezed forth on such occasions: but they came only from the surface of the mind; nay, had the conscientious man considered the matter, he would have found that they ought not to have come at all. Our only English poet of the period was Goldsmith; a pure, clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or strength sufficient; his /Vicar of Wakefield/ remains the best of all modern Idyls; but it is and was nothing more. And consider our leading writers; consider the poetry of Gray, and the prose of Johnson. The first a laborious mosaic, through the hard stiff lineaments of which little life or true grace could be expected to look: real feeling, and all freedom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp, to cold splendour; for vigour we have a certain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed to be tumid, yet essentially foreign to the heart, and seen to extend no deeper than the mere voice and gestures. Were it not for his /Letters/, which are full of warm exuberant power, we might almost doubt whether Gray was a man of genius; nay, was a living man at all, and not rather some thousand-times more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom, than that of Swift’s Philosophers in Laputa. Johnson’s prose is true, indeed, and sound, and full of practical sense: few men have seen more clearly into the motives, the interests, the whole walk and conversation of the living busy world as it lay before him; but farther than this busy, and to most of us, rather prosaic world, he seldom looked: his instruction is for men of business, and in regard to matters of business alone. Prudence is the highest Virtue he can inculcate; and for that finer portion of our nature, that portion of it which belongs essentially to Literature strictly so called, where our highest feelings, our best joys and keenest sorrows, our Doubt, our Love, our Religion reside, he has no word to utter; no remedy, no counsel to give us in our straits; or at most, if, like poor Boswell, the patient is importunate, will answer: “My dear Sir, endeavour to clear your mind of Cant.”

The turn which Philosophical speculation had taken in the preceding age corresponded with this tendency, and enhanced its narcotic influences; or was, indeed, properly speaking, the loot they had sprung from. Locke, himself a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent, nay religious man, had paved the way for banishing religion from the world. Mind, by being modelled in men’s imaginations into a Shape, a Visibility; and reasoned of as if it had been some composite, divisible and reunitable substance, some finer chemical salt, or curious piece of logical joinery, — began to lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though invisible character: it was tacitly figured as something that might, were our organs fine enough, be /seen/. Yet who had ever seen it? Who could ever see it? Thus by degrees it passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint Possibility; and at last into a highly-probable Nonentity. Following Locke’s footsteps, the French had discovered that ‘as the stomach secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete Thought.’ And what then was Religion, what was Poetry, what was all high and heroic feeling? Chiefly a delusion; often a false and pernicious one. Poetry, indeed, was still to be preserved; because Poetry was a useful thing: men needed amusement, and loved to amuse themselves with Poetry: the playhouse was a pretty lounge of an evening; then there were so many precepts, satirical, didactic, so much more impressive for the rhyme; to say nothing of your occasional verses, birthday odes, epithalamiums, epicediums, by which ‘the dream of existence may be so highly sweetened and embellished.’ Nay, does not Poetry, acting on the imaginations of men, excite them to daring purposes; sometimes, as in the case of Tyrtaeus, to fight better; in which wise may it not rank as a useful stimulant to man, along with Opium and Scotch Whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed by law? In Heaven’s name, then, let Poetry be preserved.

With Religion, however, it fared somewhat worse. In the eyes of Voltaire and his disciples, Religion was a superfluity, indeed a nuisance. Here, it is true, his followers have since found that he went too far; that Religion, being a great sanction to civil morality, is of use for keeping society in order, at least the lower classes, who have not the feeling of Honour in due force; and therefore, as a considerable help to the Constable and Hangman, /ought/ decidedly to be kept up. But such toleration is the fruit only of later days. In those times, there was no question but how to get rid of it, root and branch, the sooner the better. A gleam of zeal, nay we will call it, however basely alloyed, a glow of real enthusiasm and love of truth, may have animated the minds of these men, as they looked abroad on the pestilent jungle of Superstition, and hoped to clear the earth of it forever. This little glow, so alloyed, so contaminated with pride and other poor or bad admixtures, was the last which thinking men were to experience in Europe for a time. So it is always in regard to Religious Belief, how degraded and defaced soever: the delight of the Destroyer and Denier is no pure delight, and must soon pass away. With bold, with skilful hand, Voltaire set his torch to the jungle: it blazed aloft to heaven; and the flame exhilarated and comforted the incendiaries; but, unhappily, such comfort could not continue. Ere long this flame, with its cheerful light and heat, was gone: the jungle, it is true, had been consumed; but, with its entanglements, its shelter and its spots of verdure also; and the black, chill, ashy swamp, left in its stead, seemed for a time a greater evil than the other.

In such a state of painful obstruction, extending itself everywhere over Europe, and already master of Germany, lay the general mind, when Goethe first appeared in Literature. Whatever belonged to the finer nature of man had withered under the Harmattan breath of Doubt, or passed away in the conflagration of open Infidelity; and now, where the Tree of Life once bloomed and brought fruit of goodliest savour there was only barrenness and desolation. To such as could find sufficient interest in the day-labour and day-wages of earthly existence; in the resources of the five bodily Senses, and of Vanity, the only mental sense which yet flourished, which flourished indeed with gigantic vigour, matters were still not so bad. Such men helped themselves forward, as they will generally do; and found the world, if not an altogether proper sphere (for every man, disguise it as he may, has a /soul/ in him), at least a tolerable enough place; where, by one item or another, some comfort, or show of comfort, might from time to time be got up, and these few years, especially since they were so few, be spent without much murdering. But to men afflicted with the ‘malady of Thought,’ some devoutness of temper was an inevitable heritage; to such the noisy forum of the world could appear but an empty, altogether insufficient concern; and the whole scene of life had become hopeless enough. Unhappily, such feelings are yet by no means so infrequent with ourselves, that we need stop here to depict them. That state of Unbelief from which the Germans do seem to be in some measure delivered, still presses with incubus force on the greater part of Europe; and nation after nation, each in its own way, feels that the first of all moral problems is how to cast it off, or how to rise above it. Governments naturally attempt the first expedient; Philosophers, in general, the second.

The Poet, says Schiller, is a citizen not only of his country, but of his time. Whatever occupies and interests men in general, will interest him still more. That nameless Unrest, the blind struggle of a soul in bondage, that high, sad, longing Discontent, which was agitating every bosom, had driven Goethe almost to despair. All felt it; he alone could give it voice. And here lies the secret of his popularity; in his deep, susceptive heart, he felt a thousand times more keenly what every one was feeling; with the creative gift which belonged to him as a poet, he bodied it forth into visible shape, gave it a local habitation and a name; and so made himself the spokesman of his generation. /Werter/ is but the cry of that dim, rooted pain, under which all thoughtful men of a certain age were languishing: it paints the misery, it passionately utters the complaint; and heart and voice, all over Europe, loudly and at once respond to it. True, it prescribes no remedy; for that was a far different, far harder enterprise, to which other years and a higher culture were required; but even this utterance of the pain, even this little, for the present, is ardently grasped at, and with eager sympathy appropriated in every bosom. If Byron’s life-weariness, his moody melancholy, and mad stormful indignation, borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless melody, could pierce so deep into many a British heart, now that the whole matter is no longer new, — is indeed old and trite, — we may judge with what vehement acceptance this /Werter/ must have been welcomed, coming as it did like a voice from unknown regions; the first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, which, in country after country, men’s ears have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. For /Werter/ infusing itself into the core and whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed in every part of the world, till better light dawned on them, or at worst, exhausted Nature laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered that lamenting was an unproductive labour. These funereal choristers, in Germany a loud, haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful class, were named the /Kraftmänner/ or Power-men; but have all long since, like sick children, cried themselves to rest. Byron was our English Sentimentalist and Power-man; the strongest of his kind in Europe; the wildest, the gloomiest, and it may be hoped the last. For what good is it to ‘whine, put finger i’ the eye, and sob,’ in such a case? Still more, to snarl and snap in malignant wise, ‘like dog distract, or monkey sick?’ Why should we quarrel with our existence, here as it lies before us, our field and inheritance, to make or mar, for better or for worse; in which, too, so many noblest men have, even from the beginning, warring with the very evils we war with, both made and been what will be venerated to all time?

A wide and everyway most important interval divides /Werter/, with its sceptical philosophy and ‘hypochondriacal crotchets,’ from Goethe’s next Novel, /Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship/, published some twenty years afterwards. This work belongs, in all senses, to the second and sounder period of Goethe’s life, and may indeed serve as the fullest, if perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being written with due forethought, at various times, during a period of no less than ten years. Considered as a piece of Art, there were much to be said on /Meister/; all which, however, lies beyond our present purpose. We are here looking at the work chiefly as a document for the writer’s history; and in this point of view, it certainly seems, as contrasted with its more popular precursor, to deserve our best attention: for the problem which had been stated in /Werter/, with despair of its solution, is here solved. The lofty enthusiasm, which, wandering wildly over the universe, found no resting-place, has here reached its appointed home; and lives in harmony with what long appeared to threaten it with annihilation. Anarchy has now become Peace; the once gloomy and perturbed spirit is now serene, cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits. Neither, which is most important of all, has this Peace been attained by a surrender to Necessity, or any compact with Delusion; a seeming blessing, such as years and dispiritment will of themselves bring to most men, and which is indeed no blessing, since even continued battle is better than destruction or captivity; and peace of this sort is like that of Galgacus’s Romans, who ‘called it peace when they had made a desert.’ Here the ardent high-aspiring youth has grown into the calmest man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, and with aspirations higher as well as clearer. For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal has been built on the Actual; no longer floats vaguely in darkness and regions of dreams, but rests in light, on the firm ground of human interest and business, as in its true scene, on its true basis.

It is wonderful to see with, what softness the scepticism of Jarno, the commercial spirit of Werner, the reposing polished manhood of Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthusiasm of the Harper, the gay animal vivacity of Philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual nature of Mignon, are blended together in this work; how justice is done to each, how each lives freely in his proper element, in his proper form; and how, as Wilhelm himself, the mild-hearted, all-hoping, all-believing Wilhelm, struggles forward towards his world of Art through these curiously complected influences, all this unites itself into a multifarious, yet so harmonious Whole; as into a clear poetic mirror, where man’s life and business in this age, his passions and purposes, the highest equally with the lowest, are imaged back to us in beautiful significance. Poetry and Prose are no longer at variance; for the poet’s eyes are opened; he sees the changes of many-colored existence, and sees the loveliness and deep purport which lies hidden under the very meanest of them; hidden to the vulgar sight, but clear to the poet’s; because the ‘open secret’ is no longer a secret to him, and he knows that the Universe is /full/ of goodness; that whatever has being has beauty.

Apart from its literary merits or demerits, such is the temper of mind we trace in Goethe’s /Meister/, and, more or less expressly exhibited, in all his later works. We reckon it a rare phenomenon, this temper; and worthy, in our times, if it do exist, of best study from all inquiring men. How has such a temper been attained in this so lofty and impetuous mind, once too, dark, desolate and full of doubt, more than any other? How may we, each of us in his several sphere, attain it, or strengthen it, for ourselves? These are questions, this last is a question, in which no one is unconcerned.

To answer these questions, to begin the answer of them, would lead us very far beyond our present limits. It is not, as we believe, without long, sedulous study, without learning much and unlearning much, that, for any man, the answer of such questions is even to be hoped. Meanwhile, as regards Goethe, there is one feature of the business, which, to us, throws considerable light on his moral persuasions, and will not, in investigating the secret of them, be overlooked. We allude to the spirit in which he cultivates his Art; the noble, disinterested, almost religious love with which he looks on Art in general, and strives towards it as towards the sure, highest, nay only good.

For a man of Goethe’s talent to write many such pieces of rhetoric, setting forth the dignity of poets, and their innate independence on external circumstances, could be no very hard task; accordingly, we find such sentiments again and again expressed, sometimes with still more gracefulness, still clearer emphasis, in his various writings. But to adopt these sentiments into his sober practical persuasion; in any measure to feel and believe that such was still, and must always be, the high vocation of the poet; on this ground of universal humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten nobleness, to take his stand, even in these trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; and through all their complex, dispiriting, mean, yet tumultuous influences, to ‘make his light shine before them,’ that it might beautify even our ‘rag- gathering age’ with some beams of that mild, divine splendour, which had long left us, the very possibility of which was denied; heartily and in earnest to meditate all this, was no common proceeding; to bring it into practice, especially in such a life as his has been, was among the highest and hardest enterprises which any man whatever could engage in. We reckon this a greater novelty, than all the novelties which as a mere writer he ever put forth, whether for praise or censure. We have taken it upon us to say that if such is, in any sense, the state of the case with regard to Goethe, he deserves not mere approval as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep, grateful study, observance, imitation, as a Moralist and Philosopher. If there be any /probability/ that such is the state of the case, we cannot but reckon it a matter well worthy of being inquired into. And it is for this only that we are here pleading and arguing. Meister is the mature product of the first genius of our times; and must, one would think, be different, in various respects, from the immature products of geniuses who are far from the first, and whose works spring from the brain in as many weeks as Goethe’s cost him years.

It may deserve to be mentioned here that Meister, at its first appearance in Germany, was received very much as it has been in England. Goethe’s known character, indeed, precluded indifference there; but otherwise it was much the same. The whole guild of criticism was thrown into perplexity, into sorrow; everywhere was dissatisfaction open or concealed. Official duty impelling them to speak, some said one thing, some another; all felt in secret that they knew not what to say. Till the appearance of Schlegel’s /Character/, no word, that we have seen, of the smallest chance to be decisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had been uttered regarding it. Some regretted that the fire of /Werter/ was so wonderfully abated; whisperings there might be about ‘lowness,’ ‘heaviness;’ some spake forth boldly in behalf of suffering ‘virtue.’ Novalis was not among the speakers, but he censured the work in secret, and this for a reason which to us will seem the strangest; for its being, as we should say, a Benthamite work! Many are the bitter aphorisms we find, among his Fragments, directed against /Meister/ for its prosaic, mechanical, economical, coldhearted, altogether Utilitarian character. We English again call Goethe a mystic; so difficult is it to please all parties! But the good, deep, noble Novalis made the fairest amends; for notwithstanding all this, Tieck tells us, if we remember rightly, he continually returned to /Meister/, and could not but peruse and reperuse it.

Goethe’s /Wanderjahre/ was published in his seventy-second year; /Werter/ in his twenty-fifth; thus in passing between these two works, and over /Meister’s Lehrjahre/ which stands nearly midway, we have glanced over a space of almost fifty years, including within them, of course, whatever was most important in his public or private history. By means of these quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant to make it visible that a great change had taken place in the moral disposition of the man; a change from inward imprisonment, doubt and discontent, into freedom, belief and clear activity; such a change as, in our opinion, must take place, more or less consciously, in every character that, especially in these times, attains to spiritual manhood, and in characters possessing any thoughtfulness and sensibility, will seldom take place without a too painful consciousness, without bitter conflicts, in which the character itself is too often maimed and impoverished, and which end too often not in victory, but in defeat, or fatal compromise with the enemy. Too often, we may well say; for though many gird on the harness, few bear it warrior-like; still fewer put it off with triumph. Among our own poets, Byron was almost the only man we saw faithfully and manfully struggling, to the end, in this cause; and he died while the victory was still doubtful, or at best, only beginning to be gained. We have already stated our opinion, that Goethe’s success in this matter has been more complete than that of any other man in his age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he may almost be called the only one that has so succeeded. On this ground, were it on no other, we have ventured to say that his spiritual history and procedure must deserve attention; that his opinions, his creations, his mode of thought, his whole picture of the world as it dwells within him, must to his contemporaries be an inquiry of no common interest; of an interest altogether peculiar, and not in this degree exampled in existing literature. These things can be but imperfectly stated here, and must be left, not in a state of demonstration, but at the utmost, of loose fluctuating probability; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will be found to have a precise enough meaning, and, as we believe, a highly important one.

For the rest, what sort of mind it is that has passed through this change, that has gained this victory; how rich and high a mind; how learned by study in all that is wisest, by experience in all that is most complex, the brightest as well as the blackest, in man’s existence; gifted with what insight, with what grace and power of utterance, we shall not for the present attempt discussing. All these the reader will learn, who studies his writings with such attention as they merit; and by no other means. Of Goethe’s dramatic, lyrical, didactic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness, for they are full of expressiveness, we can here say nothing. But in every department of Literature, of Art ancient and modern, in many provinces of Science, we shall often meet him; and hope to have other occasions of estimating what, in these respects, we and all men owe him.

Two circumstances, meanwhile, we have remarked, which to us throw light on the nature of his original faculty for Poetry, and go far to convince us of the Mastery he has attained in that art: these we may here state briefly, for the judgment of such as already know his writings, or the help of such as are beginning to know them. The first is his singularly emblematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing tendency to transform into /shape/, into /life/, the opinion, the feeling that may dwell in him; which, in its widest sense, we reckon to be essentially the grand problem of the Poet. We do not mean mere metaphor and rhetorical trope: these are but the exterior concern, often but the scaffolding of the edifice, which is to be built up (within our thoughts) by means of them. In allusions, in similitudes, though no one known to us is happier, many are more copious than Goethe. But we find this faculty of his in the very essence of his intellect; and trace it alike in the quiet cunning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device, reminding us of some Quarles or Bunyan; and in the /Fausts/, the /Tassos/, the /Mignons/, which in their pure and genuine personality, may almost remind us of the /Ariels/ and /Hamlets/ of Shakespeare. Everything has form, everything has visual existence; the poet’s imagination /bodies forth/ the forms of things unseen, his pen turns them to /shape/. This, as a natural endowment, exists in Goethe, we conceive, to a very high degree.

The other characteristic of his mind, which proves to us his acquired mastery in art, as this shows us the extent of his original capacity for it, is his wonderful variety, nay universality; his entire freedom from the Mannerism. We read Goethe for years, before we come to see wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of his understanding, of his disposition, even of his way of writing, consists. It seems quite a simple style that of his; remarkable chiefly for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short its commonness; and yet it is the most uncommon of all styles: we feel as if every one might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. As hard is it to discover in his writings, — though there also, as in every man’s writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded, — what sort of spiritual construction he has, what are his temper, his affections, his individual specialties. For all lives freely within him: Philina and Clanchen, Mephistopheles and Mignon, are alike indifferent, or alike dear to him; he is of no sect or caste: he seems not this man or that man, but a man. We reckon this to be the characteristic of a Master in Art of any sort; and true especially of all great Poets. How true is it of Shakespeare and Homer! Who knows, or can figure what the Man Shakespeare was, by the first, by the twentieth perusal of his works? He is a Voice coming to us from the Land of Melody: his old brick dwelling- place, in the mere earthly burgh of Stratford-on-Avon, offers us the most inexplicable enigma. And what is Homer in the /Ilias/? He is THE WITNESS; he has seen, and he reveals it; we hear and believe, but do not behold him. Now compare, with these two Poets, any other two; not of equal genius, for there are none such, but of equal sincerity, who wrote as earnestly and from the heart, like them. Take, for instance, Jean Paul and Lord Byron. The good Eichter begins to show himself, in his broad, massive, kindly, quaint significance, before we have read many pages of even his slightest work; and to the last he paints himself much better than his subject. Byron may also be said to have painted nothing else than himself, be his subject what it might. Yet as a test for the culture of a Poet, in his poetical capacity, for his pretensions to mastery and completeness in his art, we cannot but reckon this among the surest. Tried by this, there is no writer that approaches within many degrees of Goethe.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfort on August 28, 1749. His parents were citizens of that imperial town, and Wolfgang was their only son. His father was born on July 31, 1710. He married, on August 20, 1748, at the age of thirty-eight, Catherine Elizabeth Textor. In December, 1750, was born a daughter, Cornelia, who remained until her death, at the age of twenty-seven, her brother’s most intimate friend. She was married in 1773 to John George Schlosser. Goethe’s education was irregular. French culture gave at this time the prevailing tone to Europe. Goethe could not have escaped its influence, and he was destined to fall under it in a special manner. In the Seven Years’ War, which was now raging, France took the side of the empire against Frederick the Great. Frankfort was full of French soldiers, and a certain Comte Thorane, who was quartered in Goethe’s house, had an important influence on the boy.

Goethe, if we may believe his autobiography, experienced his first love about the age of fifteen in the person of Gretchen, whom some have supposed to be the daughter of an innkeeper at Offenbach. He worshipped her as Dante worshipped Beatrice.

In the autumn of 1765 Goethe traveled to Leipsic. On the 19th of October he was admitted as a student. He was sent to Leipsic to study law, in order that he might return to Frankfort fitted for the regular course of municipal distinction. He intended to devote himself not to law, but to belles lettres. He attended Gellert’s lectures on literature, and even joined his private class. His real university education was derived from intercourse with his friends. First among these was J. G. Schlosser, who afterwards married his sister. He had a great influence upon him, chiefly in introducing him to a wider circle of German, French, English and Italian poetry.

But the person who had the strongest effect on Goethe’s mental development was Adam Frederick Oeser, at this time director of the academy of arts in Leipsic.

Goethe, from his earliest years, was never without a passion, and at Leipsic his passion was Kitty Schönkopf, the Aennchen of the autobiography, the daughter of the host at whose house he dined. She often teased him with her inconstant ways, and to this experience is due his first drama, “Die Laune des Verliebten,” “Lovers’ Quarrels,” as it may be styled. A deeper chord is struck in “Die Mitschuldigen” (The Fellow Sinners), which forms a dismal and forbidding picture both of the time and of the experiences of the youth who wrote it. He had an opportunity of establishing his principles of taste during a short visit at Dresden, in which he devoted himself to the pictures and the antiques. The end of Goethe’s stay at Leipsic was saddened by illness. One morning at the beginning of the summer he was awakened by a violent hemorrhage. For several days he hung between life and death, and after that his recovery was slow. He left Leipsic far from well on August 28, 1768.

Goethe made an enforced stay of a year and a half. It was perhaps the least happy part of his life. His cure proceeded slowly, and he had several relapses. His family relations were not pleasant. His father showed but little sympathy with his aspirations for universal culture, and could imagine no career for him but that of a successful jurist. His sister had grown somewhat harsh and cold during his absence. Goethe’s mother was always the same to him — a bright, genial, sympathetic friend. Goethe, during his illness, received great attention from Fräulein von Klettenberg, a friend of his mother’s, a pietist of the Moravian school. She initiated him into the mystical writings of those abstracted saints, and she engaged him in the study of alchemy, which served at once to prepare him for the conception of Faust and for the scientific researches of his later days.

He arrived at Strasburg April 2,1770. Goethe stayed in Strasburg till August 28, 1771, his twenty-second birthday, and these sixteen months are perhaps the most important of his life. During them he came into active contact with most of those impulses of which his after life was a development. If we would understand his mental growth, we must ask who were his friends. He took his meals at the house of the Fräulein Lauth in the Kramergasse. The table was mainly filled with medical students. At the head of it sat Salzmann, a grave man of fifty years of age. His experience and his refined taste were very attractive to Goethe, who made him his intimate friend. The table of the Fräulein Lauth received some new guests. Among these was Jung-Stilling, the self-educated charcoal-burner, who in his memoir has left a graphic account of Goethe’s striking appearance, in his broad brow, his flashing eye, his mastery of the company, and his generosity. Another was Lerse, a frank, open character, who became Goethe’s favorite, and whose name is immortalized in Götz von Berlichingen.

Goethe’s stay at Strasburg is generally connected still more closely with another circumstance — his passion for Frederike Brion of Sesenheim. The village lies about twenty miles from Strasburg, and her father was pastor there. Goethe was introduced by his friend Weyland, as a poor theological student. The father was a simple, worthy man, the eldest of the three daughters was married, the two younger remained — Maria Salome, and Frederike, to whom the poet principally devoted himself. She was tall and slight, with fair hair and blue eyes, and just sixteen years of age. Goethe gave himself up to the passion of the moment. During the winter of 1770, Goethe often rode over to Sesenheim. Neither storm, nor cold, nor darkness kept him back. As his time for leaving Strasburg came nearer he felt that his love was merely a dream and could have no serious termination. Frederike felt the same on her side. On August 6th Goethe took his degree as a doctor of law. Shortly afterwards he bade adieu to Sesenheim. Frederike lived till 1813 and died single.

Goethe’s return to Frankfort is marked by a number of songs, of which the “Wanderer’s Sturmlied” is the most remarkable. He had outgrown many of the friends of his youth. Those with whom he felt most sympathy were the two Schlossers and his sister Cornelia. He found in her one who sympathized with all his aspirations. The work into which he threw all his genius was the dramatization of the history of the imperial knight of the Middle Ages, Gottfried or Götz von Berlichingen. The immediate cause of this enterprise was his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. After reading him he felt, he said, like a blind man who suddenly receives his sight. The study of a dry and dull biography of Götz, published in 1731, supplied the subject for his awakened powers. From this miserable sketch he conceived within his mind a complete picture of Germany in the sixteenth century. The chief characters of his play are creatures of his imagination, representing the principal types which made up the history of the time. Every personage is made to live; they speak in short, sharp sentences like the powerful lines of a great master’s drawing. The first sketch of Götz was finished in six weeks, in the autumn of 1771. It ran like wild-fire through the whole of Germany.

Goethe left Frankfort in the spring of 1772 for Wetzlar, a quiet country town on the Lahn, one of the seats of government of the Holy Roman Empire. The emperors lived at Vienna; they were crowned at Frankfort; they held their parliaments at Ratisbon, and at Wetzlar their courts of justice. It was the custom for young lawyers to attend the sittings of these courts for a certain time before they could be admitted to practice on their own account. The company of these students, of the embassies from the component parts of the empire, and of various imperial officials, made the society a pleasant and lively one. Goethe soon found friends. His favorite house was occupied by one of the officials of the order, by name Buff, an honest man with a large family of children. The second daughter, Lotte, blue-eyed, fair and just twenty years of age, was first met by Goethe, shortly after his arrival, at a ball at Wolpertshausen. She strongly attracted him; he became a constant visitor at the house. He found that Lotte was a second mother to her brothers and sisters. Lotte, was really, though not formally, engaged to Kestner, a man of two-and-thirty, secretary to the Hanoverian legation. The discovery of this relation made no difference to Goethe; he remained the devoted friend to both. But the position was too critical to last. On September 10 they met in the German house for the last time. Goethe and Schlosser went together to Wetzlar in November. Here he heard of the death of Jerusalem, a young man attached to the Brunswick legation. He had been with Goethe at the University of Leipsic. Of a moody temperament, disheartened by failure in his profession, and soured by a hopeless passion for the wife of another, he had borrowed a pair of pistols under pretense of a journey, and had shot himself on the night of October 29.

Goethe immediately afterwards began his Werther. Goethe tells us that it was written in four weeks. In October it spread over the whole of Germany. It was enthusiastically beloved or sternly condemned. It was printed, imitated, translated into every language of Europe. Götz and Werther formed the solid foundation of Goethe’s fame. It is difficult to imagine that the same man can have produced both works, so different are they in matter and style. Götz was the first manly appeal to the chivalry of German spirit, which, caught up by other voices, sounded throughout the Fatherland like the call of a warder’s trumpet, till it produced a national courage, founded on the recollection of an illustrious past, which overthrew the might of the conqueror at the moment when he seemed about to dominate the world. Werther, as soft and melodious as Plato, was the first revelation to the world of that marvelous style which, in the hands of a master, compels a language which is as rich as Greek to be also as musical.

The spring of 1773, which witnessed the publication of Götz, saw him actively employed as an advocate. In November, Goethe’s sister Cornelia was married to Schlosser and left Strasburg. Goethe felt the loss deeply. She lived but a short time. Her married life was tortured with suffering, and she died in 1777.

The summer of 1774 was spent in a journey to the Rhine. Goethe returned to Frankfort at the beginning of August. On December 11, Goethe was surprised by the visit of a stranger. It was Karl Ludwig von Knebel, who was traveling with the two princes of Saxe-Weimar, the reigning duke, Karl August, then just seventeen, and his younger brother, Constantine. This meeting decided the future course of Goethe’s life.

He now came under the influence of Lili Schönemann, the daughter of a rich banker. This passion seemed to be of a more lasting nature than the others.

Neither family approved of the engagement between the youthful couple.
Goethe tore himself away, and went for a tour in Switzerland.

He returned to Frankfort on July 20. August was spent delightfully with Lili at Offenbach; his letters speak of nothing but her. He wrote some scenes in Faust — the walk in the garden, the first conversation with Mephistopheles, the interview with the scholar, the scene in Auerbach’s cellar. Egmont was also begun under the stimulus of the American Rebellion. A way of escaping from his embarrassments was unexpectedly opened to him. The duke of Weimar passed through Frankfort both before and after his marriage, which took place on October 3. He invited Goethe to stay at Weimar. It was not for his happiness or for Lili’s that they should have married. She afterwards thanked him deeply for the firmness with which he overcame a temptation to which she would have yielded.

At this time the smaller German courts were beginning to take an interest in German literature. Before the Seven Years’ War the whole of German culture had been French. Even now German writers found but scant acceptance at Berlin or Vienna. The princes of the smaller states surrounded themselves with literature and art. The duke of Brunswick had made Lessing his librarian. The duke of Würtemberg paid special attention to education; he promoted the views of Schubart, and founded the school in which Schiller was educated. Hanover offered a home to Zimmermann, and encouraged the development of Schlegel. Darmstadt was especially fortunate. Caroline, the wife of the landgrave, had surrounded herself with a literary circle, of which Merck was the moving spirit. She had collected and privately printed the odes of Klopstock, and her death in 1774 seemed to leave Darmstadt a desert. Her daughter, Louisa, seemed to have inherited something of her mother’s qualities. She married, on October 3,1775, the young duke of Weimar, who was just of age. She was of the house of Brunswick, and after two years of marriage had been left a widow at nineteen, with two sons. She committed their education to Count Görz, a prominent character in the history of the time. She afterwards summoned Wieland to instruct the elder, and Knebel to instruct the younger.

Upon this society Goethe rose like a star. From the moment of his arrival he became the inseparable companion of the grand-duke. The first months at Weimar were spent in a wild round of pleasure. Goethe was treated as a guest. In the autumn, journeys, rides, shooting parties; in the winter, balls, masquerades, skating parties by torch-light, dancing at peasants’ feasts, filled up their time. Evil reports flew about Germany. We may believe that no decencies were disregarded except the artificial restrictions of courtly etiquette. In the spring he had to decide whether he would go or stay. In April the duke gave him the little garden by the side of the Ilm. In June he invested him with the title, so important to Germans, of /Geheimlegationsrath/, with a seat and voice in the privy council and an income.

Goethe’s life was at no time complete without the influence of a noble- hearted woman. This he found in Charlotte von Stein, a lady of the court, wife of the master of the horse.

The close of 1779 was occupied by a winter journey to Switzerland. Two days were spent at Frankfort with Goethe’s parents. Sesenheim was visited, and left with satisfaction and contentment. At Strasburg they found as to Lessing. The repertoire of the Weimar theater was stocked with pieces of solid merit, which long held their place. In August, 1792, he accompanied the duke to the campaign in the Ardennes. In 1793 he went with his master to the siege of Mainz. Goethe took the old German epic of Reynard the Fox, with which he had long been familiar, and which, under the guise of animals, represents the conflicting passions of men, and rewrote it.

Thus far he had produced but little since his return from Italy. His friendship with Schiller was now to begin, an alliance which, in the closeness of its intimacy and its deep effect on the character of both friends, has scarcely a parallel in literary history. If Schiller was not at this time at the height of his reputation, he had written many of the works which have made his name famous. He was ten years younger than Goethe. The Räuber plays the same part in his literary history as Götz plays in that of Goethe. This had been followed by Fiesco and Kabale und Liebe. In 1787 he settled at Weimar. The first effect of Schiller’s influence on Goethe was the completion of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. It stands in the first rank of Goethe’s writings. A more solid result of the friendship between the poets was the production of Hermann und Dorothea.

The latter half of 1798 was occupied with a tour in Switzerland. Before its commencement he visited his mother at Frankfort for the last time, and presented to her his wife and his son. In the beginning of 1805 Goethe was convinced that either he or Schiller would die in that year. In January they were both seized with illness. Schiller was the first to recover, and, visiting Goethe in his sick room, fell on his neck and kissed him with intense emotion. On April 29 they saw each other for the last time. Schiller was on his way to the theater, whither Goethe was too ill to accompany him. They parted at the door of Schiller’s house. Schiller died on the evening of the 9th of May. No one dared to tell Goethe the sad news, but he saw on the faces of those who surrounded him that Schiller must be very ill. On the morrow of Schiller’s death, when his wife entered his room, he said, “Is it not true that Schiller was very ill yesterday?” She began to sob. He then cried, “He is dead!” “Thou hast spoken it thyself,” she answered. Goethe turned aside and covered his weeping eyes with his hands. Since that time Schiller and Goethe have been inseparable in the minds of their countrymen.

On October 14, 1806, the battle of Jena was fought. The court had fled from Weimar. On the 15th Napoleon and Goethe met. It was at the congress of Erfurt, where the sovereigns and princes of Europe were assembled. Goethe’s presence was commanded by the duke. He was invited to an audience on October 2. The emperor sat at a large round table eating his breakfast. He beckoned Goethe to approach him. He asked how old he was, expressed his wonder at the freshness of his appearance, said that he had read Werther through seven times, and made some acute remarks on the management of the plot. Then, after an interruption, he said that tragedy ought to be the school of kings and peoples; that there was no subject worthier of treatment than the death of Caesar, which Voltaire had treated insufficiently. A great poet would have given prominence to Caesar’s plans for the regeneration of the world, and shown what a loss mankind had suffered by his murder.

The idea of writing Faust seems to have come to Goethe in his earliest manhood. He was brooding over it at the same time with Götz von Berlichingen. Faust justly stands at the head of all Goethe’s works. Founded on a well-known popular tale, indebted for its interest and pathos to incidents of universal experience, it deals with the deepest problems which can engage the mind of man.

In 1809 he finished The Elective Affinities.

It was natural at the beginning of a new course of life that Goethe should write an account of his past existence. The study of his collected poems made it apparent to him how necessary it was to furnish a key by which they might be understood. These various causes led to the composition of /Dichtung und Wahrheit/ (Poetry and Truth), an autobiographical history of the poet’s life from his birth till his settlement at Weimar. This work is the cause of much embarrassment to the poet’s biographers. Where it ought to be the most trustworthy source of information, it is most misleading.

Once more in his old age Goethe came under the sovereignty of a woman. She was Marianne von Willemer, the newly married wife of a Frankfort banker. Goethe made her acquaintance in a journey which he took in the Rhine country. The correspondence between Goethe and Marianne was published in 1877. It extends almost to the day of his death, and includes letters from Eckermann giving an account of his last moments.

The last twelve years of Goethe’s life, when he had passed his seventieth birthday, were occupied by his criticisms on the literature of foreign countries, by the Wanderjahre, and the second part of Faust. He was the literary dictator of Germany and of Europe. The Wanderjahre contains some of Goethe’s most beautiful conceptions, The Flight Into Egypt, The Description of the Pedagogic Province, The Parable of the Three Reverences.

The second part of Faust has been a battlefield of controversy since its publication, and demands fuller attention. Its fate may be compared with that of the latest works of Beethoven. For a long time it was regarded as impossible to understand, and as not worth understanding, the production of a great artist whose faculties had been impaired by age. By degrees it has, by careful labor, become intelligible to us, and the conviction is growing that it is the deepest and most important work of the author’s life.

He had much to darken his latter days. His wife had died in 1816. He felt her loss bitterly. The Duchess Amalia had died eight years before. He had now to undergo bitterer experiences when he was less able to bear them. Frau von Stein, with whom he had renewed his friendship, if not his love, died in January, 1827; and in June, 1828, he lost the companion of his youth, the Grand Duke Karl August, who died suddenly, away from Weimar.

We must pass to the closing scenes. On Thursday, March 15, 1832, he spent his last cheerful and happy day. He awoke the next morning with a chill. From this he gradually recovered, and on Monday was so much better that he designed to begin his regular work on the next day. But in the middle of the night he woke with a deathly coldness, which extended from his hands over his body, and which took many hours to subdue. It then appeared that the lungs were attacked, and that there was no hope of his recovery. Goethe did not anticipate death. He sat fully clothed in his arm chair, made attempts to reach his study, spoke confidently of his recovery, and of the walks he would take in the fine April days. His daughter-in-law Ottilie tended him faithfully. On the morning of the 22d his strength gradually left him. He sat slumbering in his arm chair, holding Ottilie’s hand. Her name was constantly on his lips. His mind occasionally wandered, at one time to his beloved Schiller, at another to a fair female head with black curls, some passion of his youth. His last words were an order to his servant to open the second shutter to let in more light. After this he traced with his forefinger letters in the air. At half-past eleven in the day he drew himself, without any sign of pain, into the left corner of his arm chair, and went so peacefully to sleep that it was long before the watchers knew that his spirit was really gone. He is buried in the grand-ducal vault, where the bones of Schiller are also laid.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

As a preface to the present work, which, perhaps, more than another, requires one, I adduce the letter of a friend, by which so serious an undertaking was occasioned.

“We have now, my dear friend, collected the twelve parts of your poetical works, and, on reading them through, find much that is known, much that is unknown; while much that had been forgotten is revived by this collection. These twelve volumes standing before us in uniform appearance, we cannot refrain from regarding as a whole; and one would like to sketch therefrom some image of the author and his talents. But it cannot be denied, considering the vigor with which he began his literary career, and the length of time which has since elapsed, that a dozen small volumes must appear incommensurate. Nor can one forget, that, with respect to the detached pieces, they have mostly been called forth by special occasions, and reflect particular external objects, as well as distinct grades of inward culture; while it is equally clear, that temporary moral and æsthetic maxims and convictions prevail in them. As a whole, however, these productions remain without connection; nay, it is often difficult to believe that they emanate from one and the same writer.

“Your friends, in the mean time, have not relinquished the inquiry, and try, as they become more closely acquainted with your mode of life and thought, to guess many a riddle, to solve many a problem; indeed, with the assistance of an old liking, and a connection of many years’ standing, they find a charm even in the difficulties which present themselves. Yet a little assistance here and there would not be unacceptable, and you cannot well refuse this to our friendly entreaties.

“The first thing, then, we require, is that your poetical works, arranged in the late edition according to some internal relations, may be presented by you in chronological order, and that the states of life and feeling which afforded the examples that influenced you, and the theoretical principles by which you were governed, may be imparted in some kind of connection. Bestow this labor for the gratification of a limited circle, and perhaps it may give rise to something that will be entertaining and useful to an extensive one. The author, to the most advanced period of his life, should not relinquish the advantage of communicating, even at a distance, with those whom affection binds to him; and if it is not granted to every one to step forth anew, at a certain age, with surprising and powerful productions, yet just at that period of life, when knowledge is most perfect, and consciousness most distinct, it must be a very agreeable and re-animating task to treat former creations as new matter, and work them up into a kind of Last Part, which may serve once more for the edification of those who have been previously edified with and by the artist.”

This desire, so kindly expressed, immediately awakened within me an inclination to comply with it: for if, in the early years of life, our passions lead us to follow our own course, and, in order not to swerve from it, we impatiently repel the demands of others; so, in our later days, it becomes highly advantageous to us, should any sympathy excite and determine us, cordially, to new activity. I therefore instantly undertook the preparatory labor of separating the poems, both great and small, of my twelve volumes, and of arranging them according to years. I strove to recall the times and circumstances under which each had been produced. But the task soon grew more difficult, as full explanatory notes and illustrations were necessary to fill up the chasms between those which had already been given to the world. For, in the first place, all on which I had originally exercised myself were wanting, many that had been begun and not finished were also wanting, and of many that were finished even the external form had completely disappeared, having since been entirely reworked and cast into a different shape. Besides, I had also to call to mind how I had labored in the sciences and other arts, and what, in such apparently foreign departments, both individually and in conjunction with friends, I had practised in silence, or had laid before the public.

All this I wished to introduce by degrees for the satisfaction of my well-wishers, but my efforts and reflections always led me farther on; since while I was anxious to comply with that very considerate request, and labored to set forth in succession my internal emotions, external influences, and the steps which, theoretically and practically, I had trod, I was carried out of my narrow private sphere into the wide world. The images of a hundred important men, who either directly or indirectly had influenced me, presented themselves to my view; and even the prodigious movements of the great political world, which had operated most extensively upon me, as well as upon the whole mass of my contemporaries, had to be particularly considered. For this seems to be the main object of biography, — to exhibit the man in relation to the features of his time, and to show to what extent they have opposed or favored his progress; what view of mankind and the world he has formed from them, and how far he himself, if an artist, poet, or author, may externally reflect them. But for this is required what is scarcely attainable; namely, that the individual should know himself and his age, — himself, so far as he has remained the same under all circumstances; his age, as that which carries along with it, determines and fashions, both the willing and the unwilling: so that one may venture to pronounce, that any person born ten years earlier or later would have been quite a different being, both as regards his own culture and his influence on others.

In this manner, from such reflections and endeavors, from such recollections and considerations, arose the present delineation; and from this point of view, as to its origin, will it be the best enjoyed and used, and most impartially estimated. For any thing further it may be needful to say, particularly with respect to the half-poetical, half- historic, mode of treatment, an opportunity will, no doubt, frequently occur in the course of the narrative.

PART THE FIRST

FIRST BOOK.

On the 28th of August, 1749, at mid-day, as the clock struck twelve, I came into the world, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. My horoscope was propitious: the sun stood in the sign of the Virgin, and had culminated for the day; Jupiter and Venus looked on him with a friendly eye, and Mercury not adversely; while Saturn and Mars kept themselves indifferent; the moon alone, just full, exerted the power of her reflection all the more, as she had then reached her planetary hour. She opposed herself, therefore, to my birth, which could not be accomplished until this hour was passed.

These good aspects, which the astrologers managed subsequently to reckon very auspicious for me, may have been the causes of my preservation; for, through the unskilfulness of the midwife, I came into the world as dead; and only after various efforts was I enabled to see the light. This event, which had put our household into sore straits, turned to the advantage of my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as my grandfather, the /Schultheiss/ [Footnote: A chief judge or magistrate of the town.], John Wolfgang Textor, took occasion from it to have an /accoucheur/ appointed, and to introduce, or revive, the tuition of midwives, which may have done some good to those who were born after me.

When we desire to recall what happened to us in the earliest period of youth, it often happens that we confound what we have heard from others with that which we really possess from our own direct experience. Without, therefore, instituting a very close investigation into the point, which, after all, could lead to nothing, I am conscious that we lived in an old house, which, in fact, consisted of two adjoining houses, that had been opened into each other. A winding staircase led to rooms on different levels, and the unevenness of the stories was remedied by steps. For us children, — a younger sister and myself, — the favorite resort was a spacious floor below, near the door of which was a large wooden lattice that allowed us direct communication with the street and open air. A bird-cage of this sort, with which many houses were provided, was called a frame (/Geräms/). The women sat in it to sew and knit; the cook picked her salad there; female neighbors chatted with each other; and the streets consequently, in the fine season, wore a southern aspect. One felt at ease while in communication with the public. We children, too, by means of these frames, were brought into contact with our neighbors, of whom three brothers Von Ochsenstein, the surviving sons of the deceased /Schultheiss/, living on the other side of the way, won my love, and occupied and diverted themselves with me in many ways.

Our family liked to tell of all sorts of waggeries to which I was enticed by these otherwise grave and solitary men. Let one of these pranks suffice for all. A crockery-fair had just been held, from which not only our kitchen had been supplied for a while with articles for a long time to come, but a great deal of small gear of the same ware had been purchased as playthings for us children. One fine afternoon, when every thing was quiet in the house, I whiled away the time with my pots and dishes in the frame, and, finding that nothing more was to be got out of them, hurled one of them into the street. The Von Ochsensteins, who saw me so delighted at the fine smash it made, that I clapped my hands for joy, cried out, “Another.” I was not long in flinging out a pot; and, as they made no end to their calls for more, by degrees the whole collection, platters, pipkins, mugs and all, were dashed upon the pavement. My neighbors continued to express their approbation, and I was highly delighted to give them pleasure. But my stock was exhausted; and still they shouted, “More.” I ran, therefore, straight to the kitchen, and brought the earthenware, which produced a still livelier spectacle in breaking; and thus I kept running backwards and forwards, fetching one plate after another, as I could reach it from where they stood in rows on the shelf. But, as that did not satisfy my audience, I devoted all the ware that I could drag out to similar destruction. It was not till afterwards that any one appeared to hinder and forbid. The mischief was done; and, in place of so much broken crockery, there was at least a ludicrous story, in which the roguish authors took special delight to the end of their days.

My father’s mother, for it was her house in which we dwelt, lived in a large back-room directly on the ground-floor; and we were accustomed to carry on our sports even up to her chair, and, when she was ill, up to her bedside. I remember her, as it were, a spirit, — a handsome, thin woman, always neatly dressed in white. Mild, gentle, and kind, she has ever remained in my memory.

The street in which our house was situated passed by the name of the Stag-Ditch; but, as neither stags nor ditches were to be seen, we wished to have the term explained. They told us that our house stood on a spot that was once outside the city, and that, where the street now was, there had formerly been a ditch, in which a number of stags were kept. These stags were preserved and fed here because the senate, every year, according to an ancient custom, feasted publicly on a stag, which was therefore always at hand in the ditch for such a festival, in case princes or knights interfered with the city’s right of chase outside, or the walls were encompassed or besieged by an enemy. This pleased us much, and we wished that such a lair for tame animals could have been seen in our times.

The back of the house, from the second story particularly, commanded a very pleasant prospect over an almost immeasurable extent of neighboring gardens, stretching to the very walls of the city. But, alas! in transforming what were once public grounds into private gardens, our house, and some others lying towards the corner of the street, had been much stinted; since the houses towards the horse-market had appropriated spacious out-houses and large gardens to themselves, while a tolerably high wall shut us out from these adjacent paradises.

On the second floor was a room which was called the garden-room, because they had there endeavored to supply the want of a garden by means of a few plants placed before the window. As I grew older, it was there that I made my favorite, not melancholy, but somewhat sentimental, retreat. Over these gardens, beyond the city’s walls and ramparts, might be seen a beautiful and fertile plain, the same which stretches towards Höchst. In the summer season I commonly learned my lessons there, and watched the thunderstorms, but could never look my fill at the setting sun, which went down directly opposite my windows. And when, at the same time, I saw the neighbors wandering through their gardens, taking care of their flowers, the children playing, parties of friends enjoying themselves, and could hear the bowls rolling and the ninepins dropping, it early excited within me a feeling of solitude, and a sense of vague longing resulting from it, which, conspiring with the seriousness and awe implanted in me by nature, exerted its influence at an early age, and showed itself more distinctly in after-years.

The old, many-cornered, and gloomy arrangement of the house was, moreover, adapted to awaken dread and terror in childish minds. Unfortunately, too, the principle of discipline, that young persons should be early deprived of all fear for the awful and invisible, and accustomed to the terrible, still prevailed. We children, therefore, were compelled to sleep alone; and when we found this impossible, and softly slipped from our beds, to seek the society of the servants and maids, our father, with his dressing-gown turned inside out, which disguised him sufficiently for the purpose, placed himself in the way, and frightened us back to our resting-places. The evil effect of this any one may imagine. How is he who is encompassed with a double terror to be emancipated from fear? My mother, always cheerful and gay, and willing to render others so, discovered a much better pedagogical expedient. She managed to gain her end by rewards. It was the season for peaches, the plentiful enjoyment of which she promised us every morning if we overcame our fears during the night. In this way she succeeded, and both parties were satisfied.

In the interior of the house my eyes were chiefly attracted by a series of Roman views, with which my father had ornamented an ante-room. They were engravings by some of the accomplished predecessors of Piranesi, who well understood perspective and architecture, and whose touches were clear and excellent. There I saw every day the Piazza del Popolo, the Colosseum, the Piazza of St. Peter’s, and St. Peter’s Church, within and without, the castle of St. Angelo, and many other places. These images impressed themselves deeply upon me, and my otherwise very laconic father was often so kind as to furnish descriptions of the objects. His partiality for the Italian language, and for every thing pertaining to Italy, was very decided. A small collection of marbles and natural curiosities, which he had brought with him thence, he often showed to us; and he devoted a great part of his time to a description of his travels, written in Italian, the copying and correction of which he slowly and accurately completed, in several parcels, with his own hand. A lively old teacher of Italian, called Giovinazzi, was of service to him in this work. The old man, moreover, did not sing badly, and my mother every day must needs accompany him and herself upon the clavichord; and thus I speedily learned the “Solitario bosco ombroso,” so as to know it by heart before I understood it.

My father was altogether of a didactic turn, and in his retirement from business liked to communicate to others what he knew or was able to do. Thus, during the first years of their marriage, he had kept my mother busily engaged in writing, playing the clavichord, and singing, by which means she had been laid under the necessity of acquiring some knowledge and a slight readiness in the Italian tongue.

Generally we passed all our leisure hours with my grandmother, in whose spacious apartment we found plenty of room for our sports. She contrived to engage us with various trifles, and to regale us with all sorts of nice morsels. But, one Christmas evening, she crowned all her kind deeds by having a puppet-show exhibited before us, and thus unfolding a new world in the old house. This unexpected drama attracted our young minds with great force; upon the boy particularly it made a very strong impression, which continued to vibrate with a great and lasting effect.

The little stage, with its speechless personages, which at the outset had only been exhibited to us, but was afterwards given over for our own use and dramatic vivification, was prized more highly by us children, as it was the last bequest of our good grandmother, whom encroaching disease first withdrew from our sight, and death next tore away from our hearts forever. Her departure was of still more importance to our family, as it drew after it a complete change in our condition.

As long as my grandmother lived, my father had refrained from changing or renovating the house, even in the slightest particular; though it was known that he had pretty large plans of building, which were now immediately begun. In Frankfort, as in many other old towns, when anybody put up a wooden structure, he ventured, for the sake of space, to make, not only the first, but each successive, story project over the lower one, by which means narrow streets especially were rendered somewhat dark and confined. At last a law was passed, that every one putting up a new house from the ground, should confine his projections to the first upper story, and carry the others up perpendicularly. My father, that he might not lose the projecting space in the second story, caring little for outward architectural appearance, and anxious only for the good and convenient arrangement of the interior, resorted to the expedient which others had employed before him, of propping the upper part of the house, until one part after another had been removed from the bottom upwards, and a new house, as it were, inserted in its place. Thus, while comparatively none of the old structure remained, the new one merely passed for a repair. Now, as the tearing down and building up was done gradually, my father determined not to quit the house, that he might better direct and give his orders; as he possessed a good knowledge of the technicalities of building. At the same time, he would not suffer his family to leave him. This new epoch was very surprising and strange for the children. To see the rooms in which they had so often been confined and pestered with wearisome tasks and studies, the passages they had played in, the walls which had always been kept so carefully clean, all falling before the mason’s hatchet and the carpenter’s axe, — and that from the bottom upwards; to float as it were in the air, propped up by beams, being, at the same time, constantly confined to a certain lesson or definite task, — all this produced a commotion in our young heads that was not easily settled. But the young people felt the inconvenience less, because they had somewhat more space for play than before, and had many opportunities of swinging on beams, and playing at see-saw with the boards.

At first my father obstinately persisted in carrying out his plan; but when at last even the roof was partly removed, and the rain reached our beds, in spite of the carpets that had been taken up, converted into tarpaulin, and stretched over as a defense, he determined, though reluctantly, that the children should be intrusted for a time to some kind friends, who had already offered their services, and sent to a public school.

This transition was rather unpleasant; for, when the children, who had all along been kept at home in a secluded, pure, refined, yet strict manner, were thrown among a rude mass of young creatures, they were compelled unexpectedly to suffer every thing from the vulgar, bad, and even base, since they lacked both weapons and skill to protect themselves.

It was properly about this period that I first became acquainted with my native city, which I strolled over with more and more freedom, in every direction, sometimes alone, and sometimes in the company of lively companions. To convey to others in any degree the impression made upon me by these grave and revered spots, I must here introduce a description of my birthplace, as in its different parts it was gradually unfolded to me. What I liked more than any thing was, to promenade on the great bridge spanning the Main. Its length, its firmness, and its fine appearance, rendered it a notable structure; and it was, besides, almost the only memorial left from ancient times of the precautions due from the civil government to its citizens. The beautiful stream above and below bridge attracted my eye; and, when the gilt weathercock on the bridge-cross glittered in the sunshine, I always had a pleasant feeling. Generally I extended my walk through Sachsenhausen, and for a /Kreutzer/ was ferried comfortably across the river. I was now again on this side of the stream, stole along to the wine-market, and admired the mechanism of the cranes when goods were unloaded.

But it was particularly entertaining to watch the arrival of the market- boats, from which so many and such extraordinary figures were seen to disembark. On entering the city, the Saalhof, which at least stood on the spot where the castle of Emperor Charlemagne and his successors was reported to have been, was greeted every time with profound reverence. One liked to lose one’s self in the old trading-town, particularly on market-days, among the crowd collected about the church of St. Bartholomew. From the earliest times, throngs of buyers and sellers had gathered there; and the place being thus occupied, it was not easy in later days to bring about a more roomy and cheerful arrangement. The booths of the so-called /Pfarreisen/ were very important places for us children, and we carried many a /Batzen</> to them in order to purchase sheets of colored paper stamped with gold animals; though one could but seldom make his way through the narrow, crowded, and dirty market-place. I call to mind, also, that I always flew past the adjoining meat-stalls, narrow and disgusting as they were, in perfect horror. On the other hand, the Roman Hill (/Romerberg/) was a most delightful place for walking. The way to the New-Town, along by the new shops, was always cheering and pleasant; yet we regretted that a street did not lead into the Zeil by the Church of Our Lady, and that we always had to go a roundabout way by the /Hasengasse/ or the Catherine Gate. But what chiefly attracted the child’s attention, were the many little towns within the town, the fortresses within the fortress; viz., the walled monastic enclosures, and several other precincts, remaining from earlier times, and more or less like castles, — as the Nuremberg Court, the Compostella, the Braunfels, the ancestral house of the family of Stallburg, and several strongholds, in later days transformed into dwellings and warehouses. No architecture of an elevating kind was then to be seen in Frankfort; and every thing pointed to a period long past and unquiet, both for town and district. Gates and towers, which defined the bounds of the old city, — then, farther on again, gates, towers, walls, bridges, ramparts, moats, with which the new city was encompassed, — all showed, but too plainly, that a necessity for guarding the common weal in disastrous times had induced these arrangements, that all the squares and streets, even the newest, broadest, and best laid out, owed their origin to chance and caprice, and not to any regulating mind. A certain liking for the antique was thus implanted in the boy, and was specially nourished and promoted by old chronicles and woodcuts, as, for instance, those of Grave relating to the siege of Frankfort. At the same time a different taste was developed in him for observing the conditions of mankind in their manifold variety and naturalness, without regard to their importance or beauty. It was, therefore, one of our favorite walks, which we endeavored to take now and then in the course of a year, to follow the circuit of the path inside the city-walls. Gardens, courts, and back buildings extend to the /Zwinger/; and we saw many thousand people amid their little domestic and secluded circumstances. From the ornamental and show gardens of the rich, to the orchards of the citizen, anxious about his necessities; from thence to the factories, bleaching-grounds, and similar establishments, even to the burying-grounds, — for a little world lay within the limits of the city, — we passed a varied, strange spectacle, which changed at every step, and with the enjoyment of which our childish curiosity was never satisfied. In fact, the celebrated Devil-upon-two-sticks, when he lifted the roofs of Madrid at night, scarcely did more for his friend than was here done for us in the bright sunshine and open air. The keys that were to be made use of in this journey, to gain us a passage through many a tower, stair, and postern, were in the hands of the authorities, whose subordinates we never failed to coax into good humor.

But a more important, and in one sense more fruitful, place for us, was the city-hall, named from the Romans. In its lower vault-like rooms we liked but too well to lose ourselves. We obtained an entrance, too, into the large and very simple session-room of the council. The walls as well as the arched ceiling were white, though wainscoted to a certain height; and the whole was without a trace of painting, or any kind of carved work; only, high up on the middle wall, might be read this brief inscription: —

                      ”One man’s word is no man’s word:
                       Justice needs that both be heard.”

After the most ancient fashion, benches were ranged around the wainscoting, and raised one step above the floor for the accommodation of the members of the assembly. This readily suggested to us why the order of rank in our senate was distributed by benches. To the left of the door, on the opposite corner, sat the /Schöffen/; in the corner itself the /Schultheiss/, who alone had a small table before him; those of the second bench sat in the space to his left as far as the wall to where the windows were; while along the windows ran the third bench, occupied by the craftsmen. In the midst of the hall stood a table for the registrar (/Protoculführer/).

Once within the /Römer/, we even mingled with the crowd at the audiences of the burgomasters. But whatever related to the election and coronation of the emperors possessed a greater charm. We managed to gain the favor of the keepers, so as to be allowed to mount the new gay imperial staircase, which was painted in fresco, and on other occasions closed with a grating. The election-chamber, with its purple hangings and admirably fringed gold borders, filled us with awe. The representations of animals, on which little children or genii, clothed in the imperial ornaments and laden with the insignia of the empire, made a curious figure, were observed by us with great attention; and we even hoped that we might live to see, some time or other, a coronation with our own eyes. They had great difficulty to get us out of the great imperial hall, when we had been once fortunate enough to steal in; and we reckoned him our truest friend, who, while we looked at the half- lengths of all the emperors painted around at a certain height, would tell us something of their deeds.

We listened to many a legend of Charlemagne. But that which was historically interesting for us began with Rudolph of Hapsburg, who by his courage put an end to such violent commotions. Charles the Fourth also attracted our notice. We had already heard of the Golden Bull, and of the statutes for the administration of criminal justice. We knew, too, that he had not made the Frankforters suffer for their adhesion to his noble rival, Emperor Gunther of Schwarzburg. We heard Maximilian praised, both as a friend to mankind, and to the townsmen, his subjects, and were also told that it had been prophesied of him he would be the last emperor of a German house, which unhappily came to pass, as after his death the choice wavered only between the king of Spain (/afterwards/), Charles V., and the king of France, Francis I. With some anxiety it was added, that a similar prophecy, or rather intimation, was once more in circulation; for it was obvious that there was room left for the portrait of only one more emperor, — a circumstance which, though seemingly accidental, filled the patriotic with concern.

Having once entered upon this circuit, we did not fail to repair to the cathedral, and there visit the grave of that brave Gunther, so much prized both by friend and foe. The famous stone which formerly covered it is set up in the choir. The door close by, leading into the conclave, remained long shut against us, until we at last managed, through the higher authorities, to gain access to this celebrated place. But we should have done better had we continued as before to picture it merely in our imagination; for we found this room, which is so remarkable in German history, where the most powerful princes were accustomed to meet for an act so momentous, in no respect worthily adorned, and even disfigured with beams, poles, scaffolding, and similar lumber, which people had wanted to put out of the way. The imagination, for that very reason, was the more excited and the heart elevated, when we soon after received permission to be present in the city-hall, at the exhibition of the Golden Bull to some distinguished strangers.

The boy then heard, with much curiosity, what his own family, as well as other older relations and acquaintances, liked to tell and repeat; viz., the histories of the two last coronations, which had followed close upon each other; for there was no Frankforter of a certain age who would not have regarded these two events, and their attendant circumstances, as the crowning glory of his whole life. Splendid as had been the coronation of Charles Seventh, during which particularly the French ambassador had given magnificent feasts at great cost and with distinguished taste, the results were all the more afflicting to the good emperor, who could not preserve his capital Munich, and was compelled in some degree to implore the hospitality of his imperial towns.

Although the coronation of Francis First was not so strikingly splendid as the former one, it was dignified by the presence of the Empress Maria Theresa, whose beauty appears to have created as much impression on the men as the earnest and noble form and the blue eyes of Charles Seventh on the women. At any rate, both sexes vied with each other in giving to the attentive boy a highly favorable opinion of both these personages. All these descriptions and narratives were given in a serene and quiet state of mind; for the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had, for the moment, put an end to all feuds: and they spoke at their ease of past contests, as well as of their former festivities, — the battle of Dettingen for instance, and other remarkable events of by-gone years; and all that was important or dangerous seemed, as generally happens when a peace has been concluded, to have occurred only to afford entertainment to prosperous and unconcerned people.

Half a year had scarcely passed away in this narrow patriotism before the fairs began, which always produced an incredible ferment in the heads of all children. The erection, in so short a time, of so many booths, creating a new town within the old one; the roll and crush, the unloading and unpacking of wares, — excited from the very first dawn of consciousness an insatiable active curiosity, and a boundless desire for childish property, which the boy with increasing years endeavored to gratify, in one way or another, as far as his little purse permitted. At the same time, he obtained a notion of what the world produces, what it wants, and what the inhabitants of its different parts exchange with each other.

These great epochs, which came round regularly in spring and autumn, were announced by curious solemnities, which seemed the more dignified because they vividly brought before us the old time, and what had come down from it to ourselves. On Escort Day, the whole population were on their legs, thronging to the /Fahrgasse/, to the bridge, and beyond /Sachsenhausen/; all the windows were occupied, though nothing unusual took place on that day; the crowd seeming to be there only for the sake of jostling each other, and the spectators merely to look at one another; for the real occasion of their coming did not begin till nightfall, and was then rather taken upon trust than seen with the eyes.

The affair was thus: in those old, unquiet times, when every one did wrong according to his pleasure, or helped the right as his liking led him, traders on their way to the fairs were so wilfully beset and harassed by waylayers, both of noble and ignoble birth, the princes and other persons of power caused their people to be accompanied to Frankfort by an armed escort. Now, the burghers of the imperial city would yield no rights pertaining to themselves or their district: they went out to meet the advancing party; and thus contests often arose as to how far the escort should advance, or whether it had a right to enter the city at all. But as this took place, not only in regard to matters of trade and fairs, but also when high personages came, in times of peace or war, and especially on the days of election; and as the affair often came to blows when a train which was not to be endured in the city strove to make its way in along with its lord, — many negotiations had from time to time been resorted to, and many temporary arrangements concluded, though always with reservations of rights on both sides. The hope had not been relinquished of composing once for all a quarrel that had already lasted for centuries, inasmuch as the whole institution, on account of which it had been so long and often so hotly contested, might be looked upon as nearly useless, or at least as superfluous.

Meanwhile, on those days, the city cavalry in several divisions, each having a commander in front, rode forth from different gates, and found on a certain spot some troopers or hussars of the persons entitled to an escort, who, with their leaders, were well received and entertained. They staid till towards evening, and then rode back to the city, scarcely visible to the expectant crowd, many a city knight not being in a condition to manage his horse, or keep himself in the saddle. The most important bands returned by the bridge-gate, where the pressure was consequently the strongest. Last of all, just as night fell, the Nuremberg post-coach arrived, escorted in the same way, and always containing, as the people fancied, in pursuance of custom, an old woman. Its arrival, therefore, was a signal for all the urchins to break out into an ear-splitting shout, though it was utterly impossible to distinguish any one of the passengers within. The throng that pressed after the coach through the bridge-gate was quite incredible, and perfectly bewildering to the senses. The houses nearest the bridge were those, therefore, most in demand among spectators.

Another more singular ceremony, by which the people were excited in broad daylight, was the Piper’s Court (/Pfeifergericht/). It commemorated those early times when important larger trading-towns endeavored, if not to abolish tolls altogether, at least to bring about a reduction of them, as they increased in proportion with trade and industry. They were allowed this privilege by the emperor, who needed their aid, when it was in his power to grant it, but commonly only for one year; so that it had to be annually renewed. This was effected by means of symbolical gifts, which were presented before the opening of St. Bartholomew’s Fair to the imperial magistrate (/Schultheiss/), who might have sometimes been the chief toll-gatherer; and, for the sake of a more imposing show, the gifts were offered when he was sitting in full court with the /Schöffen/. But when the chief magistrate afterwards came to be no longer appointed by the emperor, and was elected by the city itself, he still retained these privileges; and thus both the immunities of the cities from toll, and the ceremonies by which the representatives from Worms, Nuremberg, and old Bamberg, once acknowledged the ancient favor, had come down to our times. The day before Lady Day, an open court was proclaimed. In an enclosed space in the great Imperial Hall, the Schöffen took their elevated seats; a step higher, sat the /Schultheiss/ in the midst of them; while below, on the right hand, were the procurators of both parties invested with plenipotentiary powers. The /Actuarius/ begins to read aloud the weighty judgments reserved for this day: the lawyers demand copies, appeal, or do whatever else seems necessary. All at once a singular sort of music announces, if we may so speak, the advent of former centuries. It proceeds from three pipers, one of whom plays an old /shawm/, another a /sackbut/, and the third a /pommer/, or oboe. They wear blue mantles trimmed with gold, having the notes made fast to their sleeves, and their heads covered. Having thus left their inn at ten o’clock, followed by the deputies and their attendants, and stared at by all, natives and strangers, they enter the hall. The law proceedings are stayed, the pipers and their train halt before the railing, the deputy steps in and stations himself in front of the /Schultheiss/. The emblematic presents, which were required to be precisely the same as in the old precedents, consisted commonly of the staple wares of the city offering them. Pepper passed, as it were, for every thing else; and, even on this occasion, the deputy brought a handsomely turned wooden goblet filled with pepper. Upon it lay a pair of gloves, curiously slashed, stitched, and tasselled with silk, — a token of a favor granted and received, — such as the emperor himself made use of in certain cases. Along with this was a while staff, which in former times could not easily be dispensed with in judicial proceedings. Some small pieces of silver money were added: and the city of Worms brought an old felt hat, which was always redeemed again; so that the same one had been a witness of these ceremonies for many years.

After the deputy had made his address, handed over his present, and received from the /Schultheiss/ assurance of continued favor, he quitted the enclosed circle, the pipers blew, the train departed as it had come, the court pursued its business, until the second and at last the third deputy had been introduced. For each came some time after the other, partly that the pleasure of the public might thus be prolonged, and partly because they were always the same antiquated /virtuosi/ whom Nuremburg, for itself and its co-cities, had undertaken to maintain, and produce annually at the appointed place.

We children were particularly interested in this festival, because we were not a little flattered to see our grandfather in a place of so much honor; and because commonly, on the self-same day, we used to visit him, quite modestly, in order that we might, when my grandmother had emptied the pepper into her spice-box, lay hold of a cup or small rod, a pair of gloves, or an old /Räder Albus/. [Footnote: An old silver coin.] These symbolical ceremonies, restoring antiquity as if by magic, could not be explained to us without leading us back into past times, and informing us of the manners, customs, and feelings of those early ancestors who were so strangely made present to us by pipers and deputies seemingly risen from the dead, and by tangible gifts which might be possessed by ourselves.

These venerable solemnities were followed, in the fine season, by many festivals, delightful for us children, which took place in the open air, outside the city. On the right shore of the Main, going down, about half an hour’s walk from the gate, there rises a sulphur-spring, neatly enclosed, and surrounded by aged lindens. Not far from it stands the Good-People’s-Court, formerly a hospital erected for the sake of the waters. On the commons around, the herds of cattle from the neighborhood were collected on a certain day of the year; and the herdsmen, together with their sweethearts, celebrated a rural festival with dancing and singing, with all sorts of pleasure and clownishness. On the other side of the city lay a similar but larger common, likewise graced with a spring and still finer lindens. Thither, at Whitsuntide, the flocks of sheep were driven: and, at the same time, the poor, pale orphan children were allowed to come out of their walls into the open air; for the thought had not yet occurred that these destitute creatures, who must some time or other help themselves through the world, ought soon to be brought in contact with it; that, instead of being kept in dreary confinement, they should rather be accustomed to serve and to endure; and that there was every reason to strengthen them physically and morally from their infancy. The nurses and maids, always ready to take a walk, never failed to carry or conduct us to such places, even in our first years; so that these rural festivals belong to the earliest impressions that I can recall.

Meanwhile, our house had been finished, and that too in tolerably short time; because every thing had been judiciously planned and prepared, and the needful money provided. We now found ourselves all together again, and felt comfortable; for, when a well-considered plan is once carried out, we forget the various inconveniences of the means that were necessary to its accomplishment. The building, for a private residence, was roomy enough, light and cheerful throughout, with broad staircases, agreeable parlors, and a prospect of the gardens that could be enjoyed easily from several of the windows. The internal completion, and what pertained to mere ornament and finish, was gradually accomplished, and served at the same time for occupation and amusement.

The first thing brought into order was my father’s collection of books, the best of which, in calf and half-calf binding, were to ornament the walls of his office and study. He possessed the beautiful Dutch editions of the Latin classics, which, for the sake of outward uniformity, he had endeavored to procure all in quarto; and also many other works relating to Roman antiquities and the more elegant jurisprudence. The most eminent Italian poets were not wanting, and for Tasso he showed a great predilection. There were also the best and most recent Travels, and he took great delight in correcting and completing Keyssler and Nemeiz from them. Nor had he omitted to surround himself with all needful aids to learning, such as dictionaries of various languages, and encyclopædias of science and art, which, with much else adapted to profit and amusement, might be consulted at will.

The other half of this collection, in neat parchment bindings, with very beautifully written titles, was placed in a separate attic. The acquisition of new books, as well as their binding and arrangement, he pursued with great composure and love of order; and he was much influenced in his opinion by the critical notices that ascribed particular merit to any work. His collection of juridical treatises was annually increased by some volumes.

Next, the pictures, which in the old house had hung about promiscuously, were now collected, and symmetrically hung on the walls of a cheerful room near the study, all in black frames set off with gilt mouldings. It was my father’s principle, to which he gave frequent and even passionate utterance, that one ought to employ the living masters, and to spend less upon the departed, in the estimation of whom prejudice greatly concurred. He had the notion that it was precisely the same with pictures as with Rhenish wines, which, though age may impart to them a higher value, can be produced in any coming year of just as excellent quality as in years past. After the lapse of some time, the new wine also becomes old, quite as valuable and perhaps more delicious. This opinion he chiefly confirmed by the observation that many old pictures seemed to derive their chief value for lovers of art from the fact that they had become darker and browner, and that the harmony of tone in such pictures was often vaunted. My father, on the other hand, protested that he had no fear that the new pictures would not also turn black in time; though whether they were likely to gain any thing by this he was not so positive.

In pursuance of these principles, he employed for many years the whole of the Frankfort artists, — the painter Hirt, who excelled in animating oak and beech woods, and other so-called rural scenes, with cattle; Trautmann, who had adopted Rembrandt as his model, and had attained great perfection in enclosed lights and reflections, as well as in effective conflagrations, so that he was once ordered to paint a companion piece to a Rembrandt; Schutz, who diligently elaborated landscapes of the Rhine country, in the manner of Sachtlebens; and Junker, who executed with great purity flower and fruit pieces, still life, and figures quietly employed, after the models of the Dutch. But now, by the new arrangement, by more convenient room, and still more by the acquaintance of a skilful artist, our love of art was again quickened and animated. This artist was Seekatz, a pupil of Brinkmann, court-painter at Darmstadt, whose talent and character will be more minutely unfolded in the sequel.

In this way the remaining rooms were finished, according to their several purposes. Cleanliness and order prevailed throughout. Above all, the large panes of plate-glass contributed towards a perfect lightness, which had been wanting in the old house for many causes, but chiefly on account of the panes, which were for the most part round. My father was cheerful on account of the success of his undertaking; and if his good humor had not been often interrupted because the diligence and exactness of the mechanics did not come up to his wishes, a happier life than ours could not have been conceived, since much good partly arose in the family itself, and partly flowed from without.

But an extraordinary event deeply disturbed the boy’s peace of mind for the first time. On the 1st of November, 1755, the earthquake at Lisbon took place, and spread a prodigious alarm over the world, long accustomed to peace and quiet. A great and magnificent capital, which was at the same time a trading and mercantile city, is smitten without warning by a most fearful calamity. The earth trembles and totters; the sea foams; ships dash together; houses fall in, and over them churches and towers; the royal palace is in part swallowed by the waters; the bursting land seems to vomit flames, since smoke and fire are seen everywhere amid the ruins. Sixty thousand persons, a moment before in ease and comfort, fall together; and he is to be deemed most fortunate who is no longer capable of a thought or feeling about the disaster. The flames rage on; and with them rage a troop of desperadoes, before concealed, or set at large by the event. The wretched survivors are exposed to pillage, massacre, and every outrage; and thus on all sides Nature asserts her boundless capriciousness.

Intimations of this event had spread over wide regions more quickly than the authentic reports: slight shocks had been felt in many places; in many springs, particularly those of a mineral nature, an unusual receding of the waters had been remarked; and so much the greater was the effect of the accounts themselves, which were rapidly circulated, at first in general terms, but finally with dreadful particulars. Hereupon the religious were neither wanting in reflections, nor the philosophic in grounds for consolation, nor the clergy in warnings. So complicated an event arrested the attention of the world for a long time; and, as additional and more detailed accounts of the extensive effects of this explosion came from every quarter, the minds already aroused by the misfortunes of strangers began to be more and more anxious about themselves and their friends. Perhaps the demon of terror had never so speedily and powerfully diffused his terrors over the earth.

The boy, who was compelled to put up with frequent repetitions of the whole matter, was not a little staggered. God, the Creator and Preserver of heaven and earth, whom the explanation of the first article of the creed declared so wise and benignant, having given both the just and the unjust a prey to the same destruction, had not manifested himself by any means in a fatherly character. In vain the young mind strove to resist these impressions. It was the more impossible, as the wise and scripture-learned could not themselves agree as to the light in which such a phenomenon should be regarded.

The next summer gave a closer opportunity of knowing directly that angry God, of whom the Old Testament records so much. A sudden hail-storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, violently broke the new panes at the back of our house, which looked towards the west, damaged the new furniture, destroyed some valuable books and other things of worth, and was the more terrible to the children, as the whole household, quite beside themselves, dragged them into a dark passage, where, on their knees, with frightful groans and cries, they thought to conciliate the wrathful Deity. Meanwhile, my father, who was the only one self- possessed, forced open and unhinged the window-frames, by which we saved much glass, but made a broader inlet for the rain that followed the hail; so that, after we were finally quieted, we found ourselves in the rooms and on the stairs completely surrounded by floods and streams of water.

These events, startling as they were on the whole, did not greatly interrupt the course of instruction which my father himself had undertaken to give us children. He had passed his youth in the Coburg Gymnasium, which stood as one of the first among German educational institutions. He had there laid a good foundation in languages, and other matters reckoned part of a learned education, had subsequently applied himself to jurisprudence at Leipzig, and had at last taken his degree at Giessen. His dissertation, “Electa de aditione Hereditatis,” which had been earnestly and carefully written, is still cited by jurists with approval.

It is a pious wish of all fathers to see what they have themselves failed to attain realized in their sons, as if in this way they could live their lives over again, and at last make a proper use of their early experience. Conscious of his acquirements, with the certainty of faithful perseverance, and distrusting the teachers of the day, my father undertook to instruct his own children, allowing them to take particular lessons from particular masters only so far as seemed absolutely necessary. A pedagogical /dilettantism/ was already beginning to show itself everywhere. The pedantry and heaviness of the masters appointed in the public schools had probably given rise to this evil. Something better was sought for, but it was forgotten how defective all instruction must be which is not given by persons who are teachers by profession.

My father had prospered in his own career tolerably according to his wishes: I was to follow the same course, only more easily, and much farther. He prized my natural endowments the more, because he was himself wanting in them; for he had acquired every thing only by means of unspeakable diligence, pertinacity, and repetition. He often assured me, early and late, both in jest and earnest, that with my talents he would have deported himself very differently, and would not have turned them to such small account.

By means of a ready apprehension, practice, and a good memory, I very soon outgrew the instructions which my father and the other teachers were able to give, without being thoroughly grounded in any thing. Grammar displeased me, because I regarded it as a mere arbitrary law: the rules seemed ridiculous, inasmuch as they were invalidated by so many exceptions, which had all to be learned by themselves. And if the first Latin work had not been in rhyme, I should have got on but badly in that; but, as it was, I hummed and sang it to myself readily enough. In the same way we had a geography in memory-verses, in which the most wretched doggerel best served to fix the recollection of that which was to be retained; e.g., —

“Upper-Yssel has many a fen, Which makes it hateful to all men.”

The forms and inflections of language I caught with ease; and I also quickly unravelled what lay in the conception of a thing. In rhetoric, composition, and such matters, no one excelled me; although I was often put back for faults of grammar. Yet these were the attempts that gave my father particular pleasure, and for which he rewarded me with many presents of money, considerable for such a lad.

My father taught my sister Italian in the same room in which I had to commit Cellarius to memory. As I was soon ready with my task, and was yet obliged to sit quiet, I listened with my book before me, and very readily caught the Italian, which struck me as an agreeable softening of Latin.

Other precocities, with respect to memory and the power to combine, I possessed in common with those children who thus acquire an early reputation. For that reason, my father could scarcely wait for me to go to college. He very soon declared that I must study jurisprudence in Leipzig, for which he retained a strong predilection; and I was afterwards to visit some other university and take my degree. As for this second one he was indifferent as to which I might choose, except that he had for some reason or other a disinclination to Göttingen, to my disappointment, since it was precisely there that I had placed such confidence and high hopes.

He told me further, that I was to go to Wetzlar and Ratisbon, as well as to Vienna, and thence towards Italy; although he repeatedly mentioned that Paris should first be seen, because after coming out of Italy nothing else could be pleasing.

These tales of my future youthful travels, often as they were repeated, I listened to eagerly, the more so as they always led to accounts of Italy, and at last to a description of Naples. His otherwise serious and dry manner seemed on these occasions to relax and quicken, and thus a passionate wish awoke in us children to participate in the paradise he described.

Private lessons, which now gradually multiplied, were shared with the children of the neighbors. This learning in common did not advance me: the teachers followed their routine; and the rudeness, sometimes the ill nature, of my companions, interrupted the brief hours of study with tumult, vexation, and disturbance. Chrestomathies, by which learning is made pleasant and varied, had not yet reached us. Cornelius Nepos, so dry to young people; the New Testament, which was much too easy, and which by preaching and religious instructions had been rendered even common-place; Cellarius and Pasor, — could impart no kind of interest: on the other hand, a certain rage for rhyme and versification, a consequence of reading the prevalent German poets, took complete possession of us. Me it had seized much earlier, as I had found it agreeable to pass from the rhetorical to the poetical treatment of subjects.

We boys held a Sunday assembly where each of us was to produce original verses. And here I was struck by something strange, which long caused me uneasiness. My poems, whatever they might be, always seemed to me the best. But I soon remarked that my competitors, who brought forth very lame affairs, were in the same condition, and thought no less of themselves. Nay, what appeared yet more suspicious, a good lad (though in such matters altogether unskilful), whom I liked in other respects, but who had his rhymes made by his tutor, not only regarded these as the best, but was thoroughly persuaded they were his own, as he always maintained in our confidential intercourse. Now, as this illusion and error was obvious to me, the question one day forced itself upon me, whether I myself might not be in the same state, whether those poems were not really better than mine, and whether I might not justly appear to those boys as mad as they to me? This disturbed me much and long, for it was altogether impossible for me to find any external criterion of the truth: I even ceased from producing, until at length I was quieted by my own light temperament, and the feeling of my own powers, and lastly by a trial of skill, — started on the spur of the moment by our teachers and parents, who had noted our sport, — in which I came off well, and won general praise.

No libraries for children had at that time been established. The old had themselves still childish notions, and found it convenient to impart their own education to their successors. Except the “Orbis Pictus” of Amos Comenius, no book of the sort fell into our hands; but the large folio Bible, with copperplates by Merian, was diligently gone over leaf by leaf; Gottfried’s “Chronicles,” with plates by the same master, taught us the most notable events of universal history; the “Acerra Philologica” added thereto all sorts of fables, mythologies, and wonders; and, as I soon became familiar with Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” the first books of which in particular I studied carefully, my young brain was rapidly furnished with a mass of images and events, of significant and wonderful shapes and occurrences; and I never felt time hang upon my hands, as I always occupied myself in working over, repeating, and reproducing these acquisitions.

A more salutary moral effect than that of these rude and hazardous antiquities was produced by Fenelon’s “Telemachus,” with which I first became acquainted in Neukirch’s translation, and which, imperfectly as it was executed, had a sweet and beneficent influence on my mind. That “Robinson Crusoe” was added in due time, follows in the nature of things; and it may be imagined that the “Island of Falsenberg” was not wanting. Lord Anson’s “Voyage round the Globe” combined the dignity of truth with the rich fancies of fable; and, while our thoughts accompanied this excellent seaman, we were conducted over all the world, and endeavored to follow him with our fingers on the globe. But a still richer harvest was to spring up before me, when I lighted on a mass of writings, which, in their present state, it is true, cannot be called excellent, but the contents of which, in a harmless way, bring near to us many a meritorious action of former times.

The publication, or rather the manufacture, of those books, which have at a later day become so well known and celebrated under the name Volkschriften, Volksbucher (popular works or books), was carried on in Frankfort. The enormous sales they met with led to their being almost illegibly printed from stereotypes on horrible blotting-paper. We children were so fortunate as to find these precious remains of the Middle Ages every day on a little table at the door of a dealer in cheap books, and to obtain them at the cost of a couple of Kreutzer. “The Eulenspiegel,” “The Four Sons of Haimon,” “The Emperor Octavian,” “The Fair Melusina,” “The Beautiful Magelone,” “Fortunatus,” with the whole race down to “The Wandering Jew,” were all at our service, as often as we preferred the relish of these works to the taste of sweet things. The greatest benefit of this was, that, when we had read through or damaged such a sheet, it could soon be reprocured, and swallowed a second time.

As a family picnic in summer is vexatiously disturbed by a sudden storm, which transforms a pleasant state of things into the very reverse: so the diseases of childhood fall unexpectedly on the most beautiful season of early life. And thus it happened with me. I had just purchased “Fortunatus with his Purse and Wishing-hat,” when I was attacked by a restlessness and fever which announced the small-pox. Inoculation was still with us considered very problematical; and, although it had already been intelligibly and urgently recommended by popular writers, the German physicians hesitated to perform an operation that seemed to forestall Nature. Speculative Englishmen, therefore, had come to the Continent, and inoculated, for a considerable fee, the children of such persons as were opulent, and free from prejudices. Still, the majority were exposed to the old disease: the infection raged through families, killed and disfigured many children; and few parents dared to avail themselves of a method, the probable efficacy of which had been abundantly confirmed by the result. The evil now invaded our house, and attacked me with unusual severity. My whole body was sown over with spots, and my face covered; and for several days I lay blind and in great pain. They tried the only possible alleviation, and promised me heaps of gold if I would keep quiet, and not increase the mischief by rubbing and scratching. I controlled myself, while, according to the prevailing prejudice, they kept me as warm as possible, and thus only rendered my suffering more acute. At last, after a woeful time, there fell, as it were, a mask from my face. The blotches had left no visible mark upon the skin, but the features were plainly altered. I myself was satisfied merely with seeing the light of day again, and gradually putting off my spotted skin; but others were pitiless enough to remind me often of my previous condition, especially a very lively aunt, who had formerly regarded me with idolatry, but in after-years could seldom look at me without exclaiming “The deuce, cousin, what a fright he’s grown!” Then she would tell me circumstantially how I had once been her delight, and what attention she had excited when she carried me about; and thus I early learned that people very often subject us to a severe atonement for the pleasure which we have afforded them.

I escaped neither measles nor chicken-pox, nor any other of the tormenting demons of childhood; and I was assured each time that it was a great piece of good luck that this malady was now past forever. But alas! another again threatened in the background, and advanced. All these things increased my propensity to reflection; and as I had already practised myself in fortitude, in order to remove the torture of impatience, the virtues which I had heard praised in the stoics appeared to me highly worthy of imitation, and the more so, as something similar was commended by the Christian doctrine of patience.

While on the subject of these family diseases, I will mention a brother about three years younger than myself, who was likewise attacked by that infection, and suffered not a little from it. He was of a tender nature, quiet and capricious; and we were never on the most friendly terms. Besides, he scarcely survived the years of childhood. Among several other children born afterwards, who, like him, did not live long, I only remember a very pretty and agreeable girl, who also soon passed away; so that, after the lapse of some years, my sister and I remained alone, and were therefore the more deeply and affectionately attached to each other.

These maladies, and other unpleasant interruptions, were in their consequences doubly grievous; for my father, who seemed to have laid down for himself a certain calendar of education and instruction, was resolved immediately to repair every delay, and imposed double lessons upon the young convalescent. These were not hard for me to accomplish, but were so far troublesome, that they hindered, and, to a certain extent, repressed, my inward development, which had taken a decided direction.

From these didactic and pedagogic oppressions, we commonly fled to my grandfather and grandmother. Their house stood in the Friedberg Street, and appeared to have been formerly a fortress; for, on approaching it, nothing was seen but a large gate with battlements, which were joined on either side to the two neighboring houses. On entering through a narrow passage, we reached at last a tolerably wide court, surrounded by irregular buildings, which were now all united into one dwelling. We usually hastened at once into the garden, which extended to a considerable length and breadth behind the buildings, and was very well kept. The walks were mostly skirted by vine-trellises: one part of the space was used for vegetables, and another devoted to flowers, which from spring till autumn adorned in rich succession the borders as well as the beds. The long wall, erected towards the south, was used for some well-trained espalier peach-trees, the forbidden fruit of which ripened temptingly before us through the summer. Yet we rather avoided this side, because we here could not satisfy our dainty appetites; and we turned to the side opposite, where an interminable row of currant and gooseberry bushes furnished our voracity with a succession of harvests till autumn. Not less important to us was an old, high, wide-spreading mulberry-tree, both on account of its fruits, and because we were told that the silk-worms fed upon its leaves. In this peaceful region my grandfather was found every evening, tending with genial care, and with his own hand, the finer growths of fruits and flowers; while a gardener managed the drudgery. He was never vexed by the various toils which were necessary to preserve and increase a fine show of pinks. The branches of the peach-trees were carefully tied to the espaliers with his own hands, in a fan-shape, in order to bring about a full and easy growth of the fruit. The sorting of the bulbs of tulips, hyacinths, and plants of a similar nature, as well as the care of their preservation, he intrusted to none; and I still with pleasure recall to my mind how diligently he occupied himself in inoculating the different varieties of roses. That he might protect himself from the thorns, he put on a pair of those ancient leather gloves, of which three pair were given him annually at the Piper’s Court; so that there was no dearth of the article. He wore also a loose dressing-gown, and a folded black velvet cap upon his head; so that he might have passed for an intermediate person between Alcinous and Laertes.

All this work in the garden he pursued as regularly and with as much precision as his official business; for, before he came down, he always arranged the list of cases for the next day, and read the legal papers. In the morning he proceeded to the city-hall, dined after his return, then took a nap in his easy-chair, and so went through the same routine every day. He conversed little, never exhibited any vehemence; and I do not remember ever to have seen him angry. All that surrounded him was in the fashion of the olden time. I never perceived any alteration in his wainscoted room. His library contained, besides law-works, only the earliest books of travels, sea-voyages, and discoveries of countries. Altogether I can call to mind no situation more adapted than his to awaken the feeling of uninterrupted peace and eternal duration.

But the reverence we entertained for this venerable old man was raised to the highest degree by a conviction that he possessed the gift of prophecy, especially in matters that pertained to himself and his destiny. It is true he revealed himself to no one distinctly and minutely, except to my grandmother; yet we were all aware that he was informed of what was going to happen by significant dreams. He assured his wife, for instance, at a time when he was still a junior councillor, that, on the first vacancy, he would obtain the place left open on the bench of the /Schöffen/; and soon afterwards, when one of those officers actually died of apoplexy, my grandfather gave orders that his house should be quietly got ready prepared on the day of electing and balloting, to receive his guests and congratulators. Sure enough, the decisive gold ball was drawn in his favor. The simple dream by which he had learned this, he confided to his wife as follows: He had seen himself in the ordinary full assembly of councilmen, where all went on just as usual. Suddenly the late /Schöff/ rose from his seat, descended the steps, pressed him in the most complimentary manner to take the vacant place, and then departed by the door.

Something similar occurred on the death of the /Schultheiss/. They make no delay in supplying this place; as they always have to fear that the emperor will, at some time, resume his ancient right of nominating the officer. On this occasion, the messenger of the court came at midnight to summon an extraordinary session for the next morning; and, as the light in his lantern was about to expire, he asked for a candle’s end to help him on his way. “Give him a whole one,” said my grandfather to the ladies: “he takes the trouble all on my account.” This expression anticipated the result, — he was made /Schultheiss/. And what rendered the circumstance particularly remarkable was, that, although his representative was the third and last to draw at the ballot, the two silver balls first came out, leaving the golden ball at the bottom of the bag for him.

Perfectly prosaic, simple, and without a trace of the fantastic or miraculous, were the other dreams, of which we were informed. Moreover, I remember that once, as a boy, I was turning over his books and memoranda, and found, among some other remarks which related to gardening, such sentences as these: “To-night N. N. came to me, and said,” — the name and revelation being written in cipher; or, “This night I saw,” — all the rest being again in cipher, except the conjunctions and similar words, from which nothing could be learned.

It is worthy of note also, that persons who showed no signs of prophetic insight at other times, acquired, for the moment, while in his presence, and that by means of some sensible evidence, presentiments of diseases or deaths which were then occurring in distant places. But no such gift has been transmitted to any of his children or grandchildren, who, for the most part, have been hearty people, enjoying life, and never going beyond the actual.

While on this subject, I remember with gratitude many kindnesses I received from them in my youth. Thus, for example, we were employed and entertained in many ways when we visited the second daughter, married to the druggist Melber, whose house and shop stood near the market, in the midst of the liveliest and most crowded part of the town. There we could look down from the windows pleasantly enough upon the hurly-burly, in which we feared to lose ourselves; and though at first, of all the goods in the shop, nothing had much interest for us but the licorice, and the little brown stamped cakes made from it, we became in time better acquainted with the multitude of articles bought and sold in that business. This aunt was the most vivacious of all the family. Whilst my mother, in her early years, took pleasure in being neatly dressed, working at some domestic occupation, or reading a book, the other, on the contrary, ran about the neighborhood to pick up neglected children, take care of them, comb them, and carry them about in the way she had done with me for a good while. At a time of public festivities, such as coronations, it was impossible to keep her at home. When a little child, she had already scrambled for the money scattered on such occasions; and it was related of her, that once when she had got a good many together, and was looking at them with great delight in the palm of her hand, it was struck by somebody, and all her well-earned booty vanished at a blow. There was another incident of which she was very proud. Once, while standing on a post as the Emperor Charles VII. was passing, at a moment when all the people were silent, she shouted a vigorous “Vivat!” into the coach, which made him take off his hat to her, and thank her quite graciously for her bold salutation.

Every thing in her house was stirring, lively, and cheerful; and we children owed her many a gay hour.

In a more quiet situation, which was, however, suited to her character, was a second aunt, married to the Pastor Stark, incumbent of St. Catharine’s Church. He lived much alone, in accordance with his temperament and vocation, and possessed a fine library. Here I first became acquainted with Homer, in a prose translation, which may be found in the seventh part of Herr Von Loen’s new collection of the most remarkable travels, under the title, “Homer’s Description of the Conquest of the Kingdom of Troy,” ornamented with copperplates in the theatrical French taste. These pictures perverted my imagination to such a degree, that, for a long time, I could conceive the Homeric heroes only under such forms. The incidents themselves gave me unspeakable delight; though I found great fault with the work for affording us no account of the capture of Troy, and breaking off so abruptly with the death of Hector. My uncle, to whom I mentioned this defect, referred me to Virgil, who perfectly satisfied my demands.

It will be taken for granted, that we children had among our other lessons a continued and progressive instruction in religion. But the Church-Protestantism imparted to us was, properly speaking, nothing but a kind of dry morality: ingenious exposition was not thought of, and the doctrine appealed neither to the understanding nor to the heart. For that reason, there were various secessions from the Established Church. Separatists, Pietists, Herrnhuter (Moravians), Quiet-in-the-Land, and others differently named and characterized, sprang up, all of whom are animated by the same purpose of approaching the Deity, especially through Christ, more closely than seemed to them possible under the forms of the established religion.

The boy heard these opinions and sentiments constantly spoken of, for the clergy as well as the laity divided themselves into /pro/ and /con/. The minority were composed of those who dissented more or less broadly; but their modes of thinking attracted by originality, heartiness, perseverance, and independence. All sorts of stories were told of their virtues, and of the way in which they were manifested. The reply of a pious master-tinman was especially noted, who, when one of his craft attempted to shame him by asking, “Who is really your confessor?” answered with great cheerfulness, and confidence in the goodness of his cause, “I have a famous one, — no less than the confessor of King David.”

Things of this sort naturally made an impression on the boy, and led him into similar states of mind. In fact, he came to the thought that he might immediately approach the great God of nature, the Creator and Preserver of heaven and earth, whose earlier manifestations of wrath had been long forgotten in the beauty of the world, and the manifold blessings in which we participate while upon it. The way he took to accomplish this was very curious.

The boy had chiefly kept to the first article of belief. The God who stands in immediate connection with nature, and owns and loves it as his work, seemed to him the proper God, who might be brought into closer relationship with man, as with every thing else, and who would take care of him, as of the motion of the stars, the days and seasons, the animals and plants. There were texts of the Gospels which explicitly stated this. The boy could ascribe no form to this Being: he therefore sought him in his works, and would, in the good Old-Testament fashion, build him an altar. Natural productions were set forth as images of the world, over which a flame was to burn, signifying the aspirations of man’s heart towards his Maker. He brought out of the collection of natural objects which he possessed, and which had been increased as chance directed, the best ores and other specimens. But the next difficulty was, as to how they should be arranged and raised into a pile. His father possessed a beautiful red-lacquered music-stand, ornamented with gilt flowers, in the form of a four-sided pyramid, with different elevations, which had been found convenient for quartets, but lately was not much in use. The boy laid hands on this, and built up his representatives of nature one above the other in steps; so that it all looked quite pretty and at the same time sufficiently significant. On an early sunrise his first worship of God was to be celebrated, but the young priest had not yet settled how to produce a flame which should at the same time emit an agreeable odor. At last it occurred to him to combine the two, as he possessed a few fumigating pastils, which diffused a pleasant fragrance with a glimmer, if not with a flame. Nay, this soft burning and exhalation seemed a better representation of what passes in the heart, than an open flame. The sun had already risen for a long time, but the neighboring houses concealed the east. At last it glittered above the roofs: a burning-glass was at once taken up and applied to the pastils, which were fixed on the summit in a fine porcelain saucer. Every thing succeeded according to the wish, and the devotion was perfect. The altar remained as a peculiar ornament of the room which had been assigned him in the new house. Every one regarded it only as a well-arranged collection of natural curiosities. The boy knew better, but concealed his knowledge. He longed for a repetition of the solemnity. But unfortunately, just as the most opportune sun arose, the porcelain cup was not at hand: he placed the pastils immediately on the upper surface of the stand; they were kindled; and so great was the devotion of the priest, that he did not observe, until it was too late, the mischief his sacrifice was doing. The pastils had burned mercilessly into the red lacquer and beautiful gold flowers, and, as if some evil spirit had disappeared, had left their black, ineffaceable footprints. By this the young priest was thrown into the most extreme perplexity. The mischief could be covered up, it was true, with the larger pieces of his show materials; but the spirit for new offerings was gone, and the accident might almost be considered a hint and warning of the danger there always is in wishing to approach the Deity in such a way.

SECOND BOOK.

All that has been hitherto recorded indicates that happy and easy condition in which nations exist during a long peace. But nowhere probably is such a beautiful time enjoyed in greater comfort than in cities living under their own laws, and large enough to include a considerable number of citizens, and so situated as to enrich them by trade and commerce. Strangers find it to their advantage to come and go, and are under a necessity of bringing profit in order to acquire profit. Even if such cities rule but a small territory, they are the better qualified to advance their internal prosperity; as their external relations expose them to no costly undertakings or alliances.

Thus the Frankforters passed a series of prosperous years during my childhood; but scarcely, on the 28th of August, 1756, had I completed my seventh year, than that world-renowned war broke out which was also to exert great influence upon the next seven years of my life. Frederick the Second, King of Prussia, had fallen upon Saxony with sixty thousand men; and, instead of announcing his invasion by a declaration of war, he followed it up with a manifesto, composed by himself as it was said, which explained the causes that had moved and justified him in so monstrous a step. The world, which saw itself appealed to, not merely as spectator, but as judge, immediately split into two parties; and our family was an image of the great whole.

My grandfather, who, as /Schöff/ of Frankfort, had carried the coronation canopy over Francis the First, and had received from the empress a heavy gold chain with her likeness, took the Austrian side along with some of his sons-in-law and daughters. My father having been nominated to the imperial council by Charles the Seventh, and sympathizing sincerely in the fate of that unhappy monarch, leaned towards Prussia, with the other and smaller half of the family. Our meetings, which had been held on Sundays for many years uninterruptedly, were very soon disturbed. The misunderstandings so common among persons related by marriage, found only now a form in which they could be expressed. Contention, discord, silence, and separation ensued. My grandfather, generally a cheerful, quiet man, and fond of ease, became impatient. The women vainly endeavored to smother the flames; and, after some unpleasant scenes, my father was the first to quit the society. At home we now rejoiced undisturbed at the Prussian victories, which were commonly announced with great glee by our vivacious aunt. Every other interest had to give way to this, and we passed the rest of the year in perpetual agitation. The occupation of Dresden, the moderation of the king at the outset, his slow but secure advances, the victory at Lowositz, the capture of the Saxons, were so many triumphs for our party. Every thing that could be alleged for the advantage of our opponents was denied or depreciated; and, as the members of the family on the other side did the same, they could not meet in the streets without disputes arising, as in “Romeo and Juliet.”

Thus I also was then a Prussian in my views, or, to speak more correctly, a Fritzian; since what cared we for Prussia? It was the personal character of the great king that worked upon all hearts. I rejoiced with my father in our conquests, readily copied the songs of triumph, and almost more willingly the lampoons directed against the other party, poor as the rhymes might be.

Being their eldest grandson and godchild, I had dined every Sunday since my infancy with my grandfather and grandmother; and the hours so spent had been the most delightful of the whole week. But now I relished not a morsel, because I was compelled to hear the most horrible slanders of my hero. Here blew another wind, here sounded another tone, than at home. My liking and even my respect for my grandfather and grandmother fell off. I could mention nothing of this to my parents, but avoided the matter, both on account of my own feelings, and because I had been warned by my mother. In this way I was thrown back upon myself; and as in my sixth year, after the earthquake at Lisbon, the goodness of God had become to me in some measure suspicious: so I began now, on account of Frederick the Second, to doubt the justice of the public. My heart was naturally inclined to reverence, and it required a great shock to stagger my faith in any thing that was venerable. But alas! they had commended good manners and a becoming deportment to us, not for their own sake, but for the sake of the people. What will people say? was always the cry; and I thought that the people must be right good people, and would know how to judge of any thing and every thing. But my experience went just to the contrary. The greatest and most signal services were defamed and attacked; the noblest deeds, if not denied, were at least misrepresented and diminished; and this base injustice was done to the only man who was manifestly elevated above all his contemporaries, and who daily proved what he was able to do, — and that, not by the populace, but by distinguished men, as I took my grandfather and uncles to be. That parties existed, and that he himself belonged to a party, had never entered into the conceptions of the boy. He, therefore, believed himself all the more right, and dared hold his own opinion for the better one; since he and those of like mind appreciated the beauty and other good qualities of Maria Theresa, and even did not grudge the Emperor Francis his love of jewellery and money. That Count Daun was often called an old dozer, they thought justifiable.

But, now that I look more closely into the matter, I here trace the germ of that disregard and even disdain of the public, which clung to me for a whole period of my life, and only in later days was brought within bounds by insight and cultivation. Suffice it to say, that the perception of the injustice of parties had even then a very unpleasant, nay, an injurious, effect upon the boy; as it accustomed him to separate himself from beloved and highly valued persons. The quick succession of battles and events left the parties neither quiet nor rest. We ever found a malicious delight in reviving and resharpening those imaginary evils and capricious disputes; and thus we continued to tease each other, until the occupation of Frankfort by the French some years afterwards brought real inconvenience into our homes.

Although to most of us the important events occurring in distant parts served only for topics of hot controversy, there were others who perceived the seriousness of the times, and feared that the sympathy of France might open a scene of war in our own vicinity. They kept us children at home more than before, and strove in many ways to occupy and amuse us. With this view, the puppet-show bequeathed by our grandmother was again brought forth, and arranged in such a way that the spectators sat in my gable-room; while the persons managing and performing, as well as the theatre itself as far as the proscenium, found a place in the room adjoining. We were allowed, as a special favor, to invite first one and then another of the neighbor’s children as spectators; and thus at the outset I gained many friends, but the restlessness inherent in children did not suffer them to remain long a patient audience. They interrupted the play; and we were compelled to seek a younger public, which could at any rate be kept in order by the nurses and maids. The original drama, to which the puppets had been specially adapted, we had learned by heart; and in the beginning this was exclusively performed. Soon growing weary of it, however, we changed the dresses and decorations, and attempted various other pieces, which were indeed on too grand a scale for so narrow a stage. Although this presumption spoiled and finally quite destroyed what we performed, such childish pleasures and employments nevertheless exercised and advanced in many ways my power of invention and representation, my fancy, and a certain technical skill, to a degree which in any other way could not perhaps have been secured in so short a time, in so confined a space, and at so little expense.

I had early learned to use compasses and ruler, because all the instructions they gave me in geometry were forthwith put into practice; and I occupied myself greatly with paste-board-work. I did not stop at geometrical figures, little boxes, and such things, but invented pretty pleasure-houses adorned with pilasters, steps, and flat roofs. However, but little of this was completed.

Far more persevering was I, on the other hand, in arranging, with the help of our domestic (a tailor by trade), an armory for the service of our plays and tragedies, which we ourselves performed with delight when we had outgrown the puppets. My playfellows, too, prepared for themselves such armories, which they considered to be quite as fine and good as mine; but I had made provision, not for the wants of one person only, and could furnish several of the little band with every requisite, and thus made myself more and more indispensable to our little circle. That such games tended to factions, quarrels, and blows, and commonly came to a sad end in tumult and vexation, may easily be supposed. In such cases certain of my companions generally took part with me, while others sided against me; though many changes of party occurred. One single boy, whom I will call Pylades, urged by the others, once only left my party, but could scarcely for a moment maintain his hostile position. We were reconciled amid many tears, and for a long time afterwards kept faithfully together.

To him, as well as other well-wishers, I could render myself very agreeable by telling tales, which they most delighted to hear when I was the hero of my own story. It greatly rejoiced them to know that such wonderful things could befall one of their own playfellows; nor was it any harm that they did not understand how I could find time and space for such adventures, as they must have been pretty well aware of all my comings and goings, and how I was occupied the entire day. Not the less necessary was it for me to select the localities of these occurrences, if not in another world, at least in another spot; and yet all was told as having taken place only to-day or yesterday. They therefore had to form for themselves greater illusions than I could have palmed off upon them. If I had not gradually learned, in accordance with the instincts of my nature, to work up these visions and conceits into artistic forms, such vain-glorious beginnings could not have gone on without producing evil consequences for myself in the end.

Considering this impulse more closely, we may see in it that presumption with which the poet authoritatively utters the greatest improbabilities, and requires every one to recognize as real whatever may in any way seem to him, the inventor, as true.

But what is here told only in general terms, and by way of reflection, will perhaps become more apparent and interesting by means of an example. I subjoin, therefore, one of these tales, which, as I often had to repeat it to my comrades, still hovers entire in my imagination and memory.

THE NEW PARIS.

A BOY’S LEGEND.

On the night before Whitsunday, not long since, I dreamed that I stood before a mirror engaged with the new summer clothes which my dear parents had given me for the holiday. The dress consisted, as you know, of shoes of polished leather, with large silver buckles, fine cotton stockings, black nether garments of serge, and a coat of green baracan with gold buttons. The waistcoat of gold cloth was cut out of my father’s bridal waistcoat. My hair had been frizzled and powdered, and my curls stuck out from my head like little wings; but I could not finish dressing myself, because I kept confusing the different articles, the first always falling off as soon as I was about to put on the next. In this dilemma, a young and handsome man came to me, and greeted me in the friendliest manner. “Oh! you are welcome,” said I: “I am very glad to see you here.” — ”Do you know me, then?” replied he, smiling. “Why not?” was my no less smiling answer. “You are Mercury — I have often enough seen you represented in pictures.” — ”I am, indeed,” replied he, “and am sent to you by the gods on an important errand. Do you see these three apples?” He stretched forth his hand and showed me three apples, which it could hardly hold, and which were as wonderfully beautiful as they were large, the one of a red, the other of a yellow, the third of a green, color. One could not help thinking they were precious stones made into the form of fruit. I would have snatched them; but he drew back, and said, “You must know, in the first place, that they are not for you. You must give them to the three handsomest youths of the city, who then, each according to his lot, will find wives to the utmost of their wishes. Take them, and success to you!” said he, as he departed, leaving the apples in my open hands. They appeared to me to have become still larger. I held them up at once against the light, and found them quite transparent; but soon they expanded upward, and became three beautiful little ladies about as large as middle-sized dolls, whose clothes were of the colors of the apples. They glided gently up my fingers: and when I was about to catch them, to make sure of one at least, they had already soared high and far; and I had to put up with the disappointment. I stood there all amazed and petrified, holding up my hands, and staring at my fingers as if there were still something on them to see. Suddenly I saw a most lovely girl dance upon the very tips. She was smaller, but pretty and lively; and as she did not fly away like the others, but remained dancing, now on one finger-point, now on another, I regarded her for a long while with admiration. And, as she pleased me so much, I thought in the end I could catch her, and made, as I fancied, a very adroit grasp. But at the moment I felt such a blow on my head that I fell down stunned, and did not awake from my stupor till it was time to dress myself and go to church.

During the service I often called those images to mind, and also when I was eating dinner at my grandfather’s table. In the afternoon I wished to visit some friends, partly to show myself in my new dress, with my hat under my arm and my sword by my side, and partly to return their visits. I found no one at home; and, as I heard that they were gone to the gardens, I resolved to follow them, and pass the evening pleasantly. My way led towards the intrenchments; and I came to the spot which is rightly called the Bad Wall, for it is never quite safe from ghosts there. I walked slowly, and thought of my three goddesses, but especially of the little nymph, and often held up my fingers in hopes she might be kind enough to balance herself there again. With such thoughts I was proceeding, when I saw in the wall on my left hand a little gate which I did not remember to have ever noticed before. It looked low, but its pointed arch would have allowed the tallest man to enter. Arch and wall had been chiselled in the handsomest way, both by mason and sculptor; but it was the door itself which first properly attracted my attention. The old brown wood, though slightly ornamented, was crossed with broad bands of brass wrought both in relief and intaglio. The foliage on these, with the most natural birds sitting in it, I could not sufficiently admire. But, what seemed most remarkable, no keyhole could be seen, no latch, no knocker; and from this I conjectured that the door could be opened only from within. I was not in error; for, when I went nearer in order to touch the ornaments, it opened inwards; and there appeared a man whose dress was somewhat long, wide, and singular. A venerable beard enveloped his chin, so that I was inclined to think him a Jew. But he, as if he had divined my thoughts, made the sign of the holy cross, by which he gave me to understand that he was a good Catholic Christian. “Young gentleman, how came you here, and what are you doing?” he said to me, with a friendly voice and manner.” I am admiring,” I replied,” the workmanship of this door; for I have never seen any thing like it, except in some small pieces in the collections of amateurs.” — ”I am glad,” he answered, “that you like such works. The door is much more beautiful inside. Come in, if you like.” My heart, in some degree, failed me. The mysterious dress of the porter, the seclusion, and a something, I know not what, that seemed to be in the air, oppressed me. I paused, therefore, under the pretext of examining the outside still longer; and at the same time I cast stolen glances into the garden, for a garden it was which had opened before me. Just inside the door I saw a space. Old linden-trees, standing at regular distances from each other, entirely covered it with their thickly interwoven branches; so that the most numerous parties, during the hottest of the day, might have refreshed themselves in the shade. Already I had stepped upon the threshold, and the old man contrived gradually to allure me on. Properly speaking, I did not resist; for I had always heard that a prince or sultan in such a case must never ask whether there be danger at hand. I had my sword by my side too; and could I not soon have finished with the old man, in case of hostile demonstrations? I therefore entered perfectly re-assured: the keeper closed the door, which bolted so softly that I scarcely heard it. He now showed me the workmanship on the inside, which in truth was still more artistic than the outside, explained it to me, and at the same time manifested particular good will. Being thus entirely at my ease, I let myself be guided in the shaded space by the wall, that formed a circle, where I found much to admire. Niches tastefully adorned with shells, corals, and pieces of ore, poured a profusion of water from the mouths of tritons into marble basins. Between them were aviaries and other lattice-work, in which squirrels frisked about, guinea-pigs ran hither and thither, with as many other pretty little creatures as one could wish to see. The birds called and sang to us as we advanced: the starlings, particularly, chattered the silliest stuff. One always cried, “Paris, Paris!” and the other, “Narcissus, Narcissus!” as plainly as a schoolboy can say them. The old man seemed to continue looking at me earnestly while the birds called out thus; but I feigned not to notice it, and had in truth no time to attend to him, for I could easily perceive that we went round and round, and that this shaded space was in fact a great circle, which enclosed another much more important. Indeed, we had actually reached the small door again, and it seemed as though the old man would let me out. But my eyes remained directed towards a golden railing, which seemed to hedge round the middle of this wonderful garden, and which I had found means enough of observing in our walk; although the old man managed to keep me always close to the wall, and therefore pretty far from the centre. And now, just as he was going to the door, I said to him, with a bow, “You have been so extremely kind to me that I would fain venture to make one more request before I part from you. Might I not look more closely at that golden railing, which appears to enclose in a very wide circle the interior of the garden?” — ”Very willingly,” replied he, “but in that case you must submit to some conditions.” — ”In what do they consist?” I asked hastily. “You must leave here your hat and sword, and must not let go my hand while I accompany you.” — ”Most willingly,” I replied; and laid my hat and sword on the nearest stone bench. Immediately he grasped my left hand with his right, held it fast, and led me with some force straight forwards. When we reached the railing, my wonder changed into amazement. On a high socle of marble stood innumerable spears and partisans, ranged beneath each other, joined by their strangely ornamented points, and forming a complete circle. I looked through the intervals, and saw just behind a gently flowing piece of water, bounded on both sides by marble, and displaying in its clear depths a multitude of gold and silver fish, which moved about now slowly and now swiftly, now alone and now in shoals. I would also fain have looked beyond the canal, to see what there was in the heart of the garden. But I found, to my great sorrow, that the other side of the water was bordered by a similar railing, and with so much art, that to each interval on this side exactly fitted a spear or partisan on the other. These, and the other ornaments, rendered it impossible for one to see through, stand as he would. Besides, the old man, who still held me fast, prevented me from moving freely. My curiosity, meanwhile, after all I had seen, increased more and more; and I took heart to ask the old man whether one could not pass over. “Why not?” returned he, “but on new conditions.” When I asked him what these were, he gave me to understand that I must put on other clothes. I was satisfied to do so: he led me back towards the wall into a small, neat room, on the sides of which hung many kinds of garments, all of which seemed to approach the Oriental costume. I soon changed my dress. He confined my powdered hair under a many-colored net, after having to my horror violently dusted it out. Now, standing before a great mirror, I found myself quite handsome in my disguise, and pleased myself better than in my formal Sunday clothes. I made gestures, and leaped, as I had seen the dancers do at the fair-theatre. In the midst of this I looked in the glass, and saw by chance the image of a niche which was behind me. On its white ground hung three green cords, each of them twisted up in a way which from the distance I could not clearly discern. I therefore turned round rather hastily, and asked the old man about the niche as well as the cords. He very courteously took a cord down, and showed it to me. It was a band of green silk of moderate thickness, the ends of which, joined by green leather with two holes in it, gave it the appearance of an instrument for no very desirable purpose. The thing struck me as suspicious, and I asked the old man the meaning. He answered me very quietly and kindly, “This is for those who abuse the confidence which is here readily shown them.” He hung the cord again in its place, and immediately desired me to follow him; for this time he did not hold me, and so I walked freely beside him.

My chief curiosity now was, to discover where the gate and bridge, for passing through the railing and over the canal, might be; since as yet I had not been able to find any thing of the kind. I therefore watched the golden fence very narrowly as we hastened towards it. But in a moment my sight failed: lances, spears, halberds, and partisans began unexpectedly to rattle and quiver; and the strange movement ended in all the points sinking towards each other just as if two ancient hosts, armed with pikes, were about to charge. The confusion to the eyes, the clatter to the ears, was hardly to be borne; but infinitely surprising was the sight, when, falling perfectly level, they covered the circle of the canal, and formed the most glorious bridge that one can imagine. For now a most variegated garden parterre met my sight. It was laid out in curvilinear beds, which, looked at together, formed a labyrinth of ornaments; all with green borders of a low, woolly plant, which I had never seen before; all with flowers, each division of different colors, which, being likewise low and close to the ground, allowed the plan to be easily traced. This delicious sight, which I enjoyed in the full sunshine, quite riveted my eyes. But I hardly knew where I was to set my foot; for the serpentine paths were most delicately laid with blue sand, which seemed to form upon the earth a darker sky, or a sky seen in the water: and so I walked for a while beside my conductor, with my eyes fixed upon the ground, until at last I perceived, that, in the middle of this round of beds and flowers, there was a great circle of cypresses or poplar-like trees, through which one could not see, because the lowest branches seemed to spring out of the ground. My guide, without taking me exactly the shortest way, led me nevertheless immediately towards that centre; and how was I astonished, when, on entering the circle of high trees, I saw before me the peristyle of a magnificent garden-house, which seemed to have similar prospects and entrances on the other sides! The heavenly music which streamed from the building transported me still more than this model of architecture. I fancied that I heard now a lute, now a harp, now a guitar, and now something tinkling which did not belong to any of these instruments. The door for which we made opened soon on being lightly touched by the old man. But how was I amazed when the porteress who came out perfectly resembled the delicate girl who had danced upon my fingers in the dream! She greeted me as if we were already acquainted, and invited me to walk in. The old man staid behind; and I went with her through a short passage, arched and finely ornamented, to the middle hall, the splendid, dome-like ceiling of which attracted my gaze on my entrance, and filled me with astonishment. Yet my eye could not dwell on this long, being allured down by a more charming spectacle. On a carpet, directly under the middle of the cupola, sat three women in a triangle, clad in three different colors, — one red, the other yellow, the third green. The seats were gilt, and the carpet was a perfect flower-bed. In their arms lay the three instruments which I had been able to distinguish from without; for, being disturbed by my arrival, they had stopped their playing. “Welcome!” said the middle one, who sat with her face to the door, in a red dress, and with the harp. “Sit down by Alerte, and listen, if you are a lover of music.”

Now only I remarked that there was a rather long bench placed obliquely before them, on which lay a mandolin. The pretty girl took it up, sat down, and drew me to her side. Now also I looked at the second lady on my right. She wore the yellow dress, and had the guitar in her hand; and if the harp-player was dignified in form, grand in features, and majestic in her deportment, one might remark in the guitar-player an easy grace and cheerfulness. She was a slender blonde, while the other was adorned by dark-brown hair. The variety and accordance of their music could not prevent me from remarking the third beauty, in the green dress, whose lute-playing was for me at once touching and striking. She was the one who seemed to notice me the most, and to direct her music to me: only I could not make up my mind about her; for she appeared to me now tender, now whimsical, now frank, now self-willed, according as she changed her mien and mode of playing. Sometimes she seemed to wish to excite my emotions, sometimes to tease me; but, do what she would, she got little out of me; for my little neighbor, by whom I sat elbow to elbow, had gained me entirely to herself: and while I clearly saw in those three ladies the sylphides of my dream, and recognized the colors of the apples, I conceived that I had no cause to detain them. I should have liked better to lay hold of the pretty little maiden if I had not but too well remembered the blow she had given me in my dream. Hitherto she had remained quite quiet with her mandolin; but, when her mistresses had ceased, they commanded her to perform some pleasant little piece. Scarcely had she jingled off some dance-tune, in a most exciting manner, than she sprang up: I did the same. She played and danced; I was hurried on to accompany her steps; and we executed a kind of little ballet, with which the ladies seemed satisfied; for, as soon as we had done, they commanded the little girl to refresh me with something nice till supper should come in. I had indeed forgotten that there was any thing in the world beyond this paradise. Alerte led me back immediately into the passage by which I had entered. On one side of it she had two well- arranged rooms. In that in which she lived she set before me oranges, figs, peaches, and grapes; and I enjoyed with great gusto both the fruits of foreign lands and those of our own not yet in season. Confectionery there was in profusion: she filled, too, a goblet of polished crystal with foaming wine; but I had no need to drink, as I had refreshed myself with the fruits. “Now we will play,” said she, and led me into the other room. Here all looked like a Christmas fair, but such costly and exquisite things were never seen in a Christmas booth. There were all kinds of dolls, dolls’ clothes, and dolls’ furniture; kitchens, parlors, and shops, and single toys innumerable. She led me round to all the glass cases in which these ingenious works were preserved.

But she soon closed again the first cases, and said, “That is nothing for you, I know well enough. Here,” she said, “we could find building- materials, walls and towers, houses, palaces, churches, to put together a great city. But this does not entertain me. We will take something else, which will be amusing to both of us.” Then she brought out some boxes, in which I saw an army of little soldiers piled one upon the other, of which I must needs confess that I had never seen any thing so beautiful. She did not leave me time to examine them in detail, but took one box under her arm, while I seized the other. “We will go,” she said, “to the golden bridge. There one plays best with soldiers: the lances give at once the direction in which the armies are to be opposed to each other.” We had now reached the golden, trembling floor; and below me I could hear the waters gurgle and the fishes splash, while I knelt down to range my columns. All, as I now saw, were cavalry. She boasted that she had the queen of the Amazons as leader of her female host. I, on the contrary, found Achilles and a very stately Grecian cavalry. The armies stood facing each other, and nothing could have been seen more beautiful. They were not flat, leaden horsemen like ours; but man and horse were round and solid, and most finely wrought: nor could one conceive how they kept their balance; for they stood of themselves, without a support for their feet.

Both of us had inspected our hosts with much self-complacency, when she announced the onset. We had found ordnance in our chests; viz., little boxes full of well-polished agate balls. With these we were to fight against each other from a certain distance; while, however, it was an express condition that we should not throw with more force than was necessary to upset the figures, as none of them were to be injured. Now the cannonade began on both sides, and at first it succeeded to the satisfaction of us both. But when my adversary observed that I aimed better than she, and might in the end win the victory, which depended on the majority of pieces remaining upright, she came nearer, and her girlish way of throwing had then the desired result. She prostrated a multitude of my best troops, and the more I protested the more eagerly did she throw. This at last vexed me, and I declared that I would do the same. In fact, I not only went nearer, but in my rage threw with much more violence; so that it was not long before a pair of her little centauresses flew in pieces. In her eagerness she did not instantly notice it, but I stood petrified when the broken figures joined together again of themselves: Amazon and horse became again one, and also perfectly close, set up a gallop from the golden bridge under the lime- trees, and, running swiftly backwards and forwards, were lost in their career, I know not how, in the direction of the wall. My fair opponent had hardly perceived this, when she broke out into loud weeping and lamentation, and exclaimed that I had caused her an irreparable loss, which was far greater than could be expressed. But I, by this time provoked, was glad to annoy her, and blindly flung a couple of the remaining agate balls with force into the midst of her army. Unhappily I hit the queen, who had hitherto, during our regular game, been excepted. She flew in pieces, and her nearest officers were also shivered. But they swiftly set themselves up again, and started off like the others, galloping very merrily about under the lime-trees, and disappearing against the wall. My opponent scolded and abused me; but, being now in full play, I stooped to pick up some agate balls which rolled about upon the golden lances. It was my fierce desire to destroy her whole army. She, on the other hand, not idle, sprang at me, and gave me a box on the ear, which made my head ring. Having always heard that a hearty kiss was the proper response to a girl’s box of the ear, I took her by the ears, and kissed her repeatedly. But she uttered such a piercing scream as frightened even me. I let her go; and it was fortunate that I did so, for in a moment I knew not what was happening to me. The ground beneath me began to shake and rattle. I soon remarked that the railings again set themselves in motion; but I had no time to consider, nor could I get a footing so as to fly. I feared every instant to be pierced; for the partisans and lances, which had lifted themselves up, were already slitting my clothes. It is sufficient to say, that, I know not how it was, hearing and sight failed me; and I recovered from my swoon and terror at the foot of a lime-tree, against which the pikes in springing up had thrown me. As I awoke, my anger awakened also, and violently increased when I heard from the other side the gibes and laughter of my opponent, who had probably reached the earth somewhat more softly than I. Therefore I jumped up; and as I saw the little host with its leader Achilles scattered around me, having been driven over with me by the rising of the rails, I seized the hero first, and threw him against a tree. His resuscitation and flight now pleased me doubly, a malicious pleasure combining with the prettiest sight in the world; and I was on the point of sending all the other Greeks after him, when suddenly hissing waters spurted at me on all sides, from stones and wall, from ground and branches, and, wherever I turned, dashed against me crossways.

In a short time my light garment was wet through. It was already rent, and I did not hesitate to tear it entirely off my body. I cast away my slippers, and one covering after another. Nay, at last I found it very agreeable to let such a shower-bath play over me in the warm day. Now, being quite naked, I walked gravely along between these welcome waters, where I thought to enjoy myself for some time. My anger cooled, and I wished for nothing more than a reconciliation with my little adversary. But, in a twinkling, the water stopped; and I stood drenched upon the saturated ground. The presence of the old man, who appeared before me unexpectedly, was by no means welcome. I could have wished, if not to hide, at least to clothe, myself. The shame, the shivering, the effort to cover myself in some degree, made me cut a most piteous figure. The old man employed the moment in venting the severest reproaches against me. “What hinders me,” he exclaimed, “from taking one of the green cords, and fitting it, if not to your neck, to your back?” This threat I took in very ill part. “Refrain,” I cried, “from such words, even from such thoughts; for otherwise you and your mistresses will be lost.” — ” Who, then, are you,” he asked in defiance, “who dare speak thus?” — ”A favorite of the gods,” I said, “on whom it depends whether those ladies shall find worthy husbands and pass a happy life, or be left to pine and wither in their magic cell.” The old man stepped some paces back. “Who has revealed that to you?” he inquired, with astonishment and concern. “Three apples,” I said, “three jewels.” — ”And what reward do you require?” he exclaimed. “Before all things, the little creature,” I replied, “who has brought me into this accursed state.” The old man cast himself down before me, without shrinking from the wet and miry soil: then he rose without being wetted, took me kindly by the hand, led me into the hall, clad me again quickly; and I was soon once more decked out and frizzled in my Sunday fashion as before. The porter did not speak another word; but, before he let me pass the entrance, he stopped me, and showed me some objects on the wall over the way, while, at the same time, he pointed backwards to the door. I understood him: he wished to imprint the objects on my mind, that I might the more certainly find the door, which had unexpectedly closed behind me. I now took good notice of what was opposite me. Above a high wall rose the boughs of extremely old nut-trees, and partly covered the cornice at the top. The branches reached down to a stone tablet, the ornamented border of which I could perfectly recognize, though I could not read the inscription. It rested on the top-stone of a niche, in which a finely wrought fountain poured water from cup to cup into a great basin, that formed, as it were, a little pond, and disappeared in the earth. Fountain, inscription, nut-trees, all stood perpendicularly, one above another: I would paint it as I saw it.

Now, it may well be conceived how I passed this evening, and many following days, and how often I repeated to myself this story, which even I could hardly believe. As soon as it was in any degree possible, I went again to the Bad Wall, at least to refresh my remembrance of these signs, and to look at the precious door. But, to my great amazement, I found all changed. Nut-trees, indeed, overtopped the wall; but they did not stand immediately in contact. A tablet also was inserted in the wall, but far to the right of the trees, without ornament, and with a legible inscription. A niche with a fountain was found far to the left, but with no resemblance whatever to that which I had seen; so that I almost believed that the second adventure was, like the first, a dream, for of the door there is not the slightest trace. The only thing that consoles me is the observation, that these three objects seem always to change their places. For, in repeated visits to the spot, I think I have noticed that the nut-trees have moved somewhat nearer together, and that the tablet and the fountain seem likewise to approach each other. Probably, when all is brought together again, the door, too, will once more be visible; and I will do my best to take up the thread of the adventure. Whether I shall be able to tell you what further happens, or whether I shall be expressly forbidden to do so, I cannot say.

This tale, of the truth of which my playfellows vehemently strove to convince themselves, received great applause. Each of them visited alone the place described, without confiding it to me or the others, and discovered the nut-trees, the tablet, and the spring, though always at a distance from each other; as they at last confessed to me afterwards, because it is not easy to conceal a secret at that early age. But here the contest first arose. One asserted that the objects did not stir from the spot, and always maintained the same distance; a second averred that they did move, and that, too, away from each other; a third agreed with the latter as to the first point of their moving, though it seemed to him that the nut-trees, tablet, and fountain rather drew near together; while a fourth had something still more wonderful to announce, which was, that the nut-trees were in the middle, but that the tablet and the fountain were on sides opposite to those which I had stated. With respect to the traces of the little door, they also varied. And thus they furnished me an early instance of the contradictory views men can hold and maintain in regard to matters quite simple and easily cleared up. As I obstinately refused the continuation of my tale, a repetition of the first part was often desired. I took good care not to change the circumstances much; and, by the uniformity of the narrative, I converted the fable into truth in the minds of my hearers.

Yet I was averse to falsehood and dissimulation, and altogether by no means frivolous. Rather, on the contrary, the inward earnestness, with which I had early begun to consider myself and the world, was seen, even in my exterior; and I was frequently called to account, often in a friendly way, and often in raillery, for a certain dignity which I had assumed. For, although good and chosen friends were certainly not wanting to me, we were always a minority against those who found pleasure in assailing us with wanton rudeness, and who indeed often awoke us in no gentle fashion from that legendary and self-complacent dreaming in which we — I by inventing, and my companions by sympathizing- -were too readily absorbed. Thus we learned once more, that, instead of sinking into effeminacy and fantastic delights, there was reason rather for hardening ourselves, in order either to bear or to counteract inevitable evils.

Among the stoical exercises which I cultivated, as earnestly as it was possible for a lad, was even the endurance of bodily pain. Our teachers often treated us very unkindly and unskilfully, with blows and cuffs, against which we hardened ourselves all the more as obstinacy was forbidden under the severest penalties. A great many of the sports of youth depend on a rivalry in such endurances: as, for instance, when they strike each other alternately with two fingers or the whole fist, till the limbs are numbed; or when they bear the penalty of blows incurred in certain games, with more or less firmness; when, in wrestling or scuffling, they do not let themselves be perplexed by the pinches of a half-conquered opponent; or, finally, when they suppress the pain inflicted for the sake of teasing, and even treat with indifference the nips and ticklings with which young persons are so active toward each other. Thus we gain a great advantage, of which others cannot speedily deprive us.

But, as I made a sort of boast of this impassiveness, the importunity of the others was increased; and, since rude barbarity knows no limits, it managed to force me beyond my bounds. Let one case suffice for several. It happened once that the teacher did not come for the usual hour of instruction. As long as we children were all together, we entertained ourselves quite agreeably; but when my adherents, after waiting long enough, had left, and I remained alone with three of my enemies, these took it into their heads to torment me, to shame me, and to drive me away. Having left me an instant in the room, they came back with switches, which they had made by quickly cutting up a broom. I noted their design; and, as I supposed the end of the hour near, I at once resolved not to resist them till the clock struck. They began, therefore, without remorse, to lash my legs and calves in the cruellest fashion. I did not stir, but soon felt that I had miscalculated, and that such pain greatly lengthened the minutes. My wrath grew with my endurance; and, at the first stroke of the hour, I grasped the one who least expected it by the hair behind, hurled him to the earth in an instant, pressing my knee upon his back; the second, a younger and weaker one, who attacked me from behind, I drew by the head under my arm, and almost throttled him with the pressure. The last, and not the weakest, still remained; and my left hand only was left for my defense. But I seized him by the clothes; and, with a dexterous twist on my part and an over-precipitate one on his, I brought him down and struck his face on the ground. They were not wanting in bites, pinches, and kicks; but I had nothing but revenge in my limbs as well as in my heart. With the advantage which I had acquired, I repeatedly knocked their heads together. At last they raised a dreadful shout of murder, and we were soon surrounded by all the inmates of the house. The switches scattered around, and my legs, which I had bared of the stockings, soon bore witness for me. They put off the punishment, and let me leave the house; but I declared, that in future, on the slightest offence, I would scratch out the eyes, tear off the ears, of any one of them, if not throttle him.

Though, as usually happens in childish affairs, this event was soon forgotten, and even laughed at, it was the cause that these joint instructions became fewer, and at last entirely ceased. I was thus again, as formerly, kept more at home; where I found my sister Cornelia, who was only one year younger than myself, a companion always growing more agreeable.

Still, I will not leave this topic without telling some more stories of the many vexations caused me by my playfellows; for this is the instructive part of such moral communications, that a man may learn how it has gone with others, and what he also has to expect from life; and that, whatever comes to pass, he may consider that it happens to him as a man, and not as one specially fortunate or unfortunate. If such knowledge is of little use for avoiding evils, it is very serviceable so far as it qualifies us to understand our condition, and bear or even to overcome it.

Another general remark will not be out of place here, which is, that, as the children of the cultivated classes grow up, a great contradiction appears. I refer to the fact, that they are urged and trained by parents and teachers to deport themselves moderately, intelligently, and even wisely; to give pain to no one from petulance or arrogance; and to suppress all the evil impulses which may be developed in them; but yet, on the other hand, while the young creatures are engaged in this discipline, they have to suffer from others that which in them is reprimanded and punished. In this way the poor things are brought into a sad strait between the natural and civilized states, and, after restraining themselves for a while, break out, according to their characters, into cunning or violence.

Force may be warded off by force; but a well-disposed child, inclined to love and sympathy, has little to oppose to scorn and ill-will. Though I managed pretty well to keep off the assaults of my companions, I was by no means equal to them in sarcasm and abuse; because he who merely defends himself in such cases is always a loser. Attacks of this sort consequently, when they went so far as to excite anger, were repelled with physical force, or at least excited strange reflections in me which could not be without results. Among other advantages which my ill- wishers saw with envy, was the pleasure I took in the relations that accrued to the family from my grandfather’s position of /Schultheiss/; since, as he was the first of his class, this had no small effect on those belonging to him. Once when, after the holding of the Piper’s Court, I appeared to pride myself on having seen my grandfather in the midst of the council, one step higher than the rest, enthroned, as it were, under the portrait of the emperor, one of the boys said to me in derision, that, like the peacock contemplating his feet, I should cast my eyes back to my paternal grandfather, who had been keeper of the Willow Inn, and would never have aspired to thrones and coronets. I replied, that I was in no wise ashamed of that, as it was the glory and honor of our native city that all its citizens might consider each other equal, and every one derive profit and honor from his exertions in his own way. I was sorry only that the good man had been so long dead; for I had often yearned to know him in person, had many times gazed upon his likeness, nay, had visited his tomb, and had at least derived pleasure from the inscription on the simple monument of that past existence to which I was indebted for my own. Another ill- wisher, who was the most malicious of all, took the first aside, and whispered something in his ear; while they still looked at me scornfully. My gall already began to rise, and I challenged them to speak out. “What is more, then, if you will have it,” continued the first, “this one thinks you might go looking about a long time before you could find your grandfather.” I now threatened them more vehemently if they did not more clearly explain themselves. Thereupon they brought forward an old story, which they pretended to have overheard from their parents, that my father was the son of some eminent man, while that good citizen had shown himself willing to take outwardly the paternal office. They had the impudence to produce all sorts of arguments: as, for example, that our property came exclusively from our grandmother; that the other collateral relations who lived in Friedburg and other places were alike destitute of property; and other reasons of the sort, which could merely derive their weight from malice. I listened to them more composedly than they expected, for they stood ready to fly the very moment that I should make a gesture as if I would seize their hair. But I replied quite calmly, and in substance, “that even this was no great injury to me. Life was such a boon, that one might be quite indifferent as to whom one had to thank for it; since at least it must be derived from God, before whom we all were equals.” As they could make nothing of it, they let the matter drop for this time: we went on playing together as before, which among children is an approved mode of reconciliation.

Still, these spiteful words inoculated me with a sort of moral disease, which crept on in secret. It would not have displeased me at all to have been the grandson of any person of consideration, even if it had not been in the most lawful way. My acuteness followed up the scent, my imagination was excited, and my sagacity put in requisition. I began to investigate the allegation, and invented or found for it new grounds of probability. I had heard little said of my grandfather, except that his likeness, together with my grandmother’s, had hung in a parlor of the old house; both of which, after the building of the new one, had been kept in an upper chamber. My grandmother must have been a very handsome woman, and of the same age as her husband. I remembered also to have seen in her room the miniature of a handsome gentleman in uniform, with star and order, which after her death, and during the confusion of house-building, had disappeared, with many other small pieces of furniture. These and many other things I put together in my childish head, and exercised that modern poetical talent which contrives to obtain the sympathies of the whole cultivated world by a marvellous combination of the important events of human life.

But as I did not venture to trust such an affair to any one, or even to ask the most remote questions concerning it, I was not wanting in a secret diligence, in order to get, if possible, somewhat nearer to the matter. I had heard it explicitly maintained, that sons often bore a decided resemblance to their fathers or grandfathers. Many of our friends, especially Councillor Schneider, a friend of the family, were connected by business with all the princes and noblemen of the neighborhood, of whom, including both the ruling and the younger branches, not a few had estates on the Rhine and Main, and in the intermediate country, and who at times honored their faithful agents with their portraits.

These, which I had often seen on the walls from my infancy, I now regarded with redoubled attention; seeking whether I could not detect some resemblance to my father or even to myself, which too often happened to lead me to any degree of certainty. For now it was the eyes of this, now the nose of that, which seemed to indicate some relationship. Thus these marks led me delusively backward and forward: and though in the end I was compelled to regard the reproach as a completely empty tale, the impression remained; and I could not from time to time refrain from privately calling up and testing all the noblemen whose images had remained very distinct in my imagination. So true is it that whatever inwardly confirms man in his self-conceit, or flatters his secret vanity, is so highly desirable to him, that he does not ask further, whether in other respects it may turn to his honor or disgrace.

But, instead of mingling here serious and even reproachful reflections, I rather turn my look away from those beautiful times; for who is able to speak worthily of the fulness of childhood? We cannot behold the little creatures which flit about before us otherwise than with delight, nay, with admiration; for they generally promise more than they perform: and it seems that Nature, among the other roguish tricks that she plays us, here also especially designs to make sport of us. The first organs she bestows upon children coming into the world, are adapted to the nearest immediate condition of the creature, which, unassuming and artless, makes use of them in the readiest way for its present purposes. The child, considered in and for himself, with his equals, and in relations suited to his powers, seems so intelligent and rational, and at the same time so easy, cheerful, and clever, that one can hardly wish it further cultivation. If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses; but growth is not merely development: the various organic systems which constitute one man spring one from another, follow each other, change into each other, supplant each other, and even consume each other; so that after a time scarcely a trace is to be found of many aptitudes and manifestations of ability. Even when the talents of the man have on the whole a decided direction, it will be hard for the greatest and most experienced connoisseur to declare them beforehand with confidence; although afterwards it is easy to remark what has pointed to a future.

By no means, therefore, is it my design wholly to comprise the stories of my childhood in these first books; but I will rather afterwards resume and continue many a thread which ran through the early years unnoticed. Here, however, I must remark what an increasing influence the incidents of the war gradually exercised upon our sentiments and mode of life.

The peaceful citizen stands in a wonderful relation to the great events of the world. They already excite and disquiet him from a distance; and, even if they do not touch him, he can scarcely refrain from an opinion and a sympathy. Soon he takes a side, as his character or external circumstances may determine. But when such grand fatalities, such important changes, draw nearer to him, then with many outward inconveniences remains that inward discomfort, which doubles and sharpens the evil, and destroys the good which is still possible. Then he has really to suffer from friends and foes, often more from the former than from the latter; and he knows not how to secure and preserve either his interests or his inclinations.

The year 1757, which still passed in perfectly civic tranquillity, kept us, nevertheless, in great uneasiness of mind. Perhaps no other was more fruitful of events than this. Conquests, achievements, misfortunes, restorations, followed one upon another, swallowed up and seemed to destroy each other; yet the image of Frederick, his name and glory, soon hovered again above all. The enthusiasm of his worshippers grew always stronger and more animated; the hatred of his enemies more bitter; and the diversity of opinion, which separated even families, contributed not a little to isolate citizens, already sundered in many ways and on other grounds. For in a city like Frankfort, where three religions divide the inhabitants into three unequal masses; where only a few men, even of the ruling faith, can attain to political power, — there must be many wealthy and educated persons who are thrown back upon themselves, and, by means of studies and tastes, form for themselves an individual and secluded existence. It will be necessary for us to speak of such men, now and hereafter, if we are to bring before us the peculiarities of a Frankfort citizen of that time.

My father, immediately after his return from his travels, had in his own way formed the design, that, to prepare himself for the service of the city, he would undertake one of the subordinate offices, and discharge its duties without emolument, if it wore conferred upon him without balloting. In the consciousness of his good intentions, and according to his way of thinking and the conception he had of himself, he believed that he deserved such a distinction, which, indeed, was not conformable to law or precedent. Consequently, when his suit was rejected, he fell into ill humor and disgust, vowed that he would never accept of any place, and, in order to render it impossible, procured the title of Imperial Councillor, which the /Schultheiss/ and elder /Schöffen/ bear as a special honor. He had thus made himself an equal of the highest, and could not begin again at the bottom. The same impulse induced him also to woo the eldest daughter of the /Schultheiss/, so that he was excluded from the council on this side also. He was now of that number of recluses who never form themselves into a society. They are as much isolated in respect to each other as they are in regard to the whole, and the more so as in this seclusion the character becomes more and more uncouth. My father, in his travels and in the world which he had seen, might have formed some conception of a more elegant and liberal mode of life than was, perhaps, common among his fellow-citizens. In this respect, however, he was not entirely without predecessors and associates.

The name of Uffenbach is well known. At that time, there was a Schöff von Uffenbach, who was generally respected. He had been in Italy; had applied himself particularly to music; sang an agreeable tenor; and, having brought home a fine collection of pieces, concerts and oratorios were performed at his house. Now, as he sang in these himself, and held musicians in great favor, it was not thought altogether suitable to his dignity; and his invited guests, as well as the other people of the country, allowed themselves many a jocose remark on the matter.

I remember, too, a Baron von Hakel, a rich nobleman, who, being married, but childless, occupied a charming house in the Antonius Street, fitted up with all the appurtenances of a dignified position in life. He also possessed good pictures, engravings, antiques, and much else which generally accumulates with collectors and lovers of art. From time to time he asked the more noted personages to dinner, and was beneficent in a careful way of his own; since he clothed the poor in his own house, but kept back their old rags, and gave them a weekly charity, on condition that they should present themselves every time clean and neat in the clothes bestowed on them. I can recall him but indistinctly, as a genial, well-made man; but more clearly his auction, which I attended from beginning to end, and, partly by command of my father, partly from my own impulse, purchased many things that are still to be found in my collections.

At an earlier date than this, — so early that I scarcely set eyes upon him, — John Michael von Loen gained considerable repute in the literary world as well as at Frankfort. Not a native of Frankfort, he settled there, and married a sister of my grandmother Textor, whose maiden name was Lindheim. Familiar with the court and political world, and rejoicing in a renewed title of nobility, he had acquired reputation by daring to take part in the various excitements which arose in Church and State. He wrote “The Count of Rivera,” a didactic romance, the subject of which is made apparent by the second title, “or, The Honest Man at Court.” This work was well received, because it insisted on morality, even in courts, where prudence only is generally at home; and thus his labor brought him applause and respect. A second work, for that very reason, would be accompanied by more danger. He wrote “The Only True Religion,” a book designed to advance tolerance, especially between Lutherans and Calvinists. But here he got in a controversy with the theologians: one Dr. Benner of Giessen, in particular, wrote against him. Von Loen rejoined; the contest grew violent and personal, and the unpleasantness which arose from it caused him to accept the office of president at Lingen, which Frederick II. offered him; supposing that he was an enlightened, unprejudiced man, and not averse to the new views that more extensively obtained in France. His former countrymen, whom he had left in some displeasure, averred that he was not contented there, nay, could not be so, as a place like Lingen was not to be compared with Frankfort. My father also doubted whether the president would be happy, and asserted that the good uncle would have done better not to connect himself with the king, as it was generally hazardous to get too near him, extraordinary sovereign as he undoubtedly was; for it had been seen how disgracefully the famous Voltaire had been arrested in Frankfort, at the requisition of the Prussian Resident Freitag, though he had formerly stood so high in favor, and had been regarded as the king’s teacher in French poetry. There was, on such occasions, no want of reflections and examples to warn one against courts and princes’ service, of which a native Frankforter could scarcely form a conception.

An excellent man, Dr. Orth, I will only mention by name; because here I have not so much to erect a monument to the deserving citizens of Frankfort, but rather refer to them only in as far as their renown or personal character had some influence upon me in my earliest years. Dr. Orth was a wealthy man, and was also of that number who never took part in the government, although perfectly qualified to do so by his knowledge and penetration. The antiquities of Germany, and more especially of Frankfort, have been much indebted to him: he published remarks on the so-called “Reformation of Frankfort,” a work in which the statutes of the state are collected. The historical portions of this book I diligently read in my youth.

Von Ochsenstein, the eldest of the three brothers whom I have mentioned above as our neighbors, had not been remarkable during his lifetime, in consequence of his recluse habits, but became the more remarkable after his death, by leaving behind him a direction that common workingmen should carry him to the grave, early in the morning, in perfect silence, and without an attendant or follower. This was done; and the affair caused great excitement in the city, where they were accustomed to the most pompous funerals. All who discharged the customary offices on such occasions rose against the innovation. But the stout patrician found imitators in all classes; and, though such ceremonies were derisively called ox-burials,[Footnote: A pun upon the name of Ochsenstein. — Trans.] they came into fashion, to the advantage of many of the more poorly provided families; while funeral parades were less and less in vogue. I bring forward this circumstance, because it presents one of the earlier symptoms of that tendency to humility and equality, which, in the second half of the last century, was manifested in so many ways, from above downward, and broke out in such unlooked-for effects.

Nor was there any lack of antiquarian amateurs. There were cabinets of pictures, collections of engravings; while the curiosities of our own country especially were zealously sought and hoarded. The older decrees and mandates of the imperial city, of which no collection had been prepared, were carefully searched for in print and manuscript, arranged in the order of time, and preserved with reverence, as a treasure of native laws and customs. The portraits of Frankforters, which existed in great number, were also brought together, and formed a special department of the cabinets.

Such men my father appears generally to have taken as his models. He was wanting in none of the qualities that pertain to an upright and respectable citizen. Thus, after he had built his house, he put his property of every sort into order. An excellent collection of maps by Schenck and other geographers at that time eminent, the aforesaid decrees and mandates, the portraits, a chest of ancient weapons, a case of remarkable Venetian glasses, cups and goblets, natural curiosities, works in ivory, bronzes, and a hundred other things, were separated and displayed; and I did not fail, whenever an auction occurred, to get some commission for the increase of his possessions.

I must still speak of one important family, of which I had heard strange things since my earliest years, and of some of whose members I myself lived to see a great deal that was wonderful, — I mean the Senkenbergs. The father, of whom I have little to say, was an opulent man. He had three sons, who, even in their youth, uniformly distinguished themselves as oddities. Such things are not well received in a limited city, where no one is suffered to render himself conspicuous, either for good or evil. Nicknames and odd stories, long kept in memory, are generally the fruit of such singularity. The father lived at the corner of Hare Street (/Hasengasse/), which took its name from a sign on the house, that represented one hare at least, if not three hares. They consequently called these three brothers only the three Hares, which nickname they could not shake off for a long while. But as great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness, so was it also in this case. The eldest of the brothers was the /Reichshofrath/ (Imperial Councillor) von Senkenberg, afterwards so celebrated. The second was admitted into the magistracy, and displayed eminent abilities, which, however, he subsequently abused in a pettifogging and even infamous way, if not to the injury of his native city, certainty to that of his colleagues. The third brother, a physician and man of great integrity, but who practised little, and that only in high families, preserved even in his old age a somewhat whimsical exterior. He was always very neatly dressed, and was never seen in the street otherwise than in shoes and stockings, with a well- powdered, curled wig, and his hat under his arm. He walked on rapidly, but with a singular sort of stagger; so that he was sometimes on one and sometimes on the other side of the way, and formed a complete zigzag as he went. The wags said that he made this irregular step to get out of the way of the departed souls, who might follow him in a straight line, and that he imitated those who are afraid of a crocodile. But all these jests and many merry sayings were transformed at last into respect for him, when he devoted his handsome dwelling-house in Eschenheimer Street, with court, garden, and all other appurtenances, to a medical establishment, where, in addition to a hospital designed exclusively for the citizens of Frankfort, a botanic garden, an anatomical theatre, a chemical laboratory, a considerable library, and a house for the director, were instituted in a way of which no university need have been ashamed.

Another eminent man, whose efficiency in the neighborhood and whose writings, rather than his presence, had a very important influence upon me, was Charles Frederick von Moser, who was perpetually referred to in our district for his activity in business. He also had a character essentially moral, which, as the vices of human nature frequently gave him trouble, inclined him to the so-called pious. Thus, what Von Loen had tried to do in respect to court-life, he would have done for business-life; introducing into it a more conscientious mode of proceeding. The great number of small German courts gave rise to a multitude of princes and servants, the former of whom desired unconditional obedience; while the latter, for the most part, would work or serve only according to their own convictions. Thus arose an endless conflict, and rapid changes and explosions; because the effects of an unrestricted course of proceeding become much sooner noticeable and injurious on a small scale than on a large one. Many families were in debt, and Imperial Commissions of Debts were appointed; others found themselves sooner or later on the same road: while the officers either reaped an unconscionable profit, or conscientiously made themselves disagreeable and odious. Moser wished to act as a statesman and man of business; and here his hereditary talent, cultivated to a profession, gave him a decided advantage: but he at the same time wished to act as a man and a citizen, and surrender as little as possible of his moral dignity. His “Prince and Servant,” his “Daniel in the Lions’ Den,” his “Relics,” paint throughout his own condition, in which he felt himself, not indeed tortured, but always cramped. They all indicate impatience in a condition, to the bearings of which one cannot reconcile one’s self, yet from which one cannot get free. With this mode of thinking and feeling, he was, indeed, often compelled to seek other employments, which, on account of his great cleverness, were never wanting. I remember him as a pleasing, active, and, at the same time, gentle man.

The name of Klopstock had already produced a great effect upon us, even at a distance. In the outset, people wondered how so excellent a man could be so strangely named; but they soon got accustomed to this, and thought no more of the meaning of the syllables. In my father’s library I had hitherto found only the earlier poets, especially those who in his day had gradually appeared and acquired fame. All these had written in rhyme, and my father held rhyme as indispensable in poetical works. Canitz, Hagedorn, Drollinger, Gellert Creuz, Haller, stood in a row, in handsome calf bindings: to these were added Neukirch’s “Telemachus,” Koppen’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” and other translations. I had from my childhood diligently perused the whole of these works, and committed portions of them to memory, whence I was often called upon to amuse the company. A vexatious era on the other hand opened upon my father, when, through Klopstock’s “Messiah,” verses, which seemed to him no verses, became an object of public admiration.[Footnote: The Messiah is written in hexameter verse. — Trans.] He had taken good care not to buy this book; but the friend of the family, Councillor Schneider, smuggled it in, and slipped it into the hands of my mother and her children.

On this man of business, who read but little, “The Messiah,” as soon as it appeared, made a powerful impression. Those pious feelings, so naturally expressed, and yet so beautifully elevated; that pleasant diction, even if considered merely as harmonious prose, — had so won the otherwise dry man of business, that he regarded the first ten cantos, of which alone we are properly speaking, as the finest book of devotion, and once every year in Passion Week, when he managed to escape from business, read it quietly through by himself, and thus refreshed himself for the entire year. In the beginning he thought to communicate his emotions to his old friend; but he was much shocked when forced to perceive an incurable dislike cherished against a book of such valuable substance, merely because of what appeared to him an indifferent external form. It may readily be supposed that their conversation often reverted to this topic; but both parties diverged more and more widely from each other, there were violent scenes: and the compliant man was at last pleased to be silent on his favorite work, that he might not lose, at the same time, a friend of his youth, and a good Sunday meal.

It is the most natural wish of every man to make proselytes; and how much did our friend find himself rewarded in secret, when he discovered in the rest of the family hearts so openly disposed for his saint. The copy which he used only one week during the year was given over to our edification all the remaining time. My mother kept it secret; and we children took possession of it when we could, that in leisure hours, hidden in some nook, we might learn the most striking passages by heart, and particularly might impress the most tender as well as the most violent parts on our memory as quickly as possible.

Porcia’s dream we recited in a sort of rivalry, and divided between us the wild dialogue of despair between Satan and Adramelech, who have been cast into the Red Sea. The first part, as the strongest, had been assigned to me; and the second, as a little more pathetic, was undertaken by my sister. The alternate and horrible but well-sounding curses flowed only thus from our mouths, and we seized every opportunity to accost each other with these infernal phrases.

One Saturday evening in winter, — my father always had himself shaved over night, that on Sunday morning he might dress for church at his ease, — we sat on a footstool behind the stove, and muttered our customary imprecations in a tolerably low voice, while the barber was putting on the lather. But now Adramelech had to lay his iron hands on Satan: my sister seized me with violence, and recited, softly enough, but with increasing passion, —

“Give me thine aid, I entreat thee: I’ll worship thee if thou demandest,
 Thee, thou reprobate monster, yes, thee, of all criminals blackest!
 Aid me. I suffer the tortures of death, everlasting, avenging!
 Once, in the times gone by, I with furious hatred could hate thee:
 Now I can hate thee no more! E’en this is the sharpest of tortures.”

Thus far all went on tolerably; but loudly, with a dreadful voice, she cried the following words: —

“Oh, how utterly crushed I am now!”

The good surgeon was startled, and emptied the lather-basin into my father’s bosom. There was a great uproar; and a severe investigation was held, especially with respect to the mischief which might have been done if the shaving had been actually going forward. In order to relieve ourselves of all suspicions of mischievousness, we pleaded guilty of having acted these Satanic characters; and the misfortune occasioned by the hexameters was so apparent, that they were again condemned and banished.

Thus children and common people are accustomed to transform the great and sublime into a sport, and even a farce; and how indeed could they otherwise abide and endure it?

THIRD BOOK.

At that time the general interchange of personal good wishes made the city very lively on New-Year’s Day. Those who otherwise did not easily leave home, donned their best clothes, that for a moment they might be friendly and courteous to their friends and patrons. The festivities at my grandfather’s house on this day were pleasures particularly desired by us children. At early dawn the grandchildren had already assembled there to hear the drums, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, and cornets played upon by the military, the city musicians, and whoever else might furnish his tones. The New-Year’s gifts, sealed and superscribed, were divided by us children among the humbler congratulators; and, as the day advanced, the number of those of higher rank increased. The relations and intimate friends appeared first, then the subordinate officials; even the gentlemen of the council did not fail to pay their respects to the /Schultheiss/, and a select number were entertained in the evening in rooms which were else scarcely opened throughout the year. The tarts, biscuits, marchpane, and sweet wine had the greatest charm for the children; and, besides, the /Schultheiss/ and the two burgomasters annually received from some institutions some article of silver, which was then bestowed upon the grandchildren and godchildren in regular gradation. In fine, this small festival was not wanting in any of those things which usually glorify the greatest.

The New-Year’s Day of 1759 approached, as desirable and pleasant to us children as any preceding one, but full of import and foreboding to older persons. To the passage of the French troops people certainly had become accustomed; and they happened often, but they had been most frequent in the last days of the past year. According to the old usage of an imperial town, the warder of the chief tower sounded his trumpet whenever troops approached; and on this New-Year’s Day he would not leave off, which was a sign that large bodies were in motion on several sides. They actually marched through the city in greater masses on this day, and the people ran to see them pass by. We had generally been used to see them go through in small parties; but these gradually swelled, and there was neither power nor inclination to stop them. In short, on the 2d of January, after a column had come through Sachsenhausen over the bridge, through the Fahrgasse, as far as the Police Guard-House, it halted, overpowered the small company which escorted it, took possession of the before-mentioned Guard-House, marched down the Zeil, and, after a slight resistance, the main guard were also obliged to yield. In a moment the peaceful streets were turned into a scene of war. The troops remained and bivouacked there until lodgings were provided for them by regular billeting.

This unexpected, and, for many years, unheard-of, burden weighed heavily upon the comfortable citizens; and to none could it be more cumbersome than to my father, who was obliged to take foreign military inhabitants into his scarcely finished house, to open for them his well-furnished reception-rooms, which were generally closed, and to abandon to the caprices of strangers all that he had been used to arrange and keep so carefully. Siding as he did with the Prussians, he was now to find himself besieged in his own chambers by the French: it was, according to his way of thinking, the greatest misfortune that could happen to him. Had it, however, been possible for him to have taken the matter more easily, he might have saved himself and us many sad hours; since he spoke French well, and could deport himself with dignity and grace in the daily intercourse of life. For it was the king’s lieutenant who was quartered on us; and he, although a military person, had only to settle civil occurrences, disputes between soldiers and citizens, and questions of debt and quarrels. This was the Count Thorane, a native of Grasse in Provence, not far from Antibes: a tall, thin, stern figure, with a face much disfigured by the small-pox; black, fiery eyes; and a dignified, reserved demeanor. His first entrance was at once favorable for the inmates of the house. They spoke of the different apartments, some of which were to be given up, and others retained by the family; and, when the count heard a picture-room mentioned, he immediately requested permission, although it was already night, at least to give a hasty look at the pictures by candlelight. He took extreme pleasure in these things, behaved in the most obliging manner to my father, who accompanied him; and when he heard that the greater part of the artists were still living, and resided in Frankfurt and its neighborhood, he assured us that he desired nothing more than to know them as soon as possible, and to employ them.

But even this sympathy in respect to art could not change my father’s feelings nor bend his character. He permitted what he could not prevent, but kept at a distance in inactivity; and the uncommon state of things around him was intolerable to him, even in the veriest trifle.

Count Thorane behaved himself, meanwhile, in an exemplary manner. He would not even have his maps nailed on the walls, that he might not injure the new hangings. His people were skilful, quiet, and orderly: but in truth, as, during the whole day and a part of the night there was no quiet with him, one complainant quickly following another, arrested persons being brought in and led out, and all officers and adjutants being admitted to his presence, — as, moreover, the count kept an open table every day, it made, in the moderately sized house, arranged only for a family, and with but one open staircase running from top to bottom, a movement and a buzzing like that in a beehive; although every thing was managed with moderation, gravity, and severity.

As mediator between the irritable master of the house — who became daily more of a hypochondriac self-tormentor — and his well-intentioned, but stern and precise, military guest, there was a pleasant interpreter, a handsome, corpulent, lively man, who was a citizen of Frankfort, spoke French well, knew how to adapt himself to every thing, and only made a jest of many little annoyances. Through him my mother had sent to the count a representation of the situation in which she was placed, owing to her husband’s state of mind. He had explained the matter so skilfully, — had laid before him the new and scarcely furnished house, the natural reserve of the owner, his occupation in the education of his family, and all that could be said to the same effect, — that the count, who in his capacity took the greatest pride in the utmost justice, integrity, and honorable conduct, resolved here also to behave in an exemplary manner to those upon whom he was quartered, and, indeed, never swerved from this resolution under varying circumstances, during the several years he staid with us.

My mother possessed some knowledge of Italian, a language not altogether unknown to any of the family: she therefore resolved to learn French immediately; for which purpose the interpreter, for whose child she had stood godmother during these stormy times, and who now, therefore, as a gossip,[Footnote: The obsolete word, “gossip,” has been revived as an equivalent for the German, “/gevatter/.” But it should be observed that this word not only signifies godfather, but that the person whose child has another person for godfather (or godmother) is that person’s /gevatter/, or /gevatterin/ (feminine).] felt a redoubled interest in our house, devoted every spare moment to his child’s godmother (for he lived directly opposite); and, above all, he taught her those phrases which she would be obliged to use in her personal intercourse with the count. This succeeded admirably. The count was flattered by the pains taken by the mistress of the house at her age: and as he had a cheerful, witty vein in his character, and he liked to exhibit a certain dry gallantry, a most friendly relation arose between them; and the allied godmother and father could obtain from him whatever they wanted.

If, as I said before, it had been possible to cheer up my father, this altered state of things would have caused little inconvenience. The count practised the severest disinterestedness; he even declined receiving gifts which pertained to his situation; the most trifling thing which could have borne the appearance of bribery, he rejected angrily, and even punished. His people were most strictly forbidden to put the proprietor of the house to the least expense. We children, on the contrary, were bountifully supplied from the dessert. To give an idea of the simplicity of those times, I must take this opportunity to mention that my mother grieved us excessively one day, by throwing away the ices which had been sent us from the table, because she would not believe it possible for the stomach to bear real ice, however it might be sweetened.

Besides these dainties, which we gradually learned to enjoy and to digest with perfect ease, it was very agreeable for us children to be in some measure released from fixed hours of study and strict discipline. My father’s ill humor increased: he could not resign himself to the unavoidable. How he tormented himself, my mother, the interpreter, the councillors, and all his friends, only to rid him of the count! In vain they represented to him, that, under existing circumstances, the presence of such a man in the house was an actual benefit, and that the removal of the count would be followed by a constant succession of officers or of privates. None of these arguments had any effect. To him the present seemed so intolerable, that his indignation prevented his conceiving any thing worse that could follow.

In this way his activity, which he had been used chiefly to devote to us, was crippled. The lessons he gave us were no longer required with the former exactness; and we tried to gratify our curiosity for military and other public proceedings as much as possible, not only at home, but also in the streets, which was the more easily done, as the front door, open day and night, was guarded by sentries who paid no attention to the running to and fro of restless children.

The many affairs which were settled before the tribunal of the royal lieutenant had quite a peculiar charm, from his making it a point to accompany his decisions with some witty, ingenious, or lively turn. What he decreed was strictly just, his manner of expressing it whimsical and piquant. He seemed to have taken the Duke of Ossuna as his model. Scarcely a day passed in which the interpreter did not tell some anecdote or other of this kind to amuse us and my mother. This lively man had made a little collection of such Solomonian decisions; but I only remember the general impression, and cannot recall to my mind any particular case.

By degrees we became better acquainted with the strange character of the count. This man clearly understood his own peculiarities; and as there were times in which he was seized with a sort of dejection, hypochondria, or by whatever name we may call the evil demon, he withdrew into his room at such hours, which were often lengthened into days, saw no one but his /valet/, and in urgent cases could not even be prevailed upon to receive any one. But, as soon as the evil spirit had left him, he appeared as before, active, mild, and cheerful. It might be inferred from the talk of his /valet/, Saint Jean, a small, thin man of lively good nature, that in his earlier years he had caused a great misfortune when overcome by this temper; and that, therefore, in so important a position as his, exposed to the eyes of all the world, he had earnestly resolved to avoid similar aberrations.

During the very first days of the count’s residence with us, all the Frankfort artists, as Hirt, Schütz, Trautmann, Nothnagel, and Junker, were called to him. They showed their finished pictures, and the count bought such as were for sale. My pretty, light room in the gable-end of the attic was given up to him, and immediately turned into a cabinet and studio; for he designed to keep all the artists at work for a long time, especially Seekatz of Darmstadt, whose pencil, particularly in simple and natural representations, highly pleased him. He therefore caused to be sent from Grasse, where his elder brother possessed a handsome house, the dimensions of all the rooms and cabinets; then considered, with the artists, the divisions of the walls, and fixed accordingly upon the size of the large oil-pictures, which were not to be set in frames, but to be fastened upon the walls like pieces of tapestry. And now the work went on zealously. Seekatz undertook country scenes, and succeeded extremely well in his old people and children, which were copied directly from nature. His young men did not answer so well, — they were almost all too thin; and his women failed from the opposite cause. For as he had a little, fat, good, but unpleasant-looking, wife, who would let him have no model but herself, he could produce nothing agreeable. He was also obliged to exceed the usual size of his figures. His trees had truth, but the foliage was over minute. He was a pupil of Brinkmann, whose pencil in easel pictures is not contemptible.

Schütz, the landscape painter, had perhaps the best of the matter. He was thoroughly master of the Rhine country, and of the sunny tone which animates it in the fine season. Nor was he entirely unaccustomed to work on a larger scale, and then he showed no want of execution or keeping. His paintings were of a cheerful cast.

Trautmann /Rembrandtized/ some resurrection miracles out of the New Testament, and alongside of them set fire to villages and mills. One cabinet was entirely allotted to him, as I found from the designs of the rooms. Hirt painted some good oak and beech forests. His cattle were praiseworthy.

Junker, accustomed to the imitation of the most elaborate Dutch, was least able to manage this tapestry-work; but he condescended to ornament many compartments with flowers and fruits for a handsome price.

As I had known all these men from my earliest youth, and had often visited them in their studios, and as the count also liked to have me with him, I was present at the suggestions, consultations, and orders, as well as at the deliveries, of the pictures, and ventured to speak my opinion freely when sketches and designs were handed in. I had already gained among amateurs, particularly at auctions, which I attended diligently, the reputation of being able to tell at once what any historical picture represented, whether taken from biblical or profane history, or from mythology; and, even if I did not always hit upon the meaning of allegorical pictures, there was seldom any one present who understood it better than I. Often had I persuaded the artists to represent this or that subject, and I now joyfully made use of these advantages. I still remember writing a circumstantial essay, in which I described twelve pictures which were to exhibit the history of Joseph: some of them were executed.

After these achievements, which were certainly laudable in a boy, I will mention a little disgrace which happened to me within this circle of artists. I was well acquainted with all the pictures which had from time to time been brought into that room. My youthful curiosity left nothing unseen or unexplored. I once found a little black box behind the stove: I did not fail to investigate what might be concealed in it, and drew back the bolt without long deliberation. The picture contained was certainly of a kind not usually exposed to view; and, although I tried to bolt it again immediately, I was not quick enough. The count entered, and caught me. “Who allowed you to open that box?” he asked, with all his air of a royal lieutenant. I had not much to say for myself, and he immediately pronounced my sentence in a very stern manner: “For eight days,” said he, “you shall not enter this room.” I made a bow, and walked out. Even this order I obeyed most punctually; so that the good Seekatz, who was then at work in the room, was very much annoyed, for he liked to have me about him: and, out of a little spite, I carried my obedience so far, that I left Seekatz’s coffee, which I generally brought him, upon the threshold. He was then obliged to leave his work and fetch it, which he took so ill, that he well nigh began to dislike me.

It now seems necessary to state more circumstantially, and to make intelligible, how, under the circumstances, I made my way with more or less ease through the French language, which, however, I had never learned. Here, too, my natural gift was of service to me; enabling me easily to catch the sound of a language, its movement, accent, tone, and all other outward peculiarities. I knew many words from the Latin; Italian suggested still more; and by listening to servants and soldiers, sentries and visitors, I soon picked up so much, that, if I could not join in conversation, I could at any rate manage single questions and answers. All this, however, was little compared to the profit I derived from the theatre. My grandfather had given me a free ticket, which I used daily, in spite of my father’s reluctance, by dint of my mother’s support. There I sat in the pit, before a foreign stage, and watched the more narrowly the movement and the expression, both of gesture and speech; as I understood little or nothing of what was said, and therefore could only derive entertainment from the action and the tone of voice. I understood least of comedy; because it was spoken rapidly, and related to the affairs of common life, of the phrases of which I knew nothing. Tragedy was not so often played; and the measured step, the rhythm of the Alexandrines, the generality of the expression, made it more intelligible to me in every way. It was not long before I took up Racine, which I found in my father’s library, and declaimed the plays to myself, in the theatrical style and manner, as the organ of my ear, and the organ of speech, so nearly akin to that, had caught it, and this with considerable animation; although I could not yet understand a whole connected speech. I even learned entire passages by rote like a trained talking-bird, which was easier to me, from having previously committed to memory passages from the Bible which are generally unintelligible to a child, and accustomed myself to reciting them in the tone of the Protestant preachers. The versified French comedy was then much in vogue: the pieces of Destouches, Marivaux, and La Chaussée were often produced; and I still remember distinctly many characteristic figures. Of those of Molière I recollect less. What made the greatest impression upon me was “The Hypermnestra” of Lemière, which, as a new piece, was brought out with care and often repeated. “The Devin du Village,” “Rose et Colas,” “Annette et Lubin,” made each a very pleasant impression upon me. I can even now recall the youths and maidens decorated with ribbons, and their gestures. It was not long before the wish arose in me to see the interior of the theatre, for which many opportunities were offered me. For as I had not always patience to stay and listen to the entire plays, and often carried on all sorts of games with other children of my age in the corridors, and in the milder season even before the door, a handsome, lively boy joined us, who belonged to the theatre, and whom I had seen in many little parts, though only casually. He came to a better understanding with me than with the rest, as I could turn my French to account with him; and he the more attached himself to me because there was no boy of his age or his nation at the theatre, or anywhere in the neighborhood. We also went together at other times, as well as during the play; and, even while the representations went on, he seldom left me in peace. He was a most delightful little braggart, chattered away charmingly and incessantly, and could tell so much of his adventures, quarrels, and other strange incidents, that he amused me wonderfully; and I learned from him in four weeks more of the language, and of the power of expressing myself in it, than can be imagined: so that no one knew how I had attained the foreign tongue all at once, as if by inspiration.

In the very earliest days of our acquaintance, he took me with him upon the stage, and led me especially to the /foyers/, where the actors and actresses remained during the intervals of the performance, and dressed and undressed. The place was neither convenient nor agreeable; for they had squeezed the theatre into a concert-room, so that there were no separate chambers for the actors behind the stage. A tolerably large room adjoining, which had formerly served for card-parties, was now mostly used by both sexes in common, who appeared to feel as little ashamed before each other as before us children, if there was not always the strictest propriety in putting on or changing the articles of dress. I had never seen any thing of the kind before; and yet from habit, after repeated visits, I soon found it quite natural.

It was not long before a very peculiar interest of my own arose. Young Derones, for so I will call the boy whose acquaintance I still kept up, was, with the exception of his boasting, a youth of good manners and very courteous demeanor. He made me acquainted with his sister, a girl who was a few years older than we were, and a very pleasant, well-grown girl, of regular form, brown complexion, black hair and eyes: her whole deportment had about it something quiet, even sad. I tried to make myself agreeable to her in every way, but I could not attract her notice. Young girls think themselves much more advanced than younger boys; and, while aspiring to young men, they assume the manner of an aunt towards the boy whose first inclination is turned towards them. — With a younger brother of his, I had no acquaintance.

Sometimes, when their mother had gone to rehearsals, or was out visiting, we met at her house to play and amuse ourselves. I never went there without presenting the fair one with a flower, a fruit, or something else; which she always received very courteously, and thanked me for most politely: but I never saw her sad look brighten, and found no trace of her having given me a further thought. At last I fancied I had discovered her secret. The boy showed me a crayon-drawing of a handsome man, behind his mother’s bed, which was hung with elegant silk curtains; remarking at the same time, with a sly look, that this was not papa, but just the same as papa: and as he glorified this man, and told me many things in his circumstantial and ostentatious manner, I thought I had discovered that the daughter might belong to the father, but the other two children to the intimate friend. I thus explained to myself her melancholy look, and loved her for it all the more.

My liking for this girl assisted me in bearing the braggadocio of her brother, who did not always keep within bounds. I had often to endure prolix accounts of his exploits, — how he had already often fought, without wishing to injure the other, all for the mere sake of honor. He had always contrived to disarm his adversary, and had then forgiven him; nay, he was such a good fencer, that he was once very much perplexed by striking the sword of his opponent up into a high tree, so that it was not easy to be got again.

What much facilitated my visits to the theatre was, that my free ticket, coming from the hands of the /Schultheiss/, gave me access to any of the seats, and therefore also to those in the proscenium. This was very deep, after the French style, and was bordered on both sides with seats, which, surrounded by a low rail, ascended in several rows one behind another, so that the first seats were but a little elevated above the stage. The whole was considered a place of special honor, and was generally used only by officers; although the nearness of the actors destroyed, I will not say all illusion, but, in a measure, all enjoyment. I have thus experienced and seen with my own eyes the usage or abuse of which Voltaire so much complains. If, when the house was very full at such time as troops were passing through the town, officers of distinction strove for this place of honor, which was generally occupied already, some rows of benches and chairs were placed in the proscenium on the stage itself, and nothing remained for the heroes and heroines but to reveal their secrets in the very limited space between the uniforms and orders. I have even seen the “Hypermnestra” performed under such circumstances.

The curtain did not fall between the acts: and I must yet mention a strange custom, which I thought quite extraordinary; as its inconsistency with art was to me, as a good German boy, quite unendurable. The theatre was considered the greatest sanctuary, and any disturbance occurring there would have been instantly resented as the highest crime against the majesty of the public. Therefore, in all comedies, two grenadiers stood with their arms grounded, in full view, at the two sides of the back scene, and were witnesses of all that occurred in the bosom of the family. Since, as I said before, the curtain did not fall between the acts, two others, while music struck up, relieved guard, by coming from the wings, directly in front of the first, who retired in the same measured manner. Now, if such a practice was well fitted to destroy all that is called illusion on the stage, it is the more striking, because it was done at a time when, according to Diderot’s principles and examples, the most /natural naturalness/ was required upon the stage, and a perfect deception was proposed as the proper aim of theatrical art. Tragedy, however, was absolved from any such military-police regulations; and the heroes of antiquity had the right of guarding themselves: nevertheless, the same grenadiers stood near enough behind the side scenes.

I will also mention that I saw Diderot’s “Father of a Family,” and “The Philosophers” of Palissot, and still perfectly remember the figure of the philosopher in the latter piece going upon all fours, and biting into a raw head of lettuce.

All this theatrical variety could not, however, keep us children always in the theatre. In fine weather we played in front of it, and in the neighborhood, and committed all manner of absurdities, which, especially on Sundays and festivals, by no means corresponded to our personal appearance; for I and my comrades then appeared dressed as I described myself in the tale, with the hat under the arm, and a little sword, the hilt of which was ornamented with a large silk knot. One day when we had long gone in this way, and Derones had joined us, he took it into his head to affirm that I had insulted him, and must give him satisfaction. I could not, in truth, conceive what was the cause of this; but I accepted his challenge, and was going to draw my sword. However, he assured me, that in such cases it was customary to go to secluded spots, in order to be able to settle the matter more conveniently. We therefore went behind some barns, and placed ourselves in the proper position. The duel took place in a somewhat theatrical style, — the blades clashed, and the thrusts followed close upon each other; but in the heat of the combat he remained with the point of his sword lodged in the knot of my hilt. This was pierced through; and he assured me that he had received the most complete satisfaction, then embraced me, also theatrically: and we went to the next coffee-house to refresh ourselves with a glass of almond-milk after our mental agitation, and to knit more closely the old bond of friendship.

On this occasion I will relate another adventure which also happened to me at the theatre, although at a later time. I was sitting very quietly in the pit with one of my playmates; and we looked with pleasure at a /pas seul/, which was executed with much skill and grace by a pretty boy about our own age, — the son of a French dancing-master, who was passing through the city. After the fashion of dancers, he was dressed in a close vest of red silk, which, ending in a short hoop- petticoat, like a runner’s apron, floated above the knee. We had given our meed of applause to this young artist with the whole public, when, I know not how, it occurred to me to make a moral reflection. I said to my companion, “How handsomely this boy was dressed, and how well he looked! who knows in how tattered a jacket he may sleep to-night!” All had already risen, but the crowd prevented our moving. A woman who had sat by me, and who was now standing close beside me, chanced to be the mother of the young artist, and felt much offended by my reflection. Unfortunately, she knew German enough to understand me, and spoke it just as much as was necessary to scold. She abused me violently. Who was I, she would like to know, that had a right to doubt the family and respectability of this young man? At all events, she would be bound he was as good as I; and his talents might probably procure him a fortune, of which I could not even venture to dream. This moral lecture she read me in the crowd, and made those about me wonder what rudeness I had committed. As I could neither excuse myself, nor escape from her, I was really embarrassed, and, when she paused for a moment, said without thinking, “Well! why do you make such a noise about it? — to-day red, to- morrow dead.” [Footnote: A German proverb, “Heute roth, Morgen todt.”] These words seemed to strike the woman dumb. She stared at me, and moved away from me as soon as it was in any degree possible. I thought no more of my words; only, some time afterwards, they occurred to me, when the boy, instead of continuing to perform, became ill, and that very dangerously. Whether he died, or not, I cannot say.

Such intimations, by an unseasonably or even improperly spoken word, were held in repute, even by the ancients; and it is very remarkable that the forms of belief and of superstition have always remained the same among all people and in all times.

From the first day of the occupation of our city, there was no lack of constant diversion, especially for children and young people. Plays and balls, parades, and marches through the town, attracted our attention in all directions. The last particularly were always increasing, and the soldiers’ life seemed to us very merry and agreeable.

The residence of the king’s lieutenant at our house procured us the advantage of seeing by degrees all the distinguished persons in the French army, and especially of beholding close at hand the leaders whose names had already been made known to us by reputation. Thus we looked from stairs and landing-places, as if from galleries, very conveniently upon the generals who passed by. More than all the rest do I remember the Prince Soubise as a handsome, courteous gentleman; but most distinctly, the Maréchal de Broglio, who was a younger man, not tall, but well built, lively, nimble, and abounding in keen glances, betraying a clever mind.

He repeatedly came to see the king’s lieutenant, and it was easily noticed that they were conversing on weighty matters. We had scarcely become accustomed to having strangers quartered upon us in the first three months, when a rumor was obscurely circulated that the allies were on the march, and that Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick was coming to drive the French from the Main. Of these, who could not boast of any special success in war, no high opinion was held; and, after the battle of Rossbach, it was thought they might be dispersed. The greatest confidence was placed in Duke Ferdinand, and all those favorable to Prussia awaited with eagerness their delivery from the yoke hitherto borne. My father was in somewhat better spirits: my mother was apprehensive. She was wise enough to see that a small present evil might easily be exchanged for a great affliction; since it was but too plain that the French would not advance to meet the duke, but would wait an attack in the neighborhood of the city. A defeat of the French, a flight, a defense of the city, if it were only to cover their rear and hold the bridge, a bombardment, a sack, — all these presented themselves to the excited imagination, and gave anxiety to both parties. My mother, who could bear every thing but suspense, imparted her fears to the count through the interpreter. She received the answer usual in such cases: she might be quite easy, for there was nothing to fear; and should keep quiet, and mention the matter to no one.

Many troops passed through the city: we learned that they halted at Bergen. The coming and going, the riding and running, constantly increased; and our house was in an uproar day and night. At this time I often saw Marshal de Broglio, always cheerful, always the same in look and manner; and I was afterwards pleased to find a man, whose form had made such a good and lasting impression upon me, so honorably mentioned in history.

Thus, after an unquiet Passion Week, the Good Friday of 1759 arrived. A profound stillness announced the approaching storm. We children were forbidden to quit the house: my father had no quiet, and went out. The battle began: I ascended to the garret, where indeed I was prevented seeing the country round, but could very well hear the thunder of cannon and the general discharge of musketry. After some hours we saw the first symptoms of the battle in a line of wagons, in which the wounded, with various sad mutilations and gestures, were slowly drawn by us, to be taken to the convent of St. Mary, now transformed into a hospital. The compassion of the citizens was instantly moved. Beer, wine, bread, and money were distributed to those who were yet able to take them. But when, some time after, wounded and captive Germans were seen in the train, the pity knew no limits; and it seemed as if everybody would strip himself of every movable that he possessed to assist his suffering countrymen.

The prisoners, however, were an evidence of a battle unfavorable to the allies. My father, whose party feelings made him quite certain that these would come off victorious, had the violent temerity to go forth to meet the expected victors, without thinking that the beaten party must pass over him in their flight. He first repaired to his garden before the Friedberg gate, where he found every thing lonely and quiet; then ventured to the Bornheim heath, where he soon descried various stragglers of the army, who were scattered, and amused themselves by shooting at the boundary-stones, so that the rebounding lead whizzed round the head of the inquisitive wanderer. He therefore considered it more prudent to go back, and learned on inquiry what the report of the firing might have before informed him, that all stood well for the French, and that there was no thought of retreating. Reaching home in an ill humor, the sight of his wounded and captured countrymen brought him altogether out of his usual self-command. He also caused various donations to be given to the passers-by; but only the Germans were to have them, which was not always possible, as fate had packed together both friend and foe.

My mother and we children, who had already relied on the count’s word, and had therefore passed a tolerably quiet day, were highly rejoiced; and my mother doubly consoled the next day, when, having consulted the oracle of her treasure-box, by the prick of a needle, she received a very comfortable answer, both for present and future. We wished our father similar faith and feelings; we flattered him as much as we could; we entreated him to take some food, from which he had abstained all day; but he repulsed our caresses and every enjoyment, and betook himself to his chamber. Our joy, however, was not interrupted; the affair was decided: the king’s lieutenant, who, against his habit, had been on horseback that day, at last returned home, where his presence was more necessary than ever. We sprang to meet him, kissed his hands, and testified our delight. This seemed much to please him. “Well,” said he more kindly than usual, “I am glad also for your sakes, my dear children.” He immediately ordered that sweetmeats, sweet wine, and the best of every thing should be given us, and went to his room, already surrounded by a crowd of the urging, demanding, supplicating.

We had now a fine collation, pitied our poor father who would not partake of it, and pressed our mother to call him in; but she, more prudent than we, well knew how distasteful such gifts would be to him. In the mean time she had prepared some supper, and would readily have sent a portion up to his room; but he never tolerated such an irregularity, even in the most extreme cases: and, after the sweet things were removed, we endeavored to persuade him to come down into the ordinary dining-room. At last he allowed himself to be persuaded unwillingly, and we had no notion of the mischief which we were preparing for him and ourselves. The stair-case ran through the whole house, along all the ante-rooms. My father, in coming down, had to go directly past the count’s apartment. This ante-room was so full of people, that the count, to get through much at once, resolved to come out; and this happened unfortunately at the moment when my father descended. The count met him cheerfully, greeted him, and remarked, “You will congratulate yourselves and us that this dangerous affair is so happily terminated.” — ”By no means!” replied my father in a rage: “would that it had driven you to the Devil, even if I had gone with you!” The count restrained himself for a moment, and then broke out with wrath, “You shall pay for this,” cried he: “you shall find that you have not thus insulted the good cause and myself for nothing!”

My father, meanwhile, came down very calmly, seated himself near us, seemed more cheerful than before, and began to eat. We were glad of this, unconscious of the dangerous method in which he had rolled the stone from his heart. Soon afterwards my mother was called out, and we had great pleasure in chattering to our father about the sweet things the count had given us. Our mother did not return. At last the interpreter came in. At a hint from him we were sent to bed: it was already late, and we willingly obeyed. After a night quietly slept through, we heard of the violent commotion which had shaken the house the previous evening. The king’s lieutenant had instantly ordered my father to be led to the guard-house. The subalterns well knew that he was never to be contradicted, yet they had often earned thanks by delaying the execution of his orders. The interpreter, whose presence of mind never forsook him, contrived to excite this disposition in them very strongly. The tumult, moreover, was so great, that a delay brought with it its own concealment and excuse. He had called out my mother, and put the adjutant, as it were, into her hands, that, by prayers and representations, she might gain a brief postponement of the matter. He himself hurried up to the count, who with great self-command had immediately retired into the inner room, and would rather allow the most urgent affair to stand still, than wreak on an innocent person the ill humor once excited in him, and give a decision derogatory to his dignity.

The address of the interpreter to the count, the train of the whole conversation, were often enough repeated to us by the fat interpreter, who prided himself not a little on the fortunate result, so that I can still describe it from recollection.

The interpreter had ventured to open the cabinet and enter, an act which was severely prohibited. “What do you want?” shouted the count angrily. “Out with you! — no one but St. Jean has a right to enter here.”

“Well, suppose I am St. Jean for a moment,” answered the interpreter.

“It would need a powerful imagination for that! Two of him would not make one such as you. Retire!”

“Count, you have received a great gift from heaven; and to that I appeal.”

“You think to flatter me! Do not fancy you will succeed.”

“You have the great gift, count, of listening to the opinions of others, even in moments of passion — in moments of rage.”

“Well, well! the question now is just about opinions, to which I have listened too long. I know but too well that we are not liked here, and that these citizens look askance at us.”

“Not all!”

“Very many. What! These towns will be imperial towns, will they? They saw their emperor elected and crowned: and when, being unjustly attacked, he is in danger of losing his dominions and surrendering to an usurper; when he fortunately finds faithful allies who pour out their blood and treasure in his behalf, — they will not put up with the slight burden that falls to their share towards humbling the enemy.”

“But you have long known these sentiments, and have endured them like a wise man: they are, besides, held only by a minority. A few, dazzled by the splendid qualities of the enemy, whom you yourself prize as an extraordinary man, — a few only, as you are aware.”

“Yes, indeed! I have known and suffered it too long! otherwise this man would not have presumed to utter such insults to my face, and at the most critical moment. Let them be as many as they please, they shall be punished in the person of this their audacious representative, and perceive what they have to expect.”

“Only delay, count.”

“In certain things one cannot act too promptly.”

“Only a little delay, count.”

“Neighbor, you think to mislead me into a false step: you shall not succeed.”

“I would neither lead you into a false step nor restrain you from one: your resolution is just, — it becomes the Frenchman and the king’s lieutenant; but consider that you are also Count Thorane.”

“He has no right to interfere here.”

“But the gallant man has a right to be heard.”

“What would he say, then?”

“‘King’s lieutenant,’ he would begin, ‘you have so long had patience with so many gloomy, untoward, bungling men, if they were not really too bad. This man has certainly been too bad: but control yourself, king’s lieutenant; and every one will praise and extol you on that account.’“

“You know I can often endure your jests, but do not abuse my good will. These men — are they, then, completely blinded? Suppose we had lost the battle: what would have been their fate at this moment? We fight up to the gates, we shut up the city, we halt, we defend ourselves to cover our retreat over the bridge. Think you the enemy would have stood with his hands before him? He throws grenades, and what he has at hand; and they catch where they can. This house-holder — what would he have? Here, in these rooms, a bomb might now have burst, and another have followed it; — in these rooms, the cursed China-paper of which I have spared, incommoding myself by not nailing up my maps! They ought to have spent the whole day on their knees.”

“How many would have done that!”

“They ought to have prayed for a blessing on us, and to have gone out to meet the generals and officers with tokens of honor and joy, and the wearied soldiers with refreshments. Instead of this, the poison of party-spirit destroys the fairest and happiest moments of my life, won by so many cares and efforts.”

“It is party-spirit, but you will only increase it by the punishment of this man. Those who think with him will proclaim you a tyrant and a barbarian; they will consider him a martyr, who has suffered for the good cause; and even those of the other opinion, who are now his opponents, will see in him only their fellow-citizen, will pity him, and, while they confess your justice, will yet feel that you have proceeded too severely.”

“I have listened to you too much already, — now, away with you!”

“Hear only this. Remember, this is the most unheard-of thing that could befall this man, this family. You have had no reason to be edified by the good will of the master of the house; but the mistress has anticipated all your wishes, and the children have regarded you as their uncle. With this single blow, you will forever destroy the peace and happiness of this dwelling. Indeed, I may say, that a bomb falling into the house would not have occasioned greater desolation. I have so often admired your self-command, count: give me this time opportunity to adore you. A warrior is worthy of honor, who considers himself a guest in the house of an enemy; but here there is no enemy, only a mistaking man. Control yourself, and you will acquire an everlasting fame.”

“That would be odd,” replied the count, with a smile.

“Merely natural,” continued the interpreter: “I have not sent the wife and children to your feet, because I know you detest such scenes; but I will depict to you this wife and these children, how they will thank you. I will depict them to you conversing all their lives of the battle of Bergen, and of your magnanimity on this day, relating it to their children, and children’s children, and inspiring even strangers with their own interest for you: an act of this kind can never perish.”

“But you do not hit my weak side yet, interpreter. About posthumous fame I am not in the habit of thinking; that is for others, not for me: but to do right at the moment, not to neglect my duty, not to prejudice my honor, — that is my care. We have already had too many words; now go — and receive the thanks of the thankless, whom I spare.”

The interpreter, surprised and moved by this unexpectedly favorable issue, could not restrain his tears, and would have kissed the count’s hands. The count motioned him off, and said severely and seriously, “You know I cannot bear such things.” And with these words he went into the ante-room to attend to his pressing affairs, and hear the claims of so many expectant persons. So the matter was disposed of; and the next morning we celebrated, with the remnants of the yesterday’s sweetmeats, the passing over of an evil through the threatenings of which we had happily slept.

Whether the interpreter really spoke so wisely, or merely so painted the scene to himself, as one is apt to do after a good and fortunate action, I will not decide; at least he never varied it in repeating it. Indeed, this day seemed to him both the most anxious and the most glorious in his life.

One little incident will show how the count in general rejected all false parade, never assumed a title which did not belong to him, and how witty he was in his more cheerful moods.

A man of the higher class, who was one of the abstruse, solitary Frankforters, thought he must complain of the quartering of the soldiers upon him. He came in person; and the interpreter proffered him his services, but the other supposed that he did not need them. He came before the count with a most becoming bow, and said, “Your Excellency!” The count returned the bow, as well as the “excellency.” Struck by this mark of honor, and not supposing but that the title was too humble, he stooped lower, and said, “Monseigneur.” — ”Sir,” said the count very seriously, “we will not go farther, or else we may easily bring it to Majesty.” The other gentleman was extremely confused, and had not a word to utter. The interpreter, standing at some distance, and apprised of the whole affair, was wicked enough not to move; but the count, with much cheerfulness, continued, “Well, now, for instance, sir, what is your name?” — ”Spangenberg,” replied the other. “And mine,” said the count, “is Thorane. Spangenberg, what is your business with Thorane? Now, then, let us sit down: the affair shall at once be settled.”

And thus the affair was indeed settled at once, to the great satisfaction of the person I have here named Spangenberg; and the same evening, in our family circle, the story was not only told by the waggish interpreter, but was given with all the circumstances and gestures.

After these confusions, disquietudes, and grievances, the former security and thoughtlessness soon returned, in which the young particularly live from day to day, if it be in any degree possible. My passion for the French theatre grew with every performance. I did not miss an evening; though on every occasion, when, after the play, I sat down with the family to supper, — often putting up with the remains, — I had to endure my father’s constant reproaches, that theatres were useless, and would lead to nothing. In these cases I adduced all and every argument which is at hand for the apologists of the stage when they fall into a difficulty like mine. Vice in prosperity, and virtue in misfortune, are in the end set right by poetical justice. Those beautiful examples of misdeeds punished, “Miss Sarah Sampson,” and “The Merchant of London,” were very energetically cited on my part: but, on the other hand, I often came off worst when the “Fouberies de Scapin,” and others of the sort, were in the bill; and I was forced to bear reproaches for the delight felt by the public in the deceits of intriguing servants, and the successful follies of prodigal young men. Neither party was convinced; but my father was very soon reconciled to the theatre when he saw that I advanced with incredible rapidity in the French language.

Men are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake himself what he sees done by others, whether he has aptitude for it or not. I had soon exhausted the whole range of the French stage; several plays were performed for the third and fourth times; all had passed before my eyes and mind, from the stateliest tragedy to the most frivolous afterpiece; and, as when a child I had presumed to imitate Terence, I did not fail now as a boy, on a much more inciting occasion, to copy the French forms to the best of my ability and want of ability. There were then performed some half-mythological, half-allegorical pieces in the taste of Piron: they partook somewhat of the nature of parody, and were much liked. These representations particularly attracted me: the little gold wings of a lively Mercury, the thunderbolt of a disguised Jupiter, an amorous Danaë, or by whatever name a fair one visited by the gods might be called, if indeed it were not a shepherdess or huntress to whom they descended. And as elements of this kind, from “Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” or the “Pantheon Mythicum” of Pomey, were humming in swarms about my head, I had soon put together in my imagination a little piece of the kind, of which I can only say that the scene was rural, and that there was no lack in it of king’s daughters, princes, or gods. Mercury, especially, made so vivid an impression on me, that I could almost be sworn that I had seen him with my own eyes.

I presented my friend Derones with a very neat copy, made by myself; which he accepted with quite a special grace, and with a truly patronizing air, glanced hastily over the manuscript, pointed out a few grammatical blunders, found some speeches too long, and at last promised to examine and judge the work more attentively when he had the requisite leisure. To my modest question, whether the piece could by any chance be performed, he assured me that it was not altogether impossible. In the theatre, he said, a great deal went by favor; and he would support me with all his heart: only the affair must be kept private; for he had himself once on a time surprised the directors with a piece of his own, and it would certainly have been acted if it had not been too soon detected that he was the author. I promised him all possible silence, and already saw in my mind’s eye the name of my piece posted up in large letters on the corners of the streets and squares.

Light-minded as my friend generally was, the opportunity of playing the master was but too desirable. He read the piece through with attention, and, while he sat down with me to make some trivial alterations, turned the whole thing, in the course of the conversation, completely topsy- turvy, so that not one stone remained on another. He struck out, added, took away one character, substituted another, — in short, went on with the maddest wantonness in the world, so that my hair stood on end. My previous persuasion that he must surely understand the matter, allowed him to have his way; for he had often laid before me so much about the Three Unities of Aristotle, the regularity of the French drama, the probability, the harmony of the verse, and all that belongs to these, that I was forced to regard him, not merely as informed, but thoroughly grounded. He abused the English and scorned the Germans; in short, he laid before me the whole dramaturgic litany which I have so often in my life been compelled to hear.

Like the boy in the fable, I carried my mangled offspring home, and strove in vain to bring it to life. As, however, I would not quite abandon it, I caused a fair copy of my first manuscript, after a few alterations, to be made by our clerk, which I presented to my father, and thus gained so much, that, for a long time, he let me eat my supper in quiet after the play was over.

This unsuccessful attempt had made me reflective; and I resolved now to learn, at the very sources, these theories, these laws, to which every one appealed, but which had become suspicious to me chiefly through the impoliteness of my arrogant master. This was not indeed difficult, but laborious. I immediately read Corneille’s “Treatise on the Three Unities,” and learned from that how people would have it, but why they desired it so was by no means clear to me; and, what was worst of all, I fell at once into still greater confusion when I made myself acquainted with the disputes on the “Cid,” and read the prefaces in which Corneille and Racine are obliged to defend themselves against the critics and public. Here at least I plainly saw that no man knew what he wanted; that a piece like the “Cid,” which had produced the noblest effect, was to be condemned at the command of an all-powerful cardinal; that Racine, the idol of the French living in my day, who had now also become my idol (for I had got intimately acquainted with him when Schöff Von Olenschlager made us children act “Britannicus,” in which the part of Nero fell to me), — that Racine, I say, even in his own day, was not able to get on with the amateurs nor critics. Through all this I became more perplexed than ever; and after having pestered myself a long time with this talking backwards and forwards, and theoretical quackery of the previous century, threw them to the dogs, and was the more resolute in casting all the rubbish away, the more I thought I observed that the authors themselves who had produced excellent things, when they began to speak about them, when they set forth the grounds of their treatment, when they desired to defend, justify, or excuse themselves, were not always able to hit the proper mark. I hastened back again, therefore, to the living present, attended the theatre far more zealously, read more scrupulously and connectedly, so that I had perseverance enough this time to work through the whole of Racine and Molière and a great part of Corneille.

The king’s lieutenant still lived at our house. He in no respect had changed his deportment, especially towards us; but it was observable, and the interpreter made it still more evident to us, that he no longer discharged his duties with the same cheerfulness and zeal as at the outset, though always with the same rectitude and fidelity. His character and habits, which showed the Spaniard rather than the Frenchman; his caprices, which were not without their influence on his business; his unbending will under all circumstances; his susceptibility as to whatever had reference to his person or reputation, — all this together might perhaps sometimes bring him into conflict with his superiors. Add to this, that he had been wounded in a duel, which had arisen in the theatre, and it was deemed wrong that the king’s lieutenant, himself chief of police, should have committed a punishable offence. As I have said, all this may have contributed to make him live more retired, and here and there perhaps to act with less energy.

Meanwhile, a considerable part of the pictures he had ordered had been delivered. Count Thorane passed his leisure hours in examining them; while in the aforesaid gable-room he had them nailed up, canvas after canvas, large and small, side by side, and, because there was want of space, even one over another, and then taken down and rolled up. The works were constantly inspected anew, the parts that were considered the most successful were repeatedly enjoyed, but there was no want of wishes that this or that had been differently done.

Hence arose a new and very singular operation. As one painter best executed figures, another middle-grounds and distances, a third trees, a fourth flowers, it struck the count that these talents might perhaps be combined in the paintings, and that in this way perfect works might be produced. A beginning was made at once, by having, for instance, some beautiful cattle painted into a finished landscape. But because there was not always adequate room for all, and a few sheep more or less was no great matter to the cattle-painter, the largest landscape proved in the end too narrow. Now also the painter of figures had to introduce the shepherd and some travellers: these deprived each other of air, as we may say; and we marvelled that they were not all stifled, even in the most open country. No one could anticipate what was to come of the matter, and when it was finished it gave no satisfaction. The painters were annoyed. They had gained something by their first orders, but lost by these after-labors; though the count paid for them also very liberally. And, as the parts worked into each other in one picture by several hands produced no good effect after all the trouble, every one at last fancied that his own work had been spoiled and destroyed by that of the others; hence the artists were within a hair’s-breadth of falling out, and becoming irreconcilably hostile to each other. These alterations, or rather additions, were made in the before-mentioned studio, where I remained quite alone with the artists; and it amused me to hunt out from the studies, particularly of animals, this or that individual or group, and to propose it for the foreground or the distance, in which respect they many times, either from conviction or kindness, complied with my wishes.

The partners in this affair were therefore greatly discouraged, especially Seekatz, a very hypochondriacal, retired man, who, indeed, by his incomparable humor, was the best of companions among friends, but who, when he worked, desired to work alone, abstracted and perfectly free. This man, after solving difficult problems, and finishing them with the greatest diligence and the warmest love, of which he was always capable, was forced to travel repeatedly from Darmstadt to Frankfort, either to change something in his own pictures, or to touch up those of others, or even to allow, under his superintendence, a third person to convert his pictures into a variegated mess. His peevishness augmented, his resistance became more decided, and a great deal of effort was necessary on our part to guide this “gossip;” for he was one also, according to the count’s wishes. I still remember, that when the boxes were standing ready to pack up all the pictures, in the order in which the upholsterer might hang them up at once, at their place of destination, a small but indispensable bit of afterwork was demanded; but Seekatz could not be moved to come over. He had, by way of conclusion, done the best he could, having represented, in paintings to be placed over the doors, the four elements as children and boys, after life, and having expended the greatest care, not only on the figures, but on the accessories. These were delivered and paid for, and he thought he was quit of the business forever; but now he was to come over again, that he might enlarge, by a few touches of his pencil, some figures, the size of which was too small. Another, he thought, could do it just as well; he had already set about some new work; in short, he would not come. The time for sending off the pictures was at hand; they had, moreover, to get dry; every delay was untoward; and the count, in despair, was about to have him fetched in military fashion. We all wished to see the pictures finally gone, and found at last no expedient than for the gossip interpreter to seat himself in a wagon, and fetch over the refractory subject, with his wife and child. He was kindly received by the count, well treated, and at last dismissed with liberal payment.

After the pictures had been sent away, there was great peace in the house. The gable-room in the attic was cleaned, and given up to me; and my father, when he saw the boxes go, could not refrain from wishing to send off the count after them. For much as the tastes of the count coincided with his own, much as he must have rejoiced to see his principle of patronizing living artists so generously followed out by a man richer than himself, much as it may have flattered him that his collection had been the occasion of bringing so considerable a profit to a number of brave artists in a pressing time, he nevertheless felt such a repugnance to the foreigner who had intruded into his house, that he could not think well of any of his doings. One ought to employ painters, but not degrade them to paper-stainers; one ought to be satisfied with what they have done, according to their conviction and ability, even if it does not thoroughly please one, and not be perpetually carping at it. In short, in spite of all the count’s own generous endeavors, there could, once for all, be no mutual understanding. My father only visited that room when the count was at table; and I can recall but one instance, when, Seekatz having excelled himself, and the wish to see these pictures having brought the whole house together, my father and the count met, and manifested a common pleasure in these works of art, which they could not take in each other.

Scarcely, therefore, had the house been cleared of the chests and boxes, than the plan for removing the count, which had formerly been begun, but was afterwards interrupted, was resumed. The endeavor was made to gain justice by representations, equity by entreaties, favor by influence; and the quarter-masters were prevailed upon to decide thus: the count was to change his lodgings; and our house, in consideration of the burden borne day and night for several years uninterruptedly, was to be exempt for the future from billetting. But, to furnish a plausible pretext for this, we were to take in lodgers on the first floor, which the count had occupied, and thus render a new quartering, as it were, impossible. The count, who, after the separation from his dear pictures, felt no further peculiar interest in the house, and hoped, moreover, to be soon recalled and placed elsewhere, was pleased to move without opposition to another good residence, and left us in peace and good will. Soon afterwards he quitted the city, and received different appointments in gradation, but, it was rumored, not to his own satisfaction. Meantime, he had the pleasure of seeing the pictures which he had preserved with so much care felicitously arranged in his brother’s chateau: he wrote sometimes, sent dimensions, and had different pieces executed by the artists so often named. At last we heard nothing further about him, except after several years we were assured that he had died as governor of one of the French colonies in the West Indies.

FOURTH BOOK.

However much inconvenience the quartering of the French had caused us, we had become so accustomed to it, that we could not fail to miss it; nor could we children fail to feel as if the house were deserted. Moreover, it was not decreed that we should again attain perfect family unity. New lodgers were already bespoken; and after some sweeping and scouring, planing, and rubbing with beeswax, painting and varnishing, the house was completely restored again. The chancery-director Moritz, with his family, very worthy friends of my parents, moved in. He was not a native of Frankfort, but an able jurist and man of business, and managed the legal affairs of many small princes, counts, and lords. I never saw him otherwise than cheerful and pleasant, and diligent with his law-papers. His wife and children, gentle, quiet, and benevolent, did not indeed increase the sociableness of our house; for they kept to themselves: but a stillness, a peace, returned, which we had not enjoyed for a long time. I now again occupied my attic-room, in which the ghosts of the many pictures sometimes hovered before me; while I strove to frighten them away by labor and study.

The counsellor of legation, Moritz, a brother of the chancellor, came from this time often to our house. He was even more a man of the world, had a handsome figure, while his manners were easy and agreeable. He also managed the affairs of different persons of rank, and on occasions of meetings of creditors and imperial commissions frequently came into contact with my father. They had a high opinion of each other, and commonly stood on the side of the creditors; though they were generally obliged to perceive, much to their vexation, that a majority of the agents on such occasions are usually gained over to the side of the debtors.

The counsellor of legation readily communicated his knowledge, was fond of mathematics; and, as these did not occur in his present course of life, he made himself a pleasure by helping me on in this branch of study. I was thus enabled to finish my architectural sketches more accurately than heretofore, and to profit more by the instruction of a drawing-master, who now also occupied us an hour every day.

This good old man was indeed only half an artist. We were obliged to draw and combine strokes, from which eyes and noses, lips and ears, nay, at last, whole faces and heads, were to arise; but of natural or artistic forms there was no thought. We were tormented a long while with this /quid pro quo/ of the human figure; and when the so-called Passions of Le Brun were given us to copy, it was supposed at last that we had made great progress. But even these caricatures did not improve us. Then we went off to landscapes, foliage, and all the things which in ordinary instruction are practised without consistency or method. Finally we dropped into close imitation and neatness of strokes, without troubling ourselves about the merit or taste of the original.

In these endeavors our father led the way in an exemplary manner. He had never drawn; but he was unwilling to remain behind, now that his children pursued this art, and would give, even in his old age, an example how they should proceed in their youth. He therefore copied several heads of Piazetta, from his well-known sheets in small octavo, with an English lead-pencil upon the finest Dutch paper. In these he not only observed the greatest clearness of outline, but most accurately imitated the hatching of the copperplate with a light hand — only too slightly, as in his desire to avoid hardness he brought no keeping into his sketches. Yet they were always soft and accurate. His unrelaxing and untiring assiduity went so far, that he drew the whole considerable collection number by number; while we children jumped from one head to another, and chose only those that pleased us.

About this time the long-debated project, long under consideration, for giving us lessons in music, was carried into effect; and the last impulse to it certainly deserves mention. It was settled that we should learn the harpsichord, but there was always a dispute about the choice of a master. At last I went once accidentally into the room of one of my companions, who was just taking his lesson on the harpsichord, and found the teacher a most charming man: for each finger of the right and left hand he had a nickname, by which he indicated in the merriest way when it was to be used. The black and white keys were likewise symbolically designated, and even the tones appeared under figurative names. Such a motley company worked most pleasantly together. Fingering and time seemed to become perfectly easy and obvious; and, while the scholar was put into the best humor, every thing else succeeded beautifully.

Scarcely had I reached home, than I importuned my parents to set about the matter in good earnest at last, and give us this incomparable man for our master on the harpsichord. They hesitated, and made inquiries: they indeed heard nothing bad of the teacher, but, at the same time, nothing particularly good. Meanwhile, I had informed my sister of all the droll names: we could hardly wait for the lesson, and succeeded in having the man engaged.

The reading of the notes began first; but, as no jokes occurred here, we comforted ourselves with the hope, that when we went to the harpsichord, and the fingers were needed, the jocular method would commence. But neither keys nor fingering seemed to afford opportunity for any comparisons. Dry as the notes were, with their strokes on and between the five lines, the black and white keys were no less so: and not a syllable was heard, either of “thumbling,” “pointerling,” or “gold finger;” while the countenance of the man remained as imperturbable during his dry teaching as it had been before during his dry jests. My sister reproached me most bitterly for having deceived her, and actually believed that it was all an invention of mine. But I was myself confounded and learned little, though the man at once went regularly enough to work; for I kept always expecting that the former jokes would make their appearance, and so consoled my sister from one day to another. They did not re-appear, however; and I should never have been able to explain the riddle if another accident had not solved it for me.

One of my companions came in during a lesson, and at once all the pipes of the humorous /jet d’eau/ were opened: the “thumblings” and “pointerlings,” the “pickers” and “stealers,” as he used to call the fingers; the “falings” and “galings,” meaning “f” and “g;” the “fielings” and “gielings,” meaning “f” and “g” sharp, [Footnote: The names of the sharp notes in German terminate in “is,” and hence “f” and “g” sharp are called “fis” and “gis.”] — became once more extant, and made the most wonderful manikins. My young friend could not leave off laughing, and was rejoiced that one could learn in such a merry manner. He vowed that he would give his parents no peace until they had given him such an excellent man for a teacher.

And thus the way to two arts was early enough opened to me, according to the principles of a modern theory of education, merely by good luck, and without any conviction that I should be furthered therein by a native talent. My father maintained that everybody ought to learn drawing; for which reason he especially venerated the Emperor Maximilian, by whom this had been expressly commanded. He therefore held me to it more steadily than to music; which, on the other hand, he especially recommended to my sister, and even out of the hours for lessons kept her fast, during a good part of the day, at her harpsichord.

But the more I was in this way made to press on, the more I wished to press forward of myself; and my hours of leisure were employed in all sorts of curious occupations. From my earliest years I felt a love for the investigation of natural things. It is often regarded as an instinct of cruelty that children like at last to break, tear, and devour objects with which for a long time they have played, and which they have handled in various manners. Yet even in this way is manifested the curiosity, the desire of learning how such things hang together, how they look within. I remember, that, when a child, I pulled flowers to pieces to see how the leaves were inserted into the calyx, or even plucked birds to observe how the feathers were inserted into the wings. Children are not to be blamed for this, when even our naturalists believe they get their knowledge oftener by separation and division than by union and combination, — more by killing than by making alive.

An armed loadstone, very neatly sewed up in scarlet cloth, was one day destined to experience the effects of this spirit of inquiry. For the secret force of attraction which it exercised, not only on the little iron bar attached to it, but which was of such a kind that it could gain strength and could daily bear a heavier weight, — this mysterious virtue had so excited my admiration, that for a long time I was pleased with merely staring at its operation. But at last I thought I might arrive at some nearer revelation by tearing away the external covering. This was done; but I became no wiser in consequence, as the naked iron taught me nothing further. This also I took off; and I held in my hand the mere stone, with which I never grew weary of making experiments of various kinds on filings and needles, — experiments from which my youthful mind drew no further advantage beyond that of a varied experience. I could not manage to reconstruct the whole arrangement: the parts were scattered, and I lost the wondrous phenomenon at the same time with the apparatus.

Nor was I more fortunate in putting together an electrical machine. A friend of the family, whose youth had fallen in the time when electricity occupied all minds, often told us how, when a child, he had desired to possess such a machine: he got together the principal requisites, and, by the aid of an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, had produced tolerable results. As he readily and frequently repeated the story, and imparted to us some general information on electricity, we children found the thing very plausible, and long tormented ourselves with an old spinning-wheel and some medicine bottles, without producing even the smallest result. We nevertheless adhered to our belief, and were much delighted, when at the time of the fair, among other rarities, magical and legerdemain tricks, an electrical machine performed its marvels, which, like those of magnetism, were at that time already very numerous.

The want of confidence in the public method of instruction was daily increasing. People looked about for private tutors; and, because single families could not afford the expense, several of them united to attain their object. Yet the children seldom agreed; the young man had not sufficient authority; and, after frequently repeated vexations, there were only angry partings. It is not surprising, therefore, that other arrangements were thought of which should be more permanent as well as more advantageous.

The thought of establishing boarding-schools (/Pensionen/) had arisen from the necessity, which every one felt, of having the French language taught and communicated orally. My father had brought up a young person, who had been his footman, valet, secretary, and in short successively all in all. This man, whose name was Pfeil, spoke French well. After he had married, and his patrons had to think of a situation for him, they hit upon the plan of making him establish a boarding- school, which extended gradually into a small academy, in which every thing necessary, and at last even Greek and Latin, were taught. The extensive connections of Frankfort caused young French and English men to be brought to this establishment, that they might learn German and acquire other accomplishments. Pfeil, who was a man in the prime of life, and of the most wonderful energy and activity, superintended the whole very laudably; and as he could never be employed enough, and was obliged to keep music-teachers for his scholars, he set about music on the occasion, and practised the harpsichord with such zeal, that, without having previously touched a note, he very soon played with perfect readiness and spirit. He seemed to have adopted my father’s maxim, that nothing can more cheer and excite young people, than when at mature years one declares one’s self again a learner; and at an age when new accomplishments are acquired with difficulty, one endeavors, nevertheless, by zeal and perseverance, to excel the younger, who are more favored by nature.

By this love of playing the harpsichord, Pfeil was led to the instruments themselves, and, while he hoped to obtain the best, came into connection with Frederici of Gera, whose instruments were celebrated far and wide. He took a number of them on sale, and had now the joy of seeing, not only one piano, but many, set up in his residence, and of practising and being heard upon them.

The vivacity of this man brought a great rage for music into our house. My father remained on lasting good terms with him up to certain points of dispute. A large piano of Frederici was purchased also for us, which I, adhering to my harpsichord, hardly touched; but which so much increased my sister’s troubles, as, to duly honor the new instrument, she had to spend some time longer every day in practice; while my father, as overseer, and Pfeil, as a model and encouraging friend, alternately took their positions at her side.

A singular taste of my father’s caused much inconvenience to us children. This was the cultivation of silk, of the advantages of which, if it were more widely extended, he had a high opinion. Some acquaintances at Hanau, where the breeding of the worms was carried on with great care, gave him the immediate impulse. At the proper season, the eggs were sent to him from that place: and, as soon as the mulberry- trees showed sufficient leaves, they had to be stripped; and the scarcely visible creatures were most diligently tended. Tables and stands with boards were set up in a garret-chamber, to afford them more room and sustenance; for they grew rapidly, and, after their last change of skin, were so voracious that it was scarcely possible to get leaves enough to feed them, — nay, they had to be fed day and night, as every thing depends upon there being no deficiency of nourishment when the great and wondrous change is about to take place in them. When the weather was favorable, this business could indeed be regarded as a pleasant amusement; but, if the cold set in so that the mulberry-trees suffered, it was exceedingly troublesome. Still more unpleasant was it when rain fell during the last epoch; for these creatures cannot at all endure moisture, and the wet leaves had to be carefully wiped and dried, which could not always be done quite perfectly: and for this, or perhaps some other reason also, various diseases came among the flock, by which the poor things were swept off in thousands. The state of corruption which ensued produced a smell really pestilential; and, because the dead and diseased had to be taken away and separated from the healthy, the business was indeed extremely wearisome and repulsive, and caused many an unhappy hour to us children.

After we had one year passed the finest weeks of the spring and summer in tending the silk-worms, we were obliged to assist our father in another business, which, though simpler, was no less troublesome. The Roman views, which, bound by black rods at the top and bottom, had hung for many years on the walls of the old house, had become very yellow through the light, dust, and smoke, and not a little unsightly through the flies. If such uncleanliness was not to be tolerated in the new house, yet, on the other hand, these pictures had gained in value to my father, in consequence of his longer absence from the places represented. For at the outset such copies serve only to renew and revive the impressions received shortly before. They seem trifling in comparison, and at the best only a melancholy substitute. But, as the remembrance of the original forms fades more and more, the copies imperceptibly assume their place: they become as dear to us as those once were, and what we at first contemned now gains esteem and affection. Thus it is with all copies, and particularly with portraits. No one is easily satisfied with the counterfeit of an object still present, but how we value every /silhouette/ of one who is absent or departed.

In short, with this feeling of his former extravagance, my father wished that these engravings might be restored as much as possible. It was well known that this could be done by bleaching: and the operation, always critical with large plates, was undertaken under rather unfavorable circumstances; for the large boards, on which the smoked engravings were moistened and exposed to the sun, stood in the gutters before the garret windows, leaning against the roof, and were therefore liable to many accidents. The chief point was, that the paper should never thoroughly dry, but must be kept constantly moist. This was the duty of my sister and myself; and the idleness, which would have been otherwise so desirable, was excessively annoying on account of the tedium and impatience, and the watchfulness which allowed of no distraction. The end, however, was attained; and the bookbinder, who fixed each sheet upon thick paper, did his best to match and repair the margins, which had been here and there torn by our inadvertence. All the sheets together were bound in a volume, and for this time preserved.

That we children might not be wanting in every variety of life and learning, a teacher of the English language had to announce himself just at this time, who pledged himself to teach anybody not entirely raw in languages, English in four weeks, and to advance him to such a degree, that, with some diligence, he could help himself farther. His price was moderate, and he was indifferent as to the number of scholars at one lesson. My father instantly determined to make the attempt, and took lessons, together with my sister and myself, of this expeditious master. The hours were faithfully kept; there was no want of repeating our lessons; other exercises were neglected rather than this during the four weeks; and the teacher parted from us, and we from him, with satisfaction. As he remained longer in the town, and found many employers, he came from time to time to look after us and to help us, grateful that we had been among the first who placed confidence in him, and proud to be able to cite us as examples to the others.

My father, in consequence of this, entertained a new anxiety, that English might neatly stand in the series of my other studies in languages. Now, I will confess that it became more and more burdensome for me to take my occasions for study now from this grammar or collection of examples, now from that; now from one author, now from another, — and thus to divert my interest in a subject every hour. It occurred to me, therefore, that I might despatch all at the same time; and I invented a romance of six or seven brothers and sisters, who, separated from each other and scattered over the world, should communicate with each other alternately as to their conditions and feelings. The eldest brother gives an account, in good German, of all the manifold objects and incidents of his journey. The sister, in a ladylike style, with short sentences and nothing but stops, much as “Siegwart” was afterwards written, answers now him, now the other brothers, partly about domestic matters, and partly about affairs of the heart. One brother studies theology, and writes a very formal Latin, to which he often adds a Greek postscript. To another brother, holding the place of mercantile clerk at Hamburg, the English correspondence naturally falls; while a still younger one at Marseilles has the French. For the Italian was found a musician, on his first trip into the world; while the youngest of all, a sort of pert nestling, had applied himself to Jew-German, — the other languages having been cut off from him, — and, by means of his frightful ciphers, brought the rest of them into despair, and my parents into a hearty laugh at the good notion.

To obtain matter for filling up this singular form, I studied the geography of the countries in which my creations resided, and by inventing for those dry localities all sorts of human incidents which had some affinity with the characters and employments of my heroes. Thus my exercise-books became much more voluminous, my father was better satisfied, and I was much sooner made aware of my deficiency in both what I had acquired and possessed of my own.

Now, as such things, once begun, have no end nor limits, so it happened in the present case; for while I strove to attain the odd Jew-German, and to write it as well as I could read it, I soon discovered that I ought to know Hebrew, from which alone the modern corrupted dialect could be derived, and handled with any certainty. I consequently explained the necessity of my learning Hebrew to my father, and earnestly besought his consent; for I had a still higher object. Everywhere I heard it said, that, to understand the Old as well as the New Testament, the original languages were requisite. The latter I could read quite easily; because, that there might be no want of exercise, even on Sundays, the so-called Epistles and Gospels had, after church, to be recited, translated, and in some measure explained. I now purposed doing the same thing with the Old Testament, the peculiarities of which had always especially interested me.

My father, who did not like to do any thing by halves, determined to request the rector of our gymnasium, one Dr. Albrecht, to give me private lessons weekly, until I should have acquired what was most essential in so simple a language; for he hoped, that, if it would not be despatched as soon as English was learned, it could at least be managed in double the time.

Rector Albrecht was one of the most original figures in the world, — short, broad, but not fat, ill-shaped without being deformed; in short, an Aesop in gown and wig. His more than seventy-years-old face was completely twisted into a sarcastic smile; while his eyes always remained large, and, though red, were always brilliant and intelligent. He lived in the old cloister of the barefoot friars, the seat of the gymnasium. Even as a child, I had often visited him in company with my parents, and had, with a kind of trembling delight, glided through the long, dark passages, the chapels transformed into reception-rooms, the place broken up and full of stairs and corners. Without making me uncomfortable, he questioned me familiarly whenever we met, and praised and encouraged me. One day, on the changing of the pupils’ places after a public examination, he saw me standing, as a mere spectator, not far from his chair, while he distributed the silver /proemia virtulis et diligentioe/. I was probably gazing very eagerly upon the little bag out of which he drew the medals: he nodded to me, descended a step, and handed me one of the silver pieces. My joy was great; although others thought that this gift, bestowed upon a boy not belonging to the school, was out of all order. But for this the good old man cared but little, having always played the eccentric, and that in a striking manner. He had a very good reputation as a schoolmaster, and understood his business; although age no more allowed him to practise it thoroughly. But almost more than by his own infirmities was he hindered by greater circumstances; and, as I already knew, he was satisfied neither with the consistory, the inspectors, the clergy, nor the teachers. To his natural temperament, which inclined to satire, and the watching for faults and defects, he allowed free play, both in his programmes and his public speeches; and, as Lucian was almost the only writer whom he read and esteemed, he spiced all that he said and wrote with biting ingredients. Fortunately for those with whom he was dissatisfied, he never went directly to work, but only jeered at the defects which he wanted to reprove, with hints, allusions, classic passages, and scripture-texts. His delivery, moreover, — he always read his discourses, — was unpleasant, unintelligible, and, above all, was often interrupted by a cough, but more frequently by a hollow, paunch-convulsing laugh, with which he was wont to announce and accompany the biting passages. This singular man I found to be mild and obliging when I began to take lessons of him. I now went to his house daily at six o’clock in the evening, and always experienced a secret pleasure when the outer door closed behind me, and I had to thread the long, dark cloister-passage. We sat in his library, at a table covered with oil-cloth, a much-read Lucian never quitting his side.

In spite of all my willingness, I did not get at the matter without difficulty; for my teacher could not suppress certain sarcastic remarks as to the real truth about Hebrew. I concealed from him my designs upon Jew-German, and spoke of a better understanding of the original text. He smiled at this, and said I should be satisfied if I only learned to read. This vexed me in secret, and I concentrated all my attention when we came to the letters. I found an alphabet something like the Greek, of which the forms were easy, and the names, for the most part, not strange to me. All this I had soon comprehended and retained, and supposed we should now take up reading. That this was done from right to left I was well aware. But now all at once appeared a new army of little characters and signs, of points and strokes of all sorts, which were in fact to represent vowels. At this I wondered the more, as there were manifestly vowels in the larger alphabet; and the others only appeared to be hidden under strange appellations. I was also taught that the Jewish nation, as long as it flourished, actually were satisfied with the former signs, and knew no other way of writing and reading. Most willingly, then, would I have gone on along this ancient and, as it seemed to me, easier path; but my worthy declared rather sternly that we must go by the grammar as it had been approved and composed. Reading without these points and strokes, he said, was a very hard undertaking, and could be accomplished only by the learned and those who were well practised. I must, therefore, make up my mind to learn these little characters; but the matter became to me more and more confused. Now, it seemed, some of the first and larger primitive letters had no value in their places, in order that their little after-born kindred might not stand there in vain. Now they indicated a gentle breathing, now a guttural more or less rough, and now served as mere equivalents. But finally, when one fancied that he had well noted every thing, some of these personages, both great and small, were rendered inoperative; so that the eyes always had very much, and the lips very little, to do.

As that of which I already knew the contents had now to be stuttered in a strange gibberish, in which a certain snuffle and gargle were not a little commended as something unattainable, I in a certain degree deviated from the matter, and diverted myself, in a childish way, with the singular names of these accumulated signs. There were “emperors,” “kings,” and “dukes,” [Footnote: These are the technical names for classes of accents in the Hebrew grammar. — TRANS.] which, as accents governing here and there, gave me not a little entertainment. But even these shallow jests soon lost their charm. Nevertheless I was indemnified, inasmuch as by reading, translating, repeating, and committing to memory, the substance of the book came out more vividly; and it was this, properly, about which I desired to be enlightened. Even before this time, the contradiction between tradition, and the actual and possible, had appeared to me very striking; and I had often put my private tutors to a non-plus with the sun which stood still on Gibeon, and the moon in the vale of Ajalon, to say nothing of other improbabilities and incongruities. Every thing of this kind was now awakened; while, in order to master the Hebrew, I occupied myself exclusively with the Old Testament, and studied it, though no longer in Luther’s translation, but in the literal version of Sebastian Schmid, printed under the text, which my father had procured for me. Here, I am sorry to say, our lessons began to be defective in regard to practice in the language. Reading, interpreting, grammar, transcribing, and the repetition of words, seldom lasted a full half-hour; for I immediately began to aim at the sense of the matter, and, though we were still engaged in the first book of Moses, to utter several things suggested to me by the later books. At first the good old man tried to restrain me from such digressions, but at last they seemed to entertain him also. It was impossible for him to suppress his characteristic cough and chuckle: and, although he carefully avoided giving me any information that might have compromised himself, my importunity was not relaxed; nay, as I cared more to set forth my doubts than to learn their solution, I grew constantly more vivacious and bold, seeming justified by his deportment. Yet I could get nothing out of him, except that ever and anon he would exclaim with his peculiar, shaking laugh, “Ah! mad fellow! ah! mad boy!”

Still, my childish vivacity, which scrutinized the Bible on all sides, may have seemed to him tolerably serious and worthy of some assistance. He therefore referred me, after a time, to the large English biblical work which stood in his library, and in which the interpretation of difficult and doubtful passages was attempted in an intelligent and judicious manner. By the great labors of German divines the translation had obtained advantages over the original. The different opinions were cited; and at last a kind of reconciliation was attempted, so that the dignity of the book, the ground of religion, and the human understanding, might in some degree co-exist. Now, as often as towards the end of the lesson I came out with my usual questions and doubts, so often did he point to the repository. I took the volume, he let me read, turned over his Lucian; and, when I made any remarks on the book, his ordinary laugh was the only answer to my sagacity. In the long summer days he let me sit as long as I could read, many times alone; after a time he suffered me to take one volume after another home with me.

Man may turn which way he please, and undertake any thing whatsoever, he will always return to the path which nature has once prescribed for him. Thus it happened also with me in the present case. The trouble I took with the language, with the contents of the Sacred Scriptures themselves, ended at last in producing in my imagination a livelier picture of that beautiful and famous land, its environs and its vicinities, as well as of the people and events by which that little spot of earth was made glorious for thousands of years.

This small space was to see the origin and growth of the human race; thence we were to derive our first and only accounts of primitive history; and such a locality was to lie before our imagination, no less simple and comprehensible than varied, and adapted to the most wonderful migrations and settlements. Here, between four designated rivers, a small, delightful spot was separated from the whole habitable earth, for youthful man. Here he was to unfold his first capacities, and here at the same time was the lot to befall him, which was appointed for all his posterity; namely, that of losing peace by striving after knowledge. Paradise was trifled away; men increased and grew worse; and the Elohim, not yet accustomed to the wickedness of the new race, became impatient, and utterly destroyed it. Only a few were saved from the universal deluge; and scarcely had this dreadful flood ceased, than the well-known ancestral soil lay once more before the grateful eyes of the preserved.

Two rivers out of four, the Euphrates and Tigris, still flowed in their beds. The name of the first remained: the other seemed to be pointed out by its course. Minuter traces of paradise were not to be looked for after so great a revolution. The renewed race of man went forth hence a second time: it found occasion to sustain and employ itself in all sorts of ways, but chiefly to gather around it large herds of tame animals, and to wander with them in every direction.

This mode of life, as well as the increase of the families, soon compelled the people to disperse. They could not at once resolve to let their relatives and friends go forever: they hit upon the thought of building a lofty tower, which should show them the way back from the far distance. But this attempt, like their first endeavor, miscarried. They could not be at the same time happy and wise, numerous and united. The Elohim confounded their minds; the building remained unfinished; the men were dispersed; the world was peopled, but sundered.

But our regards, our interests, continue fixed on these regions. At last the founder of a race again goes forth from hence, and is so fortunate as to stamp a distinct character upon his descendants, and by that means to unite them for all time to come into a great nation, inseparable through all changes of place or destiny.

From the Euphrates, Abraham, not without divine guidance, wanders towards the west. The desert opposes no invincible barrier to his march. He attains the Jordan, passes over its waters, and spreads himself over the fair southern regions of Palestine. This land was already occupied, and tolerably well inhabited. Mountains, not extremely high, but rocky and barren, were severed by many watered vales favorable to cultivation. Towns, villages, and solitary settlements lay scattered over the plain, and on the slopes of the great valley, the waters of which are collected in Jordan. Thus inhabited, thus tilled, was the land: but the world was still large enough; and the men were not so circumspect, necessitous, and active, as to usurp at once the whole adjacent country. Between their possessions were extended large spaces, in which grazing herds could freely move in every direction. In one of these spaces Abraham resides; his brother Lot is near him: but they cannot long remain in such places. The very condition of a land, the population of which is now increasing, now decreasing, and the productions of which are never kept in equilibrium with the wants, produces unexpectedly a famine; and the stranger suffers alike with the native, whose own support he has rendered difficult by his accidental presence. The two Chaldean brothers move onward to Egypt; and thus is traced out for us the theatre on which, for some thousands of years, the most important events of the world were to be enacted. From the Tigris to the Euphrates, from the Euphrates to the Nile, we see the earth peopled; and this space also is traversed by a well-known, heaven-beloved man, who has already become worthy to us, moving to and fro with his goods and cattle, and, in a short time, abundantly increasing them. The brothers return; but, taught by the distress they have endured, they determine to part. Both, indeed, tarry in Southern Canaan; but while Abraham remains at Hebron, near the wood of Mamre, Lot departs for the valley of Siddim, which, if our imagination is bold enough to give Jordan a subterranean outlet, so that, in place of the present Dead Sea, we should have dry ground, can and must appear like a second Paradise, — a conjecture all the more probable, because the residents about there, notorious for effeminacy and wickedness, lead us to infer that they led an easy and luxurious life. Lot lives among them, but apart.

But Hebron and the wood of Mamre appear to us as the important place where the Lord speaks with Abraham, and promises him all the land as far as his eye can reach in four directions. From these quiet districts, from these shepherd-tribes, who can associate with celestials, entertain them as guests, and hold many conversations with them, we are compelled to turn our glance once more towards the East, and to think of the condition of the surrounding world, which, on the whole, perhaps, may have been like that of Canaan.

Families hold together: they unite, and the mode of life of the tribes is determined by the locality which they have appropriated or appropriate. On the mountains which send down their waters to the Tigris, we find warlike populations, who even thus early foreshadow those world-conquerors and world-rulers, and in a campaign, prodigious for those times, give us a prelude of future achievements. Chedor Laomer, king of Elam, has already a mighty influence over his allies. He reigns a long while; for twelve years before Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, he had made all the people tributary to him as far as the Jordan. They revolted at last, and the allies equipped for war. We find them unawares upon a route by which, probably, Abraham also reached Canaan. The people on the left and lower side of the Jordan were subdued. Chedor Laomer directs his march southwards towards the people of the Desert; then, wending north, he smites the Amalekites; and, when he has also overcome the Amorites, he reaches Canaan, falls upon the kings of the valley of Siddim, smites and scatters them, and marches with great spoil up the Jordan, in order to extend his conquests as far as Lebanon.

Among the captives, despoiled, and dragged along with their property, is Lot, who shares the fate of the country in which he lives a guest. Abraham learns this, and here at once we behold the patriarch a warrior and hero. He hurriedly gathers his servants, divides them into troops, attacks and falls upon the luggage of booty, confuses the victors, who could not suspect another enemy in the rear, and brings back his brother and his goods, with a great deal more belonging to the conquered kings. Abraham, by means of this brief contest, acquires, as it were, the whole land. To the inhabitants he appears as a protector, savior, and, by his disinterestedness, a king. Gratefully the kings of the valley receive him; Melchisedek, the king and priest, with blessings.

Now the prophecies of an endless posterity are renewed; nay, they take a wider and wider scope. From the waters of the Euphrates to the river of Egypt all the lands are promised him, but yet there seems a difficulty with respect to his next heirs. He is eighty years of age, and has no son. Sarai, less trusting in the heavenly powers than he, becomes impatient: she desires, after the Oriental fashion, to have a descendant, by means of her maid. But no sooner is Hagar given up to the master of the house, no sooner is there hope of a son, than dissensions arise. The wife treats her own dependant ill enough, and Hagar flies to seek a happier position among other tribes. She returns, not without a higher intimation, and Ishmael is born.

Abraham is now ninety-nine years old, and the promises of a numerous posterity are constantly repeated: so that, in the end, the pair regard them as ridiculous. And yet Sarai becomes at last pregnant, and brings forth a son, to whom the name of Isaac is given.

History, for the most part, rests upon the legitimate propagation of the human race. The most important events of the world require to be traced to the secrets of families, and thus the marriages of the patriarchs give occasion for peculiar considerations. It is as if the Divinity, who loves to guide the destiny of mankind, wished to prefigure here connubial events of every kind. Abraham, so long united by childless marriage to a beautiful woman whom many coveted, finds himself, in his hundredth year, the husband of two women, the father of two sons; and at this moment his domestic peace is broken. Two women, and two sons by different mothers, cannot possibly agree. The party less favored by law, usage, and opinion must yield. Abraham must sacrifice his attachment to Hagar and Ishmael. Both are dismissed; and Hagar is compelled now, against her will, to go upon a road which she once took in voluntary flight, at first, it seems, to the destruction of herself and child; but the angel of the Lord, who had before sent her back, now rescues her again, that Ishmael also may become a great people, and that the most improbable of all promises may be fulfilled beyond its limits.

Two parents in advanced years, and one son of their old age — here, at last, one might expect domestic quiet and earthly happiness. By no means. Heaven is yet preparing the heaviest trial for the patriarch. But of this we cannot speak without premising several considerations.

If a natural universal religion was to arise, and a special revealed one to be developed from it, the countries in which our imagination has hitherto lingered, the mode of life, the race of men, were the fittest for the purpose. At least, we do not find in the whole world any thing equally favorable and encouraging. Even to natural religion, if we assume that it arose earlier in the human mind, there pertains much of delicacy of sentiment; for it rests upon the conviction of an universal providence, which conducts the order of the world as a whole. A particular religion, revealed by Heaven to this or that people, carries with it the belief in a special providence, which the Divine Being vouchsafes to certain favored men, families, races, and people. This faith seems to develop itself with difficulty from man’s inward nature. It requires tradition, usage, and the warrant of a primitive time.

Beautiful is it, therefore, that the Israelitish tradition represents the very first men who confide in this particular providence as heroes of faith, following all the commands of that high Being on whom they acknowledge themselves dependent, just as blindly as, undisturbed by doubts, they are unwearied in awaiting the later fulfilments of his promises.

As a particular revealed religion rests upon the idea that one man may be more favored by Heaven than another, so it also arises pre-eminently from the separation of classes. The first men appeared closely allied, but their employments soon divided them. The hunter was the freest of all: from him was developed the warrior and the ruler. Those who tilled the field bound themselves to the soil, erected dwellings and barns to preserve what they had gained, and could estimate themselves pretty highly, because their condition promised durability and security. The herdsman in his position seemed to have acquired the most unbounded condition and unlimited property. The increase of herds proceeded without end, and the space which was to support them widened itself on all sides. These three classes seemed from the very first to have regarded each other with dislike and contempt; and as the herdsman was an abomination to the townsman, so did he in turn separate from the other. The hunters vanish from our sight among the hills, and reappear only as conquerors.

The patriarchs belonged to the shepherd class. Their manner of life upon the ocean of deserts and pastures gave breadth and freedom to their minds; the vault of heaven, under which they dwelt, with all its nightly stars, elevated their feelings; and they, more than the active, skilful huntsman, or the secure, careful, householding husbandman, had need of the immovable faith that a God walked beside them, visited them, cared for them, guided and saved them.

We are compelled to make another reflection in passing to the rest of the history. Humane, beautiful, and cheering as the religion of the patriarchs appears, yet traits of savageness and cruelty run through it, out of which man may emerge, or into which he may again be sunk.

That hatred should seek to appease itself by the blood, by the death, of the conquered enemy, is natural; that men concluded a peace upon the battle-field among the ranks of the slain may easily be conceived; that they should in like manner think to give validity to a contract by slain animals, follows from the preceding. The notion also that slain creatures could attract, propitiate, and gain over the gods, whom they always looked upon as partisans, either opponents or allies, is likewise not at all surprising. But if we confine our attention to the sacrifices, and consider the way in which they were offered in that primitive time, we find a singular, and, to our notions, altogether repugnant, custom, probably derived from the usages of war; viz., that the sacrificed animals of every kind, and whatever number was devoted, had to be hewn in two halves, and laid out on two sides: so that in the space between them were those who wished to make a covenant with the Deity.

Another dreadful feature wonderfully and portentously pervades that fair world; namely, that whatever had been consecrated or vowed must die. This also was probably a usage of war transferred to peace. The inhabitants of a city which forcibly defends itself are threatened with such a vow: it is taken by storm or otherwise. Nothing is left alive; men never: and often women, children, and even cattle, share a similar fate. Such sacrifices are rashly and superstitiously and with more or less distinctness promised to the gods; and those whom the votary would willingly spare, even his nearest of kin, his own children, may thus bleed, the expiatory victims of such a delusion.

In the mild and truly patriarchal character of Abraham, such a savage kind of worship could not arise; but the Godhead, [Footnote: It should be observed, that in this biblical narrative, when we have used the expressions, “Deity,” “Godhead,” or “Divinity,” Goethe generally has “die Götter,” or “the Gods.” — TRANS.] which often, to tempt us, seems to put forth those qualities which man is inclined to assign to it, imposes a monstrous task upon him. He must offer up his son as a pledge of the new covenant, and, if he follows the usage, not only kill and burn him, but cut him in two, and await between the smoking entrails a new promise from the benignant Deity. Abraham, blindly and without lingering, prepares to execute the command: to Heaven the will is sufficient. Abraham’s trials are now at an end, for they could not be carried farther. But Sarai dies, and this gives Abraham an opportunity for taking typical possession of the land of Canaan. He requires a grave, and this is the first time he looks out for a possession in this earth. He had before this probably sought out a twofold cave by the grove of Mamre. This he purchases, with the adjacent field; and the legal form which he observes on the occasion shows how important this possession is to him. Indeed, it was more so, perhaps, than he himself supposed: for there he, his sons and his grandsons, were to rest; and by this means the proximate title to the whole land, as well as the everlasting desire of his posterity to gather themselves there, was most properly grounded.

From this time forth the manifold incidents of the family life become varied. Abraham still keeps strictly apart from the inhabitants; and though Ishmael, the son of an Egyptian woman, has married a daughter of that land, Isaac is obliged to wed a kinswoman of equal birth with himself.

Abraham despatches his servant to Mesopotamia, to the relatives whom he had left behind there. The prudent Eleazer arrives unknown, and, in order to take home the right bride, tries the readiness to serve of the girls at the well. He asks to be permitted to drink; and Rebecca, unasked, waters his camels also. He gives her presents, he demands her in marriage, and his suit is not rejected. He conducts her to the home of his lord, and she is wedded to Isaac. In this case, too, issue has to be long expected. Rebecca is not blessed until after some years of probation; and the same discord, which, in Abraham’s double marriage, arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. Two boys of opposite characters wrestle already in their mother’s womb. They come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The former becomes the father’s, the latter the mother’s, favorite. The strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. Esau is quiet and indifferent as to the birthright which fate has given him: Jacob never forgets that his brother forced him back. Watching every opportunity of gaining the desirable privilege, he buys the birthright of his brother, and defrauds him of their father’s blessing. Esau is indignant, and vows his brother’s death: Jacob flees to seek his fortune in the land of his forefathers.

Now, for the first time, in so noble a family appears a member who has no scruple in attaining by prudence and cunning the advantages which nature and circumstances have denied him. It has often enough been remarked and expressed, that the Sacred Scriptures by no means intend to set up any of the patriarchs and other divinely favored men as models of virtue. They, too, are persons of the most different characters, with many defects and failings. But there is one leading trait, in which none of these men after God’s own heart can be wanting: that is, unshaken faith that God has them and their families in his special keeping.

General, natural religion, properly speaking, requires no faith; for the persuasion that a great producing, regulating, and conducting Being conceals himself, as it were, behind Nature, to make himself comprehensible to us — such a conviction forces itself upon every one. Nay, if we for a moment let drop this thread, which conducts us through life, it may be immediately and everywhere resumed. But it is different with a special religion, which announces to us that this Great Being distinctly and pre-eminently interests himself for one individual, one family, one people, one country. This religion is founded on faith, which must be immovable if it would not be instantly destroyed. Every doubt of such a religion is fatal to it. One may return to conviction, but not to faith. Hence the endless probation, the delay in the fulfilment of so often repeated promises, by which the capacity for faith in those ancestors is set in the clearest light.

It is in this faith also that Jacob begins his expedition; and if, by his craft and deceit, he has not gained our affections, he wins them by his lasting and inviolable love for Rachel, whom he himself wooes on the instant, as Eleazar had courted Rebecca for his father. In him the promise of a countless people was first to be fully unfolded: he was to see many sons around him, but through them and their mothers was to endure manifold sorrows of heart.

Seven years he serves for his beloved, without impatience and without wavering. His father-in-law, crafty like himself, and disposed, like him, to consider legitimate this means to an end, deceives him, and so repays him for what he has done to his brother. Jacob finds in his arms a wife whom he does not love. Laban, indeed, endeavors to appease him, by giving him his beloved also after a short time, and this but on the condition of seven years of further service. Vexation arises out of vexation. The wife he does not love is fruitful: the beloved one bears no children. The latter, like Sarai, desires to become a mother through her handmaiden: the former grudges her even this advantage. She also presents her husband with a maid, but the good patriarch is now the most troubled man in the world. He has four women, children by three, and none from her he loves. Finally she also is favored; and Joseph comes into the world, the late fruit of the most passionate attachment. Jacob’s fourteen years of service are over; but Laban is unwilling to part with him, his chief and most trusty servant. They enter into a new compact, and portion the flocks between them. Laban retains the white ones, as most numerous: Jacob has to put up with the spotted ones, as the mere refuse. But he is able here, too, to secure his own advantage: and as by a paltry mess (/of pottage/) he had procured the birthright, and, by a disguise, his father’s blessing, he manages by art and sympathy to appropriate to himself the best and largest part of the herds; and on this side also he becomes the truly worthy progenitor of the people of Israel, and a model for his descendants. Laban and his household remark the result, if not the stratagem. Vexation ensues: Jacob flees with his family and goods, and partly by fortune, partly by cunning, escapes the pursuit of Laban. Rachel is now about to present him another son, but dies in the travail; Benjamin, the child of sorrow, survives her; but the aged father is to experience a still greater sorrow from the apparent loss of his son Joseph.

Perhaps some one may ask why I have so circumstantially narrated histories so universally known, and so often repeated and explained. Let the inquirer be satisfied with the answer, that I could in no other way exhibit how, with my life full of diversion, and with my desultory education, I concentrated my mind and feelings in quiet action on one point; that I was able in no other way to depict the peace that prevailed about me, even when all without was so wild and strange. When an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither; when the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me, — I liked to take refuge in those Oriental regions, to plunge into the first books of Moses, and to find myself there, amid the scattered shepherd-tribes, at the same time in the greatest solitude and the greatest society.

These family scenes, before they were to lose themselves in a history of the Jewish nation, show us now, in conclusion, a form by which the hopes and fancies of the young in particular are agreeably excited, — Joseph, the child of the most passionate wedded love. He seems to us tranquil and clear, and predicts to himself the advantages which are to elevate him above his family. Cast into misfortune by his brothers, he remains steadfast and upright in slavery, resists the most dangerous temptations, rescues himself by prophecy, and is elevated according to his deserts to high honors. He shows himself first serviceable and useful to a great kingdom, then to his own kindred. He is like his ancestor Abraham in repose and greatness, his grandfather Isaac in silence and devotedness. The talent for traffic, inherited from his father, he exercises on a large scale. It is no longer flocks which are gained for himself from a father-in-law, but nations, with all their possessions, which he knows how to purchase for a king. Extremely graceful is this natural story, only it appears too short; and one feels called upon to paint it in detail.

Such a filling-up of biblical characters and events given only in outline, was no longer strange to the Germans. The personages of both the Old and New Testaments had received through Klopstock a tender and affectionate nature, highly pleasing to the boy, as well as to many of his contemporaries. Of Bodmer’s efforts in this line, little or nothing came to him; but “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” by Moser, made a great impression on the young heart. In that work, a right-minded man of business, and courtier, arrives at high honors through manifold tribulations; and the piety for which they threatened to destroy him became, early and late, his sword and buckler. It had long seemed to me desirable to work out the history of Joseph; but I could not get on with the form, particularly as I was conversant with no kind of versification which would have been adapted to such a work. But now I found a treatment of it in prose very suitable, and I applied all my strength to its execution. I now endeavored to discriminate and paint the characters, and, by the interpolation of incidents and episodes, to make the old simple history a new and independent work. I did not consider, what, indeed, youth cannot consider, that subject-matter was necessary to such a design, and that this could only arise by the perceptions of experience. Suffice it to say, that I represented to myself all the incidents down to the minutest details, and narrated them accurately to myself in their succession.

What greatly lightened this labor was a circumstance which threatened to render this work, and my authorship in general, exceedingly voluminous. A well-gifted young man, who, however, had become imbecile from over- exertion and conceit, resided as a ward in my father’s house, lived quietly with the family, and, if allowed to go on in his usual way, was contented and agreeable. He had, with great care, written out notes of his academical course, and acquired a rapid, legible hand. He liked to employ himself in writing better than in any thing else, and was pleased when something was given him to copy; but still more when he was dictated to, because he then felt carried back to his happy academical years. To my father, who was not expeditious in writing, and whose German letters were small and tremulous, nothing could be more desirable; and he was consequently accustomed, in the conduct of his own and other business, to dictate for some hours a day to this young man. I found it no less convenient, during the intervals, to see all that passed through my head fixed upon paper by the hand of another; and my natural gift of feeling and imitation grew with the facility of catching up and preserving.

As yet, I had not undertaken any work so large as that biblical prose- epic. The times were tolerably quiet, and nothing recalled my imagination from Palestine and Egypt. Thus my manuscripts swelled more and more every day, as the poem, which I recited to myself, as it were, in the air, stretched along the paper; and only a few pages from time to time needed to be re-written.

When the work was done, — for, to my own astonishment, it really came to an end, — I reflected, that from former years many poems were extant, which did not even now appear to me utterly despicable, and which, if written together in the same size with “Joseph,” would make a very neat quarto, to which the title “Miscellaneous Poems” might be given. I was pleased with this, as it gave me an opportunity of quietly imitating well-known and celebrated authors. I had composed a good number of so- called Anacreontic poems, which, on account of the convenience of the metre, and the lightness of the subject, flowed forth readily enough. But these I could not well take, as they were not in rhyme; and my desire before all things was to show my father something that would please him. So much the more, therefore, did the spiritual odes seem suitable, which I had very zealously attempted in imitation of the “Last Judgment” of Elias Schlegel. One of these, written to celebrate the descent of Christ into hell, received much applause from my parents and friends, and had the good fortune to please myself for some years afterwards. The so-called texts of the Sunday church-music, which were always to be had printed, I studied with diligence. They were, indeed, very weak; and I could well believe that my verses, of which I had composed many in the prescribed manner, were equally worthy of being set to music, and performed for the edification of the congregation. These, and many like them, I had for more than a year before copied with my own hand; because through this private exercise I was released from the copies of the writing-master. Now all were corrected and put in order, and no great persuasion was needed to have them neatly copied by the young man who was so fond of writing. I hastened with them to the book- binder: and when, very soon after, I handed the nice-looking volume to my father, he encouraged me with peculiar satisfaction to furnish a similar quarto every year; which he did with the greater conviction, as I had produced the whole in my spare moments alone.

Another circumstance increased my tendency to these theological, or, rather, biblical, studies. The senior of the ministry, John Philip Fresenius, a mild man, of handsome, agreeable appearance, who was respected by his congregation and the whole city as an exemplary pastor and good preacher, but who, because he stood forth against the Herrnhüters, was not in the best odor with the peculiarly pious; while, on the other hand, he had made himself famous, and almost sacred, with the multitude, by the conversion of a free-thinking general who had been mortally wounded, — this man died; and his successor, Plitt, a tall, handsome, dignified man, who brought from his /chair/ (he had been a professor in Marburg) the gift of teaching rather than of edifying, immediately announced a sort of religious course, to which his sermons were to be devoted in a certain methodical connection. I had already, as I was compelled to go to church, remarked the distribution of the subject, and could now and then show myself off by a pretty complete recitation of a sermon. But now, as much was said in the congregation, both for and against the new senior, and many placed no great confidence in his announced didactic sermons, I undertook to write them out more carefully; and I succeeded the better from having made smaller attempts in a seat very convenient for hearing, but concealed from sight. I was extremely attentive and on the alert: the moment he said Amen, I hastened from church, and spent a couple of hours in rapidly dictating what I had fixed in my memory and on paper, so that I could hand in the written sermon before dinner. My father was very proud of this success; and the good friend of the family, who had just come in to dinner, also shared in the joy. Indeed, this friend was very well disposed towards me, because I had made his “Messiah” so much my own, that in my repeated visits, paid to him with a view of getting impressions of seals for my collection of coats-of-arms, I could recite long passages from it till the tears stood in his eyes.

The next Sunday I prosecuted the work with equal zeal; and, as the mechanical part of it mainly interested me, I did not reflect upon what I wrote and preserved. During the first quarter these efforts may have continued pretty much the same; but as I fancied at last, in my self- conceit, that I found no particular enlightenment as to the Bible, nor clearer insight into dogmas, the small vanity which was thus gratified seemed to me too dearly purchased for me to pursue the matter with the same zeal. The sermons, once so many-leaved, grew more and more lean: and before long I should have relinquished this labor altogether, if my father, who was a fast friend to completeness, had not, by words and promises, induced me to persevere till the last Sunday in Trinity; though, at the conclusion, scarcely more than the text, the statement, and the divisions were scribbled on little pieces of paper.

My father was particularly pertinacious on this point of completeness. What was once undertaken had to be finished, even if the inconvenience, tedium, vexation, nay, uselessness, of the thing begun were plainly manifested in the mean time. It seemed as if he regarded completeness as the only end, and perseverance as the only virtue. If in our family circle, in the long winter evenings, we had begun to read a book aloud, we were compelled to finish, though we were all in despair about it, and my father himself was the first to yawn. I still remember such a winter, when we had thus to work our way through Bower’s “History of the Popes.” It was a terrible time, as little or nothing that occurs in ecclesiastical affairs can interest children and young people. Still, with all my inattention and repugnance, so much of that reading remained in my mind that I was able, in after times, to take up many threads of the narrative.

Amid all these heterogeneous occupations and labors, which followed each other so rapidly that one could hardly reflect whether they were permissible and useful, my father did not lose sight of the main object. He endeavored to direct my memory and my talent for apprehending and combining to objects of jurisprudence, and therefore gave me a small book by Hopp, in the shape of a catechism, and worked up according to the form and substance of the institutions. I soon learned questions and answers by heart, and could represent the catechist as well as the catechumen; and, as in religious instruction at that time, one of the chief exercises was to find passages in the Bible as readily as possible; so here a similar acquaintance with the “Corpus Juris” was found necessary, in which, also, I soon became completely versed. My father wished me to go on, and the little “Struve” was taken in hand; but here affairs did not proceed so rapidly. The form of the work was not so favorable for beginners, that they could help themselves on; nor was my father’s method of illustration so liberal as greatly to interest me.

Not only by the warlike state in which we lived for some years, but also by civil life itself, and the perusal of history and romances, was it made clear to me that there were many cases in which the laws are silent, and give no help to the individual, who must then see how to get out of the difficulty by himself. We had now reached the period when, according to the old routine, we were to learn, besides other things, fencing and riding, that we might guard our skins upon occasion, and present no pedantic appearance on horseback. As to the first, the practice was very agreeable to us; for we had already, long ago, contrived to make broad-swords out of hazel-sticks, with basket-hilts neatly woven of willow, to protect the hands. Now we might get real steel blades, and the clash we made with them was very merry.

There were two fencing-masters in the city: an old, earnest German, who went to work in a severe and solid style; and a Frenchman, who sought to gain his advantage by advancing and retreating, and by light, fugitive thrusts, which he always accompanied by cries. Opinions varied as to whose manner was the best. The little company with which I was to take lessons sided with the Frenchman; and we speedily accustomed ourselves to move backwards and forwards, make passes and recover, always breaking out into the usual exclamations. But several of our acquaintance had gone to the German teacher, and practised precisely the opposite. These distinct modes of treating so important an exercise, the conviction of each that his master was the best, really caused a dissension among the young people, who were of about the same age: and the fencing-schools occasioned serious battles, for there was almost as much fighting with words as with swords; and, to decide the matter in the end, a trial of skill between the two teachers was arranged, the consequences of which I need not circumstantially describe. The German stood in his position like a wall, watched his opportunity, and contrived to disarm his opponent over and over again with his cut and thrust. The latter maintained that this mattered not, and proceeded to exhaust the other’s wind by his agility. He fetched the German several lunges too, which, however, if they had been in earnest, would have sent him into the next world.

On the whole, nothing was decided or improved, except that some went over to our countryman, of whom I was one. But I had already acquired too much from the first master; and hence a considerable time elapsed before the new one could break me of it, who was altogether less satisfied with us renegades than with his original pupils.

With riding I fared still worse. It happened that they sent me to the course in the autumn, so that I commenced in the cool and damp season. The pedantic treatment of this noble art was highly repugnant to me. From first to last, the whole talk was about sitting the horse: and yet no one could say in what a proper sitting consisted, though all depended on that; for they went to and fro on the horse without stirrups. Moreover, the instruction seemed contrived only for cheating and degrading the scholars. If one forgot to hook or loosen the curb-chain, or let his switch fall down, or even his hat, — every delay, every misfortune, had to be atoned for by money; and one was laughed at into the bargain. This put me in the worst of humors, particularly as I found the place of exercise itself quite intolerable. The wide, nasty space, either wet or dusty, the cold, the mouldy smell, all together was in the highest degree repugnant to me; and since the stable-master always gave the others the best and me the worst horses to ride, — perhaps because they bribed him by breakfasts and other gifts, or even by their own cleverness; since he kept me waiting, and, as it seemed, slighted me, — I spent the most disagreeable hours in an employment that ought to have been the most pleasant in the world. Nay, the impression of that time and of these circumstances has remained with me so vividly, that although I afterwards became a passionate and daring rider, and for days and weeks together scarcely got off my horse, I carefully shunned covered riding-courses, and at least passed only a few moments in them. The case often happens, that, when the elements of an exclusive art are taught us, this is done in a painful and revolting manner. The conviction that this is both wearisome and injurious has given rise, in later times, to the educational maxim, that the young must be taught every thing in an easy, cheerful, and agreeable way: from which, however, other evils and disadvantages have proceeded.

With the approach of spring, times became again more quiet with us; and if in earlier days I had endeavored to obtain a sight of the city, its ecclesiastical, civil, public, and private structures, and especially found great delight in the still prevailing antiquities, I afterwards endeavored, by means of “Lersner’s Chronicle,” and other Frankfortian books and pamphlets belonging to my father, to revive the persons of past times. This seemed to me to be well attained by great attention to the peculiarities of times and manners and of distinguished individuals.

Among the ancient remains, that which, from my childhood, had been remarkable to me, was the skull of a State criminal, fastened up on the tower of the bridge, who, out of three or four, as the naked iron spikes showed, had, since 1616, been preserved in spite of the encroachments of time and weather. Whenever one returned from Sachsenhausen to Frankfort, one had this tower before one; and the skull was directly in view. As a boy, I liked to hear related the history of these rebels, — Fettmilch and his confederates, — how they had become dissatisfied with the government of the city, had risen up against it, plotted a mutiny, plundered the Jews’ quarter, and excited a fearful riot, but were at last captured, and condemned to death by a deputy of the emperor. Afterwards I felt anxious to know the most minute circumstance, and to hear what sort of people they were. When from an old contemporary book, ornamented with wood-cuts, I learned, that, while these men had indeed been condemned to death, many councillors had at the same time been deposed, because various kinds of disorder and very much that was unwarrantable was then going on; when I heard the nearer particulars how all took place, — I pitied the unfortunate persons who might be regarded as sacrifices made for a future better constitution. For from that time was dated the regulation which allows the noble old house of Limpurg, the Frauenstein- house, sprung from a club, besides lawyers, trades-people, and artisans, to take part in a government, which, completed by a system of ballot, complicated in the Venetian fashion, and restricted by the civil colleges, was called to do right, without acquiring any special privilege to do wrong.

Among the things which excited the misgivings of the boy, and even of the youth, was especially the state of the Jewish quarter of the city (/Judenstadt/), properly called the Jew Street (/Judengasse/); as it consisted of little more than a single street, which in early times may have been hemmed in between the walls and trenches of the town, as in a prison (/Zwinger/). The closeness, the filth, the crowd, the accent of an unpleasant language, altogether made a most disagreeable impression, even if one only looked in as one passed the gate. It was long before I ventured in alone; and I did not return there readily, when I had once escaped the importunities of so many men unwearied in demanding and offering to traffic. At the same time, the old legends of the cruelty of the Jews towards Christian children, which we had seen hideously illustrated in “Gottfried’s Chronicle,” hovered gloomily before my young mind. And although they were thought better of in modern times, the large caricature, still to be seen, to their disgrace, on an arched wall under the bridge-tower, bore extraordinary witness against them; for it had been made, not through private ill- will, but by public order.

However, they still remained the chosen people of God, and passed, no matter how it came about, as a memorial of the most ancient times. Besides, they also were men, active and obliging; and, even to the tenacity with which they clung to their peculiar customs, one could not refuse one’s respect. The girls, moreover, were pretty, and were far from displeased when a Christian lad, meeting them on the sabbath in the Fischerfeld, showed himself kindly and attentive. I was consequently extremely curious to become acquainted with their ceremonies. I did not desist until I had frequently visited their school, had assisted at a circumcision and a wedding, and formed a notion of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Everywhere I was well received, pleasantly entertained, and invited to come again; for it was through persons of influence that I had been either introduced or recommended.

Thus, as a young resident in a large city, I was thrown about from one object to another; and horrible scenes were not wanting in the midst of the municipal quiet and security. Sometimes a more or less remote fire aroused us from our domestic peace: sometimes the discovery of a great crime, with its investigation and punishment, set the whole city in an uproar for many weeks. We were forced to be witnesses of different executions; and it is worth remembering, that I was also once present at the burning of a book. The publication was a French comic romance, which indeed spared the State, but not religion and manners. There was really something dreadful in seeing punishment inflicted on a lifeless thing. The packages burst asunder in the fire, and were raked apart by an oven- fork, to be brought in closer contact with the flames. It was not long before the kindled sheets were wafted about in the air, and the crowd caught at them with eagerness. Nor could we rest until we had hunted up a copy, while not a few managed likewise to procure the forbidden pleasure. Nay, if it had been done to give the author publicity, he could not himself have made a more effectual provision.

But there were also more peaceable inducements which took me about in every part of the city. My father had early accustomed me to manage for him his little affairs of business. He charged me particularly to stir up the laborers whom he set to work, as they commonly kept him waiting longer than was proper; because he wished every thing done accurately, and was used in the end to lower the price for a prompt payment. In this way, I gained access to all the workshops: and as it was natural to me to enter into the condition of others, to feel every species of human existence, and sympathize in it with pleasure, these commissions were to me the occasion of many most delightful hours; and I learned to know every one’s method of proceeding, and what joy and sorrow, what advantages and hardships, were incident to the indispensable conditions of this or that mode of life. I was thus brought nearer to that active class which connects the lower and upper classes. For if on the one side stand those who are employed in the simple and rude products, and on the other those who desire to enjoy something that has been already worked up, the manufacturer, with his skill and hand, is the mediator through whom the other two receive something from each other: each is enabled to gratify his wishes in his own way. The household economy of many crafts, which took its form and color from the occupation, was likewise an object of my quiet attention; and thus was developed and strengthened in me the feeling of the equality, if not of all men, yet of all human conditions, — the mere fact of existence seeming to me the main point, and all the rest indifferent and accidental.

As my father did not readily permit himself an expense which would be consumed at once in some momentary enjoyment, — as I can scarcely call to mind that we ever took a walk together, and spent any thing in a place of amusement, — he was, on the other hand, not niggardly in procuring such things as had a good external appearance in addition to inward value. No one could desire peace more than he, although he had not felt the smallest inconvenience during the last days of the war. With this feeling, he had promised my mother a gold snuff-box, set with diamonds, which she was to receive as soon as peace should be publicly declared. In the expectation of the happy event, they had labored now for some years on this present. The box, which was tolerably large, had been executed in Hanau; for my father was on good terms with the gold-workers there, as well as with the heads of the silk establishments. Many designs were made for it: the cover was adorned by a basket of flowers, over which hovered a dove with the olive-branch. A vacant space was left for the jewels, which were to be set partly in the dove and partly on the spot where the box is usually opened. The jeweller, to whom the execution and the requisite stones were intrusted, was named Lautensak, and was a brisk, skilful man, who, like many artists, seldom did what was necessary, but usually works of caprice, which gave him pleasure. The jewels were very soon set, in the shape in which they were to be put upon the box, on some black wax, and looked very well; but they would not come off to be transferred to the gold. In the outset, my father let the matter rest: but as the hope of peace became livelier, and finally when the stipulations, — particularly the elevation of the Archduke Joseph to the Roman throne, — seemed more precisely known, he grew more and more impatient; and I had to go several times a week, nay, at last, almost daily, to visit the tardy artist. Owing to my unremitted teasing and exhortation, the work went on, though slowly enough; for, as it was of that kind which can be taken in hand or laid aside at will, there was always something by which it was thrust out of the way, and put aside.

The chief cause of this conduct, however, was a task which the artist had undertaken on his own account. Everybody knew that the Emperor Francis cherished a strong liking for jewels, and especially for colored stones. Lautensak had expended a considerable sum, and, as it afterwards turned out, larger than his means, on such gems, out of which he had begun to shape a nosegay, in which every stone was to be tastefully disposed, according to its shape and color, and the whole form a work of art worthy to stand in the treasure-vaults of an emperor. He had, in his desultory way, labored at it for many years, and now hastened — because after the hoped-for peace the arrival of the emperor, for the coronation of his son, was expected in Frankfort — to complete it and finally to put it together. My desire to become acquainted with such things he used very dexterously to divert my attention by sending me forth as his dun, and to turn me away from my intention. He strove to impart a knowledge of these stones to me, and made me attentive to their properties and value; so that in the end I knew his whole bouquet by heart, and quite as well as he could have demonstrated its virtues to a customer. It is even now present to my mind; and I have since seen more costly, but not more graceful, specimens of show and magnificence in this sort. He possessed, moreover, a pretty collection of engravings, and other works of art, with which he liked to amuse himself; and I passed many hours with him, not without profit. Finally, when the Congress of Hubertsburg was finally fixed, he did for my sake more than was due; and the dove and flowers actually reached my mother’s hands on the festival in celebration of the peace.

I then received also many similar commissions to urge on painters with respect to pictures which had been ordered. My father had confirmed himself in the notion — and few men were free from it — that a picture painted on wood was greatly to be preferred to one that was merely put on canvas. It was therefore his great care to possess good oak boards, of every shape; because he well knew that just on this important point the more careless artists trusted to the joiners. The oldest planks were hunted up, the joiners were obliged to go accurately to work with gluing, painting, and arranging; and they were then kept for years in an upper room, where they could be sufficiently dried. A precious board of this kind was intrusted to the painter Junker, who was to represent on it an ornamental flower-pot, with the most important flowers drawn after nature in his artistic and elegant manner. It was just about the spring- time; and I did not fail to take him several times a week the most beautiful flowers that fell in my way, which he immediately put in, and by degrees composed the whole out of these elements with the utmost care and fidelity. On one occasion I had caught a mouse, which I took to him, and which he desired to copy as a very pretty animal; nay, really represented it, as accurately as possible, gnawing an ear of corn at the foot of the flower-pot. Many such inoffensive natural objects, such as butterflies and chafers, were brought in and represented; so that finally, as far as imitation and execution were concerned, a highly valuable picture was put together.

Hence I was not a little astonished when the good man formally declared one day, when the work was just about to be delivered, that the picture no longer pleased him, — since, while it had turned out quite well in its details, it was not well composed as a whole, because it had been produced in this gradual manner; and he had committed a blunder at the outset, in not at least devising a general plan for light and shade, as well as for color, according to which the single flowers might have been arranged. He scrutinized, in my presence, the minutest parts of the picture, which had arisen before my eyes during six months, and had pleased me in many respects, and, much to my regret, managed to thoroughly convince me. Even the copy of the mouse he regarded as a mistake; for many persons, he said, have a sort of horror of such animals: and they should not be introduced where the object is to excite pleasure. As it commonly happens with those who are cured of a prejudice, and think themselves much more knowing than they were before, I now had a real contempt for this work of art, and agreed perfectly with the artist when he caused to be prepared another tablet of the same size, on which, according to his taste, he painted a better-formed vessel and a more artistically arranged nosegay, and also managed to select and distribute the little living accessories in an ornamental and agreeable way. This tablet also he painted with the greatest care, though altogether after the former copied one, or from memory, which, through a very long and assiduous practice, came to his aid. Both paintings were now ready; and we were thoroughly delighted with the last, which was certainly the more artistic and striking of the two. My father was surprised with two pictures instead of one, and to him the choice was left. He approved of our opinion, and of the reasons for it, and especially of our good will and activity; but, after considering both pictures some days, decided in favor of the first, without saying much about the motives of his choice. The artist, in an ill humor, took back his second well-meant picture, and could not refrain from the remark that the good oaken tablet on which the first was painted had certainly had its effect on my father’s decision.

Now that I am again speaking of painting, I am reminded of a large establishment, where I passed much time, because both it and its managers especially attracted me. It was the great oil-cloth factory which the painter Nothnagel had erected, — an expert artist, but one who by his mode of thought inclined more to manufacture than to art. In a very large space of courts and gardens, all sorts of oil-cloths were made, from the coarsest, that are spread with a trowel, and used for baggage-wagons and similar purposes, and the carpets impressed with figures, to the finer and the finest, on which sometimes Chinese and grotesque, sometimes natural flowers, sometimes figures, sometimes landscapes, were represented by the pencils of accomplished workmen. This multiplicity, to which there was no end, amused me vastly. The occupation of so many men, from the commonest labor to that in which a certain artistic worth could not be denied, was to me extremely attractive. I made the acquaintance of this multitude of younger and older men, working in several rooms one behind the other, and occasionally lent a hand myself. The sale of these commodities was extraordinarily brisk. Whoever at that time was building or furnishing a house, wished to provide for his lifetime; and this oil-cloth carpeting was certainly quite indestructible. Nothnagel had enough to do in managing the whole, and sat in his office surrounded by factors and clerks. The remainder of his time he employed in his collection of works of art, consisting chiefly of engravings, in which, as well as in the pictures he possessed, he traded occasionally. At the same time he had acquired a taste for etching: he etched a variety of plates, and prosecuted this branch of art even into his latest years.

As his dwelling lay near the Eschenheim gate, my way when I had visited him led me out of the city to some pieces of ground which my father owned beyond the gates. One was a large orchard, the soil of which was used as a meadow, and in which my father carefully attended the transplanting of trees, and whatever else pertained to their preservation; though the ground itself was leased. Still more occupation was furnished by a very well-preserved vineyard beyond the Friedberg gate, where, between the rows of vines, rows of asparagus were planted and tended with great care. Scarcely a day passed in the fine season in which my father did not go there; and as on these occasions we might generally accompany him, we were provided with joy and delight from the earliest productions of spring to the last of autumn. We now also acquired a knowledge of gardening matters, which, as they were repeated every year, became in the end perfectly known and familiar to us. But, after the manifold fruits of summer and autumn, the vintage at last was the most lively and the most desirable; nay, there is no question, that as wine gives a freer character to the very places and districts where it is grown and drunk, so also do these vintage-days, while they close summer and at the same time open the winter, diffuse an incredible cheerfulness. Joy and jubilation pervade a whole district. In the daytime, huzzas and shoutings are heard from every end and corner; and at night rockets and fire-balls, now here, now there, announce that the people, everywhere awake and lively, would willingly make this festival last as long as possible. The subsequent labor at the wine-press, and during the fermentation in the cellar, gave us also a cheerful employment at home; and thus we ordinarily reached winter without being properly aware of it.

These rural possessions delighted us so much the more in the spring of 1763, as the 15th of February in that year was celebrated as a festival day, on account of the conclusion of the Hubertsberg peace, under the happy results of which the greater part of my life was to flow away. But, before I go farther, I think I am bound to mention some men who exerted an important influence on my youth.

Von Olenschlager, a member of the Frauenstein family, a Schöff, and son- in-law of the above-mentioned Dr. Orth, a handsome, comfortable, sanguine man. In his official holiday costume he could well have personated the most important French prelate. After his academical course, he had employed himself in political and state affairs, and directed even his travels to that end. He greatly esteemed me, and often conversed with me on matters which chiefly interested him. I was with him when he wrote his “Illustration of the Golden Bull,” when he managed to explain to me very clearly the worth and dignity of that document. My imagination was led back by it to those wild and unquiet times; so that I could not forbear representing what he related historically, as if it were present, by pictures of characters and circumstances, and often by mimicry. In this he took great delight, and by his applause excited me to repetition.

I had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of Moses, and then of the “Aeneid” and Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” I now did the same thing with the “Golden Bull,” and often provoked my patron to a smile, when I quite seriously and unexpectedly exclaimed, “/Omne regnum in se divisum desolabitur; nam principes ejus facti sunt socii furum./” [Footnote: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation, for the princes thereof have become the associates of robbers. — TRANS.] The knowing man shook his head, smiling, and said doubtingly, “What times those must have been, when, at a grand diet, the emperor had such words published in the face of his princes!”

There was a great charm in Von Olenschlager’s society. He received little company, but was strongly inclined to intellectual amusement, and induced us young people from time to time to perform a play; for such exercises were deemed particularly useful to the young. We acted “Canute” by Schlegel, in which the part of the king was assigned to me, Elfrida to my sister, and Ulfo to the younger son of the family. We then ventured on the “Britannicus;” [Footnote: Racine’s tragedy. — TRANS.] for, besides our dramatic talents, we were to bring the language into practice. I took Nero, my sister Agrippina, and the younger son Britannicus. We were more praised than we deserved, and fancied we had done it even beyond the amount of praise. Thus I stood on the best terms with this family, and have been indebted to them for many pleasures and a speedier development.

Von Reineck, of an old patrician family, able, honest, but stubborn, a meagre, swarthy man, whom I never saw smile. The misfortune befell him that his only daughter was carried off by a friend of the family. He pursued his son-in-law with the most vehement prosecution: and because the tribunals, with their formality, were neither speedy nor sharp enough to gratify his desire of vengeance, he fell out with them; and there arose quarrel after quarrel, suit after suit. He retired completely into his own house and its adjacent garden, lived in a spacious but melancholy lower room, into which for many years no brush of a whitewasher, and perhaps scarcely the broom of a maid-servant, had found its way. He was very fond of me, and had especially commended to me his younger son. He many times asked his oldest friends, who knew how to humor him, his men of business and agents, to dine with him, and on these occasions never omitted inviting me. There was good eating and better drinking at his house. But a large stove, that let out the smoke from many cracks, caused his guests the greatest pain. One of the most intimate of these once ventured to remark upon this, by asking the host whether he could put up with such an inconvenience all the winter. He answered, like a second Timon or Heautontimoroumenos, “Would to God this was the greatest evil of those which torment me!” It was long before he allowed himself to be persuaded to see his daughter and grandson. The son-in-law never again dared to come into his presence.

On this excellent but unfortunate man my visits had a very favorable effect; for while he liked to converse with me, and particularly instructed me on world and state affairs, he seemed to feel himself relieved and cheered. The few old friends who still gathered round him, often, therefore, made use of me when they wished to soften his peevish humor, and persuade him to any diversion. He now really rode out with us many times, and again contemplated the country, on which he had not cast an eye for so many years. He called to mind the old landowners, and told stories of their characters and actions, in which he showed himself always severe, but often cheerful and witty. We now tried also to bring him again among other men, which, however, nearly turned out badly.

About the same age, if indeed not older, was one Herr Von Malapert, a rich man, who possessed a very handsome house by the horse-market, and derived a good income from salt-pits. He also lived quite secluded; but in summer he was a great deal in his garden, near the Bockenheim gate, where he watched and tended a very fine plot of pinks.

Von Reineck was likewise an amateur of pinks: the season of flowering had come, and suggestions were made as to whether these two could not visit each other. We introduced the matter, and persisted in it; till at last Von Reineck resolved to go out with us one Sunday afternoon. The greeting of the two old gentlemen was very laconic, indeed almost pantomimic; and they walked up and down by the long pink frames with true diplomatic strides. The display was really extraordinarily beautiful: and the particular forms and colors of the different flowers, the advantages of one over the other, and their rarity, gave at last occasion to a sort of conversation which appeared to get quite friendly; at which we others rejoiced the more because we saw the most precious old Rhine wine in cut decanters, fine fruits, and other good things spread upon a table in a neighboring bower. But these, alas! we were not to enjoy. For Von Reineck unfortunately saw a very fine pink with its head somewhat hanging down: he therefore took the stalk near the calyx very cautiously between his fore and middle fingers, and lifted the flower so that he could well inspect it. But even this gentle handling vexed the owner. Von Malapert courteously, indeed, but stiffly enough, and somewhat self-complacently, reminded him of the /Oculis, non manibus/.[Footnote: Eyes, not hands. — TRANS.] Von Reineck had already let go the flower, but at once took fire at the words, and said in his usual dry, serious manner, that it was quite consistent with an amateur to touch and examine them in such a manner. Whereupon he repeated the act, and took the flower again between his fingers. The friends of both parties — for Von Malapert also had one present — were now in the greatest perplexity. They set one hare to catch another (that was our proverbial expression, when a conversation was to be interrupted, and turned to another subject), but it would not do; the old gentleman had become quite silent: and we feared every moment that Von Reineck would repeat the act, when it would be all over with us. The two friends kept their principals apart by occupying them, now here, now there, and at last we found it most expedient to make preparation for departure. Thus, alas! we were forced to turn our backs on the inviting side-board, yet unenjoyed.

Hofrath Huesgen, not born in Frankfort, of the Reformed [Footnote: That is to say, he was a Calvinist, as distinguished from a Lutheran. — TRANS.] religion, and therefore incapable of public office, including the profession of advocate, which, however, because much confidence was placed in him as an excellent jurist, he managed to exercise quietly, both in the Frankfort and the imperial courts, under assumed signatures, was already sixty years old when I took writing-lessons with his son, and so came into his house. His figure was tall without being thin, and broad without corpulency. You could not look, for the first time, on his face, which was not only disfigured by small-pox, but deprived of an eye, without apprehension. He always wore on his bald head a perfectly white bell-shaped cap, tied at the top with a ribbon. His morning-gowns, of calamanco or damask, were always very clean. He dwelt in a very cheerful suite of rooms on the ground-floor by the /Allée/, and the neatness of every thing about him corresponded with this cheerfulness. The perfect arrangement of his papers, books, and maps produced a favorable impression. His son, Heinrich Sebastian, afterwards known by various writings on art, gave little promise in his youth. Good-natured but dull, not rude but blunt, and without any special liking for instruction, he rather sought to avoid the presence of his father, as he could get all he wanted from his mother. I, on the other hand, grew more and more intimate with the old man, the more I knew of him. As he attended only to important cases, he had time enough to occupy and amuse himself in another manner. I had not long frequented his house, and heard his doctrines, before I could well perceive that he stood in opposition to God and the world. One of his favorite books was “Agrippa de Vanitate Scientiarum,” which he especially commended to me, and so set my young brains in a considerable whirl for a long time. In the happiness of youth I was inclined to a sort of optimism, and had again pretty well reconciled myself with God or the gods; for the experience of a series of years had taught me that there was much to counterbalance evil, that one can well recover from misfortune, and that one may be saved from dangers and need not always break one’s neck. I looked with tolerance, too, on what men did and pursued, and found many things worthy of praise which my old gentleman could not by any means abide. Indeed, once when he had sketched the world to me, rather from the distorted side, I observed from his appearance that he meant to close the game with an important trump-card. He shut tight his blind left eye, as he was wont to do in such cases, looked sharp out of the other, and said in a nasal voice, “Even in God I discover defects.”

My Timonic mentor was also a mathematician; but his practical turn drove him to mechanics, though he did not work himself. A clock, wonderful indeed in those days, which indicated, not only the days and hours, but the motions of the sun and moon, he caused to be made according to his own plan. On Sunday, about ten o’clock in the morning, he always wound it up himself; which he could do the more regularly, as he never went to church. I never saw company nor guests at his house; and only twice in ten years do I remember to have seen him dressed, and walking out of doors.

My various conversations with these men were not insignificant, and each of them influenced me in his own way. From every one I had as much attention as his own children, if not more; and each strove to increase his delight in me as in a beloved son, while he aspired to mould me into his moral counterpart. Olenschlager would have made me a courtier, Von Reineck a diplomatic man of business: both, the latter particularly, sought to disgust me with poetry and authorship. Huisgen wished me to be a Timon after his fashion, but, at the same time, an able jurisconsult, — a necessary profession, as he thought, with which one could, in a regular manner, defend one’s self and friends against the rabble of mankind, succor the oppressed, and, above all, pay off a rogue; though the last is neither especially practicable nor advisable.

But if I liked to be at the side of these men to profit by their counsels and directions, younger persons, only a little older than myself, roused me to immediate emulation. I name here, before all others, the brothers Schlosser and Griesbach. But as, subsequently, there arose between us greater intimacy, which lasted for many years uninterruptedly, I will only say, for the present, that they were then praised as being distinguished in languages, and other studies which opened the academical course, and held up as models, and that everybody cherished the certain expectation that they would once do something uncommon in church and state.

With respect to myself, I also had it in my mind to produce something extraordinary; but in what it was to consist was not clear. But as we are apt to look rather to the reward which may be received than to the merit which is to be acquired; so, I do not deny, that if I thought of a desirable piece of good fortune, it appeared to me most fascinating in the shape of that laurel garland which is woven to adorn the poet.

FIFTH BOOK.

Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in a way peculiar to himself. Nature, education, circumstances, and habit kept me apart from all that was rude; and though I often came into contact with the lower classes of people, particularly mechanics, no close connection grew out of it. I had indeed boldness enough to undertake something uncommon and perhaps dangerous, and many times felt disposed to do so; but I was without the handle by which to grasp and hold it.

Meanwhile I was quite unexpectedly involved in an affair which brought me near to a great hazard, and at least for a long time into perplexity and distress. The good terms on which I before stood with the boy whom I have already named Pylades was maintained up to the time of my youth. We indeed saw each other less often, because our parents did not stand on the best footing with each other; but, when we did meet, the old raptures of friendship broke out immediately. Once we met in the alleys which offer a very agreeable walk between the outer and inner gate of Saint Gallus. We had scarcely returned greetings when he said to me, “I hold to the same opinion as ever about your verses. Those which you recently communicated to me, I read aloud to some pleasant companions; and not one of them will believe that you have made them.” — ”Let it pass,” I answered: “we will make and enjoy them, and the others may think and say of them what they please.”

“There comes the unbeliever now,” added my friend. “We will not speak of it,” I replied: “what is the use of it? one cannot convert them.” — ”By no means,” said my friend: “I cannot let the affair pass off in this way.”

After a short, insignificant conversation, my young comrade, who was but too well disposed towards me, could not suffer the matter to drop, without saying to the other, with some resentment, “Here is my friend who made those pretty verses, for which you will not give him credit!” — “He will certainly not take it amiss,” answered the other; “for we do him an honor when we suppose that more learning is required to make such verses than one of his years can possess.” I replied with something indifferent; but my friend continued, “It will not cost much labor to convince you. Give him any theme, and he will make you a poem on the spot.” I assented; we were agreed; and the other asked me whether I would venture to compose a pretty love-letter in rhyme, which a modest young woman might be supposed to write to a young man, to declare her inclination. “Nothing is easier than that,” I answered, “if I only had writing materials.” He pulled out his pocket almanac, in which there were a great many blank leaves; and I sat down upon a bench to write. They walked about in the mean while, but always kept me in sight. I immediately brought the required situation before my mind, and thought how agreeable it must be if some pretty girl were really attached to me, and would reveal her sentiments to me, either in prose or verse. I therefore began my declaration with delight, and in a little while executed it in a flowing measure, between doggerel and madrigal, with the greatest possible /naiveté/, and in such a way that the sceptic was overcome with admiration, and my friend with delight. The request of the former to possess the poem I could the less refuse, as it was written in his almanac; and I liked to see the documentary evidence of my capabilities in his hands. He departed with many assurances of admiration and respect, and wished for nothing more than that we should often meet; so we settled soon to go together into the country.

Our excursion actually took place, and was joined by several more young people of the same rank. They were men of the middle, or, if you please, of the lower, class, who were not wanting in brains, and who, moreover, as they had gone through school, were possessed of various knowledge and a certain degree of culture. In a large, rich city, there are many modes of gaining a livelihood. These eked out a living by copying for the lawyers, and by advancing the children of the lower order more than is usual in common schools. With grown-up children, who were about to be confirmed, they went through the religious courses; then, again, they assisted factors and merchants in some way, and were thus enabled to enjoy themselves frugally in the evenings, and particularly on Sundays and festivals.

On the way there, while they highly extolled my love-letter, they confessed to me that they had made a very merry use of it; viz., that it had been copied in a feigned hand, and, with a few pertinent allusions, had been sent to a conceited young man, who was now firmly persuaded that a lady to whom he had paid distant court was excessively enamored of him, and sought an opportunity for closer acquaintance. They at the same time told me in confidence, that he desired nothing more now than to be able to answer her in verse; but that neither he nor they were skilful enough, so that they earnestly solicited me to compose the much- desired reply.

Mystifications are and will continue to be an amusement for idle people, whether more or less ingenious. A venial wickedness, a self-complacent malice, is an enjoyment for those who have neither resources in themselves nor a wholesome external activity. No age is quite exempt from such pruriences. We had often tricked each other in our childish years: many sports turn upon mystification and trick. The present jest did not seem to me to go farther: I gave my consent. They imparted to me many particulars which the letter ought to contain, and we brought it home already finished.

A little while afterwards I was urgently invited, through my friend, to take part in one of the evening-feasts of that society. The lover, he said, was willing to bear the expense on this occasion, and desired expressly to thank the friend who had shown himself so excellent a poetical secretary.

We came together late enough, the meal was most frugal, the wine drinkable; while, as for the conversation, it turned almost entirely on jokes upon the young man, who was present, and certainly not very bright, and who, after repeated readings of the letter, almost believed that he had written it himself.

My natural good nature would not allow me to take much pleasure in such a malicious deception, and the repetition of the same subject soon disgusted me. I should certainly have passed a tedious evening, if an unexpected apparition had not revived me. On our arrival we found the table already neatly and orderly set, and sufficient wine served on it: we sat down and remained alone, without requiring further service. As there was, however, a scarcity of wine at last, one of them called for the maid; but, instead of the maid, there came in a girl of uncommon, and, when one saw her with all around her, of incredible, beauty. “What do you desire?” she asked, after having cordially wished us a good- evening: “the maid is ill in bed. Can I serve you?” — ”The wine is out,” said one: “if you would fetch us a few bottles, it would be very kind.” — “Do it, Gretchen,” [Footnote: The diminutive of Margaret. — TRANS.] said another: “it is but a cat’s leap from here.” — ”Why not?” she answered; and, taking a few empty bottles from the table, she hastened out. Her form, as seen from behind, was almost more elegant. The little cap sat so neatly upon her little head, which a slender throat united very gracefully to her neck and shoulders. Every thing about her seemed choice; and one could survey her whole form the more at ease, as one’s attention was no more exclusively attracted and fettered by the quiet, honest eyes and lovely mouth. I reproved my comrades for sending the girl out alone at night, but they only laughed at me; and I was soon consoled by her return, as the publican lived only just across the way. “Sit down with us, in return,” said one. She did so; but, alas! she did not come near me. She drank a glass to our health, and speedily departed, advising us not to stay very long together, and not to be so noisy, as her mother was just going to bed. It was not, however, her own mother, but the mother of our hosts.

The form of that girl followed me from that moment on every path; it was the first durable impression which a female being had made upon me: and as I could find no pretext to see her at home, and would not seek one, I went to church for love of her, and had soon traced out where she sat. Thus, during the long Protestant service, I gazed my fill at her. When the congregation left the church, I did not venture to accost her, much less to accompany her, and was perfectly delighted if she seemed to have remarked me and to have returned my greeting with a nod. Yet I was not long denied the happiness of approaching her. They had persuaded the lover, whose poetical secretary I had been, that the letter written in his name had been actually despatched to the lady, and had strained to the utmost his expectations that an answer must come soon. This, also, I was to write; and the waggish company entreated me earnestly, through Pylades, to exert all my wit and employ all my art, in order that this piece might be quite elegant and perfect.

In the hope of again seeing my beauty, I immediately set to work, and thought of every thing that would be in the highest degree pleasing if Gretchen were writing it to me. I thought I had composed every thing so completely according to her form, her nature, her manner, and her mind, that I could not refrain from wishing that it were so in reality, and lost myself in rapture at the mere thought that something similar could be sent from her to me. Thus I mystified myself, while I intended to impose upon another; and much joy and much trouble was yet to arise out of the affair. When I was once more summoned, I had finished, promised to come, and did not fail at the appointed hour. There was only one of the young people at home; Gretchen sat at the window spinning; the mother was going to and fro. The young man desired that I should read it over to him: I did so, and read, not without emotion, as I glanced over the paper at the beautiful girl; and when I fancied that I remarked a certain uneasiness in her deportment, and a gentle flush on her cheeks, I uttered better and with more animation that which I wished to hear from herself. The lover, who had often interrupted me with commendations, at last entreated me to make some alterations. These affected some passages which indeed were rather suited to the condition of Gretchen than to that of the lady, who was of a good family, wealthy, and known and respected in the city. After the young man had designated the desired changes, and had brought me an inkstand, but had taken leave for a short time on account of some business, I remained sitting on the bench against the wall, behind the large table, and essayed the alterations that were to be made, on the large slate, which almost covered the whole table, with a pencil that always lay in the window; because upon this slate reckonings were often made, and various memoranda noted down, and those coming in or going out even communicated with each other.

I had for a while written different things and rubbed them out again, when I exclaimed impatiently, “It will not do!” — ”So much the better,” said the dear girl in a grave tone: “I wished that it might not do! You should not meddle in such matters.” She arose from the distaff, and, stepping towards the table, gave me a severe lecture, with a great deal of good sense and kindliness. “The thing seems an innocent jest: it is a jest, but it is not innocent. I have already lived to see several cases, in which our young people, for the sake of such mere mischief, have brought themselves into great difficulty.” — ”But what shall I do?” I asked: “the letter is written, and they rely upon me to alter it.” — “Trust me,” she replied, “and do not alter it; nay, take it back, put it in your pocket, go away, and try to make the matter straight through your friend. I will also put in a word; for look you, though I am a poor girl, and dependent upon these relations, — who indeed do nothing bad, though they often, for the sake of sport or profit, undertake a good deal that is rash, — I have resisted them, and would not copy the first letter, as they requested. They transcribed it in a feigned hand; and, if it is not otherwise, so may they also do with this. And you, a young man of good family, rich, independent, why will you allow yourself to be used as a tool in a business which can certainly bring no good to you, and may possibly bring much that is unpleasant? “It made me very happy to hear her speak thus continuously, for generally she introduced but few words into conversation. My liking for her grew incredibly. I was not master of myself, and replied, “I am not so independent as you suppose; and of what use is wealth to me, when the most precious thing I can desire is wanting?”

She had drawn my sketch of the poetic epistle towards her, and read it half aloud in a sweet and graceful manner.

“That is very pretty,” said she, stopping at a sort of /naïve/ point; “but it is a pity that it is not destined for a real purpose.” — “That were indeed very desirable,” I cried; “and, oh! how happy must he be, who receives from a girl he infinitely loves, such an assurance of her affection.” — ”There is much required for that,” she answered, “and yet many things are possible.” — ”For example,” I continued, “if any one who knew, prized, honored, and adored you, laid such a paper before you, what would you do?” I pushed the paper nearer to her, which she had previously pushed back to me. She smiled, reflected for a moment, took the pen, and subscribed her name. I was beside myself with rapture, jumped up, and was going to embrace her. “No kissing!” said she, “that is so vulgar; but let us love if we can.” I had taken up the paper, and thrust it into my pocket. “No one shall ever get it,” said I: “the affair is closed. You have saved me.” — ”Now complete the salvation,” she exclaimed, “and hurry off, before the others arrive, and you fall into trouble and embarrassment!” I could not tear myself away from her; but she asked me in so kindly a manner, while she took my right hand in both of hers, and lovingly pressed it! The tears stood in my eyes: I thought hers looked moist. I pressed my face upon her hands, and hastened away. Never in my life had I found myself in such perplexity.

The first propensities to love in an uncorrupted youth take altogether a spiritual direction. Nature seems to desire that one sex may by the senses perceive goodness and beauty in the other. And thus to me, by the sight of this girl, — by my strong inclination for her, — a new world of the beautiful and the excellent had arisen. I perused my poetical epistle a hundred times, gazed at the signature, kissed it, pressed it to my heart, and rejoiced in this amiable confession. But the more my transports increased, the more did it pain me not to be able to visit her immediately, and to see and converse with her again; for I dreaded the reproofs and importunities of her cousins. The good Pylades, who might have arranged the affair, I could not contrive to meet. The next Sunday, therefore, I set out for Niederrad, where these associates generally used to go, and actually found them there. I was, however, greatly surprised, when, instead of behaving in a cross, distant manner, they came up to me with joyful countenances. The youngest particularly was very kind, took me by the hand, and said, “You have lately played us a sorry trick, and we were very angry with you; but your absconding and taking away the poetical epistle has suggested a good thought to us, which otherwise might never have occurred. By way of atonement, you may treat us to-day; and you shall learn at the same time the notion we have, which will certainly give you pleasure.” This harangue caused me no small embarrassment, for I had about me only money enough to regale myself and a friend: but to treat a whole company, and especially one which did not always stop at the right time, I was by no means prepared; nay, the proposal astonished me the more, as they had always insisted, in the most honorable manner, that each one should pay only his own share. They smiled at my distress; and the youngest proceeded, “Let us first take a seat in the bower, and then you shall learn more.” We sat down; and he said, “When you had taken the love-letter with you, we talked the whole affair over again, and came to a conclusion that we had gratuitously misused your talent to the vexation of others and our own danger, for the sake of a mere paltry love of mischief, when we could have employed it to the advantage of all of us. See, I have here an order for a wedding-poem, as well as for a dirge. The second must be ready immediately, the other can wait a week. Now, if you make these, which is easy for you, you will treat us twice; and we shall long remain your debtors.” This proposal pleased me in every respect; for I had already in my childhood looked with a certain envy on the occasional poems, [Footnote: That is to say, a poem written for a certain occasion, as a wedding, funeral, etc. The German word is /Gelegenheitsgedicht/.” — TRANS.] — of which then several circulated every week, and at respectable marriages especially came to light by the dozen, — because I thought I could make such things as well, nay, better than others. Now an opportunity was offered me to show myself, and especially to see myself in print. I did not appear disinclined. They acquainted me with the personal particulars and the position of the family: I went somewhat aside, made my plan, and produced some stanzas. However, when I returned to the company, and the wine was not spared, the poem began to halt; and I could not deliver it that evening. “There is still time till to-morrow evening,” they said; “and we will confess to you that the fee which we receive for the dirge is enough to get us another pleasant evening to-morrow. Come to us; for it is but fair that Gretchen, too, should sup with us, as it was she properly who gave us the notion.” My joy was unspeakable. On my way home I had only the remaining stanzas in my head, wrote down the whole before I went to sleep, and the next morning made a very neat, fair copy. The day seemed infinitely long to me; and scarcely was it dusk, than I found myself again in the narrow little dwelling beside the dearest of girls.

The young people, with whom in this way I formed a closer and closer connection, were not exactly of a low, but of an ordinary, type. Their activity was commendable, and I listened to them with pleasure when they spoke of the manifold ways and means by which one could gain a living: above all, they loved to tell of people, now very rich, who had begun with nothing. Others to whom they referred had, as poor clerks, rendered themselves indispensable to their employers, and had finally risen to be their sons-in-law; while others had so enlarged and improved a little trade in matches and the like, that they were now prosperous merchants and tradesmen. But above all, to young men who were active on their feet, the trade of agent and factor, and the undertaking of all sorts of commissions and charges for helpless rich men was, they said, a most profitable means of gaining a livelihood. We all liked to hear this; and each one fancied himself somebody, when he imagined, at the moment, that there was enough in him, not only to get on in the world, but to acquire an extraordinary fortune. But no one seemed to carry on this conversation more earnestly than Pylades, who at last confessed that he had an extraordinary passion for a girl, and was actually engaged to her. The circumstances of his parents would not allow him to go to universities; but he had endeavored to acquire a fine handwriting, a knowledge of accounts and the modern languages, and would now do his best in hopes of attaining that domestic felicity. His fellows praised him for this, although they did not approve of a premature engagement; and they added, that while forced to acknowledge him to be a fine, good fellow, they did not consider him active or enterprising enough to do any thing extraordinary. While he, in vindication of himself, circumstantially set forth what he thought himself fit for, and how he was going to begin, the others were also incited; and each one began to tell what he was now able to do, doing, or carrying on, what he had already accomplished, and what he saw immediately before him. The turn at last came to me. I was to set forth my course of life and prospects; and, while I was considering, Pylades said, “I make this one proviso, lest we be at too great a disadvantage, that he does not bring into the account the external advantages of his position. He should rather tell us a tale how he would proceed if at this moment he were thrown entirely upon his own resources, as we are.”

Gretchen, who till this moment had kept on spinning, rose, and seated herself as usual at the end of the table. We had already emptied some bottles, and I began to relate the hypothetical history of my life in the best humor. “First of all, then, I commend myself to you,” said I, “that you may continue the custom you have begun to bestow on me. If you gradually procure me the profit of all the occasional poems, and we do not consume them in mere feasting, I shall soon come to something. But then, you must not take it ill if I dabble also in your handicraft.” Upon this, I told them what I had observed in their occupations, and for which I held myself fit at any rate. Each one had previously rated his services in money, and I asked them to assist me also in completing my establishment. Gretchen had listened to all hitherto very attentively, and that in a position which well suited her, whether she chose to hear or to speak. With both hands she clasped her folded arms, and rested them on the edge of the table. Thus she could sit a long while without moving any thing but her head, which was never done without some occasion or meaning. She had several times put in a word, and helped us on over this and that, when we halted in our projects, and then was again still and quiet as usual. I kept her in my eye, and it may readily be supposed that I had not devised and uttered my plan without reference to her. My passion for her gave to what I said such an air of truth and probability, that, for a moment, I deceived myself, imagined myself as lonely and helpless as my story supposed, and felt extremely happy in the prospect of possessing her. Pylades had closed his confession with marriage; and the question arose among the rest of us, whether our plans went as far as that. “I have not the least doubt on that score,” said I; “for properly a wife is necessary to every one of us, in order to preserve at home, and enable us to enjoy as a whole, what we rake together abroad in such an odd way.” I then made a sketch of a wife, such as I wished; and it must have turned out strangely if she had not been a perfect counterpart of Gretchen.

The dirge was consumed; the epithalamium now stood beneficially at hand: I overcame all fear and care, and contrived, as I had many acquaintances, to conceal my actual evening entertainments from my family. To see and to be near the dear girl was soon an indispensable condition of my being. The friends had grown just as accustomed to me, and we were almost daily together, as if it could not be otherwise. Pylades had, in the mean time, introduced his fair one into the house; and this pair passed many an evening with us. They, as bride and bridegroom, though still very much in the bud, did not conceal their tenderness: Gretchen’s deportment towards me was only suited to keep me at a distance. She gave her hand to no one, not even to me; she allowed no touch: yet she many times seated herself near me, particularly when I wrote, or read aloud, and then, laying her arm familiarly upon my shoulder, she looked over the book or paper. If, however, I ventured to take on a similar liberty with her, she withdrew, and did not return very soon. This position she often repeated; and, indeed, all her attitudes and motions were very uniform, but always equally becoming, beautiful, and charming. But such a familiarity I never saw her practise towards anybody else.

One of the most innocent, and, at the same time, amusing, parties of pleasure in which I engaged with different companies of young people, was this, — that we seated ourselves in the Höchst market-ship, observed the strange passengers packed away in it, and bantered and teased, now this one, now that, as pleasure or caprice prompted. At Höchst we got out at the time when the market-boat from Mentz arrived. At a hotel there was a well-spread table, where the better sort of travellers, coming and going, ate with each other, and then proceeded, each on his way, as both ships returned. Every time, after dining, we sailed up to Frankfort, having, with a very large company, made the cheapest water- excursion that was possible. Once I had undertaken this journey with Gretchen’s cousins, when a young man joined us at table in Hochst, who might be a little older than we were. They knew him, and he got himself introduced to me. He had something very pleasing in his manner, though he was not otherwise distinguished. Coming from Mentz, he now went back with us to Frankfort, and conversed with me of every thing that related to the internal arrangements of the city, and the public offices and places, on which he seemed to me to be very well informed. When we separated, he bade me farewell, and added, that he wished I might think well of him, as he hoped on occasion to avail himself of my recommendation. I did not know what he meant by this, but the cousins enlightened me some days after. They spoke well of him, and asked me to intercede with my grandfather, as a moderate appointment was just now vacant, which this friend would like to obtain. I at first wished to be excused, as I had never meddled in such affairs; but they went on urging me until I resolved to do it. I had already many times remarked, that in these grants of offices, which unfortunately were regarded as matters of favor, the mediation of my grandmother or an aunt had not been without effect. I was now so advanced as to arrogate some influence to myself. For that reason, to gratify my friends, who declared themselves under every sort of obligation for such a kindness, I overcame the timidity of a grandchild, and undertook to deliver a written application that was handed in to me.

One Sunday, after dinner, while my grandfather was busy in his garden, all the more because autumn was approaching, and I tried to assist him on every side, I came forward with my request and the petition, after some hesitation. He looked at it, and asked me whether I knew the young man. I told him in general terms what was to be said, and he let the matter rest there. “If he has merit, and, moreover, good testimonials, I will favor him for your sake and his own.” He said no more, and for a long while I heard nothing of the matter.

For some time I had observed that Gretchen was no longer spinning, but instead was employed in sewing, and that, too, on very fine work, which surprised me the more, as the days were already shortening, and winter was coming on. I thought no further about it; only it troubled me that several times I had not found her at home in the morning as formerly, and could not learn, without importunity, whither she had gone. Yet I was destined one day to be surprised in a very odd manner. My sister, who was getting herself ready for a ball, asked me to fetch her some so- called Italian flowers, at a fashionable milliner’s. They were made in convents, and were small and pretty: myrtles especially, dwarf-roses, and the like, came out quite beautifully and naturally. I did her the favor, and went to the shop where I had been with her often already. Hardly had I entered, and greeted the proprietress, than I saw sitting in the window a lady, who, in a lace cap, looked very young and pretty, and in a silk mantilla seemed very well shaped. I could easily recognize that she was an assistant, for she was occupied in fastening a ribbon and feathers upon a hat. The milliner showed me the long box with single flowers of various sorts. I looked them over, and, as I made my choice, glanced again towards the lady in the window; but how great was my astonishment when I perceived an incredible similarity to Gretchen, nay, was forced to be convinced at last that it was Gretchen herself. Nor could I doubt any longer, when she winked with her eyes, and gave me a sign that I must not betray our acquaintance. I now, with my choosing and rejecting, drove the milliner into despair more than even a lady could have done. I had, in fact, no choice; for I was excessively confused, and at the same time liked to linger, because it kept me near the girl, whose disguise annoyed me, though in that disguise she appeared to me more enchanting than ever. Finally the milliner seemed to lose all patience, and with her own hands selected for me a whole bandbox full of flowers, which I was to place before my sister, and let her choose for herself. Thus I was, as it were, driven out of the shop, she sending the box in advance by one of her girls.

Scarcely had I reached home than my father caused me to be called, and communicated to me that it was now quite certain that the Archduke Joseph would be elected and crowned king of Rome. An event so highly important was not to be expected without preparation, nor allowed to pass with mere gaping and staring. He wished, therefore, he said, to go through with me the election and coronation diaries of the two last coronations, as well as through the last capitulations of election, in order to remark what new conditions might be added in the present instance. The diaries were opened, and we occupied ourselves with them the whole day till far into the night; while the pretty girl, sometimes in her old house-dress, sometimes in her new costume, ever hovered before me, backwards and forwards among the most august objects of the Holy Roman Empire. This evening it was impossible to see her, and I lay awake through a very restless night. The study of yesterday was the next day zealously resumed; and it was not till towards evening that I found it possible to visit my fair one, whom I met again in her usual house- dress. She smiled when she saw me, but I did not venture to mention any thing before the others. When the whole company sat quietly together again, she began, and said, “It is unfair that you do not confide to our friend what we have lately resolved upon.” She then continued to relate, that after our late conversation, in which the discussion was how any one could get on in the world, something was also said of the way in which a woman could enhance the value of her talent and labor, and advantageously employ her time. The cousin had consequently proposed that she should make an experiment at a milliner’s, who was just then in want of an assistant. They had, she said, arranged with the woman: she went there so many hours a day, and was well paid; but she would there be obliged, for propriety’s sake, to conform to a certain dress, which, however, she left behind her every time, as it did not at all suit her other modes of life and employment. I was indeed set at rest by this declaration; but it did not quite please me to know that the pretty girl was in a public shop, and at a place where the fashionable world found a convenient resort. But I betrayed nothing, and strove to work off my jealous care in silence. For this the younger cousin did not allow me a long time, as he once more came forward with a proposal for an occasional poem, told me all the personalities, and at once desired me to prepare myself for the invention and disposition of the work. He had spoken with me several times already concerning the proper treatment of such a theme; and, as I was voluble in these cases, he readily asked me to explain to him, circumstantially, what is rhetorical in these things, to give him a notion of the matter, and to make use of my own and others’ labors in this kind for examples. The young man had some brains, but not a trace of a poetical vein; and now he went so much into particulars, and wished to have such an account of every thing, that I gave utterance to the remark, “It seems as if you wanted to encroach upon my trade, and take away my customers!” — ”I will not deny it,” said he, smiling, “as I shall do you no harm by it. This will only continue to the time when you go to the university, and till then you must allow me still to profit something by your society.” — ”Most cordially,” I replied; and I encouraged him to draw out a plan, to choose a metre according to the character of his subject, and to do whatever else might seem necessary. He went to work in earnest, but did not succeed. I was in the end compelled to re-write so much of it, that I could more easily and better have written it all from the beginning myself. Yet this teaching and learning, this mutual labor, afforded us good entertainment. Gretchen took part in it, and had many a pretty notion; so that we were all pleased, we may, indeed, say happy. During the day she worked at the milliner’s: in the evenings we generally met together, and our contentment was not even disturbed when at last the commissions for occasional poems began to leave off. Still we felt hurt once, when one of them came back under protest, because it did not suit the party who ordered it. We consoled ourselves, however, as we considered it our very best work, and could, therefore, declare the other a bad judge. The cousin, who was determined to learn something at any rate, resorted to the expedient of inventing problems, in the solution of which we always found amusement enough; but, as they brought in nothing, our little banquets had to be much more frugally managed.

That great political object, the election and coronation of a king of Rome, was pursued with more and more earnestness. The assembling of the electoral college, originally appointed to take place at Augsburg in the October of 1763, was now transferred to Frankfort; and both at the end of this year and in the beginning of the next, preparations went forward which should usher in this important business. The beginning was made by a parade never yet seen by us. One of our chancery officials on horseback, escorted by four trumpeters likewise mounted, and surrounded by a guard of infantry, read in a loud, clear voice at all the corners of the city, a prolix edict, which announced the forthcoming proceedings, and exhorted the citizens to a becoming deportment suitable to the circumstances. The council was occupied with weighty considerations; and it was not long before the Imperial quartermaster, despatched by the hereditary grand marshal, made his appearance, in order to arrange and designate the residences of the ambassadors and their suites, according to the old custom. Our house lay in the Palatine district, and we had to provide for a new but agreeable billetting. The middle story, which Count Thorane had formerly occupied, was given up to a cavalier of the Palatinate; and as Baron von Königsthal, the Nuremburg /chargé-d’affaires/, occupied the upper floor, we were still more crowded than in the time of the French. This served me as a new pretext for being out of doors, and to pass the greater part of the day in the streets, that I might see all that was open to public view.

After the preliminary alteration and arrangement of the rooms in the town-house had seemed to us worth seeing; after the arrival of the ambassadors one after another, and their first solemn ascent in a body, on the 6th of February, had taken place, — we admired the coming in of the imperial commissioners, and their ascent also to the /Romer/, which was made with great pomp. The dignified person of the Prince of Lichtenstein made a good impression; yet connoisseurs maintained that the showy liveries had already been used on another occasion, and that this election and coronation would hardly equal in brilliancy that of Charles the Seventh. We younger folks were content with what was before our eyes: all seemed to us very fine, and much of it perfectly astonishing.

The electoral congress was fixed at last for the 3d of March. New formalities again set the city in motion, and the alternate visits of ceremony on the part of the ambassadors kept us always on our legs. We were, moreover, compelled to watch closely; as we were not only to gape about, but to note every thing well, in order to give a proper report at home, and even to make out many little memoirs, on which my father and Herr von Königsthal had deliberated, partly for our exercise and partly for their own information. And certainly this was of peculiar advantage to me; as I was enabled very tolerably to keep a living election and coronation diary, as far as regarded externals.

The person who first of all made a durable impression upon me was the chief ambassador from the electorate of Mentz, Baron von Erthal, afterwards elector. Without having any thing striking in his figure, he was always highly pleasing to me in his black gown trimmed with lace. The second ambassador, Baron von Groschlag, was a well-formed man of the world, easy in his exterior, but conducting himself with great decorum. He everywhere produced a very agreeable impression. Prince Esterhazy, the Bohemian envoy, was not tall, though well formed, lively, and at the same time eminently decorous, without pride or coldness. I had a special liking for him, because he reminded me of Marshal de Broglio. Yet the form and dignity of these excellent persons vanished, in a certain degree, before the prejudice that was entertained in favor of Baron von Plotho, the Brandenburg ambassador. This man, who was distinguished by a certain parsimony, both in his own clothes and in his liveries and equipages, had been greatly renowned, from the time of the Seven Years’ War, as a diplomatic hero. At Ratisbon, when the Notary April thought, in the presence of witnesses, to serve him with the declaration of outlawry which had been issued against his king, he had, with the laconic exclamation, “What! you serve?” thrown him, or caused him to be thrown, down stairs. We believed the first, because it pleased us best; and we could readily believe it of the little compact man, with his black, fiery eyes glancing here and there. All eyes were directed towards him, particularly when he alighted. There arose every time a sort of joyous whispering; and but little was wanting to a regular explosion, or a shout of /Vivat! Bravo!/ So high did the king, and all who were devoted to him, body and soul, stand in favor with the crowd, among whom, besides the Frankforters, were Germans from all parts.

On the one hand these things gave me much pleasure; as all that took place, no matter of what nature it might be, concealed a certain meaning, indicated some internal relation: and such symbolic ceremonies again, for a moment, represented as living the old Empire of Germany, almost choked to death by so many parchments, papers, and books. But, on the other hand, I could not suppress a secret displeasure, when at home, I had, on behalf of my father, to transcribe the internal transactions, and at the same time to remark that here several powers, which balanced each other, stood in opposition, and only so far agreed, as they designed to limit the new ruler even more than the old one; that every one valued his influence only so far as he hoped to retain or enlarge his privileges, and better to secure his independence. Nay, on this occasion they were more attentive than usual, because they began to fear Joseph the Second, his vehemence, and probable plans.

With my grandfather and other members of the council, whose families I used to visit, this was no pleasant time, they had so much to do with meeting distinguished guests, complimenting, and the delivery of presents. No less had the magistrate, both in general and in particular, to defend himself, to resist, and to protest, as every one on such occasions desires to extort something from him, or burden him with something; and few of those to whom he appeals support him, or lend him their aid. In short, all that I had read in “Lersner’s Chronicle” of similar incidents on similar occasions, with admiration of the patience and perseverance of those good old councilmen, came once more vividly before my eyes.

Many vexations arise also from this, that the city is gradually overrun with people, both useful and needless. In vain are the courts reminded, on the part of the city, of prescriptions of the Golden Bull, now, indeed, obsolete. Not only the deputies with their attendants, but many persons of rank, and others who come from curiosity or for private objects, stand under protection; and the question as to who is to be billetted out, and who is to hire his own lodging, is not always decided at once. The tumult constantly increases; and even those who have nothing to give, or to answer for, begin to feel uncomfortable.

Even we young people, who could quietly contemplate it all, ever found something which did not quite satisfy our eyes or our imagination. The Spanish mantles, the huge plumed hats of the ambassadors, and other objects here and there, had indeed a truly antique look; but there was a great deal, on the other hand, so half-new or entirely modern, that the affair assumed throughout a motley, unsatisfactory, often tasteless, appearance. We were, therefore, very happy to learn that great preparations were made on account of the journey to Frankfort of the emperor and future king; that the proceedings of the college of electors, which were based on the last electoral capitulation, were now going forward rapidly; and that the day of election had been appointed for the 27th of March. Now there was a thought of fetching the insignia of the empire from Nuremburg and Aix-la-Chation; while Gretchen, by her unbroken attention, had highly encouraged me. At last she thanked me, and envied, as she said, all who were informed of the affairs of this world, and knew how this and that came about and what it signified. She wished she were a boy, and managed to acknowledge, with much kindness, that she was indebted to me for a great deal of instruction. “If I were a boy,” said she, “we would learn something good together at the university.” The conversation continued in this strain: she definitively resolved to take instruction in French, of the absolute necessity of which she had become well aware in the milliner’s shop. I asked her why she no longer went there; for during the latter times, not being able to go out much in the evening, I had often passed the shop during the day for her sake, merely to see her for a moment. She explained that she had not liked to expose herself there in these unsettled times. As soon as the city returned to its former condition, she intended to go there again.

Then the impending day of election was the topic of conversation. I contrived to tell, at length, what was going to happen, and how, and to support my demonstrations in detail by drawings on the tablet; for I had the place of conclave, with its altars, thrones, seats, and chairs, perfectly before my mind. We separated at the proper time, and in a particularly comfortable frame of mind.

For, with a young couple who are in any degree harmoniously formed by nature, nothing can conduce to a more beautiful union than when the maiden is anxious to learn, and the youth inclined to teach. There arises from it a well-grounded and agreeable relation. She sees in him the creator of her spiritual existence; and he sees in her a creature that ascribes her perfection, not to nature, not to chance, nor to any one-sided inclination, but to a mutual will: and this reciprocation is so sweet, that we cannot wonder, if, from the days of the old and the new [Footnote: The “/new/ Abelard” is St. Preux, in the Nouvelle Héloise of Rousseau. — TRANS.] Abelard, the most violent passions, and as much happiness as unhappiness, have arisen from such an intercourse of two beings.

With the next day began great commotion in the city, on account of the visits paid and returned, which now took place with the greatest ceremony. But what particularly interested me, as a citizen of Frankfort, and gave rise to a great many reflections, was the taking of the oath of security (/Sicherheitseides/) by the council, the military, and the body of citizens, not through representatives, but personally and in mass: first, in the great hall of the Römer, by the magistracy and staff-officers; then in the great square (/Platz/), the Römerberg, by all the citizens, according to their respective ranks, gradations, or quarterings; and, lastly, by the rest of the military. Here one could survey at a single glance the entire commonwealth, assembled for the honorable purpose of swearing security to the head and members of the empire, and unbroken peace during the great work now impending. The Electors of Treves and of Cologne had now also arrived. On the evening before the day of election, all strangers are sent out of the city, the gates are closed, the Jews are confined to their quarter, and the citizen of Frankfort prides himself not a little that he alone may witness so great a solemnity.

All that had hitherto taken place was tolerably modern: the highest and high personages moved about only in coaches, but now we were going to see them in the primitive manner on horseback. The concourse and rush were extraordinary. I managed to squeeze myself into the Römer, which I knew as familiarly as a mouse does the private corn-loft, till I reached the main entrance, before which the electors and ambassadors, who had first arrived in their state-coaches, and had assembled above, were now to mount their horses. The stately, well-trained steeds were covered with richly laced housings, and ornamented in every way. The Elector Emeric Joseph, a handsome, portly man, looked well on horseback. Of the other two I remember less, excepting that the red princes’ mantles, trimmed with ermine, which we had been accustomed to see only in pictures before, seemed to us very romantic in the open air. The ambassadors of the absent temporal electors, with their Spanish dresses of gold brocade, embroidered over with gold, and trimmed with gold lace, likewise did our eyes good; and the large feathers particularly, that waved most splendidly from the hats, which were cocked in the antique style. But what did not please me were the short modern breeches, the white silk stockings, and the fashionable shoes. We should have liked half-boots, — gilded as much as they pleased, — sandals, or something of the kind, that we might have seen a more consistent costume.

In deportment the Ambassador Von Plotho again distinguished himself from all the rest. He appeared lively and cheerful, and seemed to have no great respect for the whole ceremony. For when his front-man, an elderly gentleman, could not leap immediately on his horse, and he was therefore forced to wait some time in the grand entrance, he did not refrain from laughing, till his own horse was brought forward, upon which he swung himself very dexterously, and was again admired by us as a most worthy representative of Frederick the Second.

Now the curtain was for us once more let down. I had, indeed, tried to force my way into the church; but that place was more inconvenient than agreeable. The voters had withdrawn into the /sanctum/, where prolix ceremonies usurped the place of a deliberate consideration as to the election. After long delay, pressure, and bustle, the people at last heard the name of Joseph the Second, who was proclaimed King of Rome.

The thronging of strangers into the city became greater and greater. Everybody went about in his holiday clothes, so that at last none but dresses entirely of gold were found worthy of note. The emperor and king had already arrived at /Heusenstamm/, a castle of the counts of Schönborn, and were there in the customary manner greeted and welcomed; but the city celebrated this important epoch by spiritual festivals of all the religions, by high masses and sermons; and, on the temporal side, by incessant firing of cannon as an accompaniment to the “Te Deums.”

If all these public solemnities, from the beginning up to this point, had been regarded as a deliberate work of art, not much to find fault with would have been found. All was well prepared. The public scenes opened gradually, and went on increasing in importance; the men grew in number, the personages in dignity, their appurtenances, as well as themselves, in splendor, — and thus it advanced with every day, till at last even a well-prepared and firm eye became bewildered.

The entrance of the Elector of Mentz, which we have refused to describe more completely, was magnificent and imposing enough to suggest to the imagination of an eminent man the advent of a great prophesied world- ruler: even we were not a little dazzled by it. But now our expectation was stretched to the utmost, as it was said that the emperor and the future king were approaching the city. At a little distance from Sachsenhausen, a tent had been erected in which the entire magistracy remained, to show the appropriate honor, and to proffer the keys of the city to the chief of the empire. Farther out, on a fair, spacious plain, stood another, a state pavilion, whither the whole body of electoral princes and ambassadors repaired; while their retinues extended along the whole way, that gradually, as their turns came, they might again move towards the city, and enter properly into the procession. By this time the emperor reached the tent, entered it; and the princes and ambassadors, after a most respectful reception, withdrew, to facilitate the passage of the chief ruler.

We who remained in the city, to admire this pomp within the walls and streets still more than could have been done in the open fields, were very well entertained for a while by the barricade set up by the citizens in the lanes, by the throng of people, and by the various jests and improprieties which arose, till the ringing of bells and the thunder of cannon announced to us the immediate approach of majesty. What must have been particularly grateful to a Frankforter was, that on this occasion, in the presence of so many sovereigns and their representatives, the imperial city of Frankfort also appeared as a little sovereign: for her equerry opened the procession; chargers with armorial trappings, upon which the white eagle on a red field looked very fine, followed him; then came attendants and officials, drummers and trumpeters, and deputies of the council, accompanied by the clerks of the council, in the city livery, on foot. Immediately behind these were the three companies of citizen cavalry, very well mounted, — the same that we had seen from our youth, at the reception of the escort, and on other public occasions. We rejoiced in our participation of the honor, and in our one hundred-thousandth part of a sovereignty which now appeared in its full brilliancy. The different trains of the hereditary imperial marshal, and of the envoys deputed by the six temporal electors, marched after these step by step. None of them consisted of less than twenty attendants and two state-carriages, — some, even, of a greater number. The retinue of the spiritual electors was ever on the increase, — their servants and domestic officers seemed innumerable: the Elector of Cologne and the Elector of Treves had above twenty state- carriages, and the Elector of Mentz quite as many alone. The servants, both on horseback and on foot, were clothed most splendidly throughout: the lords in the equipages, spiritual and temporal, had not omitted to appear richly and venerably dressed, and adorned with all the badges of their orders. The train of his imperial majesty now, as was fit, surpassed all the rest. The riding-masters, the led horses, the equipages, the shabracks and caparisons, attracted every eye; and the sixteen six-horse gala-wagons of the imperial chamberlains, privy councillors, high chamberlain, high stewards, and high equerry, closed, with great pomp, this division of the procession, which, in spite of its magnificence and extent, was still only to be the vanguard.

But now the line became concentrated more and more, while the dignity and parade kept on increasing. For in the midst of a chosen escort of their own domestic attendants, the most of them on foot, and a few on horseback, appeared the electoral ambassadors, as well as the electors in person, in ascending order, each one in a magnificent state-carriage. Immediately behind the Elector of Mentz, ten imperial footmen, one and forty lackeys, and eight /heyducks/ [Footnote: A class of attendants dress in Hungarian costume. — TRANS.] announced their majesties. The most magnificent state-carriage, furnished even at the back part with an entire window of plate-glass, ornamented with paintings, lacquer, carved work, and gilding, covered with red embroidered velvet on the top and inside, allowed us very conveniently to behold the emperor and king, the long-desired heads, in all their glory. The procession was led a long, circuitous route, partly from necessity, that it might be able to unfold itself, and partly to render it visible to the great multitude of people. It had passed through Sachsenhausen, over the bridge, up the Fahrgasse, then down the Zeile, and turned towards the inner city through the Katharinenpforte, formerly a gate, and, since the enlargement of the city, an open thoroughfare. Here it had been happily considered, that, for a series of years, the external grandeur of the world had gone on expanding, both in height and breadth. Measure had been taken; and it was found that the present imperial state-carriage could not, without striking its carved work and other outward decorations, get through this gateway, through which so many princes and emperors had gone backwards and forwards. They debated the matter, and, to avoid an inconvenient circuit, resolved to take up the pavements, and to contrive a gentle descent and ascent. With the same view, they had also removed all the projecting eaves from the shops and booths in the street, that neither crown nor eagle nor the genii should receive any shock or injury.

Eagerly as we directed our eyes to the high personages when this precious vessel with such precious contents approached us, we could not avoid turning our looks upon the noble horses, their harness, and its embroidery; but the strange coachmen and outriders, both sitting on the horses, particularly struck us. They looked as if they had come from some other nation, or even from another world, with their long black and yellow velvet coats, and their caps with large plumes of feathers, after the imperial-court fashion. Now the crowd became so dense that it was impossible to distinguish much more. The Swiss guard on both sides of the carriage; the hereditary marshal holding the Saxon sword upwards in his right hand; the field-marshals, as leaders of the imperial guard, riding behind the carriage; the imperial pages in a body; and, finally, the imperial horse-guard (/Hatschiergarde/) itself, in black velvet frocks (/Flügelröck/), with all the seams edged with gold, under which were red coats and leather-colored camisoles, likewise richly decked with gold. One scarcely recovered one’s self from sheer seeing, pointing, and showing, so that the scarcely less splendidly clad body- guards of the electors were barely looked at; and we should, perhaps, have withdrawn from the windows, if we had not wished to take a view of our own magistracy, who closed the procession in their fifteen two-horse coaches; and particularly the clerk of the council, with the city keys on red velvet cushions. That our company of city grenadiers should cover the rear seemed to us honorable enough, and we felt doubly and highly edified as Germans and as Fraukforters by this great day,

We had taken our place in a house which the procession had to pass again when it returned from the cathedral. Of religious services, of music, of rites and solemnities, of addresses and answers, of propositions and readings aloud, there was so much in church, choir, and conclave, before it came to the swearing of the electoral capitulation, that we had time enough to partake of an excellent collation, and to empty many bottles to the health of our old and young ruler. The conversation, meanwhile, as is usual on such occasions, reverted to the time past; and there were not wanting aged persons who preferred that to the present, — at least, with respect to a certain human interest and impassioned sympathy which then prevailed. At the coronation of Francis the First all had not been so settled as now; peace had not yet been concluded; France and the Electors of Brandenburg and the Palatinate were opposed to the election; the troops of the future emperor were stationed at Heidelberg, where he had his headquarters; and the insignia of the empire, coming from Aix, were almost carried off by the inhabitants of the Palatinate. Meanwhile, negotiations went on; and on neither side was the affair conducted in the strictest manner. Maria Theresa, though then pregnant, comes in person to see the coronation of her husband, which is at last earned into effect. She arrived at Aschaffenburg, and went on board a yacht in order to repair to Frankfort. Francis, coming from Heidelberg, thinks to meet his wife, but arrives too late: she has already departed. Unknown, he jumps into a little boat, hastens alter her, reaches her ship; and the loving pair is delighted at this surprising meeting. The story spreads immediately; and all the world sympathizes with this tender pair, so richly blessed with children, who have been so inseparable since their union, that once, on a journey from Vienna to Florence, they are forced to keep quarantine together on the Venetian border. Maria Theresa is welcomed in the city with rejoicings: she enters the Roman Emperor Inn, while the great tent for the reception of her husband is erected on the Bornheim heath. There, of the spiritual electors, only Mentz is found; and, of the ambassadors of the temporal electors, only Saxony, Bohemia, and Hanover. The entrance begins, and what it may lack of completeness and splendor is richly compensated by the presence of a beautiful lady. She stands upon the balcony of the well-situated house, and greets her husband with cries of “Vivat!” and clapping of hands: the people joined, excited to the highest enthusiasm. As the great are, after all, men, the citizen deems them big equals when he wishes to love them; and that he can best do when he can picture them to himself as loving husbands, tender parents, devoted brothers, and true friends. At that time all happiness had been wished and prophesied; and to-day it was seen fulfilled in the first-born son, to whom everybody was well inclined on account of his handsome, youthful form, and upon whom the world set the greatest hopes, on account of the great qualities that he showed.

We had become quite absorbed in the past and future, when some friends who came in recalled us to the present. They were of that class of people who know the value of novelty, and therefore hasten to announce it first. They were even able to tell of a fine humane trait in those exalted personages whom we had seen go by with the greatest pomp. It had been concerted, that on the way, between Heusenstamm and the great tent, the emperor and king should find the Landgrave of Darmstadt in the forest. This old prince, now approaching the grave, wished to see once more the master to whom he had been devoted in former times. Both might remember the day when the landgrave brought over to Heidelberg the decree of the electors, choosing Francis as emperor, and replied to the valuable presents he received with protestations of unalterable devotion. These eminent persons stood in a grove of firs; and the landgrave, weak with old age, supported himself against a pine, to continue the conversation, which was not without emotion on both sides. The place was afterwards marked in an innocent way, and we young people sometimes wandered to it.

Thus several hours had passed in remembrance of the old and consideration of the new, when the procession, though curtailed and more compact, again passed before our eyes; and we were enabled to observe and mark the detail more closely, and imprint it on our minds for the future.

From that moment the city was in uninterrupted motion; for until each and every one whom it behooved, and of whom it was required, had paid their respects to the highest dignities, and exhibited themselves one by one, there was no end to the marching to and fro: and the court of each one of the high persons present could be very conveniently repeated in detail.

Now, too, the insignia of the empire arrived. But, that no ancient usage might be omitted even in this respect, they had to remain half a day till late at night in the open field, on account of a dispute about territory and escort between the Elector of Mentz and the city. The latter yielded: the people of Mentz escorted the insignia as far as the barricade, and so the affair terminated for this time.

In these days I did not come to myself. At home I had to write and copy; every thing had to be seen: and so ended the month of March, the second half of which had been so rich in festivals for us. I had promised Gretchen a faithful and complete account of what had lately happened, and of what was to be expected on the coronation-day. This great day approached; I thought more of how I should tell it to her than of what properly was to be told: all that came under my eyes and my pen I merely worked up rapidly for this sole and immediate use. At last I reached her residence somewhat late one evening, and was not a little proud to think how my discourse on this occasion would be much more successful than the first unprepared one. But a momentary incitement often brings us, and others through us, more joy than the most deliberate purpose can afford. I found, indeed, pretty nearly the same company; but there were some unknown persons among them. They sat down to play, all except Gretchen and her younger cousin, who remained with me at the slate. The dear girl expressed most gracefully her delight that she, though a stranger, had passed for a citizen on the election-day, and had taken part in that unique spectacle. She thanked me most warmly for having managed to take care of her, and for having been so attentive as to procure her, through Pylades, all sorts of admissions by means of billets, directions, friends, and intercessions.

She liked to hear about the jewels of the empire. I promised her that we should, if possible, see these together. She made some jesting remarks when she learned that the garments and crown had been tried on the young king. I knew where she would be, to see the solemnities of the coronation-day, and directed her attention to every thing that was impending, and particularly to what might be minutely inspected from her place of view.

Thus we forgot to think about time: it was already past midnight, and I found that I unfortunately had not the house-key with me. I could not enter the house without making the greatest disturbance. I communicated my embarrassment to her. “After all,” said she, “it will be best for the company to remain together.” The cousins and the strangers had already had this in mind, because it was not known where they would be lodged for the night. The matter was soon decided: Gretchen went to make some coffee, after bringing in and lighting a large brass lamp, furnished with oil and wick, because the candles threatened to burn out.

The coffee served to enliven us for several hours, but the game gradually slackened; conversation failed; the mother slept in the great chair; the strangers, weary from travelling, nodded here and there; and Pylades and his fair one sat in a corner. She had laid her head on his shoulder, and had gone to sleep; and he did not keep long awake. The younger cousin, sitting opposite to us by the slate, had crossed his arms before him, and slept with his face resting upon them. I sat in the window-corner, behind the table, and Gretchen by me. We talked in a low voice: but at last sleep overcame her also; she leaned her head on my shoulder, and sank at once into a slumber. Thus I now sat, the only one awake, in a most singular position, in which the kind brother of death soon put me also to rest. I went to sleep; and, when I awoke, it was already bright day. Gretchen was standing before the mirror arranging her little cap: she was more lovely than ever, and, when I departed, cordially pressed my hands. I crept home by a roundabout way; for, on the side towards the little /Stag-ditch/, my father had opened a sort of little peep-hole in the wall, not without the opposition of his neighbor. This side we avoided when we wanted not to be observed by him in coming home. My mother, whose mediation always came in well for us, had endeavored to palliate my absence in the morning at breakfast, by the supposition that I had gone out early; and I experienced no disagreeable effects from this innocent night.

Taken as a whole, this infinitely various world which surrounded me produced upon me but a very simple impression. I had no interest but to mark closely the outside of the objects, no business but that with which I had been charged by my father and Herr von Königsthal, by which, indeed, I perceived the inner course of things. I had no liking but for Gretchen, and no other view than to see and take in every thing properly, that I might be able to repeat it with her, and explain it to her. Often when a train was going by, I described it half aloud to myself, to assure myself of all the particulars, and to be praised by my fair one for this attention and accuracy: the applause and acknowledgments of the others I regarded as a mere appendix.

I was indeed presented to many exalted and distinguished persons; but partly, no one had time to trouble himself about others, and partly, older people do not know at once how they should converse with a young man and try him. I, on my side, was likewise not particularly skilful in adapting myself to people. I generally won their favor, but not their approbation. Whatever occupied me was completely present to me, but I did not ask whether it might be also suitable to others. I was mostly too lively or too quiet, and appeared either importunate or sullen, just as persons attracted or repelled me; and thus I was considered to be indeed full of promise, but at the same time was declared eccentric.

The coronation-day dawned at last on the 3d of April, 1764: the weather was favorable, and everybody was in motion. I, with several of my relations and friends, had been provided with a good place in one of the upper stories of the Römer itself, where we might completely survey the whole. We betook ourselves to the spot very early in the morning, and from above, as in a bird’s-eye view, contemplated the arrangements which we had inspected more closely the day before. There was the newly erected fountain, with two large tubs on the left and right, into which the double-eagle on the post was to pour from its two beaks white wine on this side, and red wine on that. There, gathered into a heap, lay the oats: here stood the large wooden hut, in which we had several days since seen the whole fat ox roasted and basted on a huge spit before a charcoal fire. All the avenues leading out from the Römer, and from other streets back to the Römer, were secured on both sides by barriers and guards. The great square was gradually filled; and the waving and pressure grew every moment stronger and more in motion, as the multitude always, if possible, endeavored to reach the spot where some new scene arose, and something particular was announced.

All this time there reigned a tolerable stillness; and, when the alarm- bells were sounded, all the people seemed struck with terror and amazement. What first attracted the attention of all who could overlook the square from above, was the train in which the lords of Aix and Nuremberg brought the crown-jewels to the cathedral. These, as palladia, had been assigned the first place in the carriage; and the deputies sat before them on the back-seat with becoming reverence. Now the three electors betake themselves to the cathedral. After the presentation of the insignia to the Elector of Mentz, the crown and sword are immediately carried to the imperial quarters. The further arrangements and manifold ceremonies occupied, in the interim, the chief persons, as well as the spectators, in the church, as we other well-informed persons could well imagine.

In the mean time the ambassadors drove before our eyes up to the Römer, from which the canopy is carried by the under-officers into the imperial quarters. The hereditary marshal, Count von Pappenheim, instantly mounts his horse: he was a very handsome, slender gentleman, whom the Spanish costume, the rich doublet, the gold mantle, the high, feathered hat, and the loose, flying hair, became very well. He puts himself in motion; and, amid the sound of all the bells, the ambassadors follow him on horseback to the quarters of the emperor in still greater magnificence than on the day of election. One would have liked to be there too; as indeed, on this day, it would hare been altogether desirable to multiply one’s self. However, we told each other what was going on there. Now the emperor is putting on his domestic robes, we said, a new dress, made after the old Carolingian pattern. The hereditary officers receive the insignia, and with them get on horseback. The emperor in his robes, the Roman king in the Spanish habit, immediately mount their steeds; and, while this is done, the endless procession which precedes them has already announced them.

The eye was already wearied by the multitude of richly dressed attendants and magistrates, and by the nobility, who, in stately fashion, were moving along; but when the electoral envoys, the hereditary officers, and at last, under the richly embroidered canopy, borne by twelve /schöffen/ and senators, the emperor, in romantic costume, and to the left, a little behind him, in the Spanish dress, his son, slowly floated along on magnificently adorned horses, the eye was no more sufficient for the sight. One would have liked to fix the scene, but for a moment, by a magic charm; but the glory passed on without stopping: and the space that was scarcely quitted was immediately filled again by the crowd, which poured in like billows.

But now a new pressure ensued; for another approach from the market to the Römer gate had to be opened, and a road of planks to be bridged over it, on which the train returning from the cathedral was to walk.

What passed within the cathedral, the endless ceremonies which precede and accompany the anointing, the crowning, the dubbing of knighthood, — all this we were glad to hear told afterwards by those who had sacrificed much else to be present in the church.

The rest of us, in the interim, partook of a frugal repast; for in this festal day we had to be contented with cold meat. But, on the other hand, the best and oldest wine had been brought out of all the family cellars; so that, in this respect at least, we celebrated the ancient festival in ancient style.

In the square, the sight most worth seeing was now the bridge, which had been finished, and covered with orange and white cloth; and we who had stared at the emperor, first in his carriage and then on horseback, were now to admire him walking on foot. Singularly enough, the last pleased us the most; for we thought that in this way he exhibited himself both in the most natural and in the most dignified manner.

Older persons, who were present at the coronation of Francis the First, related that Maria Theresa, beautiful beyond measure, had looked on this solemnity from a balcony window of the Frauenstein house, close to the Römer. As her consort returned from the cathedral in his strange costume, and seemed to her, so to speak, like a ghost of Charlemagne, he had, as if in jest, raised both his hands, and shown her the imperial globe, the sceptre, and the curious gloves, at which she had broken out into immoderate laughter, which served for the great delight and edification of the crowd, which was thus honored with a sight of the good and natural matrimonial understanding between the most exalted couple of Christendom. But when the empress, to greet her consort, waved her handkerchief, and even shouted a loud /vivat/ to him, the enthusiasm and exultation of the people was raised to the highest, so that there was no end to the cheers of joy.

Now the sound of bells, and the van of the long train which gently made its way over the many-colored bridge, announced that all was done. The attention was greater than ever, and the procession more distinct than before, particularly for us, since it now came directly up to us. We saw both, and the whole of the square, which was thronged with people, almost as if on a ground-plan. Only at the end the magnificence was too much crowded: for the envoys; the hereditary officers; the emperor and king, under the canopy (/Baldachin/); the three spiritual electors, who immediately followed; the /schöffen/ and senators, dressed in black; the gold-embroidered canopy (/Himmel/), — all seemed only one mass, which, moved by a single will, splendidly harmonious, and thus stepping from the temple amid the sound of the bells, beamed towards us as something holy.

A politico-religious ceremony possesses an infinite charm. We behold earthly majesty before our eyes, surrounded by all the symbols of its power; but, while it bends before that of heaven, it brings to our minds the communion of both. For even the individual can only prove his relationship with the Deity by subjecting himself and adoring.

The rejoicings which resounded from the market-place now spread likewise over the great square; and a boisterous /vivat/ burst forth from thousands upon thousands of throats, and doubtless from as many hearts. For this grand festival was to be the pledge of a lasting peace, which indeed for many a long year actually blessed Germany.

Several days before, it had been made known by public proclamation, that neither the bridge nor the eagle over the fountain was to be exposed to the people, and they were therefore not, as at other times, to be touched. This was done to prevent the mischief inevitable with such a rush of persons. But, in order to sacrifice in some degree to the genius of the mob, persons expressly appointed went behind the procession, loosened the cloth from the bridge, wound it up like a flag, and threw it into the air. This gave rise to no disaster, but to a laughable mishap; for the cloth unrolled itself in the air, and, as it fell, covered a larger or smaller number of persons. Those now who took hold of the ends and drew them towards them, pulled all those in the middle to the ground, enveloped them and teased them till they tore or cut themselves through; and everybody, in his own way, had borne off a corner of the stuff made sacred by the footsteps of majesty.

I did not long contemplate this rough sport, but hastened from my high position through all sorts of little steps and passages, down to the great Römer-stairs, where the distinguished and majestic mass, which had been stared at from the distance, was to ascend in its undulating course. The crowd was not great, because the entrances to the city-hall were well garrisoned; and I fortunately reached at once the iron balustrades above. Now the chief personages ascended past me, while their followers remained behind in the lower arched passages; and I could observe them on the thrice-broken stairs from all sides, and at last quite close.

Finally both their majesties came up. Father and son were altogether dressed like Menaechmi. The emperor’s domestic robes, of purple-colored silk, richly adorned with pearls and stones, as well as his crown, sceptre, and imperial orb, struck the eye with good effect. For all in them was new, and the imitation of the antique was tasteful. He moved, too, quite easily in his attire; and his true-hearted, dignified face, indicated at once the emperor and the father. The young king, on the contrary, in his monstrous articles of dress, with the crown-jewels of Charlemagne, dragged himself along as if he had been in a disguise; so that he himself, looking at his father from time to time, could not refrain from laughing. The crown, which it had been necessary to line a great deal, stood out from his head like an overhanging roof. The dalmatica, the stole, well as they had been fitted and taken in by sewing, presented by no means an advantageous appearance. The sceptre and imperial orb excited some admiration; but one would, for the sake of a more princely effect, rather have seen a strong form, suited to the dress, invested and adorned with it.

Scarcely were the gates of the great hall closed behind these figures, than I hurried to my former place, which, being already occupied by others, I only regained with some trouble.

It was precisely at the right time that I again took possession of my window, for the most remarkable part of all that was to be seen in public was just about to take place. All the people had turned towards the Römer; and a reiterated shout of /vivat/ gave us to understand that the emperor and king, in their vestments, were showing themselves to the populace from the balcony of the great hall. But they were not alone to serve as a spectacle, since another strange spectacle occurred before their eyes. First of all, the handsome, slender hereditary marshal flung himself upon his steed: he had laid aside his sword; in his right hand he held a silver-handled vessel, and a tin spatula in his left. He rode within the barriers to the great heap of oats, sprang in, filled the vessel to overflow, smoothed it off, and carried it back again with great dignity. The imperial stable was now provided for. The hereditary chamberlain then rode likewise to the spot, and brought back a basin with ewer and towel. But more entertaining for the spectators was the hereditary carver, who came to fetch a piece of the roasted ox. He also rode, with a silver dish, through the barriers, to the large wooden kitchen, and came forth again with his portion covered, that he might go back to the Römer. Now it was the turn of the hereditary cup- bearer, who rode to the fountain and fetched wine. Thus now was the imperial table furnished; and every eye waited upon the hereditary treasurer, who was to throw about the money. He, too, mounted a fine steed, to the sides of whose saddle, instead of holsters, a couple of splendid bags, embroidered with the arms of the Palatinate, were suspended. Scarcely had he put himself in motion than he plunged his hands into these pockets, and generously scattered, right and left, gold and silver coins, which, on every occasion, glittered merrily in the air like metallic rain. A thousand hands waved instantly in the air to catch the gifts; but hardly had the coins fallen when the crowd tumbled over each other on the ground, and struggled violently for the pieces which might have reached the earth. As this agitation was constantly repeated on both sides as the giver rode forwards, it afforded the spectators a very diverting sight. It was most lively at the close, when he threw out the bags themselves, and everybody tried to catch this highest prize.

Their majesties had retired from the balcony; and another offering was to be made to the mob, who, on such occasions, would rather steal the gifts than receive them tranquilly and gratefully. The custom prevailed, in more rude and uncouth times, of giving up to the people on the spot the oats, as soon as the hereditary marshal had taken away his share; the fountain and the kitchen, after the cup-bearer and the carver had performed their offices. But this time, to guard against all mischief, order and moderation were preserved as far as possible. But the old malicious jokes, that when one filled a sack with oats another cut a hole in it, with sallies of the kind, were revived. About the roasted ox, a more serious battle was, as usual, waged on this occasion. This could only be contested /en masse/. Two guilds, the butchers and the wine-porters, had, according to ancient custom, again stationed themselves so that the monstrous roast must fall to one of the two. The butchers believed that they had the best right to an ox which they provided entire for the kitchen: the wine-porters, on the other hand, laid claim because the kitchen was built near the abode of their guild, and because they had gained the victory the last time, the horns of the captured steer still projecting from the latticed gable-window of their guild and meeting-house as a sign of victory. Both these companies had very strong and able members; but which of them conquered this time, I no longer remember.

But, as a festival of this kind must always close with something dangerous and frightful, it was really a terrible moment when the wooden kitchen itself was made a prize. The roof of it swarmed instantly with men, no one knowing how they got there: the boards were torn loose, and pitched down; so that one could not help supposing, particularly at a distance, that each would kill a few of those pressing to the spot. In a trice the hut was unroofed; and single individuals hung to the beams and rafters, in order to pull them also out of their joinings: nay, many floated above upon the posts which had been already sawn off below; and the whole skeleton, moving backwards and forwards, threatened to fall in. Sensitive persons turned their eyes away, and everybody expected a great calamity; but we did not hear of any mischief: and the whole affair, though impetuous and violent, had passed off happily.

Everybody knew now that the emperor and king would return from the cabinet, whither they had retired from the balcony, and feast in the great hall of the Romer. We had been able to admire the arrangements made for it, the day before; and my most anxious wish was, if possible, to look in to-day. I repaired, therefore, by the usual path, to the great staircase, which stands directly opposite the door of the hall. Here I gazed at the distinguished personages who this day acted as the servants of the head of the empire. Forty-four counts, all splendidly dressed, passed me, carrying the dishes from the kitchen; so that the contrast between their dignity and their occupation might well be bewildering to a boy. The crowd was not great, but, considering the little space, sufficiently perceptible. The hall-door was guarded, while those who were authorized went frequently in and out. I saw one of the Palatine domestic officials, whom I asked whether he could not take me in with him. He did not deliberate long, but gave me one of the silver vessels he just then bore, which he could do so much the more, as I was neatly clad; and thus I reached the sanctuary. The Palatine buffet stood to the left, directly by the door; and with some steps I placed myself on the elevation of it, behind the barriers.

At the other end of the hall, immediately by the windows, raised on the steps of the throne, and under canopies, sat the emperor and king in their robes; but the crown and sceptre lay at some distance behind them on gold cushions. The three spiritual electors, their buffets behind them, had taken their places on single elevations; the Elector of Mentz opposite their majesties, the Elector of Treves at the right, and the Elector of Cologne at the left. This upper part of the hall was imposing and cheerful to behold, and excited the remark that the spiritual power likes to keep as long as possible with the ruler. On the contrary, the buffets and tables of all the temporal electors, which were, indeed, magnificently ornamented, but without occupants, made one think of the misunderstanding which had gradually arisen for centuries between them and the head of the empire. Their ambassadors had already withdrawn to eat in a side-chamber; and if the greater part of the hall assumed a sort of spectral appearance, by so many invisible guests being so magnificently attended, a large unfurnished table in the middle was still more sad to look upon; for there, also, many covers stood empty, because all those who had certainly a right to sit there had, for appearance’ sake, kept away, that on the greatest day of honor they might not renounce any of their honor, if, indeed, they were then to be found in the city.

Neither my years nor the mass of present objects allowed me to make many reflections. I strove to see all as much as possible; and when the dessert was brought in, and the ambassadors re-entered to pay their court, I sought the open air, and contrived to refresh myself with good friends in the neighborhood, after a day’s half-fasting, and to prepare for the illumination in the evening.

This brilliant night I purposed celebrating in a right hearty way; for I had agreed with Gretchen, and Pylades and his mistress, that we should meet somewhere at nightfall. The city was already resplendent at every end and corner when I met my beloved. I offered Gretchen my arm: we went from one quarter to another, and found ourselves very happy in each other’s society. The cousins at first were also of our party, but were afterwards lost in the multitude of people. Before the houses of some of the ambassadors, where magnificent illuminations were exhibited, — those of the Elector-Palatine were pre-eminently distinguished, — it was as clear as day. Lest I should be recognized, I had disguised myself to a certain extent; and Gretchen did not find it amiss. We admired the various brilliant representations and the fairy-like structures of flame by which each ambassador strove to outshine the others. But Prince Esterhazy’s arrangements surpassed all the rest. Our little company were enraptured, both with the invention and the execution; and we were just about to enjoy this in detail, when the cousins again met us, and spoke to us of the glorious illumination with which the Brandenburg ambassador had adorned his quarters. We were not displeased at taking the long way from the Ross-markt (Horse-market) to the Saalhof, but found that we had been vlllanously hoaxed.

The Saalhof is, towards the Main, a regular and handsome structure; but the part in the direction of the city is exceedingly old, irregular, and unsightly. Small windows, agreeing neither in form nor size, neither in a line nor placed at equal distances; gates and doors arranged without symmetry; a ground-floor mostly turned into shops, — it forms a confused outside, which is never observed by any one. Now, here this accidental, irregular, unconnected architecture had been followed; and every window, every door, every opening, was surrounded by lamps, — as indeed can be done with a well-built house; but here the most wretched and ill-formed of all facades was thus quite incredibly placed in the clearest light. Did one amuse one’s self with this as with the jests of the /pagliasso/, [Footnote: A sort of buffoon.] though not without scruple, since everybody must recognize something intentional in it, — just as people had before glossed on the previous external deportment of Von Plotho, so much prized in other respects, and, when once inclined towards him, had admired him as a wag, who, like his king, would place himself above all ceremonies, — one nevertheless gladly returned to the fairy kingdom of Esterhazy.

This eminent envoy, to honor the day, had quite passed over his own unfavorably situated quarters, and in their stead had caused the great esplanade of linden-trees in the Horse-market to be decorated in the front with a portal illuminated with colors, and at the back with a still more magnificent prospect. The entire enclosure was marked by lamps. Between the trees, stood pyramids and spheres of light upon transparent pedestals; from one tree to another were stretched glittering garlands, on which floated suspended lights. In several places bread and sausages were distributed among the people, and there was no want of wine.

Here now, four abreast, we walked very comfortably up and down; and I, by Gretchen’s side, fancied that I really wandered in those happy Elysian fields where they pluck from the trees crystal cups that immediately fill themselves with the wine desired, and shake down fruits that change into every dish at will. At last we also felt such a necessity; and, conducted by Pylades, we found a neat, well-arranged eating-house. When we encountered no more guests, since everybody was going about the streets, we were all the better pleased, and passed the greatest part of the night most happily and cheerfully, in the feeling of friendship, love, and attachment. When I had accompanied Gretchen as far as her door, she kissed me on the forehead. It was the first and last time that she granted me this favor; for, alas! I was not to see her again.

The next morning, while I was yet in bed, my mother entered, in trouble and anxiety. It was easy to see when she was at all distressed. “Get up,” she said, “and prepare yourself for something unpleasant. It has come out that you frequent very bad company, and have involved yourself in very dangerous and bad affairs. Your father is beside himself; and we have only been able to get thus much from him, that he will investigate the affair by means of a third party. Remain in your chamber, and await what may happen. Councillor Schneider will come to you: he has the commission both from your father and from the authorities; for the matter is already prosecuted, and may take a very bad turn.”

I saw that they took the affair for much worse than it was; yet I felt myself not a little disquieted, even if only the actual state of things should be detected. My old “Messiah”-loving friend finally entered, with the tears standing in his eyes: he took me by the arm, and said, “I am heartily sorry to come to you on such an affair. I could not have supposed that you could go astray so far. But what will not wicked companions and bad example do! Thus can a young, inexperienced man be led step by step into crime!” — ”I am conscious of no crime,” I replied, “and as little of having frequented bad company.” — ”The question now is not one of defense,” said he, interrupting me, “but of investigation, and on your part of an upright confession.” — ”What do you want to know?” retorted I. He seated himself, drew out a paper, and began to question me: “Have you not recommended N. N. to your grandfather as a candidate for the … place?” I answered “Yes.” — ”Where did you become acquainted with him?” — ”In my walks.” — ”In what company?” I hesitated, for I would not willingly betray my friends. “Silence will not do now.” he continued, “for all is sufficiently known.” — ”What is known, then?” said I. “That this man has been introduced to you by others like him — in fact, by. …” Here he named three persons whom I had never seen nor known, which I immediately explained to the questioner. “You pretend,” he resumed, “not to know these men, and have yet had frequent meetings with them.” — ”Not in the least,” I replied; “for, as I have said, except the first, I do not know one of them, and even him I have never seen in a house.” — ”Have you not often been in … street?” — ”Never,” I replied. This was not entirely conformable to the truth. I had once accompanied Pylades to his sweetheart, who lived in that street; but we had entered by the back-door, and remained in the summer-house. I therefore supposed that I might permit myself the subterfuge that I had not been in the street itself.

The good man put more questions, all of which I could answer with a denial; for of all that he wished to learn I knew nothing. At last he seemed to become vexed, and said, “You repay my confidence and good will very badly: I come to save you. You cannot deny that you have composed letters for these people themselves or for their accomplices, have furnished them writings, and have thus been accessory to their evil acts; for the question is of nothing less than of forged papers, false wills, counterfeit bonds, and things of the sort. I have come, not only as a friend of the family, I come in the name and by order of the magistrates, who, in consideration of your connections and youth, would spare you and some other young persons, who, like you, have been lured into the net.” I had thought it strange, that, among the persons he named, none of those with whom I had been intimate were found. The circumstances touched, without agreeing; and I could still hope to save my young friends. But the good man grew more and more urgent. I could not deny that I had come home late many nights, that I had contrived to have a house-key made, that I had been seen at public places more than once with persons of low rank and suspicious looks, that some girls were mixed up in the affair, — in short, every thing seemed to be discovered but the names. This gave me courage to persist steadfastly in my silence. “Do not,” said my excellent friend, “let me go away from you; the affair admits of no delay; immediately after me another will come, who will not grant you so much scope. Do not make the matter, which is bad enough, worse by your obstinacy.”

I represented very vividly to myself the good cousins, and particularly Gretchen: I saw them arrested, tried, punished, disgraced; and then it went through my soul like a flash of lightning, that the cousins, though they always observed integrity towards me, might have engaged in such bad affairs, at least the oldest, who never quite pleased me, who came home later and later, and had little to tell of a cheerful sort. Still I kept back my confession. “Personally,” said I, “I am conscious of nothing evil, and can rest satisfied on that side; but it is not impossible that those with whom I have associated may have been guilty of some daring or illegal act. They may be sought, found, convicted, punished: I have hitherto nothing to reproach myself with, and will not do any wrong to those who have behaved well and kindly to me.” He did not let me finish, but exclaimed, with some agitation, “Yes, they will be found out. These villains met in three houses. (He named the streets, he pointed out the houses, and, unfortunately, among them was the one I used to frequent.) The first nest is already broken up, and at this moment so are the two others. In a few hours the whole will be clear. Avoid, by a frank confession, a judicial inquiry, a confrontation, and all other disagreeable matters.” The house was known and marked. Now I deemed silence useless; nay, considering the innocence of our meetings, I could hope to be still more useful to them than to myself. “Sit down!” I exclaimed, fetching him back from the door: “I will tell all, and at once lighten your heart and mine; only one thing I ask, — henceforth let there be no doubt of my veracity.”

I soon told my friend the whole progress of the affair, and was at first calm and collected; but the more I brought to mind and pictured to myself the persons, objects, and events, so many innocent pleasures and charming enjoyments, and was forced to depose as before a criminal court, the more did the most painful feeling increase, so that at last I burst forth in tears, and gave myself up to unrestrained passion. The family friend, who hoped that now the real secret was coming to light (for he regarded my distress as a symptom that I was on the point of confessing with repugnance something monstrous), sought to pacify me; as with him the discovery was the all-important matter. In this he only partly succeeded; but so far, however, that I could eke out my story to the end. Though satisfied of the innocence of the proceedings, he was still doubtful to some extent, and put further questions to me, which excited me afresh, and transported me with pain and rage. I asserted, finally, that I had nothing more to say, and well knew that I need fear nothing, for I was innocent, of a good family, and well reputed; but that they might be just as guiltless without having it recognized, or being otherwise favored. I declared at the same time, that if they were not spared like myself, that if their follies were not regarded with indulgence, and their faults pardoned, that if any thing in the least harsh or unjust happened to them, I would do some violence to myself, and no one should prevent me. In this, too, my friend tried to pacify me; but I did not trust him, and was, when he quitted me at last, in a most terrible state. I now reproached myself for having told the affair, and brought all the positions to light. I foresaw that our childlike actions, our youthful inclinations and confidences, would be quite differently interpreted, and that I might perhaps involve the excellent Pylades in the matter, and render him very unhappy. All these images pressed vividly one after the other before my soul, sharpened and spurred my distress, so that I did not know what to do for sorrow. I cast myself at full length upon the floor, and moistened it with my tears.

I know not how long I may have lain, when my sister entered, was frightened at my gestures, and did all that she could to comfort me. She told me that a person connected with the magistracy had waited below with my father for the return of the family friend, and that, after they had been closeted together for some time, both the gentlemen had departed, had talked to each other with apparent satisfaction, and had even laughed. She believed that she had heard the words, “It is all right: the affair is of no consequence.” — ”Indeed!” I broke out, “the affair is of no consequence for me, — for us: for I have committed no crime; and, if I had, they would contrive to help me through: but the others, the others,” I cried, “who will stand by them?”

My sister tried to comfort me by circumstantially arguing that if those of higher rank were to be saved, a veil must also be cast over the faults of the more lowly. All this was of no avail. She had scarcely left than I again abandoned myself to my grief, and ever recalled alternately the images, both of my affection and passion, and of the present and possible misfortune. I repeated to myself tale after tale, saw only unhappiness following unhappiness, and did not fail in particular to make Gretchen and myself truly wretched.

The family friend had ordered me to remain in my room, and have nothing to do with any one but the family. This was just what I wanted, for I found myself best alone. My mother and sister came to see me from time to time, and did not fail to assist me vigorously with all sorts of good consolation; nay, even on the second day they came in the name of my father, who was now better informed, to offer me a perfect amnesty, which indeed I gratefully accepted: but the proposal that I should go out with him and look at the insignia of the empire, which were now exposed to the curious, I stubbornly rejected; and I asserted that I wanted to know nothing, either of the world or of the Roman Empire, till I was informed how that distressing affair, which for me could have no further consequences, had turned out for my poor acquaintance. They had nothing to say on this head, and left me alone. Yet the next day some further attempts were made to get me out of the house, and excite in me a sympathy for the public ceremonies. In vain! neither the great galaday, nor what happened on the occasion of so many elevations of rank, nor the public table of the emperor and king, — in short, nothing could move me. The Elector of the Palatinate might come and wait on both their majesties; these might visit the electors; the last electoral sitting might be attended for the despatch of business in arrear, and the renewal of the electoral union, — nothing could call me forth from my passionate solitude. I let the bells ring for the rejoicings, the emperor repair to the Capuchin Church, the electors and emperor depart, without on that account moving one step from my chamber. The final cannonading, immoderate as it might be, did not arouse me; and as the smoke of the powder dispersed, and the sound died away, so had all this glory vanished from my soul.

I now experienced no satisfaction except in ruminating on my misery, and in a thousand-fold imaginary multiplication of it. My whole inventive faculty, my poetry and rhetoric, had pitched on this diseased spot, and threatened, precisely by means of this vitality, to involve body and soul into an incurable disorder. In this melancholy condition nothing more seemed to me worth a desire, nothing worth a wish. An infinite yearning, indeed, seized me at times to know how it had gone with my poor friends and my beloved, what had been the result of a stricter scrutiny, how far they were implicated in those crimes, or had been found guiltless. This also I circumstantially painted to myself in the most various ways, and did not fail to hold them as innocent and truly unfortunate. Sometimes I longed to see myself freed from this uncertainty, and wrote vehemently threatening letters to the family friend, insisting that he should not withhold from me the further progress of the affair. Sometimes I tore them up again, from the fear of learning my unhappiness quite distinctly, and of losing the principal consolation with which hitherto I had alternately tormented and supported myself.

Thus I passed both day and night in great disquiet, in raving and lassitude; so that I felt happy at last when a bodily illness seized me with considerable violence, when they had to call in the help of a physician, and think of every way to quiet me. They supposed that they could do it generally by the sacred assurance that all who were more or less involved in the guilt had been treated with the greatest forbearance; that my nearest friends, being as good as innocent, had been dismissed with a slight reprimand; and that Gretchen had retired from the city, and had returned to her own home. They lingered the most over this last point, and I did not take it in the best part; for I could discover in it, not a voluntary departure, but only a shameful banishment. My bodily and mental condition was not improved by this: my distress now only augmented; and I had time enough to torment myself by picturing the strangest romance of sad events, and an inevitably tragical catastrophe.

PART THE SECOND: OF WHAT ONE WISHES IN YOUTH, WHEN OLD HE HAS IN ABUNDANCE.

SIXTH BOOK.

Thus I felt urged alternately to promote and to retard my recovery; and a certain secret chagrin was now added to my other sensations, for I plainly perceived that I was watched, that they were loath to hand me any sealed paper without taking notice what effect it produced, whether I kept it secret, whether I laid it down open and the like. I therefore conjectured that Pylades, or one of the cousins, or even Gretchen herself, might have attempted to write to me, either to give or to obtain information. In addition to my sorrow, I was now more cross than hitherto, and had again fresh opportunities to exercise my conjectures, and to mislead myself into the strangest combinations.

It was not long before they gave me a special overseer. Fortunately it was a man whom I loved and valued. He had held the place of tutor in the family of one of our friends, and his former pupil had gone alone to the university. He often visited me in my sad condition; and they at last found nothing more natural than to give him a chamber next to mine, as he was then to provide me with employment, pacify me, and, as I was well aware, keep his eye on me. Still, as I esteemed him from my heart, and had already confided many things to him, though not my affection for Gretchen, I determined so much the more to be perfectly candid and straightforward with him; as it was intolerable to me to live in daily intercourse with any one, and at the same time to stand on an uncertain, constrained footing with him. It was not long, then, before I spoke to him about the matter, refreshed myself by the relation and repetition of the minutest circumstances of my past happiness, and thus gained so much, that he, like a sensible man, saw it would be better to make me acquainted with the issue of the story, and that, too, in its details and particulars, so that I might be clear as to the whole, and that, with earnestness and zeal, I might be persuaded of the necessity of composing myself, throwing the past behind me, and beginning a new life. First he confided to me who the other young people of quality were who had allowed themselves to be seduced, at the outset, into daring hoaxes, then into sportive breaches of police, afterwards into frolicsome impositions on others, and other such dangerous matters. Thus actually had arisen a little conspiracy, which unprincipled men had joined, who, by forging papers and counterfeiting signatures, had perpetrated many criminal acts, and had still more criminal matters in preparation. The cousins, for whom I at last impatiently inquired, had been found to be quite innocent, only very generally acquainted with those others, and not at all implicated with them. My client, owing to my recommendation of whom I had been tracked, was one of the worst, and had sued for that office chiefly that he might undertake or conceal certain villanies. After all this, I could at last contain myself no longer, and asked what had become of Gretchen, for whom I, once for all, confessed the strongest attachment. My friend shook his head and smiled. “Make yourself easy,” replied he: “this girl has passed her examination very well, and has borne off honorable testimony to that effect. They could discover nothing in her but what was good and amiable: she even won the favor of those who questioned her, and could not refuse her desire of removing from the city. Even what she has confessed regarding you, my friend, does her honor: I have read her deposition in the secret reports myself, and seen her signature.” — ”The signature!” exclaimed I, “which makes me so happy and so miserable. What has she confessed, then? What has she signed?” My friend delayed answering, but the cheerfulness of his face showed me that he concealed nothing dangerous.” If you must know, then,” replied he at last, “when she was asked about you, and her intercourse with you, she said quite frankly, ‘I cannot deny that I have seen him often and with pleasure; but I have always treated him as a child, and my affection for him was truly that of a sister. In many cases I have given him good advice; and, instead of instigating him to any equivocal action, I have hindered him from taking part in wanton tricks, which might have brought him into trouble.’“

My friend still went on making Gretchen speak like a governess; but I had already for some time ceased to listen to him, for I was terribly affronted that she had set me down in the reports as a child, and believed myself at once cured of all passion for her. I even hastily assured my friend that all was now over. I also spoke no more of her, named her no more: but I could not leave off the bad habit of thinking about her, and of recalling her form, her air, her demeanor; though now, in fact, all appeared to me in quite another light. I felt it intolerable that a girl, at the most only a couple of years older than me, should regard me as a child; while I conceived I passed with her for a very sensible and clever youth. Her cold and repelling manner, which had before so charmed me, now seemed to me quite repugnant: the familiarities which she had allowed herself to take with me, but had not permitted me to return, were altogether odious. Yet all would have been well enough, if by signing that poetical love-letter, in which she had confessed a formal attachment to me, she had not given me a right to regard her as a sly and selfish coquette. Her masquerading it at the milliner’s, too, no longer seemed to me so innocent; and I turned these annoying reflections over and over within myself until I had entirely stripped her of all her amiable qualities. My judgment was convinced, and I thought I must cast her away; but her image! — her image gave me the lie as often as it again hovered before me, which indeed happened often enough.

Nevertheless, this arrow with its barbed hooks was torn out of my heart; and the question then was, how the inward sanative power of youth could be brought to one’s aid? I really put on the man; and the first thing instantly laid aside was the weeping and raving, which I now regarded as childish in the highest degree. A great stride for the better! For I had often, half the night through, given myself up to this grief with the greatest violence; so that at last, from my tears and sobbing, I came to such a point that I could scarcely swallow any longer; eating and drinking became painful to me; and my chest, which was so nearly concerned, seemed to suffer. The vexation I had constantly felt since the discovery made me banish every weakness. It seemed to me something frightful that I had sacrificed sleep, repose, and health for the sake of a girl who was pleased to consider me a babe, and to imagine herself, with respect to me, something very much like a nurse.

These depressing reflections, as I was soon convinced, were only to be banished by activity; but of what was I to take hold? I had, indeed, much to make up for in many things, and to prepare myself, in more than one sense, for the university, which I was now to attend; but I relished and accomplished nothing. Much appeared to me familiar and trivial: for grounding myself, in several respects, I found neither strength within nor opportunity without; and I therefore suffered myself to be moved by the taste of my good room-neighbor, to a study which was altogether new and strange to me, and which for a long time offered me a wide field of information and thought. For my friend began to make me acquainted with the secrets of philosophy. He had studied in Jena, under Daries, and, possessing a well-regulated mind, had acutely seized the relations of that doctrine, which he now sought to impart to me. But, unfortunately, these things would not hang together in such a fashion in my brain. I put questions, which he promised to answer afterwards: I made demands, which he promised to satisfy in future. But our most important difference was this: that I maintained a separate philosophy was not necessary, as the whole of it was already contained in religion and poetry. This he would by no means allow, but rather tried to prove to me that these must first be founded on philosophy; which I stubbornly denied, and, at every step in the progress of our discussions, found arguments for my opinion. For as in poetry a certain faith in the impossible, and as in religion a like faith in the inscrutable, must have a place, the philosophers appeared to me to be in a very false position who would demonstrate and explain both of them from their own field of vision. Besides, it was very quickly proved, from the history of philosophy, that one always sought a ground different from that of the other, and that the sceptic, in the end, pronounced every thing groundless and useless.

However, this very history of philosophy, which my friend was compelled to go over with me, because I could learn nothing from dogmatical discourse, amused me very much, but only on this account, that one doctrine or opinion seemed to me as good as another, so far, at least, as I was capable of penetrating into it. With the most ancient men and schools I was best pleased, because poetry, religion, and philosophy were completely combined into one; and I only maintained that first opinion of mine with the more animation, when the Book of Job and the Song and Proverbs of Solomon, as well as the lays of Orpheus and Hesiod, seemed to bear valid witness in its favor. My friend had taken the smaller work of Brucker as the foundation of his discourse; and, the farther we went on, the less I could make of it. I could not clearly see what the first Greek philosophers would have. Socrates I esteemed as an excellent, wise man, who in his life and death might well be compared with Christ. His disciples, on the other hand, seemed to me to bear a strong resemblance to the apostles, who disagreed immediately after their Master’s death, when each manifestly recognized only a limited view as the right one. Neither the keenness of Aristotle nor the fulness of Plato produced the least fruit in me. For the Stoics, on the contrary, I had already conceived some affection, and even procured Epictetus, whom I studied with much interest. My friend unwillingly let me have my way in this one-sidedness, from which he could not draw me; for, in spite of his varied studies, he did not know how to bring the leading question into a narrow compass. He need only have said to me that in life action is every thing, and that joy and sorrow come of themselves. However, youth should be allowed its own course: it does not stick to false maxims very long; life soon tears or charms it away again.

The season had become fine: we often went together into the open air, and visited the places of amusement which surrounded the city in great numbers. But it was precisely here that matters went worse with me; for I still saw the ghosts of the cousins everywhere, and feared, now here, now there, to see one of them step forward. Even the most indifferent glances of men annoyed me. I had lost that unconscious happiness of wandering about unknown and unblamed, and of thinking of no observer, even in the greatest crowds. Now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if I attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanor, to fix it on their memories, to scan and to find fault.

I therefore drew my friend into the woods; and, while I shunned the monotonous firs, I sought those fine leafy groves, which do not indeed spread far in the district, but are yet of sufficient compass for a poor wounded heart to hide itself. In the remotest depth of the forest I sought out a solemn spot, where the oldest oaks and beeches formed a large, noble, shaded space. The ground was somewhat sloping, and made the worth of the old trunks only the more perceptible. Round this open circle closed the densest thickets, from which the mossy rocks mightily and venerably peered forth, and made a rapid fall for a copious brook.

Scarcely had I dragged hither my friend, who would rather have been in the open country by the stream, among men, when he playfully assured me that I showed myself a true German. He related to me circumstantially, out of Tacitus, how our ancestors found pleasure in the feelings which Nature so provides for us, in such solitudes, with her inartificial architecture. He had not been long discoursing of this, when I exclaimed, “Oh! why did not this precious spot lie in a deeper wilderness! why may we not train a hedge around it, to hallow and separate from the world both it and ourselves! Surely there is no more beautiful adoration of the Deity than that which needs no image, but which springs up in our bosom merely from the intercourse with nature!” What I then felt is still present to my mind: what I said I know not how to recall. Thus much, however, is certain, that the undetermined, widely expanding feelings of youth and of uncultivated nations are alone adapted to the sublime, which, if it is to be excited in us through external objects, formless, or moulded into incomprehensible forms, must surround us with a greatness to which we are not equal.

All men, more or less, have such a disposition, and seek to satisfy this noble want in various ways. But as the sublime is easily produced by twilight and night, when objects are blended, it is, on the other hand, scared away by the day, which separates and sunders every thing; and so must it also be destroyed by every increase of cultivation, if it be not fortunate enough to take refuge with the beautiful, and unite itself closely with it, whereby both become equally undying and indestructible.

The brief moments of such enjoyments were still more shortened by my meditative friend: but, when I turned back into the world, it was altogether in vain that I sought, among the bright and barren objects around, again to arouse such feelings within me; nay, I could scarcely retain even the remembrance of them. My heart, however, was too far spoiled to be able to compose itself: it had loved, and the object was snatched away from it; it had lived, and life to it was embittered. A friend who makes it too perceptible that he designs to improve you, excites no feeling of comfort; while a woman who is forming you, while she seems to spoil you, is adored as a heavenly, joy-bringing being. But that form in which the idea of beauty manifested itself to me had vanished into distance; it often visited me under the shade of my oak- trees, but I could not hold it fast: and I felt a powerful impulse to seek something similar in the distance.

I had imperceptibly accustomed, nay, compelled, my friend and overseer to leave me alone; for, even in my sacred grove, those undefined, gigantic feelings were not sufficient for me. The eye was, above all others, the organ by which I seized the world. I had, from childhood, lived among painters, and had accustomed myself to look at objects, as they did, with reference to art. Now I was left to myself and to solitude, this gift, half natural, half acquired, made its appearance. Wherever I looked, I saw a picture; and whatever struck me, whatever gave me delight, I wished to fix, and began, in the most awkward manner, to draw after nature. To this end I lacked nothing less than every thing; yet, though without any technical means, I obstinately persisted in trying to imitate the most magnificent things that offered themselves to my sight. Thus, to be sure, I acquired the faculty of paying a great attention to objects; but I only seized them as a whole, so far as they produced an effect: and, little as Nature had meant me for a descriptive poet, just as little would she grant me the capacity of a draughtsman for details. This, however, being the only way left me of uttering my thoughts, I stuck to it with so much stubbornness, nay, even with melancholy, that I always continued my labors the more zealously the less I saw they produced.

But I will not deny that there was a certain mixture of roguery; for I had remarked, that if I chose for an irksome study a half-shaded old trunk, to the hugely curved roots of which clung well-lit fern, combined with twinkling maiden-hair, my friend, who knew from experience that I should not be disengaged in less than an hour, commonly resolved to seek, with his books, some other pleasant little spot. Now nothing disturbed me in prosecuting my taste, which was so much the more active, as my paper was endeared to me by the circumstance that I had accustomed myself to see in it, not so much what stood upon it, as what I had been thinking of at any time and hour when I drew. Thus plants and flowers of the commonest kind may form a charming diary for us, because nothing that calls back the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant; and even now it would be hard for me to destroy as worthless many things of the kind that have remained to me from different epochs, because they transport me immediately to those times which I like to remember, although not without melancholy.

But, if such drawings may have had any thing of interest in themselves, they were indebted for this advantage to the sympathy and attention of my father. He, informed by my overseer that I had become gradually reconciled to my condition, and, in particular, had applied myself passionately to drawing from nature, was very well satisfied, — partly because he himself set a high value on drawing and painting, partly because gossip Seekatz had once said to him, that it was a pity I was not destined for a painter. But here again the peculiarities of father and son came into conflict: for it was almost impossible for me to make use of a good, white, perfectly clean sheet of paper; gray old leaves, even if scribbled over on one side already, charmed me most, just as if my awkwardness had feared the touchstone of a white ground. Nor were any of my drawings quite finished; and how should I have executed a whole, which indeed I saw with my eyes, but did not comprehend, and how an individual object, which I had neither skill nor patience to follow out? My father’s mode of training me in this respect was really to be admired. He kindly asked for my attempts, and drew lines round every imperfect sketch. He wished, by this means, to compel me to completeness and fulness of detail. The irregular leaves he cut straight, and thus made the beginning of a collection, in which he wished, at some future time, to rejoice at the progress of his son. It was, therefore, by no means disagreeable to him when my wild, restless disposition sent me roving about the country: he rather seemed pleased when I brought back a parcel of drawings on which he could exercise his patience, and in some measure strengthen his hopes.

They no longer said that I might relapse into my former attachments and connections: they left me by degrees perfect liberty. By accidental inducements and in accidental society I undertook many journeys to the mountain-range, which, from my childhood, had stood so distant and solemn before me. Thus we visited Homburg, Kroneburg, ascended the Feldberg, from which the prospect invited us still farther and farther into the distance. Königstein, too, was not left unvisited; Wiesbaden, Schwalbach, with its environs, occupied us many days; we reached the Rhine, which, from the heights, we had seen winding along far off. Mentz astonished us, but could not chain a youthful mind which was running into the open country; we were delighted with the situation of Biberich; and, contented and happy, we resumed our journey home.

This whole tour, from which my father had promised himself many a drawing, might have been almost without fruit; for what taste, what talent, what experience, does it not require to seize an extensive landscape as a picture! I was again imperceptibly drawn into a narrow compass, from which I derived some profit; for I met no ruined castle, no piece of wall which pointed to antiquity, that I did not think an object worthy of my pencil, and imitate as well as I could. Even the stone of Drusus, on the ramparts of Mentz, I copied at some risk, and with inconveniences which every one must experience who wishes to carry home with him some pictorial reminiscences of his travels. Unfortunately I had again brought with me nothing but the most miserable common paper, and had clumsily crowded several objects into one sheet. But my paternal teacher was not perplexed at this: he cut the sheets apart; had the parts which belonged to each other put together by the bookbinder; surrounded the single leaves with lines; and thus actually compelled me to draw the outline of different mountains up to the margin, and to fill up the foreground with some weeds and stones.

If his faithful endeavors could not increase my talent, nevertheless this mark of his love of order had upon me a secret influence, which afterwards manifested itself vigorously in more ways than one.

From such rambling excursions, undertaken partly for pleasure, partly for art, and which could be performed in a short time, and often repeated, I was again drawn home, and that by a magnet which always acted upon me strongly: this was my sister. She, only a year younger than I, had lived the whole conscious period of my life with me, and was thus bound to me by the closest ties. To these natural causes was added a forcible motive, which proceeded from our domestic position: a father certainly affectionate and well-meaning, but grave, who, because he cherished within a very tender heart, externally, with incredible consistency, maintained a brazen sternness, that he might attain the end of giving his children the best education, and of building up, regulating, and preserving his well-founded house; a mother, on the other hand, as yet almost a child, who first grew up to consciousness with and in her two eldest children; these three, as they looked at the world with healthy eyes, capable of life, and desiring present enjoyment. This contradiction floating in the family increased with years. My father followed out his views unshaken and uninterrupted: the mother and children could not give up their feelings, their claims, their wishes.

Under these circumstances it was natural that brother and sister should attach themselves close to each other, and adhere to their mother, that they might singly snatch the pleasures forbidden as a whole. But since the hours of solitude and toil were very long compared with the moments of recreation and enjoyment, especially for my sister, who could never leave the house for so long a time as I could, the necessity she felt for entertaining herself with me was still sharpened by the sense of longing with which she accompanied me to a distance.

And as, in our first years, playing and learning, growth and education, had been quite common to both of us, so that we might well have been taken for twins, so did this community, this confidence, remain during the development of our physical and moral powers. That interest of youth; that amazement at the awakening of sensual impulses which clothe themselves in mental forms; of mental necessities which clothe themselves in sensual images; all the reflections upon these, which obscure rather than enlighten us, as the fog covers over and does not illumine the vale from which it is about to rise; the many errors and aberrations springing therefrom, — all these the brother and sister shared and endured hand in hand, and were the less enlightened as to their strange condition, as the nearer they wished to approach each other, to clear up their minds, the more forcibly did the sacred awe of their close relationship keep them apart

Reluctantly do I mention, in a general way, what I undertook to set forth years ago, without being able to accomplish it. As I lost this beloved, incomprehensible being but too soon, I felt inducement enough to make her worth present to me: and thus arose in me the conception of a poetic whole, in which it might be possible to exhibit her individuality; but for this no other form could be devised than that of the Richardsonian novels. Only by the minutest detail, by endless particularities which bear vividly all the character of the whole, and, as they spring up from a wonderful depth, give some feeling of that depth, — only in such a manner would it have been in some degree possible to give a representation of this remarkable personality; for the spring can be apprehended only while it is flowing. But from this beautiful and pious design, as from so many others, the tumult of the world drew me away; and nothing now remains for me but to call up for a moment that blessed spirit, as if by the aid of a magic mirror.

She was tall, well and delicately formed, and had something naturally dignified in her demeanor, which melted away into a pleasing mildness. The lineaments of her face, neither striking nor beautiful, indicated a character which was not nor ever could be in union with itself. Her eyes were not the finest I have ever seen, but the deepest, behind which you expected the most; and when they expressed any affection, any love, their brilliancy was unequalled. And yet, properly speaking, this expression was not tender, like that which comes from the heart, and at the same time carries with it something of longing and desire: this expression came from the soul; it was full and rich; it seemed as if it would only give, without needing to receive.

But what in a manner quite peculiar disfigured her face, so that she would often appear positively ugly, was the fashion of those times, which not only bared the forehead, but, either accidentally or on purpose, did every thing apparently or really to enlarge it. Now, as she had the most feminine, most perfect arched forehead, and, moreover, a pair of strong black eyebrows, and prominent eyes, these circumstances occasioned a contrast, which, if it did not repel every stranger at the first glance, at least did not attract him. She early felt it; and this feeling became constantly the more painful to her, the farther she advanced into the years when both sexes find an innocent pleasure in being mutually agreeable.

To nobody can his own form be repugnant; the ugliest, as well as the most beautiful, has a right to enjoy his own presence: and as favor beautifies, and every one regards himself in the looking-glass with favor, it may be asserted that every one must see himself with complacency, even if he would struggle against the feeling. Yet my sister had such a decided foundation of good sense, that she could not possibly be blind and silly in this respect; on the contrary, she perhaps knew more clearly than she ought, that she stood far behind her female playfellows in external beauty, without feeling consoled by the fact that she infinitely surpassed them in internal advantages.

If a woman can find compensation for the want of beauty, she richly found it in the unbounded confidence, the regard and love, which all her female friends bore to her; whether they were older or younger, all cherished the same sentiments. A very pleasant society had collected around her: young men were not wanting who knew how to insinuate themselves; nearly every girl found an admirer; she alone had remained without a partner. While, indeed, her exterior was in some measure repulsive, the mind that gleamed through it was also more repelling than attractive; for the presence of any excellence throws others back upon themselves. She felt this sensibly: she did not conceal it from me, and her love was directed to me with so much the greater force. The case was singular enough. As confidants to whom one reveals a love-affair actually by genuine sympathy become lovers also, nay, grow into rivals, and at last, perchance, transfer the passion to themselves; so it was with us two: for, when my connection with Gretchen was torn asunder, my sister consoled me the more earnestly, because she secretly felt the satisfaction of having gotten rid of a rival; and I, too, could not but feel a quiet, half-mischievous pleasure, when she did me the justice to assure me that I was the only one who truly loved, understood, and esteemed her. If now, from time to time, my grief for the loss of Gretchen revived, and I suddenly began to weep, to lament, and to act in a disorderly manner, my despair for my lost one awakened in her likewise a similar despairing impatience as to the never-possessings, the failures, and miscarriages of such youthful attachments, that we both thought ourselves infinitely unhappy, and the more so, as, in this singular case, the confidants could not change themselves into lovers.

Fortunately, however, the capricious god of love, who needlessly does so much mischief, here for once interfered beneficially, to extricate us out of all perplexity. I had much intercourse with a young Englishman who was educated in Pfeil’s boarding-school. He could give a good account of his own language: I practised it with him, and thus learned much concerning his country and people. He went in and out of our house long enough without my remarking in him a liking for my sister; yet he may have been nourishing it in secret, even to passion, for at last it declared itself unexpectedly and at once. She knew him, she esteemed him, and he deserved it. She had often made the third at our English conversations: we had both tried to catch from his mouth the irregularities of the English pronunciation, and thereby accustomed ourselves, not only to the peculiarities of its accent and sound, but even to what was most peculiar in the personal qualities of our teacher; so that at last it sounded strangely enough when we all seemed to speak as if out of one mouth. The pains he took to learn as much German from us in the like manner were to no purpose; and I think I have remarked that even this little love-affair was also, both orally and in writing, carried on in the English language. Both the young persons were very well suited to each other: he was tall and well built, as she was, only still more slender; his face, small and compact, might really have been pretty, had it not been too much disfigured by the small-pox; his manner was calm, precise, — one might often have called it dry and cold; but his heart was full of kindness and love, his soul full of generosity, and his attachments as lasting as they were decided and controlled. Now, this serious pair, who had but lately formed an attachment, were quite peculiarly distinguished among the others, who, being already better acquainted with each other, of more frivolous character, and careless as to the future, roved about with levity in these connections, which commonly pass away as the mere fruitless prelude to subsequent and more serious ties, and very seldom produce a lasting effect upon life.

The fine weather and the beautiful country did not remain unenjoyed by so lively a company: water-excursions were frequently arranged, because these are the most sociable of all parties of pleasure. Yet, whether we were going by water or by land, the individual attracting powers immediately showed themselves; each couple kept together: and for some men who were not engaged, of whom I was one, there remained either no conversation with the ladies at all, or only such as no one would have chosen for a day of pleasure. A friend who found himself in this situation, and who might have been in want of a partner chiefly for this reason, that, with, the best humor, he lacked tenderness, and, with much intelligence, that delicate attention, without which connections of this kind are not to be thought of, — this man, after often humorously and wittily lamenting his condition, promised at the next meeting to make a proposal which would benefit himself and the whole company. Nor did he fail to perform his promise; for when, after a brilliant trip by water, and a very pleasant walk, reclining on the grass between shady knolls, or sitting on mossy rocks and roots of trees, we had cheerfully and happily consumed a rural meal, and our friend saw us all cheerful and in good spirits, he, with a waggish dignity, commanded us to sit close round him in a semicircle, before which he stepped, and began to make an emphatic peroration as follows: —

“Most worthy friends of both sexes, paired and unpaired!” — It was already evident from this address, how necessary it was that a preacher of repentance should arise, and sharpen the conscience of the company. “One part of my noble friends is paired, and they may find themselves quite happy; another unpaired, and these find themselves in the highest degree miserable, as I can assure you from my own experience: and although the loving couples are here in the majority, yet I would have them consider whether it is not a social duty to take thought for the whole. Why do we wish to assemble in such numbers, except to take a mutual interest in each other? and how can that be done when so many little secessions are to be seen in our circle? Far be it from me to insinuate any thing against such sweet connections, or even to wish to disturb them; but ‘there is a time for all things,’ — an excellent great saying, of which, indeed, nobody thinks when his own amusement is sufficiently provided for.”

He then went on with constantly increasing liveliness and gayety to compare the social virtues with the tender sentiments. “The latter,” said he, “can never fail us; we always carry them about with us, and every one becomes a master in them without practice: but we must go in quest of the former, we must take some trouble about them; and, though we progress in them as much as we will, we have never done learning them.” Now he went into particulars. Many felt hit off, and they could not help casting glances at each other: yet our friend had this privilege, that nothing he did was taken ill; and so he could proceed without interruption.

“It is not enough to discover deficiencies: indeed, it is unjust to do so, if at the same time one cannot contrive to give the means for bettering the state of affairs. I will not, therefore, my friends, something like a preacher in Passion Week, exhort you in general terms to repentance and amendment: I rather wish all amiable couples the longest and most enduring happiness; and, to contribute to it myself in the surest manner, I propose to sever and abolish these most charming little segregations during our social hours. I have,” he continued, “already provided for the execution of my project, if it should meet your approbation. Here is a bag in which are the names of the gentlemen: now draw, my fair ones, and be pleased to favor as your servant, for a week, him whom fate shall send you. This is binding only within our circle; as soon as that is broken up, these connections are also abolished, and the heart may decide who shall attend you home.”

A great part of the company had been delighted with this address, and the manner in which he delivered it, and seemed to approve of the notion; yet some couples looked at each other as if they thought that it would not answer their purpose: he therefore cried with humorous vehemence, —

“Truly! it surprises me that some one does not spring up, and, though others hesitate, extol my plan, explain its advantages, and spare me the pain of being my own encomiast. I am the oldest among you: may God forgive me for that! Already have I a bald pate, which is owing to my great meditation.” —

Here he took off his hat —

“But I should expose it to view with joy and honor if my lucubrations, which dry up my skin, and rob me of my finest adornment, could only be in some measure beneficial to myself and others. We are young, my friends, — that is good; we shall grow older, — that is bad; we take little offence at each other, — that is right, and in accordance with the season. But soon, my friends, the days will come when we shall have much to be displeased at in ourselves; then, let every one see that he makes all right with himself; but, at the same time, others will take things ill of us, and on what account we shall not understand; for this we must prepare ourselves; this shall now be done.”

He had delivered the whole speech, but especially the last part, with the tone and gesture of a Capuchin; for, as he was a Catholic, he might have had abundant opportunity to study the oratory of these fathers. He now appeared out of breath, wiped his youthful, bald head, which really gave him the look of a priest, and by these drolleries put the light- hearted company in such good humor that every one was eager to hear him longer. But, instead of proceeding, he drew open the bag, and turned to the nearest lady. “Now for a trial of it!” exclaimed he: “the work will do credit to the master. If in a week’s time we do not like it, we will give it up, and stick to the old plan.”

Half willingly, half on compulsion, the ladies drew their tickets; and it was easy to see that various passions were in play during this little affair. Fortunately it happened that the merry-minded were separated, while the more serious remained together, and so, too, my sister kept her Englishman; which, on both sides, they took very kindly of the god of Love and Luck. The new chance-couples were immediately united by the /Antistes/, their healths were drank, and to all the more joy was wished, as its duration was to be but short. This was certainly the merriest moment that our company had enjoyed for a long time. The young men to whose share no lady had fallen, held, for this week, the office of providing for the mind, the soul, and the body, as our orator expressed himself, but especially, he hinted, for the soul, since both the others already knew how to help themselves.

These masters of ceremonies, who wished at once to do themselves credit, brought into play some very pretty new games, prepared at some distance a supper, which we had not reckoned on, and illuminated the yacht on our return at night, although there was no necessity for it in the bright moonlight; but they excused themselves by saying that it was quite conformable to the new social regulation to outshine the tender glances of the heavenly moon by earthly candles. The moment we touched the shore, our Solon cried, “/Ite, missa est!/” Each one now handed out of the vessel the lady who had fallen to him by lot, and then surrendered her to her proper partner, on receiving his own in exchange.

At our next meeting this weekly regulation was established for the summer, and the lots were drawn once more. There was no question but that this pleasantry gave a new and unexpected turn to the company; and every one was stimulated to display whatever of wit and grace was in him, and to pay court to his temporary fair one in the most obliging manner, since he might depend on having a sufficient store of complaisance for one week at least.

We had scarcely settled down, when, instead of thanking our orator, we reproached him for having kept to himself the best part of his speech, — the conclusion. He thereupon protested that the best part of a speech was persuasion, and that he who did not aim at persuasion should make no speech; for, as to conviction, that was a ticklish business. As, however, they gave him no peace, he began a Capuchinade on the spot, more comical than ever, perhaps, for the very reason that he took it into his head to speak on the most serious subjects. For with texts out of the Bible, which had nothing to do with the business; with similes which did not fit; with allusions which illustrated nothing, — he carried out the proposition, that whosoever does not know how to conceal his passions, inclinations, wishes, purposes, and plans, will come to no good in the world, but will be disturbed and made a butt in every end and corner; and that especially if one would be happy in love, one must take pains to keep it a most profound secret.

This thought ran through the whole, without, properly speaking, a single word of it being said. If you would form a conception of this singular man, let it be considered, that, being born with a good foundation, he had cultivated his talents, and especially his acuteness, in Jesuit schools, and had amassed an extensive knowledge of the world and of men, but only on the bad side. He was some two and twenty years old, and would gladly have made me a proselyte to his contempt for mankind; but this would not take with me, as I always had a great desire to be good myself, and to find good in others. Meanwhile, I was by him made attentive to many things.

To complete the /dramatis personae/ of every merry company, an actor is necessary who feels pleasure when the others, to enliven many an indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. If he is not merely a stuffed Saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others a thrust home, nothing more agreeable can be found. Such a man we possessed in our friend Horn, whose name, to begin with, gave occasion for all sorts of jokes, and who, on account of his small figure, was called nothing but Hörnchen (little Horn). He was, in fact, the smallest in the company, of a stout but pleasing form; a pug-nose, a mouth somewhat pouting, little sparkling eyes, made up a swarthy countenance which always seemed to invite laughter. His little compact skull was thickly covered with curly black hair: his beard was prematurely blue; and he would have liked to let it grow, that, as a comic mask, he might always keep the company laughing. For the rest, he was neat and nimble, but insisted that he had bandy legs, which everybody granted, since he was bent on having it so, but about which many a joke arose; for, since he was in request as a very good dancer, he reckoned it among the peculiarities of the fair sex, that they always liked to see bandy legs on the floor. His cheerfulness was indestructible, and his presence at every meeting indispensable. We two kept more together because he was to follow me to the university; and he well deserves that I should mention him with all honor, as he adhered to me for many years with infinite love, faithfulness, and patience.

By my ease in rhyming, and in winning from common objects a poetical side, he had allowed himself to be seduced into similar labors. Our little social excursions, parties of pleasure, and the contingencies that occurred in them, we decked out poetically; and thus, by the description of an event, a new event always arose. But as such social jests commonly degenerate into personal ridicule, and my friend Horn, with his burlesque representations, did not always keep within proper bounds, many a misunderstanding arose, which, however, could soon be softened down and effaced.

Thus, also, he tried his skill in a species of poetry which was then very much the order of the day, — the comic heroical poem. Pope’s “Rape of the Lock” had called forth many imitations: Zachariä cultivated this branch of poetry on German soil; and it pleased every one, because the ordinary subject of it was some awkward fellow, of whom the genii made game, while they favored the better one.

Although it is no wonder, yet it excites wonderment, when contemplating a literature, especially the German, one observes how a whole nation cannot get free from a subject which has been once given, and happily treated in a certain form, but will have it repeated in every manner, until, at last, the original itself is covered up, and stifled by the heaps of imitations.

The heroic poem of my friend was a voucher for this remark. At a great sledging-party, an awkward man has assigned to him a lady who does not like him: comically enough, there befalls him, one after another, every accident that can happen on such an occasion, until at last, as he is entreating for the sledge-driver’s right (a kiss), he falls from the back-seat; for just then, as was natural, the Fates tripped him up. The fair one seizes the reins, and drives home alone, where a favored friend receives her, and triumphs over his presumptuous rival. As to the rest, it was very prettily contrived that the four different kinds of spirits should worry him in turn, till at the end the gnomes hoist him completely out of the saddle. The poem, written in Alexandrines, and founded on a true story, highly delighted our little public; and we were convinced that it could well be compared with the “Walpurgisnight” of Löwen, or the “Renommist” of Zachariä. [Footnote: This word, which signifies something like our “bully,” is specially used to designate a fighting student. — TRANS.]

While, now, our social pleasures required but an evening, and the preparations for them only a few hours, I had enough time to read, and, as I thought, to study. To please my father, I diligently repeated the smaller work of Hopp, and could stand an examination in it forwards and backwards, by which means I made myself complete master of the chief contents of the institutes. But a restless eagerness for knowledge urged me farther: I lighted upon the history of ancient literature, and from that fell into an encyclopaedism, in which I hastily read Gessner’s “Isagoge” and Morhov’s “Polyhistor,” and thus gained a general notion of how many strange things might have happened in learning and life. By this persevering and rapid industry, continued day and night, I became more confused than instructed; but I lost myself in a still greater labyrinth when I found Bayle in my father’s library, and plunged deeply into this work.

But a leading conviction, which was continually revived within me, was that of the importance of the ancient tongues; since from amidst this literary hurly-burly, thus much continually forced itself upon me, that in them were preserved all the models of oratory, and at the same time every thing else of worth that the world has ever possessed. Hebrew, together with biblical studies, had retired into the background, and Greek likewise, since my acquaintance with it did not extend beyond the New Testament. I therefore the more zealously kept to Latin, the masterpieces in which lie nearer to us, and which, besides its splendid original productions, offers us the other wealth of all ages in translations, and the works of the greatest scholars. I consequently read much in this language, with great ease, and was bold enough to believe I understood the authors, because I missed nothing of the literal sense. Indeed, I was very indignant when I heard that Grotius had insolently declared, “he did not read Terence as boys do.” Happy narrow-mindedness of youth! — nay, of men in general, that they can, at every moment of their existence, fancy themselves finished, and inquire after neither the true nor the false, after neither the high nor the deep, but merely after that which is suited to them.

I had thus learned Latin, like German, French, and English, merely by practice, without rules, and without comprehension. Whoever knows the then condition of scholastic instruction will not think it strange that I skipped grammar as well as rhetoric; all seemed to me to come together naturally: I retained the words, their forms and inflexions, in my ear and mind, and used the language with ease in writing and in chattering.

Michaelmas, the time fixed for my going to the university, was approaching; and my mind was excited quite as much about my life as about my learning. I grew more and more clearly conscious of an aversion to my native city. By Gretchen’s removal, the heart had been broken out of the boyish and youthful plant: it needed time to bud forth again from its sides, and surmount the first injury by a new growth. My ramblings through the streets had ceased: I now, like others, only went such ways as were necessary. I never went again into Gretchen’s quarter of the city, not even into its vicinity: and as my old walls and towers became gradually disagreeable to me, so also was I displeased at the constitution of the city; all that hitherto seemed so worthy of honor now appeared to me in distorted shapes. As grandson of the /Schultheiss/ I had not remained unacquainted with the secret defects of such a republic; the less so, as children feel quite a peculiar surprise, and are excited to busy researches, as soon as something which they have hitherto implicitly revered becomes in any degree suspicious to them. The fruitless indignation of upright men, in opposition to those who are to be gained and even bribed by factions, had become but too plain to me: I hated every injustice beyond measure, for children are all moral rigorists. My father, who was concerned in the affairs of the city only as a private citizen, expressed himself with very lively indignation about much that had failed. And did I not see him, after so many studies, endeavors, pains, travels, and so much varied cultivation, between his four walls, leading a solitary life, such as I could never desire for myself? All this put together lay as a horrible load on my mind, from which I could only free myself by trying to contrive a plan of life altogether different from that which had been marked out for me. In thought I threw aside my legal studies, and devoted myself solely to the languages, to antiquities, to history, and to all that flows from them.

Indeed, at all times, the poetic imitation of what I had perceived in myself, in others, and in nature, afforded me the greatest pleasure. I did it with ever-increasing facility, because it came by instinct, and no criticism had led me astray; and, if I did not feel full confidence in my productions, I could certainly regard them as defective, but not such as to be utterly rejected. Although here and there they were censured, I still retained my silent conviction that I could not but gradually improve, and that some time I might be honorably named along with Hagedorn, Gellert, and other such men. But such a distinction alone seemed to me too empty and inadequate; I wished to devote myself professionally and with zeal to those aforesaid fundamental studies, and, whilst I meant to advance more rapidly in my own works by a more thorough insight into antiquity, to qualify myself for a university professorship, which seemed to me the most desirable thing for a young man who strove for culture, and intended to contribute to that of others.

With these intentions I always had my eye upon Göttingen. My whole confidence rested upon men like Heyne, Michaelis, and so many others: my most ardent wish was to sit at their feet, and attend to their instructions. But my father remained inflexible. Howsoever some family friends, who were of my opinion, tried to influence him, he persisted that I must go to Leipzig. I was now resolved, contrary to his views and wishes, to choose a line of studies and of life for myself, by way of self-defense. The obstinacy of my father, who, without knowing it, opposed himself to my plans, strengthened me in my impiety; so that I made no scruple to listen to him by the hour, while he described and repeated to me the course of study and of life which I should pursue at the universities and in the world.

All hopes of Göttingen being cut off, I now turned my eyes towards Leipzig. There Ernesti appeared to me as a brilliant light: Morus, too, already awakened much confidence. I planned for myself in secret an opposition-course, or rather I built a castle in the air, on a tolerably solid foundation; and it seemed to me quite romantically honorable to mark out my own path of life, which appeared the less visionary, as Griesbach had already made great progress in a similar way, and was commended for it by every one. The secret joy of a prisoner, when he has unbound the fetters, and rapidly filed through the bars of his jail- window, cannot be greater than was mine as I saw day after day disappear, and October draw nigh. The inclement season and the bad roads, of which everybody had something to tell, did not frighten me. The thought of making good my footing in a strange place, and in winter, did not make me sad; suffice it to say, that I only saw my present situation was gloomy, and represented to myself the other unknown world as light and cheerful. Thus I formed my dreams, to which I gave myself up exclusively, and promised myself nothing but happiness and content in the distance.

Closely as I kept these projects a secret from every one else, I could not hide them from my sister, who, after being very much alarmed about them at first, was finally consoled when I promised to send after her, so that she could enjoy with me the brilliant station I was to obtain, and share my comfort with me.

Michaelmas, so longingly expected, came at last, when I set out with delight, in company with the bookseller Fleischer and his wife (whose maiden name was Triller, and who was going to visit her father in Wittemberg); and I left behind me the worthy city in which I had been born and bred, with indifference, as if I wished never to set foot in it again.

Thus, at certain epochs, children part from parents, servants from masters, /protégés/ from their patrons; and, whether it succeed or not, such an attempt to stand on one’s own feet, to make one’s self independent, to live for one’s self, is always in accordance with the will of nature.

We had driven out through the Allerheiligen (/All Saints/) gate, and had soon left Hanau behind us, after which we reached scenes which aroused my attention by their novelty, if, at this season of the year, they offered little that was pleasing. A continual rain had completely spoiled the roads, which, generally speaking, were not then in such good order as we find them now; and our journey was thus neither pleasant nor happy. Yet I was indebted to this damp weather for the sight of a natural phenomenon which must be exceedingly rare, for I have seen nothing like it since, nor have I heard of its having been observed by others. It was this; namely, we were driving at night up a rising ground between Hanau and Gelhausen, and, although it was dark, we preferred walking to exposing ourselves to the danger and difficulty of that part of the road. All at once, in a ravine on the right-hand side of the way, I saw a sort of amphitheatre, wonderfully illuminated. In a funnel- shaped space there were innumerable little lights gleaming, ranged step- fashion over one another; and they shone so brilliantly that the eye was dazzled. But what still more confused the sight was, that they did not keep still, but jumped about here and there, as well downwards from above as /vice versa/, and in every direction. The greater part of them, however, remained stationary, and beamed on. It was only with the greatest reluctance that I suffered myself to be called away from this spectacle, which I could have wished to examine more closely. The postilion, when questioned, said that he knew nothing about such a phenomenon, but that there was in the neighborhood an old stone-quarry, the excavation of which was filled with water. Now, whether this was a pandemonium of will-o’-the-wisps, or a company of luminous creatures, I will not decide.

The roads through Thuringia were yet worse; and unfortunately, at night- fall, our coach stuck fast in the vicinity of Auerstädt. We were far removed from all mankind, and did every thing possible to work ourselves out. I failed not to exert myself zealously, and might thereby have overstrained the ligaments of my chest; for soon afterwards I felt a pain, which went off and returned, and did not leave me entirely until after many years.

Yet on that same night, as if it had been destined for alternate good and bad luck, I was forced, after an unexpectedly fortunate incident, to experience a teasing vexation. We met, in Auerstädt, a genteel married couple, who had also just arrived, having been delayed by a similar accident; a pleasing, dignified man, in his best years, with a very handsome wife. They politely persuaded us to sup in their company, and I felt very happy when the excellent lady addressed a friendly word to me. But when I was sent out to hasten the soup which had been ordered, not having been accustomed to the loss of rest and the fatigues of travelling, such an unconquerable drowsiness overtook me, that actually I fell asleep while walking, returned into the room with my hat on my head, and, without remarking that the others were saying grace, placed myself with quiet unconsciousness behind the chair, and never dreamed that by my conduct I had come to disturb their devotions in a very droll way. Madame Fleischer, who lacked neither spirit nor wit nor tongue, entreated the strangers, before they had seated themselves, not to be surprised at any thing they might see here; for that their young fellow- traveller had in his nature much of the peculiarity of the Quakers, who believe that they cannot honor God and the king better than with covered heads. The handsome lady, who could not restrain her laughter, looked prettier than ever in consequence; and I would have given every thing in the world not to have been the cause of a merriment which was so highly becoming to her countenance. I had, however, scarcely laid aside my hat, when these persons, in accordance with their polished manners, immediately dropped the joke, and, with the best wine from their bottle- case, completely extinguished sleep, chagrin, and the memory of all past troubles.

I arrived in Leipzig just at the time of the fair, from which I derived particular pleasure; for here I saw before me the continuation of a state of things belonging to my native city, familiar wares and traders, — only in other places, and in a different order. I rambled about the market and the booths with much interest; but my attention was particularly attracted by the inhabitants of the Eastern countries in their strange dresses, the Poles and Russians, and, above all, the Greeks, for the sake of whose handsome forms and dignified costume I often went to the spot.

But this animating bustle was soon over; and now the city itself appeared before me, with its handsome, high, and uniform houses. It made a very good impression upon me; and it cannot be denied, that in general, but especially in the silent moments of Sundays and holidays, it has something imposing; and when in the moonlight the streets were half in shadow, half-illuminated, they often invited me to nocturnal promenades.

In the mean time, as compared with that to which I had hitherto been accustomed, this new state of affairs was by no means satisfactory. Leipzig calls up before the spectator no antique time: it is a new, recently elapsed epoch, testifying commercial activity, comfort and wealth, which announces itself to us in these monuments. Yet quite to my taste were the houses, which to me seemed immense, and which, fronting two streets, and embracing a citizen-world within their large court- yards, built round with lofty walls, are like large castles, nay, even half-cities. In one of these strange places I quartered myself; namely, in the Bombshell Tavern (/Feuerkugel/), between the Old and the New Newmarket (/Neumarkt/). A couple of pleasant rooms looking out upon a court-yard, which, on account of the thoroughfare, was not without animation, were occupied by the bookseller Fleischer during the fair, and by me taken for the rest of the time at a moderate price. As a fellow-lodger I found a theological student, who was deeply learned in his professional studies, a sound thinker, but poor, and suffering much from his eyes, which caused him great anxiety for the future. He had brought this affliction upon himself by his inordinate reading till the latest dusk of the evening, and even by moonlight, to save a little oil. Our old hostess showed herself benevolent to him, always friendly to me, and careful for us both.

I now hastened with my letters of introduction to Hofrath Böhme, who, once a pupil of Maskow, and now his successor, was professor of history and public law. A little, thick-set, lively man received me kindly enough, and introduced me to his wife. Both of them, as well as the other persons whom I waited on, gave me the pleasantest hopes as to my future residence; but at first I let no one know of the design I entertained, although I could scarcely wait for the favorable moment when I should declare myself free from jurisprudence, and devoted to the study of the classics. I cautiously waited till the Fleischers had returned, that my purpose might not be too prematurely betrayed to my family. But I then went, without delay, to Hofrath Böhme, to whom, before all, I thought I must confide the matter, and with much self- importance and boldness of speech disclosed my views to him. However, I found by no means a good reception of my proposition. As professor of history and public law, he had a declared hatred for every thing that savored of the /belles-lettres/. Unfortunately he did not stand on the best footing with those who cultivated them; and Gellert in particular, in whom I had, awkwardly enough, expressed much confidence, he could not even endure. To send a faithful student to those men, therefore, while he deprived himself of one, and especially under such circumstances, seemed to him altogether out of the question. He therefore gave me a severe lecture on the spot, in which he protested that he could not permit such a step without the permission of my parents, even if he approved of it himself, which was not the case in this instance. He then passionately inveighed against philology and the study of languages, but still more against poetical exercises, which I had indeed allowed to peep out in the background. He finally concluded, that, if I wished to enter more closely into the study of the ancients, it could be done much better by the way of jurisprudence. He brought to my recollection many elegant jurists, such as Eberhard, Otto, and Heineccius, promised me mountains of gold from Roman antiquities and the history of law, and showed me, clear as the sun, that I should here be taking no roundabout way, even if afterwards, on more mature deliberation, and with the consent of my parents, I should determine to follow out my own plan. He begged me, in a friendly manner, to think the matter over once more, and to open my mind to him soon; as it would be necessary to come to a determination at once, on account of the impending commencement of the lectures.

It was, however, very polite of him not to press me on the spot. His arguments, and the weight with which he advanced them, had already convinced my pliant youth; and I now first saw the difficulties and doubtfulness of a matter which I had privately pictured to myself as so feasible. Frau Hofrath Böhme invited me shortly afterwards. I found her alone. She was no longer young, and had very delicate health; was gentle and tender to an infinite degree; and formed a decided contrast to her husband, whose good nature was even blustering. She spoke of the conversation her husband had lately had with me, and once more placed the subject before me, in all its bearings, in so cordial a manner, so affectionately and sensibly, that I could not help yielding: the few reservations on which I insisted were also agreed upon by the other side.

Thereupon her husband regulated my hours; for I was to hear lectures on philosophy, the history of law, the Institutes, and some other matters. I was content with this; but I carried my point so as to attend Gellert’s history of literature (with Stockhausen for a text-book), and his “Practicum” besides.

The reverence and love with which Gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary. I had already called on him, and had been kindly received by him. Not of tall stature; elegant without being lean; soft and rather pensive eyes; a very fine forehead; a nose aquiline, but not too much so; a delicate mouth; a face of an agreeable oval, — all made his presence pleasing and desirable. It cost some trouble to reach him. His two /Famuli/ appeared like priests who guard a sanctuary, the access to which is not permitted to everybody, nor at every time: and such a precaution was very necessary; for he would have sacrificed his whole time, had he been willing to receive and satisfy all those who wished to become intimate with him.

At first I attended my lectures assiduously and faithfully, but the philosophy would not enlighten me at all. In the logic it seemed strange to me that I had so to tear asunder, isolate, and, as it were, destroy, those operations of the mind which I had performed with the greatest ease from my youth upwards, and this in order to see into the right use of them. Of the thing itself, of the world, and of God, I thought I knew about as much as the professor himself; and, in more places than one, the affair seemed to me to come into a tremendous strait. Yet all went on in tolerable order till towards Shrovetide, when, in the neighborhood of Professor Winkler’s house on the Thomas Place, the most delicious fritters came hot out of the pan just at the hour of lecture: and these delayed us so long, that our note-books became disordered; and the conclusion of them, towards spring, melted away, together with the snow, and was lost.

The law-lectures very soon fared not any better, for I already knew just as much as the professor thought good to communicate to us. My stubborn industry in writing down the lectures at first, was paralyzed by degrees; for I found it excessively tedious to pen down once more that which, partly by question, partly by answer, I had repeated with my father often enough to retain it forever in my memory. The harm which is done when young people at school are advanced too far in many things was afterwards manifested still more when time and attention were diverted from exercises in the languages, and a foundation in what are, properly speaking, preparatory studies, in order to be applied to what are called “Realities,” which dissipate more than they cultivate, if they are not methodically and thoroughly taught.

I here mention, by the way, another evil by which students are much embarrassed. Professors, as well as other men in office, cannot all be of the same age: but when the younger ones teach, in fact, only that they may learn, and moreover, if they have talent, anticipate their age, they acquire their own cultivation altogether at the cost of their hearers; since these are not instructed in what they really need, but in that which the professor finds it necessary to elaborate for himself. Among the oldest professors, on the contrary, many are for a long time stationary: they deliver on the whole only fixed views, and, in the details, much that time has already condemned as useless and false. Between the two arises a sad conflict, in which young minds are dragged hither and thither, and which can scarcely be set right by the middle- aged professors, who, though possessed of sufficient learning and culture, always feel within themselves an active desire for knowledge and reflection.

Now, as in this way I learned to know much more than I could digest, whereby a constantly increasing uncomfortableness was forced upon me; so also from life I experienced many disagreeable trifles, — as, indeed, one must always pay one’s footing when one changes one’s place and comes into a new position. The first thing the ladies blamed me for was my dress, for I had come from home to the university rather oddly equipped.

My father, who detested nothing so much as when something happened in vain, when any one did not know how to make use of his time, or found no opportunity for turning it to account, carried his economy of time and abilities so far, that nothing gave him greater pleasure than to kill two birds with one stone. [Footnote: Literally, “to strike two flies with one flapper.” — TRANS.] He had, therefore, never engaged a servant who could not be useful to the house in something else. Now, as he had always written every thing with his own hand, and had, latterly, the convenience of dictating to the young inmate of the house, he found it most advantageous to have tailors for his domestics, who were obliged to make good use of their time, as they not only had to make their own liveries, but the clothes for my father and the children, besides doing all the mending. My father himself took pains to have the best materials and the best kind of cloth, by getting fine wares of the foreign merchants at the fair, and laying them up in store. I still remember well that he always visited the Herr von Löwenicht, of Aix-la-Chapelle, and from my earliest youth made me acquainted with these and other eminent merchants.

Care was also taken for the fitness of the stuff: and there was a plentiful stock of different kinds of cloth, serge, and Götting stuff, besides the requisite lining; so that, as far as the materials were concerned, we might well venture to be seen. But the form spoiled almost every thing. For, if one of our home-tailors was any thing of a clever hand at sewing and making up a coat which had been cut out for him in masterly fashion, he was now obliged also to cut out the dress for himself, which did not always succeed to perfection. In addition to this, my father kept whatever belonged to his clothing in very good and neat order, and preserved more than used it for many years. Thus he had a predilection for certain old cuts and trimmings, by which our dress sometimes acquired a strange appearance.

In this same way had the wardrobe which I took with me to the university been furnished: it was very complete and handsome, and there was even a laced suit amongst the rest. Already accustomed to this kind of attire, I thought myself sufficiently well dressed; but it was not long before my female friends, first by gentle raillery, then by sensible remonstrances, convinced me that I looked as if I had dropped down out of another world. Much as I felt vexed at this, I did not see at first how I was to mend matters. But when Herr von Masuren, the favorite poetical country squire, once entered the theatre in a similar costume, and was heartily laughed at, more by reason of his external than his internal absurdity, I took courage, and ventured at once to exchange my whole wardrobe for a new-fashioned one, suited to the place, by which, however, it shrunk considerably.

When this trial was surmounted, a new one was to come up, which proved to be far more unpleasant, because it concerned a matter which one does not so easily put off and exchange.

I had been born and bred in the Upper-German dialect; and although my father always labored to preserve a certain purity of language, and, from our youth upwards, had made us children attentive to what may be really called the defects of that idiom, and so prepared us for a better manner of speaking, I retained nevertheless many deeper-seated peculiarities, which, because they pleased me by their /naïvete/, I was fond of making conspicuous, and thus every time I used them incurred a severe reproof from my new fellow-townsmen. The Upper-German, and perhaps chiefly he who lives by the Rhine and Main (for great rivers, like the seacoast, always have something animating about them), expresses himself much in similes and allusions, and makes use of proverbial sayings with a native common-sense aptness. In both cases he is often blunt: but, when one sees the drift of the expression, it is always appropriate; only something, to be sure, may often slip in, which proves offensive to a more delicate ear.

Every province loves its own dialect; for it is, properly speaking, the element in which the soul draws its breath. But every one knows with what obstinacy the Misnian dialect has contrived to domineer over the rest, and even, for a long time, to exclude them. We have suffered for many years under this pedantic tyranny, and only by reiterated struggles have all the provinces again established themselves in their ancient rights. What a lively young man had to endure from this continual tutoring, may be easily inferred by any one who reflects that modes of thought, imagination, feeling, native character, must be sacrificed with the pronunciation which one at last consents to alter. And this intolerable demand was made by men and women of education, whose convictions I could not adopt, whose injustice I thought I felt, though I was unable to make it plain to myself. Allusions to the pithy biblical texts were to be forbidden me, as well as the use of the honest-hearted expressions from the Chronicles. I had to forget that I had read the “Kaiser von Geisersberg,” and eschew the use of proverbs, which nevertheless, instead of much fiddle-faddle, just hit the nail upon the head, — all this, which I had appropriated to myself with youthful ardor, I was now to do without: I felt paralyzed to the core, and scarcely knew any more how I had to express myself on the commonest things. I was, moreover, told that one should speak as one writes, and write as one speaks; while to me, speaking and writing seemed once for all two different things, each of which might well maintain its own rights. And even in the Misnian dialect had I to hear many things which would have made no great figure on paper.

Every one who perceives in this the influence which men and women of education, the learned, and other persons who take pleasure in refined society, so decidedly exercise over a young student, would be immediately convinced that we were in Leipzig, even if it had not been mentioned. Each one of the German universities has a particular character; for, as no universal cultivation can pervade our fatherland, every place adheres to its own fashion, and carries out, even to the last, its own characteristic peculiarities: exactly the same thing holds good of the universities. In Jena and Halle roughness had been carried to the highest pitch: bodily strength, skill in fighting, the wildest self-help, was there the order of the day; and such a state of affairs can only be maintained and propagated by the most universal riot. The relations of the students to the inhabitants of those cities, various as they might be, nevertheless agreed in this, that the wild stranger had no regard for the citizen, and looked upon himself as a peculiar being, privileged to all sorts of freedom and insolence. In Leipzig, on the contrary, a student could scarcely be any thing else than polite, as soon as he wished to stand on any footing at all with the rich, well- bred, and punctilious inhabitants.

All politeness, indeed, when it does not present itself as the flowering of a great and comprehensive mode of life, must appear restrained, stationary, and, from some points of view, perhaps, absurd; and so those wild huntsmen from the Saale [Footnote: The river on which Halle is built. — TRANS.] thought they had a great superiority over the tame shepherds on the Pleisse. [Footnote: The river near Leipzig. — TRANS.] Zachariä’s “Renommist” will always be a valuable document, from which the manner of life and thought at that time rises visibly forth; as in general his poems must be welcome to every one who wishes to form for himself a conception of the then prevailing state of social life and manners, which was indeed feeble, but amiable on account of its innocence and child-like simplicity.

All manners which result from the given relations of a common existence are indestructible; and, in my time, many things still reminded us of Zachariä’s epic poem. Only one of our fellow-academicians thought himself rich and independent enough to snap his fingers at public opinion. He drank acquaintance with all the hackney-coachmen, whom he allowed to sit inside the coach as if they were gentlemen, while he drove them on the box; thought it a great joke to upset them now and then, and contrived to satisfy them for their smashed vehicles as well as for their occasional bruises; but otherwise he did no harm to any one, seeming only to make a mock of the public /en masse/. Once, on a most beautiful promenade-day, he and a comrade of his seized upon the donkeys of the miller in St. Thomas’s square: well-dressed, and in their shoes and stockings, they rode around the city with the greatest solemnity, stared at by all the promenaders, with whom the glacis was swarming. When some sensible persons remonstrated with him on the subject, he assured them, quite unembarrassed, that he only wanted to see how the Lord Christ might have looked in a like case. Yet he found no imitators and few companions.

For the student of any wealth and standing had every reason to show himself attentive to the mercantile class, and to be the more solicitous about the proper external forms, as the colony [Footnote: Leipzig was so called, because a large and influential portion of its citizens were sprung from a colony of Huguenots, who settled there after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. — /American Note/.] exhibited a model of French manners. The professors, opulent both from their private property and from their liberal salaries, were not dependent upon their scholars; and many subjects of the state, educated at the government schools or other gymnasia, and hoping for preferment, did not venture to throw off the traditional customs. The neighborhood of Dresden, the attention thence paid to us, and the true piety of the superintendent of the course of study, could not be without a moral, nay, a religious, influence.

At first this kind of life was not repugnant to me: my letters of introduction had given me the /entrée/ into good families, whose circle of relatives also received me well. But as I was soon forced to feel that the company had much to find fault with in me, and that, after dressing myself in their fashion, I must now talk according to their tongue also; and as, moreover, I could plainly see that I was, on the other hand, but little benefited by the instruction and mental improvement I had promised myself from my academical residence, — I began to be lazy, and to neglect the social duties of visiting, and other attentions; and indeed I should have sooner withdrawn from all such connections, had not fear and esteem attached me firmly to Hofrath Böhme, and confidence and affection to his wife. The husband, unfortunately, had not the happy gift of dealing with young people, of winning their confidence, and of guiding them, for the moment, as occasion might require. When I visited him I never got any good by it: his wife, on the contrary, showed a genuine interest in me. Her ill health kept her constantly at home. She often invited me to spend the evening with her, and knew how to direct and improve me in many little external particulars: for my manners were good, indeed; but I was not yet master of what is properly termed /étiquette/. Only one friend spent the evenings with her; but she was much more dictatorial and pedantic, for which reason she displeased me excessively: and, out of spite to her, I often resumed those unmannerly habits from which the other had already weaned me. Nevertheless she always had patience enough with me, taught me piquet, ombre, and similar games, the knowledge and practice of which is held indispensable in society.

But it was in the matter of taste that Madame Böhme had the greatest influence upon me, — in a negative way truly, yet one in which she agreed perfectly with the critics. The Gottsched waters [Footnote: That is to say, the influence of Gottsched on German literature, of which more is said in the next book. — TRANS.] had inundated the German world with a true deluge, which threatened to rise up, even over the highest mountains. It takes a long time for such a flood to subside again, for the mire to dry away; and as in any epoch there are numberless aping poets, so the imitation of the flat and watery produced a chaos, of which now scarcely a notion remains. To find out that trash was trash was hence the greatest sport, yea, the triumph, of the critics of those days. Whoever had only a little common sense, was superficially acquainted with the ancients, and was somewhat more familiar with the moderns, thought himself provided with a standard scale which he could everywhere apply. Madame Böhme was an educated woman, who opposed the trivial, weak, and commonplace: she was, besides, the wife of a man who lived on bad terms with poetry in general, and would not even allow that of which she perhaps might have somewhat approved. She listened, indeed, for some time with patience, when I ventured to recite to her the verse or prose of famous poets who already stood in good repute, — for then, as always, I knew by heart every thing that chanced in any degree to please me; but her complaisance was not of long duration. The first whom she outrageously abused were the poets of the Weisse school, who were just then often quoted with great applause, and had delighted me very particularly. If I looked more closely into the matter, I could not say she was wrong. I had sometimes even ventured to recite to her, though anonymously, some of my own poems; but these fared no better than the rest of the set. And thus, in a short time, the beautiful variegated meadows at the foot of the German Parnassus, where I was fond of luxuriating, were mercilessly mowed down; and I was even compelled to toss about the drying hay myself, and to ridicule that as lifeless which, a short time before, had given me such lively joy.

Without knowing it, Professor Morus came to strengthen her instructions. He was an uncommonly gentle and friendly man, with whom I became acquainted at the table of Hofrath Ludwig, and who received me very pleasantly when I begged the privilege of visiting him. Now, while making inquiries of him concerning antiquity, I did not conceal from him what delighted me among the moderns; when he spoke about such things with more calmness, but, what was still worse, with more profundity than Madame Böhme; and he thus opened my eyes, at first to my greatest chagrin, but afterwards to my surprise, and at last to my edification.

Besides this, there came the Jeremiads, with which Gellert, in his course, was wont to warn us against poetry. He wished only for prose essays, and always criticised these first. Verses he treated as a sorry addition: and, what was the worst of all, even my prose found little favor in his eyes; for, after my old fashion, I used always to lay, as the foundation, a little romance, which I loved to work out in the epistolary form. The subjects were impassioned, the style went beyond ordinary prose, and the contents probably did not display any very deep knowledge of mankind in the author; and so I stood in very little favor with our professor, although he carefully looked over my labors as well as those of the others, corrected them with red ink, and here and there added a moral remark. Many leaves of this kind, which I kept for a long time with satisfaction, have unfortunately, in the course of years, at last disappeared from among my papers.

If elderly persons wish to play the pedagogue properly, they should neither prohibit nor render disagreeable to a young man any thing which gives him pleasure, of whatever kind it may be, unless, at the same time, they have something else to put in its place, or can contrive a substitute. Everybody protested against my tastes and inclinations; and, on the other hand, what they commended to me lay either so far from me that I could not perceive its excellencies, or stood so near me that I thought it not a whit better than what they inveighed against. I thus became thoroughly perplexed on the subject, and promised myself the best results from a lecture of Ernesti’s on “Cicero de Oratore.” I learned something, indeed, from this lecture, but was not enlightened on the subject which particularly concerned me. What I demanded was a standard of opinion, and thought I perceived that nobody possessed it; for no one agreed with another, even when they brought forward examples: and where were we to get a settled judgment, when they managed to reckon up against a man like Wieland so many faults in his amiable writings, which so completely captivated us younger folks?

Amid this manifold distraction, this dismemberment of my existence and my studies, it happened that I took my dinners at Hofrath Ludwig’s. He was a medical man, a botanist; and his company, with the exception of Morus, consisted of physicians just commencing or near the completion of their studies. Now, during these hours, I heard no other conversation than about medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn over into quite a new field. I heard the names of Haller, Linnaeus, Buffon, mentioned with great respect; and, even if disputes often arose about mistakes into which it was said they had fallen, all agreed in the end to honor the acknowledged abundance of their merits. The subjects were entertaining and important, and enchained my attention. By degrees I became familiar with many names and a copious terminology, which I grasped more willingly as I was afraid to write down a rhyme, however spontaneously it presented itself, or to read a poem, for I was fearful that it might please me at the time, and that perhaps immediately afterwards, like so much else, I should be forced to pronounce it bad.

This uncertainty of taste and judgment disquieted me more and more every day, so that at last I fell into despair. I had brought with me those of my youthful labors which I thought the best, partly because I hoped to get some credit by them, partly that I might be able to test my progress with greater certainty; but I found myself in the miserable situation in which one is placed when a complete change of mind is required, — a renunciation of all that one has hitherto loved and found good. However, after some time and many struggles, I conceived so great a contempt for my labors, begun and ended, that one day I burnt up poetry and prose, plans, sketches, and projects, all together on the kitchen hearth, and threw our good old landlady into no small fright and anxiety by the smoke which filled the whole house.

SEVENTH BOOK.

About the condition of German literature of those times so much has been written, and so exhaustively, that every one who takes any interest in it can be completely informed; in regard to it critics agree now pretty well; and what at present I intend to say piecemeal and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to the way in which it was constituted in itself, as to its relation to me. I will therefore first speak of those things by which the public is particularly excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry, — I mean, satire and criticism.

In quiet times every one wants to live after his own fashion: the citizen will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it afterwards; thus will the author, too, willingly compose something, publish his labors, and, since he thinks he has done something good and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. In this tranquillity the citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic; and peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation.

The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreigners, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable foreign words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her; and, even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of speech. The German, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school with the French to learn manners, and with the Romans in order to express his thoughts with propriety. But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous. Besides this, they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. In the same way they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves.

But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. This, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated. By these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay, — the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in. Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them to another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labor, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance: these were, — a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other; though it occurred to nobody, that, while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance.

Liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanor soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely. He then went farther, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable, — nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable to his countrymen; for the Germans have always shown a peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say, that Liskow was very soon praised and recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a rank even above the universally beloved Rabener. Here, indeed, we saw ourselves no better off than before; for we could discover nothing in his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed to us quite a matter of course.

Rabener, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction, of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious, disposition, took up general satire. His censure of the so-called vices and follies springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed moral conception of what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and, in order to excuse even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking.

Rabener’s personal character will not easily appear again. As an able, punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic /literati/, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes; and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and his death.

There is little of the aesthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony; namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. But whatever he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity; so that we always feel prepossessed in his favor. The unbounded applause of his own times was a consequence of such moral excellencies.

That people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from the above; his lengthy apologies that his satire is not personal, prove the spite it provoked. Some of his letters crown him at once as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden, and how he loses his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable; although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy turn of mind. The letter where he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect; and Rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all cheerful, intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly events.

I tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet I would make this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle class; he lets us see here and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. It may be said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who could consider himself equal or even similar to him.

Now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched’s “Critical Art of Poetry” into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different movements: the poetic genius was presupposed! But, besides that, the poet was to have acquirements and even learning: he should possess taste, and every thing else of that kind. They directed us at last to Horace’s “Art of Poetry:” we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how we should use it.

The Swiss stepped forth as Gottsched’s antagonists: they must take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish something better; accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. Breitinger’s “Critical Art of Poetry” was taken in hand. Here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.

For poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamental axiom: it was too spiritual and too volatile. Painting, an art which one could hold fast with one’s eyes, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more favorable for such an end: the English and French had already theorized about plastic art; and, by a comparison drawn from this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. The former presented images to the eye, the latter to the imagination: poetical images, therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration. People began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses.

Images, then! But where should these images be got except from nature? The painter professedly imitated nature: why not the poet also? But nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which is important: but what is important?

To answer this question, the Swiss may have taken a long time to consider; for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they discover that the marvellous is always newer than every thing else.

They had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty, and without relation to man. But this relation, demanded as necessary, must be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly follow; and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with every thing else accomplished, it was useful besides. They now wished to test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites: those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. And, after much deliberation, this great pre-eminence was at last ascribed, with the highest degree of conviction, to Aesop’s fables!

Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. That Gellert and subsequently Lichtwer devoted themselves to this department, that even Lessing attempted to labor in it, that so many others turned their talents towards it, speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained. Theory and practice always act upon each other: one can see from their works what is the men’s opinion, and, from their opinions, predict what they will do.

Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice. Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and practically a child all his life. Breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, whom, when he looked rightly about him, the essentials of a poem did not all escape, — nay, it can be shown that he may have dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. Remarkable, for instance, is his query, “Whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the ‘Review-camp of Augustus the Second,’ is properly a poem?” and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to speak, the representation of manners, character, passions, — in short, the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs.

It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws, and shivered-up dogmas. We adhere to examples, and there, too, were no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far from us; and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him who felt any thing productive in himself it was a desperate condition.

When one considers closely what was wanting in the German poetry, it was a material, and that, too, a national one: there was never a lack of talent. Here we make mention only of Günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided talent, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, ready at rhythm, ingenious, witty, and of varied information besides, — he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating, by means of poetry, a second life within life, even within common real life. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he elevates all circumstances by the feelings, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. Their roughness and wildness belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if one would have it so, his want of fixed character. He did not know how to curb himself; and so his life, like his poetry, melted away from him.

By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the court of Augustus the Second, where, in addition to every other species of ostentation, they were also looking about for a court-poet, who could give elevation and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von König was more mannerly and more fortunate: he filled this post with dignity and applause.

In all sovereign states the material for poetry comes downwards from above; and “The Review-camp at Mühlberg” (“Das Lustlager bei Mühlberg”) was, perhaps, the first worthy object, provincial, if not national, which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole courts and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a mock-fight, /fêtes/ of all kinds, — this is business enough for the outward sense, and overflowing material for delineating and descriptive poetry.

This subject had, indeed, the internal defect, that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very first distinguished themselves; and, even if they had done so, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult the “Court and State Calendar;” and the delineation of the persons therefore went off pretty dryly, — nay, even his contemporaries very strongly reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not this redound to his credit, that he showed his art just where an object for it presented itself? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have manifested itself to him, — since the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.

Amidst such studies and reflections, an unexpected event surprised me, and frustrated my laudable design of becoming acquainted with our new literature from the beginning. My countryman, John George Schlosser, after spending his academical years with industry and exertion, had repaired to Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the customary profession of an advocate; but his mind, aspiring and seeking after the universal, could not reconcile itself to this situation for many reasons. He accepted, without hesitation, an office as private secretary to the Duke Ludwig of Wurtemberg, who resided in Treptow; for the prince was named among those great men who, in a noble and independent manner, purposed to enlighten themselves, their families, and the world, and to unite for higher aims. It was this Prince Ludwig who, to ask advice about the education of his children, had written to Rousseau, whose well-known answer began with the suspicious-looking phrase, “/Si j’avais le malheur d’être né prince/.”

Not only in the affairs of the prince, but also in the education of his children, Schlosser was now willingly to assist in word and deed, if not to superintend them. This noble young man, who harbored the best intentions and strove to attain a perfect purity of morals, would have easily kept men from him by a certain dry austerity, if his fine and rare literary cultivation, his knowledge of languages, and his facility at expressing himself by writing, both in verse and prose, had not attracted every one, and made living with him more agreeable. It had been announced to me that he would pass through Leipzig, and I expected him with longing. He came and put up at a little inn or wine-house that stood in the /Brühl/ (Marsh), and the host of which was named Schönkopf. This man had a Frankfort woman for his wife; and although he entertained few persons during the rest of the year, and could lodge no guests in his little house, yet at fair-time he was visited by many Frankforters, who used to eat, and, in case of need, even take quarters, there also. Thither I hastened to find Schlosser, when he had sent to inform me of his arrival. I scarcely remembered having seen him before, and found a young, well-formed man, with a round, compressed face, without the features losing their sharpness on that account. The form of his rounded forehead, between black eyebrows and locks, indicated earnestness, sternness, and perhaps obstinacy. He was, in a certain measure, the opposite of myself; and this very thing doubtless laid the foundation of our lasting friendship. I had the greatest respect for his talents, the more so as I very well saw, that, in the certainty with which he acted and produced, he was completely my superior. The respect and the confidence which I showed him confirmed his affection, and increased the indulgence he was compelled to have for my lively, impetuous, and ever-excitable disposition, in such contrast with his own. He studied the English writers diligently: Pope, if not his model, was his aim; and, in opposition to that author’s “Essay on Man,” he had written a poem in like form and measure, which was to give the Christian religion the triumph over the deism of the other work. From the great store of papers which he carried with him, he showed me poetical and prose compositions in all languages, which, as they challenged me to imitation, once more gave me infinite disquietude. Yet I contrived to get over it immediately by activity. I wrote German, French, English, and Italian poems, addressed to him, the subject-matter of which I took from our conversations, which were always important and instructive.

Schlosser did not wish to leave Leipzig without having seen face to face the men who had a name. I willingly took him to those I knew: with those whom I had not yet visited, I in this way became honorably acquainted; since he was received with distinction as a well-informed man of education, of already established character, and well knew how to pay for the outlay of conversation. I cannot pass over our visit we paid to Gottsched, as it exemplifies the character and manners of that man. He lived very respectably in the first story of the Golden Bear, where the elder Breitkopf, on account of the great advantage which Gottsched’s writings, translations, and other aids had brought to the trade, had promised him a lodging for life.

We were announced. The servant led us into a large chamber, saying his master would come immediately. Now, whether we misunderstood a gesture which he made, I cannot say: it is enough, we thought he directed us into an adjoining room. We entered, to witness a singular scene: for, on the instant, Gottsched, that tall, broad, gigantic man, came in at the opposite door in a morning-gown of green damask lined with red taffeta; but his monstrous head was bald and uncovered. This, however, was to be immediately provided for: the servant rushed in at a side-door with a great full-bottomed wig in his hand (the curls came down to the elbows), and handed the head-ornament to his master with gestures of terror. Gottsched, without manifesting the least vexation, raised the wig from the servant’s arm with his left hand, and, while he very dexterously swung it up on his head, gave the poor fellow such a box on the ear with his right paw, that the latter, as often happens in a comedy, went spinning out at the door; whereupon the respectable old grandfather invited us quite gravely to be seated, and kept up a pretty long discourse with good grace.

As long as Schlosser remained in Leipzig, I dined daily with him, and became acquainted with a very pleasant set of boarders. Some Livonians, and the son of Hermann (chief court-preacher in Dresden), afterwards burgomaster in Leipzig, and their tutor, Hofrath Pfeil, author of the “Count von P.,” a continuation of Gellert’s “Swedish Countess;” Zachariä, a brother of the poet; and Krebel, editor of geographical and genealogical manuals, — all these were polite, cheerful, and friendly men. Zachariä was the most quiet; Pfeil, an elegant man, who had something almost diplomatic about him, yet without affectation, and with great good humor; Krebel, a genuine Falstaff, tall, corpulent, fair, with prominent, merry eyes, as bright as the sky, always happy and in good spirits. These persons all treated me in the most handsome manner, partly on Schlosser’s account — partly, too, on account of my own frank good humor and obliging disposition; and it needed no great persuasion to make me partake of their table in future. In fact, I remained with them after Schlosser’s departure, deserted Ludwig’s table, and found myself so much the better off in this society, which was limited to a certain number, as I was very well pleased with the daughter of the family, a very neat, pretty girl, and had opportunities to exchange friendly glances with her, — a comfort which I had neither sought nor found by accident since the mischance with Gretchen. I spent the dinner- hours with my friends cheerfully and profitably. Krebel, indeed, loved me, and continued to tease me and stimulate me in moderation: Pfeil, on the contrary, showed his earnest affection for me by trying to guide and settle my judgment upon many points.

During this intercourse, I perceived through conversation, through examples, and through my own reflections, that the first step in delivering ourselves from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch, could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed, one could not distinguish the commonplace from what was better; since all were brought down to a level with each other. Authors had already tried to escape from this wide- spread disease, with more or less success. Haller and Ramler were inclined to compression by nature: Lessing and Wieland were led to it by reflection. The former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse in “Minna,” laconic in “Emilia Galotti,” — it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serene /naiveté/ which becomes him so well in “Nathan.” “Wieland, who had been occasionally prolix in “Agathon,” “Don Sylvio,” and the “Comic Tales,” becomes condensed and precise to a wonderful degree, as well as exceedingly graceful in “Musarion” and “Idris.” Klopstock, in the first cantos of “The Messiah,” is not without diffuseness: in his “Odes” and other minor poems he appears compressed, as also in his tragedies. By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he sees himself constantly forced into narrower limits, by which he at last becomes obscure and unpalatable. Gerstenberg, a fine but eccentric talent, also distinguishes himself: his merit is appreciated, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. Gleim, diffuse and easy by nature, is scarcely once concise in his war- songs. Ramler is properly more a critic than a poet. He begins to collect what the Germans have accomplished in lyric poetry. He now finds, that scarcely one poem fully satisfies him: he must leave out, arrange, and alter, that the things may have some shape or other. By this means he makes himself almost as many enemies as there are poets and amateurs; since every one, properly speaking, recognizes himself only in his defects: and the public interests itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. Rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose came into the ascendant. Gessner and Klopstock excited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. But even these gave nobody satisfaction, for they were obliged to omit and add; and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But the more, with all this, conciseness is aimed at, the more does a judgment become possible; since that which is important, being more closely compressed, allows a certain comparison at last. It happened, also, at the same time, that many kinds of truly poetical forms arose; for, as they tried to represent only what was necessary in the objects they wished to imitate, they were forced to do justice to every one of these: and in this manner, though no one did it consciously, the modes of representation multiplied themselves, among which, indeed, were some which were really caricatures, while many an attempt proved unsuccessful.

Without question, Wieland possessed the finest natural gifts of all. He had early cultivated himself thoroughly in those ideal regions where youth so readily lingers; but when, by what is called experience, by the events of the world, and women, these were rendered distasteful to him, he threw himself on the side of the actual, and pleased himself and others with the contest of the two worlds, where, in light skirmishing between jest and earnest, his talent displayed itself most beautifully. How many of his brilliant productions fall into the time of my academic years! “Musarion” had the most effect upon me; and I can yet remember the place and the very spot where I got sight of the first proof-sheet, which Oeser gave me. Here it was that I believed I saw antiquity again living and fresh. Every thing that is plastic in Wieland’s genius here showed itself in its highest perfection; and when that Phanias-Timon, condemned to an unhappy insipidity, finally reconciles himself to his mistress and to the world, one can well, with him, live through the misanthropical epoch. For the rest, we readily conceded to these works a cheerful aversion from those exalted sentiments, which, by reason of their easy misapplication to life, are often open to the suspicion of dreaminess. We pardoned the author for prosecuting with ridicule what we held as true and reverend, the more readily as he thereby gave us to understand that it caused him continual trouble.

How miserably criticism then received such labors may be seen from the first volumes of “The Universal German Library.” Of “The Comic Tales” there is honorable mention, but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the kind of poetry. The reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste by examples. He never takes it into consideration, that, in a judgment of such parodistical works, one must first of all have before one’s eyes the original noble, beautiful object, in order to see whether the parodist has really gotten from it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowed any thing from it, or, under the appearance of such an imitation, has perhaps given us an excellent invention of his own. Of all this there is not a notion, but the poems are praised and blamed by passages. The reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. When they even meet the highly meritorious translation of Shakespeare with the exclamation, “By rights, a man like Shakespeare should not have been translated at all!” it will be understood, without further remark, how infinitely “The Universal German Library” was behind-hand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feeling, had to look about them for other guiding stars.

The material which, in this manner, more or less determined the form, the Germans sought everywhere. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel’s “Hermann” only showed the way. The idyllic tendency extended itself without end. The want of distinctive character with Gessner, with all his great gracefulness and child-like heartiness, made every one think that he could do something of the same kind. Just in the same manner, out of the more generally human, some snatch those poems which should have portrayed a foreign nationality, as, for instance, the Jewish pastoral poems, those on the patriarchs altogether, and whatever else related to the Old Testament. Bodmer’s “Noachide” was a perfect symbol of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and which abated but slowly. The leading-strings of Anacreon likewise allowed innumerable mediocre geniuses to reel about at large. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Comic heroic poems, mostly after the model of Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” did not serve to bring in a better time.

I must here mention a delusion, which operated as seriously as it must be ridiculous when one examines it more closely. The Germans had now sufficient historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the different nations had distinguished themselves. This pigeon-hole work, which, properly speaking, totally destroys the inner conception of poetry, had been already pretty completely hammered together by Gottsched in his “Critical Art of Poetry;” and it had been shown at the same time that German poets, too, had already known how to fill up all the rubrics with excellent works. And thus it ever went on. Each year the collection was more considerable, but every year one work pushed another out of the place in which it had hitherto shone. We now possessed, if not Homers, yet Virgils and Miltons; if not a Pindar, yet a Horace; of Theocrituses there was no lack: and thus they weighed themselves by comparisons from without; whilst the mass of poetical works always increased, so that at last there could be a comparison from within.

Now though matters of taste stood on a very uncertain footing, there could be no dispute but that, within the Protestant part of Germany and of Switzerland, what is generally called common sense began to stir briskly at that epoch. The scholastic philosophy — which always has the merit of propounding according to received axioms, in a favorite order, and under fixed rubrics, every thing about which man can at all inquire- -had, by the frequent darkness and apparent uselessness of its subject- matter, by its unseasonable application of a method in itself respectable, and by its too great extension over so many subjects, made itself foreign to the mass, unpalatable, and at last superfluous. Many a one became convinced that nature had endowed him with as great a portion of good and straightforward sense as, perchance, he required to form such a clear notion of objects that he could manage them and turn them to his own profit, and that of others, without laboriously troubling himself about the most universal problems, and inquiring how the most remote things which do not particularly affect us may hang together. Men made the trial, opened their eyes, looked straight before them, observant, industrious, active, and believed, that, when one judges and acts correctly in one’s own circle, one may well presume to speak of other things also, which lie at a greater distance.

In accordance with such a notion, every one was now entitled, not only to philosophize, but also by degrees to consider himself a philosopher. Philosophy, therefore, was more or less sound, and practised common sense, which ventured to enter upon the universal, and to decide upon inner and outer experiences. A clear-sighted acuteness and an especial moderation, while the middle path and fairness to all opinions was held to be right, procured respect and confidence for writings and oral statements of the sort; and thus at last philosophers were found in all the faculties, — nay, in all classes and trades.

In this way the theologians could not help inclining to what is called natural religion; and, when the discussion was how far the light of nature may suffice to advance us in the knowledge of God and the improving and ennobling of ourselves, they commonly ventured to decide in its favor without much scruple. According to the same principle of moderation, they then granted equal rights to all positive religions, by which they all became alike indifferent and uncertain. For the rest, they let every thing stand; and since the Bible is so full of matter, that, more than any other book, it offers material for reflection and opportunity for meditation on human affairs, it could still, as before, be always laid as the foundation of all sermons and other religious treatises.

But over this work, as well as over the whole body of profane writers, was impending a singular fate, which, in the lapse of time, was not to be averted. Hitherto it had been received as a matter of implicit faith, that this book of books was composed in one spirit; that it was even inspired, and, as it were, dictated by the Divine Spirit. Yet for a long time already the discrepancies of the different parts of it had been now cavilled at, now apologized for, by believers and unbelievers. English, French, and Germans had attacked the Bible with more or less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness; and just as often had it been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each nation. As for myself, I loved and valued it; for almost to it alone did I owe my moral culture: and the events, the doctrines, the symbols, the similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me, and had influenced me in one way or another. These unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks, therefore, disgusted me; but people had already gone so far as very willingly to admit, partly as a main ground for the defense of many passages, that God had accommodated himself to the modes of thought and power of comprehension in men; that even those moved by the Spirit had not on that account been able to renounce their character, their individuality, and that Amos, a cow-herd, did not use the language of Isaiah, who is said to have been a prince.

Out of such views and convictions, especially with a constantly increasing knowledge of languages, was very naturally developed that kind of study by which it was attempted to examine more accurately the Oriental localities, nationalities, natural products, and phenomena, and in this manner to make present to one’s self that ancient time. Michaelis employed the whole strength of his talents and his knowledge on this side. Descriptions of travels became a powerful help in explaining the Holy Scriptures; and later travellers, furnished with numerous questions, were made, by the answers to them, to bear witness for the prophets and apostles.

But whilst they were on all sides busied to bring the Holy Scriptures to a natural intuition, and to render peculiar modes of thought and representation in them more universally comprehensible, that by this historico-critical aspect many an objection might be removed, many offensive things effaced, and many a shallow scoffing be made ineffective, there appeared in some men just the opposite disposition, since these chose the darkest, most mysterious, writings as the subject of their meditations, and wished, if not to elucidate them, yet to confirm them through internal evidence, by means of conjectures, calculations, and other ingenious and strange combinations, and, so far as they contained prophecies, to prove them by the results, and thus to justify a faith in what was next to be expected.

The venerable Bengel had procured a decided reception for his labors on the Revelation of St. John, from the fact that he was known as an intelligent, upright, God-fearing, blameless man. Deep minds are compelled to live in the past as well as in the future. The ordinary movements of the world can be of no importance to them, if they do not, in the course of ages up to the present, revere prophecies which have been revealed, and in the immediate, as well as in the most remote futurity, predictions still veiled. Hence arises a connection that is wanting in history, which seems to give us only an accidental wavering backwards and forwards in a necessarily limited circle. Doctor Crusius was one of those whom the prophetic part of Scripture suited more than any other, since it brings into action the two most opposite qualities of human nature, the affections, and the acuteness of the intellect. Many young men had devoted themselves to this doctrine, and already formed a respectable body, which attracted the more attention, as Ernesti with his friends threatened, not to illuminate, but completely to disperse, the obscurity in which these delighted. Hence arose controversies, hatred, persecution, and much that was unpleasant. I attached myself to the lucid party, and sought to appropriate to myself their principles and advantages; although I ventured to forebode, that by this extremely praiseworthy, intelligent method of interpretation, the poetic contents of the writings must at last be lost along with the prophetical.

But those who devoted themselves to German literature and the /belles- lettres/ were more nearly concerned with the efforts of such men, who, as Jerusalem, Zollikofer, and Spalding, tried, by means of a good and pure style in their sermons and treatises, to gain, even among persons of a certain degree of sense and taste, applause and attachment for religion, and for the moral philosophy which is so closely related to it. A pleasing manner of writing began to be necessary everywhere; and since such a manner must, above all, be comprehensible, so did writers arise, on many sides, who undertook to write about their studies and their professions clearly, perspicuously, and impressively, and as well for the adepts as for the multitude.

After the example of Tissot, a foreigner, the physicians also now began to labor zealously for the general cultivation. Haller, Unzer, Zimmerman, had a very great influence; and whatever may be said against them in detail, especially the last, they produced a very great effect in their time. And mention should be made of this in history, but particularly in biography; for a man remains of consequence, not so far as he leaves something behind him, but so far as he acts and enjoys, and rouses others to action and enjoyment.

The jurists, accustomed from their youth upward to an abstruse style, which, in all legal papers, from the petty court of the Immediate Knight up to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon, was still maintained in all its quaintness, could not easily elevate themselves to a certain freedom, the less so as the subjects of which they had to treat were most intimately connected with the external form, and consequently also with the style. But the younger Von Moser had already shown himself an independent and original writer; and Putter, by the clearness of his delivery, had also brought clearness into his subject, and the style in which he was to treat it. All that proceeded from his school was distinguished by this. And even the philosophers, in order to be popular, now found themselves compelled to write clearly and intelligibly. Mendelssohn and Garve appeared, and excited universal interest and admiration.

With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the capacity for forming a judgment also increased, and we admire the reviews then published of works upon religious and moral, as well as medical, subjects; while, on the contrary, we remark that the judgments of poems, and of whatever else may relate to the /belles- lettres/, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of the “Literary Epistles” (“Literaturbriefen”), and of “The Universal German Library,” as well as of “The Library of the Belles- Lettres,” notable instances of which could easily be produced.

No matter in how motley a manner all this might be confused, still, for every one who contemplated producing any thing from himself, — who would not merely take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, — there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use. Here, too, we were much led astray. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist, which we had to hear often enough. He had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent, lonely walks, “that he was not idle at such times, — he was going to the image-hunt.” This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, who by it placed himself in contrast with the men of his rank, who did not neglect going out, with their guns on their shoulders, hare-hunting and partridge-shooting, as often as an opportunity presented itself. Hence we find in Kleist’s poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which, in a kindly manner, remind us of nature. But now they also recommended us, quite seriously, to go out on the image-hunt, which did not at last leave us wholly without fruit; although Apel’s garden, the kitchen-gardens, the Rosenthal, Golis, Raschwitz, and Konnewitz, would be the oddest ground to beat up poetical game in. And yet I was often induced by that motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary; and because many objects neither beautiful nor sublime met the eye of the beholder, and, in the truly splendid Rosenthal, the gnats, in the best season of the year, allowed no tender thoughts to arise, so did I, by unwearied, persevering endeavor, become extremely attentive to the small life of nature (I would use this word after the analogy of “still life”); and, since the pretty events which one perceives within this circle represent but little in themselves, so I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, which inclined now towards the symbolical, now towards the allegorical, side, accordingly as intuition, feeling, or reflection had the preponderance. I will relate one incident in place of many.

I was, after the fashion of humanity, in love with my name, and, as young, uneducated people commonly do, wrote it down everywhere. Once I had carved it very handsomely and accurately on the smooth bark of a linden-tree of moderate age. The following autumn, when my affection for Annette was in its fullest bloom, I took the trouble to cut hers above it. Towards the end of the winter, in the mean time, like a capricious lover, I had wantonly sought many opportunities to tease her and cause her vexation: in the spring I chanced to visit the spot; and the sap, which was rising strongly in the trees, had welled out through the incisions which formed her name, and which were not yet crusted over, and moistened with innocent vegetable tears the already hardened traces of my own. Thus to see her here weeping over me, — me, who had so often called up her tears by my ill conduct, filled me with confusion. At the remembrance of my injustice and of her love, even the tears came into my eyes; I hastened to implore pardon of her, doubly and trebly: and I turned this incident into an idyl, [Footnote: Die Laune des Verliebten, translated as The Lover’s Caprice, see p. 241.] which I never could read to myself without affection, or to others without emotion.

While I now, like a shepherd on the Pleisse, was absorbed childishly enough in such tender subjects, and always chose only such as I could easily recall into my bosom, provision from a greater and more important side had long been made for German poets.

The first true and really vital material of the higher order came into German poetry through Frederick the Great and the deeds of the Seven Years’ War. All national poetry must be shallow or become shallow which does not rest on that which is most universally human, — upon the events of nations and their shepherds, when both stand for one man. Kings are to be represented in war and danger, where, by that very means, they appear as the first, because they determine and share the fate of the very least, and thus become much more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have once determined the fates, withdraw from all participation in them. In this view of the subject, every nation, if it would be worth any thing at all, must possess an epopee, to which the precise form of the epic poem is not necessary.

The war-songs started by Gleim maintain so high a rank among German poems, because they arose with and in the achievements which are their subject; and because, moreover, their felicitous form, just as if a fellow-combatant had produced them in the loftiest moments, makes us feel the most complete effectiveness.

Ramler sings the deeds of his king in a different and most noble manner. All his poems are full of matter, and occupy us with great, heart- elevating objects, and thus already maintain an indestructible value.

For the internal matter of the subject treated is the beginning and end of art. It will not, indeed, be denied that genius, that thoroughly cultivated artistical talent, can make every thing out of every thing by its method of treatment, and can subdue the most refractory material. But, when closely examined, the result is rather a trick of art than a work of art, which should rest upon a worthy object, that the treatment of it, by skill, pains, and industry, may present to us the dignity of the subject-matter only the more happily and splendidly.

The Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, acquired thus for their literature a treasure which the opposite party lacked, and the want of which they have been able to supply by no subsequent endeavors. Upon the great idea which the Prussian writers might well entertain of their king, they first established themselves, and the more zealously as he, in whose name they did it all, wished once for all to know nothing about them. Already before this, through the French colony, afterwards through the king’s predilection for the literature of that nation and for their financial institutions, had a mass of French civilization come into Prussia, which was highly advantageous to the Germans, since by it they were challenged to contradiction and resistance; thus the very aversion of Frederick from German was a fortunate thing for the formation of its literary character. They did every thing to attract the king’s attention, not indeed to be honored, but only noticed, by him; yet they did it in German fashion, from an internal conviction; they did what they held to be right, and desired and wished that the king should recognize and prize this German uprightness. That did not and could not happen; for how can it be required of a king, who wishes to live and enjoy himself intellectually, that he shall lose his years in order to see what he thinks barbarous developed and rendered palatable too late? In matters of trade and manufacture, he might indeed force upon himself, but especially upon his people, very moderate substitutes instead of excellent foreign wares; but here every thing comes to perfection more rapidly, and it needs not a man’s life-time to bring such things to maturity.

But I must here, first of all, make honorable mention of one work, the most genuine production of the Seven Years’ War, and of perfect North- German nationality: it is the first theatrical production caught from the important events of life, one of specific, temporary value, and one which therefore produced an incalculable effect, — ”Minna von Barnhelm.” Lessing, who, in opposition to Klopstock and Gleim, was fond of casting off his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could at any moment grasp and take it up again, delighted in a dissipated life in taverns and the world, as he always needed a strong counterpoise to his powerfully laboring interior; and for this reason, also, he had joined the suite of Gen. Tauentzien. One easily discovers how the above- mentioned piece was generated betwixt war and peace, hatred and affection. It was this production which happily opened the view into a higher, more significant, world, from the literary and citizen world in which poetic art had hitherto moved.

The intense hatred in which the Prussians and Saxons stood towards each other during this war could not be removed by its termination. The Saxon now first felt, with true bitterness, the wounds which the upstart Prussian had inflicted upon him. Political peace could not immediately re-establish a peace between their dispositions. But this was to be brought about symbolically by the above-mentioned drama. The grace and amiability of the Saxon ladies conquer the worth, the dignity, and the stubbornness of the Prussians; and, in the principal as well as in the subordinate characters, a happy union of bizarre and contradictory elements is artistically represented.

If I have put my reader in some perplexity by these cursory and desultory remarks on German literature, I have succeeded in giving them a conception of that chaotic condition in which my poor brain found itself, when, in the conflict of two epochs so important for the literary fatherland, so much that was new crowded in upon me before I could come to terms with the old, so much that was old yet made me feel its right over me, when I believed I had already cause to venture on renouncing it altogether. I will at present try to impart, as well as possible, the way I entered on to extricate myself from this difficulty, if only step by step.

The period of prolixity into which my youth had fallen, I had labored through with genuine industry, in company with so many worthy men. The numerous quarto volumes of manuscript which I left behind with my father might serve for sufficient witnesses of this; and what a mass of essays, rough draughts, and half-executed designs, had, more from despondency than conviction, gone up in smoke! Now, through conversation, through instruction in general, through so many conflicting opinions, but especially through my fellow-boarder Hofrath Pfeil, I learned to value more and more the importance of the subject-matter and the conciseness of the treatment; without, however, being able to make it clear to myself where the former was to be sought, or how the latter was to be attained. For, what with the great narrowness of my situation; what with the indifference of my companions, the reserve of the professors, the exclusiveness of the educated inhabitants; and what with the perfect insignificance of the natural objects, — I was compelled to seek for every thing within myself. Whenever I desired a true basis in feeling or reflection for my poems, I was forced to grasp into my own bosom; whenever I required for my poetic representation an immediate intuition of an object or an event, I could not step outside the circle which was fitted to teach me, and inspire me with an interest. In this view I wrote at first certain little poems, in the form of songs or in a freer measure: they are founded on reflection, treat of the past, and for the most part take an epigrammatic turn.

And thus began that tendency from which I could not deviate my whole life through; namely, the tendency to turn into an image, into a poem, every thing that delighted or troubled me, or otherwise occupied me, and to come to some certain understanding with myself upon it, that I might both rectify my conceptions of external things, and set my mind at rest about them. The faculty of doing this was necessary to no one more than to me, for my natural disposition whirled me constantly from one extreme to the other. All, therefore, that has been confessed by me, consists of fragments of a great confession; and this little book is an attempt which I have ventured on to render it complete.

My early affection for Gretchen I had now transferred to one Annette (/Aennchen/), of whom I can say nothing more than that she was young, handsome, sprightly, loving, and so agreeable that she well deserved to be set up for a time in the shrine of the heart as a little saint, that she might receive all that reverence which it often causes more pleasure to bestow than to receive. I saw her daily without hinderance; she helped to prepare the meals I enjoyed; she brought, in the evening at least, the wine I drank; and indeed our select club of noon-day boarders was a warranty that the little house, which was visited by few guests except during the fair, well merited its good reputation. Opportunity and inclination were found for various kinds of amusement. But, as she neither could nor dared go much out of the house, the pastime was somewhat limited. We sang the songs of Zachariä; played the “Duke Michael” of Krüger, in which a knotted handkerchief had to take the place of the nightingale; and so, for a while, it went on quite tolerably. But since such connections, the more innocent they are, afford the less variety in the long run, I was seized with that wicked distemper which seduces us to derive amusement from the torment of a beloved one, and to domineer over a girl’s devotedness with wanton and tyrannical caprice. My ill humor at the failure of my poetical attempts, at the apparent impossibility of coming to a clear understanding about them, and at every thing else that might pinch me here and there, I thought I might vent on her, because she truly loved me with all her heart, and did whatever she could to please me. By unfounded and absurd fits of jealousy, I destroyed our most delightful days, both for myself and her. She endured it for a time with incredible patience, which I was cruel enough to try to the uttermost. But, to my shame and despair, I was at last forced to remark that her heart was alienated from me, and that I might now have good ground for the madness in which I had indulged without necessity and without cause. There were also terrible scenes between us, in which I gained nothing; and I then first felt that I had truly loved her, and could not bear to lose her. My passion grew, and assumed all the forms of which it is capable under such circumstances; nay, at last I even took up the /rôle/ which the girl had hitherto played. I sought every thing possible in order to be agreeable to her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again. But it was too late! I had lost her really; and the frenzy with which I revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under which I lost some of the best years of my life: indeed, I should perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my poetic talent here shown itself particularly helpful with its healing power.

Already, at many intervals before, I had clearly enough perceived my ill conduct. I really pitied the poor child, when I saw her so thoroughly wounded by me, without necessity. I pictured to myself so often and so circumstantially her condition and my own, and, as a contrast, the contented state of another couple in our company, that at last I could not forbear treating this situation dramatically, as a painful and instructive penance. Hence arose the oldest of my extant dramatic labors, the little piece entitled, “Die Laune des Verliebten” (“The Lover’s Caprice”), in the simple nature of which one may at the same time perceive the impetus of a boiling passion.

But, before this, a deep, significant, impulsive world had already interested me. Through my adventure with Gretchen and its consequences, I had early looked into the strange labyrinths by which civil society is undermined. Religion, morals, law, rank, connections, custom, all rule only the surface of city existence. The streets, bordered by splendid houses, are kept neat; and every one behaves himself there properly enough: but, indoors, it often seems only so much the more disordered; and a smooth exterior, like a thin coat of mortar, plasters over many a rotten wall that tumbles together overnight, and produces an effect the more frightful, as it comes into the midst of a condition of repose. A great many families, far and near, I had seen already, either overwhelmed in ruin or kept miserably hanging on the brink of it, by means of bankruptcies, divorces, seduced daughters, murders, house- robberies, poisonings; and, young as I was, I had often, in such cases, lent a hand for help and preservation. For as my frankness awakened confidence; as my secrecy was proved; as my activity feared no sacrifice, and loved best to exert itself in the most dangerous affairs, — I had often enough found opportunity to mediate, to hush up, to divert the lightning-flash, with every other assistance of the kind; in the course of which, as well in my own person as through others, I could not fail to come to the knowledge of many afflicting and humiliating facts. To relieve myself I designed several plays, and wrote the arguments [Footnote: “/Exposition/,” in a dramatic sense, properly means a statement of the events which take place before the action of the play commences. — TRANS.] of most of them. But since the intrigues were always obliged to be painful, and almost all these pieces threatened a tragical conclusion, I let them drop one after another. “Die Mitschuldigen” (“The Accomplices”) is the only one that was finished, the cheerful and burlesque tone of which upon the gloomy family-ground appears as if accompanied by something causing anxiety; so that, on the whole, it is painful in representation, although it pleases in detached passages. The illegal deeds, harshly expressed, wound the aesthetic and moral feeling, and the piece could therefore find no favor on the German stage; although the imitations of it, which steered clear of those rocks, were received with applause.

Both the above-mentioned pieces were, however, written from a more elevated point of view, without my having been aware of it. They direct us to a considerate forbearance in casting moral imputations, and in somewhat harsh and coarse touches sportively express that most Christian maxim, /Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone/.

Through this earnestness, which cast a gloom over my first pieces, I committed the mistake of neglecting very favorable materials which lay quite decidedly in my natural disposition. In the midst of these serious, and, for a young man, fearful, experiences, was developed in me a reckless humor, which feels itself superior to the moment, and not only fears no danger, but rather wantonly courts it. The reason of this lay in the exuberance of spirits in which the vigorous time of life so much delights, and which, if it manifests itself in a frolicsome way, causes much pleasure, both at the moment and in remembrance. These things are so usual, that, in the vocabulary of our young university friends, they are called /Suites/; and, on account of the close similarity of signification, to say “play /suites/,” means just the same as to “play pranks.” [Footnote: The real meaning of the passage is, that the idiom “Possen reissen” is used also with the university word “Suite,” so that one can say “Suiten reissen.” — TRANS.]

Such humorous acts of daring, brought on the theatre with wit and sense, are of the greatest effect. They are distinguished from intrigue, inasmuch as they are momentary, and that their aim, whenever they are to have one, must not be remote. Beaumarchais has seized their full value, and the effects of his “Figaro” spring pre-eminently from this. Whereas such good-humored roguish and half-knavish pranks are practised with personal risk for noble ends, the situations which arise from them are aesthetically and morally considered of the greatest value for the theatre; as, for instance, the opera of “The Water-Carrier” treats perhaps the happiest subject which we have ever yet seen upon the stage.

To enliven the extreme tedium of daily life, I played off numberless tricks of the sort, partly without any aim at all, partly in the service of my friends, whom I liked to please. For myself, I could not say that I had once acted in this designedly, nor did I ever happen to consider a feat of the kind as a subject for art. Had I, however, seized upon and elaborated such materials, which were so close at hand, my earliest labors would have been more cheerful and available. Some incidents of this kind occur indeed later, but isolated and without design. For since the heart always lies nearer to us than the head, and gives us trouble, whereas the latter knows how to set matters to rights, the affairs of the heart had always appeared to me as the most important. I was never weary of reflecting upon the transient nature of attachments, the mutability of human character, moral sensuality, and all the heights and depths, the combination of which in our nature may be considered as the riddle of human life. Here, too, I sought to get rid of that which troubled me, in a song, an epigram, in some kind of rhyme; which, since they referred to the most private feelings and the most peculiar circumstances, could scarcely interest any one but myself.

In the mean time, my external position had very much changed after the lapse of a short time. Madame Böhme, after a long and melancholy illness, had at last died: she had latterly ceased to admit me to her presence. Her husband could not be very much satisfied with me: I seemed to him not sufficiently industrious, and too frivolous. He especially took it very ill of me, when it was told him, that at the lectures on German Public Law, instead of taking proper notes, I had been drawing on the margin of my note-book the personages presented to our notice in them, such as the President of the Chamber, the Moderators and Assessors, in strange wigs; and by this drollery had disturbed my attentive neighbors and set them laughing. After the loss of his wife he lived still more retired than before, and at last I shunned him in order to avoid his reproaches. But it was peculiarly unfortunate that Gellert would not use the power which he might have exercised over us. Indeed, he had not time to play the father-confessor, and to inquire after the character and faults of everybody: he therefore took the matter very much in the lump, and thought to curb us by means of the church forms. For this reason he commonly, when he admitted us to his presence, used to lower his little head, and, in his weeping, winning voice, to ask us whether we went regularly to church, who was our confessor, and whether we took the holy communion? If we came off badly at this examination, we were dismissed with lamentations: we were more vexed than edified, yet could not help loving the man heartily.

On this occasion I cannot forbear recalling somewhat of my earlier youth, in order to make it obvious that the great affairs of the ecclesiastical religion must be carried on with order and coherence, if they are to prove as fruitful as is expected. The Protestant service has too little fulness and consistency to be able to hold the congregation together; hence it easily happens that members secede from it, and either form little congregations of their own, or, without ecclesiastical connection, quietly carry on their citizen-life side by side. Thus for a considerable time complaints were made that church- goers were diminishing from year to year, and, just in the same ratio, the persons who partook of the Lord’s Supper. With respect to both, but especially the latter, the cause lies close at hand; but who dares to speak it out? We will make the attempt.

In moral and religious, as well as in physical and civil, matters, man does not like to do any thing on the spur of the moment; he needs a sequence from which results habit; what he is to love and to perform, he cannot represent to himself as single or isolated; and, if he is to repeat any thing willingly, it must not have become strange to him. If the Protestant worship lacks fulness in general, so let it be investigated in detail, and it will be found that the Protestant has too few sacraments, — nay, indeed, he has only one in which he is himself an actor, — the Lord’s Supper; for baptism he sees only when it is performed on others, and is not greatly edified by it. The sacraments are the highest part of religion, the symbols to our senses of an extraordinary divine favor and grace. In the Lord’s Supper earthly lips are to receive a divine Being embodied, and partake of a heavenly under the form of an earthly nourishment. This import is the same in all kinds of Christian churches: whether the sacrament is taken with more or less submission to the mystery, with more or less accommodation as to that which is intelligible, it always remains a great, holy thing, which in reality takes the place of the possible or the impossible, the place of that which man can neither attain nor do without. But such a sacrament should not stand alone: no Christian can partake of it with the true joy for which it is given, if the symbolical or sacramental sense is not fostered within him. He must be accustomed to regard the inner religion of the heart and that of the external church as perfectly one, as the great universal sacrament, which again divides itself into so many others, and communicates to these parts its holiness, indestructibleness, and eternity.

Here a youthful pair join hands, not for a passing salutation or for the dance: the priest pronounces his blessing upon them, and the bond is indissoluble. It is not long before this wedded pair bring a likeness to the threshold of the altar: it is purified with holy water, and so incorporated into the church, that it cannot forfeit this benefit but through the most monstrous apostasy. The child in the course of life goes on progressing in earthly things of his own accord, in heavenly things he must be instructed. Does it prove on examination that this has been fully done, he is now received into the bosom of the church as an actual citizen, as a true and voluntary professor, not without outward tokens of the weightiness of this act. Now, only, he is decidedly a Christian, now for the first time he knows his advantages and also his duties. But, in the mean time, a great deal that is strange has happened to him as a man: through instruction and affliction he has come to know how critical appears the state of his inner self, and there will constantly be a question of doctrines and of transgressions; but punishment shall no longer take place. For here, in the infinite confusion in which he must entangle himself, amid the conflict of natural and religious claims, an admirable expedient is given him, in confiding his deeds and misdeeds, his infirmities and doubts, to a worthy man, appointed expressly for that purpose, who knows how to calm, to warn, to strengthen him, to chasten him likewise by symbolical punishments, and at last, by a complete washing away of his guilt, to render him happy, and to give him back, pure and cleansed, the tablet of his manhood. Thus prepared, and purely set at rest by several sacramental acts, which on closer examination branch forth again into minuter sacramental traits, he kneels down to receive the host; and, that the mystery of this high act may be still enhanced, he sees the chalice only in the distance: it is no common eating and drinking that satisfies, it is a heavenly feast, which makes him thirst after heavenly drink.

Yet let not the youth believe that this is all he has to do; let not even the man believe it. In earthly relations we are at last accustomed to depend on ourselves; and, even there, knowledge, understanding, and character will not always suffice: in heavenly things, on the contrary, we have never finished learning. The higher feeling within us, which often finds itself not even truly at home, is, besides, oppressed by so much from without, that our own power hardly administers all that is necessary for counsel, consolation, and help. But, to this end, that remedy is instituted for our whole life; and an intelligent, pious man is continually waiting to show the right way to the wanderers, and to relieve the distressed.

And what has been so well tried through the whole life, is now to show forth all its healing power with tenfold activity at the gate of Death. According to a trustful custom, inculcated from youth upwards, the dying man receives with fervor those symbolical, significant assurances; and there, where every earthly warranty fails, he is assured, by a heavenly one, of a blessed existence for all eternity. He feels perfectly convinced that neither a hostile element nor a malignant spirit can hinder him from clothing himself with a glorified body, so that, in immediate relation with the Godhead, he may partake of the boundless happiness which flows forth from him.

Then, in conclusion, that the whole may be made holy, the feet also are anointed and blessed. They are to feel, even in the event of possible recovery, a repugnance to touching this earthly, hard, impenetrable soil. A wonderful elasticity is to be imparted to them, by which they spurn from under them the clod of earth which hitherto attracted them. And so, through a brilliant cycle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are joined in one continuous circle.

But all these spiritual wonders spring not, like other fruits, from the natural soil, where they can neither be sown nor planted nor cherished. We must supplicate for them from another region, — a thing which cannot be done by all persons nor at all times. Here we meet the highest of these symbols, derived from pious tradition. We are told that one man may be more favored, blessed, and sanctified from above than another. But, that this may not appear as a natural gift, this great boon, bound up with a heavy duty, must be communicated to others by one authorized person to another; and the greatest good that a man can attain, without his having to obtain it by his own wrestling or grasping, must be preserved and perpetuated on earth by spiritual inheritance. In the very ordination of the priest is comprehended all that is necessary for the effectual solemnizing of those holy acts by which the multitude receive grace, without any other activity being needful on their part than that of faith and implicit confidence. And thus the priest joins the line of his predecessors and successors, in the circle of those anointed with him, representing the highest source of blessings, so much the more gloriously, as it is not he, the priest, whom we reverence, but his office: it is not his nod to which we bow the knee, but the blessing which he imparts, and which seems the more holy, and to come the more immediately from heaven, because the earthly instrument cannot at all weaken or invalidate it by its own sinful, nay, wicked, nature.

How is this truly spiritual connection shattered to pieces in Protestantism, by part of the above-mentioned symbols being declared apocryphal, and only a few canonical! — and how, by their indifference to one of these, will they prepare us for the high dignity of the others?

In my time I had been confided to the religious instruction of a good old infirm clergyman, who had been confessor of the family for many years. The “Catechism,” a “Paraphrase” of it, and the “Scheme of Salvation,” I had at my finger’s ends: I lacked not one of the strongly proving biblical texts, but from all this I reaped no fruit; for, as they assured me that the honest old man arranged his chief examimation according to an old set form, I lost all pleasure and inclination for the business, spent the last week in all sorts of diversions, laid in my hat the loose leaves borrowed from an older friend, who had gotten them from the clergyman, and unfeelingly and senselessly read aloud all that I should have known how to utter with feeling and conviction.

But I found my good intention and my aspirations in this important matter still more paralyzed by a dry, spiritless routine, when I was now to approach the confessional. I was indeed conscious of having many failings, but no great faults; and that very consciousness diminished them, since it directed me to the moral strength which lay within me, and which, with resolution and perseverance, was at last to become master over the old Adam. We were taught that we were much better than the Catholics for the very reason, that we were not obliged to confess any thing in particular in the confessional, — nay, that this would not be at all proper, even if we wished to do it. I did not like this at all; for I had the strangest religious doubts, which I would readily have had cleared up on such an occasion. Now, as this was not to be done, I composed a confession for myself, which, while it well expressed my state of mind, was to confess to an intelligent man, in general terms, that which I was forbidden to tell him in detail. But when I entered the old choir of the Barefoot Friars, when I approached the strange latticed closets in which the reverend gentlemen used to be found for that purpose, when the sexton opened the door for me, when I now saw myself shut up in the narrow place face to face with my spiritual grandsire, and he bade me welcome with his weak, nasal voice, all the light of my mind and heart was extinguished at once, the well- conned confession-speech would not cross my lips: in my embarrassment I opened the book I had in my hand, and read from it the first short form I saw, which was so general, that anybody might have spoken it with quite a safe conscience. I received absolution, and withdrew neither warm nor cold; went the next day with my parents to the Table of the Lord, and, for a few days, behaved myself as was becoming after so holy an act.

In the sequel, however, there came over me that evil, which, from the fact of our religion being complicated by various dogmas, and founded on texts of scripture which admit of several interpretations, attacks scrupulous men in such a manner, that it brings on a hypochondriacal condition, and raises this to its highest point, to fixed ideas. I have known several men, who, though their manner of thinking and living was perfectly rational, could not free themselves from thinking about the sin against the Holy Ghost, and from the fear that they had committed it. A similar trouble threatened me on the subject of the communion; for the text, that one who unworthily partakes of the sacrament /eateth and drinketh damnation to himself/, had, very early, already made a monstrous impression upon me. Every fearful thing that I had read in the histories of the Middle Ages, of the judgments of God, of those most strange ordeals, by red-hot iron, flaming fire, swelling water, and even what the Bible tells us of the draught which agrees well with the innocent, but puffs up and bursts the guilty, — all this pictured itself to my imagination, and formed itself into the most frightful combinations; since false vows, hypocrisy, perjury, blasphemy, all seemed to weigh down the unworthy person at this most holy act, which was so much the more horrible, as no one could dare to pronounce himself worthy: and the forgiveness of sins, by which every thing was to be at last; done away, was found limited by so many conditions, that one could not with certainty dare appropriate it to one’s self.

This gloomy scruple troubled me to such a degree, and the expedient which they would represent to me as sufficient seemed so bald and feeble, that it gave the bugbear only a more fearful aspect; and, as soon as I had reached Leipzig, I tried to free myself altogether from my connection with the church. How oppressive, then, must have been to me the exhortations of Gellert, whom, considering the generally laconic style with which he was obliged to repel our obtrusiveness, I was unwilling to trouble with such singular questions, and the less so as in my more cheerful hours I way myself ashamed of them, and at last left completely behind me this strange anguish of conscience, together with church and altar.

Gellert, in accordance with his pious feelings, had composed for himself a course of ethics, which from time to time he publicly read, and thus in an honorable manner acquitted himself of his duty to the public. Gellert’s writings had already, for a long time, been the foundation of German moral culture, and every one anxiously wished to see that work printed; but, as this was not to be done till after the good man’s death, people thought themselves very fortunate to hear him deliver it himself in his lifetime. The philosophical auditorium [Footnote: The lecture-room. The word is also used in university language to denote a professor’s audience.] was at such times crowded: and the beautiful soul, the pure will, and the interest of the noble man in our welfare, his exhortations, warnings, and entreaties, uttered in a somewhat hollow and sorrowful tone, made indeed an impression for the moment; but this did not last long, the less so as there were many scoffers, who contrived to make us suspicious of this tender, and, as they thought, enervating, manner. I remember a Frenchman travelling through the town, who asked what were the maxims and opinions of the man who attracted such an immense concourse. “When we had given him the necessary information, he shook his head, and said, smiling, “/Laissez le faire, il nous forme des dupes./”

And thus also did good society, which cannot easily endure any thing worthy near it, know how to spoil, on occasion, the moral influence which Gellert might have had upon us. Now it was taken ill of him that he instructed the Danes of distinction and wealth, who were particularly recommended to him, better than the other students, and had a marked solicitude for them; now he was charged with selfishness and nepotism for causing a /table d’hôte/ to be established for these young men at his brother’s house. This brother, a tall, good-looking, blunt, unceremonious, and somewhat coarse, man, had, it was said, been a fencing-master; and, notwithstanding the too great lenity of his brother, the noble boarders were often treated harshly and roughly: hence the people thought they must again take the part of these young folks, and pulled about the good reputation of the excellent Gellert to such a degree, that, in order not to be mistaken about him, we became indifferent towards him, and visited him no more; yet we always saluted him in our best manner when he came riding along on his tame gray horse. This horse the elector had sent him, to oblige him to take an exercise so necessary for his health, — a distinction for which he was not easily to be forgiven.

And thus, by degrees, the epoch approached when all authority was to vanish from before me, and I was to become suspicious — nay, to despair, even — of the greatest and best individuals whom I had known or imagined.

Frederick the Second still stood at the head of all the distinguished men of the century in my thoughts; and it must therefore have appeared very surprising to me, that I could praise him as little before the inhabitants of Leipzig as formerly in my grandfather’s house. They had felt the hand of war heavily, it is true; and therefore they were not to blame for not thinking the best of him who had begun and continued it. They, therefore, were willing to let him pass as a distinguished, but by no means as a great, man. “There was no art,” they said, “in performing something with great means; and, if one spares neither lands nor money nor blood, one may well accomplish one’s purpose at last. Frederick had shown himself great in none of his plans, and in nothing that he had, properly speaking, undertaken. So long as it depended on himself, he had only gone on making blunders, and what was extraordinary in him had only come to light when he was compelled to make these blunders good again. It was purely from this that he had obtained his great reputation; since every man wishes for himself that same talent of making good, in a clever way, the blunders which he frequently commits. If one goes through the Seven Years’ War, step by step, it will be found that the king quite uselessly sacrificed his fine army, and that it was his own fault that this ruinous feud had been protracted to so great a length. A truly great man and general would have got the better of his enemies much sooner.” In support of these opinions they could cite infinite details, which I did not know how to deny; and I felt the unbounded reverence which I had devoted to this remarkable prince, from my youth upwards, gradually cooling away.

As the inhabitants of Leipzig had now destroyed for me the pleasant feeling of revering a great man; so did a new friend, whom I gained at the time, very much diminish the respect which I entertained for my present fellow-citizens. This friend was one of the strangest fellows in the world. He was named Behrisch, and was tutor to the young Count Lindenau. Even his exterior was singular enough. Lean and well-built, far advanced in the thirties, a very large nose, and altogether marked features: he wore from morning till night a scratch which might well have been called a peruke, but dressed himself very neatly, and never went out but with his sword by his side, and his hat under his arm. He was one of those men who have quite a peculiar gift of killing time, or, rather, who know how to make something out of nothing, in order to pass time away. Every thing he did had to be done with slowness, and with a certain deportment which might have been called affected if Behrisch had not even by nature had something affected in his manner. He resembled an old Frenchman, and also spoke and wrote French very well and easily. His greatest delight was to busy himself seriously about drolleries, and to follow up without end any silly notion. Thus he was constantly dressed in gray; and as the different parts of his attire were of different material, and also of different shades, he could reflect for whole days as to how he should procure one gray more for his body, and was happy when he had succeeded in this, and could put to shame us who had doubted it, or had pronounced it impossible. He then gave us long, severe lectures about our lack of inventive power, and our want of faith in his talents.

For the rest, he had studied well, was particularly versed in the modern languages and their literature, and wrote an excellent hand. He was very well disposed towards me; and I, having been always accustomed and inclined to the society of older persons, soon attached myself to him. My intercourse served him, too, for a special amusement; since he took pleasure in taming my restlessness and impatience, with which, on the other hand, I gave him enough to do. In the art of poetry he had what is called taste, — a certain general opinion about the good and bad, the mediocre and tolerable: but his judgment was rather censorious; and he destroyed even the little faith in contemporary writers which I cherished within me, by unfeeling remarks, which he knew how to advance with wit and humor, about the writings and poems of this man and that. He received my productions with indulgence, and let me have my own way, but only on the condition that I should have nothing printed. He promised me, on the other hand, that he himself would copy those pieces which he thought good, and would present me with them in a handsome volume. This undertaking now afforded an opportunity for the greatest possible waste of time. For before he could find the right paper, before he could make up his mind as to the size, before he had settled the breadth of the margin and the form of handwriting, before the crow- quills were provided and cut into pens, and Indian ink was rubbed, whole weeks passed, without the least bit having been done. With just as much ado he always set about his writing, and really, by degrees, put together a most charming manuscript. The title of the poems was in German text; the verses themselves in a perpendicular Saxon hand; and at the end of every poem was an analogous vignette, which he had either selected somewhere or other, or had invented himself, and in which he contrived to imitate very neatly the hatching of the wood-cuts and tail- pieces which are used for such purposes. To show me these things as he went on, to celebrate beforehand in a comico-pathetical manner my good fortune in seeing myself immortalized in such exquisite handwriting, and that in a style which no printing-press could attain, gave another occasion for passing the most agreeable hours. In the mean time, his intercourse was always secretly instructive, by reason of his liberal acquirements, and, as he knew how to subdue my restless, impetuous disposition, was also quite wholesome for me in a moral sense. He had, too, quite a peculiar abhorrence of roughness; and his jests were always quaint without ever falling into the coarse or the trivial. He indulged himself in a distorted aversion from his countrymen, and described with ludicrous touches even what they were able to undertake. He was particularly inexhaustible in a comical representation of individual persons, as he found something to find fault with in the exterior of every one. Thus, when we lay together at the window, he could occupy himself for hours criticising the passers-by, and, when he had censured them long enough, in showing exactly and circumstantially how they ought to have dressed themselves, ought to have walked, and ought to have behaved, to look like orderly people. Such attempts, for the most part, ended in something improper and absurd; so that we did not so much laugh at how the man looked, but at how, perchance, he might have looked had he been mad enough to caricature himself. In all such matters. Behrisch went quite unmercifully to work, without being in the slightest degree malicious On the other hand, we knew how to tease him, on our side, by assuring him, that, to judge from his exterior, he must be taken, if not for a French dancing-master, at least for the academical teacher of the language. This reproval was usually the signal for dissertations an hour long, in which he used to set forth the difference, wide as the heavens, which there was between him and an old Frenchman. At the same time he commonly imputed to us all sorts of awkward attempts, that we might possibly have made for the alteration and modification of his wardrobe.

My poetical compositions, which I only carried on the more zealously as the transcript went on becoming more beautiful and more careful, now inclined altogether to the natural and the true: and if the subjects could not always be important, I nevertheless always endeavored to express them clearly and pointedly, the more so as my friend often gave me to understand what a great thing it was to write down a verse on Dutch paper, with the crow-quill and Indian ink; what time, talent, and exertion it required, which ought not to be squandered on any thing empty and superfluous. He would, at the same time, open a finished parcel, and circumstantially to explain what ought not to stand in this or that place, or congratulate us that it actually did not stand there. He then spoke with great contempt of the art of printing, mimicked the compositor, ridiculed his gestures and his hurried picking out of letters here and there, and derived from this manoeuvre all the calamities of literature. On the other hand, he extolled the grace and noble posture of a writer, and immediately sat down himself to exhibit it to us; while he rated us at the same time for not demeaning ourselves at the writing-table precisely after his example and model. He now reverted to the contrast with the compositor, turned a begun letter upside down, and showed how unseemly it would be to write any thing from the bottom to the top, or from the right to the left, with other things of like kind with which whole volumes might have been filled.

With such harmless fooleries we squandered our precious time; while it could have occurred to none of us, that any thing would chance to proceed out of our circle which would awaken a general sensation and bring us into not the best repute.

Gellert may have taken little pleasure in his “Practicum;” and if, perhaps, he took pleasure in giving some directions as to prose and poetical style, he did it most privately only to a few, among whom we could not number ourselves. Professor Clodius thought to fill the gap which thus arose in the public instruction. He had gained some renown in literature, criticism, and poetry, and, as a young, lively, obliging man, found many friends, both in the university and in the city. Gellert himself referred us to the lectures now commenced by him; and, as far as the principal matter was concerned, we remarked little difference. He, too, only criticised details, corrected likewise with red ink; and one found one’s self in company with mere blunders, without a prospect as to where the right was to be sought. I had brought to him some of my little labors, which he did not treat harshly. But just at this time they wrote to me from home, that I must without fail furnish a poem for my uncle’s wedding. I felt far removed from that light and frivolous period in which a similar thing would have given me pleasure; and, since I could get nothing out of the actual circumstance itself, I determined to trick out my work in the best manner with extraneous ornament. I therefore convened all Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in favor of the marriage.

My work by no means displeased me. I received from home a handsome letter in its praise, took the trouble to have another fair copy, and hoped to extort some applause from my professor also. But here I had missed my aim. He took the matter severely; and as he did not notice the tone of parody, which nevertheless lay in the notion, he declared the great expenditure of divine means for such an insignificant human end in the highest degree reprehensible; inveighed against the use and abuse of such mythological figures, as a false habit originating in pedantic times; found the expression now too high, now too low; and, in divers particulars, had indeed not spared the red ink, though he asserted that he had yet done too little.

Such pieces were read out and criticised anonymously, it is true; but we used to watch each other, and it remained no secret that this unfortunate assembly of the gods was my work: yet since his critique, when I took his point of view, seemed to be perfectly just, and those divinities more nearly inspected were in fact only hollow shadow-forms, I cursed all Olympus, flung the whole mythic Pantheon away; and from that time Amor and Luna have been the only divinities which at all appear in my little poems.

Among the persons whom Behrisch had chosen as the butts of his wit, Clodius stood just at the head; nor was it hard to find a comical side in him. Being of small stature, rather stout and thick-set, he was violent in his motions, somewhat impetuous in his utterances, and restless in his demeanor. In all this he differed from his fellow- citizens, who, nevertheless, willingly put up with him on account of his good qualities, and the fine promise which he gave.

He was usually commissioned with the poems which had become necessary on festive occasions. In the so-called “Ode,” he followed the manner employed by Ramler, whom, however, it alone suited. But Clodius, as an imitator, had especially marked the foreign words by means of which the poems of Ramler come forth with a majestic pomp, which, because it is conformable to the greatness of his subject and the rest of his poetic treatment, produces a very good effect on the ear, feelings, and imagination. In Clodius, on the contrary, these expressions had a heterogeneous air; since his poetry was in other respects not calculated to elevate the mind in any manner.

Now, we had often been obliged to see such poems printed and highly lauded in our presence; and we found it highly offensive, that he who had sequestered the heathen gods from us, now wished to hammer together another ladder to Parnassus out of Greek and Roman word-rungs. These oft-recurring expressions stamped themselves firmly on our memory; and in a merry hour, when we were eating some most excellent cakes in the kitchen-gardens (/Kohlgärten/), it all at once struck me to put together these words of might and power, in a poem on the cake-baker Hendel. No sooner thought than done! And let it stand here too, as it was written on the wall of the house with a lead-pencil.

  ”O Hendel, dessen Ruhm vom /Süd/ zum /Norden/ reicht,
   Vernimm den /Päan/ der zu deinen Ohren steigt.
   Du bäckst was /Gallien/ und /Britten/ emsig suchen,
   Mit /schöpfrischen Genie, originelle/ Kuchen.
   Des Kaffee’s /Ocean/, der sich vor dir ergiesst,
   Ist süssev als der Saft der vom /Hymettus/ fliesst.
   Dein Haus ein /Monument/, wie wir den Künsten lohnen
   Umhangen mit /Trophän/, erzählt den /Nationen/:
   Auch ohne /Diadem/ fand Hendel hier sein Glück
   Und raubte dem /Cothurn/ gar manch Achtgroschenstück.
   Glänzt deine /Urn/ dereinst in majestäts’chen /Pompe/,
   Dann weint der /Patriot/ an deinem /Katacombe/.
   Doch leb! dein /Torus/ sey von edler Brut ein /Nest/,
   Steh’ hoch wie der /Olymp/, wie der /Parnassus/ fest!
   Kein /Phalanx/ Griechenland mit römischen /Ballisten/
   Vermög /Germanien/ und Hendel zu verwüsten.
   Dein /Wohl/ is unser /Stolz/, dein /Leiden/, unser
        /Schmerz/,
/Und/ Hendel’s /Tempel ist der Musensöhne Herz/.”

[Footnote: The humor of the above consists, not in the thoughts, but in the particular words employed. These have no remarkable effect in English, as to us the words of Latin origin are often as familiar as those which have Teutonic roots; and these form the chief peculiarity of the style. We have therefore given the poem in the original language, with the peculiar words (as indicated by Goethe) in Italics, and subjoin a literal translation. It will be observed that we have said that the peculiarity consists /chiefly/, not /solely/, in the use of the foreign words; for there are two or three instances of unquestionably German words, which are Italicized on account of their high-sounding pomp.

“O Hendel, whose fame extends from /south/ to /north/, hear the /paean/i> which ascends to thine ears! Thou bakest that which /Gauls/ and /Britons/ industriously seek, (thou bakest) with /creative genius original/ cakes. The /ocean/ of coffee which pours itself out before thee is sweeter than the juice which flows from /Hymettus/. Thy house, a /monument/, how we reward the arts, hung round with /trophies/, tells the nations: ‘Even without a /diadem/, Hendel formed his fortune here, and robbed the /Cothurnus/ of many an eight-groschen-piece.’ When thy /urn/ shines hereafter in majestic /pomp/, then will the /patriot/ weep at thy /catacomb/. But live! let /thy/ bed (/torus/) be the /nest/ of a noble brood, stand high as /Olympus/, and firm as /Parnassus/. May no /phalanx/ of Greece with Roman /ballistoe/ be able to destroy /Germania/ and Hendel. Thy /weal/ is our /pride/, thy /woe/ our /pain/, and Hendel’s /temple/ is the /heart/ of the /sons of the Muses/.”-TRANS.]

This poem had its place for a long time among many others which disfigured the walls of that room, without being noticed; and we, who had sufficiently amused ourselves with it, forgot it altogether amongst other things. A long time afterwards, Clodius came out with his “Medon,” whose wisdom, magnanimity, and virtue we found infinitely ridiculous, much as the first representation of the piece was applauded. That evening, when we met together in the wine-house, I made a prologue in doggerel verse, in which Harlequin steps out with two great sacks, places them on each side of the /proscenium/, and, after various preliminary jokes, tells the spectators in confidence, that in the two sacks moral aesthetic dust is to be found, which the actors will very frequently throw into their eyes. One, to wit, was filled with good deeds, that cost nothing; and the other with splendidly expressed opinions, that had no meaning behind them. He reluctantly withdrew, and sometimes came back, earnestly exhorted the spectators to attend to his warning and shut their eyes, reminded them that he had always been their friend, and meant well with them, with many more things of the kind. This prologue was acted in the room, on the spot, by friend Horn: but the jest remained quite among ourselves, not even a copy had been taken; and the paper was soon lost. However, Horn, who had performed the Harlequin very prettily, took it into his head to enlarge my poem to Hendel by several verses, and then to make it refer to “Medon.” He read it to us; but we could not take any pleasure in it, for we did not find the additions even ingenious: while the first poem, being written for quite a different purpose, seemed to us disfigured. Our friend, displeased with our indifference, or rather censure, may have shown it to others, who found it new and amusing. Copies were now made of it, to which the reputation of Clodius’s “Medon” gave at once a rapid publicity. Universal disapproval was the consequence, and the originators (it was soon found out that the poem had proceeded from our clique) were severely censured; for nothing of the sort had been seen since Cronegk’s and Rost’s attacks upon Gottsched. We had besides already secluded ourselves, and now found ourselves quite in the case of the owl with respect to the other birds. In Dresden, too, they did not like the affair; and it had for us serious, if not unpleasant, consequences. For some time, already, Count Lindenau had not been quite satisfied with his son’s tutor. For although the young man was by no means neglected, and Behrisch kept himself either in the chamber of the young count, or at least close to it, when the instructors gave their daily lessons, regularly frequented the lectures with him, never went out in the daytime without him, and accompanied him in all his walks, yet the rest of us were always to be found in Apel’s house, and joined them whenever they went on a pleasure ramble: this already excited some attention. Behrisch, too, accustomed himself to our society, and at last, towards nine o’clock in the evenings, generally transferred his pupil into the hands of the /valet de chambre/, and went in quest of us to the wine-house, whither, however, he never used to come but in shoes and stockings, with his sword by his side, and commonly his hat under his arm. The jokes and fooleries, which he generally started, went on /ad infinitum/. Thus, for instance, one of our friends had a habit of going away precisely at ten, because he had a connection with a pretty girl, with whom he could converse only at that hour. We did not like to lose him; and one evening, when we sat very happily together, Behrisch secretly determined that he would not let him off this time. At the stroke of ten, the other arose and took leave. Behrisch called after him, and begged him to wait a moment, as he was just going with him. He now began, in the most amusing manner, first to look after his sword, which stood just before his eyes, and in buckling it on behaved awkwardly, so that he could never accomplish it. He did this, too, so naturally, that no one took offence at it. But when, to vary the theme, he at last went farther, so that the sword came now on the right side, now between his legs, an universal laughter arose, in which the man in a hurry, who was like-wise a merry fellow, chimed in, and let Behrisch have his own way till the happy hour was past, when, for the first time, there followed general pleasure and agreeable conversation till deep into the night.

Unfortunately Behrisch, and we through him, had a certain other propensity for some girls who were better than their reputation, — by which our own reputation could not be improved. We had often been seen in their garden; and we directed our walks thither, even when the young count was with us. All this may have been treasured up, and at last communicated to his father: enough, he sought, in a gentlemanly manner, to get rid of the tutor, to whom the event proved fortunate. His good exterior, his knowledge and talents, his integrity, which no one could call in question, had won him the affection and esteem of distinguished persons, on whose recommendation he was appointed tutor to the hereditary prince of Dessau, and at the court of a prince, excellent in every respect, found a solid happiness.

The loss of a friend like Behrisch was of the greatest consequence to me. He had spoiled while he cultivated me; and his presence was necessary, if the pains he had thought good to spend upon me were in any degree to bring forth fruit for society. He knew how to engage me in all kinds of pretty and agreeable things, in whatever was just appropriate, and to bring out my social talents. But as I had gained no self- dependence in such things, so when I was alone again I immediately relapsed into my confused and crabbed disposition, which always increased, the more discontented I was with those about me, since I fancied that they were not contented with me. With the most arbitrary caprice, I took offence at what I might have considered an advantage; thus alienated many with whom I had hitherto been on a tolerable footing; and on account of the many disagreeable consequences which I had drawn on myself and others, whether by doing or leaving undone, by doing too much or too little, was obliged to hear the remark from my well-wishers, that I lacked experience. The same thing was told me by every person of sound sense who saw my productions, especially when these referred to the external world. I observed this as well as I could, but found in it little that was edifying, and was still forced to add enough of my own to make it only tolerable. I had often pressed my friend Behrisch, too, that he would make plain to me what was meant by experience? But, because he was full of nonsense, he put me off with fair words from one day to another, and at last, after great preparations, disclosed to me, that true experience was properly when one experiences how an experienced nvan must experience in experiencing his experience. Now, when we scolded him outrageously, and called him to account for this, he assured us that a great mystery lay hidden behind these words, which we could not comprehend until we had experienced …and so on without end, — for it cost him nothing to talk on in that way by the quarter of an hour, — since the experience would always become more experienced and at last come to true experience. When we were about to despair at such fooleries, he protested that he had learned this way of making himself intelligible and impressive from the latest and greatest authors, who had made us observe how one can rest a restful rest, and how silence, in being silent, can constantly become more silent.

By chance an officer, who came among us on furlough, was praised in good company as a remarkable, sound-minded, and experienced man, who had fought through the Seven Years’ War, and had gained universal confidence. It was not difficult for me to approach him, and we often went walking with each other. The idea of experience had almost become fixed in my brain, and the craving to make it clear to me passionate. Being of a frank disposition, I disclosed to him the uneasiness in which I found myself. He smiled, and was kind enough to tell me, as an answer to my question, something of his own life, and generally of the world immediately about us; from which, indeed, little better was to be gathered than that experience convinces us that our best thoughts, wishes, and designs are unattainable, and that he who fosters such vagaries, and advances them with eagerness, is especially held to be an inexperienced man.

Yet, as he was a gallant, good fellow, he assured me that he had himself not quite given up these vagaries, and felt himself tolerably well off with the little faith, love, and hope which remained. He then felt obliged to tell me a great deal about war, about the sort of life in the field, about skirmishes and battles, especially so far as he had taken part in them; when these vast events, by being considered in relation to a single individual, gained a very marvellous aspect. I then led him on to an open narration of the late situation of the court, which seemed to me quite like a tale. I heard of the bodily strength of Augustus the Second, of his many children and his vast expenses, then of his successor’s love of art and of making collections; of Count Brühl and his boundless love of magnificence, which in detail appeared almost absurd, of his numerous banquets and gorgeous amusements, which were all cut off by Frederick’s invasion of Saxony. The royal castles now lay in ruins, Brühl’s splendors were annihilated, and, of the whole, a glorious land, much injured, alone remained.

When he saw me astonished at that mad enjoyment of fortune, and then grieved by the calamity that followed, and informed me that one expects from an experienced man exactly this, that he shall be astonished at neither the one nor the other, nor take too lively an interest in them, I felt a great desire still to remain a while in the same inexperience as hitherto; in which desire he strengthened me, and very urgently entreated me, for the present at least, always to cling to agreeable experiences, and to try to avoid those that were disagreeable as much as possible, if they should intrude themselves upon me. But once, when the discussion was again about experience in general, and I related to him those ludicrous phrases of my friend Behrisch, he shook his head, smiling, and said, “There, one sees how it is with words which are only once uttered! These sound so comical, nay, so silly, that it would seem almost impossible to put a rational meaning into them; and yet, perhaps, the attempt might be made.”

And, when I pressed him, he replied in his intelligent, cheerful manner, “If you will allow me, while commenting on and completing your friend’s observations, to go on after his fashion, I think he meant to say, that experience is nothing else than that one experiences what one does not wish to experience; which is what it amounts to for the most part, at least in this world.”

EIGHTH BOOK.

Another man, although infinitely different from Behrisch in every respect, might yet be compared with him in a certain sense: I mean Oeser, who was also one of those men who dream away their lives in a comfortable state of being busy. His friends themselves secretly acknowledged, that, with very fine natural powers, he had not spent his younger years in sufficient activity; for which reason he never went so far as to practise his art with perfect technicality. Yet a certain diligence appeared to be reserved for his old age; and, during the many years which I knew him, he never lacked invention or laboriousness. From the very first moment he had attracted me very much: even his residence, strange and portentous, was highly charming to me. In the old castle Pleissenburg, at the right-hand corner, one ascended a repaired, cheerful, winding staircase. The saloons of the Academy of Design, of which he was director, were found to the left, and were light and roomy; but he himself could only be reached through a narrow, dark passage, at the end of which one first sought the entrance into his apartments, having just passed between the whole suite of them and an extensive granary. The first apartment was adorned with pictures from the later Italian school, by masters whose grace he used highly to commend. As I, with some noblemen, had taken private lessons of him, we were permitted to draw here; and we often penetrated into his adjoining private cabinet, which contained at the same time his few books, collections of art and natural curiosities, and whatever else might have most interested him. Every thing was arranged with taste, simply, and in such a manner that the little space held a great deal. The furniture, presses, and portfolios were elegant, without affection or superfluity. Thus also the first thing which he recommended to us, and to which he always recurred, was simplicity in every thing that art and manual labor united are called upon to produce. Being a sworn foe to the scroll-and- shell style, and of the whole taste for quaintness, he showed us in copper-plates and drawings old patterns of the sort contrasted with better decorations and simpler forms of furniture, as well as with other appurtenances of a room; and, because every thing about him corresponded with these maxims, his words and instructions made a good and lasting impression on us. Besides this, he had an opportunity to let us see his opinions in practice; since he stood in good consideration, both with private and with official persons, and was asked for advice when there were new buildings and alterations. He seemed in general to be more fond of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work: thus the vignettes to Winckelmann’s first writings were etched by him. But he often made only very sketchy drawings, to which Geyser knew very well how to adapt himself. His figures had throughout something general, not to say ideal. His women were pleasing and agreeable, his children /naive/ enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner, had for the most part the look of Lazzaroni. Since he designed his composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses, the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was attended by a peculiar grace. As he at the same time neither could nor would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the allegorical — to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution. This bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds of good taste, if not beyond them. He often sought to attain his views by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always have a touch of humor. If the public were not always satisfied with such things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery. Thus he afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth.

But the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly an uncommonly charming effect. Oeser had taken the Muses out of the clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them upon the earth. The statues of Sophocles and Aristophanes, around whom all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to the Temple of Fame. Here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise present; and all was dignified and beautiful. But now comes the oddity! Through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple: and a man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished. Now, this man was to represent Shakespeare, who without predecessors or followers, without concerning himself about models, went to meet immortality in his own way. This work was executed on the great floor over the new theatre. “We often assembled round him there, and in that place I read aloud to him the proof-sheets of “Musarion.” As to myself, I by no means advanced in the practice of the art. His instructions worked upon our mind and our taste; but his own drawing was too undefined to guide me, who had only glimmered along by the objects of art and of nature, to a severe and decided practice. Of the faces and bodies he gave us rather the aspect than the forms, rather the postures than the proportions. He gave us the conceptions of the figures, and desired that we should impress them vividly upon our minds. That might have been beautifully and properly done, if he had not had mere beginners before him. If, on this account, a pre-eminent talent for instruction may be well denied him, it must, on the other hand, be acknowledged that he was very discreet and politic, and that a happy adroitness of mind qualified him very peculiarly for a teacher in a higher sense. The deficiencies under which each one labored he clearly saw; but he disdained to reprove them directly, and rather hinted his praise and censure indirectly and very laconically. One was now compelled to think over the matter, and soon came to a far deeper insight. Tims, for instance, I had very carefully executed, after a pattern, a nosegay on blue paper, with white and black crayon, and partly with the stump, partly by hatching it up, had tried to give effect to the little picture. After I had been long laboring in this way, he once came behind me, and said, “More paper!” upon which he immediately withdrew. My neighbor and I puzzled our heads as to what this could mean; for my bouquet, on a large half-sheet, had plenty of space around it. After we had reflected a long while, we thought, at last, that we had hit his meaning, when we remarked, that, by working together the black and the white, I had quite covered up the blue ground, had destroyed the middle tint, and, in fact, with great industry, had produced a disagreeable drawing. As to the rest, he did not fail to instruct us in perspective, and in light and shade, sufficiently indeed, but always so that we had to exert and torment ourselves to find the application of the principles communicated. Probably his view with regard to us who did not intend to become artists, was only to form the judgment and taste, and to make us acquainted with the requisites of a work of art, without precisely requiring that we should produce one. Since, moreover, patient industry was not my talent, for nothing gave me pleasure except what came to me at once, so by degrees I became discouraged, if not lazy; and, as knowledge is more comfortable than doing, I was quite content to follow wherever he chose, after his own fashion, to lead us.

At this time the “Lives of the Painters,” by D’Argenville, was translated into German: I obtained it quite fresh, and studied it assiduously enough. This seemed to please Oeser; and he procured us an opportunity of seeing many a portfolio out of the great Leipzig collections, and thus introduced us to the history of the art. But even these exercises produced in me an effect different from that which he probably had in mind. The manifold subjects which I saw treated by artists awakened the poetic talent in me: and, as one easily makes an engraving for a poem; so did I now make poems to the engravings and drawings, by contriving to present to myself the personages introduced in them, in their previous and subsequent condition, and sometimes to compose a little song which might have suited them; and thus accustomed myself to consider the arts in connection with each other. Even the mistakes which I made, so that my poems were often descriptive, were useful to me in the sequel, when I came to more reflection, by making me attentive to the differences between the arts. Of such little things many were in the collection which Behrisch had arranged, but there is nothing left of them now.

The atmosphere of art and taste in which Oeser lived, and into which one was drawn, provided one visited him frequently, was the more and more worthy and delightful, because he was fond of remembering departed or absent persons, with whom he had been, or still continued to be, on good terms; for, if he had once given any one his esteem, he remained unalterable in his conduct towards him, and always showed himself equally friendly.

After we had heard Caylus pre-eminently extolled among the French, he made us also acquainted with Germans of activity in this department. Thus we learned that Professor Christ, as an amateur, a collector, a connoisseur, a fellow-laborer, had done good service for art, and had applied his learning to its true improvement. Heinecken, on the contrary, could not be honorably mentioned, partly because he devoted himself too assiduously to the ever-childish beginnings of German art; which Oeser little valued, partly because he had once treated Winckelmann shabbily, which could never be forgiven him. Our attention, however, was strongly drawn to the labors of Lippert, since our instructor knew how to set forth his merits sufficiently. “For,” he said, “although single statues and larger groups of sculpture remain the foundation and the summit of all knowledge of art, yet, either as originals or as casts, they are seldom to be seen; on the contrary, by Lippert, a little world of gems is made known, in which the more comprehensible merit of the ancients, their happy invention, judicious composition, tasteful treatment, are made more striking and intelligible, while, from the great number of them, comparison is much more possible.” While now we were busying ourselves with these as much as was allowed, Winckelmann’s lofty life of art in Italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us. The problematical part of those little treatises, which are, besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to decipher; but as Oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied, that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from which Winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst.

No greater good fortune can befall a city, than when several educated men, like-minded in what is good and right, live together in it. Leipzig had this advantage, and enjoyed it the more peacefully, as so many differences of judgment had not yet manifested themselves. Huber, a print collector and well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of German literature known to the French; Kreuchauf, an amateur with a practised eye, who, as the friend of the whole society of art, might regard all collections as his own; Winkler, who much loved to share with others the intelligent delight he cherished for his treasures; many more who were added to the list, — all lived and labored with one feeling; and, often as I was permitted to be present when they examined works of art, I do not remember that a dispute ever arose. The school from which the artist had proceeded, the time in which he lived, the peculiar talent which nature had bestowed on him, and the degree of excellence to which he had brought it in his performances, were always fairly considered. There was no predilection for spiritual or temporal subjects, for landscape or for city views, for animate or inanimate: the question was always about the accordance with art.

Now, although from their situation, mode of thought, abilities, and opportunities, these amateurs and collectors inclined more to the Dutch school, yet, while the eye was practised on the endless merits of the north-western artist, a look of reverential longing was always turned towards the south-east.

And so the university, where I neglected the ends of both my family and myself, was to ground me in that in which I afterwards found the greatest satisfaction of my life: the impression of those localities, too, in which I received such important incitements, has always remained to me most dear and precious. The old Pleissenburg; the rooms of the Academy; but, above all, the abode of Oeser; and no less the collections of Winkler and Richter, — I have always vividly present before me.

But a young man, who, while older persons are conversing with each other on subjects already familiar to them, is instructed only incidentally, and for whom the most difficult part of the business — that of rightly arranging all — yet remains, must find himself in a very painful situation. I therefore, as well as others, looked about with longing for some new light, which was indeed to come to us from a man to whom we owed so much already.

The mind can be highly delighted in two ways, — by perception and conception. But the former demands a worthy object, which is not always at hand, and a proportionate culture, which one does not immediately attain. Conception, on the other hand, requires only susceptibility: it brings its subject-matter with it, and is itself the instrument of culture. Hence that beam of light was most welcome to us which that most excellent thinker brought down to us through dark clouds. One must be a young man to render present to one’s self the effect which Lessing’s “Laocoön” produced upon us, by transporting us out of the region of scanty perceptions into the open fields of thought. The /ut pictura poesis/, so long misunderstood, was at once laid aside: the difference between plastic and speaking art [Footnote: Bildende und Redende Kunst.” The expression “speaking art” is used to produce a corresponding antithesis, though “/belles-lettres/ would be the ordinary rendering. — TRANS.] was made clear; the summits of the two now appeared sundered, however near their bases might border on each other. The plastic artist was to keep himself within the bounds of the beautiful, if the artist of language, who cannot dispense with the significant in any kind, is permitted to ramble abroad beyond them. The former labors for the outer sense, which is satisfied only by the beautiful; the latter for the imagination, which may even reconcile itself to the ugly. All the consequences of this splendid thought were illumined to us as by a lightning-flash: all the criticism which had hitherto guided and judged was thrown away like a worn-out coat. We considered ourselves freed from all evil, and fancied we might venture to look down with some compassion upon the otherwise so splendid sixteenth century, when, in German sculptures and poems, they knew how to represent life only under the form of a fool hung with bells, death under the misformed shape of a rattling skeleton, and the necessary and accidental evils of the world under the image of the caricatured Devil.

What enchanted us most was the beauty of that thought, that the ancients had recognized death as the brother of sleep, and had represented them similar, even to confusion, as becomes Menaechmi. Here we could first do high honor to the triumph of the beautiful, and banish the ugly of every kind into the low sphere of the ridiculous within the realm of art, since it could not be utterly driven out of the world.

The splendor of such leading and fundamental conceptions appears only to the mind upon which they exercise their infinite activity, — appears only to the age in which, after being longed for, they come forth at the right moment. Then do those at whose disposal such nourishment is placed fondly occupy whole periods of their lives with it, and rejoice in a superabundant growth; while men are not wanting, meanwhile, who resist such an effect on the spot, nor others who afterwards haggle and cavil at its high meaning.

But, as conception and perception mutually require each other, I could not long work up these new thoughts without an infinite desire arising within me to see important works of art, once and away, in great number. I therefore determined to visit Dresden without delay. I was not in want of the necessary cash: but there were other difficulties to overcome, which I needlessly increased still further, through my whimsical disposition; for I kept my purpose a secret from every one, because I wished to contemplate the treasures of art there quite after my own way, and, as I thought, to allow no one to perplex me. Besides this, so simple a matter became more complicated by still another eccentricity.

We have weaknesses, both by birth and by education; and it may be questioned which of the two gives us the most trouble. Willingly as I made myself familiar with all sorts of conditions, and many as had been my inducements to do so, an excessive aversion from all inns had nevertheless been instilled into me by my father. This feeling had taken firm root in him on his travels through Italy, France, and Germany. Although he seldom spoke in images, and only called them to his aid when he was very cheerful, yet he used often to repeat that he always fancied he saw a great cobweb spun across the gate of an inn, so ingeniously that the insects could indeed fly in, but that even the privileged wasps could not fly out again unplucked. It seemed to him something horrible that one should be obliged to pay immoderately for renouncing one’s habits and all that was dear to one in life, and living after the manner of publicans and waiters. He praised the hospitality of the olden time; and, reluctantly as he otherwise endured even any thing unusual in the house, he yet practised hospitality, especially towards artists and virtuosi. Thus gossip Seekatz always had his quarters with us; and Abel, the last musician who handled the /viol di gamba/ with success and applause, was well received and entertained. With such youthful impressions, which nothing had as yet rubbed off, how could I have resolved to set foot in an inn in a strange city? Nothing would have been easier than to find quarters with good friends. Hofrath Krebel, Assessor Hermann, and others, had often spoken to me about it already; but even to these my trip was to remain a secret, and I hit upon a most singular notion. My next-room neighbor, the industrious theologian, whose eyes unfortunately constantly grew weaker and weaker, had a relation in Dresden, a shoemaker, with whom from time to time he corresponded. For a long while already this man had been highly remarkable to me on account of his expressions, and the arrival of one of his letters was always celebrated by us as a holiday. The mode in which he replied to the complaints of his cousin, who feared blindness, was quite peculiar: for he did not trouble himself about grounds of consolation, which are always hard to find; but the cheerful way in which he looked upon his own narrow, poor, toilsome life, the merriment which he drew, even from evils and inconveniences, the indestructible conviction that life is in itself and on its own account a blessing, communicated itself to him who read the letter, and, for the moment at least, transposed him into a like mood. Enthusiastic as I was, I had often sent my compliments to this man, extolled his happy natural gift, and expressed the wish to become acquainted with him. All this being premised, nothing seemed to me more natural than to seek him out, to converse with him, — nay, to lodge with him, and to learn to know him intimately. My good candidate, after some opposition, gave me a letter, written with difficulty, to carry with me; and, full of longing, I went to Dresden in the yellow coach, with my matriculation in my pocket.

I went in search of my shoemaker, and soon found him in the suburb (/Vorstadt/). He received me in a friendly manner, sitting upon his stool, and said, smiling, after he had read the letter, “I see from this, young sir, that you are a whimsical Christian.” — ”How so, master?” I replied. “No offence meant by ‘/whimsical/,’“ he continued: “one calls every one so who is not consistent with himself; and I call you a whimsical Christian because you acknowledge yourself a follower of our Lord in one thing, but not in another.” On my requesting him to enlighten me, he said further, “It seems that your view is, to announce glad tidings to the poor and lowly; that is good, and this imitation of the Lord is praiseworthy: but you should reflect, besides, that he rather sat down to table with prosperous rich folks, where there was good fare, and that he himself did not despise the sweet scent of the ointment, of which you will find the opposite in my house.”

This pleasant beginning put me at once in good humor, and we rallied each other for some time. His wife stood doubting how she should board and lodge such a guest. On this point, too, he had notions which referred, not only to the Bible, but also to “Gottfried’s Chronicle;” and when we were agreed that I was to stay, I gave my purse, such as it was, into the charge of my hostess, and requested her to furnish herself from it, if any thing should be necessary. When he would have declined it, and somewhat waggishly gave me to understand that he was not so burned out as he might appear, I disarmed him by saying, “Even if it were only to change water into wine, such a well-tried domestic resource would not be out of place, since there are no more miracles nowadays.” The hostess seemed to find my conduct less and less strange: we had soon accommodated ourselves to each other, and spent a very merry evening. He remained always the same, because all flowed from one source. His peculiarity was an apt common sense, which rested upon a cheerful disposition, and took delight in uniform habitual activity. That he should labor incessantly was his first and most necessary care; that he regarded every thing else as secondary, — this kept up his comfortable state of mind; and I must reckon him before many others in the class of those who are called practical unconscious philosophers. [Footnote: “Pratische Philosophen, bewusstlose Weltweisen.” It is impossible to give two substantives, as in the original, since this is effected by using first the word of Greek, then the word of German origin, whereas we have but one. — TRANS.]

The hour when the gallery was to be opened appeared, after having been expected with impatience. I entered into this sanctuary, and my astonishment surpassed every conception which I had formed. This room, returning into itself, in which splendor and neatness reigned together with the deepest stillness; the dazzling frames, all nearer to the time in which they had been gilded; the floor polished with bees’-wax; the spaces more trodden by spectators than used by copyists, — imparted a feeling of solemnity, unique of its kind, which so much the more resembled the sensation with which one treads a church, as the adornments of so many a temple, the objects of so much adoration, seemed here again set up only for the sacred purposes of art. I readily put up with the cursory description of my guide, only I requested that I might be allowed to remain in the outer gallery. Here, to my comfort, I felt really at home. I had already seen the works of several artists, others I knew from engravings, others by name. I did not conceal this, and I thus inspired my conductor with some confidence: nay, the rapture which I expressed at pieces where the pencil had gained the victory over nature delighted him; for such were the things which principally attracted me, where the comparison with known nature must necessarily enhance the value of art.

When I again entered my shoemaker’s house for dinner, I scarcely believed my eyes; for I fancied I saw before me a picture by Ostade, so perfect that all it needed was to be hung up in the gallery. The position of the objects, the light, the shadow, the brownish tint of the whole, the magical harmony, — every thing that one admires in those pictures, I here saw in reality. It was the first time that I perceived, in so high a degree, the faculty which I afterwards exercised with more consciousness; namely, that of seeing nature with the eyes of this or that artist, to whose works I had devoted a particular attention. This faculty has afforded me much enjoyment, but has also increased the desire zealously to abandon myself, from time to time, to the exercise of a talent which nature seemed to have denied me.

I visited the gallery at all permitted hours, and continued to express too loudly the ecstasy with which I beheld many precious works. I thus frustrated my laudable purpose of remaining unknown and unnoticed; and whereas only one of the unclerkeepers had hitherto had intercourse with me, the gallery-inspector, Counsellor Riedel, now also took notice of me, and called my attention to many things which seemed chiefly to lie within my sphere. I found this excellent man just as active and obliging then, as when I afterwards saw him during many years, and as he shows himself to this day. His image has, for me, interwoven itself so closely with those treasures of art, that I can never regard the two apart: the remembrance of him has even accompanied me to Italy, where, in many large and rich collections, his presence would have been very desirable.

Since, even with strangers and unknown persons, one cannot gaze on such works silently and without mutual sympathy, — nay, since the first sight of them is rather adapted, in the highest degree, to open hearts towards each other, I there got into conversation with a young man who seemed to be residing at Dresden, and to belong to some embassy. He invited me to come in the evening to an inn where a lively company met, and where, by each one’s paying a moderate reckoning, one could pass some very pleasant hours.

I repaired thither, but did not find the company; and the waiter somewhat surprised me when he delivered the compliments of the gentleman who made the appointment with me, by which the latter sent an excuse for coming somewhat later, with the addition that I must not take offence at any thing that might occur; also, that I should have nothing to pay beyond my own score. I knew not what to make of these words: my father’s cobwebs came into my head, and I composed myself to await whatever might befall. The company assembled; my acquaintance introduced me; and I could not be attentive long, without discovering that they were aiming at the mystification of a young man, who showed himself a novice by an obstreperous, assuming deportment: I therefore kept very much on my guard, so that they might not find delight in selecting me as his fellow. At table this intention became more apparent to everybody, except to himself. They drank more and more deeply: and, when a vivat in honor of sweethearts was started, every one solemnly swore that there should never be another out of those glasses; they flung them behind them, and this was the signal for far greater follies. At last I withdrew very quietly; and the waiter, while demanding quite a moderate amount, requested me to come again, as they did not go on so wildly every evening. I was far from my lodgings, and it was near midnight when I reached them. I found the doors unlocked; everybody was in bed; and one lamp illuminated the narrow domestic household, where my eye, more and more practised, immediately perceived the finest picture by Schalken, from which I could not tear myself away, so that it banished from me all sleep.

The few days of my residence in Dresden were solely devoted to the picture-gallery. The antiquities still stood in the pavilion of the great garden; but I declined seeing them, as well as all the other precious things which Dresden contained, being but too full of the conviction, that, even in and about the collection of paintings, much must yet remain hidden from me. Thus I took the excellence of the Italian masters more on trust and in faith, than by pretending to any insight into them. What I could not look upon as nature, put in the place of nature, and compare with a known object, was without effect upon me. It is the material impression which makes the beginning even to every more elevated taste.

With my shoemaker I lived on very good terms. He was witty and varied enough, and we often outvied each other in merry conceits: nevertheless, a man who thinks himself happy, and desires others to do the same, makes us discontented; indeed, the repetition of such sentiments produces weariness. I found myself well occupied, entertained, excited, but by no means happy; and the shoes from his last would not fit me. We parted, however, as the best friends; and even my hostess, on my departure, was not dissatisfied with me.

Shortly before my departure, something else very pleasant was to happen. By the mediation of that young man, who wished to somewhat regain his credit with me, I was introduced to the Director Von Hagedorn, who, with great kindness, showed me his collection, and was highly delighted with the enthusiasm of the young lover of art. He himself, as becomes a connoisseur, was quite peculiarly in love with the pictures which he possessed, and therefore seldom found in others an interest such as he wished. It gave him particular satisfaction that I was so excessively pleased with a picture by Schwanefeld, and that I was not tired of praising and extolling it in every single part; for landscapes, which again reminded me of the beautiful clear sky under which I had grown up, of the vegetable luxuriance of those spots, and of whatever other favors a warmer climate offers to man, were just the things that most affected me in the imitation, while they awakened in me a longing remembrance.

These delightful experiences, preparing both mind and sense for true art, were nevertheless interrupted and damped by one of the most melancholy sights, — by the destroyed and desolate condition of so many of the streets of Dresden through which I took my way. The Mohrenstrasse in ruins, and the Church (/Kreuzkirche/) of the Cross, with its shattered tower, impressed themselves deeply upon me, and still stand like a gloomy spot in my imagination. From the cupola of the Lady Church (/Frauenkirche/) I saw these pitiable ruins scattered about amid the beautiful order of the city. Here the clerk commended to me the art of the architect, who had already fitted up church and cupola for so undesirable an event, and had built them bomb-proof. The good sacristan then pointed out to me the ruins on all sides, and said doubtfully and laconically, “/The enemy hath done this/!”

At last, though very loath, I returned to Leipzig, and found my friends, who were not used to such digressions in me, in great astonishment, busied with all sorts of conjectures as to what might be the import of my mysterious journey. When, upon this, I told them my story quite in order, they declared it was only a made-up tale, and sagaciously tried to get at the bottom of the riddle which I had been waggish enough to conceal under my shoemaker-lodgings.

But, could they have looked into my heart, they would have discovered no waggery there; for the truth of that old proverb, “He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow,” had struck me with all its force: and the more I struggled to arrange and appropriate to myself what I had seen, the less I succeeded. I had at last to content myself with a silent after-operation. Ordinary life carried me away again; and I at last felt myself quite comfortable when a friendly intercourse, improvement in branches of knowledge which were suitable for me, and a certain practice of the hand, engaged me in a manner less important, but more in accordance with my strength.

Very pleasant and wholesome for me was the connection I formed with the Breitkopf family. Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, the proper founder of the family, who had come to Leipzig as a poor journeyman printer, was yet living, and occupied the Golden Bear, a respectable house in the new Newmarket, with Gottsched as an inmate. The son, Johann Gottlob Immanuel, had already been long married, and was the father of many children. They thought they could not spend a part of their considerable wealth better than in putting up, opposite the first house, a large new one, the Silver Bear, which they built higher and more extensive than the original house itself. Just at the time of the building I became acquainted with the family. The eldest son, who might have been some years older than I, was a well-formed young man, devoted to music, and practised to play skilfully on both the piano and the violin. The second, a true, good soul, likewise musical, enlivened the concerts which were often got up, no less than his elder brother. They were both kindly disposed towards me, as well as their parents and sisters. I lent them a helping hand during the building up and the finishing, the furnishing and the moving in, and thus formed a conception of much that belongs to such an affair: I also had an opportunity of seeing Oeser’s instructions put in practice. In the new house, which I had thus seen erected, I was often a visitor. We had many pursuits in common; and the eldest son set some of my songs to music, which, when printed, bore his name, but not mine, and have been little known. I have selected the best, and inserted them among my other little poems. The father had invented or perfected musical type. He granted me the use of a fine library, which related principally to the origin and progress of printing; and thus I gained some knowledge in that department. I found there, moreover, good copper-plates, which exhibited antiquity, and advanced on this side also my studies, which were still further promoted by the circumstance that a considerable collection of casts had fallen into disorder in moving. I set them right again as well as I could, and in doing so was compelled to search Lippert and other authorities. A physician, Doctor Reichel, likewise an inmate of the house, I consulted from time to time when I felt, if not sick, yet unwell; and thus we led together a quiet, pleasant life.

I was now to enter into another sort of connection in this house; for the copper-plate engraver, Stock, had moved into the attic. He was a native of Nuremberg, a very industrious man, and, in his labors, precise and methodical. He also, like Geyser, engraved, after Oeser’s designs, larger and smaller plates, which came more and more into vogue for novels and poems. He etched very neatly, so that his work came out of the aquafortis almost finished; and but little touching-up remained to be done with the graver, which he handled very well. He made an exact calculation how long a plate would occupy him, and nothing could call him off from his work if he had not completed the daily task he had set himself. Thus he sat working by a broad table, by the great gable- window, in a very neat and orderly chamber, where his wife and two daughters afforded him a domestic society. Of these last, one is happily married, and the other is an excellent artist: they have continued my friends all my life long. I now divided my time between the upper and lower stories, and attached myself much to the man, who, together with his persevering industry, possessed an excellent humor, and was good nature itself.

The technical neatness of this branch of art charmed me, and I associated myself with him to execute something of the kind. My predilection was again directed towards landscape, which, while it amused me in my solitary walks, seemed in itself more attainable and more comprehensible for works of art than the human figure, which discouraged me. Under his directions, therefore, I etched, after Thiele and others, various landscapes, which, although executed by an unpractised hand, produced some effect, and were well received. The grounding (varnishing) of the plates, the putting in the high lights, the etching, and at last the biting with aquafortis, gave me variety of occupation; and I soon got so far that I could assist my master in many things. I did not lack the attention necessary for the biting, and I seldom failed in any thing; but I had not care enough in guarding against the deleterious vapors which are generated on such occasions, and these may have contributed to the maladies which afterwards troubled me for a long time. Amidst such labors, lest any thing should be left untried, I often made wood-cuts also. I prepared various little printing-blocks after French patterns, and many of them were found fit for use.

Let me here make mention of some other men who resided in Leipzig, or tarried there for a short time. Weisse, the custom-house collector of the district, in his best years, cheerful, friendly, and obliging, was loved and esteemed by us. We would not, indeed, allow his theatrical pieces to be models throughout, but we suffered ourselves to be carried away by them; and his operas, set to music by Hiller in an easy style, gave us much pleasure. Schiebler, of Hamburgh, pursued the same track; and his “Lisuard and Dariolette” was likewise favored by us. Eschenburg, a handsome young man, but little older than we were, distinguished himself advantageously among the students. Zachariä was pleased to spend some weeks with us, and, being introduced by his brother, dined every day with us at the same table. We rightly deemed it an honor to gratify our guest in return, by a, few extra dishes, a richer dessert, and choicer wine; for, as a tall, well-formed, comfortable man, he did not conceal his love of good eating. Lessing came at a time when we had I know not what in our heads: it was our good pleasure to go nowhere on his account, — nay, even to avoid the places to which he came, probably because we thought ourselves too good to stand at a distance, and could make no pretension to obtain a closer intimacy with him. This momentary absurdity, which, however, is nothing rare in presuming and freakish youth, proved, indeed, its own punishment in the sequel; for I have never set eyes on that eminent man, who was most highly esteemed by me.

Notwithstanding all our efforts relative to art and antiquity, we each of us always had Winckelmann before our eyes, whose ability was acknowledged in his country with enthusiasm. We read his writings diligently, and tried to make ourselves acquainted with the circumstances under which he had written the first of them. We found in them many views which seemed to have originated with Oeser, even jests and whims after his fashion: and we did not rest until we had formed some general conception of the occasion on which these remarkable and sometimes so enigmatical writings had arisen, though we were not very accurate; for youth likes better to be excited than instructed, and it was not the last time that I was to be indebted to Sibylline leaves for an important step in cultivation.

It was then a fine period in literature, when eminent men were yet treated with respect; although the disputes of Klotz and Lessing’s controversies already indicated that this epoch would soon close. Winckelmann enjoyed an universal, unassailed reverence; and it is known how sensitive he was with regard to any thing public which did not seem commensurate with his deeply felt dignity. All the periodical publications joined in his praise, the better class of tourists came back from him instructed and enraptured, and the new views which he gave extended themselves over science and life. The Prince of Dessau had raised himself up to a similar degree of respect. Young, well and nobly minded, he had on his travels and at other times shown himself truly desirable. Winckelmann was in the highest degree delighted with him, and, whenever he mentioned him, loaded him with the handsomest epithets. The laying out of a park, then unique, the taste for architecture, which Von Erdmannsdorf supported by his activity, every thing spoke in favor of a prince, who, while he was a shining example for the rest, gave promise of a golden age for his servants and subjects. We young people now learned with rejoicings that Winckelmann would return back from Italy, visit his princely friend, call on Oeser by the way, and so come within our sphere of vision. We made no pretensions to speaking with him, but we hoped to see him; and, as at that time of life one willingly changes every occasion into a party of pleasure, we had already agreed upon a journey to Dessau, where in a beautiful spot, made glorious by art, in a land well governed and at the same time externally adorned, we thought to lie in wait, now here, now there, in order to see with our own eyes these men so highly exalted above us walking about. Oeser himself was quite elated if he only thought of it, and the news of Winckelmann’s death fell down into the midst of us like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. I still remember the place where I first heard it: it was in the court of the Pleissenburg, not far from the little gate through which one used to go up to Oeser’s residence. One of my fellow- pupils met me, and told me that Oeser was not to be seen, with the reason why. This monstrous event [Footnote: Winckelmann was assassinated. — TRANS.] produced a monstrous effect: there was an universal mourning and lamentation, and Winckelmann’s untimely death sharpened the attention paid to the value of his life. Perhaps, indeed, the effect of his activity, if he had /continued/ it to a more advanced age, would probably not have been so great as it now necessarily became, when, like many other extraordinary men, he was distinguished by fate through a strange and calamitous end.

Now, while I was infinitely lamenting the death of Winckelmann, I did not think that I should soon find myself in the case of being apprehensive about my own life; since, during all these events, my bodily condition had not taken the most favorable turn. I had already brought with me from home a certain touch of hypochondria, which, in this new sedentary and lounging life, was rather increased than diminished. The pain in my chest, which I had felt from time to time ever since the accident at Auerstädt, and which after a fall from horseback had perceptibly increased, made me dejected. By an unfortunate diet I destroyed my powers of digestion; the heavy Merseburg beer clouded my brain; coffee, which gave me a peculiarly melancholy tone, especially when taken with milk after dinner, paralyzed my bowels, and seemed completely to suspend their functions, so that I experienced great uneasiness on this account, yet without being able to embrace a resolution for a more rational mode of life. My natural disposition, supported by the sufficient strength of youth, fluctuated between the extremes of unrestrained gayety and melancholy discomfort. Moreover, the epoch of cold-water bathing, which was unconditionally recommended, had then begun. One was to sleep on a hard bed, only slightly covered, by which all the usual perspiration was suppressed. These and other follies, in consequence of some misunderstood suggestions of Rousseau, would, it was promised, bring us nearer to nature, and deliver us from the corruption of morals. Now, all the above, without discrimination, applied with injudicious alternation, were felt by many most injuriously; and I irritated my happy organization to such a degree, that the particular systems contained within it necessarily broke out at last into a conspiracy and revolution, in order to save the whole.

One night I awoke with a violent hemorrhage, and had just strength and presence of mind enough to waken my next-room neighbor. Dr. Reichel was called in, who assisted me in the most friendly manner; and thus for many days I wavered betwixt life and death: and even the joy of a subsequent improvement was embittered by the circumstance that, during that eruption, a tumor had formed on the left side of the neck, which, after the danger was past, they now first found time to notice. Recovery is, however, always pleasing and delightful, even though it takes place slowly and painfully: and, since nature had helped herself with me, I appeared now to have become another man; for I had gained a greater cheerfulness of mind than I had known for a long time, and I was rejoiced to feel my inner self at liberty, although externally a wearisome affliction threatened me.

But what particularly set me up at this time was, to see how many eminent men had, undeservedly, given me their affection. Undeservedly, I say; for there was not one among them to whom I had not been troublesome through contradictory humors, not one whom I had not more than once wounded by morbid absurdity, — nay, whom I had not stubbornly avoided for a long time, from a feeling of my own injustice. All this was forgotten: they treated me in the most affectionate manner, and sought, partly in my chamber, partly as soon as I could leave it, to amuse and divert me. They drove out with me, entertained me at their country houses, and I seemed soon to recover.

Among these friends I name first of all Docter Hermann, then senator, afterwards burgomaster at Leipzig. He was among those boarders with whom I had become acquainted through Schlosser, the one with whom an always equable and enduring connection was maintained. One might well reckon him the most industrious of his academical fellow-citizens. He attended his lectures with the greatest regularity, and his private industry remained always the same. Step by step, without the slightest deviation, I saw him attain his doctor’s degree, and then raise himself to the assessorship, without any thing of all this appearing arduous to him, or his having in the least hurried or been too late with any thing. The gentleness of his character attracted me, his instructive conversation held me fast; indeed, I really believe that I took delight in his methodical industry especially for this reason, because I thought, by acknowledgments and high esteem, to appropriate to myself at least a part of a merit of which I could by no means boast.

He was just as regular in the exercise of his talents and the enjoyment of his pleasures as in his business. He played the harpsichord with great skill, drew from nature with feeling, and stimulated me to do the same; when, in his manner, on gray paper and with black and white chalk, I used to copy many a willow-plot on the Pleisse, and many a lovely nook of those still waters, and at the same time longingly to indulge in my fancies. He knew how to meet my sometimes comical disposition with merry jests; and I remember many pleasant hours which we spent together when he invited me, with mock solemnity, to a /tete-a-tete/ supper, where, with some dignity, by the light of waxen candles, we ate what they call a council-hare, which had run into his kitchen as a perquisite of his place, and, with many jokes in the manner of Behrisch, were pleased to season the meat and heighten the spirit of the wine. That this excellent man, who is still constantly laboring in his respectable office, rendered me the most faithful assistance during a disease, of which there was indeed a foreboding, but which had not been foreseen in its full extent; that he bestowed every leisure hour upon me, and, by remembrances of former happy times, contrived to brighten the gloomy moment, — -I still acknowledge with the sincerest thanks, and rejoice that after so long a time I can give them publicly.

Besides this worthy friend, Groening of Bremen particularly interested himself in me. I had made his acquaintance only a short time before, and first discovered his good feeling towards me during my misfortune: I felt the value of this favor the more warmly, as no one is apt to seek a closer connection with invalids. He spared nothing to give me pleasure, to draw me away from musing on my situation, to hold up to my view and promise me recovery and a wholesome activity in the nearest future. How often have I been delighted, in the progress of life, to hear how this excellent man has in the weightiest affairs shown himself useful, and indeed a blessing to his native city.

Here, too, it was that friend Horn uninterruptedly brought into action his love and attention. The whole Breitkopf household, the Stock family, and many others, treated me like a near relative; and thus, through the good will of so many friendly persons, the feeling of my situation was soothed in the tenderest manner.

I must here, however, make particular mention of a man with whom I first became acquainted at this time, and whose instructive conversation so far blinded me to the miserable state in which I was, that I actually forgot it. This was Langer, afterwards librarian at Wolfenbüttel. Eminently learned and instructed, he was delighted at my voracious hunger after knowledge, which, with the irritability of sickness, now broke out into a perfect fever. He tried to calm me by perspicuous summaries; and I have been very much indebted to his acquaintance, short as it was, since he understood how to guide me in various ways, and made me attentive whither I had to direct myself at the present moment. I felt all the more obliged to this important man, as my intercourse exposed him to some danger; for when, after Behrisch, he got the situation of tutor to the young Count Lindenau, the father made it an express condition with the new Mentor that he should have no intercourse with me. Curious to become acquainted with such a dangerous subject, he frequently found means of meeting me indirectly. I soon gained his affection; and he, more prudent than Behrisch, called for me by night: we went walking together, conversed on interesting things, and at last I accompanied him to the very door of his mistress; for even this externally severe, earnest, scientific man had not kept free from the toils of a very amiable lady.

German literature, and with it my own poetical undertakings, had already for some time become strange to me; and, as is usually the result in such an auto-didactic circular course, I turned back towards the beloved ancients who still constantly, like distant blue mountains, distinct in their outlines and masses, but indiscernible in their parts and internal relations, bounded the horizon of my intellectual wishes. I made an exchange with Langer, in which I at last played the part of Glaucus and Diomedes: I gave up to him whole baskets of German poets and critics, and received in return a number of Greek authors, the reading of whom was to give me recreation, even during the most tedious convalescence.

The confidence which new friends repose in each other usually develops itself by degrees. Common occupation and tastes are the first things in which a mutual harmony shows itself; then the mutual communication generally extends over past and present passions, especially over love- affairs: but it is a lower depth which opens itself, if the connection is to be perfected; the religious sentiments, the affairs of the heart which relate to the imperishable, are the things which both establish the foundation and adorn the summit of a friendship.

The Christian religion was fluctuating between its own historically positive base and a pure deism, which, grounded on morality, was in its turn to lay the foundation of ethics. The diversity of characters and modes of thought here showed itself in infinite gradations, especially when a leading difference was brought into play by the question arising as to how great a share reason, and how great a share the feelings, could and should have in such convictions. The most lively and ingenious men showed themselves, in this instance, like butterflies, who, quite regardless of their caterpillar state, throw away the chrysalis veil in which they have grown up to their organic perfection. Others, more honestly and modestly minded, might be compared to the flowers, which, although they unfold themselves to the most beautiful bloom, yet do not tear themselves from the root, from the mother stalk, nay, — rather through this family connection first bring the desired fruit to maturity. Of this latter class was Langer; for although a learned man, and eminently versed in books, he would yet give the Bible a peculiar pre-eminence over the other writings which have come down to us, and regard it as a document from which alone we could prove our moral and spiritual pedigree. He belonged to those who cannot conceive an immediate connection with the great God of the universe: a mediation, therefore, was necessary for him, an analogy to which he thought he could find everywhere in earthly and heavenly things. His discourse, which was pleasing and consistent, easily found a hearing with a young man, who, separated from worldly things by an annoying illness, found it highly desirable to turn the activity of his mind towards the heavenly. Grounded as I was in the Bible, all that was wanted was merely the faith to explain as divine that which I had hitherto esteemed in human fashion, — -a belief the easier for me, since I had made my first acquaintance with that book as a divine one. To a sufferer, to one who felt himself delicate, nay, weak, the gospel was therefore welcome; and even though Langer, with all his faith, was at the same time a very sensible man, and firmly maintained that one should not let the feelings prevail, should not let one’s self be led astray into mysticism, I could not have managed to occupy myself with the New Testament without feeling and enthusiasm.

In such conversations we spent much time; and he grew so fond of me as an honest and well-prepared proselyte, that he did not scruple to sacrifice to me many of the hours destined for his fair one, and even to run the risk of being betrayed and looked upon unfavorably by his patron, like Behrisch. I returned his affection in the most grateful manner; and, if what he did for me would have been of value at any time, I could not but regard it, in my present condition, as worthy of the highest honor.

But as when the concert of our souls is most spiritually attuned, the rude, shrieking tones of the world usually break in most violently and boisterously, and the contrast which has gone on exercising a secret control affects us so much the more sensibly when it comes forward all at once: thus was I not to be dismissed from the peripatetic school of my Langer without having first witnessed an event, strange at least for Leipzig; namely, a tumult which the students excited, and that on the following pretence. Some young people had quarrelled with the city soldiers, and the affair had not gone off without violence. Many of the students combined to revenge the injuries inflicted. The soldiers resisted stubbornly, and the advantage was not on the side of the very discontented academical citizens. It was now said that respectable persons had commended and rewarded the conquerors for their valiant resistance; and, by this, the youthful feeling of honor and revenge was mightily excited. It was publicly said, that, on the next evening, windows would be broken in: and some friends who brought me word that this was actually taking place, were obliged to carry me there; for youth and the multitude are always attracted by danger and tumult. There really began a strange spectacle. The otherwise open street was lined on one side with men who, quite quiet, without noise or movement, were waiting to see what would happen. About a dozen young fellows were walking singly up and down the empty sidewalk, with the greatest apparent composure; but, as soon as they came opposite the marked house, they threw stones at the windows as they passed by, and this repeatedly as they returned backwards and forwards, as long as the panes would rattle. Just as quietly as this was done, all at last dispersed; and the affair had no further consequences.

With such a ringing echo of university exploits, I left Leipzig in the September of 1768, in a comfortable hired coach, and in the company of some respectable persons of my acquaintance. In the neighborhood of Auerstädt I thought of that previous accident; but I could not forebode that which many years afterwards would threaten me from thence with still greater danger, just as little as in Gotha, where we had the castle shown to us, I could think in the great hall adorned with stucco figures, that so much favor and affection would befall me on that very spot.

The nearer I approached my native city, the more I recalled to myself doubtingly the circumstances, prospects, and hopes with which I had left home; and it was with a very disheartening feeling that I now returned, as it were, like one shipwrecked. Yet, since I had not very much with which to reproach myself, I contrived to compose myself tolerably well: however, the welcome was not without emotion. The great vivacity of my nature, excited and heightened by sickness, caused an impassioned scene. I might have looked worse than I myself knew, since for a long time I had not consulted a looking-glass; and who does not become used to himself? Suffice it to say, they silently resolved to communicate many things to me only by degrees, and before all things to let me have some repose, both bodily and mental.

My sister immediately associated herself with me, and as previously, from her letters, so I could now more in detail and accurately understand the circumstances and situation of the family. My father had, after my departure, applied all his didactic taste to my sister; and in a house completely shut up, rendered secure by peace, and even cleared of lodgers, he had cut off from her almost every means of looking about and finding some recreation abroad. She had by turns to pursue and work at French, Italian, and English; besides which he compelled her to practise a great part of the day on the harpsichord. Nor was her writing to be neglected; and I had already remarked that he had directed her correspondence with me, and had let his doctrines come to me through her pen. My sister was and still continued to be an undefinable being, the most singular mixture of strength and weakness, of stubbornness and pliability, which qualities operated now united, now isolated by will and inclination. Thus she had, in a manner which seemed to me fearful, turned the hardness of her character against her father, whom she did not forgive for having, in these three years, hindered, or embittered to her, so many innocent joys; and of his good and excellent qualities she would not acknowledge even one. She did all he commanded and arranged, but in the most unamiable manner in the world. She did it in the established routine, but nothing more and nothing less. Not from love or a desire to please did she accommodate herself to any thing, so that this was one of the first things about which my mother complained to me in private. But, since love was as essential to my sister as to any human being, she turned her affection wholly on me. Her care in nursing and entertaining me absorbed all her time: her female companions, who were swayed by her without her intending it, had likewise to contrive all sorts of things to be pleasing and consolatory to me. She was inventive in cheering me up, and even developed some germs of comical humor which I had never known in her, and which became her very well. There soon arose between us a coterie-language, by which we could converse before all people without their understanding us; and she often used this gibberish with great pertness in the presence of our parents.

My father was personally tolerably comfortable. He was in good health, spent a great part of the day in the instruction of my sister, went on with the description of his travels, and was longer in tuning his lute than in playing on it. He concealed at the same time, as well as he could, his vexation at finding, instead of a vigorous, active son, who ought now to take his degree and run through the prescribed course of life, an invalid who seemed to suffer still more in soul than in body. He did not conceal his wish that they would be expeditious with my cure; but one was forced to be specially on one’s guard in his presence against hypochondriacal expressions, because he could then become passionate and bitter.

My mother, by nature very lively and cheerful, spent under these circumstances very tedious days. Her little housekeeping was soon provided for. The good woman’s mind, inwardly never unoccupied, wished to find an interest in something; and that which was nearest at hand was religion, which she embraced the more fondly as her most eminent female friends were cultivated and hearty worshippers of God. At the head of these stood Fräulein von Klettenberg. She is the same person from whose conversations and letters arose the “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul,” which are found inserted in “Wilhelm Meister.” She was slenderly formed, of the middle size: a hearty natural demeanor had been made still more pleasing by the manners of the world and the court. Her very neat attire reminded of the dress of the Hernhutt women. Her serenity and peace of mind never left her; she looked upon her sickness as a necessary element of her transient earthly existence; she suffered with the greatest patience, and, in painless intervals, was lively and talkative. Her favorite, nay, indeed, perhaps her only, conversation, was on the moral experiences which a man who observes himself can form in himself; to which was added the religious views which, in a very graceful manner, nay, with genius, came under her consideration as natural and supernatural. It scarcely needs more to recall back to the friends of such representations, that complete delineation composed from the very depths of her soul. Owing to the very peculiar course she had taken from her youth upwards, the distinguished rank in which she had been born and educated, and the liveliness and originality of her mind, she did not agree very well with the other ladies who had set out on the same road to salvation. Frau Griesbach, the chief of them, seemed too severe, too dry, too learned: she knew, thought, comprehended, more than the others, who contented themselves with the development of their feelings; and she was therefore burdensome to them, because every one neither could nor would carry with her so great an apparatus on the road to bliss. But for this reason most of them were indeed somewhat monotonous, since they confined themselves to a certain terminology which might well have been compared to that of the later sentimentalists. Fräulein von Klettenberg guided her way between both extremes, and seemed, with some self- complacency, to see her own reflections in the image of Count Zindendorf, whose opinions and actions bore witness to a higher birth and more distinguished rank. Now she found in me what she needed, a lively young creature, striving after an unknown happiness, who, although he could not think himself an extraordinary sinner, yet found himself in no comfortable condition, and was perfectly healthy neither in body nor soul. She was delighted with what nature had given me, as well as with much which I had gained for myself. And, if she conceded to me many advantages, this was by no means humiliating to her: for, in the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex; and, secondly, she believed, that, in regard to religious culture, she was very much in advance of me. My disquiet, my impatience, my striving, my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled God. Now, I had believed from my youth upwards that I stood on very good terms with my God, — nay, I even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and I was daring enough to think that I had something to forgive him. This presumption was grounded on my infinite good will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance. It may be imagined how often I got into disputes on this subject with my friend, which, however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like my conversations with the old rector, with the remark, “that I was a foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made.”

I was much troubled with the tumor in my neck, as the physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time I had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. The physician and surgeon both belonged to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. The surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his condition with truly Christian patience, and did not suffer his disease to perplex him in his profession. The physician was an inexplicable, sly-looking, fair-spoken, and, besides, an abstruse, man, who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle. Being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions. With certain powders, which may have been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved, but that powerful salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only mentioned among believers; although no one had yet seen it or traced its effects. To excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to his patients, and given them to understand, that, by one’s own study of them, one could well attain this treasure for one’s self, which was the more necessary, as the mode of its preparation, both for physical, and especially for moral, reasons, could not be well communicated; nay, that in order to comprehend, produce, and use this great work, one must know the secrets of nature in connection, since it was not a particular, but an universal remedy, and could indeed be produced under different forms and shapes. My friend had listened to these enticing words. The health of the body was too nearly allied to the health of the soul; and could a greater benefit, a greater mercy, be shown towards others than by appropriating to one’s self a remedy by which so many sufferings could be assuaged, so many a danger averted? She had already secretly studied Welling’s “Opus Mago-cabalisticum,” for which, however, as the author himself immediately darkens and removes the light he imparts, she was looking about for a friend, who, in this alternation of glare and gloom, might bear her company. It needed small incitement to inoculate me also with this disease. I procured the work, which, like all writings of this kind, could trace its pedigree in a direct line up to the Neo-Platonic school. My chief labor in this book was most accurately to notice the obscure hints by which the author refers from one passage to another, and thus promises to reveal what he conceals, and to mark down on the terminology which might well have been compared to that of the later sentimentalists. Fräulein von Klettenberg guided her way between both extremes, and seemed, with some self-complacency, to see her own reflections in the image of Count Zindendorf, whose opinions and actions bore witness to a higher birth and more distinguished rank. Now she found in me what she needed, a lively young creature, striving after an unknown happiness, who, although he could not think himself an extraordinary sinner, yet found himself in no comfortable condition, and was perfectly healthy neither in body nor soul. She was delighted with what nature had given me, as well as with much which I had gained for myself. And, if she conceded to me many advantages, this was by no means humiliating to her: for, in the first place, she never thought of emulating one of the male sex; and, secondly, she believed, that, in regard to religious culture, she was very much in advance of me. My disquiet, my impatience, my striving, my seeking, investigating, musing, and wavering, she interpreted in her own way, and did not conceal from me her conviction, but assured me in plain terms that all this proceeded from my having no reconciled God. Now, I had believed from my youth upwards that I stood on very good terms with my God, — nay, I even fancied to myself, according to various experiences, that he might even be in arrears to me; and I was daring enough to think that I had something to forgive him. This presumption was grounded on my infinite good will, to which, as it seemed to me, he should have given better assistance. It may be imagined how often I got into disputes on this subject with my friend, which, however, always terminated in the friendliest way, and often, like my conversations with the old rector, with the remark, “that I was a foolish fellow, for whom many allowances must be made.”

I was much troubled with the tumor in my neck, as the physician and surgeon wished first to disperse this excrescence, afterwards, as they said, to draw it to a head, and at last thought it best to open it; so for a long time I had to suffer more from inconvenience than pain, although towards the end of the cure the continual touching with lunar caustic and other corrosive substances could not but give me very disagreeable prospects for every fresh day. The physician and surgeon both belonged to the Pious Separatists, although both were of highly different natural characters. The surgeon, a slender, well-built man, of easy and skilful hand, was unfortunately somewhat hectic, but endured his condition with truly Christian patience, and did not suffer his disease to perplex him in his profession. The physician was an inexplicable, sly-looking, fair-spoken, and, besides, an abstruse, man, who had quite won the confidence of the pious circle. Being active and attentive, he was consoling to the sick; but, more than by all this, he extended his practice by the gift of showing in the background some mysterious medicines prepared by himself, of which no one could speak, since with us the physicians were strictly prohibited from making up their own prescriptions. With certain powders, which may have been some kind of digestive, he was not so reserved, but that powerful salt, which could only be applied in the greatest danger, was only mentioned among believers; although no one had yet seen it or traced its effects. To excite and strengthen our faith in the possibility of such an universal remedy, the physician, wherever he found any susceptibility, had recommended certain chemico-alchemical books to his patients, and given them to understand, that, by one’s own study of them, one could well attain this treasure for one’s self, which was the more necessary, as the mode of its preparation, both for physical, and especially for moral, reasons, could not be well communicated; nay, that in order to comprehend, produce, and use this great work, one must know the secrets of nature in connection, since it was not a particular, but an universal remedy, and could indeed be produced under different forms and shapes. My friend had listened to these enticing words. The health of the body was too nearly allied to the health of the soul; and could a greater benefit, a greater mercy, be shown towards others than by appropriating to one’s self a remedy by which so many sufferings could be assuaged, so many a danger averted? She had already secretly studied Welling’s “Opus Mago-cabalisticum,” for which, however, as the author himself immediately darkens and removes the light he imparts, she was looking about for a friend, who, in this alternation of glare and gloom, might bear her company. It needed small incitement to inoculate me also with this disease. I procured the work, which, like all writings of this kind, could trace its pedigree in a direct line up to the Neo-Platonic school. My chief labor in this book was most accurately to notice the obscure hints by which the author refers from one passage to another, and thus promises to reveal what he conceals, and to mark down on the margin the number of the page where such passages as should explain each other were to be found. But even thus the book still remained dark and unintelligible enough, except that one at last studied one’s self into a certain terminology, and, by using it according to one’s own fancy, believed that one was, at any rate, saying, if not understanding, something. The work mentioned before makes very honorable mention of its predecessors, and we were incited to investigate those original sources themselves. We turned to the works of Theophrastus, Paracelsus, and Basilius Valentinus, as well as to those of Helmont, Starkey, and others, whose doctrines and directions, resting more or less on nature and imagination, we endeavored to see into and follow out. I was particularly pleased with the “Aurea Catena Homeri,” in which nature, though perhaps in fantastical fashion, is represented in a beautiful combination; and thus sometimes by ourselves, sometimes together, we employed much time on these singularities, and spent the evenings of a long winter — during which I was compelled to keep my chamber — very agreeably, since we three (my mother being included) were more delighted with these secrets than we could have been at their elucidation.

In the mean time, a very severe trial was preparing for me: for a disturbed, and, one might even say, for certain moments, destroyed digestion, excited such symptoms, that, in great tribulation, I thought I should lose my life; and none of the remedies applied would produce any further effect. In this last extremity my distressed mother constrained the embarrassed physician with the greatest vehemence to come out with his universal medicine. After a long refusal, he hastened home at the dead of night, and returned with a little glass of crystallized dry salt, which was dissolved in water, and swallowed by the patient. It had a decidedly alkaline taste. The salt was scarcely taken than my situation appeared relieved; and from that moment the disease took a turn which, by degrees, led to my recovery. I need not say how much this strengthened and heightened our faith in our physician, and our industry to share in such a treasure.

My friend, who, without parents or brothers and sisters, lived in a large, well-situated house, had already before this begun to purchase herself a little air-furnace, alembics, and retorts of moderate size, and, in accordance with the hints of Welling, and the significant signs of our physician and master, operated principally on iron, in which the most healing powers were said to be concealed, if one only knew how to open it. And as the volatile salt which must be produced made a great figure in all the writings with which we were acquainted; so, for these operations, alkalies also were required, which, while they flowed away into the air, were to unite with these superterrestrial things, and at last produce, /per se/, a mysterious and excellent neutral salt.

No sooner was I in some measure restored, and, favored by the change in the season, once more able to occupy my old gable-chamber, than I also began to provide myself with a little apparatus. A small air-furnace with a sand-bath was prepared; and I very soon learned to change the glass alembics, with a piece of burning match-cord, into vessels in which the different mixtures were to be evaporated. Now were the strange ingredients of the macrocosm and microcosm handled in an odd, mysterious manner; and, before all, I attempted to produce neutral salts in an unheard-of way. But what, for a long time, kept me busy most, was the so-called /Liquor Silicum/ (flint-juice), which is made by melting down pure quartz-flint with a proper proportion of alkali, whence results a transparent glass, which melts away on exposure to the air, and exhibits a beautiful clear fluidity. Whoever has once prepared this himself, and seen it with his own eyes, will not blame those who believe in a maiden earth, and in the possibility of producing further effects upon it by means of it. I had become quite skilful in preparing this /Liquor Silicum/; the fine white flints which are found in the Main furnished a perfect material for it: and I was not wanting in the other requisites, nor in diligence. But I wearied at last, because I could not but remark that the flinty substance was by no means so closely combined with the salt as I had philosophically imagined, for it very easily separated itself again; and this most beautiful mineral fluidity, which, to my greatest astonishment, had sometimes appeared in the form of an animal jelly, always deposited a powder, which I was forced to pronounce the finest flint dust, but which gave not the least sign of any thing productive in its nature from which one could have hoped to see this maiden earth pass into the maternal state.

Strange and unconnected as these operations were, I yet learned many things from them. I paid strict attention to all the crystallizations that might occur, and became acquainted with the external forms of many natural things: and, inasmuch as I well knew that in modern times chemical subjects were treated more methodically, I wished to get a general conception of them; although, as a half-adept, I had very little respect for the apothecaries and all those who operated with common fire. However, the chemical “Compendium” of Boerhaave attracted me powerfully, and led me on to read several of his writings, in which (since, moreover, my tedious illness had inclined me towards medical subjects) I found an inducement to study also the “Aphorisms” of this excellent man, which I was glad to stamp upon my mind and in my memory.

Another employment, somewhat more human, and by far more useful for my cultivation at the moment, was reading through the letters which I had written home from Leipzig. Nothing reveals more with respect to ourselves, than when we again see before us that which has proceeded from us years before, so that we can now consider ourselves as an object of contemplation. But, of course, I was as yet too young, and the epoch which was represented by those papers was still too near. As in our younger years we do not in general easily cast off a certain self- complacent conceit, this especially shows itself in despising what we have been but a little time before; for while, indeed, we perceive, as we advance from step to step, that those things which we regard as good and excellent in ourselves and others do not stand their ground, we think we can best extricate ourselves from this dilemma by ourselves throwing away what we cannot preserve. So it was with me also. For as in Leipzig I had gradually learned to set little value on my childish labors, so now my academical course seemed to me likewise of small account; and I did not understand, that, for this very reason, it must be of great value to me, as it elevated me to a higher degree of observation and insight. My father had carefully collected and sewed together the letters I had written to him, as well as those to my sister; nay, he had even corrected them with attention, and improved the mistakes, both in writing and in grammar.

What first struck me in these letters was their exterior: I was shocked at an incredible carelessness in the handwriting, which extended from October, 1765, to the middle of the following January. But, in the middle of March, there appeared all at once a quite compressed, orderly hand, such as I used formerly to employ in writing for a prize. My astonishment resolved itself into gratitude towards good Gellert, who, as I now well remembered, whenever we handed in our essays to him, represented to us, in his hearty tone of voice, that it was our sacred duty to practise our hand as much, nay, more, than our style. He repeated this as often as he caught sight of any scrawled, careless writing, on which occasion he often said that he would much like to make a good hand of his pupils the principal end in his instructions; the more so as he had often remarked that a good hand led the way to a good style.

I could further notice that the French and English passages in my letters, although not free from blunders, were nevertheless written with facility and freedom. These languages I had likewise continued to practise in my correspondence with George Schlosser, who was still at Treptow; and I had remained in constant communication with him, by which I was instructed in many secular affairs (for things did not always turn out with him quite as he had hoped), and acquired an ever increasing confidence in his earnest, noble way of thinking.

Another consideration which could not escape me in going over these letters, was that my good father, with the best intentions, had done me a special mischief, and had led me into that odd way of life into which I had fallen at last. He had repeatedly warned me against card-playing; but Frau Hofrath Böhme, as long as she lived, contrived to persuade me, after her own fashion, by declaring that my father’s warnings were only against the abuse. Now, as I likewise saw the advantages of it in society, I readily submitted to being led by her. I had indeed the sense of play, but not the spirit of play: I learned all games easily and rapidly, but I could never keep up the proper attention for a whole evening. Therefore, however good a beginning I would make, I invariably failed at the end, and made myself and others lose; through which I went off, always out of humor, either to the supper-table or out of the company. Scarcely had Madame Böhme died, who, moreover, had no longer kept me in practice during her tedious illness, when my father’s doctrine gained force: I at first begged to be excused from joining the card-tables; and, as they now did not know what else to do with me, I became even more of a burden to myself than to others, and declined the invitations, which then became more rare, and at last ceased altogether. Play, which is much to be recommended to young people, especially to those who incline to be practical, and wish to look about in the world for themselves, could never, indeed, become a passion with me; for I never got any farther, no matter how long I might have been playing. Had any one given me a general view of the subject, and made me observe how here certain signs and more or less of chance form a kind of material, at which judgment and activity can exercise themselves; had any one made me see several games at once, — I might sooner have become reconciled. With all this, at the time of which I am now speaking, I had, from the above considerations, come to the conviction, that one should not avoid social games, but should rather strive after a certain skill in them. Time is infinitely long; and each day is a vessel into which a great deal may be poured, if one would actually fill it up.

Thus variously was I occupied in my solitude; the more so, as the departed spirits of the different tastes to which I had from time to time devoted myself had an opportunity to re-appear. I then again took up drawing: and as I always wished to labor directly from nature, or rather from reality, I made a picture of my chamber, with its furniture, and the persons who were in it; and, when this no more amused me, I represented all sorts of town-tales, which were told at the time, and in which interest was taken. All this was not without character and a certain taste; but unfortunately the figures lacked proportion and the proper vigor, besides which the execution was extremely misty. My father, who continued to take pleasure in these things, wished to have them more distinct, wanting every thing to be finished and properly completed. He therefore had them mounted and surrounded with ruled lines; nay, the painter Morgenstern, his domestic artist, — the same who afterwards made himself known, and indeed famous, by his church-views, — had to insert the perspective lines of the rooms and chambers, which then, indeed, stood in pretty harsh contrast with those cloudy looking figures. In this manner he thought he would make me gain greater accuracy; and, to please him, I drew various objects of still life, in which, since the originals stood as patterns before me, I could work with more distinctness and precision. At last I took it into my head to etch once more. I had composed a tolerably interesting landscape, and felt myself very happy when I could look out for the old receipts given me by Stock, and could, at my work, call to mind those pleasant times. I soon bit the plate and had a proof taken. Unluckily the composition was without light and shade, and I now tormented myself to bring in both; but, as it was not quite clear to me what was really the essential point, I could not finish. Up to this time I had been quite well, after my own fashion; but now a disease attacked me which had never troubled me before. My throat, namely, had become completely sore, and particularly what is called the “uvula” very much inflamed: I could only swallow with great pain, and the physicians did not know what to make of it. They tormented me with gargles and hair-pencils, but could not free me from my misery. At last it struck me that I had not been careful enough in the biting of my plates, and that, by often and passionately repeating it, I had contracted this disease, and always revived and increased it. To the physicians this cause was plausible, and very soon certain on my leaving my etching and biting, and that so much the more readily as the attempt had by no means turned out well, and I had more reason to conceal than to exhibit my labors; for which I consoled myself the more easily, as I very soon saw myself free from the troublesome disease. Upon this I could not refrain from the reflection, that my similar occupations at Leipzig might have greatly contributed to those diseases from which I had suffered so much. It is, indeed, a tedious, and withal a melancholy, business to take too much care of ourselves, and of what injures and benefits us; but there is no question but that, with the wonderful idiosyncrasy of human nature on the one side, and the infinite variety in the mode of life and pleasure on the other, it is a wonder that the human race has not worn itself out long ago. Human nature appears to possess a peculiar kind of toughness and many- sidedness, since it subdues every thing which approaches it, or which it takes into itself, and, if it cannot assimilate, at least makes it indifferent. In case of any great excess, indeed, it must yield to the elements in spite of all resistance, as the many endemic diseases and the effects of brandy convince us. Could we, without being morbidly anxious, keep watch over ourselves as to what operates favorably or unfavorably upon us in our complicated civil and social life, and would we leave off what is actually pleasant to us as an enjoyment, for the sake of the evil consequences, we should thus know how to remove with ease many an inconvenience which, with a constitution otherwise sound, often troubles us more than even a disease. Unfortunately, it is in dietetics as in morals, — we cannot see into a fault till we have got rid of it; by which nothing is gained, for the next fault is not like the preceding one, and therefore cannot be recognized under the same form.

While I was reading over the letters which had been written to my sister from Leipzig, this remark, among others, could not escape me, — that, from the very beginning of my academical course, I had esteemed myself very clever and wise, since, as soon as I had learned any thing, I put myself in the place of the professor, and so became didactic on the spot. I was amused to see how I had immediately applied to my sister whatever Gellert had imparted or advised in his lectures, without seeing, that, both in life and in books, a thing may be proper for a young man without being suitable for a young lady; and we both together made merry over these mimicries. The poems also which I had composed in Leipzig were already too poor for me; and they seemed to me cold, dry, and, in respect of all that was meant to express the state of the human heart or mind, too superficial. This induced me, now that I was to leave my father’s house once more, and go to a second university, again to decree a great high /auto-da-fé/ against my labors. Several commenced plays, some of which had reached the third or the fourth act, while others had only the plot fully made out, together with many other poems, letters, and papers, were given over to the fire: and scarcely any thing was spared except the manuscript by Behrisch, “Die Laune des Verliebten” and “Die Mitschuldigen,” which latter play I constantly went on improving with peculiar affection; and, as the piece was already complete, I again worked over the plot, to make it more bustling and intelligible. Lessing, in the first two acts of his “Minna,” had set up an unattainable model of the way in which a drama should be developed; and nothing was to me of greater importance than to thoroughly enter into his meaning and views.

The recital of whatever moved, excited, and occupied me at this time, is already circumstantial enough; but I must nevertheless recur to that interest with which supersensuous things had inspired me, of which I, once for all, so far as might be possible, undertook to form some notion.

I experienced a great influence from an important work that fell into my hands: it was Arnold’s “History of the Church and of Heretics.” This man is not merely a reflective historian, but at the same time pious and feeling. His sentiments chimed in very well with mine; and what particularly delighted me in his work was, that I received a more favorable notion of many heretics, who had been hitherto represented to me as mad or impious. The spirit of contradiction and the love of paradoxes are inherent in us all. I diligently studied the different opinions: and as I had often enough heard it said that every man has his own religion at last, so nothing seemed more natural to me than that I should form mine too; and this I did with much satisfaction. The Neo- Platonism lay at the foundation; the hermetical, the mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus I built for myself a world that looked strange enough.

I could well represent to myself a Godhead which has gone on producing itself from all eternity; but, as production cannot be conceived without multiplicity, so it must of necessity have immediately appeared to itself as a Second, which we recognize under the name of the Son: now, these two must continue the act of producing, and again appear to themselves in a Third, which was just as substantial, living, and eternal as the Whole. With these, however, the circle of the Godhead was complete; and it would not have been possible for them to produce another perfectly equal to them. But, since the work of production always proceeded, they created a fourth, which already fostered in himself a contradiction, inasmuch as it was, like them, unlimited, and yet at the same time was to be contained in them and bounded by them. Now, this was Lucifer, to whom the whole power of creation was committed from this time, and from whom all other beings were to proceed. He immediately displayed his infinite activity by creating the whole body of angels, — all, again, after his own likeness, unlimited, but contained in him and bounded by him. Surrounded by such a glory, he forgot his higher origin, and believed that he could find himself in himself; and from this first ingratitude sprang all that does not seem to us in accordance with the will and purposes of the Godhead. Now, the more he concentrated himself within himself, the more painful must it have become to him, as well as to all the spirits whose sweet uprising to their origin he had embittered. And so that happened which is intimated to us under the form of the Fall of the Angels. One part of them concentrated itself with Lucifer, the other turned itself again to its origin. From this concentration of the whole creation — for it had proceeded out of Lucifer, and was forced to follow him — sprang all that we perceive under the form of matter, which we figure to ourselves as heavy, solid, and dark, but which, since it is descended, if not even immediately, yet by filiation, from the Divine Being, is just as unlimited, powerful, and eternal as its sire and grandsire. Now, the whole mischief, if we may call it so, having arisen merely through the one-sided direction of Lucifer, the better half was indeed wanting to this creation; for it possessed all that is gained by concentration, while it lacked all that can be effected by expansion alone: and so the entire creation might have been destroyed by everlasting concentration, become annihilated with its father Lucifer, and have lost all its claims to an equal eternity with the Godhead. This condition the Elohim contemplated for a time: and they had their choice, to wait for those eons, in which the field would again have become clear, and space would be left them for a new creation; or, if they would, to seize upon that which existed already, and supply the want, according to their own eternity. Now, they chose the latter, and by their mere will supplied in an instant the whole want which the consequence of Lucifer’s undertaking drew after it. They gave to the Eternal Being the faculty of expansion, of moving towards them: the peculiar pulse of life was again restored, and Lucifer himself could not avoid its effects. This is the epoch when that appeared which we know as light, and when that began which we are accustomed to designate by the word creation. However much this multiplied itself by progressive degrees, through the continually working vital power of the Elohim, still a being was wanting who might be able to restore the original connection with the Godhead: and thus man was produced, who in all things was to be similar, yea, equal to the Godhead, but thereby, in effect, found himself once more in the situation of Lucifer, that of being at once unlimited and limited; and since this contradiction was to manifest itself in him through all the categories of existence, and a perfect consciousness, as well as a decided will, was to accompany his various conditions, it was to be foreseen that he must be at the same time the most perfect and the most imperfect, the most happy and the most unhappy, creature. It was not long before he, too, completely acted the part of Lucifer. True ingratitude is the separation from the benefactor; and thus that fall was manifest for the second time, although the whole creation is nothing and was nothing but a falling from and returning to the original.

One easily sees how the Redemption is not only decreed from eternity, but is considered as eternally necessary, — nay, that it must ever renew itself through the whole time of generation [Footnote: “Das Werden,” the state of becoming, as distinguished from that of being. The word, which is most useful to the Germans, can never be rendered properly in English. — TRANS.] and existence. In this view of the subject, nothing is more natural than for the Divinity himself to take the form of man, which had already prepared itself as a veil, and to share his fate for a short time, in order, by this assimilation, to enhance his joys and alleviate his sorrows. The history of all religions and philosophies teaches us, that this great truth, indispensable to man, has been handed down by different nations, in different times, in various ways, and even in strange fables and images, in accordance with their limited knowledge: enough, if it only be acknowledged that we find ourselves in a condition which, even if it seems to drag us down and oppress us, yet gives us opportunity, nay, even makes it our duty, to raise ourselves up, and to fulfil the purposes of the Godhead in this manner, that, while we are compelled on the one hand to concentrate ourselves (/uns zu verselbsten/), we, on the other hand, do not omit to expand ourselves (/uns zu entselbstigen/) in regular pulsation. [Footnote: If we could make use of some such verbs as “inself” and “unself,” we should more accurately render this passage. — TRANS.]

NINTH BOOK.

“The heart is often affected, moreover, to the advantage of different, but especially of social and refined, virtues; and the more tender sentiments are excited and unfolded in it. Many touches, in particular, will impress themselves, which give the young reader an insight into the more hidden corner of the human heart and its passions, — a knowledge which is more worth than all Latin and Greek, and of which Ovid was a very excellent master. But yet it is not on this account that the classic poets, and therefore Ovid, are placed in the hands of youth. We have received from a kind Creator a variety of mental powers, to which we must not neglect giving their proper culture in our earliest years, and which cannot be cultivated, either by logic or metaphysics, Latin or Greek. We have an imagination, before which, since it should not seize upon the very first conceptions that chance to present themselves, we ought to place the fittest and most beautiful images, and thus accustom and practise the mind to recognize and love the beautiful everywhere, and in nature itself, under its determined, true, and also in its finer, features. A multitude of conceptions and general knowledge is necessary to us, as well for the sciences as for daily life, which can be learned out of no compendium. Our feelings, affections, and passions should be advantageously developed and purified.”

This significant passage, which is found in “The Universal German Library,” was not the only one of its kind. Similar principles and similar views manifested themselves in many directions. They made upon us lively youths a very great impression, which had the more decided effect, as it was strengthened besides by Wieland’s example; for the works of his second brilliant period clearly showed that he had formed himself according to such maxims. And what more could we desire? Philosophy, with its abstruse questions, was set aside; the classic languages, the acquisition of which is accompanied by so much drudgery, one saw thrust into the background; the compendiums, about the sufficiency of which Hamlet had already whispered a word of caution into our ears, came more and more into suspicion. We were directed to the contemplation of an active life, which we were so fond of leading; and to the knowledge of the passions, which we partly felt, partly anticipated, in our own bosoms, and which, if though they had been rebuked formerly, now appeared to us as something important and dignified, because they were to be the chief object of our studies; and the knowledge of them was extolled as the most excellent means of cultivating our mental powers. Besides, such a mode of thought was quite in accordance with my own conviction, — nay, with my poetical mode of treatment. I therefore, without opposition, after I had thwarted so many good designs, and seen so many fair hopes vanish, reconciled myself to my father’s intention of sending me to Strasburg, where I was promised a cheerful, gay life, while I should prosecute my studies, and at last take my degree.

In spring I felt my health, but still more my youthful spirits, restored, and once more longed to be out of my father’s house, though with reasons far different from those on the first time. The pretty chambers and spots where I had suffered so much had become disagreeable to me, and with my father himself there could be no pleasant relation. I could not quite pardon him for having manifested more impatience than was reasonable at the relapse of my disease, and at my tedious recovery; nay, for having, instead of comforting me by forbearance, frequently expressed himself in a cruel manner, about that which lay in no man’s hand, as if it depended only on the will. And he, too, was in various ways hurt and offended by me.

For young people bring back from the university general ideas, which, indeed, is quite right and good; but, because they fancy themselves very wise in this, they apply them as a standard to the objects that occur, which must then, for the most part, lose by the comparison. Thus I had gained a general notion of architecture, and of the arrangement and decoration of houses, and imprudently, in conversation, had applied this to our own house. My father had designed the whole arrangement of it, and carried out its construction with great perseverance; and, considering that it was to be exclusively a residence for himself and his family, nothing could be objected to it: in this taste, also, very many of the houses in Frankfort were built. An open staircase ran up through the house, and touched upon large ante-rooms, which might very well have been chambers themselves, as, indeed, we always passed the fine season in them. But this pleasant, cheerful existence for a single family — this communication from above to below — became the greatest inconvenience as soon as several parties occupied the house, as we had but too well experienced on the occasion of the French quartering. For that painful scene with the king’s lieutenant would not have happened, nay, my father would even have felt all those disagreeable matters less, if, after the Leipzig fashion, our staircase had run close along the side of the house, and a separate door had been given to each story. This style of building I once praised highly for its advantages, and showed my father the possibility of altering his staircase also; whereat he got into an incredible passion, which was the more violent as, a short time before, I had found fault with some scrolled looking-glass frames, and rejected certain Chinese hangings. A scene ensued, which, indeed, was again hushed up and smothered; but it hastened my journey to the beautiful Alsace, which I accomplished in a newly contrived comfortable diligence, without delay, and in a short time.

I had alighted at the Ghost (/Geist/) tavern, and hastened at once to satisfy my most earnest desire and to approach the minster, which had long since been pointed out to me by fellow-travellers, and had been before my eyes for a great distance. When I first perceived this Colossus through the narrow lanes, and then stood too near before it, in the truly confined little square, it made upon me an impression quite of its own kind, which I, being unable to analyze on the spot, carried with me only indistinctly for this time, as I hastily ascended the building, so as not to neglect the beautiful moment of a high and cheerful sun, which was to disclose to me at once the broad, rich land.

And now, from the platform, I saw before me the beautiful country in which I should for a long time live and reside: the handsome city; the wide-spreading meadows around it, thickly set and interwoven with magnificent trees; that striking richness of vegetation which follows in the windings of the Rhine, marks its banks, islands, and aits. Nor is the level ground, stretching down from the south, and watered by the Iller, less adorned with varied green. Even westward, towards the mountains, there are many low grounds, which afford quite as charming a view of wood and meadow-growth, just as the northern and more hilly part is intersected by innumerable little brooks, which promote a rapid vegetation everywhere. If one imagines, between these luxuriantly outstretched meads, between these joyously scattered groves, all land adapted for tillage, excellently prepared, verdant, and ripening, and the best and richest spots marked by hamlets and farmhouses, and this great and immeasurable plain, prepared for man, like a new paradise, bounded far and near by mountains partly cultivated, partly overgrown with woods, he will then conceive the rapture with which I blessed my fate, that it had destined me, for some time, so beautiful a dwelling- place.

Such a fresh glance into a new land in which we are to abide for a time, has still the peculiarity, both pleasant and foreboding, that the whole lies before us like an unwritten tablet. As yet no sorrows and joys which relate to ourselves are recorded upon it; this cheerful, varied, animated plain is still mute for us; the eye is only fixed on the objects so far as they are intrinsically important, and neither affection nor passion has especially to render prominent this or that spot. But a presentiment of the future already disquiets the young heart; and an unsatisfied craving secretly demands that which is to come and may come, and which at all events, whether for good or ill, will imperceptibly assume the character of the spot in which we find ourselves.

Having descended the height, I still tarried a while before the face of the venerable pile; but what I could not quite clearly make out, either the first or the following time, was, that I regarded this miracle as a monster, which must have terrified me, if it had not, at the same time, appeared to me comprehensible by its regularity, and even pleasing in its finish. Yet I by no means busied myself with meditating on this contradiction, but suffered a monument so astonishing quietly to work upon me by its presence.

I took small, but well-situated and pleasant, lodgings, on the north side of the Fish-market, a fine, long street, where the everlasting motion came to the assistance of every unoccupied moment. I then delivered my letters of introduction, and found among my patrons a merchant, who, with his family, was devoted to those pious opinions sufficiently known to me, although, as far as regarded external worship, he had not separated from the Church. He was a man of intelligence withal, and by no means hypocritical in his conduct. The company of boarders which was recommended to me, and, indeed, I to it, was very agreeable and entertaining. A couple of old maids had long kept up this boarding-house with regularity and good success: there might have been about ten persons, older and younger. Of these latter, one named Meyer, a native of Lindau, is most vividly present to my mind. From his form and face he might have been considered one of the handsomest of men, if, at the same time, he had not had something of the sloven in his whole appearance. In like manner his splendid natural talents were marred by an incredible levity, and his excellent temper by an unbounded dissoluteness. He had an open, jovial face, rather more round than oval: the organs of the senses, the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, could be called rich; they showed a decided fulness, without being too large. His mouth was particularly charming, owing to his curling lips; and his whole physiognomy had the peculiar expression of a rake, from the circumstance that his eyebrows met across his nose, which, in a handsome face, always produces a pleasant expression of sensuality. By his jovialness, sincerity, and good nature, he made himself beloved by all. His memory was incredible; attention at the lectures was no effort for him; he retained all he heard, and was intellectual enough to take an interest in every thing, and this the more easily, as he was studying medicine. All his impressions remained vivid; and his waggery in repeating the lectures and mimicking the professors often went so far, that, when he had heard three different lectures in one morning, he would, at the dinner-table, interchange the professors with each other, paragraphwise, and often even more abruptly, which motley lecture frequently entertained us, but often, too, became troublesome.

The rest were more or less polite, steady, serious people. A pensioned knight of the order of St. Louis was one of these: but the majority were students, all really good and well-disposed; only they were not allowed to go beyond their usual allowance of wine. That this should not be easily done was the care of our president, one Doctor Salzmann. Already in the sixties and unmarried, he had attended this dinner-table for many years, and maintained its good order and respectability. He possessed a handsome property, kept himself close and neat in his exterior, even belonging to those who always go in shoes and stockings, and with their hat under their arm. To put on the hat was with him an extraordinary action. He commonly carried an umbrella, wisely reflecting that the finest summer-days often bring thunder-storms and passing showers over the country.

With this man I talked over my design of continuing to study jurisprudence at Strasburg, so as to be able to take my degree as soon as possible. Since he was exactly informed of every thing, I asked him about the lectures I should have to hear, and what he generally thought of the matter. To this he replied, that it was not in Strasburg as in the German universities, where they try to educate jurists in the large and learned sense of the term. Here, in conformity with the relation towards France, all was really directed to the practical, and managed in accordance with the opinions of the French, who readily stop at what is given. They tried to impart to every one certain general principles and preliminary knowledge, they compressed as much as possible, and communicated only what was most necessary. Hereupon he made me acquainted with a man, in whom, as a /repetent/, [Footnote: A repetent is one of a class of persons to be found in the German universities, and who assist students in their studies. They are somewhat analogous to the English tutors, but not precisely: for the latter render their aid /before/ the recitation; while the repetent /repeats/ with the student, in private, the lectures he has previously heard from the professor. Hence his name, which might be rendered /repeater/, had we any corresponding class of men in England or America, which would justify an English word. — /American Note/.] great confidence was entertained; which he very soon managed to gain from me also. By way of introduction, I began to speak with him on subjects of jurisprudence; and he wondered not a little at my swaggering: for, during my residence at Leipzig, I had gained more of an insight into the requisites for the law than I have hitherto taken occasion to state in my narrative, though all I had acquired could only be reckoned as a general encyclopedical survey, and not as proper definite knowledge. University life, even if in the course of it we may not exactly have to boast of industry, nevertheless affords endless advantages in every kind of cultivation, because we are always surrounded by men who either possess or are seeking science, so that, even if unconsciously, we are constantly drawing some nourishment from such an atmosphere.

My repetent, after he had had patience with my rambling discourse for some time, gave me at last to understand that I must first of all keep my immediate object in view, which was, to be examined, to take my degree, and then, perchance, to commence practice. “Regarding the former,” said he, “the subject is by no means investigated at large. It is inquired how and when a law arose, and what gave the internal or external occasion for it: there is no inquiry as to how it has been altered by time and custom, or how far it has perhaps been perverted by false interpretation or the perverted usage of the courts. It is in such investigations that learned men quite peculiarly spend their lives, whereas we inquire into that which exists at present: this we stamp firmly on our memory, that it may always be ready when we wish to employ it for the use and defence of our clients. Thus we qualify our young people for their future life, and the rest follows in proportion to their talents and activity.” Hereupon he handed me his pamphlets, which were written in question and answer, and in which I could have stood a pretty good examination at once; for Hopp’s smaller law-catechism was yet perfectly in my memory: the rest I supplied with some diligence, and, against my will, qualified myself in the easiest manner as a candidate.

But since in this way all my own activity in the study was cut off, — for I had no sense for any thing positive, but wished to have every thing explained historically, if not intelligibly, — I found for my powers a wider field, which I employed in the most singular manner by devoting myself to a matter of interest which was accidentally presented to me from without.

Most of my fellow-boarders were medical students. These, as is well known, are the only students who zealously converse about their science and profession, even out of the hours of study. This lies in the nature of the case. The objects of their endeavors are those most obvious to the senses, and at the same time the highest, the most simple, and the most complicated. Medicine employs the whole man, for it occupies itself with man as a whole. All that the young man learns refers directly to an important, dangerous indeed, but yet in many respects lucrative, practice. He therefore devotes himself passionately to whatever is to be known and to be done, partly because it is interesting in itself, partly because it opens to him the joyous prospect of independence and wealth.

At table, then, I heard nothing but medical conversations, just as formerly in the boarding-house of Hofrath Ludwig. In our walks and in our pleasure-parties likewise not much else was talked about: for my fellow-boarders, like good fellows, had also become my companions at other times; and they were always joined on all sides by persons of like minds and like studies. The medical faculty in general shone above the others, with respect both to the celebrity of the professors and the number of the students; and I was the more easily borne along by the stream, as I had just so much knowledge of all these things that my desire for science could soon be increased and inflamed. At the commencement of the second half-year, therefore, I attended Spielmann’s course on chemistry, another on anatomy by Lobstein, and proposed to be right industrious, because, by my singular preliminary or rather extra knowledge, I had already gained some respect and confidence in our society.

Yet this trifling and piecemeal way of study was even to be once more seriously disturbed; for a remarkable political event set every thing in motion, and procured us a tolerable succession of holidays. Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of France, was to pass through Strasburg on her road to Paris. The solemnities by which the people are made to take notice that there is greatness in the world were busily and abundantly prepared; and especially remarkable to me was the building which stood on an island in the Rhine between the two bridges, erected for her reception and for surrendering her into the hands of her husband’s ambassadors. It was but slightly raised above the ground; had in the centre a grand saloon, on each side smaller ones; then followed other chambers, which extended somewhat backward. In short, had it been more durably built, it might have answered very well as a pleasure-house for persons of rank. But that which particularly interested me, and for which I did not grudge many a /büsel/ (a little silver coin then current) in order to procure a repeated entrance from the porter, was the embroidered tapestry with which they had lined the whole interior. Here, for the first time, I saw a specimen of those tapestries worked after Raffaelle’s cartoons; and this sight was for me of very decided influence, as I became acquainted with the true and the perfect on a large scale, though only in copies. I went and came, and came and went, and could not satiate myself with looking; nay, a vain endeavor troubled me, because I would willingly have comprehended what interested me in so extraordinary a manner. I found these side-chambers highly delightful and refreshing, but the chief saloon so much the more shocking. This had been hung with many larger, more brilliant and richer, hangings, which were surrounded with crowded ornaments, worked after pictures by the modern French.

Now, I might perhaps have become reconciled to this style also, as my feelings, like my judgment, did not readily reject any thing entirely; but the subject was excessively revolting to me. These pictures contained the history of Jason, Medea, and Creusa, and therefore an example of the most unhappy marriage. To the left of the throne was seen the bride struggling with the most horrible death, surrounded by persons full of sympathizing woe; to the right was the father, horrified at the murdered babes before his feet; whilst the Fury, in her dragon-car, drove along into the air. And, that the horrible and atrocious should not lack something absurd, the white tail of that magic bull flourished out on the right hand from behind the red velvet of the gold-embroidered back of the throne; while the fire-spitting beast himself, and the Jason who was fighting with him, were completely covered by the sumptuous drapery.

Here all the maxims which I had made my own in Oeser’s school were stirring within my bosom. It was without proper selection and judgment, to begin with, that Christ and the apostles were brought into the side- halls of a nuptial building; and doubtless the size of the chambers had guided the royal tapestry-keeper. This, however, I willingly forgave, because it had turned out so much to my advantage; but a blunder like that in the grand saloon put me altogether out of my self-possession, and with animation and vehemence I called on my comrades to witness such a crime against taste and feeling. “What!” cried I, without regarding the by-standers, “is it permitted so thoughtlessly to place before the eyes of a young queen, at her first setting foot in her dominions, the representation of the most horrible marriage that perhaps ever was consummated? Is there among the French architects, decorators, upholsterers, not a single man who understands that pictures represent something, that pictures work upon the mind and feelings, that they make impressions, that they excite forebodings? It is just the same as if they had sent the most ghastly spectre to meet this beauteous and pleasure-loving lady at the very frontiers!” I know not what I said besides: enough, my comrades tried to quiet me and to remove me out of the house, that there might be no offence. They then assured me that it was not everybody’s concern to look for significance in pictures; that to themselves, at least, nothing of the sort would have occurred; while the whole population of Strasburg and the vicinity, which was to throng thither, would no more take such crotchets into their heads than the queen herself and her court.

I yet remember well the beauteous and lofty mien, as cheerful as it was imposing, of this youthful lady. Perfectly visible to us all in her glass carriage, she seemed to be jesting with her female attendants, in familiar conversation, about the throng that poured forth to meet her train. In the evening we roamed through the streets to look at the various illuminated buildings, but especially the glowing spire of the minster, with which, both near and in the distance, we could not sufficiently feast our eyes.

The queen pursued her way: the country people dispersed, and the city was soon quiet as ever. Before the queen’s arrival, the very reasonable regulation had been made, that no deformed persons, no cripples nor disgusting invalids, should show themselves on her route. People joked about this; and I made a little French poem in which I compared the advent of Christ, who seemed to wander upon earth particularly on account of the sick and the lame, with the arrival of the queen, who scared these unfortunates away. My friends let it pass: a Frenchman, on the contrary, who lived with us, criticised the language and metre very unmercifully, although, as it seemed, with too much foundation; and I do not remember that I ever made a French poem afterwards.

No sooner had the news of the queen’s happy arrival rung from the capital, than it was followed by the horrible intelligence, that, owing to an oversight of the police during the festal fireworks, an infinite number of persons, with horses and carriages, had been destroyed in a street obstructed by building materials, and that the city, in the midst of the nuptial solemnities, had been plunged into mourning and sorrow. They attempted to conceal the extent of the misfortune, both from the young royal pair and from the world, by burying the dead in secret; so that many families were convinced only by the ceaseless absence of their members that they, too, had been swept off by this awful event. That, on this occasion, those ghastly figures in the grand saloon again came vividly before my mind, I need scarcely mention; for every one knows how powerful certain moral impressions are when they embody themselves, as it were, in those of the senses.

This occurrence was, however, destined moreover to place my friends in anxiety and trouble by means of a prank in which I indulged. Among us young people who had been at Leipzig, there had been maintained ever afterwards a certain itch for imposing on and in some way mystifying one another. With this wanton love of mischief I wrote to a friend in Frankfort (he was the one who had amplified my poem on the cake-baker Hendel, applied it to /Medon/, and caused its general circulation) a letter dated from Versailles, in which I informed him of my happy arrival there, my participation in the solemnities, and other things of the kind, but at the same time enjoined the strictest secrecy. I must here remark, that, from the time of that trick which had caused us so much annoyance, our little Leipzig society had accustomed itself to persecute him from time to time with mystifications, and this especially as he was the drollest man in the world, and was never more amiable than when he was discovering the cheat into which he had deliberately been led. Shortly after I had written this letter, I went on a little journey, and remained absent about a fortnight. Meanwhile the news of that disaster had reached Frankfort: my friend believed me in Paris, and his affection led him to apprehend that I might have been involved in the calamity. He inquired of any parents and other persons to whom I was accustomed to write, whether any letters had arrived; and, as it was just at the time when my journey kept me from sending any, they were altogether wanting. He went about in the greatest uneasiness, and at last told the matter in confidence to our nearest friends, who were now in equal anxiety. Fortunately this conjecture did not reach my parents until a letter had arrived announcing my return to Strasburg. My young friends were satisfied to learn that I was alive, but remained firmly convinced that I had been at Paris in the interim. The affectionate intelligence of the solicitude they had felt on my account affected me so much that I vowed to leave off such tricks forever; but, unfortunately, I have often since allowed myself to be guilty of something similar. Real life frequently loses its brilliancy to such a degree, that one is many a time forced to polish it up again with the varnish of fiction.

This mighty stream of courtly magnificence had now flowed by, and had left in me no other longing than after those tapestries of Raffaelle, which I would willingly have gazed at, revered, nay, adored, every day and every hour. Fortunately, my passionate endeavors succeeded in interesting several persons of consequence in them, so that they were taken down and packed up as late as possible. We now gave ourselves up again to our quiet, easy routine of the university and society; and in the latter the Actuary Salzmann, president of our table, continued to be the general pedagogue. His intelligence, complaisance, and dignity, which he always contrived to maintain amid all the jests, and often even in the little extravagances, which he allowed us, made him beloved and respected by the whole company; and I could mention but few instances where he showed his serious displeasure, or interposed with authority in little quarrels and disputes. Yet among them all I was the one who most attached myself to him; and he was not less inclined to converse with me, as he found me more variously accomplished than the others, and not so one-sided in judgment. I also followed his directions in external matters; so that he could, without hesitation, publicly acknowledge me as his companion and comrade: for, although he only filled an office which seems to be of little influence, he administered it in a manner which redounded to his highest honor. He was actuary to the Court of Wards (/Pupillen-Collegium/); and there, indeed, like the perpetual secretary of a university, he had, properly speaking, the management of affairs in his own hands. Now, as he had performed the duties of this office with the greatest exactness for many years, there was no family, from the first to the last, which did not owe him its gratitude; as indeed scarcely any one in the whole administration of government can earn more blessings or more curses than one who takes charge of the orphans, or, on the contrary, squanders or suffers to be squandered their property and goods.

The Strasburgers are passionate walkers, and they have a good right to be so. Let one turn his steps as he will, he will find pleasure-grounds, partly natural, partly adorned by art in ancient and modern times, all of them visited and enjoyed by a cheerful, merry little people. But what made the sight of a great number of pedestrians still more agreeable here than in other places, was the various costume of the fair sex. The middle class of city girls yet retained the hair twisted up and secured by a large pin, as well as a certain close style of dress, in which any thing like a train would have been unbecoming: and the pleasant part of it was, that this costume did not differ violently according to the rank of the wearer; for there were still some families of opulence and distinction who would not permit their daughters to deviate from this costume. The rest followed the French fashion, and this party made some proselytes every year. Salzmann had many acquaintances and an entrance everywhere: a very pleasant circumstance for his companion, especially in summer, for good company and refreshment were found in all the public gardens far and near, and more than one invitation for this or that pleasant day was received. On one such occasion I found an opportunity to recommend myself very rapidly to a family which I was visiting for only the second time. We were invited, and arrived at the appointed hour. The company was not large: some played and some walked as usual. Afterwards, when they were to go to supper, I saw our hostess and her sister speaking to each other with animation, and as if in a peculiar embarrassment. I accosted them, and said, “I have indeed no right, ladies, to force myself into your secrets; but perhaps I may be able to give you good counsel, or even to serve you.” Upon this they disclosed to me their painful dilemma; namely, that they had invited twelve persons to table, and that just at that moment a relation had returned from a journey, who now, as the thirteenth, would be a fatal /memento mori/, if not for himself, yet certainly for some of the guests. “The case is very easily mended,” replied I: “permit me to take my leave, and stipulate for indemnification.” As they were persons of consequence and good breeding, they would by no means allow this, but sent about in the neighborhood to find a fourteenth. I suffered them to do so; yet when I saw the servant coming in at the garden-gate without having effected his errand, I stole away and spent my evening pleasantly under the old linden-trees of the Wanzenau. That this self-denial was richly repaid me was a very natural consequence.

A certain kind of general society is not to be thought of without card- playing. Salzmann renewed the good instructions of Madame Böhme; and I was the more docile as I had really seen, that by this little sacrifice, if it be one, one may procure one’s self much pleasure, and even a greater freedom in society than one would otherwise enjoy. The old piquet, which had gone to sleep, was again looked out; I learned whist; I made myself, according to the directions of my Mentor, a card-purse, which was to remain untouched under all circumstances; and I now found opportunity to spend most of my evenings with my friend in the best circles, where, for the most part, they wished me well, and pardoned many a little irregularity, to which, nevertheless, my friend, though kindly enough, used to call my attention.

But that I might experience symbolically how much one, even in externals, has to adapt one’s self to society, and direct one’s self according to it, I was compelled to something which seemed to me the most disagreeable thing in the world. I had really very fine hair; but my Strasburg hair-dresser at once assured me that it was cut much too short behind, and that it would be impossible to make a /frizure/ of it in which I could show myself, since nothing but a few short curls in front were decreed lawful; and all the rest, from the crown, must be tied up in a cue or a hair-bag. Nothing was left but to put up with false hair till the natural growth was again restored according to the demands of the time. He promised me that nobody should ever remark this innocent deception (against which I objected at first very earnestly), if I could resolve upon it immediately. He kept his word, and I was always looked upon as the young man who had the best and the best- dressed head of hair. But as I was obliged to remain thus propped up and powdered from early morning, and at the same time to take care not to betray my false ornament by heating myself or by violent motions, this restraint in fact contributed much to my behaving for a time more quietly and politely, and accustomed me to going with my hat under my arm, and consequently in shoes and stockings also; however I did not venture to neglect wearing understockings of fine leather, as a defence against the Rhine gnats, which, on the fine summer evenings, generally spread themselves over the meadows and gardens. Under these circumstances, violent bodily motion being denied me, our social conversations grew more and more animated and impassioned; indeed, they were the most interesting in which I had hitherto ever borne part.

With my way of feeling and thinking, it cost me nothing to let every one pass for what he was, — nay, for that which he wished to pass for; and thus the frankness of a fresh, youthful heart, which manifested itself almost for the first time in its full bloom, made me many friends and adherents. Our company of boarders increased to about twenty persons; and, as Salzmann kept up his accustomed order, every thing continued in its old routine, — nay, the conversation was almost more decorous, as every one had to be on his guard before several. Among the new-comers was a man who particularly interested me: his name was Jung, the same who afterwards became known under the name of Stilling. In spite of an antiquated dress, his form had something delicate about it, with a certain sturdiness. A bag-wig did not disfigure his significant and pleasing countenance. His voice was mild, without being soft and weak: it became even melodious and powerful as soon as his ardor was roused, which was very easily done. On becoming better acquainted with him, one found in him a sound common sense, which rested on feeling, and therefore took its tone from the affections and passions; and from this very feeling sprang an enthusiasm for the good, the true, and the just, in the greatest possible purity. For the course of this man’s life had been very simple, and yet crowded with events and with manifold activity. The element of his energy was indestructible faith in God, and in an assistance flowing immediately from him, which evidently manifested itself in an uninterrupted providence, and in an unfailing deliverance out of all troubles and from every evil. Jung had made many such experiences in his life, and they had often been repeated of late in Strasburg: so that, with the greatest cheerfulness, he led a life frugal indeed, but free from care, and devoted himself most earnestly to his studies; although he could not reckon upon any certain subsistence from one quarter to another. In his youth, when on a fair way to become a charcoal-burner, he took up the trade of a tailor; and after he had instructed himself, at the same time, in higher matters, his knowledge- loving mind drove him to the occupation of schoolmaster. This attempt failed; and he returned to his trade, from which, however, since every one felt for him confidence and affection, he was repeatedly called away, again to take a place as private tutor. But for his most internal and peculiar training he had to thank that wide-spread class of men who sought out their salvation on their own responsibility, and who, while they strove to edify themselves by reading the Scriptures and good books, and by mutual exhortation and confession, thereby attained a degree of cultivation which must excite surprise. For while the interest which always accompanied them and which maintained them in fellowship rested on the simplest foundation of morality, well-wishing and well- doing, the deviations which could take place with men of such limited circumstances were of little importance; and hence their consciences, for the most part, remained clear, and their minds commonly cheerful: so there arose no artificial, but a truly natural, culture, which yet had this advantage over others, that it was suitable to all ages and ranks, and was generally social by its nature. For this reason, too, these persons were, in their own circle, truly eloquent, and capable of expressing themselves appropriately and pleasingly on all the tenderest and best concerns of the heart. Now, good Jung was in this very case. Among a few persons, who, if not exactly like-minded with himself, did not declare themselves averse from his mode of thought, he was found, not only talkative but eloquent: in particular, he related the history of his life in the most delightful manner, and knew how to make all the circumstances plainly and vividly present to his listeners. I persuaded him to write them down, and he promised to do so. But because, in his way of expressing himself, he was like a somnambulist, who must not be called by name lest he should fall from his elevation, or like a gentle stream, to which one dare oppose nothing lest it should foam, he was often constrained to feel uncomfortable in a more numerous company. His faith tolerated no doubt, and his conviction no jest. “While in friendly communication he was inexhaustible, every thing came to a standstill with him when he met with contradiction. I usually helped him through on such occasions, for which he repaid me with honest affection. Since his mode of thought was nothing strange to me, but on the contrary I had already become accurately acquainted with it in my very best friends of both sexes; and since, moreover, it generally interested me with its naturalness and /na véte/, — he found himself on the very best terms with me. The bent of his intellect was pleasing to me; nor did I meddle with his faith in miracles, which was so useful to him. Salzmann likewise behaved towards him with forbearance, — I say with forbearance, for Salzmann, in conformity with his character, his natural disposition, his age arid circumstances, could not but stand and continue on the side of the rational, or rather the common-sense, Christians, whose religion properly rested on the rectitude of their characters, and a manly independence, and who therefore did not like to meddle or have any thing to do with feelings which might easily have led them into gloom, or with mysticism, which might easily have led them into the dark. This class, too, was respectable and numerous: all men of honor and capacity understood each other, and were of the like persuasion, as well as of the same mode of life. Lerse, likewise our fellow-boarder, also belonged to this number: a perfectly upright young man, and, with limited gifts of fortune, frugal and exact. His manner of life and housekeeping was the closest I ever knew among students. He was, of us all, the most neatly dressed, and yet always appeared in the same clothes; but he managed his wardrobe with the greatest care, kept every thing about him clean, and required all things in ordinary life to go according to his example. He never happened to lean anywhere, or to prop his elbow on the table; he never forgot to mark his table-napkin; and the maid always had a bad time of it when the chairs were not found perfectly clean. With all this, he had nothing stiff in his exterior. He spoke cordially, with precise and dry liveliness, in which a light ironical joke was very becoming. In figure he was well built, slender, and of fair height: his face was pock-pitted and homely, his little blue eyes cheerful and penetrating. As he had cause to tutor us in so many respects, we let him be our fencing-master besides, for he drew a very fine rapier; and it seemed to give him sport to play off upon us, on this occasion, all the pedantry of this profession. Moreover, we really profited by him, and had to thank him for many sociable hours, which he induced us to spend in good exercise and practice.

By all these peculiarities, Lerse completely qualified himself for the office of arbitrator and umpire in all the small and great quarrels which happened, though but rarely, in our circle, and which Salzmann could not hush up in his fatherly way. Without the external forms, which do so much mischief in universities, we represented a society bound together by circumstances and good feeling, which others might occasionally touch, but into which they could not intrude. Now, in his judgment of internal piques, Lerse always showed the greatest impartiality; and, when the affair could no longer be settled by words and explanations, he knew how to conduct the desired satisfaction, in an honorable way, to a harmless issue. In this no man was more clever than he: indeed, he often used to say, that since heaven had destined him for a hero neither in war nor in love, he would be content, both in romances and fighting, with the part of second. Since he remained the same throughout, and might be regarded as a true model of a good and steady disposition, the conception of him stamped itself as deeply as amiably upon me; and, when I wrote “Götz von Berlichingen,” I felt myself induced to set up a memorial of our friendship, and to give the gallant fellow, who knew how to subordinate himself in so dignified a manner, the name of Franz Lerse.

While, by his constant humorous dryness, he continued ever to remind us of what one owed to one’s self and to others, and how one ought to behave in order to live at peace with men as long as possible, and thus gain a certain position towards them, I had to fight, both inwardly and outwardly, with quite different circumstances and adversaries, being at strife with myself, with the objects around me, and even with the elements. I was then in a state of health which furthered me sufficiently in all that I would and should undertake; only there was a certain irritability left behind, which did not always let me be in equilibrium. A loud sound was disagreeable to me, diseased objects awakened in me loathing and horror. But I was especially troubled with a giddiness which came over me every time I looked down from a height. All these infirmities I tried to remedy, and, indeed, as I wished to lose no time, in a somewhat violent way. In the evening, when they beat the tattoo, I went near the multitude of drums, the powerful rolling and beating of which might have made one’s heart burst in one’s bosom. All alone I ascended the highest pinnacle of the minster spire, and sat in what is called the neck, under the nob or crown, for a quarter of an hour, before I would venture to step out again into the open air, where, standing upon a platform scarce an ell square, without any particular holding, one sees the boundless prospect before; while the nearest objects and ornaments conceal the church, and every thing upon and above which one stands. It is exactly as if one saw one’s self carried up into the air in a balloon. Such troublesome and painful sensations I repeated until the impression became quite indifferent to me; and I have since then derived great advantage from this training, in mountain travels and geological studies, and on great buildings, where I have vied with the carpenters in running over the bare beams and the cornices of the edifice, and even in Rome, where one must run similar risks to obtain a nearer view of important works of art. Anatomy, also, was of double value to me, as it taught me to endure the most repulsive sights, while I satisfied my thirst for knowledge. And thus I also attended the clinical course of the elder Dr. Ehrmann, as well as the lectures of his son on obstetrics, with the double view of becoming acquainted with all conditions, and of freeing myself from all apprehension as to repulsive things. And I have actually succeeded so far, that nothing of this kind could ever put me out of my self-possession. But I endeavored to harden myself, not only against these impressions on the senses, but also against the infections of the imagination. The awful and shuddering impressions of the darkness in churchyards, solitary places, churches, and chapels by night, and whatever may be connected with them, I contrived to render likewise indifferent; and in this, also, I went so far that day and night, and every locality, were quite the same to me: so that even when, in later times, a desire came over me once more to feel in such scenes the pleasing shudder of youth, I could hardly compel this, in any degree, by calling up the strangest and most fearful images.

In my efforts to free myself from the pressure of the too gloomy and powerful, which continued to rule within me, and seemed to me sometimes as strength, sometimes as weakness, I was thoroughly assisted by that open, social, stirring manner of life, which attracted me more and more, to which I accustomed myself, and which I at last learned to enjoy with perfect freedom. It is not difficult to remark in the world, that man feels himself most freely and most perfectly rid of his own feelings when he represents to himself the faults of others, and expatiates upon them with complacent censoriousness. It is a tolerably pleasant sensation even to set ourselves above our equals by disapprobation and misrepresentation; for which reason good society, whether it consists of few or many, is most delighted with it. But nothing equals the comfortable self-complacency, when we erect ourselves into judges of our superiors, and of those who are set over us, — of princes and statesmen, — when we find public institutions unfit and injudicious, only consider the possible and actual obstacles, and recognize neither the greatness of the invention, nor the co-operation which is to be expected from time and circumstances in every undertaking.

Whoever remembers the condition of the French kingdom, and is accurately and circumstantially acquainted with it from later writings, will easily figure to himself how, at that time, in the Alsatian semi-France, people used to talk about the king and his ministers, about the court and court-favorites. These were new subjects for my love of instructing myself, and very welcome ones to my pertness and youthful conceit. I observed every thing accurately, noted it down industriously; and I now see, from the little that is left, that such accounts, although only put together on the moment, out of fables and uncertain general rumors, always have a certain value in after-times, because they serve to confront and compare the secret made known at last with what was then already discovered and public, and the judgments of contemporaries, true or false, with the convictions of posterity.

Striking, and daily before the eyes of us street-loungers, was the project for beautifying the city; the execution of which according to draughts and plans, began in the strangest fashion to pass from sketches and plans into reality. Intendant Gayot had undertaken to new-model the angular and uneven lanes of Strasburg, and to lay the foundations of a respectable, handsome city, regulated by line and level. Upon this, Blondel, a Parisian architect, drew a plan, by which an hundred and forty householders gained in room, eighty lost, and the rest remained in their former condition. This plan accepted, but not to be put into execution at once, now, should in course of time have been approaching completion; and, meanwhile, the city oddly enough wavered between form and formlessness. If, for instance, a crooked side of a street was to be straightened, the first man who felt disposed to build moved forward to the appointed line, perhaps, too, his next neighbor, but perhaps, also, the third or fourth resident from him; by which projections the most awkward recesses were left, like front court-yards, before the houses in the background. They would not use force, yet without compulsion they would never have got on: on which account no man, when his house was once condemned, ventured to improve or replace any thing that related to the street. All these strange accidental inconveniences gave to us rambling idlers the most welcome opportunity of practising our ridicule; of making proposals, in the manner of Behrisch, for accelerating the completion, and of constantly doubting the possibility of it, although many a newly erected handsome building should have brought us to other thoughts. How far that project was advanced by the length of time, I cannot say.

Another subject on which the Protestant Strasburgers liked to converse was the expulsion of the Jesuits. These fathers, as soon as the city had fallen to the share of the French, had made their appearance and sought a /domicilium/. But they soon extended themselves and built a magnificent college, which bordered so closely on the minster that the back of the church covered a third part of its front. It was to be a complete quadrangle, and have a garden in the middle: three sides of it were finished. It is of stone, and solid, like all the buildings of these fathers. That the Protestants were pushed hard, if not oppressed by them, lay in the plan of the society which made it a duty to restore the old religion in its whole compass. Their fall, therefore, awakened the greatest satisfaction in the opposite party; and people saw, not without pleasure, how they sold their wines, carried away their books: and the building was assigned to another, perhaps less active, order. How glad are men when they get rid of an opponent, or only of a guardian! and the herd does not reflect, that, where there is no dog, it is exposed to wolves.

Now, since every city must have its tragedy, at which children and children’s children shudder; so in Strasburg frequent mention was made of the unfortunate Praetor Klingling, who, after he had mounted the highest step of earthly felicity, ruled city and country with almost absolute power, and enjoyed all that wealth, rank, and influence could afford, had at last lost the favor of the court, and was dragged up to answer for all in which he had been indulged hitherto, — nay, was even thrown into prison, where, more than seventy years old, he died an ambiguous death.

This and other tales, that knight of St. Louis, our fellow-boarder, knew how to tell with passion and animation; for which reason I was fond of accompanying him in his walks, unlike the others, who avoided such invitations, and left me alone with him. As with new acquaintances I generally took my ease for a long time without thinking much about them or the effect which they were exercising upon me, so I only remarked gradually that his stories and opinions rather unsettled and confused than instructed and enlightened me. I never knew what to make of him, although the riddle might easily have been solved. He belonged to the many to whom life offers no results, and who, therefore, from first to last, exert themselves on individual objects. Unfortunately he had with this a decided desire, nay, even passion, for meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may be regarded as a mental disease. To such a fixed view he always came back again, and was thus in the long run excessively tiresome. He would bitterly complain of the decline of his memory, especially with regard to the latest events, and maintained, by a logic of his own, that all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary, from forgetfulness. This doctrine he contrived to carry out with much acuteness; as, indeed, any thing may be maintained when one has no compunction to use words altogether vaguely, and to employ and apply them in a sense now wider, now narrower, now closer, now more remote.

At first it was amusing to hear him; nay, his persuasiveness even astonished us. We fancied we were standing before a rhetorical sophist, who for jest and practice knew how to give a fair appearance to the strangest things. Unfortunately this first impression became blunted but too soon; for at the end of every discourse, manage the thing as I would, the man came back again to the same theme. He was not to be held fast to older events, although they interested him, — although he had them present to his mind with their minutest circumstances. Indeed, he was often, by a small circumstance, snatched out of the middle of a wild historical narrative, and thrust into his detestable favorite thought.

One of our afternoon walks was particularly unfortunate in this respect: the account of it may stand here instead of similar cases, which might weary if not vex the reader.

On the way through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who, by her beggings and importunities, disturbed him in his story. “Pack yourself off, old witch!” said he, and walked by. She shouted after him the well-known retort, — only somewhat changed, since she saw well that the unfriendly man was old himself, — ”If you did not wish to be old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!” He turned round violently, and I feared a scene. “Hanged cried he, “have myself hanged! No: that could not have been, — I was too honest a fellow for that; but hang myself — hang up my own self — that is true — that I should have done: I should have turned a charge of powder against myself, that I might not live to see that I am not even worth that any more.” The woman stood as if petrified; but he continued, “You have said a great truth, witch- mother; and, as they have neither drowned nor burned you yet, you shall be paid for your proverb.” He handed her a /büsel/, a coin not usually given to a beggar.

We had crossed over the first Rhine-bridge, and were going to the inn where we meant to stop; and I was trying to lead him back to our previous conversation, when, unexpectedly, a very pretty girl met us on the pleasant foot-path, remained standing before us, bowed prettily, and cried, “Eh, eh, captain, where are you going?” and, whatever else is usually said on such an occasion. “Mademoiselle,” replied he, somewhat embarrassed, “I know not” — ”How?” said she, with graceful astonishment, “do you forget your friends so soon?” The word “forget” fretted him: he shook his head and replied, peevishly enough, “Truly, mademoiselle, I did not know!” — She now retorted with some humor, yet very temperately, “Take care, captain: I may mistake you another time!” And so she hurried past, taking huge strides, without looking round. At once my fellow- traveller struck his forehead with both his fists: “Oh, what an ass I am!” exclaimed he, “what an old ass I am! Now, you see whether I am right or not.” And then, in a very violent manner, he went on with his usual sayings and opinions, in which this case still more confirmed him. I can not and would not repeat what a philippic discourse he held against himself. At last he turned to me, and said, “I call you to witness! You remember that small-ware woman at the corner, who is neither young nor pretty? I salute her every time we pass, and often exchange a couple of friendly words with her; and yet it is thirty years ago since she was gracious to me. But now I swear it is not four weeks since this young lady showed herself more complaisant to me than was reasonable; and yet I will not recognize her, but insult her in return for her favors! Do I not always say, that ingratitude is the greatest of vices, and no man would be ungrateful if he were not forgetful?”

We went into the inn; and nothing but the tippling, swarming crowd in the ante-rooms stopped the invectives which he rattled off against himself and his contemporaries. He was silent, and I hoped pacified, when we stepped into an upper chamber, where we found a young man pacing up and down alone, whom the captain saluted by name. I was pleased to become acquainted with him; for the old fellow had said much good of him to me, and had told me that this young man, being employed in the war- bureau, had often disinterestedly done him very good service when the pensions were stopped. I was glad that the conversation took a general turn; and, while we were carrying it on, we drank a bottle of wine. But here, unluckily, another infirmity which my knight had in common with obstinate men developed itself. For as, on the whole, he could not get rid of that fixed notion; so did he stick fast to a disagreeable impression of the moment, and suffer his feelings to run on without moderation. His last vexation about himself had not yet died away; and now was added something new, although of quite a different kind. He had not long cast his eyes here and there before he noticed on the table a double portion of coffee, and two cups, and might besides, being a man of gallantry, have traced some other indication that the young man had not been so solitary all the time. And scarcely had the conjecture arisen in his mind, and ripened into a probability, that the pretty girl had been paying a visit here, than the most outrageous jealousy added itself to that first vexation, so as completely to perplex him.

Now, before I could suspect any thing, — for I had hitherto been conversing quite harmlessly with the young man, — the captain, in an unpleasant tone, which I well knew, began to be satirical about the pair of cups, and about this and that. The young man, surprised, tried to turn it off pleasantly and sensibly, as is the custom among men of good breeding: but the old fellow continued to be unmercifully rude; so that there was nothing left for the other to do but to seize his hat and cane, and at his departure to leave behind him a pretty unequivocal challenge. The fury of the captain now burst out the more vehemently, as he had in the interim drunk another bottle of wine almost by himself. He struck the table with his fist, and cried more than once, “I will strike him dead!” It was not, however, meant quite so badly as it sounded; for he often used this phrase when any one opposed or otherwise displeased him. Just as unexpectedly the business grew worse on our return; for I had the want of foresight to represent to him his ingratitude towards the young man, and to remind him how strongly he had praised to me the ready obligingness of this official person. No! such rage of a man against himself I never saw again: it was the most passionate conclusion to that beginning to which the pretty girl had given occasion. Here I saw sorrow and repentance carried into caricature, and, as all passion supplies the place of genius, to a point really genius-like. He then went over all the incidents of our afternoon ramble again, employed them rhetorically for his own self-reproach, brought up the old witch at last before him once more, and perplexed himself to such a degree, that I could not help fearing he would throw himself into the Rhine. Could I have been sure of fishing him out again quickly, like Mentor his Telemachus, he might have made the leap; and I should have brought him home cooled down for this occasion.

I immediately confided the affair to Lerse; and we went the next morning to the young man, whom my friend in his dry way set laughing. We agreed to bring about an accidental meeting, where a reconciliation should take place of itself. The drollest thing about it was, that this time the captain, too, had slept off his rudeness, and found himself ready to apologize to the young man, to whom petty quarrels were of some consequence. All was arranged in one morning; and, as the affair had not been kept quite secret, I did not escape the jokes of my friends, who might have foretold me, from their own experience, how troublesome the friendship of the captain could become upon occasion.

But now, while I am thinking what should be imparted next, there comes again into my thoughts, by a strange play of memory, that reverend minster-building, to which in those days I devoted particular attention, and which, in general, constantly presents itself to the eye, both in the city and in the country.

The more I considered the /façade/, the more was that first impression strengthened and developed, that here the sublime has entered into alliance with the pleasing. If the vast, when it appears as a mass before us, is not to terrify; if it is not to confuse, when we seek to investigate its details, — it must enter into an unnatural, apparently impossible, connection, it must associate to itself the pleasing. But now, since it will be impossible for us to speak of the impression of the minster except by considering both these incompatible qualities as united, so do we already see, from this, in what high value we must hold this ancient monument; and we begin in earnest to describe how such contradictory elements could peaceably interpenetrate and unite themselves.

First of all, without thinking of the towers, we devote out considerations to the /façade/ alone, which powerfully strikes the eye as an upright, oblong parallelogram. If we approach it at twilight, in the moonshine, on a starlight night, when the parts appear more or less indistinct and at last disappear, we see only a colossal wall, the height of which bears an advantageous proportion to the breadth. If we view it by day, and by the power of the mind abstract from the details, we recognize the front of a building which not only encloses the space within, but also covers much in its vicinity. The openings of this monstrous surface point to internal necessities, and according to these we can at once divide it into nine compartments. The great middle door, which opens into the nave of the church, first meets the eye. On both sides of it lie two smaller ones, belonging to the cross-ways. Over the chief door our glance falls upon the wheel-shaped window, which is to spread an awe-inspiring light within the church and its vaulted arches. At its sides appear two large, perpendicular, oblong openings, which form a striking contrast with the middle one, and indicate that they belong to the base of the rising towers. In the third story are three openings in a row, which are designed for belfries and other church necessities. Above them one sees the whole horizontally closed by the balustrade of the gallery, instead of a cornice. These nine spaces described are supported, enclosed, and separated into three great perpendicular divisions by four pillars rising up from the ground.

Now, as it cannot be denied that there is in the whole mass a fine proportion of height to breadth, so also in the details it maintains a somewhat uniform lightness by means of these pillars and the narrow compartments between them.

But if we adhere to our abstraction, and imagine to ourselves this immense wall without ornaments, with firm buttresses, with the necessary openings in it, but only so far as necessity requires them, we even then must allow that these chief divisions are in good proportion: thus the whole will appear solemn and noble indeed, but always heavily unpleasant, and, being without ornament, unartistical. For a work of art, the whole of which is conceived in great, simple, harmonious parts, makes indeed a noble and dignified impression; but the peculiar enjoyment which the pleasing produces can only find place in the consonance of all developed details.

And it is precisely here that the building we are examining satisfies us in the highest degree, for we see all the ornaments fully suited to every part which they adorn: they are subordinate to it, they seem to have grown out of it. Such a manifoldness always gives great pleasure, since it flows of its own accord from the suitable, and therefore at the same time awakens the feeling of unity. It is only in such cases that the execution is prized as the summit of art.

By such means, now, was a solid piece of masonry, an impenetrable wall, which had moreover to announce itself as the base of two heaven-high towers, made to appear to the eye as if resting on itself, consisting in itself, but at the same time light and adorned, and, though pierced through in a thousand places, to give the idea of indestructible firmness.

This riddle is solved in the happiest manner. The openings in the wall, its solid parts, the pillars, every thing has its peculiar character, which proceeds from its particular destination: this communicates itself by degrees to the subdivisions; hence every thing is adorned in proportionate taste, the great as well as the small is in the right place, and can be easily comprehended, and thus the pleasing presents itself in the vast. I would refer only to the doors sinking in perspective into the thickness of the wall, and adorned without end in their columns and pointed arches; to the window with its rose springing out of the round form; to the outline of its framework, as well as to the slender reed-like pillars of the perpendicular compartments. Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. One may compare, if not the building itself, yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose of reviewing and giving life to what I have said. It may seem exaggerated to many; for I myself, though transported into love for this work at first sight, required a long time to make myself intimately acquainted with its value.

Having grown up among those who found fault with Gothic architecture, I cherished my aversion from the abundantly overloaded, complicated ornaments which, by their capriciousness, made a religious, gloomy character highly adverse. I strengthened myself in this repugnance, since I had only met with spiritless works of this kind, in which one could perceive neither good proportions nor a pure consistency. But here I thought I saw a new revelation of it, since what was objectionable by no means appeared, but the contrary opinion rather forced itself upon my mind.

But the longer I looked and considered, I all the while thought I discovered yet greater merits beyond that which I have already mentioned. The right proportion of the larger divisions, the ornamental, as judicious as rich, even to the minutest, were found out; but now I recognized the connection of these manifold ornaments amongst each other, the transition from one leading part to another, the enclosing of details, homogeneous indeed, but yet greatly varying in form, from the saint to the monster, from the leaf to the dental. The more I investigated, the more I was astonished; the more I amused and wearied myself with measuring and drawing, so much the more did my attachment increase, so that I spent much time, partly in studying what actually existed, partly in restoring, in my mind and on paper, what was wanting and unfinished, especially in the towers.

Finding that this building had been based on old German ground, and grown thus far in genuine German times, and that the name of the master, on his modest gravestone, was likewise of native sound and origin, I ventured, being incited by the worth of this work of art, to change the hitherto decried appellation of “Gothic architecture,” and to claim it for our nation as “German architecture;” nor did I fail to bring my patriotic views to light, first orally, and afterwards in a little treatise dedicated to the memory of Ervinus a Steinbach.

If my biographical narrative should come down to the epoch when the said sheet appeared in print, which Herder afterwards inserted in his pamphlet, “Von Deutscher Art und Kunst” (“Of German Manner and Art”), much more will be said on this weighty subject. But, before I turn from it this time, I will take the opportunity to vindicate the motto prefixed to the present volume with those who may have entertained some doubt about it. I know indeed very well, that in opposition to this honest, hopeful old German saying, “Of whatever one wishes in youth, he has abundance in old age,” many would quote contrary experience, and many trifling comments might be made; but much, also, is to be said in its favor: and I will explain how I understand it.

Our wishes are presentiments of the capabilities which lie within us, and harbingers of that which we shall be in a condition to perform. Whatever we are able and would like to do, presents itself to our imagination, as without us and in the future. We feel a longing after that which we already possess in secret. Thus a passionate anticipating grasp changes the truly possible into a dreamed reality. Now, if such a bias lies decidedly in our nature, then, with every step of our development will a part of the first wish be fulfilled, — under favorable circumstances in the direct way, under unfavorable in the circuitous way, from which we always come back again to the other. Thus we see men by perseverance attain to earthly wealth. They surround themselves with riches, splendor, and external honor. Others strive yet more certainly after intellectual advantages, acquire for themselves a clear survey of things, a peacefulness of mind, and a certainty for the present and the future.

But now there is a third direction, which is compounded of both, and the issue of which must be the most surely successful. When a man’s youth falls into a pregnant time; when production overweighs destruction, and a presentiment is early awakened within him as to what such an epoch demands and promises, — he will then, being forced by outward inducements into an active interest, take hold now here, now there, and the wish to be active on many sides will be lively within him. But so many accidental hinderances are associated with human limitation, that here a thing, once begun, remains unfinished: there that which is already grasped falls out of the hand, and one wish after another is dissipated. But had these wishes sprung out of a pure heart, and in conformity with the necessities of the times, one might composedly let them lie and fall right and left, and be assured that these must not only be found out and picked up again, but that also many kindred things, which one has never touched and never even thought of, will come to light. If, now, during our own lifetime, we see that performed by others, for which we ourselves felt an earlier call, but had been obliged to give it up, with much besides, then the beautiful feeling enters the mind that only mankind combined is the true man, and that the individual can only be joyous and happy when he has the courage to feel himself in the whole.

This contemplation is here in the right place; for when I reflect on the affection which drew me to these antique edifices, when I reckon up the time which I devoted to the Strasburg minster alone, the attention with which I afterwards examined: the cathedral at Cologne, and that at Freyburg, and more and more felt the value of these buildings, I could even blame myself for having afterwards lost sight of them altogether, — nay, for having left them completely in the background, being attracted by a more developed art. But when now, in the latest times, I see attention again turned to those objects; when I see affection, and even passion, for them appearing and flourishing; when I see able young persons seized with this passion, recklessly devoting powers, time, care, and property to these memorials of a past world, — then am I reminded with pleasure that what I formerly would and wished had a value. With satisfaction I see that they not only know how to prize what was done by our fore-fathers, but that, from existing unfinished beginnings, they try to represent, in pictures at least, the original design, so as thus to make us acquainted with the thought, which is ever the beginning and end of all undertakings; and that they strive with considerate zeal to clear up and vivify what seems to be a confused past. Here I especially applaud the brave Sulpiz Boisserée, who is indefatigably employed in a magnificent series of copper-plates to exhibit the cathedral of Cologne as the model of those vast conceptions, the spirit of which, like that of Babel, strove up to heaven, and which were so out of proportion to earthly means that they were necessarily stopped fast in their execution. If we have been hitherto astonished that such buildings proceeded only so far, we shall learn with the greatest admiration what was really designed to be done.

Would that literary-artistical undertakings of this kind were duly patronized by all who have power, wealth, and influence; that the great and gigantic views of our fore-fathers may be presented to our contemplation; and that we may be able to form a conception of what they dared to desire. The insight resulting from this will not remain fruitless; and the judgment will, for once at least, be in a condition to exercise itself on these works with justice. Nay, this will be done most thoroughly if our active young friend, besides the monograph devoted to the cathedral of Cologne, follows out in detail the history of our mediaeval architecture. When whatever is to be known about the practical exercise of this art is further brought to light, when the art is represented in all its fundamental features by a comparison with the Graeco-Roman and the Oriental Egyptian, little can remain to be done in this department. And I, when the results of such patriotic labors lie before the world, as they are now known in friendly private communications, shall be able, with true content, to repeat that motto in its best sense, “Of whatever one wishes in youth, he will have enough in old age.”

But if, in operations like these, which belong to centuries, one can trust one’s self to time, and wait for opportunity, there are, on the contrary, other things which in youth must be enjoyed at once, fresh, like ripe fruits. Let me be permitted, with this sudden turn, to mention dancing, of which the ear is reminded, as the eye is of the minster, every day and every hour in Strasburg and all Alsace. From early youth my father himself had given my sister and me instruction in dancing, a task which must have comported strangely enough with so stern a man. But he did not suffer his composure to be put out by it: he drilled us in the positions and steps in a manner the most precise; and, when he had brought us far enough to dance a minuet, he played for us something easily intelligible in three-four time, on a /flute-douce/, and we moved to it as well as we could. On the French theatre, likewise, I had seen from my youth upwards, if not ballets, yet /pas seuls/ and /pas de deux/, and had noticed in them various strange motions of the feet, and all sorts of springs. When we had had enough of the minuet, I requested my father to play some other dance-music, of which our music-books, in their jigs and murkies, [Footnote: A “murki” is defined as an old species of short composition for the harpsichord, with a lively murmuring accompaniment in the bass. — TRANS.] offered us a rich supply; and I immediately found out, of myself, the steps and other motions for them, the time being quite suitable to my limbs, and, as it were, born with them. This pleased my father to a certain degree; indeed, he often, by way of joke for himself and us, let the “monkies” dance in this way. After my misfortune with Gretchen, and during the whole of my residence in Leipzig, I did not make my appearance again on the floor: on the contrary, I still remember, that when, at a ball, they forced me into a minuet, both measure and motion seemed to have abandoned my limbs, and I could no longer remember either the steps or the figures; so that I should have been put to disgrace and shame if the greater part of the spectators had not maintained that my awkward behavior was pure obstinacy, assumed with the view of depriving the ladies of all desire to invite me and draw me into their circle against my will.

During my residence in Frankfort I was quite cut off from such pleasures; but in Strasburg, with other enjoyments of life, there soon arose in my limbs the faculty of keeping time. On Sundays and week-days one sauntered by no pleasure-ground without finding there a joyous crowd assembled for the dance, and for the most part revolving in the circle. Moreover, there were private balls in the country houses; and people were already talking of the brilliant masquerades of the coming winter. Here, indeed, I should have been out of my place, and useless to the company, when a friend, who waltzed very well, advised me to practise myself first in parties of a lower rank, so that afterwards I might be worth something in the highest. He took me to a dancing-master, who was well known for his skill. This man promised me, that, when I had in some degree repeated the first elements and made myself master of them, he would then lead me farther. He was one of your dry, ready French characters, and received me in a friendly manner. I paid him a month in advance, and received twelve tickets, for which he agreed to give me certain hours’ instruction. The man was strict and precise, but not pedantic; and, as I already had some previous practice, I soon gave him satisfaction, and received his commendation.

One circumstance, however, greatly facilitated the instruction of this teacher: he had two daughters, both pretty, and both not yet twenty. Having been instructed in this art from their youth upwards, they showed themselves very skilful, and might have been able, as partners, soon to help even the most clumsy scholars into some cultivation. They were both very polite, spoke nothing but French; and I, on my part, did my best, that I might not appear awkward or ridiculous before them. I had the good fortune that they likewise praised me, and were always willing to dance a minuet to their father’s little violin, and, what indeed was more difficult for them, to initiate me by degrees into waltzing and whirling. Their father did not seem to have many customers, and they led a lonely life. For this reason they often asked me to remain with them after my hour, and to chat away the time a little, which I the more willingly did, as the younger one pleased me well; and generally they both altogether behaved very becomingly. I often read aloud something from a novel, and they did the same. The elder, who was as handsome as, perhaps even handsomer than, the second, but who did not correspond with my taste so well as the latter, always conducted herself towards me more obligingly, and more kindly in every respect. She was always at hand during the lesson, and often protracted it: hence I sometimes thought myself bound to offer back a couple of tickets to her father, which, however, he did not accept. The younger, on the contrary, although never showing me any ill will, was more reserved, and waited till she was called by her father before she relieved the elder.

The cause of this became manifest to me one evening; for when, after the dance was done, I was about to go into the sitting-room with the elder, she held me back, and said, “Let us remain here a little longer; for I will confess to you that my sister has with her a woman who tells fortunes from cards, and who is to reveal to her how matters stand with an absent lover, on whom her whole heart hangs, and upon whom she has placed all her hope. Mine is free,” she continued, “and I must accustom myself to see it despised.” I thereupon said sundry pretty things to her, replying that she could at once convince herself on that point by consulting the wise woman likewise; that I would do so myself, for I had long wished to learn something of the kind, but lacked faith. She blamed me for this, and assured me that nothing in the world was surer than the responses of this oracle; only it must be consulted, not out of sport and mischief, but solely in real affairs. However, I at last compelled her to go with me into that room, as soon as she had ascertained that the consultation was over. We found her sister in a very cheerful humor: and even towards me she was kinder than usual, sportive, and almost witty; for, since she seemed to be secure of an absent friend, she may have thought it no treachery to be a little gracious with a present friend of her sister’s, which she thought me to be. The old woman was now flattered, and good payment was promised her if she would tell the truth to the elder sister and to me. With the usual preparations and ceremonies she began her business, in order to tell the fair one’s fortune first. She carefully considered the situation of the cards, but seemed to hesitate, and would not speak out what she had to say. “I see now,” said the younger, who was already better acquainted with the interpretation of such a magic tablet, “you hesitate, and do not wish to disclose any thing disagreeable to my sister; but that is a cursed card!” The elder one turned pale, but composed herself, and said, “Only speak out: it will not cost one’s head!” The old woman, after a deep sigh, showed her that she was in love; that she was not beloved; that another person stood in the way; and other things of like import. We saw the good girl’s embarrassment. The old woman thought somewhat to improve the affair by giving hopes of letters and money. “Letters,” said the lovely child, “I do not expect; and money I do not desire. If it is true, as you say, that I love, I deserve a heart that loves me in return.” — ”Let us see if it will not be better,” replied the old woman, as she shuffled the cards and laid them out a second time; but before the eyes of all of us it had only become still worse. The fair one stood, not only more lonely, but surrounded with many sorrows. Her lover had moved somewhat farther, and the intervening figures nearer. The old woman wished to try it a third time, in hopes of a better prospect; but the beautiful girl could restrain herself no longer, — she broke out into uncontrollable weeping, her lovely bosom heaved violently, she turned round, and rushed out of the room. I knew not what to do. Inclination kept me with the one present: compassion drove me to the other. My situation was painful enough. “Comfort Lucinda,” said the younger: “go after her.” I hesitated. How could I comfort her without at least assuring her of some sort of affection? and could I do that at such a moment in a cool, moderate manner? “Let us go together,” said I to Emilia. “I know not whether my presence will do her good,” replied she. Yet we went, but found the door bolted. Lucinda made no answer, we might knock, shout, entreat, as we would. “We must let her have her own way,” said Emilia: “she will not have it otherwise now.” And, indeed, when I called to my mind her manner from our very first acquaintance, she always had something violent and unequal about her, and chiefly showed her affection for me by not behaving to me with rudeness. What was I to do? I paid the old woman richly for the mischief she had caused, and was about to go, when Emilia said, “I stipulate that the cards shall now be cut for you too.” The old woman was ready. “Do not let me be present,” cried I, and hastened down stairs.

The next day I had not courage to go there. The third day, early in the morning, Emilia sent me word by a boy, — who had already brought me many a message from the sisters, and had carried back flowers and fruits to them in return, — that I should not fail that day. I came at the usual hour, and found the father alone, who, in many respects, improved my paces and steps, my goings and comings, my bearing and behavior, and, moreover, seemed to be satisfied with me. The younger daughter came in towards the end of the hour, and danced with me a very graceful minuet, in which her movements were extraordinarily pleasing, and her father declared that he had rarely seen a prettier and more nimble pair upon his floor. After the lesson, I went as usual into the sitting-room; the father left us alone; I missed Lucinda. “She is in bed,” said Emilia, “and I am glad of it: do not be concerned about it. Her mental illness is first alleviated when she fancies herself bodily sick: she does not like to die, and therefore she then does what we wish. We have certain family medicines which she takes, and reposes; and thus, by degrees, the swelling waves subside. She is indeed too good and amiable in such an imaginary sickness; and as she is in reality very well, and is only attacked by passion, she imagines various kinds of romantic deaths, with which she frightens herself in a pleasant manner, like children when we tell them ghost-stories. Thus, only last night, she announced to me with great vehemence, that this time she should certainly die; and that only when she was really near death, they should bring again before her the ungrateful, false friend, who had at first acted so handsomely to her, and now treated her so ill; she would reproach him bitterly, and then give up the ghost.” — ”I know not that I am guilty,” exclaimed I, “of having expressed any sort of affection for her. I know somebody who can best bear me witness in this respect.” Emilia smiled, and rejoined, “I understand you; and, if we are not discreet and determined, we shall all find ourselves in a bad plight together. What will you say if I entreat you not to continue your lessons? You have, I believe, four tickets yet of the last month: and my father has already declared that he finds it inexcusable to take your money any longer, unless you wish to devote yourself to the art of dancing in a more serious manner; what is required by a young man of the world you possess already.” — ”And do you, Emilia, give me this advice, to avoid your house?” replied I. “Yes, I do,” said she, “but not of myself. Only listen! When you hastened away, the day before yesterday, I had the cards cut for you; and the same response was repeated thrice, and each time more emphatically. You were surrounded by every thing good and pleasing, by friends and great lords; and there was no lack of money. The ladies kept themselves at some distance. My poor sister in particular stood always the farthest off: one other advanced constantly nearer to you, but never came up to your side; for a third person, of the male sex, always came between. I will confess to you that I thought that I myself was meant by the second lady, and after this confession you will best comprehend my well-meant counsel. To an absent friend I have promised my heart and my hand; and, until now, I loved him above all: yet it might be possible for your presence to become more important to me than hitherto; and what kind of a situation would you have between two sisters, one of whom you had made unhappy by your affection, and the other by your coldness, and all this ado about nothing and only for a short time? For, if we had not known already who you are and what are your expectations, the cards would have placed it before my eyes in the clearest manner. Fare you well!” said she, and gave me her hand. I hesitated. “Now,” said she, leading me towards the door, “that it may really be the last time that we shall speak to each other, take what I would otherwise have denied you.” She fell upon my neck, and kissed me most tenderly. I embraced her, and pressed her to my bosom.

At this moment the side-door flew open; and her sister, in a light but becoming night-dress, rushed out and cried, “You shall not be the only one to take leave of him!” Emilia let me go; and Lucinda seized me, clung close to my heart, pressed her black locks upon my cheeks, and remained in this position for some time. And thus I found myself between the two sisters, in the dilemma Emilia had prophesied to me a moment before. Lucinda let me loose, and looked earnestly into my face. I was about to grasp her hand and say something friendly to her; but she turned herself away, walked with violent steps up and down the room for some time, and then threw herself into a corner of the sofa. Emilia went to her, but was immediately repulsed; and here began a scene which is yet painful to me in the recollection, and which, although really it had nothing theatrical about it, but was quite suitable to a lively young Frenchwoman, could only be properly repeated in the theatre by a good and feeling actress.

Lucinda overwhelmed her sister with a thousand reproaches. “This is not the first heart,” she cried, “that was inclining itself to me, and that you have turned away. Was it not just so with him who is absent, and who at last betrothed himself to you under my very eyes? I was compelled to look on; I endured it; but I know how many thousand tears it has cost me. This one, too, you have now taken away from me, without letting the other go; and how many do you not manage to keep at once? I am frank and good natured; and every one thinks he knows me soon, and may neglect me. You are secret and quiet, and people think wonders of what may be concealed behind you. Yet there is nothing behind but a cold, selfish heart that can sacrifice every thing to itself; this nobody learns so easily, because it lies deeply hidden in your breast: and just as little do they know of my warm, true heart, which I carry about with me as open as my face.”

Emilia was silent, and had sat down by her sister, who became constantly more and more excited in her discourse, and let certain private matters slip out, which it was not exactly proper for me to know. Emilia, on the other hand, who was trying to pacify her sister, made me a sign from behind that I should withdraw; but, as jealousy and suspicion see with a thousand eyes, Lucinda seemed to have noticed this also. She sprang up and advanced to me, but not with vehemence. She stood before me, and seemed to be thinking of something. Then she said, “I know that I have lost you: I make no further pretensions to you. But neither shall you have him, sister!” So saying, she took a thorough hold of my head, thrusting both her hands into my locks and pressing my face to hers, and kissed me repeatedly on the mouth. “Now,” cried she, “fear my curse! Woe upon woe, for ever and ever, to her who kisses these lips for the first time after me! Dare to have any thing more to do with him! I know Heaven hears me this time. And you, sir, hasten now, hasten away as fast as you can!”

I flew down the stairs, with the firm determination never again to enter the house.

The Biography

The Goethe-Schiller Monument, Weimar; first erected in 1857

THE LIFE OF GOETHE by Calvin Thomas

Calvin Thomas (1854–1919) was an American scholar and professor of Germanic languages and literature at Columbia University.  Born near Lapeer, Michigan, Thomas graduated from the University of Michigan in 1874, opting to study at the University of Leipzig in Germany. From 1886 to 1896 he was professor of Germanic languages at the University of Michigan, before taking the same post at Columbia University. Thomas edited several works by Goethe, including both parts of Faust, as well as writing this short biography on the German’s poet’s life in 1886.

Calvin Thomas

THE LIFE OF GOETHE

Goethe, the illustrious poet-sage whom Matthew Arnold called the “clearest, largest, and most helpful thinker of modern times,” was born August 28, 1749, at Frankfurt on the Main. He was christened Johann Wolfgang. In his early years his familiar name was Wolfgang, or simply Wolf, never Johann. His family was of the middle class, the aristocratic von which sometimes appears in his name, in accordance with German custom, having come to him with a patent of nobility which he received in the year 1782.

Johann Caspar Goethe, the poet’s father, was the son of a prosperous tailor, who was also a tailor’s son. Having abundant means and being of an ambitious turn, Johann Caspar prepared himself for the profession of law, spent some time in Italy, and then settled in Frankfurt in the hope of rising to distinction in the public service. Disappointed in this hope, he procured the imperial title of Councilor, which gave him a dignified social status but nothing in particular to do. He thus became virtually a gentleman of leisure, since his law practise was quite insignificant. In 1748 he married Katharina Elisabeth Textor, whose father, Johann Wolfgang Textor, was the town’s chief magistrate and most eminent citizen. She was eighteen years old at the time of her marriage — twenty years younger than her husband — and well fitted to become a poet’s mother. The gift on which she especially prided herself was her story-telling. Wolfgang was the first child of these parents.

The paternal strain in Goethe’s blood made for level-headedness, precise and methodical ways, a serious view of life, and a desire to make the most of it. By his mother he was a poet who liked nothing else so well as to invent dream-worlds and commune with the spirits of his imagination. He also ascribes to his mother his Frohnatur, his joyous nature. And certain it is that his temperament was on the whole sunny. As he grew to manhood men and women alike were charmed by him. He became a virtuoso in love and had a genius for friendship. But he was not always cheerful. In his youth, particularly, he was often moody and given to brooding over indefinable woes. He suffered acutely at times from what is now called the melancholia of adolescence. This was a phase of that emotional sensitiveness and nervous instability which are nearly always a part of the poet’s dower.

Wolfgang grew up in a wholesome atmosphere of comfort and refinement. He never knew the tonic bitterness of poverty. On the other hand, he was never spoiled by his advantages; to his dying day he disliked luxury. At home under private tutors the boy studied Latin, French, and English, and picked up a little Italian by overhearing his sister’s lessons. In 1758 Frankfurt was occupied by a French army, and a French playhouse was set going for the diversion of the officers. In the interest of his French Wolfgang was allowed to go to the theatre, and he made such rapid progress that he was soon studying the dramatic unities as expounded by Corneille and actually trying to write a French play. Withal he was left much to himself, so that he had time to explore Frankfurt to his heart’s content.

He was much in contact with people of the humbler sort and learned to like their racy dialect. He penetrated into the ghetto and learned the jargon of the Jews. He even attacked biblical Hebrew, being led thereto by his great love of the Old Testament.

It was his boyish ambition to become a great poet. His favorite amusement was a puppet-show, for which he invented elaborate plays. From his tenth year on he wrote a great deal of verse, early acquiring technical facility and local renown and coming to regard himself as a “thunderer.” He attempted a polyglot novel, also a biblical tale on the subject of Joseph, which he destroyed on observing that the hero did nothing but pray and weep. When he was ready for the university he wished to go to Göttingen to study the old humanities, but his father was bent on making a lawyer of him. So it came about that some ten years of his early life were devoted, first as a student and then as a practitioner, to a reluctant and half-hearted grapple with the intricacies of Holy Roman law.

At the age of sixteen Goethe entered the University of Leipzig, where he remained about three years. The law lectures bored him and he soon ceased to attend them. The other studies that he took up, especially logic and philosophy, seemed to him arid and unprofitable — mere conventional verbiage without any bed-rock of real knowledge. So he presently fell into that mood of disgust with academic learning which was afterwards to form the keynote of Faust. Outside the university he found congenial work in Oeser’s drawing-school. Oeser was an artist of no great power with the brush, but a genial man, a friend of Winckelmann, and an enthusiast for Greek art. Goethe learned to admire and love him, and from this time on, for some twenty years, his constant need of artistic expression found hardly less satisfaction in drawing from nature than in poetry.

His poetic ambition received little encouragement in university circles. Those to whom he read his ambitious verses made light of them. The venerated Gellert, himself a poet of repute, advised the lad to cultivate a good prose style and look to his handwriting. No wonder that he despaired of his talent, concluded that he could never be a poet, and burnt his effusions. A maddening love-affair with his landlady’s daughter, Anna Katharina Schönkopf, revived the dying lyric flame, and he began to write verses in the gallant erotic vein then and there fashionable — verses that tell of love-lorn shepherds and shepherdesses, give sage advice to girls about keeping their innocence, and moralize on the ways of this wicked world. They show no signs of lyric genius. His short-lived passion for Annette, as he called her, whom he tormented with his jealousy until she lost patience and broke off the intimacy, was also responsible for his first play, Die Laune des Verliebten, or The Lover’s Wayward Humor. It is a pretty one-act pastoral in alexandrine verse, the theme being the punishment of an over-jealous lover. What is mainly significant in these Leipzig poetizings is the fact that they grew out of genuine experience. Goethe had resolved to drop his ambitious projects, such as Belshazzar, and coin his own real thoughts and feelings into verse. Thus early he was led into the way of poetic “confession.”

In the summer of 1768 he was suddenly prostrated by a grave illness — an internal hemorrhage which was at first thought to portend consumption. Pale and languid he returned to his father’s house, and for several months it was uncertain whether he was to live or die. During this period of seclusion he became deeply interested in magic, alchemy, astrology, cabalism, and all that sort of thing. He even set up a kind of alchemist’s laboratory to search experimentally for the panacea. Out of these abstruse studies grew Faust’s wonderful dream of an ecstatic spirit-life to be attained by natural magic. Of course the menace of impending death drew his thoughts in the direction of religion. Among the intimate friends of the family was the devout Susanna von Klettenberg, one of the leading spirits in a local conventicle of the Moravian Brethren. This lady — afterwards immortalized as the “beautiful soul” of Wilhelm Meister — tried to have the sick youth make his peace with God in her way, that is, by accepting Christ as an ever-present personal saviour. While he never would admit a conviction of sin he envied the calm of the saintly maiden and was so far converted that he attended the meetings of the Brethren, took part in their communion service, and for a while spoke the language of a devout pietist.

This religious experience of his youth bit deep into Goethe’s character. He soon drifted away from the pietists and their ways, he came to have a poor opinion of priests and priestcraft, and in time men called him a heathen. Nevertheless his nature had been so deeply stirred in his youth by religion’s mystic appeal that he never afterwards lost his reverence for genuine religious feeling. To the end of his days the aspiration of the human soul for communion with God found in him a delicate and sympathetic interpreter.

During his convalescence Goethe retouched a score of his Leipzig songs and published them anonymously, with music by his friend Breitkopf, under the title of New Songs. He regarded them at the time as trifles that had come into being without art or effort. “Young, in love, and full of feeling,” he had sung them so, while “playing the old game of youth.” To-day they seem to convey little forewarning of the matchless lyric gift that was soon to awaken, being a shade too intellectual and sententious. One hears more of the critic’s comment than of the poet’s cry. It was at this time also that he rewrote an earlier Leipzig play, expanding it from one act to three and giving it the title Die Mitschuldigen, or The Fellow-culprits. It is a sort of rogue’s comedy in middle-class life, written in the alexandrine verse, which was soon to be discarded along with other French fashions. We have a quartet consisting of an inquisitive inn-keeper, his mismated sentimental daughter, her worthless husband, and her former lover. They tangle themselves up in a series of low intrigues and are finally unmasked as one and all poor miserable sinners. Technically it is a good play — lively, diverting, well put together. But one can not call it very edifying.

In the spring of 1770 Goethe entered the University of Strassburg, which was at that time in French territory. It was a part of his general purpose to better his French, but the actual effect of his sojourn in Alsatia was to put him out of humor with all French standards, especially with the classic French drama, and to excite in him a fervid enthusiasm for the things of the fatherland. This was due partly to the influence of Herder, with whom he now came into close personal relations. From Herder, who was six years his senior and already known by his Fragments and Critical Forests as a trenchant and original critic, he heard the gospel of a literary revolution. Rules and conventions were to be thrown overboard; the new watchwords were nature, power, originality, genius, fulness of expression. He conceived a boundless admiration for Homer, Ossian, and Shakespeare, in each of whom he saw the mirror of an epoch and a national life. He became an enthusiastic collector of Alsatian folksongs and was fascinated by the Strassburg minster — at a time when “Gothic” was generally regarded as a synonym of barbarous. Withal his gift for song-making came to a new stage of perfection under the inspiration of his love for the village maid Friederike Brion. From this time forth he was the prince of German lyrists.

In the summer of 1771 he returned to Frankfurt once more, this time with the title of licentiate in law, and began to practise in a perfunctory way, with his heart in his literary projects. By the end of the year he had written out the first draft of a play which he afterwards revised and published anonymously (in 1773) under the title of Götz von Berlichingen. By its exuberant fulness of life, its bluff German heartiness, and the freshness and variety of its scenes, it took the public by storm, notwithstanding its disregard of the approved rules of play-writing.

The next year he published The Sufferings of Young Werther, a tragic tale of a weak-willed sentimental youth of hyperesthetic tendencies, who commits suicide because of disappointment in love. The story was the greatest literary triumph that Germany had ever known, and in point of sheer artistic power it remains to this day the best of novels in the tragic-sentimental vein. These two works carried the name of Goethe far and wide and made him the accepted leader of the literary revolution which long afterwards came to be known, from the title of a play by Klinger, as the Storm and Stress.

The years 1773-1775 were for Goethe a time of high emotional tension, from which he sought relief in rapid, desultory, and multifarious writing. Exquisite songs, musical comedies of a sentimental tinge, humorous and satiric skits in dramatic form, prose tragedy of passionate error, and poetic tragedy of titanic revolt — all these and more welled up from a sub-conscious spring of feeling, taking little counsel of the sober intellect. Several minor productions were left unfinished and were afterwards published in fragmentary form. Such is the case with Prometheus, a splendid fragment, in which we get a glimpse of the Titan battling, as the friend of man, against the ever-living gods. Of the works completed and published at this time, aside from Götz and Werther, the most notable were Clavigo and Stella, prose tragedies in which a fickle lover meets with condign punishment. Another prose tragedy, Egmont, with its hero conceived as a “demonic” nature borne on to his doom by his own buoyancy of spirit, was nearly finished. Most important of all, a considerable portion of Faust, which was to be its author’s great life-work, was “stormed out” during these early years at Frankfurt.

The legendary Faust is presented as a bad man who sells his soul to the devil for twenty-four years of power and pleasure, gets what he bargained for, and in the end goes to perdition. Young Goethe conceived his hero differently: not as a bad man on the way to hell, and not — at first — as a good man on the way to heaven. He thought of him rather as a towering personality passionately athirst for transcendental knowledge and universal experience; as a man whose nature contained the very largest possibilities both for good and for evil. It is probable that, when he began to write, Goethe did not intend to anticipate the judgment of God upon Faust’s career. The essence of his dramatic plan was to carry his hero through a lifetime of varied experience, letting him sin and suffer grandly, and at last to give him something to do which would seem worth having lived for. After the going down of the curtain, in all probability, he was to be left in the hands of the Eternal Pardoner. Later in life, as we shall see, Goethe decided not only to save his hero, but to make his salvation a part of the dramatic action.

The close of the year 1775 brought a momentous change in Goethe’s life and prospects. On the invitation of the young duke Karl August, who had met him and taken a liking to him, he went to visit the Weimar court, not expecting to stay more than a few weeks. But the duke was so pleased with his gifted and now famous guest that he presently decided to keep him in Weimar, if possible, by making him a member of the Council of State. Goethe was the more willing to remain, since he detested his law practise, and his income from authorship was pitifully small. Moreover, he saw in the boyish, impulsive, sport-loving prince a sterling nature that might be led in the ways of wise rulership. For the nonce this was mission enough. He took his seat in the Council in June, 1776, with the title of Councilor of Legation. At first there was not very much for him to do except to familiarize himself with the physical and economic conditions of the little duchy. This he did with a will. He set about studying mineralogy, geology, botany, and was soon observing the homologies of the vertebrate skeleton. Withal he was very attentive to routine business.

One after another important departments of administration were turned over to him, until he became, in 1782, the President of the Chambers and hence the leading statesman of the duchy.

All this produced a sobering and clarifying effect. The inner storm and stress gradually subsided, and the new Goethe — statesman, scientific investigator, man of the world, courtier, friend of princes — came to see that after all feeling was not everything, and that its untrammeled expression was not the whole of art. Form and decorum counted for more than he had supposed, and revolution was not the word of wisdom. Self-control was the only basis of character, and limitation lay at the foundation of all art. To work to make things better, even in a humble sphere, was better than to fret over the badness of the world. Nature’s method was that of bit-by-bit progress, and to puzzle out her ways was a noble and fascinating employment. In this general way of thinking he was confirmed by the study of Spinoza’s Ethics, a book which, as he said long afterwards, quieted his passions and gave him a large and free outlook over the world. In this process of quieting the passions some influence must be ascribed to Charlotte von Stein, a woman in whom, for some twelve years of his life, he found his muse and his madonna. His letters often address her in terms of idolatrous endearment. She was a wife and a mother, but Weimar society regarded her relation to Goethe as a platonic attachment not to be condemned.

The artistic expression of the new life in Weimar is found in various short poems, notably Wanderer’s Nightsong, Ilmenau, The Divine, and The Mysteries; also in a number of plays which were written for the amateur stage of the court circle. The Weimarians were very fond of play-acting, and Goethe became their purveyor of dramatic supplies. It was to meet this demand that he wrote Brother and Sister (Die Geschwister), The Triumph of Sentimentalism, The Fisher-maid, The Birds, and other pieces. Much more important than any of these bagatelles, which were often hastily composed for a birthday celebration or some other festive occasion, are the two fine poetic dramas, Iphigenie and Tasso. The former was first written rather rapidly in stately rhythmic prose and played by the amateurs, with Goethe himself in the rôle of Orestes, in the spring of 1779. Eight years later, the author being then in Italy, it was recast with great care in mellifluous blank verse. Iphigenie is essentially a drama of the soul, there being little in it of what is commonly called action. A youth who is the prey of morbid illusions, so that his life has become a burden, is cured by finding a noble-minded sister, whose whole being radiates peace and self-possession. The entire power of Goethe’s chastened art is here lavished on the figure of his heroine who, by her goodness, her candor, her sweet reasonableness, not only heals her soul-sick brother, but so works on the barbarian king Thoas, who would fain have her for his wife, that he wins a notable victory over himself.

By the end of his first decade in Weimar Goethe began to feel that he needed and had earned a vacation. His conduct of the public business had been highly successful, but he had starved his esthetic nature; for after all Weimar was only a good-sized village that could offer little to the lover of art. Overwork had so told upon him that he was unable to hold himself long to any literary project. He had begun half a dozen important works, but had completed none of them, and the public was beginning to suspect that the author of Götz and Werther was lost to literature. The effect of the whole situation — that inner conflict between the poetic dreamer and the man of affairs which is the theme of Tasso — was to produce a feeling of depression, as of a bird caught in a net. So acute did the trouble become that he afterwards spoke of it as a terrible disease. In the summer of 1786 he contracted with the Leipzig publisher Göschen for a new edition of his works in eight volumes; and to gain time for this enterprise he resolved to take a trip to the land upon which he had already twice looked down with longing — once in 1775 and again in 1779 — from the summit of the Gotthard.

On the 3d of September, at three o’clock in the morning, he stole away from Karlsbad, where he had been taking the waters, and hurried southward, alone and incognito, over the Alps.

In Italy, where he remained nearly two years, Goethe’s mind and art underwent another notable change. He himself called it a spiritual rebirth. Freed from all oppressive engagements, he gave himself to the study of ancient sculpture and architecture, reveled in the splendors of Renaissance painting, and pursued his botanical studies in the enticing plant-world of the Italian gardens. Venice, Naples, Vesuvius, Sicily, the sea, fascinated him in their several ways and gave him the sense of being richer for the rest of his life. Sharing in the care-free existence of the German artist-colony in Rome made him very happy. It not only disciplined his judgment in matters of art and opened a vast new world of ideas and impressions, but it restored the lost balance between the intellectual and duty-bound man on the one hand and the esthetic and sensual man on the other. He resolved never again to put on the harness of an administrative drudge, but to claim the freedom of a poet, an artist, a man of science. To this desire the Duke of Weimar generously assented.

On his return to Weimar, in June, 1788, Goethe made it his first task to finish the remaining works that were called for by his contract with Göschen. Egmont and Tasso were soon disposed of, but Faust proved intractable. While in Rome he had taken out the old manuscript and written a scene or two, and had then somehow lost touch with the subject. So he decided to revise what he had on hand and to publish a part of the scenes as a fragment. This fragmentary Faust came out in 1790. It attracted little attention, nor was any other of the new works received with much warmth by the public of that day. They expected something like Götz and Werther, and did not understand the new Goethe, who showed in many ways that his heart was still in Italy and that he found Weimar a little dull and provincial. Thus the greatest of German poets had for the time being lost touch with the German public; he saw that he must wait for the growth of the taste by which he was to be understood and enjoyed. Matters were hardly made better by his taking Christiane Vulpius into his house as his unwedded wife. This step, which shocked Weimar society — except the duke and Herder — had the effect of ending his unwholesome relation to Frau von Stein, who was getting old and peevish. The character of Christiane has often been pictured too harshly. She was certainly not her husband’s intellectual peer — he would have looked long for a wife of that grade — and she became a little too fond of wine. On the other hand, she was affectionate, devoted, true, and by no means lacking in mental gifts. She and Goethe were happy together and faithful to each other.

For several years after his return from Italy Goethe wrote nothing that is of much importance in the history of his literary life. He devoted himself largely to scientific studies in plant and animal morphology and the theory of color. His discovery of the intermaxillary bone in the human skull, and his theory that the lateral organs of a plant are but successive phases of the leaf, have given him an assured if modest place in the history of the development hypothesis. On the other hand, his long and laborious effort to refute Newton’s theory of the composition of white light is now generally regarded as a misdirection of energy. In his Roman Elegies (1790) he struck a note of pagan sensuality. The pensive distichs, telling of the wanton doings of Amor amid the grandeur that was Rome, were a little shocking in their frank portraiture of the emancipated flesh. The outbreak of violence in France seemed to him nothing but madness and folly, since he did not see the real Revolution, but only the Paris Terror.

He wrote two or three very ordinary plays to satirize various phases of the revolutionary excitement — phases that now seem as insignificant as the plays themselves. In 1792 he accompanied the Duke of Weimar on the inglorious Austro-Prussian invasion of France, heard the cannonade at Valmy, and was an interested observer as the allies tumbled back over the Rhine. Perhaps the best literary achievement of these years is the fine hexameter version of the medieval Reynard the Fox.

The year 1794 marks the beginning of more intimate relations between Goethe and Schiller. Their memorable friendship lasted until Schiller’s death, in 1805 — the richest decade in the whole history of German letters. The two men became in a sense allies and stood together in the championship of good taste and humane idealism. Goethe’s literary occupations during this period were very multifarious; a list of his writings in the various fields of poetry, drama, prose fiction, criticism, biography, art and art-history, literary scholarship, and half a dozen sciences, would show a many-sidedness to which there is no modern parallel. Of all this mass of writing only a few works of major importance can even be mentioned here.

In 1796 appeared Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, a novel which captivated the literary class, if not the general public, and was destined to exert great influence on German fiction for a generation to come. It had been some twenty years in the making. In its earlier form it was called Wilhelm Meister’s Theatrical Mission. This tells the story of a Werther-like youth who is to be saved from Werther’s fate by finding a work to do. His “mission,” apparently, is to become a good actor and to promote high ideals of the histrionic art. Incidentally he is ambitious to be a dramatic poet, and his childhood is simply that of Wolfgang Goethe. For reasons intimately connected with his own development Goethe finally decided to change his plan and his title, and to present Wilhelm’s variegated experiences as an apprenticeship in the school of life. In the final version Wilhelm comes to the conclusion that the theatre is not his mission — all that was a mistaken ambition. Just what use he will make of his well-disciplined energy does not clearly appear at the end of the story, since Goethe bundles him off to Italy. He was already planning a continuation of the story under the title of Wilhelm Meister’s Journeymanship. In this second part the hero becomes interested in questions of social uplift and thinks of becoming a surgeon. Taken as a whole Wilhelm Meister moves with a slowness which is quite out of tune with later ideals of prose fiction. It also lacks concentration and artistic finality. But it is replete with Goethe’s ripe and mellow wisdom, and it contains more of his intimate self than any other work of his except Faust.

During this high noon of his life Goethe again took up his long neglected Faust, decided to make two parts of it, completed the First Part, and thought out much that was to go into the Second Part. By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the spirit of his youth, when he had envisaged life in a mist of vague and stormy emotionalism. His present passion was for clearness. So he boldly decided to convert the old tragedy of sin and suffering into a drama of mental clearing-up. The early Faust — the pessimist, murderer, seducer — was to be presented as temporarily wandering in the dark; as a man who had gone grievously wrong in passionate error, but was essentially “good” by virtue of his aspiring nature, and hence, in the Lord’s fulness of time, was to be led out into the light and saved. The First Part, ending with the heart-rending death of Margaret in her prison-cell, and leaving Faust in an agony of remorse, was published in 1808. Faust’s redemption, by enlarged experience of life and especially by his symbolic union with the Greek Queen of Beauty, was reserved for the Second Part.

The other more notable works of this period are Hermann and Dorothea, a delightful poem in dactylic hexameters, picturing a bit of German still life against the sinister background of the French Revolution, and the Natural Daughter, which was planned to body forth, in the form of a dramatic trilogy in blank verse, certain phases of Goethe’s thinking about the upheaval in France. In the former he appears once more as a poet of the plain people, with an eye and a heart for their ways and their outlook upon life. Everybody likes Hermann and Dorothea. On the other hand, the Natural Daughter is disappointing, and not merely because it is a fragment. (Only the first part of the intended trilogy was written.) Goethe had now convinced himself that the function of art is to present the typical. Accordingly the characters appear as types of humanity divested of all that is accidental or peculiar to the individual. The most of them have not even a name. The consequence is that, notwithstanding the splendid verse and the abounding wisdom of the speeches, the personages do not seem to be made of genuine human stuff. As a great thinker’s comment on the Revolution the Natural Daughter is almost negligible.

The decade that followed the death of Schiller was for Germany a time of terrible trial, during which Goethe pursued the even tenor of his way as a poet and man of science. He had little sympathy with the national uprising against Napoleon, whom he looked on as the invincible subduer of the hated Revolution. From the point of view of our modern nationalism, which was just then entering on its world-transforming career, his conduct was unpatriotic. But let him at least be rightly understood. It was not that he lacked sympathy for the German people, but he misjudged and underestimated the new forces that were coming into play. As the son of an earlier age he could only conceive a people’s welfare as the gift of a wise ruler. He thought of politics as the affair of the great. He hated war and all eruptive violence, being convinced that good would come, not by such means, but by enlightenment, self-control and attending to one’s work in one’s sphere. To the historian Luden he said in 1813:

“Do not believe that I am indifferent to the great ideas of freedom, people, fatherland. No! These ideas are in us, they are a part of our being, and no one can cast them from him. I too have a warm heart for Germany. I have often felt bitter pain in thinking of the German people, so worthy of respect in some ways, so miserable on the whole. A comparison of the German people with other peoples arouses painful emotions which I try in every way to surmount; and in science and art I have found the wings whereby I rise above them. But the comfort which these afford is after all a poor comfort that does not compensate for the proud consciousness of belonging to a great and strong people that is honored and feared.”

In 1808 he published The Elective Affinities, a novel in which the tragic effects of lawless passion invading the marriage relation were set forth with telling art. Soon after this he began to write a memoir of his life. He was now a European celebrity, the dream of his youth had come true, and he purposed to show in detail how everything had happened; that is, how his literary personality had evolved amid the environing conditions. He conceived himself as a phenomenon to be explained. That he called his memoir Poetry and Truth was perhaps an error of judgment, since the title has been widely misunderstood. For Goethe poetry was not the antithesis of truth, but a higher species of truth — the actuality as seen by the selecting, combining, and harmonizing imagination. In themselves, he would have said, the facts of a man’s life are meaningless, chaotic, discordant: it is the poet’s office to put them into the crucible of his spirit and give them forth as a significant and harmonious whole. The “poetry” of Goethe’s autobiography — by far the best of autobiographies in the German language — must not be taken to imply concealment, perversion, substitution, or anything of that gross kind.

It lies in the very style of the book and is a part of its author’s method of self-revelation. That he devotes so much space to the seemingly transient and unimportant love-affairs of his youth is only his way of recognizing that the poet-soul is born of love and nourished by love. He felt that these fleeting amorosities were a part of the natural history of his inner being.

And even in the serene afternoon of his life lovely woman often disturbed his soul, just as in the days of his youth. But the poetic expression of his feeling gradually became less simple and direct: he liked to embroider it with musing reflections and exotic fancies gathered from everywhere. Just as he endeavored with indefatigable eagerness of mind to keep abreast of scientific research, so he tried to assimilate the poetry of all nations. The Greeks and Romans no longer sufficed his omnivorous appetite and his “panoramic ability.” When Hammer-Purgstall’s German version of the D[=i]w[=a]n of H[=a]f[=i]z came into his hands he at once set about making himself at home in the mental world of the Persian and Arabic poets. Thus arose his Divan (1819), in which he imitated the oriental costume, but not the form. His aim was to reproduce in German verse the peculiar savor of the Orientals, with their unique blend of sensuality, wit, and mystic philosophy. But the feeling — the inner experience — was all his own. The best book of the Divan, the one called Suleika, was inspired by a very real liking for Marianne Willemer, a talented lady who played the love-game with him and actually wrote some of the poems long ascribed to Goethe himself.

At last, in 1824, when he was seventy-five years old, he came back once more to his Faust, the completion of which had long floated before his mind as a duty that he owed to himself and to the world. There was no longer any doubt as to what his great life-work was to be. With admirable energy and with perfect clarity of vision he addressed himself to the gigantic task, the general plan of which and many of the details had been thought out long before. It was finished in the summer of 1831. About sixty years after he had penned the first words of Faust, the disgruntled pessimist at war with life, he took leave of him as a purified soul mounting upward among the saints toward the Ineffable Light, under the mystic guidance of the Eternal-Womanly.

Goethe died March 18, 1832. The story that his last words were “more light” is probably nothing more than a happy invention.

Admirers of the great German see more in him than the author of the various works which have been all too briefly characterized in the preceding sketch. His is a case where, in very truth, the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Goethe is the representative of an epoch. He stands for certain ideals which are not those of the present hour, but which it was of inestimable value to the modern man to have thus nobly worked out and exemplified in practice. Behind and beneath his writings, informing them and giving them their value for posterity, is a wonderful personality which it is a delight and an education to study in the whole process of its evolution. By way of struggle, pain and error, like his own Faust, he arrived at a view of life, in which he found inspiration and inner peace. It is outlined in the verses which he placed before his short poems as a sort of motto:

  Wide horizon, eager life,
  Busy years of honest strife,
  Ever seeking, ever founding,
  Never ending, ever rounding,
  Guarding tenderly the old,
  Taking of the new glad hold,
  Pure in purpose, light of heart,
  Thus we gain — at least a start.

‘The Death of Goethe’ by Fritz Fleischer

The Royal Crypt, Weimar — Goethe’s final resting place

Goethe’s grave, beside his close friend and fellow writer Friedrich Schiller

Table of Contents

The Novels

THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER

WILHELM MEISTER’S APPRENTICESHIP

ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

WILHELM MEISTER’S JOURNEYMAN YEARS

The Short Stories

A TALE

THE GOOD WOMEN

The Plays

THE WAYWARD LOVER

THE FELLOW CULPRITS

GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN

CLAVIGO

EGMONT

THE BROTHER AND SISTER

STELLA

IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

TORQUATO TASSO

FAUST: PART ONE

THE NATURAL DAUGHTER

FAUST: PART TWO

The Poetry

THE POEMS OF GOETHE

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Non-Fiction

THEORY OF COLOURS

MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS

The Criticism

GOETHE - THE WRITER by Ralph Waldo Emerson

GOETHE by C. E. Vaughan

GOETHE by John Cowper Powys

GOETHE’S FAUST by George Santayana

SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE by David Masson

GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS by John Tyndall

EXTRACTS OF CORRESPONDENCE by Sir Walter Scott

The Autobiography

TRUTH AND FICTION RELATING TO MY LIFE

The Biography

THE LIFE OF GOETHE by Calvin Thomas